Broadcast: News items

Dr Caroline Bassett pays tribute to Roger Silverstone at an event on campus this week to mark the naming of the Silverstone building after him

A symposium on campus this week marked the renaming of a building after Sussex's first Professor of Media Studies, Roger Silverstone. 

'The Work of Roger Silverstone' was organised by former Media and Film colleagues of Roger, who died in 2006. The event officially marked the re-opening last August of the Educational Development Building (EDB) as the Silverstone building, housing the newly formed School of Media, Film and Music. 

Speakers at the event on Wednesday (20 January) included former colleagues of Roger's at Sussex, Dr Kate Lacey and Andy Medhurst, as well as those who worked with him at other universities. A number of the speakers were also students of Roger at Sussex, including Dr Matt Hills who is now Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff. 

Dr Caroline Bassett, Reader in Media and Film Studies and one of the event's organisers, said that the event was extremely well-attended. She said: "It was packed with faculty from Media and Film, old and new; faculty members from other departments at Sussex; many former students; ex-colleagues - many now leading researchers at other UK and European universities; a whole bunch of our DPhils and current MA students - some of whom are using his work to finish off their term papers; as well as various other people interested in Roger's work." 

"We wanted to mark the work of a scholar who helped develop the field of media and cultural studies and to do so in a way that would make sense to Roger - with a rigorously academic symposium that was both appreciative and critical, and that looked forwards at new directions his work suggested." 

Roger moved to Sussex in 1991 - after 15 years as a sociologist at Brunel University - and set about moulding the shape of the Media and Cultural Studies programme. In addition, he developed new research collaborations as Director of the Graduate Research Centre in Culture and Communication (CulCom) and worked on his path-breaking text Why Study the Media?, since translated into many languages. 

He left in 1998 to become the first Professor of Media and Communication at LSE (London School of Economics), where he worked until he died. There is now a Silverstone Fellow appointed at LSE, where a fund was set up in Roger's name. 

Jennifer Silverstone, Roger's wife, attended the event with their three children.