[Commlist] Call for Papers - FIAT/IFTA Media Study Grants 2020

Call for Papers for:

FIAT/IFTA Media Study Grants

Proposal Deadline:  March 15,  2020

(FIAT/IFTA World Conference in Dublin, 26-29 October 2020)



The Media Studies Commission of the International Federation of 
Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) is dedicated to fostering collaboration 
between research and archive communities and mediating the growth of 
scholarly expertise that adds value to audiovisual archives by means of 
innovative research. To this purpose, the Media Studies Commission has 
set up the Media Studies Grant as a way to promote and ensure the 
valorization of academic knowledge for archival practice. It is a 
programme that offers support for research carried out at FIAT/IFTA 
member archives or is of direct relevance to one or more of our member 
archives. Priority is given to projects that are relevant for the 
history of member archive institutions, or promise innovative insights 
into (digital) media historiography or archival practice in general.
2020 Call for Projects

In 2020, FIAT/IFTA’s Media Studies Commission is looking to commission 
research that adds value to and helps us understand the role of 
audiovisual archives in a shifting, converging media environment.
Digitization and digital tools enable novel ways of doing and telling 
media histories. With it, new possibilities for working with archival 
material and data in academic research open up. At the same time, new 
tools for discovery, annotation, visualization now span the 
possibilities of analyzing cultural heritage with a ‘long data’ and 
distant reading perspective We welcome studies addressing (but not 
necessarily limited to) the following areas:

1) Tools and (digital) methods: Producing new narratives in media 
history by means of digital tools and experimental methods of research 
and displaying different ways of doing (digital) media history as a way 
to redefine the value of historical archival content.

2) Storytelling: Highlighting new and interactive forms of storytelling 
that help revisit media history practices in the digital age.
3) Archives as (big) data: Reconceptualizing archives as (big) data to 
help us tap into unexplored narratives of media history. Reframing the 
historical and public value of audiovisual archives with  mining and 
visualization tools.
4) Archival access in the digital age: Renewing strategies and practices 
for making archives accessible through different digital spaces, 
including social media and mobile apps. Addressing archival access 
strategies in an international context or working with datasets1 from 
different archives.
5) Users and use practices: Revisiting approaches for researching users 
and user practices in relation to digital archives.

Awarded candidated are expected to deliver by the end of their grant period:
• A written report of their research at the quality standards of a 
scholarly article.
• An audiovisual essay, an interactive digital story or a creative demo 
(depending on the nature of the proposed project). Please make sure 
there are no copyright restrictions for the archival material you may 
want to re-use in this type of output. 2

All output needs to mention the support of FIAT/IFTA. Successful 
candidates are required to present their research results at the 
FIAT/IFTA World Conference in Dublin, 26-29 October 2020.
Objectives
The Media Studies Grant makes available a maximum of €7000 for original 
and innovative projects that aim to:

● help us understand the role of audiovisual archives in a digital 
environment.
● unearth new narratives of media history.
● collect, disseminate and engage with historical sources that 
complement existing archive collections.
● conceptualize new ways of doing media history in the digital age.
● experiment with innovative methods of researching (digital) archives.
● valorize and disseminate knowledge of archive collections by means of 
interactive publications, multi-media presentations, digital 
applications and other creative demos.
● Produce open-source softwares aimed at a better understanding and 
exploitation of audiovisual archives.
● Release open-data corpora that would contribute to help further media 
studies.

Any questions? Please contact our commission members! For questions 
pertaining to access, archival collections and datasets made available 
for reasearch by different archival institutions, you may contact our 
following members:

Herbert Hayduck (ORF, Austria): mailto:(archiv /at/ orf.at)
Claude Mussou (INA, France): mailto:(cmussou /at/ ina.fr) Silvia Proscia (RAI, 
Italy): mailto:(silvia.proscia /at/ rai.it) Masaya Maéda (NHK, Japan): 
mailto:(maeda.m-is /at/ nhk.or.jp) Daniela Floris (RAI, Italy): 
mailto:(daniela.floris /at/ rai.it) David Doukhan (INA, France): 
mailto:(ddoukhan /at/ ina.fr) Virginia Bazán Gil (RTVE, Spain): 
mailto:(virginia.bazan /at/ rtve.es) Lisa Kerrigan (BFI, UK): 
mailto:(Lisa.Kerrigan /at/ bfi.org.uk) Bas Agterberg (Netherlands Institute for 
Sound and Vision, NL): mailto:(bagterberg /at/ beeldengeluid.nl) Liam Wylie 
(RTÉ, Ireland): mailto:(Liam.Wylie /at/ rte.ie)
Questions pertaining to academic research can be addressed to:
Dana Mustata, University of Groningen, mailto:(D.Mustata /at/ rug.nl) Andy 
O’Dwyer, University of Luxembourg,  mailto:(andy.odwyer /at/ uni.lu)

Requirements

● Candidates are required to send in their application in PDF format by 
15 March 2020. ● Applications should be emailed to: Herbert Hayduck, 
mailto:(archiv /at/ orf.at)
● Candidates are required to present their findings at the FIAT/IFTA 
World Conference and deliever all output as agreed upon in the funding 
agreemenent between FIAT/IFTA and the candidate. ● All results, 
publications and presentations derived from the study should mention the 
support of FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission and should be made 
available to FIAT/IFTA.
● FIAT/IFTA reserves the right to make accessible the output of funded 
studies on its own website.
● Proposed studies can be part of a bigger project (e.g. master thesis, 
PhD dissertation, book project, etc.) or can be stand-alone research 
initiatives that the candidate wishes to pursue.

