The notion of a “black box”—where a system or artifact is functional, but its internal mechanisms are opaque—occurs frequently in discussions of media technology. My research focuses the sites where media technology research takes place, which have their own “black box” character. Organizations such as universities, corporate labs, and research communities produce highly functional and influential technologies and knowledges, but their internal discourses are rarely transparent. I take these organizations as objects of study, combining rhetorical methods of contextualization and criticism with contemporary scholarship on media and science/technology studies to map their influence upon media technology and public life.