A History of Television for Women in Britain, 1947-1989
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Film & Television Studies
Abstract
This project will research television programming made for and watched by women viewers during a significant period of British television history: 1947-1989. In this period television re-started after the war, commercial television was introduced, followed by the introduction of BBC2 and Channel 4. Despite the suggestive connection between the development of television as a domestic technology and changes in gender relations, there has been scant attention paid to this relationship over time. The development of television and its viewers in Britain will therefore be related to social change, particularly in relation to the growth of consumer culture, increase in the female workforce, the re-organisation of family life, and the rise of the women's and civil rights movements during the research period.
Available glimpses of programming from the period suggest interesting shifts in content, modes of address and representations of gender. However, little is known about how the British television industry, with its public service ethos, conceptualised the female audience, or how, when and why programmes were made specifically for women. Also, little is known about women's memories of television viewing, despite prevailing common-sense and academic assumptions about the feminisation of the medium.
This project works to fill in some of the gaps in the history of British television, outlining significant moments in the period, specific programme types, genres and scheduling slots which have become significantly marked as feminine. To these ends it pursues an approach to production, text and reception through an innovative combination of methods:
It will explore the production culture, policies and decision making which produced the strong vein of television programming for women in Britain, using, amongst other sources, the BBC Written Archive at Caversham and the ITC collection held at the BFI.
It will document, using listings magazines and popular publications for women, the factual and dramatic programming that was addressed specifically to a female viewer to establish (and attempt to protect) what is available in the archives.
It will produce an analysis of some of the key texts that emerge from this search, by viewing where possible, or by reconstructing programmes through written archives (floor plans, shooting scripts etc). Our analysis will explore the terms in which the female viewer has been addressed, how that address has changed over time, identifying of the continuities and transformations (in both form and content) with the current period.
It will attempt to recover a generationally and nationally dispersed set of female audience members from the historical period in question who will be approached through contemporary women's publications. Our interviews will explore their memories of television against their personal narratives to uncover the programmes that they saw as being for them, and question how these programmes resonated with their everyday lives. The data will be analysed against the backdrop of discourses from the industry.
A key impact of this project will be to bring the issue of the preservation of programming often marked as 'for women', or feminised as part of the 'everyday' and thus characterised as ephemeral, into clearer focus for those organisations involved in archiving 'our' television history. Alongside academic publications on the subject, the project will produce reports for both archivists and women in media groups which will outline the significance of a feminist politics of archiving through our key findings about influential programming and their significance in women's cultural memories. This is a project with a strong feminist agenda, which aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of the production, texts and reception of women's media culture in Britain.
N.B.The delay in start date reflects the fact that Wheatley will be on maternity leave until May 2009.
Available glimpses of programming from the period suggest interesting shifts in content, modes of address and representations of gender. However, little is known about how the British television industry, with its public service ethos, conceptualised the female audience, or how, when and why programmes were made specifically for women. Also, little is known about women's memories of television viewing, despite prevailing common-sense and academic assumptions about the feminisation of the medium.
This project works to fill in some of the gaps in the history of British television, outlining significant moments in the period, specific programme types, genres and scheduling slots which have become significantly marked as feminine. To these ends it pursues an approach to production, text and reception through an innovative combination of methods:
It will explore the production culture, policies and decision making which produced the strong vein of television programming for women in Britain, using, amongst other sources, the BBC Written Archive at Caversham and the ITC collection held at the BFI.
It will document, using listings magazines and popular publications for women, the factual and dramatic programming that was addressed specifically to a female viewer to establish (and attempt to protect) what is available in the archives.
It will produce an analysis of some of the key texts that emerge from this search, by viewing where possible, or by reconstructing programmes through written archives (floor plans, shooting scripts etc). Our analysis will explore the terms in which the female viewer has been addressed, how that address has changed over time, identifying of the continuities and transformations (in both form and content) with the current period.
It will attempt to recover a generationally and nationally dispersed set of female audience members from the historical period in question who will be approached through contemporary women's publications. Our interviews will explore their memories of television against their personal narratives to uncover the programmes that they saw as being for them, and question how these programmes resonated with their everyday lives. The data will be analysed against the backdrop of discourses from the industry.
