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Audiovisual Heritage and its Uses at the Swiss Public Broadcaster: A Dialogue on Opportunities and Constraints for Archives and Academics
No full textConjointly conceived by an archivist at the Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS, the French speaking PSB) and two media historians, this paper aims at discussing the diversity of uses of digitised AV heritage in Switzerland through the lenses of their professional experience. It focuses on the RTS as a particularly productive case study since the RTS has not only been a pioneer in digitising AV heritage and in promoting its holdings to the broader audience, but it also actively develops new tools for internal use, in particular speech to text technologies and more recently AI-based automation for image treatment and analysis, and datamining tools. Through a discussion of current projects at the RTS, the paper provides insights into the most recent uses and reuses of digitised AV heritage in Switzerland
The Noise of the News: Spectral Analysis of Early Swedish Television News 1958 - 1978.
No full textLooking back on the very first year of television in Sweden, the head of programming Henrik Hahr celebrated having brought the world into “the living room of the viewer”. From the emergence of Swedish public service television in 1956 and onwards, the medium would be lauded as a window to the world. Yet, what noises came through this window? Shifting focus away from the visual content of television, this article explores and emphasizes the sonic dimensions of early Swedish news broadcasting. In the middle of the 20th century, the look, and the sound of the news were taking shape across television stations around the world. In Sweden, public service broadcasting was partly influenced by the backdrop of the cold war, and demands were formulated on a style of television that would be distinctive from the American and Soviet alternatives. This was a matter of images and audio in equal proportions. Deciding what kind of sound was added to the previously mute newsreels was at the heart of televised journalism. With a media monopoly running two competing news shows, the Swedish case offers insight into the establishment and differentiation of public service television aesthetics in the post-war era. Prior research has investigated the institutions, infrastructures, and ideas which shaped early Swedish television, but the very signals remain unexplored. This article introduces new methods for studying aural aesthetics in audiovisual media. By conducting various types of spectral visualization on recorded television news from 1958 until 1978, this analysis traces the sonic profile of the Swedish public service. The aim is to provide historical knowledge of how the news sounded and which aural experiences were promoted within the realm of the welfare state media monopoly. However, by drawing attention to the prospect of audio signal processing as a method for cultural-historical research, the purpose is also to make a methodological contribution to television studies at large
The Informal Call: Telemonederos and Media Transitions in 1990s Bogotá
No full textThis article re-examines the historiography of telephony in Bogotá, Colombia, focusing on the semi-public phones known as telemonederos. It challenges the conventional mono-medial and mono-usage narratives of telephony by highlighting the diverse and multifaceted use of phones in the context of urban informality. The research explores how telemonederos emerged as a creative response to Bogotá’s socio-economic and technological dynamics, embodying accessible technology and entrepreneurial spirit. These devices, evolving within electronic bazaars and informal economies, became integral to the city’s communication landscape, influencing the delivery of mobile services. The study also draws parallels between the development of telemonederos and auto-construction practices in urban environments, underscoring the role of community-driven initiatives in the modernisation of Bogotá. This approach offers a nuanced view of Bogotá as a media city, where informal networks and innovations significantly shape its technological and social evolution
Video, Film and Migration: 1980s Turkey in Germany
No full textIn the study of the relationship between Turkish migrants living in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the media, the 1980s – during which video experienced a massive emergence – are of great importance due to the spread of neo-liberal and conservative ideologies that occurred during that decade. In addition to shaping reception styles, viewing habits, and film canons, video also facilitated the transfer of technology, knowledge, and images between Turkey and the Federal Republic of Germany along the migration axis. Based on this thesis, this article focuses on the relationship between Turkey and Turkish migrants in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s that formed through video. The primary aim is to examine how migrant audiences came into contact with Turkey during this period. The analysis considers the historical context, the type of interaction made possible by video broadcasting, the role of the audience, and the discourses of power that influenced this interaction. In this way, the ideological function of video, its proxy status, and the basis of its legitimacy in the media context become clear
We Want Your Tools! Or Do We? On Digitized Cultural Heritage Archives And Commercial Content Identification Tools
