Public Understanding of Business: Television, Representation and Entrepreneurship

SUMMARY

This research will examine the role and impact that popular factual entertainment television programmes such as the BBC's Dragons' Den and The Apprentice have in fostering and shaping patterns of knowledge and levels of understanding about the cultural and economic position of entrepreneurship in contemporary British society.

As television and society have changed over the last decade so have the ways in which the world of business is represented in factual television. This research will examine how the range of textual representations of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs and the fields of knowledge they generate have changed on British television over the past decade. The project will seek to identify what have been the key structural shifts in both the television industry and the wider economy that account for these changing representations.

This investigation will enhance our understanding of the role played by entertainment-driven television in the process by which particular ideas about entrepreneurship - and business more generally - enter and circulate in wider public discourse. Despite the wide range of research on television and issues of representation little has focused on business culture and entrepreneurship.

This project therefore addresses a gap in our understanding of how public knowledge is constructed about entrepreneurial activity and its role in the cultural and economic life of British society.

Key television programmes that will be studied include BBC television's The Apprentice (2005 - present), Dragons' Den (2005 - present), Mary Queen of Shops (2007 - present), Channel 4's Risking it all (2004 - present), Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, (2004 - present); Property Ladder, (2004 - present), Make Me a Million, (2005 / present), ITV's Tycoon (2007) and Sky's Badger or Bust (2007 -present).

This project is distinctive in its focus on identifying and making sense of the wider shifts in society and the related media ecology that are helping to construct a new interpretation of the role played by business and finance in our individual and collective lives. The research will examine the extent to which television's developing interest in business and entrepreneurial issues in Britain is simply a response to wider social and economic change in society. Has a more commercial and competitive television marketplace meant that the medium itself, through a particular focus on drama, entertainment and performance, now plays a key role in re-defining how society frames its engagement with business, finance, entrepreneurship, risk and wealth creation?

At the core of this project is a concern with understanding the role that entertainment narratives and television representations play both in reflecting and refracting broader public attitudes within contemporary society. The research aims to investigate the extent to which popular television is actually creating a 'climate of opinion' among sections of society regarding the role and position of business, entrepreneurship and risk.

The research will map the narratives of entrepreneurship television constructs and analyse the context that produces them. It will also investigate how the television audience engages with such programmes and the possible impact these may have on public understanding about the nature of entrepreneurship in society.

The research output will be of interest to those in the academic, business and media industry concerned with the relationship between television, entrepreneurship and public knowledge and understanding. It will also be of interest to the public more generally.