A key impact of this project will be to bring the issue of the preservation of programming often marked as 'for women', or feminised as part of the 'everyday' and thus characterised as ephemeral, into clearer focus for those organisations involved in archiving 'our' television history. Alongside academic publications on the subject, the project will produce reports for both archivists and women in media groups which will outline the significance of a feminist politics of archiving through our key findings about influential programming and their significance in women's cultural memories. This is a project with a strong feminist agenda, which aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of the production, texts and reception of women's media culture in Britain.
N.B.The delay in start date reflects the fact that Wheatley will be on maternity leave until May 2009.
Organisations
- University of Warwick (Lead Research Organisation)
- Women in Film and Television (UK) (Collaboration)
- Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (Collaboration)
- Science Museum Group (Collaboration)
- British Film Institute (BFI) (Collaboration)
- Herbert Museum and Art Gallery (Collaboration)
- Kudos Film and Television (Collaboration)
- COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL (Collaboration)
- Phoenix Arts Centre (Collaboration)
- Women's Film and Television History Network (Collaboration)
Publications
Collie H
Television for Women, 1947-1989'.
in N/A
Collie H
(2013)
RESEARCHING THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION FOR WOMEN IN BRITAIN, 1947-1989
in Media History
Collie H
(2012)
"The Weekend Starts Here": Women and Pop Music Television
Collie H
(2013)
'The weekend starts here': young women, pop music television and identity
in Screen
Collie H
(2013)
Watch "as" Mother: An Audience Perspective
in Critical Studies in Television Online
Collie H
(2012)
Pop Pictures: Pop Music on TV
Collie H
(2012)
Doing Oral History: Performance, Memory and Credibility
Collie H
(2014)
Cinema, Television and History: New Approaches
Collie H
(2013)
It's just so hard to bring it to mind: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 'WALLPAPER' IN THE GENDERING OF TELEVISION MEMORY WORK
in Journal of European Television History and Culture
Collie, H
(2017)
Television for Women: New Directions
Irwin M
(2013)
Report: Women and Television Postgraduate Research Day
in Women's Film and Television History Network UK/Ireland Newsletter
Irwin M
(2011)
Designed for Women - Early BBC Television Programmes for Women
in N/A
Irwin M
(2015)
Career Girls Women at work in Compact and The Rag Trade
in Feminist Media Studies
Irwin M
(2011)
What Women Want on Television: Doreen Stephens and BBC Television Programmes for Women, 1953-64
in Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture
Irwin M
(2012)
Early BBC Television Programmes for Women
in N/A
Irwin M
(2011)
Designed for Women - Early BBC Television Programmes for Women
in N/A
Irwin M
(2015)
BBC's Wednesday Magazine and Arts Television for Women
in Media History
Irwin M
(2012)
Just Good Friends - Women and the British TV Romcom
in N/A
Irwin M
(2016)
British TV Comedies
Irwin M
(2012)
A History of Television for Women in Britain 1947-89 - Project Overview
in N/A
| Description | The findings of the project to date fall into three key areas: (a) information about the production history and contexts of television for women in Britain, based on written archival research; (b) the rediscovery of the existence of, and the close textual analysis of, programmes made for women during the research period and (c) qualitative data emerging from interviews with regionally and generationally dispersed British women television viewers about the programming they have understood as being for them, the ways in which they have watched it and its relationship to different stages of the life course The combination of these production, textual and reception methodologies has been productive in enabling us to challenge a number of orthodoxies and develop new knowledge around the production, text, audience nexus. (a and b): Postdoctoral researcher Mary Irwin has shown the ways in which key women working in the television industry in the early part of the research period, e.g. Doreen Stephens, first Editor, Women's Programmes at the BBC, strove to make interesting, engaging and stimulating programming for women, fighting against significant budgetary constraints and resistance from (often male) managers. Research on Stephens' career and the programmes she oversaw has demonstrated that the address of key early programming for women was broader than has typically been assumed, and that, in particular, she wanted to address the female audience in ways which not only spoke to their roles as housewives and mothers, but also acknowledged their potential interest in and engagement with the world of politics, current affairs and the arts outside the space of the home. One such instance is the 'lost' women's daytime arts programme, Wednesday Magazine, rediscovered as a result of Irwin's research. Preceding the more widely-known and critically acclaimed programme Monitor, Wednesday Magazine is an instance of early women's non-fiction programming, examples of which do remain available to view; another is the drama serial Compact, written by Hazel Adair, whose work on key programmes including Crossroads and Emergency Ward 10 has also remained hidden from critical view. Rediscovery of and analysis of the production and textuality of these and other programmes has enabled us to: (1) fill in significant gaps in existing histories of British television, which have consistently overlooked the contributions made to television's generic and aesthetic development by programmes and programme-makers addressing a female audience and (2) challenge assumptions about the domestic address of television produced for women in Britain, which often, for example, in the early