Pioneers on the air: BBC radio broadcasts on computers and A.I., 1946-56

Between 1946 and 1956, a number of BBC radio broadcasts were made by pioneers in the fields of computing, artificial intelligence and cybernetics. Although no sound recordings of the broadcasts survive, transcripts are held at the BBC's Written Archives Centre at Caversham in the UK. This paper is based on a study of these transcripts, which have received little attention from historians. The paper surveys the range of computer-related broadcasts during 1946–1956 and discusses some recurring themes from the broadcasts, especially the relationship of 'artificial intelligence' to human intelligence. Additionally, it discusses the context of the broadcasts, both in relation to the BBC and to contemporary awareness of computers

Cyril Scott, Segovia and the Sonatina for Guitar

Cyril Scott's guitar Sonatina, composed for Andres Segovia in 1927, was regarded for many decades as a lost work. Following its incomplete premiere in 1928, it disappeared from Segovia’s repertoire, remaining unpublished, unrecorded, and unavailable to other guitarists. The manuscript was thought to have perished, and the work acquired almost legendary status in the guitar world. The recovery of the manuscript in May 2001 confirms the Sonatina’s significance as a major break from the overtly Hispanic and folkloristically inspired pieces that dominate the pre-World War II repertoire of modern guitar music. The author’s researches into Segovia’s reception in Paris and London in the mid-1920s, and into other ‘lost’ works composed for Segovia at this time, provide a context in which the story of Scott's piece is unfolded and its significance assessed

Exceptionalism and the broadcasting of science

During the course of several decades, several scientists and groups of scientists lobbied the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) about science broadcasting. A consistent theme of the interventions was that science broadcasting should be given exceptional treatment both in its content, which was to have a strongly didactic element, and in its managerial arrangements within the BBC. This privileging of science would have amounted to ‘scientific exceptionalism’. The article looks at the nature of this exceptionalism and broadcasters’ responses to it

Proprietary software tools as learning aids

Proprietary software tools, though not designed for educational use, have considerable educational potential. This paper describes, as case studies, the use of proprietary graphics- and audio-editing tools in two distance-taught courses produced by the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at the UK Open University – Europe's largest distance teaching institution. The paper examines the potential advantages and disadvantages of this type of software relative to conventional educational software in terms of constructivist learning theory, and describes how students use the software in the courses concerned. The paper concludes by suggesting further developments of this approach

<i>The Changing World</i>: The BBC’s educational response to the economic crisis of 1931

In Autumn 1931 and Spring 1932, at a time of global and national economic crisis, the BBC subsumed all its adult education radio broadcasts under the title The Changing World. The series was described in promotional literature as ‘an attempt ... to face up squarely to the present situation, and to provide a survey of the many changes in outward circumstance, and in the evolution of thought and of values, which have brought into being the world as it is to-day.’ The Changing World comprised 144 broadcasts, each lasting around 25 minutes. The broadcasts were presented by eminent figures, such as the poet T. S. Eliot, the writer Harold Nicolson, the scientist Julian Huxley, and the economist William Beveridge. All talks were transmitted at ‘prime time’ in the early evening, and were intended for general listeners. In addition, associated pamphlets were published by the BBC in which speakers developed their thoughts. The series was avowedly based on the premise that the contemporary crisis was a singular historical episode, calling for special consideration. Its roots lay in the cataclysm of the First World War, but it was also a manifestation of the many conflicting philosophies which ran through public life: socialism versus capitalism; nationalism versus internationalism; science (or secularism) versus spirituality; and modernism versus classicism. The crisis was seen as pervading most areas of cultural, creative and economic life, such as politics, the arts, science, and education. In another sense, though, the series was very much a product of its time. Broadcast radio, and in particular public service broadcasting, was barely ten years old, but in that short time it had developed from a specialist, minority pursuit to a cultural and educational resource in the lives of most of the population. This paper argues that The Changing World therefore represents a coming -of-age of radio – a realisation among its staff that it was especially fitted to tackle momentous topics on behalf of the public. The series marks a growing confidence among broadcasting practitioners in the medium, and a growing self-confidence in themselves as professional intermediaries between the public and the intellectual world. The talk draws on original, unpublished archive material relating to the series, and on associated publications. Although no sound recordings of the series survive, many of the talks were published. Extracts from the talks give an impression of the approaches and styles, and internal BBC documents indicate the ambition and scope of the producers. Reviews and comments also indicate the reception of the series. The paper also locates The Changing World in the context of the BBC’s own historical development, and its sometimes uneasy political position as a quasi-autonomous body which was nevertheless subject in various ways to government pressure

BBC science: a question of control

Several times in the BBC's history, from 1928 to around 1963, the world of professional science has attempted to influence, and even control, the BBC's practices regarding science coverage. The main scientific lobbyists of the BBC were the Royal Society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, together with less prominent individuals and organisations. The proposals made by these bodies and individuals were consistent over several decades and from organisation to organisation, and involved the institutional world of science being given more control over the BBC's science output. These proposals (which were unsuccessful) were a threat to the BBC's autonomy. The paper examines the background of these scientific interventions and the BBC's constitutional status as an autonomous organisation. It finds that there was a high degree of symmetry between the BBC's role as a public service broadcaster and the scientists' roles as disseminators of scientific knowledge. The paper concludes by framing the scientists' interventions, and the BBC's response, in the light of scholarship relating to the construction of social structure through social interaction

Joe Trenaman’s investigation of BBC listeners’ understanding of science

During 1949, Joe Trenaman in the BBC’s Further Education Department conducted an experiment into listeners’ comprehension of science broadcasts (and some non-science broadcasts). Subjects listened to a recorded broadcast and then wrote everything they recollected. Their recollections were marked and correlated with their educational qualifications and level of interest. The major findings were that subjects who understood the talk best were not the ones who found it most interesting. Rather, the subjects for whom the talk was only just comprehensible found it most interesting. This ‘scientific’ test of comprehension had a number of outcomes for the various interested parties. Trenaman conducted further experiments and eventually become an academic educationalist. For the BBC, the findings supported existing institutional practices, in particular the three-service network that had been developed just after the Second World War. For scientific advisors to the BBC, however, the findings played into a current debate with the BBC over the form science broadcasts should take. Trenaman’s results were announced just as scientist-advisors were on the defensive, having had their claim that science broadcasts concentrated unduly on ‘social issues’ disproved by evidence from BBC managers. Trenaman’s findings were used by scientists to support their argument that science broadcasts should be managed by an outside scientist, who would ensure that they adhered to requisites of comprehensibility and scientific coherence. The outcome was the experimental appointment of a coordinator for scientific broadcasts. The episode can be seen in the context of long-running contention by scientists that the BBC had a duty to privilege science in BBC output ‘in the national interest’, and the BBC’s equally long running resistance to such external scientific pressure