The marvellous Belval campus of Luxembourg University hosted the 4th edition of the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Seminars on March 14th, titled “1989: Mapping New Frontiers of Europe and Beyond.”

Started in 1999 under the name ‘Television Studies Seminars’, the one-day event always focuses on a particular historical topic and how media archives can contribute in raising the scientific and public interest in this subject.

This year’s edition focused on exploring the historical events of 1989 that witnessed the collapse of communist regimes in Europe through the lens of archival material and media representations, different archive-based productions (including documentaries and exhibitions) as well as through the lens of multidisciplinary academic research carried out at different archives across the world.

FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission Chair Herbert Hayduck (ORF) opens the 2019 Media Studies Seminar at the Belval Campus of Luxembourg University on March 14th.

A very interesting range of speakers presented case-studies of the dramatic changes that happened in and around 1989 as historic year of change: social and political unrest that started in different eastern-european countries already years in advance, the overwhelming “positive shock” of the opening process of the infamous “iron curtain” across middle Europe in 1989, and the deep changes happening in the three decades since.

The presentations created a fascinating mix of scientific analysis, eye-witness narrations and Archive footage that not only had illustrative effect, but was embedded as key element in multimedia historic storytelling. This aspect was further emphasized by case-studies of current examples of multimedia interactive web-documentaries using historic audiovisual material as important element for crossmedia storytelling.

You can check the full programme of the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Seminar here.