period, acknowledged women's roles as workers outside as well as within the home. Work on the later period has demonstrated the significance of critically neglected genres such as romantic situation comedy and adaptations of popular romantic fiction (e.g. Catherine Cookson) in British television's address to a female audience. (c): Doctoral researcher Hazel Collie's interviews with British women viewers of different generations has produced significant new data about both the programmes understood by women as having been in some way 'for them', as well as knowledge about the significance of generation and life stage in modes of viewing. This research is for the first time revealing how television moves through different modes of significance in women's lives over the duration of the life course, as well as demonstrating key distinctions between generations. This shows a mapping of the intimate relations of television around family, relationships and the home. The interviews have shown that programming genres quite removed from those usually assumed to be 'television for women' (e.g. soaps, costume drama) have been important in women's lives, including in their constructions of self and their relationships with others. Perhaps the most significant genre to emerge as important has been pop music programming, from the 1960s to the end of the research period, with programmes such as Ready Steady Go! ,The Tube and their female presenters featuring repeatedly. Moving from this finding to research on the programmes themselves and their paratexts, for example in television listings magazines such as TV Times, the gendered address of pop programming is clear. This finding was only possible, however, as a result of the interview data, and demonstrates the significance of our dialogic method. Other unanticipated genres to emerge from the interviews included sports programming, children's television and documentaries; a key finding of this strand of the research, then, has been to extend significantly the way in which the formulation 'television for women' has been, and might in the future be, understood. Overall, the research has produced new knowledge about the production, texts, address and reception of television for women in Britain from 1947 to 1989, historicising research on contemporary programming (e.g. women's television before the moment of 'postfeminist sensibility' addressed women as both homemakers and career women). Television in Britain has also addressed its audience outside as well as within the typically researched genres of soap opera and other fictional forms of television, thus extending the definition of what might be understood as 'television for women'. Our understanding of what and how women view has been significantly shifted by the analysis of interviews with women across the period and across the nation. |
| Exploitation Route | The project has reached beyond academia in its engagement with the viewing public to increase awareness of women's television history as a site of valuable cultural heritage. This has operated through the relationship built with women viewers who responded to our adverts about women's memories of television. This prompted many letters, emails, contributions to our social media sites, and some press attention which form part of a broader picture of the ways in which women viewers have been encouraged to engage with the project, alongside the thirty women selected for interviews. This has been supported by a number of public engagement events (talks and screenings at the Phoenix Arts Centre Leictester and the BFI at the London Southbank), as well as a Pop-Up exhibition with Coventry Arts Space where we took our findings into a public space to gather feedback and more memories around the findings about pop music programmes. In these ways the project has directly involved the viewing public in any construction of 'their' history. By the end of the project, the research team will produce a report for the television industry and television archivists which will outline key findings and identify their potential usefulness outside of the academy. Our findings support our initial hypothesis about the importance of a feminist politics of archiving, showing that while few 'women's programmes' have been preserved across British television history, there are some 'jewels' in the National Archive which the research has been able to identify, analyse and highlight. Our research, we believe, shows that the preservation of programming perhaps deemed 'ephemeral' or unimportant at the time of its production may nevertheless prove important historically and thus the research supports and underlines the significance of the work of archivists like Lisa Kerrigan at the BFI who are striving to keep women's television on the archiving and curating agenda at a moment when difficult decisions are being made about preservation in the digital context. The work the project has done on the struggles of women like Doreen Stephens working in the industry in the early days will be of interest and use to professional networks such as Women in Film and Television (UK) with whom we have developed a significant ongoing working relationship. Our findings about the kinds of programming women have understood as having been 'for them' should prove both surprising and useful for those working as commissioners and producers in the contemporary industry. |
| Sectors | Education |
| URL | http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-faculties-and-institutes/art-design-humanities/tv-for-women/a-history-of-television-for-women-in-britain-1947-89.aspx |
