University of Birmingham Staff: Papers of David Morley

David Morley was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies where, alongside Charlotte Brunsdon and drawing on Stuart Hall's early work on the media, he undertook a research project on the way in which audiences engaged with the 'Nationwide' television programme, which was popular in Britain during the 1970s. This research was subsequently published as 'The Nationwide audience: structure and decoding' (1980) and became a classic in the fields of Cultural, Media and Communications studies. Papers primarily relate to this project as well as a later project, also based on audience research, formulated by Morley with Philip Corrigan at the Institute of Education and published in 1986 as 'Family Television'.

Papers relating to the 'Nationwide' project consist of drafts of funding applications; notes on audience research; papers relating to the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Media Group 'Nationwide' project 1975-1976 including list of interview questions and transcripts of selected programmes and programme links broadcast in May and June 1976; audience fieldnotes and questionnaires containing analysis of group decodings and notes on the constitution of the audiences; and copies of questionnaires and definitions of patterns of reading and audience responses 1976-1978. There are also annotated audience transcripts of the interviews conducted with groups following viewing of 'Nationwide' items, undertaken by CCCS members. Other material relating to this project includes a recording of the 'Nationwide' programme on the 1977 Budget, used in stage 2 of the Nationwide Audience Research, on Sony V32 video tape, and a recording of Nationwide programme links analysed as part of the research on Sony VHS tape and DVD. There is also a transcript of a presentation given by Morley in 2014 on the encoding and decoding in relation to the Nationwide project field research

Papers relating to the 'Family Television' project consist of documentation tracing the funding history of the project, including correspondence from Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart, both of whom expressed their support; and field research consisting of annotated transcripts of interviews with the families who took part in the project There are also papers relating to a research consultation held in February 1986, organised by the Independent Broadcasting Authority which funded the project

David Morley was born in Swinton, Yorkshire, in 1949. He studied Sociology at the London School of Economics and graduated in 1970. He was a research assistant in Social Sciences at the British Museum in 1972 and also carried out research with the Media Group at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham from 1972 onwards. He studied for a PhD on media coverage of industrial relations at the University of Kent where he also worked as a part time lecturer on the Sociology degree course. He completed his PhD in 1976. and worked as a part-time research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies from 1976 to 1978. From 1978 to 1982 he was lecturer in the Department of Communications at Lancaster Polytechnic, and from there moved to Minority Press Group/Comedia Publishing Group where he was Chief Editor from 1982 to 1987. He was lecturer in the Department of Human Sciences at Brunel University from 1987 to 1990 when he took up his current post at Goldsmiths College, University of London where he is Professor of Communications in the Department of Media and Communications

A small amount of material relating to the 'Family Television' project, described at US131/1/2, contains personal information about individuals and is therefore closed under the terms of Data Protection regulations.

Presented by David Morley, April 2012

Please see https://calmview.bham.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=XUS131&pos=1 for more information

Catalogued by Kieran Connell, December 2013, as part of AHRC funded project 'The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies: connected collaboration, connected communities and connected impact. Description prepared in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; and National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director, Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections (email: special-collections@contacts.bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. The Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Special Collections holds research papers of other former members of staff of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies as well as a small departmental archive of the Centre. Please contact Special Collections for further information