ABSTRACT
From the late 1920s onwards, television display in public space became a frequent attraction that introduced the new technology to a mass audience. Constituting a mediating link between the inventors’ workshop and (future) media consumers, exhibitions shaped the medium’s meaning before its broad distribution. This introductory chapter discusses the methodological and historiographical frameworks necessary to grasp this entangled history of television and exhibition culture from a transnational perspective. It discusses the shift away from the canonized Bazinian formula of ‘What is television?’ to the question of ‘Where is television?’, which is necessary to analyse television on display. Drawing attention to new sources documenting the objects shown, and new questions – why and how would someone display TV? – the introduction finally argues that there is as much to be learned from television before than television after TV.