| Description | At our final events, representatives from the BBC commented that knowledge of our research on the history of television for women would change the way they thought about reaching and addressing female audiences in the future. Visitors to the 'Pop Up TV Pop Shop' in Coventry, May 2012, commented that the shop had changed their views about the university and the research carried out there, and had impacted upon their relationship to their own memories of television, family and social life. Publications from the project are being addressed in other academic research. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Article in The Guardian national newspaper about the project and research findings |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Consultation at the BBC Trust Women and Television lunch |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | A History of Feminism on Factual Television |
| Amount | £500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | De Montfort University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2011 |
| End | 09/2014 |
| Description | Warwick Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme |
| Amount | £800 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2011 |
| End | 09/2011 |
| Description | AHRC Television Projects Research Network |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | A network of researchers in AHRC-funded project teams working on television history |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Career Girls on the Small Screen |
| Organisation | British Film Institute (BFI) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Public Engagement event at the BFI Southbank |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Career Girls on the Small Screen |
| Organisation | Phoenix Arts Centre |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Public Engagement event at the Phoenic Arts Centre, Leicester |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Making Modern Communication' |
| Organisation | Science Museum Group |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Hazel is working with Charlotte Connelly at The Science Museum in London to include some of her interview data in an exhibition on the development of modern communication. Women's memories of the Coronation of Elizabeth II will be included in the exhibition. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Television for Women Pop-Up TV Pop Shop |
| Organisation | Coventry City Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | A 'pop-up' shop to disseminate the project's aims and findings in the local community |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Television for Women Pop-Up TV Pop Shop |
| Organisation | Herbert Museum and Art Gallery |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | A 'pop-up' shop to disseminate the project's aims and findings in the local community |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | The Hour |
| Organisation | Kudos Film and Television |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Consultation on production of series two of The Hour, a drama about early television in Britain |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Women in Film and Television (UK) |
| Organisation | Women in Film and Television (UK) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Meetings, discussion and collaboration to disseminat research to this non-academic network of women working and having worked in film and television |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Women's Film and Television History Network |
| Organisation | Women's Film and Television History Network |
| Country | Global |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Participation in the Women 's Film and Television History Network |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | "Scandal, Passion and Romance in 19th Century Northumberland": Watching The Mallens |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper delivered at 'Television for Women: An International Conference', University of Warwick, May 15-17, 2013 In June 1979 Granada Television broadcast a dramatisation of best-selling historical novelist Catherine Cookson's The Mallen Streak (1973). This paper considered the series' address to a female audience and the pleasures and gratifications that it offered |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | 'Bringing Programme Archives and Oral Histories Together: Pop Music and Other Stories' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The "A History of Television for Women in Britain 1947-89" project employs an innovative methodology simultaneously employing archival and oral history research. These different methods document television programmes made for women in Britain during the period and explore how television programming addressed women around crucial negotiations of private and public feminine identities, from the perspectives of production, texts and reception. This paper will reflect upon what we have established through historical archival work about 'key moments' of television made for women, alongside voices of the 'real' women of different generations with whom we spoke about their significant memories of television. Our focus will be upon several case studies which demonstrate where the two research processes have produced very different data and where the two have come together fruitfully. The paper will culminate with a discussion of our forthcoming Screen article on female viewers' relationships with pop music programmes. This research emerged, significantly, from oral interview data as having an importance for women in the negotiation of their teen years and led us back to the archives to look again at these series in the light of the interview findings. This work offers a distinctive new feminist reading of such texts challenging some of the extant narratives of pop music on television which offer implicitly masculine perspectives. Conference paper presented at Consoling Passions Conference, June 2013, reflecting on the innovative methodology used in the analysis of the significance of pop music porgrammes for British women viewers participating in the study. