Berber Hagedoorn

The Past in Visual Culture: Essays on Memory, Nostalgia and the Media

Both private and public radio broadcasting claimed to offer programs which were for the entertainment and benefit of their audiences. Kuffert found that private radio stations concerned themselves with commercial success and their own ideas about what their audiences wanted, while the CBC was often too nationalistic, despite its profession of diversity. This is a seminal work in the study of the culture of radio. Kuffert’s vast research into many untapped sources has produced a book that is meticulously documented, well-written, and completely engaging. Indeed, his conclusion ties neatly together all of the strands of thought into a fine reflection upon his academic journey to define and identify Canadian national culture as revealed through its early radio history. Kuffert has successfully opened up the door to future research in this arena for the next generation of scholars. This outstanding contribution to media scholarship is highly recommended to both academic and general readers interested in Canadian radio history and culture.

De poëtica van het verbeelden van geschiedenis op broadcast televisie

In modern society, television is one of the most important media for presenting the past. This article focuses on the poetics of history on television broadcasts in relation to the manner in which these broadcasts present our past as well as our collective memory. This study rebuts criticism of television as a medium for historical accounts by demonstrating how professionals in the field actively display an extensive knowledge and understanding of the past, provide frameworks for the contextualization of audiovisual materials and depth, and apply and operate specific functions of different representation tools in their productions. To gain insight into the way television producers interact with history, this study combines qualitative textual analysis of the broadcasts and an approach from the field of production studies: diverse in-depth interviews and analysis of internal documents. The case study chosen for this research was Andere Tijden, a history program based on archive material and produced by NTR (formerly known as NPS) and VPRO for the Dutch Broadcast Foundation, from 2000 onwards. The case study demonstrates how television producers’ mediation of history is an important practice in the search for history and memories and the conservation and presentation thereof. The analysis reveals the possibility of more cohesive poetics with regard to history on broadcast television and offers insight into the objectives, strategies and conventions of television producers. Special attention is paid to the more implicit practices of selection and interpretation of material by television producers as curators of the past. These implicit practices are made explicit on a cultural-historical, institutional and textual level.

Collective Cultural Memory as a TV Guide: ‘Living’ History and Nostalgia on the Digital Television Platform

Abstract Modern audiences engage with representations of the past in a particular way via the medium of television, negotiating a shared understanding of the past. This is evidenced by the increasing popularity of reboots, newly developed history and documentary programming, re-use of archival footage and nostalgia content. This article takes a closer look at television’s abilities to circulate and contextualize the past in the current era of convergence through narrowcasting or niche programming on digital television platforms, specifically via nostalgia programming. Such platforms exemplify the multifaceted way of looking at and gaining access to television programming through a variety of connected platforms and screens in the current multi-platform era. Since the way in which television professionals (producers, schedulers, commissioners, researchers) act as moderators in this process needs to be further analysed, the article places an emphasis on how meaningful connections via previously broadcast history and nostalgia programming are also curated, principally through scheduling and production practices for niche programming – key elements in television’s creative process that have received less academic attention. Furthermore, the article discusses to what extent media policy in the Netherlands is attuned to the (re-)circulation of previously broadcast content and programming about past events, and reflects on television’s possibilities for “re-screening” references to the past in the contemporary media landscape. The analysis is based on a combination of textual analysis of audio-visual archival content and a production studies approach of interviews with key professionals, to gain insight into the creators’ strategies in relation to nostalgia programming and scheduling. Subsequently, the article demonstrates how national collective memory, as understood by television professionals in the Netherlands, informs the scheduling and circulation of “living history” on the digital thematic channel – collective cultural memory hence functioning as a TV guide.

Gedeelde tekstuele autoriteit in de found footage documentaire

Onder found footage wordt in brede zin verstaan: ieder gebruik van eerdergemaakt materiaal. Hierbij kan gedacht worden aan eerder opgenomen film-, video-, foto- en/of audio materiaal, bijvoorbeeld amateurfilmpjes, familiefoto’s, archiefbeelden en outtakes. In een found footage documentaire wordt dergelijk ‘gevonden’ materiaal door een andere filmmaker op een nieuwe wijze gebruikt.