2023 | 23 | Curation and Appropriation of Digital European Heritage

Browsing 2023 | 23 | Curation and Appropriation of Digital European Heritage by Subject "digital methods"

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  • Article
    The Noise of the News: Spectral Analysis of Early Swedish Television News 1958 – 1978.
    Malmstedt, Johan (2023) , S. 24-37
    Looking back on the very first year of television in Sweden, the head of programming Henrik Hahr celebrated having brought the world into “the living room of the viewer”. From the emergence of Swedish public service television in 1956 and onwards, the medium would be lauded as a window to the world. Yet, what noises came through this window? Shifting focus away from the visual content of television, this article explores and emphasizes the sonic dimensions of early Swedish news broadcasting. In the middle of the 20th century, the look, and the sound of the news were taking shape across television stations around the world. In Sweden, public service broadcasting was partly influenced by the backdrop of the cold war, and demands were formulated on a style of television that would be distinctive from the American and Soviet alternatives. This was a matter of images and audio in equal proportions. Deciding what kind of sound was added to the previously mute newsreels was at the heart of televised journalism. With a media monopoly running two competing news shows, the Swedish case offers insight into the establishment and differentiation of public service television aesthetics in the post-war era. Prior research has investigated the institutions, infrastructures, and ideas which shaped early Swedish television, but the very signals remain unexplored. This article introduces new methods for studying aural aesthetics in audiovisual media. By conducting various types of spectral visualization on recorded television news from 1958 until 1978, this analysis traces the sonic profile of the Swedish public service. The aim is to provide historical knowledge of how the news sounded and which aural experiences were promoted within the realm of the welfare state media monopoly. However, by drawing attention to the prospect of audio signal processing as a method for cultural-historical research, the purpose is also to make a methodological contribution to television studies at large.
  • Article
    We Want Your Tools! Or Do We? On Digitized Cultural Heritage Archives And Commercial Content Identification Tools
    Eriksson, Maria (2023) , S. 96-107
    This article reflects on the technical gap that exists between academic and corporate capacities to study how digitized cultural heritage is reused online. In the context of tracing how audiovisual archival content is remixed and reinserted into new cultural contexts, the article asks what it would mean for humanistic researchers—and cultural heritage institutions more broadly—to utilize content identification tools provided by actors such as Google. How could commercial techniques for policing copyrights and tracing the whereabouts of online content be re-purposed to assist in research concerning remix practices and transformed cultural memories? What technical and legal consequences would such partnerships yield? And would such collaborations be ethical and scientifically defendable in the first place? Ultimately, the article reflects on the legal and technical discrepancies that exist between academic and commercial actors when it comes to monitoring how cultural content moves online. It also asks questions about what it means to care for digitized heritage collections in the 21st century.