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | 'Bringing Programme Archives and Oral Histories Together: Pop Music and Other Stories' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper which presents and reflects on the findings produced by bringing together archival and oral history research to explore the significance of pop music programming in British women's lives. In this paper we considered female viewers' relationships with pop music programmes. This significant finding emerged from oral interview data and showed that pop programming had an importance for women in the negotiation of their teen years, and the addr |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | 'I've been having fantasies about Regan and Carter three times a week: Television's role in feminine desire'. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper delivered at 'Television for Women: An International Conference', University of Warwick, 15-17th May, 2013 This paper investigated how heterosexual British women use television to formulate desire, reflecting upon how the medium's status as 'domesticised' and 'feminised' might create a different space for feminine desire to that offered by the cinema. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | 'Television for Women' Facebook page and discussion thread |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This page on Facebook has enabled the team to share research findings and engage with members of the public, canvassing their responses to both. The Facebook page (accessible at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Womens-Television/) has been a lively site of discussion and debate about the question of 'television for women'. The threads clearly demonstrate the way in which the research has impacted on the thinking and views of participants in discussions about women and television. Topical questions were posted to encourage users to enter into discussion about the project's work. The Facebook page is a lively site of discussion and debate on questions of 'TV for women'; discussion threads cover topics inc. sport, music on TV, soaps, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/pages/Womens-Television |
| Description | 'Television in the Ideal Home' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper delivered at 'Television for Women: An International Conference', May 2013. Many visitors first encountered television at exhibitions like Radiolympia (1926-44), The Ideal Home Exhibition (1908-) and the Festival of Britain (1951). The female consumer-citizen was targeted by broadcasters and set manufacturers through the TV exhib |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | A History of Television for Women - presentation to the BBC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We presented our research to 17 employees of the BBC which included Tony Ageh, Director of Archiving and staff,in archive development. Also attending were a number of senior BBC personnel including the Commissioning Editor of Radio 4, Legal and Business Affairs Manager, Chief Adviser of BBC Television and the Head of Newsroom. This led to the Head of BBC Trust inviting a member of the team to a discussion on diversity in broadcasting. Communication afterwards reported changed ideas about women's relationship with television and the need for further research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | A History of Television for Women: Methods and Possibilities' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Created a discussion of our research to professional archivists. Instigated engagement with BBC Digital Space project and Tony Ageh, Director, resulted in invitation to talk to the BBC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | BBC Radio 4 'The World This Weekend' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Project investigator Helen Wheatley participated in a discussion on the ongoing signifcance of television in daily and cultural life in a digital age on Radio 4's 'The World this Weekend'. This was focused on the anniversary of the Coronation Helen spoke about the ongoing significance of television as a nation-binding and communal medium, even in an age where new media and digital delivery of television content is often understood to have eroded this aspect of television's social role. This di |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | BBC Trust private lunch, Women and the Media (London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Helen Wheatley discussed project findings with senior journalists, broadcasters, BBC commissioners, the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and BBC Trustees as a way to initiate discussion of current programming policy, the representation of women on television, and the working lives of women in the media. Reflection on the significance of learning from this history in the meeting itself (individuals cannot be identified as the meeting was subjected to Chatham House Rules). Helen Wheatley was subsequently invited to participate in Woman's Hour, which has a significant reach to the general public, to speak about matters of gender representation and television as cultural heritage. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | BBC Website Contribution |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Contribution to the BBC history of the BBC website on women presenters 'Speaking to you at home' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/women-pioneers/women-presenters |
