Anthony McNicholas

Nationality: Irish/British
Registration:October 1997
Completion: December 2000

Director of Studies: Prof Jean Seaton
Second Supervisor: Prof Paddy Scannell.

My PhD was a study of the diasporic Irish nationalist press in London of the 1860s, entitled ‘Faith, Fatherland and the Politics of Exile: The Irish Press in Mid-Victorian England.’

The PhD process

I found the PhD process interesting and enjoyable throughout. Like almost everyone there were times when I thought I would not finish, in particular at the beginning of my third year for a period of months I found it impossible to write anything which I did not subsequently delete before anyone saw it but that passed.

I had brilliant supervision, with just the right balance between support and supervision on the one hand, with the freedom to pursue my own interests on the other. I found the intellectual atmosphere at CAMRI (or the CCIS as it then was) stimulating but friendly and was welcomed as a colleague from the start. I think all of my cohort – there were six of us –would have similar things to say in this regard.

Mine was a historical study and as such there were no great theoretical problems to be solved and so I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do and how to go about it. This made the process of registration and transfer painless. Most of my research was done at the Newspaper Library in Colindale but the CCIS funded two week-long trips to Dublin to visit archives there. This was invaluable to my research but costly to the department—on the last day on my first trip I knelt on the departmental laptop as I was packing—and destroyed the screen. My main claim to fame.

Being part of a group of six meant that we were all going through the same process at the same time which meant we were able to help each other, and as we all taught we were brought into the life of the department on the teaching side which also helped.

Conference papers

I contributed papers to the:

IAMCR Leipzig Summer 1999 conference

‘Diasporic Communications: Transnational & Local Cross-currents’ conference organised by University of Westminster, University of North London and EURICOM, September 2001

‘Peoples and Migrations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in Comparative Perspective’, AHRB Centre for North East England History conference, September 2001

MeCCSA January 2002 conference

Russian Regional Media Law Networking Project seminars at the European Institute for the Media, Dusseldorf, May & June 2003.

‘Breaking Boundaries in Television Historiography: Historical Research and the Television Archive’ an AHRB funded symposium at the Centre for Television Drama Studies, University of Reading, on 9 January 2004.

‘The View from the BBC’ presented at The Peacock Legacy: 1985-2005, University of Wales Aberystwyth, March 2005.

Conferences organised

I contributed to the administration and organisation of a 3 day major international conference on Media History held at the University of Westminster in 1999.

I was the organiser for the 3-day MeCCSA (Media Communications and Cultural Studies Association) Conference, January 2002, University of Westminster.

‘Sound and Vision: the BBC History Seminar’, University of Westminster September 2003.

EastEnders 20th Anniversary Conference: inventing the modern soap, University of Westminster, February 2005
I am owner of and run the BBC-History discussion list, found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/BBC-HISTORY.html

Recent Publications

‘EastEnders and the Manufacture of Celebrity’, Westminster Papers in
Communication and Culture, Vol. 2 (2) pp22-36 (2005)

‘Only the Original Will Do”! in Nico Carpentier et al (eds) Researching Media,
Democracy and Participation: the intellectual work of the 2006 European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School, Tartu: Tartu University Press, (2006)

‘Media History: Problems, Uses and Justifications’ in Media Education Journal, Autumn 2003

With David Ward, ‘The United Kingdom’ in The Media and Elections: A Handbook and Comparative Study. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 2004

‘Wrenching the Machine Around: EastEnders, the BBC and Institutional Change’ in Media, Culture and Society Vol 26(4) 2004

A review of Ward D, The European Union Democratic Deficit and the Public Sphere’’ in Media, Culture and Society Vol 26(3) January 2004

Forthcoming

‘Rebels at Heart: The National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick and the Irish
Liberator’, Media History, Volume 13 (1) 2007

Politics, Religion and the Press: Irish Journalism in Mid-Victorian England,
Oxford: Peter Lang AG April 2007

‘Co-operation, Compromise and Confrontation: The Universal News 1860-69’ , Irish Historical Studies, Vol. XXXV, No. 139, July 2007

I am working on various articles including one with Jean Seaton on the BBC and the Peacock Committee which will appear in a book on the subject edited by Tom O’Malley and to be published by Palgrave 2007/8

Current Position

I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, School of Media, Arts and Design. I am senior researcher on a five year AHRC funded project led by Professor Jean Seaton, to produce Volume VI of the official history of the BBC, to be published by the OUP. Funding for a further two and a half years has just been secured. I am jointly responsible for supervising four PhD students, two of whom are part of the project team. I have taught media theory at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and research methods up to PhD level and currently teach theory to MA Journalism and Photojournalism students as well as dissertation preparation and supervision.

Research interests

Broadcasting history; newspaper history; media and politics; public service broadcasting.

Contact details

Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI)
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Northwick Park
HA1 3TP,
Harrow, Middlesex
E-mail:mcnichc@wmin.ac.uk