Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age

Abstract

Television Histories argues that television functions as one of culture's primary historians. The main goal of this anthology is better to understand this role, which is shaped by the technical and stylistic features of the medium, the service and/or commercial imperatives of the broadcasting industry, and a shared preoccupation between producers and audiences to create a “useable past” that will illuminate present and future. The first section of the book examines how television's fictional genres function as histories. Even though the shows examined in this part have an obvious historical orientation, the essays suggest ways in which television's signifying apparatus and all of its genres and modes may be considered to present or be about history. The two middle sections focus on modes—news and documentary—more typically thought of as having relevance to historical representation, while the fourth part is organized around a preoccupation with the way the history of television production itself suggests ways to approach questions of television's relation to the historical.