| Description | Career Girls on the Small Screen |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Engagement event at the Phoenix Arts Centre, Leicester. At this event, the team introduced and screened archive 'television for women', alongside an interview between Dr. Irwin and Hazel Adair, followed by a discussion between the researchers and the audience. Event comprising an interview with Hazel Adair, veteran screenwriter (Crossroads, Compact, Emergency ward 10), open discussion between the project team and audience and screenings (Made in Dagenham, The Rag Trade, Compact and The Liver Birds) based on res |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Career Girls: Working Women on Television |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public engagement event organised in collaboration with the British Film Institute, which incuded an illustrated lecture by the project team and a round table discussion between women working in television and the public audience. This event allowed the team to disseminat the project's research findings to the general public and to engage in discussion with the public and with women working in contemporary 'television for women', both through the round table and through networking after the event with members of WIFT, the CEO of which organisation, Kate Kinninmont, chaired the discusson. Roundtable discussion with Kate Kinninmont, (chair, WIFT); Abi Morgan (writer, The Hour); Amanda Redman (actor, New Tricks) and Hilary Salmon (Commissioning Editor for Drama, BBC). Feedback collected, and emails received afterwards, clearly demonstrated |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Conference Paper by Prof Helen Wood |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Joint paper with Dr Jilly Kay at Gender and Broadcasting History Conference, Bournemouth, UK: 'Commercial television culture, housewife-citizenship and gendered responses to the arrival of ITV in the Mass Observation archives' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Conference paper by Prof Helen Wood |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper at Consoleing Oassions International Conference, East Carolina University, USA. 'Mermaids or Princesses? Say Yes to the Dress, women's bodies and inter-subjective scrutiny' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Did 1950s women watch daytime television? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article in The Guardian national newspaper about the project and research findings. Rachel Moseley and Helen Wheatley interviewed by journalist Chris Arnot and this piece challenged commonly held views about the history of women's television in Britain The research findings detailed in the article, particularly those relating to the wealth of early daytime programming for women overseen by editor of Women's Television Doreen Stephens and broadcast by the BBC from the 1940s to the 1960s, clearly challen |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | From Page to Screen: Making and Remembering Women's History Symposium : Feeling historical: Women's history in the 1970s studio costume drama |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This paper discussed the ways that1970s popular television drama spoke to its viewers about the feelings of history - those of historical women, and, by extension, those of the audience. Referring to Upstairs, Downstairs and Edward the VII as examples, I demonstrated how the feelings of represented historical figures were conveyed by "the glances and sighs of character performance [and characters'] interactions; also by the arrangement and design of sets and costumes within a 'domesticated' and closed studio-bound room". In the paper I talked about the resonance of the representation of the Suffragettes in the 1970s in the context of the women's movement. Improved engagement |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Guilty Pleasures :Gender and Canon Formation in Film and Television |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | A workshop run by project research fellow Mary Irwin, with Anna Sloan (Warwick), James Zborowski (Hull) and Laura Canning (Dublin City) Mary Irwin was asked to run this workshop on canon formation as a result of the work she has done on the Television for Women project. The workshop was part of The British Association of Film Television and Screen Studies conference 2013 'Critics and Crit |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Introduction: Setting the Scene |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference Paper Paper introducing the project, its aims and methodological approaches. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Keynote Address by Prof Helen Wood |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Keynote address at the University of York Department of Theatre, Film and Television Postgraduate Conference 'Reality celebrity as illegitimate cultural work?' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Paper for Cinema and Television History Centre Launch |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A paper coming out of the Archiving is a Feminist Issue article - arguing for the importance of keeping television for women on the agenda in the shift towards digital archives. Increased engagement and networking |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Project Final Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Frontline Club, London, 19/06/14: Women and Television: History and Practice in Dialogue was a final networking event for the project, at which we presented the results of our research to an audience of television industry professionals and members of WFT. The investigators of the new AHRC project 'Women's Work and Working Women: A Longitudinal Study of Women Working in the British Film and Television Industries, 1933-1989.' also presented their work, and this was followed by questions and discussion of the ways in which the television industry and academia could better collaborate. The Acting Head of the BBC Trust invited Dr Helen Wheatley to participate in a workshop and discussion about the BBC' address to its viewership in relation to questions of gender, generation and other aspects of social identities. See separate entry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Report for Midlands Television Research Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Report