A period’s supposed character largely derives from its own self-representation

Evidence

This is clearly, however, to shift from the realities of the 1950s to the representation of that rather different thing, the “fifties,” a shift which obligates us in addition to underscore the cultural sources of all the attributes with which we have endowed the period, many of which seem very precisely to derive from its own television programs; in other words, its own representation of itself. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 615

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes ‘hyperreality’ / representation question in Baudrillard and Historism debates; connects to reader’s goal of periodizing style.
• QUESTION: Implication: ‘the fifties’ as a decade-concept is a media artifact — could push on whether any periodized decade escapes this circularity.