In the '80s it was sometimes called the Spielberg Zoom even though Steven Spielberg never claimed credit for it. He just used it in creative ways after zooms had fallen somewhat out of style. Starting in the mid-1970s most cinematography was done with prime lenses, as cinéma vérité styles from earlier art film movements migrated into Hollywood mainstream. The classic movements of the camera survived, but changing focal length was seen as a way of drawing attention to the camera as an artificial eye rather than a proxy for the viewer. Even still, the dolly zoom doesn't overtly change the focal length in that way when combined with the zoom.
The insurgence of the found-footage genre and the attendant handheld cinematography (even in other genres) has resurrected the snap zoom, which is another way of establishing depth in a shot. Part of why Firefly works visually is the snap zooms on the exterior-space shots. In blatant contrast to the carefully choreographed (by necessity) process shots of the physical-model era, the space cinematography in Firefly mimics the happenstance cinematography of journalism. And now that's how a lot of that sort of stuff is shot.
