Activities of the Centre for Media History

The Centre for Media History is a key forum for the promotion and presentation of current research in the field of media history. We invite media historians from around the UK and beyond to present their current research to the Department of History and Welsh History’s Research Seminar series and to the seminar series held in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies.  We host a biennial conference, in association with the journal Media History, on aspects of media history at either Aberystwyth or the University of Wales Study Centre, Gregynog, which in turn have formed the basis of a series of edited collections and/or journal special issues.  We have also sponsored a range of symposia and other events

 

‌Conferences‌

‌Newspapers, War and Society:

‌‌Fifth Aberystwyth/Gregynog Media History Conference, Gregynog, 29 April-1 May 2014

  • a selection of papers from this conference will be published as a special issue of Media History in 2017

‌

Perception, Reception: the Role of the Media in Society:‌‌

Fourth Aberystwyth/Gregynog Media History Conference, in association with the Trinity Long Room Hub, Aberystwyth University, 4-6 July 2012

 ‌‌

‌‌‌The Media, Social Fears and Moral Panics:‌

‌XXIII Biennial Conference of the Interna‌tional Association of Media and History (IAMHIST) in association with the Third Aberystwyth/Gregynog Media History Conference, Aberystwyth University, 8-11 July 2009‌

 ‌‌‌

‌The Media and Time:‌‌

‌Second Aberystwyth/Gregynog Media History Conference, in association with the Department of Media and Communications, Swansea University,  Gregynog, 28-30 March 2007‌‌‌‌
  • Gregynog 2007 Conference Programme
  • a selection of papers from this conference were published as a special issue of Media History 14 (2) 2008

 ‌

Media History and History in the Media:

‌First Aberystwyth/Gregynog Media History Conference, in association with the Department of Media and Communications, Swansea University, 31 March-2 April 2005‌‌
  • Gregynog 2005 Conference Programme
  • Gregynog 2005 Conference Report
  • a selection of papers from this conference were published in Reconstructing the Past: History in the Mass Media 1890-2005 eds. Sian Nicholas, Tom O'Malley and Kevin Williams (Routledge, 2008), previously published as a special double issue of Media History 13 (2/3) 2007

 

 ‌

Symposia and other events

Broadcasting in the 1950s:

Conference at Gregynog, 24-27 July 2011, in association with the AHRC Research Network on British and North American Broadcasting c.1922-62

 

The Historiography of the UK Media from the 17th to the 20th Century:

Symposium, King’s College London, 13 July 2010
  •  a selection of papers from this conference were published as a special double issue of Media History 18 (3/4) 2012

 

Broadcasting in the 1930s: New Media in a Time of Crisis:

Symposium at conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wisconsin Centre for Theatre and Film Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 6-9 July 2010, in association with the AHRC Research Network on British and North American Broadcasting c.1922-62



Research seminars

Speakers at our research seminar series have included the following:

  • Colin Thomas (Producer, The Dragon Has Two Tongues, S4C), 'Picturing the past: putting Welsh history on television', Wednesday 15 February 2012
  • Sian Nicholas (Aberystwyth), Towards an integrated history of the British media: the case of the newspaper radio column in the 1930s’, October 2010
  • Michael Bailey (Leeds Met), ‘”This is public service broadcasting, is it not?” Richard Hoggart and the idea of democratic broadcasting’, Friday 4 December 2009.
  • Chandrika Kaul (St Andrews), ‘At the stroke of the midnight hour": Lord Mountbatten and the British media at Indian independence August 1947’, Wednesday 9 April 2008
  • Marianne Hicks (Monash University), 'Making news: The 'community' of foreign correspondents in Berlin, 1930-39,’ Thursday 17 January 2008