User:Zblace/Cultural Broadcasting Archive

The Cultural Broadcasting Archive (CBA) is a collection of audiovisual media produced by civic sector accessible via the Internet and is Austria's largest podcast provider. Podcasters independently make their productions available for listening and downloading, mostly under Creative Commons licenses. The platform also facilitates the international exchange of radio broadcasts.

History
The CBA was developed by Linz-based Radio FRO as an online broadcasting exchange platform and it first went online in 2000. The subsequent involvement of the Verband Freier Rundfunk Österreich (VFRÖ) made it a joint project of all Austrian free radio stations. In 2020, ownership and operation were transferred to a separate, non-profit association. The platform has since been opened to all podcasters. Since 2020, the VFRÖ has operated its own online presence, freie-radios.online, which presents selected content from the CBA.

Since its founding, the platform has developed into a time archive through the broad participation of Austrian radio producers, documenting social, cultural and political events in Austria primarily from a civil society perspective, and mostly from a local or regional perspective. This often involves topics, events or debates that are underrepresented in the media. According to its own statements, the content ranges from programs "of ethnic minorities to women's, media and migration policy, globalization criticism to art, literature, autonomous cultural work or philosophy."

The CBA is a member of the association "MAA - Medien Archive Austria" and a founding member of SDEPS (Shared Digital European Public Spaces).

Principles & Goals

 * non-profit
 * not for profit
 * advertising-free
 * technically and politically independent
 * Promoting political participation and integration
 * Promoting social and media diversity
 * Promoting open access to knowledge. The aim is to make the uploaded material as freely accessible and usable as possible, and to use it for a variety of purposes. By means of a feedback questionnaire at the time of download, it is ascertained annually what the material is used for: In addition to private use and the incorporation of the material into one's own productions, this is primarily the use in teaching and as a research and citation source for theses and dissertations.

Media policy demands
Radio FRO and the active players around the CBA made their mark with the international conferences "free speech camp" (2000), "takeover. connect_systems" (2001), "Collaborative Broadcasting" (2004), "diy databasing!" (2005), "Archivia 12" (2012), "Archivia 14" (2014), "#mediana17" (2017), and "#mediana18" (2018) repeatedly acted as a driving force around the topic of Open Access and Free Archives in Austria and Europe. In the course of these events, several position papers were produced in close cooperation with public and private archives as well as public and non-commercial media, addressing legal and democratic deficits with regard to the public interest in free access to information.

2021, the media policy publication "Building a European Digital Public Space - Strategies for taking back control from Big Tech platforms" was published.

Awards and nominations

 * Nomination for the 2020 "Austrian Prize for Free Knowledge" awarded by Wikimedia Austria.
 * Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2010 in the category Digital Communities

Literature

 * Podcasts: Ein Medium ist erwachsen geworden. Meta Communication International GmbH, 29. January 2019, p. 2
 * Franz Graf, Maria Hofmann-Schneller, Walter Scheidl, Klaus Steiner, Helmut Wohlschlägl: „Durchblick 3“ für Geografie- und Wirtschaftskunde. Westermann, Wien, ISBN 978-3-7034-2319-2, S. 42. p. 42.