"PERIPHERY" AND "SEMI-PERIPHERY", FROM THE SYSTEM OF THE ECONOMY-WORLD TO THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION

Since Immanuel Wallertstein's world-systems theory and in the wake of the history of mentalities, disciplines other than economic history (Franco Moretti's quantitative literary history) have been using approaches to historical realities based on the relationship between center(s) and periphery(s). In this paper, we propose a similar approach to the history of European television prior to its digital stage, mainly between 1950 and 1990. Among other, we look into current distinctions used in some recent studies on the history of television between, on the one hand, "socialist television" and democratic television, and on the other hand, between "authoritarian regime" television, which also includes non-socialist South-European countries, and democratic television. In order to do so, we first review the main aspects of Wallerstein's approach, so as to pinpoint possible similarities with the dynamics of the history of European television.