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Moving towards a 'Para-Historie’? The Impartment of History in the 21st Century
Annotion:
In the beginning of the 21st century television remains the leading medium which sets the patterns of the historical and political agenda of our modern societies: feature films and other new history formats reach publics of millions during prime time and thus dictate guidelines regarding content and aesthetic to the rest of the media. The latest ‚histotainment’ programs mix facts and fiction in a dramatic fashion. They hinder the viewer to distinguish documentary sources from dramatic elements. Actors in such films are often seen as equally authentic to the contemporary witnesses they portray. Imagery and music heavily imbued with meaning subliminally ‚explain’ history, eclipsing the facts. But neither the TV networks nor History or Communication and Media Studies posses empirical studies of how TV publics appropriate this modern kind of hybrid-history. What does history mean to an audience if Adolf Hitler is portrayed by a well-liked and famous Star? What kind of historical culture is produced by the media societies of the 21st century? Are we moving towards a 'Para-Historie'?
