Imperial images have been at the heart of historical debates on Roman history for several decades. This paper reflects on the historiographical context in which these debates took place, focusing on two debates in classical studies: the discussion about ‘propaganda’, which highlights the transmission of ideology (how and why imagery was communicated), and the debate about agency (who was communicating with whom). In many ways, this volume, with its emphasis on the social dynamics of imagery, places itself in that debate. Yet, the two larger historiographical debates should themselves be contextualised, as they were heavily influenced by contemporary politics and by the introduction of two major concepts in the social sciences: ‘framing’ and ‘agenda setting’. Political and academic contexts have consistently influenced the study of Roman imperial images. It may be useful to make the importance of ‘contexts’ – geographical and chronological – more explicit. An imperial image is always an image, but only in certain contexts will it have functioned as an imperial image. It may be worthwhile to focus less on what an image is and more on how and when images function in certain ways.