Allan Jones
Biographic Data
| ID | 3946385 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Allan Jones |
| GIVEN NAMES | Allan |
| FAMILY NAME | Jones |
| SIGNATURE | JONES A |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Open University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8966-8597 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Industries of Infrastructural Futures, Automated Cultures, and Algorithmic Dynamics
We approach the conference topic of industry through four studies that explore a new media landscape where value and power are increasingly produced through the operalisation of machinic and affective relations and subjectivities. We explore technologies of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithmic regimes and the new possibilities for enacting and imagining political futures that they afford. The papers focus on four case studies: WeCh…
The Rises and Falls of Adult Education on the BBC
Adult education at the BBC has a chequered history. During the 1920s and 1930s, the BBC invested heavily in adult education, but after a promising start the scheme failed. Further rises and falls followed. The development of The Open University (founded in 1969) was seen as a new venture for adult-educational broadcasting, but broadcasts formed only a small part of its teaching material. Two extremely successful BBC literacy ventures during the 1…
Science in the making: 1930S citizen science on the BBC
During 1931–1933 several BBC radio broadcasts invited listeners to participate in what would now be termed ‘citizen science’ experiments. Scientists broadcast on a research topic, and asked for relevant data and observations from listeners. Most of these broadcasts were part of the Science in the Making series. Topics investigated ranged across natural history, meteorology, auditory perception, dreams and social science. One Science in the Making…
Brains, Tortoises, and Octopuses: Postwar Interpretations of Mechanical Intelligence on the BBC
The immediate postwar period saw the emergence of the first digital computers as well as developments in cybernetics, brain research, and information theory. In this era, questions of mechanical intelligence came to the forefront in public media. In Britain the BBC broadcast radio talks by many leading practitioners in these fields in which they discussed their work and speculated on its implications for conceptions of intelligence. Generally, sp…
J.G. Crowther's War: Institutional strife at the BBC and British Council
Science writer, historian and administrator J.G. Crowther (1899–1983) had an uneasy relationship with the BBC during the 1920s and 1930s, and was regarded with suspicion by the British security services because of his left politics. Nevertheless the Second World War saw him working for ‘establishment’ institutions. He was closely associated with the BBC's Overseas Service and employed by the British Council's Science Committee. Both organizations…
Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 by Simon J. Potter (review)
Reviewed by: Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 by Simon J. Potter Allan Jones (bio) Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970. By Simon J. Potter. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Clarendon Press, 2013. Pp. 261. $125. Simon Potter’s title and subtitle are intentionally ambiguous. Is “broadcasting empire” the swelling domain of the BBC, or the British Empire broadcasting to itself? Is “British world” …
Elite science and the BBC: A 1950s contest of ownership
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the elite world of institutional British science attempted to take control of the BBC's management of science broadcasting. Delegations of scientists met BBC managers to propose an increased role for scientists in planning science broadcasts to a degree that threatened to compromise the BBC's authority and autonomy. The culmination was a set of proposals to the Pilkington Committee in 1960, principally from the …
Clogging the Machinery: The BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953
In 1949, physicist Mark Oliphant criticised the BBC's handling of science in a letter to the Director General William Haley. It initiated a chain of events which led to the experimental appointment of a science adviser, Henry Dale, to improve the ‘coordination’ of science broadcasts. The experiment failed, but the episode revealed conflicting views of the BBC's responsibility towards science held by scientists and BBC staff. For the scientists, s…
Mary Adams and the producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts
Mary Adams was a science producer at the BBC from 1930–6. She is shown to have played a crucial role in shaping science broadcasts, in particular devising formats and styles of presentation. However, her approach is shown to have been primarily motivated by broadcasting considerations rather than by the popularisation of science. Through her interaction with scientists she helped to construct a new professional domain, that of the science-broadca…
Colloquium: Digital technologies
This article offers reflections arising from a recent colloquium at the Open University on the implications of the development of digital humanities for research in arts disciplines, and also for their interactions with computing and technology. Particular issues explored include the ways in which the digital turn in humanities research is also a spatial/visual one; the tension between analysis based on the extensive ‘hard’ data generated by digi…
Setting objective tests
The rationale for the increased popularity of objective testing in the UK is outlined, and issues in its acceptance by academics are considered. An examination is made of time costs and benefits based on a case study of test production and implementation. Several question styles are discussed and illustrated followed by a discussion of test administration, marking schemes and the problem of guesswork
Whatever Happened to Planning
The housing experience in Barbados
Clogging the Machinery: The BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953
In 1949, physicist Mark Oliphant criticised the BBC's handling of science in a letter to the Director General William Haley. It initiated a chain of events which led to the experimental appointment of a science adviser, Henry Dale, to improve the ‘coordination’ of science broadcasts. The experiment failed, but the episode revealed conflicting views of the BBC's responsibility towards science held by scientists and BBC staff. For the scientists, s…
Elite science and the BBC: A 1950s contest of ownership
