Structure:
1. The Research Project;
2. Our research on BBC specialist music programming and online activity;
3. Interpretation and theoretical frameworks.
1. The Research Project
a) AHRC and BBC funded Pilot Knowledge Exchange Programme
b) Listener online engagement with BBC radio programming
“BBC Radio listeners online”
• Birmingham City University
• Cardiff University
• London Metropolitan University
c) BBC Audio & Music Interactive A&Mi
What you and I call radio.
But the change of name is significant:
• Transformation of technology of sound broadcasting
• Transformation of radio practice
• Their relationship to interactivity
• The connection between audio broadcasting and music
2. Our research on BBC specialist music programming and online activity
• How fans of specialist music participate in online activities, and how (if at all) they relate to BBC output.
• How the BBC online provision currently attempts to engage with music fans and radio listeners.
Case studies of BBC’s jazz, soul and reggae and indie rock output
Primary research (6):
Looking at BBC practice
• map the BBC’s specialist music output and related online activity;
• interviews with key BBC professional in production and audience research and policy;
• map the current online technologies and approaches to interactivity utilised by BBC A&Mi;
Looking at fan practice
• map the variety of online activity and associated internet technologies utilised by fans of these forms of music;
• analyse the online activity at key BBC and fan sites;
• interview a small qualitative sample of participants with different levels of involvement in the online activity earlier identified.
3. Interpretation and theoretical frameworks
BBC and fan activities as discursive practices.
“the verbal practices, and non-verbal actions which utilise the available internet technologies.”
Music fandom radio listening
Music fandom online activity.
Presence and absence.
Key media intellectual frameworks
‘Public Service’ values in twenty-first century media practice
In BBC A&Mi this is set out in My BBC radio strategy which set out the goal of transforming the BBC’s relationship with their audiences,
“moving from broadcasting to them, to engaging in dialogue with them and in the process helping to revitalise our radio brands by giving our audiences the opportunity to shape and influence their output, participate in their favourite programmes and discuss and share experiences that have been sparked by our programmes with other likeminded listeners”.
Our project will provide research and direction for:
• the ‘participation’ layer of the My BBC radio strategy which seeks to explore how audiences engage in a whole range of activities around radio content.
• the ‘creation’ layer which looks at the creative activities of fans and how the BBC can facilitate and encourage participation in their output.
BBC 2.0
Utilising the wider idea of Web 2.0, Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General, articulated BBC 2.0 as:
“a much greater focus on content management and supported metadata to allow for sophisticated search and navigation, a shift of gravity from text towards rich audio-visual content across the piece, an engagement with user-generated content, user-recommendation and personalisation”
This idea guides an aspiration for the BBC’s online presence to be ‘part of the web’, linking to discussions elsewhere and promoting off-BBC-site activity.
This goal is expressed well in four of the ‘Fifteen Web Principles’ developed by Tom Loosemore when he was at the BBC, which propose to:
• use other people’s content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa…
• to treat the entire web as a creative canvas…
• to join in… and adopt a relaxed, conversational tone, admit your mistakes…
• [and to] link to discussions on the web, don’t host them” (Tom Loosemore at www.tomski.com).
