ABSTRACT
Historical scholarship can employ most of the methodologies from studies of representation or ideology to analyses of policy, visual style, or stardom. Media histories always make inferences about the nature of the medium, and theory is always historical, both in the sense that it makes implicit claims about the past and in the sense that it emerges in a particular intellectual and historical context. Media historians' work has also been heavily influenced by approaches loosely clustered under the umbrella of the history of technology. The biggest opportunities and challenges looming for media historians are related to the digital transformation of the media culture and of the media archives. The historiography of broadcast media is profoundly shaped by their use of public airwaves, their subsequent characterization as sites of federal regulatory control, and their capacity to rearticulate civic relationships via their distinct claims on public and private life.
