Media Studies Grant 2026

Media Studies Commissions Media Studies Grant News

August 11, 2026

Media Studies Commission, Media Studies Grant

Finds from the archives

The FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission has selected two outstanding small-scale research projects for the 2026 edition of the Media Studies Grant. The grant aims to promote archive-based research and ensure the valorization of scientific knowledge for archival practice.

Dr. Pablo Piedras – Images Before Disappearance. Camera Rushes from Canal 9 News and the Archival Documentation of Argentina’s Disappeared (1972–1983)
Dr. Leilane Menezes Rodrigues – Our TV, Our Memory: Recovering the Lost Archive of ‘TV da Gente’ and its Significance for Black Representation in Brazilian Media

Finds from the Archives

Images Before Disappearance. Camera Rushes from Canal 9 News and the Archival Documentation of Argentina’s Disappeared (1972–1983)

By Dr. Pablo Piedras (Universidad de Buenos Aires and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas)

We are currently in the final stage of digitizing the materials. We have reviewed, cleaned, and prepared 25 film cans of news footage that we initially believed might contain images of people who were detained and forcibly disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976–1983).

So far, we have made three significant discoveries and have been able to return previously unknown footage to two families and one labor union, concerning three trade unionists and political activists who were forcibly disappeared. We have also filmed in-depth interviews with relatives of the identified victims and with members of the labor union connected to one of them. In these interviews, they reflected on the importance of recovering these images—and, in some cases, sounds—for both family and historical memory.

At the same time, we continue to review the digitized materials and compare the people appearing in the footage with photographs held in other archives in an effort to identify additional victims of forced disappearance. One of our most important discoveries consists of footage of the trial of three alleged “extremists” (to use the terminology of the period), whom we now know were subsequently abducted and forcibly disappeared. So far, we have not been able to locate their relatives or other people close to them, but we are actively pursuing this search and hope to have further developments in the near future.

Our TV, Our Memory: Recovering the Lost Archive of ‘TV da Gente’ and its Significance for Black Representation in Brazilian Media

By Dr. Leilane Menezes Rodrigues (Suffolk University)

Current Stage of Research

We have concluded the five interviews with key members of TV da Gente and are currently organizing the recovered archival materials into a structured Google Drive folder, which will eventually become a publicly accessible website. We are now transitioning into the documentary editing phase. Additionally, we are actively investigating the possibility of retrieving any surviving footage from Angola, where the station’s programming was also exhibited, adding a crucial transnational dimension to the project.

Discoveries So Far

Our research successfully located archives from the former production company responsible for the channel’s content, allowing us to recover materials from most of its shows. The archival materials span a broad spectrum of genres, ranging from news segments and culinary programs to talk shows, musical performances, and children’s content. On-air participants and interviewees included lawyers, artists, journalists, and a diverse array of other professionals. The visual archive we are now assembling constitutes a rich and multifaceted record of Blackness — encompassing discourses on fashion, politics, everyday life, and cultural symbols — as articulated by Black Brazilians themselves during this unique opportunity for narrative self-representation. We also discovered that the physical archive is far more fragmented than initially anticipated. This fragmentation makes the oral testimonies indispensable—not only for contextualizing and piecing together the collection but also for reconstructing the channel’s operational and cultural legacy.

Surprising/Unexpected Findings

Evidence and testimonies confirm that TV da Gente achieved greater on-screen diversity than any contemporary broadcaster, forging its own model of representation to counter the dominant narrative of Brazil as a predominantly white nation — exposing, in the process, the country’s deeply pluralistic reality. As researcher Tiago Vinícius observes in his interview for the documentary, “The Brazilian media system is the continuation of a historical whitening project… TV da Gente represents a rupture; it is practically a miracle that a Black person obtained a TV concession in Brazil.” The findings reinforce that public broadcasting concessions—a collective public good—have historically been concentrated among a few white families, making TV da Gente’s very existence a profound political and historical benchmark. Finally, its Afro-diasporic partnership with Angola, which we did not initially anticipate, reinforces the channel’s role as a truly transnational virtual quilombo.