An Interview with Professor Paddy Scannell, Oxford, July 2006

Abstract

Paddy Scannell: I had done a degree in English literature at Oxford for three years and after that, because I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do next, I thought I might as well stay on a bit longer. So I applied to do postgraduate research in English literature. That turned out to be total waste of time and I packed it up at the end of the first year. I moved on to a postgraduate certificate in education at the University of Hull - the only place I could get into just before the start of the academic year. I did my teaching practice in an inner city comprehensive school and found it emotionally exhausting. So I was applying for jobs in advertising when I saw a little ad in the Sunday Times. It said: ‘The Polytechnic/Lecturer in Communication’ and then went on to say: ‘must be interested in film, television, radio and theatre’. Well who isn’t? So I applied though I’d no idea what a polytechnic was, nor what a lecturer in communication might do. To my great surprise I got the job. I accepted it and I suppose I have spent the rest of my life, the last forty years, trying to discover how to be a lecturer in communication.