British Quality, American Chaos? Trans-national discourses and interactions in the history of British and North American broadcasting, c. 1922-1962

James Curran, in his book 'Media and Power' (Routledge, 2002), argued that media history had become marginalized: 'It is now the neglected grandparent of media studies: isolated, ignored, rarely visited by her offspring.' Over the last years, however, the situation has changed. Not only has scholarship in media history become more widespread, it has also moved beyond nationally-focused accounts of the broadcast and print media. The complex set of relationships which determined the development of broadcasting in its early stages, they argue, highlight the fact that 'this is a new and exciting field in which many questions remain to be answered.' The overall aim of this network is to try to answer some of these questions by looking in detail at early broadcasting in the UK and North America between 1922 and 1962 and to re-evaulate the idea that North American and British broadcasting cultures and systems were in opposition to each other.\n