Im Medienlabor der US-amerikanischen Industrieforschung: Die gemeinsamen Wurzeln von Massenmedien und Bürokratie 1870–1950 [In the media laboratory of US-American industrial research: The common roots of mass media and bureaucracy 1870–1950] by Nadine Taha (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• Im Medienlabor der US-amerikanischen Industrieforschung: Die gemeinsamen Wurzeln von Massenmedien und Bürokratie 1870–1950 [In the media laboratory of US-American industrial research: The common roots of mass media and bureaucracy 1870–1950] by Nadine Taha
• Felix Selgert (bio)

Im Medienlabor der US-amerikanischen Industrieforschung: Die gemeinsamen Wurzeln von Massenmedien und Bürokratie 1870–1950
[In the media laboratory of US-American industrial research: The common roots of mass media and bureaucracy 1870–1950]
By Nadine Taha. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. Pp. 319.

In Im Medienlabor der US-amerikanischen Industrieforschung, based on her dissertation, Nadine Taha approaches American industrial research labs from a media studies perspective. In six case studies, partly based on the archives of DuPont, General Electric, and Kodak, the author aims to identify the common roots of mass and telecommunication media and the media of modern bureaucracies. The first technologies that spring to mind are the telegraph, the telephone, and the typewriter. Although all these technologies receive a mention, the six case studies refer to much less apparent technologies, including the paper-based roll film that simplified photography (ch. 2), a photographic sound recording and playback device called pallophotophone (ch. 5), a thirteen-month calendar (ch. 6), as well as cloud photography (ch. 7). Even if some of these technologies—most notably photography—fall into the mass media and bureaucratic technology category, this common feature is much less evident than for the technologies mentioned above. Taha tries to overcome this shortcoming by addressing the shared history of these media inventions and the technologies of bureaucracy (ch. 3). Here, the author refers to the control revolution (Beninger, The Control Revolution, 1989) and the rise of modern management (Chandler, The Visible Hand, 1977) as shared drivers of mass media and bureaucratic technologies. However, I read chapter 3 as if the author is more concerned with the bureaucratization of innovation in the form of industrial research departments than with the common roots of mass media and bureaucratic technologies. The idea that the bureaucratization of the innovation process can be traced back to the control revolution, the managerial revolution, and a more competitive market environment during the Progressive Era is a stimulating thought that could have been investigated more systematically.

For Taha, the similarities between mass and bureaucratic media are also characterized by dual-use cases. An example of this is General Electric’s pallophotophone, which was aimed at the film industry and radio broadcasting but, in the end, failed in the market. However, the innovation was used in the company’s research department for a long time to produce internal film material. But it only makes sense to speak of a dual-use case if one recognizes the research departments of industrial companies as being primarily bureaucracies.

It is also confusing that Taha sees patents primarily as bureaucratic and communication media, not as contracts or strategic tools for innovative [End Page 1052] individuals and companies to gain a better market position. Nevertheless, the case study on patents (ch. 4) is interesting because it explains the replacement of individual inventors from the 1870s onward by professional inventors employed by the research departments of large companies with the gradual abolition of physical patent models in the 1870s. This is an interesting proposition that is worth examining empirically.

On the other hand, in chapters 2 through 4, Taha does not consider the rich literature on patents and innovation in the United States that economic history has produced. For example, over ten years ago, economic historians, using extensive patent data sets, pointed to the rise of corporate inventors from the 1880s onward and conducted intensive research into the professionalization of inventors and the emergence of a market for innovations (Nicholas, “The Role of Independent Invention in U.S. Technological Development, 1880–1930,” 2010; Khan and Sokoloff, “‘Schemes of Practical Utility,’” 1993). Researchers are also well aware that companies have tried to maximize the limits of the statutory requirements for patent descriptions to protect their innovation from competitors. Economic historians can furthermore show that the depth of the disclosure of information on the same innovation depended on the respective patent system (Sáiz and Amengual, “Do Patents Enable Disclosure?,” 2018). From a...