leadership in the field, there is no one better suited to open our conference this week and then paddy scannell. please welcome him. [applause] prof. scannell: [laughter] thank you very much, michelle, for that wonderful, if not slightly intimidating introduction. i am already beginning to feel that i am a hard act to follow. [laughter] all i can say, people, is i will give it a go. one of the things that i loved many years ago, when you get invited to do something like this, is always check the small print. i got an invitation about 30 years ago to give a keynote in italy at the invitation of the italian public broadcaster. they said it is a conference about radio documentary. i said, yeah, i can do that. i did know something about radio documentary. until i actually got there, and the evening before i was about to stand up to do what i'm about to do now, they said, you know it's about the short-form documentary, don't you? no, i didn't. and actually, i'd never even heard of short-form documentary. i thought it was going to be talking about what i do know about, the beginnings of what i think

paddy scannell joined the department of communication at the university of michigan in 2006. he had already spent 30 years building one of the first undergraduate degree in media studies in the u.k. at the university of westminster, london. he is a founding editor of the journal of media, culture, and society which began publication in 1979 and is still going strong. his works not only include a social history of british broadcasting, but another one, broadcast talk. it is an edited volume that came out in the 1990's. it is a compilation of work. radio, what is it? it is talk. what kind of talk? very influential book. another one, radio television and modern life in 1996, which theorized the way media is integrated into the structure of everyday life. some people, having done all that, would be slowing down. in the early 2000's, patty announced that he was about to embark upon a trilogy of new works, three works that build upon each other, and by gosh, he has done it. the third is underway. the first volume came out 2007 was hailed as a magisterial overview of the development