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It is significant that in English we do not possess a temporal equivalent of the word "elsewhere". This word designates a location spatially distinct from that in which the speaker or writer is situated, but if we seek an "else" word to identify a time distinct from our own, we are bereft. There is no "elsewhen". This lexical absence in the language acts to reinforce the privileging of space over time in much of our thinking about communication technologies and their contribution to the experience of modernity. Such thinking has commonly laid stress on the ability of communication technologies to reduce, compress or cancel spatial distance in the transmission and reception of multiple messages. All too often this has led not only to inflated or idealistic accounts of technological capability in communications, but also to the neglect or cavalier treatment of how it affects time and temporal relations. New media have indeed altered the sense of distance in modern times, in some respects seeming to diminish it, but in others creating new versions of it, both temporal and spatial.¹ The particular case that will be considered here is phonography, and the distance it created in time/space dimensions between the production and consumption of music.² This was a major change, with manifold consequences.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137020680_2

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