As an archaeology of forms, the present work participates in the methodology of media archaeology, a recent trend in media studies that rejects the evolutionary model of technological change. As Erkki Huhtamo defines it, media archaeology is:

the "excavation" of the ways discursive traditions and formulations have been 'imprinted' on specific media machines and systems in different historical contexts, contributing to their identity in terms of socially and ideologically specific webs of signification.^{7Huhtamo, "From kaleidoscomaniac to cybernerd: Notes toward an archaeology of the media," in Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation, ed. Timothy Druckrey (London: Aperture Foundation, 1996): 303.}

Rather than ideating history as a progressive movement from technological simplicity to complexity, then, media archaeology uses the present episteme — in our case, the digitally-mediated moment — as a map for excavating diverse, little-studied forms and practices from the past, thereby problematizing traditional histories. In other words, to return to Benjamin, the present determines a media machine's nucleus, identifying when it transitions from the unrecognizable into the familiar.