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the elite world of institutional British science attempted to take control of the BBC's management of science broadcasting. Delegations of scientists met BBC managers to propose an increased role for scientists in planning science broadcasts to a degree that threatened to compromise the BBC's authority and autonomy. The culmination was a set of proposals to the Pilkington Committee in 1960, principally from the …
J.G. Crowther's War: Institutional strife at the BBC and British Council
Science writer, historian and administrator J.G. Crowther (1899–1983) had an uneasy relationship with the BBC during the 1920s and 1930s, and was regarded with suspicion by the British security services because of his left politics. Nevertheless the Second World War saw him working for ‘establishment’ institutions. He was closely associated with the BBC's Overseas Service and employed by the British Council's Science Committee. Both organizations…
The housing experience in Barbados
Whatever Happened to Planning
Setting objective tests
The rationale for the increased popularity of objective testing in the UK is outlined, and issues in its acceptance by academics are considered. An examination is made of time costs and benefits based on a case study of test production and implementation. Several question styles are discussed and illustrated followed by a discussion of test administration, marking schemes and the problem of guesswork
Colloquium: Digital technologies
This article offers reflections arising from a recent colloquium at the Open University on the implications of the development of digital humanities for research in arts disciplines, and also for their interactions with computing and technology. Particular issues explored include the ways in which the digital turn in humanities research is also a spatial/visual one; the tension between analysis based on the extensive ‘hard’ data generated by digi…
Mary Adams and the producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts
Mary Adams was a science producer at the BBC from 1930–6. She is shown to have played a crucial role in shaping science broadcasts, in particular devising formats and styles of presentation. However, her approach is shown to have been primarily motivated by broadcasting considerations rather than by the popularisation of science. Through her interaction with scientists she helped to construct a new professional domain, that of the science-broadca…
Clogging the Machinery: The BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953
In 1949, physicist Mark Oliphant criticised the BBC's handling of science in a letter to the Director General William Haley. It initiated a chain of events which led to the experimental appointment of a science adviser, Henry Dale, to improve the ‘coordination’ of science broadcasts. The experiment failed, but the episode revealed conflicting views of the BBC's responsibility towards science held by scientists and BBC staff. For the scientists, s…
Elite science and the BBC: A 1950s contest of ownership
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the elite world of institutional British science attempted to take control of the BBC's management of science broadcasting. Delegations of scientists met BBC managers to propose an increased role for scientists in planning science broadcasts to a degree that threatened to compromise the BBC's authority and autonomy. The culmination was a set of proposals to the Pilkington Committee in 1960, principally from the …
Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 by Simon J. Potter (review)
Reviewed by: Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 by Simon J. Potter Allan Jones (bio) Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970. By Simon J. Potter. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Clarendon Press, 2013. Pp. 261. $125. Simon Potter’s title and subtitle are intentionally ambiguous. Is “broadcasting empire” the swelling domain of the BBC, or the British Empire broadcasting to itself? Is “British world” …
Brains, Tortoises, and Octopuses: Postwar Interpretations of Mechanical Intelligence on the BBC
The immediate postwar period saw the emergence of the first digital computers as well as developments in cybernetics, brain research, and information theory. In this era, questions of mechanical intelligence came to the forefront in public media. In Britain the BBC broadcast radio talks by many leading practitioners in these fields in which they discussed their work and speculated on its implications for conceptions of intelligence. Generally, sp…
J.G. Crowther's War: Institutional strife at the BBC and British Council
Science writer, historian and administrator J.G. Crowther (1899–1983) had an uneasy relationship with the BBC during the 1920s and 1930s, and was regarded with suspicion by the British security services because of his left politics. Nevertheless the Second World War saw him working for ‘establishment’ institutions. He was closely associated with the BBC's Overseas Service and employed by the British Council's Science Committee. Both organizations…
Science in the making: 1930S citizen science on the BBC
During 1931–1933 several BBC radio broadcasts invited listeners to participate in what would now be termed ‘citizen science’ experiments. Scientists broadcast on a research topic, and asked for relevant data and observations from listeners. Most of these broadcasts were part of the Science in the Making series. Topics investigated ranged across natural history, meteorology, auditory perception, dreams and social science. One Science in the Making…
The Rises and Falls of Adult Education on the BBC
Adult education at the BBC has a chequered history. During the 1920s and 1930s, the BBC invested heavily in adult education, but after a promising start the scheme failed. Further rises and falls followed. The development of The Open University (founded in 1969) was seen as a new venture for adult-educational broadcasting, but broadcasts formed only a small part of its teaching material. Two extremely successful BBC literacy ventures during the 1…
Industries of Infrastructural Futures, Automated Cultures, and Algorithmic Dynamics
We approach the conference topic of industry through four studies that explore a new media landscape where value and power are increasingly produced through the operalisation of machinic and affective relations and subjectivities. We explore technologies of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithmic regimes and the new possibilities for enacting and imagining political futures that they afford. The papers focus on four case studies: WeCh…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · History and Developments in Astronomy (4 works) · Business (3 works) · History of Science and Natural History (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Politics (3 works)