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The Loughborough Communication Research Centre at Loughborough University has been instrumental in improving the impartiality of BBC news and current affairs coverage of events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Centre was commissioned by the BBC Board of Governors (and its successor body, the BBC Trust) to assess its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in 2006) and of the Arab Spring (in 2011). The analyses of BBC output led to demonstrable, on-going and significant changes in the BBC's way of providing impartial coverage of these conflicts. The reports have also precipitated considerable media debate in the UK and internationally indicating the significance and reach of our research.
We have worked as media and cultural historians, archive experts and media producers, and collaborated with a variety of public institutions and communities of interest, to draw attention to neglected histories, to respond to the opportunities afforded by new digital technologies, to disseminate archived material, and to interpret it for wide audiences. Through our work we have contributed to an improvement in the understanding and practice of media history, in particular the exploration and archiving of, and engagement with, the popular cultural artefacts which index its lived experience. Most noteworthy has been our contributions to the development of online and offline communities of interest by integrating processes of knowledge exchange into our research, in order to promote co-curation, and discussion about cultural value, memory and collecting. Our impact is measured in the development of popular practices of preservation, in the circulation of media products we have created from archive material, and in our engagements in public projects and with cultural institutions, audiences and policy makers. This work has regional, national and international reach.
Political power in the UK has been significantly devolved since 1999, transforming the policy landscape. Our research in 2007 found that broadcast news failed to reflect this new landscape, and that citizens were routinely being misinformed about major areas of policy such as health and education — a lack of information and understanding that is a potential barrier to democratic engagement. Our research was used to inform the King Report, as well as being published by the BBC Trust as part of that report, and our recommendations were adopted by the BBC which took action based on our findings to improve news coverage across all its outlets. Our follow-up study, conducted a year after this intervention, found that BBC news coverage had changed to become more accurate, and better reflected post-devolution politics in the UK.
This case study focuses on impact by the Media Policy and Industries Group within the Communications and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), specifically the complementary expertise of Jean Seaton and Steven Barnett. It shows how research on policy and historical issues related to public service broadcasting and journalism in the UK has informed and influenced policy debate and practice in respect of Parliament, the Leveson Inquiry, Ofcom and the BBC. Specifically research-based expert advice has improved the quality of evidence on three House of Lords Select Committee Inquiries (Investigative Journalism; British Film and Television Industries; Ownership of News); evidence and policy-making at the BBC; public and stakeholder understanding of key issues addressed by the Leveson Inquiry; and policy-thinking at Ofcom on local media ownership rules.
The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling (GEECS) is the only UK academic research centre devoted to the study of storytelling and its applications. Our research has supported the development and renewed public awareness of storytelling as a powerful, democratic art form. The impact of our storytelling research is both cultural and social as it has generated new understandings of community formation, connectivity and capacity through creative participation. Collaboration with 16 national, international and local partners since 2008 enables the impact of our research to secure both a wide reach within civil society and attain real significance within local communities.
Since 2007, Open University (OU) researchers have been examining the BBC World Service (BBCWS) from the perspectives of its diaspora broadcasters in London and its diaspora audiences worldwide. Multilingual migrants have always enabled the BBCWS to broadcast in many languages, creating a cultural bridge to global audiences. Increasingly, BBCWS audiences themselves are diasporic: living outside territorial `homelands'. The research made the BBC aware of its diasporas for the first time. By demonstrating their significance, it led to changes in BBCWS strategy, editorial practices, human resources management and institutional memory. The historic collaboration between the BBC and the OU has acquired new dimensions.
UWE research insights into a sustainable future for local digital news and the democratic deficit of declining local news coverage focused on the need for Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs, here the BBC) to support the input of semi-professional and amateur news producers by creating partnerships and developing co-production and training models between BBC and community news media. These informed UWE leadership of the Bristol-BBC Anchor Local News and Journalism Group which tested out ways of creating change in Bristol's media ecology: brokering partnerships between the BBC and community media companies and networks; devising co-production practices between PSB/voluntary sector journalists as a way of opening up the news agenda to voices outside the mainstream; testing out practices for skills sharing and training. Through its influence on the design of the Newshare pilot, UWE research findings created benefits: for the BBC in meeting its Public Purpose remits; enhancing the sustainability and diversity of Bristol's media ecology by providing co-production and training initiatives and business intelligence; and for the public by strengthening relevance and diversity in local news content.
Strandlines was designed to create a community, digital and real, for an area of central London (the Strand) where there was none. Using life writing to bring together local residents, workers, students and visitors, Strandlines has provided a website, www.strandlines.org, and activities by which people explore the meaning of place, discover its histories and exchange experiences and impressions locally, nationally and internationally. Strandlines has brought together academics, the homeless, the elderly, low income residents, local people, archivists, writers, artists and the public to foster community through a common interest in their locality, and to understand better its significance for the world.
BU research has demonstrated the benefits of radio archives. Radio recordings are a rich source of social, cultural and political history. Until recently archives have been inaccessible to schools, community organisations, scholars and other users. Research by the Centre for Media History (CMH) at Bournemouth University (BU) was the motivation behind a committee being formed to raise awareness of the problem. The committee strongly supported the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in making their catalogue available to the public via the British Library (BL). The research itself informed the library's new sound archive policy. Archive access has a wide range of benefits to the production industry, education, culture and the economy.
This case study describes a unique collaboration between Professor Clive Upton and researchers at the University of Leeds, the BBC and the British Library (BL), examining language variation. As a result of a programme assembling and researching the largest recorded archive of dialects and speech patterns assembled in the UK, two major interlinked forms of impact were generated:
i. Informing public understanding of dialect and English language use, thereby validating diverse regional and national identities.
ii. Contributing to the professional practice and goals of the BBC and the BL through policy enhancement, training, and developing broadcast and exhibition content.