Television Studies Topic 4

History and Media

How past is understood and represented changes according to the societal and cultural transformations. Media is part of this process.

Carr’s What is History

Carr argues that history is not a neutral record of facts but a dynamic process shaped by the historian’s present‑day perspective, their choices, and the continuous interaction between past and present.

TV as the First Draft of History

News is shaped by economic pressures, selective coverage, and competitive reporting practices, making it an imperfect and sometimes distorted record of events.

Television Covering News Events

• How television covers a news event is key to how that is understood and remembered not only in the short-term, but also in the long-term.

• Television plays a role in the social, cultural and political development of contemporary society.

A Media Event is the:

1. Live Transmission

2. of a preplanned event

3. framed in time and space

4. featuring a heroic personality or group

5. having high dramatic or ritual significance

6. and the force of a social norm which makes viewing mandatory

Dayan and Katz 3 Main Categories of Media Events

1. Coronation: the occasion of state

2. Contest: only a media event when the confrontation has important symbolic meaning (key political debate, World Cup, Academy Awards, Eurovision)

3. Conquest: the most noble type is the heroic mission. It the traditional stories of heroes in a journey of discovery and reconciliation. As media events, “we follow the process of these heroic deeds, step by step, before anyone can know what the outcome will be” (space race, moon landing)

2 Types of Technology in Space Race

1. Technology to reach the skies (rockets)

2. Communication: television signaling every victory or failure

Edgerton Assumptions Television as a Historian

• Television is the main source of historical knowledge for the general public

• history on television is now big business

• the technical and stylistic features of television as a medium strongly influence the kinds of historical representations that are produced

• History on TV succeeds because it connects past events to issues people care about today.

• Both creators and viewers use historical stories to make sense of the present and imagine the future.

• Public memory is a shared space where academic historians and popular media both shape how society remembers the past

• “Pastism” means scholars sometimes act like the past belongs only to experts, excluding non‑scholars from interpreting history