Who’s Afraid of the Past: The Role of Archives in Shaping the Future of PSBs

The focus of this paper is on the role of audiovisual archives for PSBs with regards to their function as democratic and inclusive institutions. We discuss the importance of audiovisual archives as integrated parts of PSBs, argue that accessibility of archives is a universal service and as such, a fundamental factor for PSBs to fulfil their democratic functions in the 21st century. We investigate structural, legal and institutional factors that impact on the state of archives using empirical evidence from four archives of PSBs and focus on four key elements of accessibility, namely equality, cross-border access, media literacy and contextualisation, and archives awareness. Our research highlights some of the struggles and contradictions that PSBs find themselves into as a result of pressures and tensions between institutions, the market and the citizens.