Media archives are information stores for journalistically generated and requested data.
The media archives are archives and information centres maintained by media companies such as radio and television stations, newspaper publishers, picture and news agencies that focus on collecting, archiving, indexing and making available the products of their own company for information or use in new productions. In addition, the press and/or picture archives of other institutions also belong to the media archives.

The media archives are referred to as:

• Film (television, video)
• Sound (recording) archive
• Image (photo) archive
• Press (newspaper, editorial) archives

The media archives are primarily intended to support journalistic work. The focus of its activities is therefore less to be attributed to archival than to documentary tasks.

For data protection and copyright reasons, the media archives are generally only accessible to the public in exceptional cases.