Breaking Boundaries in Television Historiography: Historical Research
and the Television Archive
A one-day symposium organised under the auspices of the Centre for Television
Drama Studies, University of Reading, 9th January 2004
Breaking Boundaries in Television Historiography: Historical Research and the
Television Archive is the second in a series of symposia on the subject of television
history to be held at the University of Reading in 2003-2004. The focus of this event
will be on bringing together archivists, librarians, historians, and scholars of television
history. The symposium will offer an opportunity for the interrogation of
historiography and research methodologies in the field of television history, as well as
offering the academic community a clearer view of the aims and objectives of various
archives and institutions. It is therefore hoped that this symposium will not only be of
great value to researchers working in the field (particularly postgraduate students within
the field of Television Studies), but that it will promote stronger links between
academic researchers of British television history and those people and institutions
currently providing access to research materials.
Symposium Timetable (N.B. times/speakers/events may change)
10-10.20
Registration
10.20-11.50 – Session 1: Out of the Archives: Curating Television
Steve Bryant (BFI Keeper of Television)
Jacqueline Kavanagh (Head of BBC Written Archives)
Murray Weston (Head of BUFVC) & Luke McKernan (Head of Information,
BUFVC)
11-50-12 – Mark Duguid (BFI) – Introducing Screen Online
Myra McCulloch Theatre, Chair: Helen Wheatley
12-1 - Lunch: Studio One
1-2.15
Panel 1a – Questions of nationality in television historiography
Juan Carlos Ibáñez & Carmen Ciller (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), To make a
historiography of television in Spain: the breaking-off of the prevailing paradigm
Desmet Lieve (University of Gent), Breaking national boundaries and perspectives in
historical television programme research: credits of newscasts in the fifties
Tom O’Malley (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), The ‘national’ question and the
historiography of Welsh television
Myra McCulloch Theatre
Panel 1b – The historiography of news
Gwendolina Bouvier (University of Wales, Cardiff), Short term history: Archive
research into recent broadcast materials
Andrew Hoskins (University of Wales, Swansea), (Un)forgotten war: Television
templates and history
Máire Messenger-Davies (University of Wales, Cardiff), Final edition: An account of
Channel 4’s schools news programme, First Edition, drawing on the programme’s
archive
Lecture Theatre
Panel 1c – Reading texts, researching institutions
Su Holmes (University of Southampton), ‘A friendly style of presentation which the
BBC has always found elusive’: The 1950s cinema programme and the construction of
British television history
Anthony McNicholas (University of Westminster), Wrenching the machine around:
Eastenders, the BBC and institutional change
Wendy Phillips (University of Westminster), Towards an integrated approach to
television: sitcom as case study
Studio 2
2.30-3.30
Panel 2a – Putting television history on the syllabus
Lez Cooke (Manchester Metropolitan University), Researching British Television
Drama: A History
John Corner (University of Liverpool), Adding a bit of history: context, fact and value
in the TV studies syllabus
Myra McCulloch Theatre
Panel 2b – Researching television which isn’t there
Emma Sandon (Birkbeck College), Memories of television production: the usefulness
of oral history methodologies for a reassessment of the early period of the BBC
television service at Alexandra Palace
Jamie Medhurst (University of Wales, Aberystwyth). Piecing together ‘Mammon’s
television’: A case study in historical television research
3.30-4.15 – Afternoon Tea
4.15-5.45
Panel 3a – Cultural history, television history
Tim O’Sullivan (De Montfort University), Researching the viewing culture: Television
and the home 1945-60
Janet Thumim (University of Bristol), Anxiety, Change and Early Television
Darrell Newton (Salisbury University), The 1950s, BBC Television and Social Impact
Panel 3b – Historicising the television event
Stephanie Marriott (University of Stirling), JFK, 9/11 and the narration of the
catastrophic
Henrik Ornebring (University of Leicester), Writing the history of television audiences:
the case of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953
Paddy Scannell (University of Westminster), Television historiography and historicality
5.45-7 – Drinks/informal discussion
This symposium is one of several day-long events being held by the Centre for
Television Drama Studies in 2003/2004. The next symposium will be Producing
Generic Television Drama (a series of ‘in conversation’ panels, in which media
practitioners who created generic television drama in the 1960s and 70s discuss their
work, to be held in May 2004).