Steve Hocking

Research Topic

Radio broadcasting and identity in the southern British world, 1929-39.

I’m researching the impact of broadcasting on senses of identity in Australia and New Zealand in the 1930s - what listeners heard and how they reacted to it. In what was a period of dynamic development I'm particularly looking at ways in which broadcasting - both domestic and that relayed from London - reflected a sense of shared 'British' identity in the years before the Second World War. I'm doing so through a close examination of a number of specific events and broadcasts.

I've worked in broadcasting since 1986, most recently on television coverage of major British state occasions, many of which were broadcast for the first time in the 1920s and 30s. I returned to academic life having taken many short online courses run by the Oxford  Continuing Education Department. I studied part-time for a MSt in Historical Studies, graduating in 2019. 

Supervisor: Professor James Belich