Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography

Written by leading scholars in the field, this book is an internationally relevant, cutting-edge reassessment of both current methods and practices in television historiography and of assumptions and critical common places about television history itself. The book focuses on debates about the canon, on texts, on production and institutions, on viewers, and the interconnections between these distinct areas. The book opens with three chapters, which take different approaches to the notion of the ‘television canon’. Then through discussions and case studies it covers a wide selection of themes and issues, from television's approaches to immigration and royal events to histories of television viewing, and the framing of television aesthetics within historiography. The book is prefaced with the editor's overview of historical research in the field of television studies and an appendix details the main research resources for television historians in the UK. The book forms an open-ended intellectual dialogue, which will be welcomed by television historians at all levels in this burgeoning area of exploration and analysis.