Cathy Johnson
Lecturer in Culture, Film and Media, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Biography
I joined the Department of Culture, Film and Media in September 2010 having previously worked for 8 years at the Department of Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London. My interest in film and television stems from my first degree in Drama at Royal Holloway, where I became fascinated by the debates about the forms and values of popular culture. This lead to me taking an MA in Media Studies at the University of Sussex, where I was introduced to cultural and contextual approaches to the study of all forms of media. I persued by interest in popular culture in my PhD at the University of Warwick, which examined a then much maligned form of television - telefantasy - and situated the aesthetic debates around programmes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in terms of the historical contexts within which they were produced. This has lead to a long-standing interest in the television and media industries, which I am currently persuing through research examining the burgeoning sector that produces media promotion and design. I retain my interest in history through membership of the Southern Broadcasting History Group, which I co-founded in 2001, and of the European Television History Network.
Expertise Summary
My research is characterized by an interest in the production cultures of the media industries (specifically television) and how they affect the cultural artefacts produced. My current research examines the adoption of branding by the US and UK television industries and the broader creative industry sectors that produce promotional material for the screen industries.
Click http://www.wordsoftheworld.co.uk/videos/interstitial.html to see me talking about some of my current work.
This research is published in Branding Television (Routledge 2011).
This builds on my previous research on the US and UK television industries, which included co-editing the first academic book on the history of ITV (with Rob Turnock) and examining the industrial contexts within which innovation in television production has taken place (Telefantasy, BFI, 2005). While my research focuses on the television industries in particular, it is more broadly situated within a transmedia framework examining (historically and in the current digital era) the relationships between television and other media such as radio, cinema and the internet.
I have collaborated on funded research projects with international academic and industry partners through my work on the Video Active project (at Royal Holloway, University of London), which made audio-visual content from television archive and broadcaster partners across Europe available on a multi-lingual portal and received €2.6million from the EU. This included co-organising a major international conference devoted to television history and new media, which led to the publication of a co-edited journal (with Andreas Fickers) on comparative media history. In 2008 I was part of the Royal Holloway team that developed a bid to the EU for a €5.5 million project, EUscreen, to create access to over 35,000 items of broadcast content to support the European Digital Library (Europeana).
PhD supervision: I have supervised PhD students on a range of topics, including audience responses to transmedia drama (Elizabeth Evans), the history of theatrical adaptations on British television (Billy Smart), the historical reception of televised political comedy in the UK (Matt Crowder) and the history of acting on television (Richard Hewett). I am interested in supervising doctoral research on contemporary and historical television, particularly projects that are interested in the production and/or institutional contexts of televison and their impact on programme production, the relationships between television and other media, and promotional screen cultures and branding. I have been awarded a Collaborative Doctoral Award by the AHRC for a doctoral student (Elinor Groom) to work with the BFI's Southern Television paper collection to examine the history of this ITV regional franchise.
Teaching Summary
I believe that students learn best through being active learners. In my teaching I use a range of methods to encourage active and applied learning, from giving students specific seminar preparation… read more
Research Summary
My new book Branding Television (Routledge, 2011) examines why and how the UK and US television industries turned towards branding as a strategy over the 1990s in response to the rise of satellite,… read more
Recent Publications
JOHNSON, CATHERINE, 2012. Branding Television Routledge.
CATHERINE JOHNSON and ANDREAS FICKERS, eds., 2012. Transnational Television History Routledge.
CATHERINE JOHNSON, 2012. The authorial function of the television channel: augmentation and identity. In: JONATHAN GRAY and DEREK JOHNSON, eds., The Handbook of Media Authorship Wiley-Blackwell. (In Press.)
JOHNSON, CATHERINE, 2010. Cult TV and the Television Industry. In: ABBOTT, STACEY, ed., The Cult TV Book I.B.Tauris. 135-154
I believe that students learn best through being active learners. In my teaching I use a range of methods to encourage active and applied learning, from giving students specific seminar preparation tasks each week, to devising modes of assessment that encourage independent learning, to encouraging critical participation in lectures. Such techniques offer students structured opportunities to take control of their own learning in ways that are always tied to the goals and assessments of the module.
I have many years of experience in teaching film, television and media studies. In the Department of Culture, Film and Media I have taught the following modules:
Film and Television in Social and Cultural Context
Film and TV Genres 2
Understanding the Cultural Industries
Dissertations
Current Research
My new book Branding Television (Routledge, 2011) examines why and how the UK and US television industries turned towards branding as a strategy over the 1990s in response to the rise of satellite, cable, digital television, and new media, such as the internet and mobile phone. This includes analysing the regulatory, technical and political shifts that have affected the television industries over the past 30 years, exploring the role of marketing and design in branding channels and corporation, and examining the increasing emphasis on developing programmes as brands that can be extended across multiple media platforms.
I am currently working with Paul Grainge to develop this research in order to examine the industry that produces the design and promotion that has become increasingly important to the media industries.
Past Research
I have written on the history of ITV, the development of cult television in the UK and US, the role of IP and the sale of rights to British radio and television programmes in the 1940s and 1950s, the place of aesthetics and judgements of value in histories of British television, and the production history of British and US science fiction and fantasy programmes, with particular focus on the industrial contexts within which innovation takes place.
Future Research
I have a history of working with archive partners, which has included working on large digitisation projects and consulting on archive policy. I would be keen to hear from any archives with television collections that may be interested in collaborating with academic partners.
I am developing my work on branding and television to examine the historical development and contemporary nature of media promotion, including researching the role of designers and marketeers within the media.