Budget
Applicants can ask for a budget of €2500 up to a maximum of €7000 to 
support their travel and accommodation costs for the purpose of the 
proposed study, including travel to FIAT/IFTA-event (see below under 
“output”).

Researchers affiliated to a research institution who also have teaching 
responsibilities can use (part of) the allocated budget to buy 
themselves the research time needed for the proposed study. In this 
case, they should specify the research time that will be charged on the 
budget.
Senior researchers may use (parts of) the budget to hire interns or 
student assistants to assist with tasks on the project (e.g, corpus 
annotation). When third-party personnel is hired on the project, the 
senior researcher remains in charge of the project and is resonsibible 
for the final output.

Eligibility
We encourage master and PhD students as well as researchers affiliated 
to a university to apply for a Media Studies Grant with FIAT/IFTA Media 
Studies Commission.

Master and PhD students applying for a Study Grant need to send in 
together with their application a letter from their thesis supervisor 
showing support for the proposed study.

Awarded studies must be affiliated to a FIAT/IFTA member archive, either 
by exploring their collection or datasets for research purposes and/or 
carrying out research that is of direct relevance to a member archive 
institution.
Applicants should provide a support letter from FIAT/IFTA member‘s 
representative providing the collections which will be used in the study.
How to apply:
Applicants must send in an application for a Media Studies Grant. The 
applications should not exceed a maximum of 1000 words and need to 
include a:

Project description. This should outline the rationale of the project, 
the main research question(s), a description of the topic being 
researched, indication of the archival material or dataset to be studied 
and an explanation of the relevance of the proposed study for the 
research as well as archive communities. In case the project is part of 
a larger project, the candidate needs to specify how the proposed study 
contributes to the overall project.

Output. Candidates should specify the output resulting from the proposed 
study, including publications, presentations, software development, 
corpora annotation, and any other forms of knowledge utilization (e.g. 
virtual exhibitions, video essays, interactive storytelling applications 
etc.). At the end of their study, successful candidates are required to 
present their findings at a FIAT/IFTA public event to be agreed between 
the Media Studies Commission and the successful candidate and send in a 
written report outlining the research they’ve conducted and the main 
findings of their research. This report will be made available on the 
FIAT/IFTA website.

Workplan. Applicants should detail as much as possible all the research 
activities they plan to carry out as part of the proposed study and the 
time allocated for each of these activities. Please be aware that the 
Media Studies Grant only supports small-scale projects of 3-5 months.

Budget. Travel, accommodation and secondment costs can be covered by the 
Media Studies Grant. The budget can also be used for funding short-term 
internships, archive annotation campaigns, or paying for 
transport/accomodation fees required for the interactions with the FIAT 
archive member. For experimental projects, minimal technical costs may 
be eligible. In any technical costs are involved, we encourage the 
applicant to make contact with the Media Studies Commission before 
submitting their application, to ensure that the costs can be covered by 
the grant. Applicants should detail how the budget will be used. In case 
the proposed study is part of a bigger project, the applicant should 
specify any additional funding he/she may have received. Researchers 
asking for a secondment grant, should specify how their allocation of 
teaching and research time is divided and how much research time they 
wish to allocate to the proposed study and charge on the budget. Senior 
researchers hiring interns or student assistants to assist with the 
project, need to provide a statement with the number of hours and the 
budget allocated to the hired personnel.
Communication and dissemination activities. Applicants should present a 
communication and dissemination plan of how they intend to publicize and 
make available the findings of their study for the research and archive 
communities.
Applications should be sent in PDF format by 15 March 2020 to Herbert 
Hayduck at: mailto:archiv@orf.atmailto:(archiv /at/ orf.at)

All applications will be assessed internally by the members of the Media 
Studies Commission. Selected candidates are expected to present their 
study at the International FIAT/IFTA World Conference in Dublin.



More about the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA)
FIAT/IFTA provides a forum for exchange of knowledge and experience 
between its members, to promote the study of any topic relevant to the 
development and use of audiovisual archives and to establish 
international standards on key issues regarding all aspects of 
audiovisual media archive management. Within FIAT/IFTA, the Media 
Studies Commission promotes academic research that promotes knowledge, 
understanding and research of holdings of member audiovisual archives.


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