From Dynasty to Songs of Praise: Television as cultural resource for gendered remembering

Abstract

Despite detailed interrogations of the uses of media technologies and texts with overtly mnemonic functions in memory studies, there remains a limited engagement with the significance of television and everyday televisual texts in practices of remembering from specific social locations in the interests of performing and constructing particular social identities. Often, programming which refers to the past is considered from a textual rather than an audience perspective, and is viewed routinely through the analytical framework of history rather than memory. This article attempts to address this neglect by outlining the case for attending to television programmes beyond the conventionally historical as specifically gendered mnemonic resources. The article uses data drawn from in-depth interviews with women about their mnemonic practices to explore how they use television in everyday instances of remembering, and considers how these contribute to the articulation and construction of social identities.