History and (the) Media

Apart from mandatory history lessons at school that may inspire a minority to pursue historical studies at a higher level and beyond, where do the rest of us get an understanding of the past? It is safe to say, as we stand firmly established in the twenty-first century, that our engagement with history has become almost entirely mediated. Media, in the form of print, television, film, photography, radio and increasingly the Internet, are the main sources for recording, constructing, archiving and disseminating public and private histories in the early twenty-first century. They provide the most compelling devices for accessing information about the last one hundred years within which many of the media forms were invented and developed. Moreover, they form the creative toolbox for re-presenting histories from periods and events long before, of which those media forms were not a part. Think of all those costume dramas, history documentaries and heritage centres that are so popular. It seems we are not able to understand the past without media versions of it, and the last century, in particular, shows us that media and events of historical significance are inseparable.