Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Book Chapter
Disciplines
Sociology, 5.8 MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS, Media and socio-cultural communication, Social sciences, History and philosophy of science and technology, Radio and Television
Abstract
Television sets appeared in homes across the world during the 1950s and 1960s. Early audiences were researched in terms of ratings and so on, but the perceptions and experiences of early television viewers went unrecorded. There are no ready-made, bottom–up companion pieces to top–down institutional histories. In the absence of such work, life- story research offers one of our best means of attempting to capture the experiences of early viewers. This chapter offers an argument about the nature of memory. It argues that personal recollection, in memory interviews and other contexts, is practical; that people announce their pasts in a manner that preserves their identity and that is likely to maintain or improve their social standing. It is argued that it is the practical nature of recollection that makes personal memories diverse and, simultaneously, subject to social power and dominant values. The chapter concludes by offering a brief account of how this research was carried out.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96860-5_7
Recommended Citation
Brennan, Edward, "Recollection and Social Status" (2019). Books/Book chapters. 38.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaschmedbk/38
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Included in
Film and Media Studies Commons, Oral History Commons, Social History Commons, Television Commons
Publication Details
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-96860-5_7
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96860-5_7