Televising History

Posted on: 24 November 2011

In addition to interviews and discussions with individual historians and media practitioners alongside analysis of the history programmes, we facilitated a number of discussion fora, which built bridges across disciplines and professional practice. For example, our advisory board, which met annually during the duration of the project, was made up of media professionals, academics from history, archaeology, heritage, television and cultural studies, museum and archive professionals, popular authors and educationists. We held a small symposium which brought together scholars from other parts of Europe and our final conference, after a public keynote by David Starkey, included participants from the industry, e.g. Janice Hadlow, Controller of BBC2, Jeremy Isaacs, Martin Davidson (BBC) and representatives from the independent sector (Wall to Wall, Flashback and Testimony Films) who debated with leading academics in the field. This dialogue opened up the rather moribund debate between historians and television producers, which had tended previously to centre on what made ‘good history’, and encouraged a more complex set of related questions about television as a mediator of the past and its effects on historiography in the process of that mediation. The discussions covered a range of topics, for example, the role of different styles of presenters; the value, or otherwise, of the popularising of history through genres aiming to reach wide audiences; questions of authorship; the ethics of ‘truth-telling; uses of archive film and other sources.

 

We are now shaping the material we have gathered for our book, History on Television (forthcoming from Routledge), which will plot the key developments within our period of history on television. Each chapter will interweave questions of production context across considerations of the programmes under discussion. In looking at the concept of Landmark television, examples of which are Simon Schama’s A History of Britain (BBC, 2000-02) and Nazis: A Warning from History (BBC, 1997), we will explore themes of heritage and national identity, the aesthetics of ‘quality’ associated with public service broadcasting, the branding of presenters and history as a commodity, authorship, narrative and the institutional contexts of such productions.

Commemoration has long been a key role played by history programming on television

Commemoration has long been a key role played by history programming on television and we plan to take a close look at how although such programmes remind the nation of its past, much like earlier commemorative activities, particularly innovative strategies are employed in television programming. Whilst the documentary series Auschwitz: the Nazis and the final solution (BBC, 2005) marked the 60th anniversary of its liberation, other events have been marked through less traditional formats; for example My Family at War, part of the 2008 season marking the end of the Great War, drew heavily on the Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC, 2004- ) format, with celebrities discovering aspects of their ancestors’ lives with particular relation to the conflict. Landmark and commemorative programmes are often high points of television output aimed at bringing the nation together as well as providing valuable marketing commodities for more international audiences.