Between media and genres: Pompeii and the construction of historical knowledge on British television today

Hobden, Fiona (2016). Between media and genres: Pompeii and the construction of historical knowledge on British television today. In: Sabban, Annette and Jaki, Sylvia eds. Wissenformate in den Medien: Analysen aus Medienlinguistik und Medienwissenschaft. Kulturen – Kommunikation – Kontakte (25). Berlin: Frank & Timme, pp. 119–138.

URL: https://www.frank-timme.de/de/programm/produkt/wis...

Abstract

As a commonplace feature in today's media landscape, historical documentaries on television play an active role in the construction of knowledge about the past. Through analysis of four BBC programmes devoted to Pompeii and broadcast since the new millennium, this chapter examines the character of this historical knowledge. By highlighting the representation of Pompeii's history through narrative strategies and visual techniques familiar from other media and genres - disaster movies and news reportage, forensic crime drama and fiction, and science features - , as well the integration of elements from the wider Pompeii tradition, it demonstrates the intermedial and intergeneric quality of television's factual histories. At the same time, as appropriate to their own medium and genre, whether dramatizing the last day of Pompeii's inhabitants, re-evaluating their daily lives, or investigating their death, the four documentaries present versions of the past that are personal and emotional. Thus, this blended approach opens up opportunities for creating distinctively televisual knowledge about the past and potentially facilitates viewer comprehension.

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