Summary: | The writings of the German scholar Wolfgang Ernst have become increasingly influential within media archaeology in recent years. His work adopts a strongly techno-centric approach and identifies archives as important study centres. Paradoxically, practical archival evidence is sometimes lacking within Ernst’s output. This paper uses evidence from a recent television archive project to examine aspects of Ernst’s approach. This exercise sought to uncover source material relating to a Northern Irish current affairs series, Counterpoint (1978-96), which had been badly affected by videotape wiping. Its methodology utilised a strongly materialistic approach to successfully recover ‘lost’ archival artefacts.
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