In 1968 the sociologist John Eldridge, who has died aged 86, produced his book Industrial Disputes. When he joined Glasgow University four years later it provided a foundation for an investigation of bias in this area as part of a wider study of television news.
John was Glasgow’s first professor of sociology, becoming part of a department in which I was already a lecturer. He quickly became a founder member of the Glasgow University Media Group, and his knowledge of the patterns and causes of industrial conflict underpinned its studies of how strikes were represented. The skills of the media group – including also Greg Philo, Brian Winston, Howard Davis and Peter Beharrell – covered television production as well as social science. They analysed videos of how speech and images were used in news reports and interviews.
