Digital Archives in Europe: The Case of Italy

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of digital television archives in preserving and shaping media memory, focusing on Italy’s Rai Teche. It addresses how digital archives influence collective and national identity through content selection, structuring, and accessibility. A comparative analysis with other European public broadcasters (BBC, INA, ZDF) highlights the Italian model’s strengths and limitations. Using web scraping, we extracted and analyzed metadata from Rai Teche’s catalog, focusing on fiction, variety, theater, health, and quiz shows. The findings reveal significant metadata gaps and inconsistencies, as well as curatorial emphasis on historical content under-representing contemporary genres like news. This study concludes that Rai Teche is a valuable cultural archive, but its interface and editorial choices limit accessibility. Recommendations include enhancing metadata, expanding genre representation, and improving user experience to align with European standards and democratize media memory.