History on Television: the Open University series, ‘Britain and America‐‐some visual evidence‘

Conventionally, television history programmes are made by first settling on a story line, then looking around for visual material to illustrate it, without any attempt to analyse what is being seen on the screen. Visual evidence is in itself of great value in historical study; television programmes should concentrate on those areas where there is a richness of visual source material and should be built up, outwards as it were, from that source material. This is the principle underlying the series of eight Open University programmes entitled Britain and America: some visual evidence, which is an integral part of the new history course Comparative Themes in British and American History. Some of the programmes concentrate strongly on the problems and techniques involved in the critical analysis of different types of visual source; others concentrate almost exclusively on bringing out the value of particular visual sources in making a special contribution to an important historical problem. The programmes invite critical responses from students who require material in the programmes to deal with assignments set elsewhere in the course, and direct analysis is provided by an academic seen clearly in vision. While it would never be possible to deal comprehensively with any historical topic through television alone, nonetheless history could be presented on general television in a more authentic way if the conventions and cliches of traditional television production were jettisoned in favour of a recognition of the potency of visual sources properly and critically handled.