Some Sense of Time: Remembering Television

Although television has been with us, at least in the Western world, for fifty years or more, we know little of its effects on memory, both individual and collective. How does television shape memory? What is remembered? Events, places, people, specific programs? Media research has shown little interest in these questions, and only for specific programs, mainly news, or specific periods, especially the early years of television. 1 Research on television news has discussed the short term retention of news content. 2 But the broader problem of the relation between television and memory formation in the long term has not been addressed, even though, over a lifetime, television is a continuous source of information; it is consumed on a daily basis and discussed in various contexts (private conversations, public discussions), as well as in the media, including, of course, television itself.