[csaa-forum] CFP - Broadcasting in the 1950s

[Lelia GREEN]

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 (broadcast at aber.ac.uk<mailto: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 (jsm at aber.ac.uk<mailto:jsm at aber.ac.uk>) or Dr Hugh Chignell, Bournemouth University (hchignel at bournemouth.ac.uk<mailto:hchignel at bournemouth.ac.uk>).

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