Paper Short Abstract:

In the second half of the 20th century, women were only marginally represented in folk music programmes on Swiss television. The search for female traces in the archives of Swiss television aims to give women a voice and put an end to their silencing.

Paper Abstract:

Swiss television (SRF) is approaching its 100th anniversary. Since 1939, Swiss television has been broadcasting an increasingly varied programme to the Swiss population, first sporadically and then regularly from 1958. From the very beginning, the main target group was considered to be families – and therefore women as well. Early in SRF's broadcasting history, a folkloristic programme was established that stylised a mix of music, folklore and landscape into an ideal of "Heimat". Although women made up a significant proportion of the Swiss population – and thus of the audience – as well as of the idealised, family- and tradition-oriented image of "Heimat", they were marginalised in the programmes.

The aim of this lecture is to locate and make visible the women in the archive who have made a significant contribution to the programmes. The specific practices, experiences, and ideas of women about their lives and activities will be presented. The conditions and possibilities for a career in television (behind and on screen) will be explored. And, in the sense of an unwriting of the television archive, the proposed lecture aims to trace the mechanisms that made women invisible – both within the television company and on television itself. By starting to write the unwritten female stories in the archives of Swiss television, using folk music programmes from the second half of the 20th century as an example, women are to be given a voice and their silence ended.