The School of Politics and International Relations is very sad to hear of the death of Professor Colin Seymour-Ure.
Colin was one of the founder members of the study of politics at the University of Kent joining the University on its establishment in 1965.
He served as Dean of Social Sciences and Head of Department. He was one of the world’s leading scholars of political communications and mass media.
His publications cover the role of the press and broadcasting in a wide range of issues and institutions: Downing Street and White House news management; election campaigns; images of Tony Blair and John Major in the Sun and Daily Mirror; press partisanship; the power of media barons; media policy; political rumours. He wrote the biography of the great cartoonist David Low and helped the British Cartoon Archive, founded by Dr Graham Thomas, prosper.
Professor Seymour-Ure was a Council member of the Hansard Society and Chairman of the Study of Parliament Group, made up of parliamentary staff and academics. In the 1970s, he spent two years with a Government Press Commission. Later, he worked at Harvard and in Washington, Australia and Canada. For six years he chaired the Independent Television Commission’s committee responsible for advising on ITV’s advertising rules. He was an Emeritus Professor from 2002 and until his death in November 2017.
We have lost not only a scholar and colleague but also a friend.