Cinema as the canonical interface of audiovisual spectacle

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Hipertext.net. número 25, noviembre 2022
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Francisco Leslie López del Castillo Wilderbeek
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6664-7849

Cinema is considered the official interface for audiovisual spectacle, although when it appeared in 1895 there was already an alternative: Edison’s kinetoscope, a device that allowed moving images to be viewed through a peephole. The acceptance of the system of projection to a group of people prevailed over individual viewing despite the fact that the technology was no superior and was years late. The aim of this work has been to analyze and understand whether the success of the cinematograph as an artifact and interface for audiovisual consumption can be explained from a social construction perspective by applying  the SCOT model (Pinch and Bijker, 1984) and the interface rules (Scolari, 2021). This methodology has allowed to determine that the different actors related to early cinema artifacts decided the success of viewing as a social act rather than as an individual act. Creators, exhibitors, potential consumers and institutional authorities formulated a complex network of interactions that led to the success of cinema as an institutional interface for enjoying the audiovisual spectacle as it is known today.

Keywords
Interface, Social construction of technology, SCOT Model, Early cinema, Cinematograph, Kinetoscope

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How to Cite
López del Castillo Wilderbeek, Francisco Leslie. “Cinema as the canonical interface of audiovisual spectacle”. Hipertext.net, 2022, no. 25, pp. 5-16, doi:10.31009/hipertext.net.2022.i25.02.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(c) Francisco Leslie López del Castillo, 2022


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Author Biography

Francisco Leslie López del Castillo Wilderbeek, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Francisco Leslie López del Castillo Wilderbeek holds a PhD in Communication from the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and is a collaborating professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) where he teaches Public Relations in the Communication degree. He is also a member of the MEDIUM research team at UPF.

In his professional career, he is a media analyst at REBOLD.

His research field is focused on corporate communication, public relations and data visualization based on a philosophy of science perspective.

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