Lebanese television archives

Technological advances in the information and communication industry have changed many other sectors as well. Written, visual or oral, digital information is transmitted instantly, distributed around the world, stored, examined and sold. It thus acquires a commercial value that overlaps with the historical value of the information, which is a part of the collective memory of a country. This paper examines the information archives of Lebanese television stations from a technical and an intellectual point of view and discusses how they treat news and other television programmes and whether television information is considered a commercial product. It is argued that it is evident that an institution concerned with public interest (as opposed to commercial interests) looks after the conservation of the national patrimony and the collective memory, by forming a legal deposit system and respecting the authors' rights. Such an attitude could play a role in the frame of a national information policy.