Thursday, 8 March 2012

Journal of European Television History and Culture

A new multi-media e-journal on the past and present of European television
Journal of European Television History and Culture is to be the first peer-reviewed, multi-media and open access e-journal in the field of European television history and culture. It will offer an international platform for outstanding academic research and archival reflection on television as an important part of our European cultural heritage. With its interdisciplinary profile, the journal is open to many disciplinary perspectives on European television – including television history, media studies, media sociology, cultural studies and television studies.
If only for pretty sound, nominal reasons, Film Studies For Free doesn't usually stray too far beyond the field of free film studies. Today is an exception, however, simply because of an exceptional, new, and also free to access, online publication.

The inaugural issue of the new Journal of European Television History and Culture is devoted to 'Making Sense of Digital Sources', a hugely important topic for all audiovisual forms and cultures. Its editors write,
In the past few years national broadcasting archives and audiovisual libraries have taken important steps in the digitisation of their sources. Consequently, some of their material has already become available online. But as access to television material online across national borders remains fractured and scattered, European funded projects such as Video Active (2006-2009) and EUscreen (2009-2012) try to tackle some of the main problems with transnational access:
  • the lack of interoperability between archival data-bases both at the level of metadata and semantics;
  • the non-existence of proven scenarios for the use of audiovisual material at a European level;
  • the complexity of rights issues and the lack of contextualisation of digitised sources.
     At the FIAT/IFTA conference in Paris in 2004, the European Television History Network (ETHN) was launched, aiming at promoting the need for a transnational perspective on the history and culture of television in Europe. The archival situation and the accessibility for researchers vary considerably in the different European countries. That is why ETHN acknowledged the necessity of cooperation between archives and academics on a European scale in order to bridge academic research and archival initiatives. The Journal of European Television History and Culture builds on these initiatives and is closely related to EUscreen of which the e-journal is an important feature.[from Andreas Fickers and Sonja de Leeuw. 'Editorial']
FSFF salutes EUScreen, ETHN, and especially, on this the occasion of its birth, the Journal of European Television History and Culture.

It can only hope that European (and, indeed, non-European) archival film culture and studies will learn much (and quickly) from the wonderful and increasingly joined up examples of its televisual counterparts.

Vol 1, No 1 (2012):Table of Contents
Editorial
Articles
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