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The Post-Network Era

This chapter offers strategies for exploring contemporary media using tools of historiography. The author uses the example of writing about the DVR early in its deployment and poses the hypothetical of writing about “second screen” apps to illustrate the value of placing contemporary cases in a historical framework to help make analysis of early developments more enduring. The chapter also discusses particular challenges related to using trade publications for evidence when writing about contemporary phenomena, and closes with additional illustrations of successful historical and contextual framing of contemporary media technologies and industrial developments.