Research Guides: HIST 468: Recent American History: Broadcast and Social Media

Traditional Broadcast Media

Traditional broadcast media (radio and television), along with the emerging proliferation of social media platforms, offer additional possibilities for documenting protests and other U.S. history developments. There are freely available resources documenting how these platforms have addressed U.S. history and some resources available through Purdue Libraries website. Archiving social media is a new and complicated subject, but this guide will present some possible options for you to use.

Ambrose Video This link opens in a new window
A continually growing collection of 700+ videos, all closed captioned, and spanning many subject areas, from the BBC Shakespeare Plays to Nature's Microworlds and more.
Black Studies Center
Fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies combines three resources: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), and The Chicago Defender. The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience contains the full-text of commissioned essays detailing the Black Experience and other related materials. The IIBP covers scholarly and popular Black Studies journals, including full text for 58 titles. Black Studies also features the full text backfile of the influential black newspaper The Chicago Defender (1935-1975).
C-SPAN Video Library This link opens in a new window
Archive of video content from C-SPAN.
Docuseek2 This link opens in a new window
Exclusive issues-based documentary films focusing on environmental studies and sciences, sociology, anthropology, global studies, area studies, women’s studies, history, political science, criminal justice, health, psychology, the arts, and more, from leading film producers, distributors, and independent filmmakers from around the world.

Full collection of 1800 films is anticipated to be completed in 2020.
Meet the Press This link opens in a new window
Over 1,500 hours of NBC’s weekly news program—the full surviving broadcast run to date—available online in one cross-searchable interface.

Coverage: 1947 to current
Presidential Recordings Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
Annotated transcripts of the White House telephone and meeting tapes published by the Presidential Recordings Program (PRP). Created by a team of scholars and researchers at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, these transcripts are presented alongside the corresponding audio, enabling users to read and listen to these conversations simultaneously.
60 Minutes: 1997-2014 This link opens in a new window
This online collection provides 350 hours of video from 17 years of broadcasts. Each news segment within the collection serves as a standalone short documentary on a specific news topic.

Coverage 1997-2014

YouTube
See John Mellencamp's Rain on the Scarecrow song commenting on family farm problems during the 1980s.

Social Media

Twitter Archive
Download a user's most recent 3,200 tweets in Excel or PDF containing analytics using their user name e.g. @SpeakerPelosi for Nancy Pelosi. $29 fee charged!
"The Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress: Challenges for information practice and information policy"
Article by Michael Zimmer, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"The Library of Congress Will Stop Archiving Twitter"
Smithsonian Magazine article on why Library of Congress will only archive tweets of historical importance.
Truth Social (Donald Trump) Login Required
U.S. Senate Social Media
Visit websites of individual Senators to access their social media platforms.
U.S. House of Representatives Social Media
Visit websites of individual representatives to access their social media platforms.
White House Facebook
Biden Administration