The Journal of European Television History and Culture has been launched today: http://journal.euscreen.eu. The Journal builds on recent digitisation initiatives in European archives and audiovisual libraries. It addresses the need for critical study of the cultural, social and political role of television in Europe’s past and present with the help of television material that is increasingly becoming available online, via initiatives such as the EUscreen project.

The aim of the new e-journal is to provide an international platform for outstanding research and reflection on television as an important part of our European cultural heritage.

The first issue focuses on Making Sense of Digital Sources and includes contributions on the commercial uses of archive footage on Italian Public Services Television, archives of Romanian Television and Andy O‘Dwyer on recent work to digitise the British Radio Times.

Professor Sonja de Leeuw of Utrecht University and editor-in-chief of the Journal says: “The Journal has the ambition to speak to both the academic and the professional community; it will address a larger audience interested in television as a cultural phenomenon including Broadcast historians, media studies scholars, audiovisual archivists and television professionals, as well as the large group of enthusiastic fans of “old” television.”

The Journal is the result of a collaboration between the Universities of Utrecht and Maastricht and Royal Holloway, University of London, in association with the EUscreen project and the European Television History Network (ETHN). The Journal will be published by Utrecht University Library (Igitur Publishing) and will be continued with funding from the Dutch National Research Board.

It has been created using the open access publishing platform Open Journal Systems. The second issue will focus on Europe on and Behind the Screens and is due for release in September 2012.

For events information and updates on the EUscreen project, visit http://blog.euscreen.eu.