Media Workshop
Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:32:00 BST
Staff in Journalism and Media held a one-day Workshop in September where they presented papers on a wide range of media. There were sessions on broadcasting, on printed media and on media and history.
Martin Cooper and Christine Verguson both worked at the BBC in their pre-Huddersfield University days and their papers had a common theme — BBC radio and Yorkshire.
Christine Verguson looked at the BBC North Region’s Radio Drama Unit established in Leeds. In the 1960s the BBC Director General referred to it as ‘probably the single most exciting creative studio in BBC radio’.
Martin Cooper looked at the way listening to the wireless is presented in Winifred Holtby’s novel, titled and set in the fictional ‘South’ Riding of Yorkshire.
The morning concluded with a session on printed media — Mercy Ette on the Nigerian press and Keith Butterick on business and financial journalism and churnalism.
In the afternoon attention moved briefly to London in Alistair Billam’s paper on the 1947 film It Always Rains on Sunday set in the East End — reviewed at the time as ‘unsavoury’, but now seen as ahead of its time.
Then we were back in Yorkshire to look at local heritage. Rob Light and Jayne Dowle talked about their work in the Sound, Craft, Vision, Place project which aims to support and inspire local groups to explore heritage working in collaboration with organisations like the National Coal Mining Museum, Experience Barnsley and the West Yorkshire Archive Service.
The final session was a report-back from Bruce Hanlin on an HEA seminar he’d attended on the transition from A-level to Undergraduate level in Media Studies. The day ended with agreement that the Workshop should become an annual event.
