A decade of change: television and society in Wales in the 1970s- Leverhulme

An Aberystwyth University media historian has been awarded a Research Project Grant by the Leverhulme Trust to study the relationship between television and society in Wales during the 1970s.

Dr Jamie Medhurst, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication and co-Director of the University’s Centre for Media History, was awarded £114,000 for the three-year project which includes a PhD studentship to focus on a particular aspect of the study.

Dr Medhurst said: ‘This project will create a unique and original history of television and society in Wales during the 1970s, paying particular attention to the ways in which television mediated the changing nature of society and how television itself, rather than merely reflecting what was happening, was subject to, and part of, the same changes.

‘Through systematic examination of primary source material, I want to explore the complex relationship between politics and policy, national identity, language, everyday life and television during the decade and hope to highlight the ways in which this resonates with, and is relevant to, the contemporary broadcasting landscape.

‘Although the 1970s are often characterised as a decade of stability in British broadcasting, this was not the case in Wales. It was, according to the Welsh historian, John Davies, ‘a period of great turbulence in the history of broadcasting politics in Wales’.