Tele-Archives and OTT Platforms between National Recollection and Algorithmic Memory. A Comparison of Three European Models: RaiPlay, RTVE Play, and INA Madelen

Archives can be understood as specific spaces where, through the processes of assembly, preservation, and design, future worlds can be shaped (Harrison, 2021). This practice of “future-making” now finds both anally and a potential danger in the medium itself: digital media platforms can no longer be viewed merely as multi-hour libraries of audiovisual content, but rather as complex ecosystems that play a pivotal role inshaping new structures for recollecting and sharing the past, thus producing a novel ecology of remembering and forgetting. This study will focus on three European Tele-Archives and OTT platforms: RaiPlay (Italy), the INA Madelen, developed by the INA Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (France), and RTVE Play (Spain). The aim is to question how the structure and dynamics of these platforms affect the creation of a shared public memory, and the role of public archives as agents of historical knowledge. How do the processes of platformization (Nieborg and Poell, 2021) impact the interface and the ways in which archival content is made accessible? Is it possible to envisage a new taxonomy alongside traditional archival categories? And what new forms of temporality emerge? A key issue concerns the alleged non-neutrality of these platforms in deciding what should be consigned to oblivion and what should be preserved, in how audiovisual archives are accessed, and in how they contribute to the construction of a certain narrative of the past. This article will examine the selection criteria, use, and public accessibility of Tele-Archives through an OTT platform, by comparing 3 countries’ models and exploring best practices, limitations, and the potential risks. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate the role of institutional Tele-Archives in different European countries, assessing their ability to bring forth a collective cultural memory and to transform themselves into authentic virtual identity spaces, i.e., as “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1983).