on the early stages of A History of Television for Women in Britain: 1947 - 1989 project. This short fifteen-minute presentation provided a project overview of research undertaken to date on early women's television and plans to develop such work for presentation at the upcoming Screen 2011 conference and the CFP for University of Westminster's Papers in Communication and Culture special December 2011 edition on the historical relationship between women and the mass media. Increased engagement |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Television - the housewife's choice? The 1949 Mass Observation Survey |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Academics and postgraduates either attended, whilst International Distance learning students watched by video link. International Distance learning students asked for further information about the project |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Television Exhibitions and The Ideal Home |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper Conference paper based upon archival research which explores the ways in which television as a household technology and object was addressed to British women through the Ideal Home Exhibition in the 1950s |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Television for Women: An International Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | An international three day conference organised by the project team and held at the University of Warwick. This major three day conference based around the project, and at which three members of the team gave papers, was intended to internationalise the project's agenda, bring together scholars from around the world working in the same area, and to disseminate |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | The Pop-Up TV Pop Shop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A pop-up shop organised in collaboration with ArtSpace Coventry and Coventry City Council, where the team showcased research findings and gathered memories of pop music programming on British television The pop-up show showcased and informed the community about the research being carried on the project. Visitors to the shop gave feedback on the event and shared their memories of pop music programing on television via a vistor's book and postcards. Pop music programming emerged as an important genre not previously understood as 'for women' and the pop-up shop was centred on this finding. Visitors shared their responses to the research and their own memories of music programming via a visitor's book |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | WOMEN'S ROLES IN CLASSIC TV SHOWS UNDER SPOTLIGHT; Warwick Uni Duo Use 60s and 70s Archives for New Telly Talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article in Coventry Evening Telegraph about the 'Career Girls' event in Leicester - this article informed the local community about the research and 'Career Girls' screening/presentation event in Leicester The article was based on project research findings and encouraged the local community to come to the 'Career Girls' event in Leicester to find out more about the research and share their thoughts about the research and memories of television |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Woman's Hour |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | PI appeared on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme to discuss the project's preliminary findings - this media appearance enabled the team to disseminate research findings to the wider public. The PI was in conversation with Presenter Jenni Murray and Professor Jean Seaton from University of Westminster. The research findings were used to challenge widely held views about the content and address of early women's television. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Women in Film and Television Meeting - Early Findings of the A History of Television for Women in Britain, 1947-89 Project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An opportunity to share early research with a group of senior women working in the fields of film and television production (from Sky, Virgin, BBC and ITV) which focused on the significance of Mary Irwin's findings re: Doreen Stevens and the Women's Programmes department at the BBC and Increased collaboration |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Women in Film and Television Meeting - Early Findings of the A History of Television for Women in Britain, 1947-89 Project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An opportunity to share early research with a group of senior women working in the fields of film and television production (from Sky, Virgin, BBC and ITV) which focused on the significance of Mary Irwin's findings re: Doreen Stevens and the Women's Programmes department at the BBC and the importance of pop programming in Hazel Collie's research Increased engagement |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Women's Film and Television History Network UK/Ireland Newsletter |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This summarised the papers given by Dr Elke Weismann,(Edge Hill) 'Real Women from Curvaceous Objects to Embodied Narratives' Dr Mary Irwin (Warwick) ' A History of British Television for Women 1947-89- Project Overview' and Dr Vicky Ball (Sunderland) 'Sex, Class and Consumerism: Women and Situation Comedy in the 1960s' Increase non-academic engagement |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Women's Work: History, Historiography and a Research Agenda for the Future |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | keynote/invited speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Keynote conference paper This invited keynote paper addressed the need for research on the roles played by women in the development of children's television in Britain. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |