Short, K.R.M. 1936–2007

(Kenneth Richard M. Short, Kenneth Richard MacDonald Short)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born February 16, 1936, in Woodbury, NJ; died July 30, 2007. Historian, educator, minister, editor, and author. Short went to England as a Fulbright scholar and ended up living and teaching there for nearly twenty years. When he became aware of the value of audiovisual materials and mass communications for the teaching of history, his proximity to primary European sources enabled him to study these topics in their own right. He was the founding editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television in 1979 and a general editor of the Cambridge University Press book series "Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communications." Short taught British history at British secondary schools from 1968 to 1988 before returning to the United States to teach communications history at the University of Houston from 1988 to 2003. He was also a director of the International Telecommunications Research Institute and, before that, an affiliate of the International Association for Audio-Visual Media in Historical Research and Education, the British Universities Film and Video Council, the Inter University History Film Commission, and the British Film Institute. Short was convinced that newsreels and other documentary audiovisual materials were absolutely necessary to an understanding of the history of the twentieth century. Aside from his scholarly pursuits, Short was also an ordained priest of the Church of England and served Episcopal congregations in Texas and Colorado. Short edited several collections related to the history of mass communications, including Feature Films as History (1981), Film and Radio Propaganda in World War II (1983), and Western Broadcasting over the Iron Curtain (1986). He also wrote the book Universal Newsreels and the Fall of Nazi Germany (1990).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), October 9, 2007, p. 65.