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Badenoch, Alexander1
1: Utrecht University

2022-10-04

European Radio’s Silenced Witness: The European Broadcasting Union’s Written Archives

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Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis , Volume 25 - Issue 2 p. 1- 28

International collaboration in radio was formally established in Europe in 1925 by the International Broadcasting Union (IBU) in Geneva, which sought to co-ordinate and harmonise the work of public service broadcasters. Both its work and its archive of minutes, reports, documents and books were carried on by its successor, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). In 2012, this archive was moved into off-site storage, where it remains, effectively silenced for research purposes. This article reflects on the recent silencing of the archive by examining its history as a ‘silenced witness’ in multiple respects. First, it considers the archive in the light of the organisation’s function as an ‘apolitical’ monitoring witness and gatherer of information. Second, it examines which activities were witnessed and converted into the ‘silent’ medium of paper. Finally, it explores the relationship of the archive to the organisation, and in particular its placement and use.

Additional Metadata
Keywords media history, media studies, international organizations, radio, archives, European Broadcasting Union, media history, international organisations
Publisher Sound & Vision
Persistent URL doi.org/10.18146/tmg.822
Journal Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis
Rights Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Note TMG Journal for Media History; Vol 25, No 2 (2022): Historical Traces of European Radio Archives, 1930-1960; 1 - 28
Citation
Badenoch, Alexander. (2022). European Radio’s Silenced Witness: The European Broadcasting Union’s Written Archives. Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis, 25(2), 1–28. doi:10.18146/tmg.822
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