Members of the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission participated in the international symposium “Comparative approaches to assessing the role, reach and impact of television archives”, organised by Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of São Paulo.

The symposium brought together perspectives on access, collaboration, dissemination, and impact in relation to television archives, through a series of round tables addressing institutional television archives and questions of access and collaboration; written and oral history archives for television; practices of discovering and scavenging archives; the reimagining of archives; and transnational approaches to researching television archives.

Dana Mustata, MSC Chair, addressed the ethics and practice of fair research access to institutional broadcast archives, focusing on how clearer articulations of access can support collaboration between archives and academics and shape archive-based knowledge production, drawing on experiences within the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission.

Arthur Hénaff, MSC member, reflected on the challenges of disseminating television archives in a rapidly evolving media landscape. His contribution explored questions of relevance, audience engagement, and social impact, presenting INA’s approach as a heritage-based public service media institution and highlighting the role of audiences and stakeholders in shaping and disseminating knowledge about audiovisual collections.