Log in
The research has mapped an unwritten history of women's television making and viewing in Britain, 1947-1989. By showing how assumptions about gender preferences and the presumed inferior quality of women's programming affected what is produced, broadcast and archived, the research has preserved and made accessible important programmes from Britain's television history. The research has re-presented women's television history by showing that genres not typically considered to be `women's' (e.g. music programmes, sport) were just as important to the identity formation of young women as were dramatic programmes (e.g. Compact) which dealt with working women in the 1960s. The research has brought an increased awareness of a new history of women's television in Britain to media professionals, archivists and the general public, especially women viewers from the period 1947-89.
University of Reading-led research projects on the histories of British post-1955 television drama have had a major impact on television producers, directors, performers and cultural institutions responsible for policy, production and the preservation of television heritage, not only through dissemination of research findings, but also through actively involving them in project interviews, seminars, conferences and contributions to published outputs. Through this collaborative approach, the researchers have influenced the professional development and practice of leading television drama producers, and policy and programmes for the public dissemination of audio-visual heritage, as well as providing specialist advice relating to television copyright and commercial marketing.
Erin Bell's research has had significant impact on the way in which independent television producers have viewed the production of historical programming in the UK and has assisted the European Parliament to consider how the history of Europe is portrayed through the media. Her research, which examines the way in which television versions of history become embedded in public consciousness and looks at why television history is presented as it is, has succeeded in engaging media CEOs and public figures in debating how history is depicted in the media, and has impacted upon independent companies' productions for the future.
Our research on historians, TV history programmes and those who make them, brought together the perspectives of television scholars, academic historians and media industry professionals engaged in bringing history to the small screen. By involving key actors consistently throughout the life of the project, the researchers both challenged and begin to influence the shape of history programming on UK TV. Programme makers responded to the striking gaps in coverage our research identified in relation to class, race and gender. They also took the opportunity afforded by the research to think more widely/imaginatively about how their practices might alter to create different historical coverage on TV. The impact of our research extended beyond the UK as it provided the UK section of a report on televised history in Europe which was presented to the European Parliament in December 2011
Research into the cultural value and potential meanings of archival television has been applied to the development of a new access route to the holdings of European broadcasters, changing their culture and developing new forms of cataloguing, search and discovery techniques. Research into everyday television has alerted archivists to the value of their neglected holdings and to the need to refine their preservation policies. The research includes the action research project VideoActive which led directly to the development of the first metadata schema for archival material held by European broadcasters for the current EUScreen project
Prof. Roberta Pearson (Professor of Film and Television Studies, Nottingham, 2004-present) and Dr Elizabeth Evans (Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, Nottingham, 2007-present) have produced original audience research to generate greater understanding of viewer engagements with film and television programming in terms of taste, distinction and community. This has been applied in local, national and global contexts, leading to the following changes in institutional policy and the provision of services in the following ways:
Through public engagement across print and broadcast media, and a series of high-profile collaborations with world-leading arts institutes, our research has stimulated new thinking about the purpose of arts broadcasting over the past 40 years. It has refocused attention on two neglected TV landmarks, Civilisation (1969) and Ways of Seeing (1972), encouraging broadcasters and cultural institutions to consider beauty and civilisation as inclusive rather than elitist concepts, a debate that succeeded in engaging new public audiences. There was economic benefit to the National Gallery and the British Film Institute and, not least, interest in the research findings led to the BBC rebroadcasting Civilisation in 2011.
In March 2013, the British Library (BL) launched the first national oral-history archive of the British Women's Liberation Movement (WLM). A permanent public resource preserving the voices of 1970s/1980s feminists, the archive was the outcome of 'Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project', a three-year Leverhulme-funded research-partnership project led by PI Margaretta Jolly, in partnership with curators at the BL and the Women's Library (WL). Through the national prominence this archive has achieved and the numerous curatorial, educational, cultural and community activities directly associated with it, the research is having a significant impact on the public perception of feminism, bringing it to life for new audiences.