Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0003-2675-1673
Document Type
Conference Paper
Disciplines
Sociology, 5.8 MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS, Radio and Television, 6.5 OTHER HUMANITIES
Abstract
This paper critiques a dominant narrative in the history of Irish television, which typically equate television’s arrival with the launch of RTÉ in 1961 and interpret its development through a state-centred, modernisation framework. Drawing on life-story interviews with people who experienced television in Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s, the research challenges methodological nationalism by foregrounding memory as a source. It reveals how television was an uncertain status object that carried meanings of pride, shame, discipline, and cultural value. Theoretically informed by Bourdieu, Halbwachs, and Inglis, the paper analyses recollection as practical social action. Early television consumption was mediated by class-based judgments about education, intelligence, and propriety. The research demonstrates that memory interviews are penetrated by myriad forms of power that connects the micro-social context of the interview with macro-social processes of political, economic and symbolic power.
Recommended Citation
Brennan, E. (2021). Pride, shame and TV dinners. Honour and Shame: A Research Workshop hosted by the UCD School of Sociology, 3rd December 2021.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Included in
Communication Commons, Education Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons
Publication Details
Brennan, E. 2021. ‘Pride, shame and TV dinners.’ Honour and Shame: A Research Workshop hosted by the University College, Dublin School of Sociology. 3 December 2021.