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Social networks have surpassed their intermediary role and become gatekeepers of online content and traffic. This transformation has favored the spread of information disorders. The situation is especially alarming in Spain, where 57% of Spaniards have at some moment believed false news. Since 2016, First Draft has promoted several collaborative verification projects that brought together newsrooms to fact-check false, misleading and confusing claims circulating online during presidential elections in several countries. The main objective of this article is to study the collaboration forged between newsrooms in Spain in order to debunk disinformation contents in 2019 under the name of Comprobado (Verified) and the impact of this initiative. Applying a methodological approach based on non-participant observation, interviews, content analysis of reports, scientific articles, books and media archives, we examine the internal uses of this platform, how journalists verified public discourse, the strategies and internal agreements implemented, and the degree of participation of the 16 media involved. Results show that only half of the initiatives begun were transformed into published reports, and the media impact achieved was limited. Finally, we note that the principal reasons for the frustration of the project were its improvised implementation, due to the date of the election being brought forward, and the scant culture of collaboration in the sector. In Spain at least, cross-media alliances are still an exception.

There is no denying that television, as a medium and an institution, has drastically changed in the age of digitization and convergence. For audiences, this has not only opened up multiple opportunities to watch television content at other times and on other devices, but also to interact with its cross-media extensions. However, while much has been written about the new opportunities for audience engagement, we do not know much about the actual adoption of new technologies nor the motivations underlying such uses. Therefore, this paper draws on empirical audience research to address the key question: how do viewers engage with contemporary TV fiction? Through empirical audience research, using various qualitative research methods, three different aspects of the reception of cross-media TV fiction will be discussed: (1) how do viewers watch the TV episodes of contemporary TV fiction?, (2) how do viewers engage with the cross-media extensions of TV fiction?, and (3) how do viewers experience the social dimensions of contemporary TV fiction? We focus on a particular group, that of 'engaged' viewers, who are actively involved by personalizing their viewing practices, by communicating about it, by consuming cross-media elements of TV fiction, or producing TV fiction-related content. Our findings suggest that even this group does not make full use of all the available technological opportunities to personalize TV viewing, and that the classical TV text, linear viewing, and the social aspect of viewing remain of key importance.

Professionals in the television industry are working towards a certain future—rather than end—for the medium based on multi-platform storytelling, as well as multiple screens, distribution channels and streaming platforms. They do so rooted in institutional frameworks where traditional conceptualizations of television still persist. In this context, we reflect on the role of the national television archive as an agent of historical knowledge in the convergence era. Contextualisation and infrastructure function as important preconditions for users of archives to find their way through the enormous amounts of audio-visual material. Specifically, we consider the case of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, taking a critical stance towards the archive’s practices of contextualisation and preservation of audio-visual footage in the convergence era. To do so, this article considers the impact of online circulation, contextualisation and preservation of audio-visual materials in relation to, first, how media policy complicates the re-use of material, and second, the archive’s use by television professionals and media researchers. This article reflects on the possibilities for and benefits of systematic archiving, developments in web archiving, and accessibility of production and contextual documentation of public broadcasters in the Netherlands. We do so based on an analysis of internal documentation, best practices of archive-based history programmes and their related cross-media practices, as well as media policy documentation. We consider how audio-visual archives should deal with the shift towards multi-platform productions, and argue for both a more systematic archiving of production and contextual documentation in the Netherlands, and for media researchers who draw upon archival resources to show a greater awareness of an archive’s history. In the digital age, even more people are part of the archive’s processes of selection and aggregation, affecting how the past is preserved through audio-visual images.