Communication: Images and Video

Online resources for research in communication

Video

AdViews
A digital archive of thousands of television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s. A project of the Duke University Library. Requires iTunes for viewing video.

American History in Video
Coverage of historical events through documentaries, commercial and government newsreels, and archival and public affairs footage. When finished will include 1200 titles, 2000 hours of video.
American Memory
Library of Congress digital library of primary source and archival material relating to American culture and history: print, manuscripts, photographs, moving pictures and recorded sound. More than 150 collections and growing.
British Pathe
Pathé News was a producer of newsreels, cinemagazines, and documentaries from 1910 until 1976 in the United Kingdom. The Pathé News archive is known today as "British Pathé". Its collection of news film and movies includes 3,500 hours of filmed history!
C-SPAN Video Library
Broadcasts of various federal government events such as press conferences, bill signing ceremonies, political meetings, congressional hearings and debates. 160,000 hours of programming since 1987. Also links to Booknotes and Book TV
Cinemocracy
Films commissioned by the U.S. Government to support the war effort during World War II: by John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, and Frank Capra's 8-part series Why We Fight. Downloadable MPG files.
Deep Dish TV: Video Archive
Began in the late 1980s as a network, linking independent producers, programmers, community-based activists and viewers who support movements for social change and economic justice. Nearly 200 older documentaries available from the Internet Archive

Ethnographic Video Online: Festivals and Archives
This collection provides a space for visual anthropologists of today to showcase and disseminate their most compelling work. With a focus on curating award-winning titles from contemporary ethnographic film festivals, this content will capture students’ attention by connecting them with topics familiar to their own time and place.
Ethnographic Video Online: Foundational Films
Database of anthropological documentary films, covering every region of the world, featuring the work of many influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century. Includes transcripts, interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, study guides, etc. As of August 2015, has 1,844 videos (1,319 hours). Individual films are also cataloged in UC Library Search - as "Alexander Street Press. Ethnographic online videos"
Ethnographic Video Online: Indigenous Voices
The role of the traditional ethnographer is changing as the perspectives and epistemologies of indigenous peoples have taken on central significance in the discipline, challenging earlier representations and implicit “us versus them” constructs. In order to create a platform for indigenous voices to address issues from indigenous perspectives, we have dedicated the third volume of the ethnographic film series to indigenous filmmakers.

Internet Archive: Moving Image
Movies from the Prelinger Archive showing American everyday life, culture, industry, and institutions in the 20thC. Downloadable MPEG-2
Living Room Candidate
See video of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2008. More than 300 digitized commercials are presented, along with analysis, historical background, and results from each election.
PBS Video
Browse archives for episodes by PBS program or by topics such as culture and science. American Experience, Frontline, Nova, Great Performances, Masterpiece, Julia Child, much more
Vanderbilt Television News Archive
1968-present. Browse or search summaries of evening network news programs for ABC, CBS and NBC from 1968, CNN from 1995, Fox News from 2004. Includes commercials as well as news items. Streaming video for CNN and NBC only.
World History in Video
Will include streaming video of more than 1750 documentaries covering all eras of human history: Africa and the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania. Complements American History in Video
Public Domain Image
It's a digital vault of 80,000 video clips, photos, sound recordings, and 3-D models, all embeddable and freely available to anyone who wants to reuse copyright-free media. They're impeccably organized, labeled, and tagged, so you can find just the type of clip or image you're looking for.
American Archive Of Public Broadcasting
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress, WGBH Boston and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides the public with access to a collection of American public radio and television audio and visual materials dating back to the 1950s. The records will provide information about which public media video and audio materials have been digitized and preserved in the AAPB, indicate which video and audio files are available for research on location at WGBH and the Library of Congress, and highlight the participating stations. Contributing stations’ histories, information about significant productions and resources for participating organizations will be available online.

Kanopy
The videos come from leading producers such as the BBC, California Newsreel, Criterion Collection, First Run Features, Kino Lorber and PBS, with more content added each year. Many of the films are from independent and specialty producers, with a focus on documentary films.