PEOPLE - BEREAVEMENTS

Emeritus Professor J D Halloran

Emeritus Professor James D Halloran

30 April 1927 - 16 May 2007

Jim Halloran, who has died aged 80 after a short illness, was born in Birstall, Yorkshire in 1927. After a BSc in Sociology and Economics at Hull University in 1951 (interrupted by a period of National Service with the RAF), teacher training in Hull, London and Leeds, and brief stints as a school teacher and prison tutor, he joined the University of Leicester in 1958 as a Senior Tutor in the Department of Adult Education.

Jim quickly gained a reputation for his energy, his capacity for hard work and for his prodigious research output. His first book, Control or Consent: a Study of the Promise of Mass Communication (London: Sheed and Ward) which appeared in 1963 and a string of research papers and reports on the role and influence of the mass media, with an emphasis on the increasingly popular medium of television, quickly followed. He was appointed Secretary to the Home Office’s Television Research Committee in 1964. Popular opinion at the time had implicated television in what was perceived as a rising tide of violence and aggressive behaviour among young people in the re-emergent consumer society of post-War Britain. The TV Research Committee’s brief, under the Chairmanship of Fraser Noble (the then newly-appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Leicester) was to investigate the evidence for television’s supposedly baleful influence. Within a short time Jim had succeeded in persuading the Home Office, various commercial sponsors, as well as the University, that there was a need for a permanent academic base in Britain for systematic research into the effects of television and other media. The Centre for Mass Communication Research was formed under his Directorship in 1966 and was given full departmental status shortly afterwards. Jim was eventually promoted to the Chair in Mass Communications (the first such appointment in Britain) and gave his inaugural lecture in 1973 which he titled Mass Media and Society: the challenge of research. The resulting paper, probably more than any of his numerous publications, defined Jim’s position in the field, emphasizing as it did the need to take a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the study of the media, and to apprehend the media’s significance in the uses to which they are put and their profound contribution to, and influence over, daily life. This was a relatively unusual position to adopt at the time, breaking with mainstream research which focussed on the media’s influence on individual psychological processes.

Jim’s success in establishing the Centre rested on his ability to persuade potential funding bodies that their investment in the research that could only be done by him and his colleagues at Leicester would be worthwhile and, most important from his perspective, would have wider relevance for media policy and practice. Equally important was his eye for academic talent; he succeeded in persuading some of the best young scholars in the field to join him at Leicester and he rapidly created a productive and lively research environment for his team that over the next twenty years helped to place the department among the most widely known and respected centres for research into media and communications in the world. He retired as Director in 1991.

Perhaps Jim’s most important academic legacy is represented in the thriving international academic community that is the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR – formerly the International Association of Mass Communication Research). Frustrated at the quietism he found in IAMCR in the early 1970s and elected President in 1972, he set about a programme of invigoration by devising and organizing a schedule of bi-annual conferences that quickly stretched IAMCR’s influence across the globe. Working with UNESCO and other international organizations to bring scholars from the first, second and, for the first time, third worlds together, and amassing a membership of over 2000 from more than 70 countries, IAMCR was able to address some of the most important media and communications issues of the day and promote the cause of critical, policy-relevant, social scientific research. It continues to do so as the foremost international academic association for the study of the media.

Among numerous awards during his lifetime Jim received the Yugoslav Flag with Golden Star, in 1990 for his ‘development of communication science and contribution to international scientific co-operation’, was made Honorary Life President of IAMCR in 1990; was awarded the McLuhan Teleglobe Canada award in 1991; and received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Tampere and Bergen.

Jim was a larger-than-life character who used his presence to great effect as an advocate for his academic and departmental causes, as a campaigner for international collaborative research, and as a lecturer and public speaker. An engaging presenter, often more enthusiastic raconteur than fact-bearing lecturer, Jim understood well the need to get the message straight. While often blunt, he was capable of showing great sensitivity to his audience when the occasion demanded it. As a head of department he could be challenging, but always inspiring and often supportive, especially of his junior academic colleagues. Jim made many contributions to the life of the University over the years. He served on numerous Boards and committees, chaired a number of working groups and advised senior colleagues on a range of internal University matters. He also had a strong sense of the University’s role in the community and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Haldane Society, until recently serving as President.

Despite the heavy demands he placed on himself professionally, it was important to Jim to find time to relax with friends and family. Those who were lucky enough to know him well will remember his warmth and great generosity as a host. He took a keen interest in sport and had a Yorkshireman’s affection for cricket and rugby. He often found time to watch both sports, playing rugby in his earlier days at Hull and for many years playing cricket for the Senior Common Room team at Leicester. Some will recall his enthusiastic, if sometimes witheringly critical appreciation of rugby, exercised during the near-legendary series of ‘rugby lunches’ he organized where friends and University colleagues gathered to watch the five- and six-nation tournaments on television. Most will remember Jim’s fondness of good food, fine wine and lively, preferably combative, conversation. He will be sorely missed by his family, and his many friends and colleagues both at home and across the globe.

He is survived by his daughters Anna and Cathleen, sons Patrick and Michael, and seven grandchildren.

Roger Dickinson

Department of Media and Communication