‘I owe it to those women to own it’: Women, Media Production and Intergenerational Dialogue through Oral History

Abstract

While the academy is faced with increasing calls for its research to be socially relevant, a long-established principle of feminism has been the discovery and use of knowledge produced by, for and about women. Informed by feminist debates, the Histories of Women in the British Film and Television Industries project undertook a number of engagement activities drawing on the oral histories of women who had worked in the British media industries. These included workshops with trade union members and media practitioners which explored continuity and change in women's experiences of the media workplace. This article reflects on this suite of engagement activities, their successes and failures, and the possibilities and limitations of feminist-informed impact in and through the academy.