No full textThis article reflects on the technical gap that exists between academic and corporate capacities to study how digitized cultural heritage is reused online. In the context of tracing how audiovisual archival content is remixed and reinserted into new cultural contexts, the article asks what it would mean for humanistic researchers—and cultural heritage institutions more broadly—to utilize content identification tools provided by actors such as Google. How could commercial techniques for policing copyrights and tracing the whereabouts of online content be re-purposed to assist in research concerning remix practices and transformed culturalmemories? What technical and legal consequences would such partnerships yield? And would such collaborations be ethical and scientifically defendable in the first place? Ultimately, the article reflects on the legal and technical discrepancies that exist between academic and commercial actors when it comes to monitoring how cultural content moves online. It also asks questions about what it means to care for digitized heritage collections in the 21st century
A 1980s and 1990s Media History Manifesto
No full textThis articles fires the starting shot to embrace 1980s and 1990s media histories and put them prominently on our research agenda. The 1980s and 1990s have been termed the ‘wonder years,’ when such media technologies as Teletext, the Walkman, the fax, and answering machine became part of everyday life. Moreover, these decades were pivotal, witnessing momentous societal developments that continue to affect us to this day, such as the advent of neoliberalism. Though media are an ideal prism to shed light on such developments, there is scant attention for this era in extant media-historical scholarship. Therefore, this article is an intervention that strives to foster media-historical research into the eighties and nineties. Taking stock of tendencies in media and media-historical scholarship, it highlights three general shortcomings of extant research that thwart a better understanding of this era. First, there is a lack of sociocultural contextualisation. Second, there is a tendency to focus on winners, rather than ‘dead’ or ‘obsolete’ media. Third, an overemphasis on ‘newness’ has led scholars to neglect important media. By means of concrete examples and case studies, particularly pertaining to the Netherlands, this article leads the way to future directions
De filmfabriek. Profilti, de Haagse concurrent van Polygoon 1929-1933
No full textBook review of: Barend de Voogd, De filmfabriek. Profilti, de Haagse concurrent van Polygoon 1929-1933. (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2023), 319 pp. ISBN 978946456160
Dismantling the Dispositif: Social Science Experiments in the Classroom
No full textThe following is a case study of a series of pioneering tests with visual teaching aids in elementary and secondary schools in the United States, conducted between 1920 and 1923. As it happened, these tests coincided with similar experiments in the Netherlands. Although unbeknown to each other, the innovative aspect of both studies consisted in taking their research into the classroom. With this measure experimenters in both countries hoped to collect well-founded evidence to refute what appeared to them as unfounded or overstated claims about photography-based, visual teaching aids, film in particular. While the experimenters forwent a controlled lab situation, by entering the classroom they nonetheless introduced adjustments into everyday educational practice, whether it concerned the activities required of pupils, staff, the interactions between them, and/or the composition of test groups. Thus, they changed what today one would call the educational dispostif: the arrangement of a presentation (a lesson by staff) in a designated space (a classroom with its equipment) before an assemblage of attendees (a class of pupils). Although the term educational dispositif was not current at the time, the experimenters did comment on the elements that constitute it. And given elementary and secondary education’s time-honoured routines, they were bound to stumble upon these elements’ interdependence and reconsider, albeit not in so many words, their conception of what goes on in a class. I largely focus on the American experimentsbecause they are more numerous, more invasive, and more extensively discussed in the 1924 book Visual education. The Dutch experiments, on which I published elsewhere, consisted of two, less invasive series, conducted in one secondary school, and were reported on in two articles, in 1923, and one English translation, in 1924
Archives, Mismatches, Hacks! Overcoming Archival Boundaries in Transnational Research
No full textIn this article, I use my experiences in writing about the transnational history of Sesame Street to point toward ways forward for researchers interested in investigating entangled European broadcasting histories. I will point to places where I found European interconnections in journals, committees, and festivals and consider what the availability of these published and unpublished sources has meant for my inquiries. I will also explain how I used a specific content-management software (Tropy) to ‘hack’ and go beyond the national boundaries encoded in the archival collections I used. Finally, I suggest that perhaps it is not audiovisual material broadcasting archives first and foremost need to make available in digital formats if we want to further boundary-crossing television history; instead, I believe that the possibility of sharing self-digitized printed material should be a particular focus in the future