Allan Jones
Allan is a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Systems. His research interests are mainly centred on the interaction of science, technology and society. In 2010 he gained a PhD from UCL for a thesis relating to the uneasy relationship between the worlds of institutional science and broadcasting in the UK from the early days of the BBC. He is also interested in communications technology and in music. Currently he is a supervisor of postgraduate student Adavait Deshpande.
Publications
(with Elton Barker, Chris Bissell, Lorna Hardwick, Mia Ridge and John Wolffe) ‘Digital Technologies: Help or Hindrance for the Humanities?’ Colloquium Report’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, forthcoming
(with Chris Bissell) ‘The social construction of educational technology through the use of authentic software tools’, Research in Learning Technology (forthcoming)
‘Mary Adams and the producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts’, Public Understanding of Science (forthcoming)
‘Five 1951 BBC Broadcasts on Automatic Calculating machines’, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 26 (2), April-June 2004, pp.3-15.
Conference Papers
‘Good fences make good neighbours: Maintaining a wall between science and broadcasting in the 1950s’, Broadcasting in the 1950s conference, University of Wales, Gregynog Hall, Powys, Wales, 20-22 July 2011
‘Science, the 1930s and the BBC’ presented to the ‘Broadcasting in the 1930s: New Media in a Time of Crisis’ symposium, University of Madison, Wisconsin, 6–9 July 2010.
‘BBC Science: A Question of Control’, presented to the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) annual conference, Barcelona, 26 November 2008.
‘The Battle over BBC Science’, presented to the Centre for History of Science, Technology and Medicine annual conference, Manchester, 22 June 2008.
‘J. G. Crowther and the BBC’, presented at the conference on J. G. Crowther, University College London, Department of Science and Technology Studies, 17 June 2005.
‘An Unhappy Page in BBC History: the Appointment of Sir Henry Dale as the BBC’s First Scientific Adviser’, presented to the British Society for the History of Science, Postgraduate Conference, University of Cambridge, 5-7 January 2005.
‘Electronic Brains on the Third Programme’, presented to the Media in Postwar Britain conference, University of Westminster, 19 June 2004.
‘Pioneers on the air: BBC radio broadcasts on computers and A.I., 1946-56’, presented to the Sixth ACONIT International Conference, Grenoble, 25-27 November 2002. (Published as A. Jones (2002) ‘Pioneers on the Air’, Actes du sixième Colloque sur l’Histoire de l’Informatique et des Réseaux, Éditions ACONIT, Grenoble, pp. 14-28.)