Profile: VIEW, Journal of European Television History and Culture

Prompted by a question to include this journal on my list, I thought perhaps I’d start featuring various journals, especially the lesser-known ones. I hadn’t heard of this journal and as my bachelor’s degree was in media studies, the content is interesting to me.

Started in 2012, “Journal of European Television History and Culture is the first peer-reviewed, multi-media and open access e-journal in the field of European television history and culture. It offers 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.” (copied from the website)

I know little about European television, but because there’s a journal dedicated to it emphasizes that it’s an important initiative. A brief review of the articles shows that, as anticipated, they address similar issues found in the US. The first issue has the article “Why Digitise Historical Television?” discusses copyright, studying historical events through media, and that “old” programs “can still inform, educate, and entertain.” This issue also discusses television archives in France, Italy, and Romania.

Other issues discuss transnational television, post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, the BBC, Poland, Spain, (post)Socialist television, and other countries. One issue is dedicated to European television researchers. As we all know, understanding how our researchers use collections helps us with access, description, selection, and other facets of our duties. Issues also contain articles about types of television shows, collective memory, what happened “behind the scenes” and the television profession, specific stations, audience participation, and numerous others.

I only briefly reviewed the tables of contents of the issues and skimmed a few articles. I’m very impressed with the depth and breadth of the content provided in this great open-access journal. As it is written all in English, it will be a great resource for archivists writing about audiovisual digitization and should be recommended to researchers in history, media studies, communication, European studies, and others. We are moving to more global resources and research, and we can learn much from our colleagues across the ocean.

Thank you Erwin for sharing this journal!