Hendy, David
Reader in Media and Communication
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, 2008-9
Email: d.hendy@wmin.ac.uk
Biography
David Hendy studied history at St Andrews and Oxford, and now teaches and writes about broadcasting, particularly its relationship with twentieth century social, cultural and political history in Britain, Europe, and America.
His responsibilities include teaching undergraduate courses in media history and media events as well as supervising doctoral students.
He wrote Radio and the Global Age (Polity, 2000) and Life on Air: A History of Radio Four (Oxford University Press, September 2007).
He is currently on the editorial board of The Radio Journal and has served on the pan-european digital radio cultures in Europe group of academics and broadcasters.
He worked as a producer for the BBC for seven years before joining the University of Westminster in 1993, and has recently been interviewed about his work on programmes such as Front Row, The Archive Hour, and The Message.
Research Statement
David Hendy's research interests include radio and television history, the BBC and public service broadcasting, the aesthetics of documentaries and drama, and the relationship between new and old media.
He was a Leverhulme Research Fellow in 2002-2003 and received a Scouloudi Historical Award for his work on Life on Air: a History of Radio Four. That book was also funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
His most recent published work has concerned British post-war radio, but he is currently beginning a project exploring the medias impact on human consciousness and culture over the past 150 years. As part of that work, he will be a Visiting Research Fellow at Cambridge University's Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) during 2008-9.
Selected Publications
Life on Air: a History of Radio Four (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Winner of the History Today-Longman Book of the Year Award 2008
From University's news archive:
- 'Historical award for a Life on Air' (17 January 2008)
- the launch of the book at the Regent Campus: Academic's new book reveals the stories behind Radio Four's news (16 October 2007)
Book Reviews
- The Guardian, 22 September
- The Times, 29 September
- The Camden New Journal and Islington Tribune, 4 October
- Daily Telegraph, 18 October
- Financial Times, 20 October
- Daily Mail, 26 October
- Time Out, Book of the Week, 26 October
- Times Higher Educational Supplement, 16 November
- Times Literary Supplement, 7 December 2007 (Only available online through a subscription)
- History Today, March 2008
Radio in the Global Age, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Translated into Italian and published as La radio nell'era globale (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 2003).
Book review in 'Review Article: The Rise of Radio Studies', by Andrew Crisell European Journal of Communication.2001; 16: 245-249 (login required)
Radio Technology, in Donsbach, W. (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication, Vol. IX (Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell: 2008), 4107-11. Available at www.communicationencyclopedia.com/public
BBC Radio Four and Conflicts Over Spoken English in the 1970s, Media History, Vol.12, No.3, 2006.
Bad Language and BBC Radio Four in the 1960s and 1970s, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2006.
Reality Radio: The Documentary, in A. Crisell (ed.) More than a Music Box: Radio Cultures and Communities in a Multi-Media World. (Oxford & New York: Berghahn, 2004).
Speaking to Middle England: Radio Four and Its Listeners, in J. Aitchison & D. Lewis (eds.) New Media Language (London: Routledge, 2003).
Television's Prehistory: Radio, in Hilmes, M. (ed.) The Television History Book (London: BFI and University of California Press, 2003).
A Political Economy of Radio in the Digital Age. Journal of Radio Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2000.
Pop Music Radio in the Public Service: BBC Radio 1 and new music in the 1990s. Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 22, No. 6, 2000.
Funding Awards
Leverhulme Research Fellowship and Grant (2002-2003).
Scouloudi Historical Award, Institute of Historical research, University of London, 2003.
Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Leave, 2005-6.
PhD Supervision
David Hendy is currently supervising five doctoral students. Their work covers: Community Radio in Britain under New Labour; a history of local radio; radio and everyday life in a Brazilian favela. He has also examined several doctoral theses.