Media Archival Studies: Mass Media Preservation and Visibility Research

Josh Shepperd is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is author of Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting (University of Illinois Press), which received the 2024 BEA Book Award and placed as a runner-up or finalist for four other book awards. He is co-writing the official History of Public Broadcasting for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Current, and is the founding Associate Editor of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture (University of California Press). Josh directs the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force and Sound Submissions Project.

“Media Archival Studies: Mass Media Preservation and Visibility Research”

This presentation examines recent movements in media archives and representational visibility advocacy. I argue that media archival research is subject to social pressures that have historically limited diversity and access, along several line such as what we recognize as an appropriate medium of historical memory, who has been allowed to save memory of their experience, and who has held domain over what became historical. However, when historians and archivists take a coalitional approach to preservation and access, the media archive is capable of revivifying, recirculating, and re-presencing a standing reserve of voices that hold the potential to play a role in political mobilization. This talk discusses case studies in radio and television collection stewardship and curation, and how research and preservation are being influenced by emerging pressures in AI policy and Copyright across federal and regulatory discourses.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

University of California, Los Angeles, United States