Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses practices of reenactment, recreation, and simulation. It provides the various practices involved in ‘reenactment’ where popular TV formats and social media encounters with ‘old’ technologies demonstrate the widespread appeal of the hands on exploration of the past. The book considers a vivid account of the development of a Media Archaeology Lab within the institutional context of University of Colorado at Boulder. It describes the Dead Media Streaming Service, which revives disused video formats to reproduce their specific ‘aura’ through a film streaming service. The book discusses the citizen curation of memories of a TV work culture, working up material and reminiscences volunteered through a Facebook group into a more substantial history of the BBC’s -demolished Pebble Mill studios. Media archaeology focuses on what could have been as well as what was.