Earth in vision: BBC coverage of environmental change 1960 - 2010
Lead Research Organisation:
The Open University
Department Name: Faculty of Arts and Social Sci (FASS)
Abstract
The next decade will see the release of very large bodies of digital broadcast archives in parallel with the generation of new tools that allow richer use of media on the web. These developments will have consequences for any field of contemporary history, but are of particular significance for the environmental field. Framings of environmental change issues have typically been narrow and static, and have reinforced a policy field around these issues often unable to address the complexity and uncertainty of long term questions. Archive and web developments could combine to allow for more imaginative future responses to environmental change issues. However without a self-critical and open consideration of the 'digital ideologies' embedded in the tools and practices that mediating institutions develop for users' work with these enormous bodies of cultural content, there is a danger that the narrow and unproductive repertoire of environmental framings that is currently dominant will become further reinforced. This proposal responds directly to this urgent challenge.
The project focuses on the archive of environmental programming collected by the BBC since the mid 1950s. Using a sample of programmes drawn from the archive it will critically examine their potential as resource for the making and debating of environmental histories in the context of imagining and planning for environmental futures. It builds on principles of co-production and social learning, and aims to support more plural and dynamic accounts of environmental change.
Informed by a pilot study, which selected annotated and cleared limited use rights for approaching 100 programmes, amounting to 50 hours of programming, this study addresses the following question: How can digital broadcast archives inform environmental history and support public understanding of environmental change? This is broken down into four sub-questions:
1. In what ways does engagement with digital broadcast archives serve to revise and pluralise accounts of environmental history and politics?
2. What uses and expectations do publics have of digital broadcast archives, and how will they impact upon the way they engage with and act on environmental change issues?
3. What technical and cultural challenges and opportunities are presented to institutions that will be expected to have responsibility for, or will work with, online environmental digital archives (schools; universities; museums; media organisations)?
4. How can deeper knowledge of the production of past and present environmental understandings support more plural and dynamic imaginings of environmental futures?
These research questions will be explored by means of three overlapping pieces of work. Firstly, a history of broadcast media and environmental change, drawing on the broadcasts, interviews with makers and presenters, and working with scripts, paper archives and sources. Secondly, a series of focus groups with a sample group in order to explore the practices and expectations of archive users; and thirdly, a series of working group meetings and interviews with professionals and institutional representatives working with digital broadcast archives.
A series of outputs are designed to meet popular, policy and academic audience needs. A monograph, Earth in Vision, is offered as a media-rich and freely available e-book that revises contemporary environmental history with reference to the archive, and opens up a more plural and dynamic sense of possible environmental futures. It will include 25,000 words of linear text, but will also offer reader-chosen routes through the material, drawing on script content, programme descriptions, source materials and reviews. In addition to academic journal articles, a resource-rich public facing website, podcasts and a pop-up exhibition, we will draft a report for professional and policy audiences advising on digital broadcast archive planning.
The project focuses on the archive of environmental programming collected by the BBC since the mid 1950s. Using a sample of programmes drawn from the archive it will critically examine their potential as resource for the making and debating of environmental histories in the context of imagining and planning for environmental futures. It builds on principles of co-production and social learning, and aims to support more plural and dynamic accounts of environmental change.
Informed by a pilot study, which selected annotated and cleared limited use rights for approaching 100 programmes, amounting to 50 hours of programming, this study addresses the following question: How can digital broadcast archives inform environmental history and support public understanding of environmental change? This is broken down into four sub-questions:
1. In what ways does engagement with digital broadcast archives serve to revise and pluralise accounts of environmental history and politics?
2. What uses and expectations do publics have of digital broadcast archives, and how will they impact upon the way they engage with and act on environmental change issues?
3. What technical and cultural challenges and opportunities are presented to institutions that will be expected to have responsibility for, or will work with, online environmental digital archives (schools; universities; museums; media organisations)?
4. How can deeper knowledge of the production of past and present environmental understandings support more plural and dynamic imaginings of environmental futures?
These research questions will be explored by means of three overlapping pieces of work. Firstly, a history of broadcast media and environmental change, drawing on the broadcasts, interviews with makers and presenters, and working with scripts, paper archives and sources. Secondly, a series of focus groups with a sample group in order to explore the practices and expectations of archive users; and thirdly, a series of working group meetings and interviews with professionals and institutional representatives working with digital broadcast archives.
