Since the mid-2000s, major news events such as the London bombings and the Asian tsunami have led to the use of mobile phone video footage becoming a common feature of media content, both broadcast and online. Presenting data from a current study on the use of mobile phone content in UK broadcasting, CMC’s director of journalism, Dr Adrian Hadland, presented a seminar on the topic at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) on February 12 2014.
The Reuters Institute is a centre of increasing renown in the UK and is host to around 25 professional journalists from around the world who spend time in Oxford away from newsrooms working on specific projects. The Institute also hosts scholars of journalism as visiting fellows, a position Dr Hadland held during 2009 as a British Academy Visiting Fellow. Earlier in his career, Dr Hadland also read his Masters (MLitt) at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
The lunch-time seminar, held at Green Templeton College, Oxford on a particularly wet day, was well attended by the Institute’s journalist fellows, visiting fellows, directors and by various members of the university community. Chaired by David Lloyd, an RISJ director and contributing editor to the Financial Times, the seminar sparked animated debate and discussion. It was entitled “The impact of mobile phones on journalistic practice in the 21st Century”. A scholarly article will be shortly be submitted on the topic by Dr Hadland and his co-authors, Eddy Borges-Rey and Jackie Cameron-Hadland.
In wrapping up the proceedings, Lloyd described the seminar as “one of the most interesting we have had”.
The trip to present his work at Oxford was funded by CMC’s Research Committee.