“This ain't no sideshow”: Historians and media studies

In recent years, challenges from inside as well as outside the discipline have encouraged historians to investigate mass communication processes and texts as primary evidence about the past. Historically grounded inquiries into mass communication have focused on three related areas of analysis: apparatus centered criticism, social history, and textual interpretation. This rich body of scholarship has begun to answer important questions about history and cultural theory, but it has also pointed the way toward even more complex and intriguing work yet to be done.