CALL FOR PAPERS
Broadcasting in the 1950s
University of Wales Study Centre, Gregynog, Newtown, Mid Wales
20-22 July 2011
The AHRC-funded Research Network ('British quality, American chaos?
Trans-national
discourses and interactions in the history of British and North
American broadcasting, c.1922-1962) in collaboration with the Centre
for Media History at Aberystwyth University invites abstracts for
papers for an international conference on broadcasting in the 1950s.
By the 1950s radio was a well-established medium. During the 1950s
television arrived to challenge the supremacy of radio and pose a
threat to the press and to cinema. Across the world, and in
particular in Europe and the USA, television was understood as a
major new social, cultural and political phenomenon. It became
implicated in a range of debates about social and cultural change,
an as a set of institutions devised new ways of interacting with the
societies in which it was engaged. The 1950s then were a crucial
moment in the development of mass communications and one in which
television played a major part. The relationship between different
forms of broadcasting, and broadcasting and society in these seminal
years is the focus of this conference which will seek to encourage
analysis of the relationship between broadcasting and social change over time.
Whilst we welcome papers on any aspect of broadcasting in what we
define as the 'long 1950s' (from c.1945 to c.1962), we are
particularly interested in receiving abstracts which fall within the
broad themes of the research network: transatlantic interactions,
quality, national identities. Other papers may wish to cover topics
such as broadcasting and social change, broadcasting and class, the
relationship between radio and television in the 1950s.
Abstracts (1000 words) for papers of around 25 minutes should be
sent to the Network Administartor, Rhys Fowler
(<mailto:(broadcast /at/ aber.ac.uk)>(broadcast /at/ aber.ac.uk)), no later than
Friday 4 February 2011. Enquiries regarding the conference should be
addressed to Dr Jamie Medhurst, Aberystwyth University
(<mailto:(jsm /at/ aber.ac.uk)>(jsm /at/ aber.ac.uk)) or Dr Hugh Chignell,
Bournemouth University
(<mailto:(hchignel /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)>(hchignel /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)).
