This thematic issue of VIEW brings together articles that show how television has been an instrument for, as well as a mirror of, public service and specifically health services. Two approaches to this are featured and teased out. The first approach concerns health communication and campaigns, where information is diffused via television and strengthened or reinforced by visual and filmic means. The second concerns the structures that offer, manage and model norms of health and healthcare services. In introducing elements of the history of health, we hope to draw attention to the intersection of public health and television over the twentieth century, such that thinking about the relationship between them might change our understanding of both.
Co-edited by Tricia Close-Koenig, Angela Saward and Jessica Borge