Medium Specificity Re-visited

Abstract

Medium specificity arguments have had a long history in film theory. Forged primarily in studies seeking to locate the differences between cinema and theatre,1 or cinema and literature,2 such arguments have a much earlier history in the idea that art forms can be differentiated from one another on the basis of their means of imitation. Medium specificity theories generally concern themselves with the idea that different media have 'essential' and unique characteristics that form the basis of how they can and should be used. Within Film Studies, interest in both the idea of a 'cinematic apparatus' and the formative period of early cinema can be viewed as reactions emerging from a long period of engagement with medium specificity theories. Curiously, while it is common practice to use cinema as an analogy for multimedia, 3 there is little direct discussion of the relevance, or irrelevance, of medium specificity arguments in the broader space of 'new media' theory. 4 Our intent in this article is not to revive medium specificity arguments as these have already been problematised, but rather to establish them as a concern for new media theory, and also to extract from them a concept of specificity that can account for the different characteristics of established and emergent media.

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“…Maras and Sutton explore the trajectories (or vectors) of media, and the fuzzy transition of media from "emergent" to "established." (Maras and Sutton 2000) According to Maras and Sutton, new media tend to undergo a period in which imitation of established media is done in order to legitimise the new medium as capable of expressiveness in much the same way. This tends to be followed by a period wherein work in this new medium engages in forms and structures unique to its physical characteristics.…”

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“…Furthermore, the technology and infrastructure branch investigates how media alter modes of perception and thus change what is defined and recognized as a medium in the first place (Boell and Hoof, 2015; Heider, 1926). This makes it possible to state ‘that there are identifiable differences between one medium and another’ (Maras and Sutton, 2000: 103). Other research within the technology and infrastructure branch focuses on the infrastructure of digital network markets, such as undersea cable networks (Starosielski, 2015), data protocols, data centers, and fiber-cable networks.…”

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“…Chief among them is the theory of medium specificity. This theory can be understood to mean that different media have essential and unique characteristics that form the basis of how they can and should be used (Maras & Sutton, 2000). Freire (2007) notes the theory played an important role in defining new fields of media studies including film and television studies and more recently, Internet studies.…”

“…Freire, summarizing film theorist Dana Polan on the theory, writes that "he argued for a move away from the idea of fixed specificity, pointing instead to the notion of cinema as 'an adjective, a modification of something else'" (Maras & Sutton 2000). Cinema, to Pollan, "was better viewed as an 'apparatus' located at the intersection of a number of historical, ideological and technological forces" (in Maras & Sutton, p.7) Nevertheless, applying elements of medium specificity to personalized streaming services, namely what users want from a specific media, can help to understand how its uses and applications differ from that of other media.…”