Digital Media Archaeology

In this article, we will contribute to a methodological discussion in the Digital Humanities by uncovering the digital tool AVResearcherXL as a form of Digital Media Archaeology. AVResearcherXL enables to search across, compare and visualise the metadata of Dutch television and radio programmes and a selection of newspaper articles of the Dutch Royal Library. Media archaeology provides a fruitful framework to reflect on the tool as method for Television History Research. First, the tool in itself functions as a new way of media archaeology. The tool, as it is, is double-sided and enables comparison, shedding an unusual, data-driven light on the television, radio and newspaper archives by providing different 'slices of' and 'search lights on' the metadata, thus contributing to a 'variantology of the media.' At the same time, we approach our own reflection on the tool as a form of media archaeology: we will uncover the tool, digging in its architecture and its functionalities, and offer an approach to a meaningful use of the tool. In other words, this very article is a form of ‘doing media archaeology’, in the sense of becoming 'an active archaeologist of knowledge'. Digital media archaeology, therefore, is always two-fold and a matter of interaction of user and tool. In this article, we first dissect the tool as archaeological site, before exploring its usage. Taken together, the article provides methodological strategies to cope with a digital tool such as AVResearcherXL and thus aims to further enhance an understanding of Digital Media Archaeology as an opening to media historical inquiry.