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Two days into prepping to write the next dissertation chapter, I’m hitting a brick wall. Since I can’t seem to get anywhere doing “legitimate” writing, I figure I’ll try getting some ideas out here (and anyone reading who’s up on my dissertation, feel free to throw in your two cents).

So here’s my dilemma. The way I’d been conceptualizing my dissertation was as five chapters, each centering on a social group involved with the history of the VCR as an extension of the theater into the home: enthusiasts, distributors, retailers, employees, and consumers. That’s all well and good for the first chapter, which is kind of a stand-alone story in itself, as well as the last one (which is essentially about the resulting understanding of the VCR’s place in the home), but now that I’m wrestling with the next section, I’m finding that it’s not really so easy to separate distributors and retailers – in fact, the more I’ve thought about it and gone through research material, the more I realize that the two are interrelated to the point that discussing one without an equal emphasis on the other isn’t an option.

So, I’m trying to reconceptualize the outline of the middle few chapters – the best idea I’ve got going right now is to reframe the distributors/retailers stuff into two chapters: the first would be on the change in who’s actually distributing videotapes from the electronics industry/’brown goods stores’ to the recording industry/’video specialty stores’, while the second would be on the establishment of institutions by retailers and distributors that increased their power, while at the same time facilitating a greater sense of closure about what a video store (and by extension the role of the VCR in American life) should be. This way, I could still leave the last two chapters essentially the same (one on the intersection of the video store as a consumption junction with consumers, the other on the eventual role of the VCR and videotapes in the domestic space).

Here’s the problem – while the first of those “mediators” chapters (the one on electronics vs. recording industry technological frames) would have a strong, clear argument, I don’t have a foothold into the second one yet. Sinply arguing “Hey, look, these people built institutions” doesn’t really feel like it cuts it for me. Plus, I feel like I’d be backtracking to tell the story of video stores through the entry of Blockbuster only to then double back to the relationship of video clerks to consumers in the Mom and Pop video stores of the early 1980′s.

Argh. I guess I’ll go read through my interviews again, and see if anything jumps out at me…

Comments 3 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.

jeremy hunsinger,

October 22, 2003 at 11:05 pm

it isn’t that people built institutions. people always build institutions… it is the space those institutions occupy, where did that come from? what disappeared, what changed? it is just like the advent of the computer store, a space opened up…. why? there is also a primary story, then there is also the story of the zones of occupation and how those arose as territories in themself, but before i ramble too much…. just where did those storefronts come from and why were they open anyway…..

Epistemographer,

October 23, 2003 at 1:09 pm

Of course – the problem I’m having is that the first of these two chapters lays out a story for where these stores came from and why they looked the way they did. What I meant by “institutions” in the case of that second chapter is that once the stores were established as individual places (mostly built by individual owners), then the actors involved built broader institutions like franchises/trade organizations/lobbying groups/etc. in order to share knowledge and standardize the business, and in doing so, aggregate their power when dealing with the studios and government.

The problem is that I still don’t have a foothold into that second argument. I keep turning it over and over, and haven’t come up with anything better than “Look! Informal networks were manifested in tangible forms like trade associations” which kinda sucks.

Still working on it…

jeremy hunsinger,

October 24, 2003 at 1:27 am

so you need to look at warehousing and distribution? logistics? and those pressures?

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