Mediating Emotion: Technology, Social Science, and Emotion in Media Research of the ‘20s and ‘30s

• In Event: Competitive Papers in Media Ecology I

Abstract

This paper explores the conception of emotion put forward by the Payne Fund Studies and other social research of the ‘20s and ‘30s. By suggesting that emotions could be scientifically captured through technologies such as the pneumo-cardiograph, this research imagined emotion as both hyper-embodied and disembodied. Emotion was both an instinct buried deep within individual bodies, to be uncovered by the scientist, and an electrical impulse encoded on the scientists’ technologies of decryption. These studies serve as an exemplary case study for investigating a larger conception of emotion that emerges in much of the academic and popular social science of the ‘20s and ‘30s. During this period, a more 19th century conception of the passions was largely replaced with a modern conception of emotion. These developing ideas about emotion have important implications for 20th century views regarding interactions between technology, emotion, communication, and social science more generally.

Author

• Brenton J. Malin, San Francisco State Univ