Media History and the Study of Media Systems1

This paper discusses media history as an academic discipline, and how it may be linked to the study of media systems. Firstly, it starts with a discussion of the value of the concept of the ‘media system’. The paper then looks at how historical studies of media systems have developed. There follows a discussion of methodology, using chronology and periodization as important analytical tools. This is illustrated by a discussion of how Norwegian media history from the end of the seventeenth century to the present has been analysed using the concept of the ‘media system’, thereby dividing that history into seven broad periods. Using the ‘media system’ approach has facilitated the development of an analysis of the complex interchanges between different media over a 300-year period. The paper concludes by arguing that analysing national media histories in such a way should be a central task for media historians.