Unlocking Television Archives in the Digital Era. 16th Media Mutations International Conference

Authors

Luca Barra (ed), ; Susanne Eichner (ed), ; Matteo Marinello (ed), ; Emiliano Rossi (ed), ; Anne-Katrin Weber (ed),
DOI: https://doi.org/10.66062/GOXW2776

Keywords:

Television, Archives, Digital Era

Synopsis

Unlocking Television Archives in the Digital Era is the proceedings volume of the 16th Media Mutations International Conference, held at the University of Bologna (26–27 May 2025). The collection addresses the complex negotiations between technology and memory that characterize archive use in an age of multi-channel distribution and digital platforms. Contributors examine how digitisation, recovery, access, and sharing have reshaped the relationship between media institutions and their audiovisual heritage, while also raising urgent questions about fair use, sustainability, and the uneven distribution of archival resources across public broadcasters, commercial networks, and local channels. Developed in dialogue with the PRIN 2020 research project ATLas – Atlante delle Televisioni Locali, the volume pays particular attention to lesser-known archival experiences and adopts a transnational perspective that moves beyond Eurocentric frameworks. Topics range from local Italian broadcasting history and AI-driven recontextualization of archival content, to decolonial approaches to audiovisual heritage, pirate care and shadow libraries, true crime television, and the role of archives in strengthening public broadcasters' streaming strategies. Together, the essays argue for the enduring relevance of legacy media within contemporary digital environments and advocate for more inclusive, critically aware archival practices.

Chapters

Author Biographies

Luca Barra, University of Bologna

Luca Barra is full professor in the Department of the Arts at the University of Bologna, where he teaches Television and Media Studies. His main research interests include media production and distribution cultures, the international circulation of media content (and its national mediations), the history of Italian, European and US TV, seriality and comedy genres, and the contemporary media landscape. He recently co-edited Contemporary Italian Youth Television (Palgrave, London 2026), Italian Contemporary Screen Performers (Palgrave, London 2025) and A European Television Fiction Renaissance (Routledge, London 2022). He is one of the editors-in-chief of VIEW. Journal of European Television History and Culture and Studi culturali. He is the PI of the ATLas. Atlas of Local Televisions research project. 

Susanne Eichner, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF

Susanne Eichner is professor in Analysis and Aesthetics of Audiovisual Media at the Department of Media Studies at the Filmuniversity Babelsberg in Potsdam, Germany. She studied cultural studies and media studies in the UK and Germany, and holds a PhD in media studies on agency and media reception. She has taught at the University of Bayreuth and the University of Rostock; from 2014 to 2022 she was associate professor at the Department of Media and Journalism Studies, University of Aarhus, Denmark. She employs a cross-media and transnational approach, focusing on reception aesthetics and audience research, media sociology, production ecology, popular (serial) culture and matters of representation in transnational contexts. 

Matteo Marinello, University of Bologna

Matteo Marinello is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Arts of the University of Bologna, were he works on the research projects Circulating Populist Sentiments in 21st Century Film and TV Fiction in Italy and ATLas. Atlas of Local Televisions. His studies focus on television history, comedy and the relationship between politics and entertainment. He teaches Television History at the Univeristy of Bari and Media Marketing at the University of Bologna. 

Emiliano Rossi, University of Bologna

Emiliano Rossi holds a PhD in Cinema, Photography and Television from the University of Bologna, where he works as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of the Arts. His main area of interest is TV, from a social, historical and productive perspective. He teaches the Organisation and Management of Multimedia Systems course at the University of Bologna, and he is an adjunct professor at the universities of Padua and Udine. He wrote Schermi di trasporto. Storia, produzione, immaginari (Meltemi, Milan 2023), and his articles have appeared in several volumes and journals. 

Anne-Katrin Weber, University of Lausanne

Anne-Katrin Weber is assistant professor at Université de Lausanne. She is a television historian with a special interest in non-institutional televisual uses and technologies, working at the intersection of media history and archaeology, science and technology studies, and exhibition studies. She holds a PhD from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and was a NOMIS Fellow at eikones. Centre for the Theory and History of the Image (University of Basel). Her research has been published in English and French; she has edited several journal issues and volumes. She is one of the editors-in-chief of VIEW. Journal of European Television History and Culture.

Downloads

PDF

Published

February 25, 2026

Series

Conference Proceedings
Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Luca Barra, Susanne Eichner, Matteo Marinello, Emiliano Rossi, & Anne-Katrin Weber (Eds.). (2026). Unlocking Television Archives in the Digital Era. 16th Media Mutations International Conference. Media Mutations Publishing. https://doi.org/10.66062/GOXW2776