The Evolution of Discourse on the Purposes of the Television Archives of Estonian Public Broadcasting

Our understanding of history is significantly shaped by the audiovisual modalities of television. Depictions of the past draw upon television archives, which themselves are products of specific contextual decisions. This raises a critical question: what has influenced the formation of archival collections, and how might their design and content shape the reproduction of cultural memory today? This paper examines the evolving discourse on the purposes and functions of television archives within Estonian Public Broadcasting. As part of ongoing doctoral research, it aims to enhance our understanding of television archives as sources of historical knowledge and cultural memory. Through discourse analysis of historical institutional management documents from 1965 to 2021, the paper demonstrates how the role of television archives has shifted from serving as production storage to being recognized as a public good. The findings highlight how a historical perspective helps explain why a lot of television’s past has been lost.