UWE Film Studies Research Group and Journalism Policy and Practice Research Group present
An Evening with Rod Stoneman: Early Channel 4, Political Television?
Monday 26th November 18.00-20.00
The Box, St Matthias Campus, UWE
Free admission
The first decade of Channel 4 is widely recognised as one of the most radical periods in television history. From political documentaries and the experimental avant-garde to World cinema, low-budget fiction and community programmes, audiences in their hundreds of thousands experienced television as they had never seen it before. Contemporary television is a world away from the innovation and experimentation of this first phase of Channel 4. In this lecture, Rod Stoneman – former Channel 4 Commissioning Editor – presents a selection of material from this remarkable period and asks what sort of interventions are possible in television today.
Professor Rod Stoneman is the Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board until September 2003 and previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television in the United Kingdom. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland: The Silent Voices, Italy: the Image Business, 12,000 Years of Blindness and The Spindle, and has written extensively on film and television. He is the author of Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; A Case Study of Politics and the Media. Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual will be published in February 2013.