A series of outputs are designed to meet popular, policy and academic audience needs. A monograph, Earth in Vision, is offered as a media-rich and freely available e-book that revises contemporary environmental history with reference to the archive, and opens up a more plural and dynamic sense of possible environmental futures. It will include 25,000 words of linear text, but will also offer reader-chosen routes through the material, drawing on script content, programme descriptions, source materials and reviews. In addition to academic journal articles, a resource-rich public facing website, podcasts and a pop-up exhibition, we will draft a report for professional and policy audiences advising on digital broadcast archive planning.
Planned Impact
Earth in Vision aims to have positive impacts for: general publics; learners and teachers; industries working with digital media, and cultural institutions. The choice of advisory board has been strongly influenced by these objectives, and we will be supplementing it to further enhance impact if we are successful with the bid.
For the general public:
We aim to show that historical resources, specifically digital broadcast archives of environmental programming, can open up the public and policy imagination about humanity's environmental futures. We will pursue this goal with a website of free and adaptable resources, a free, scholarly but engaging e-book with options for user-generated journeys through the content, and a pop-up exhibition (with supporting print materials) that will appear at cultural venues and events (e.g. Eden Project, Hay Festival, music festivals). Smith will apply his media contacts and experience to win general media attention for the project on e.g. magazine format radio and TV shows, and in features journalism.
For learners and teachers:
The website, e-book and print resources will support more dynamic engagement with environment, development and geographical education by allowing students and teachers to engage with the way that environmental understandings have been produced. Even in advance of the release of more substantial digital broadcast archives by media institutions these resources, including some clips, but also extensive scripts, reviews and samples of source content (key texts, images, science findings and events), will give learners and teachers more ownership of the making and remaking of environmental histories and futures. In designing these materials we will draw on the team's extensive experience of working in formal and informal distance learning for large-scale audiences. This includes our work on large population OU courses (e.g. 2000 students per year upwards) but also in generating materials for informal learning supporting major primetime BBC series such as Attenborough's climate change season (2006) and Coast with audiences of over 5 million.
For cultural institutions:
Digital broadcast archives present both opportunities and challenges to public service broadcasters, museums, libraries, archives and film/TV related bodies. We aim to support their medium and long term thinking through our work with our body of 'proxy publics'. By making intelligent use of the opportunities presented by the BBC and OU's exclusive agreement around archive usage we can overcome obstacles presented by restrictive rights regimes and gather unique insights into the practices and expectations of archive users. Our research design for this aspect of the project is based on a co-production model suited to emerging relationships between cultural institutions and users. The primary paths to impact are the two workshops and end of project conference, the concise industry-focused report and some targeted media work with trade/sectoral media.
For industries working with digital media:
The first speech by the BBC's new Director General George Entwistle confirmed the ways in which media production is moving towards more integrated generation of content across platforms. Archive content has long been important in TV production, but the prospect of its wider release, in the context of easy public access to digital media production and publication tools, and the rising prominence of social media, make for a heady and novel mix. The workshops, end of project conference and industry focused report will all nourish debates at this intersection.
For research funders/publishers:
We believe collateral benefits will flow to research funding agencies and publishers through following our experience of experimenting with: an e-book as monograph, including access to non-linear experiences of qualitative research data and a pop-up exhibition and printed content as a form of outreach and impact.
For the general public:
We aim to show that historical resources, specifically digital broadcast archives of environmental programming, can open up the public and policy imagination about humanity's environmental futures. We will pursue this goal with a website of free and adaptable resources, a free, scholarly but engaging e-book with options for user-generated journeys through the content, and a pop-up exhibition (with supporting print materials) that will appear at cultural venues and events (e.g. Eden Project, Hay Festival, music festivals). Smith will apply his media contacts and experience to win general media attention for the project on e.g. magazine format radio and TV shows, and in features journalism.
For learners and teachers:
The website, e-book and print resources will support more dynamic engagement with environment, development and geographical education by allowing students and teachers to engage with the way that environmental understandings have been produced. Even in advance of the release of more substantial digital broadcast archives by media institutions these resources, including some clips, but also extensive scripts, reviews and samples of source content (key texts, images, science findings and events), will give learners and teachers more ownership of the making and remaking of environmental histories and futures. In designing these materials we will draw on the team's extensive experience of working in formal and informal distance learning for large-scale audiences. This includes our work on large population OU courses (e.g. 2000 students per year upwards) but also in generating materials for informal learning supporting major primetime BBC series such as Attenborough's climate change season (2006) and Coast with audiences of over 5 million.
For cultural institutions:
Digital broadcast archives present both opportunities and challenges to public service broadcasters, museums, libraries, archives and film/TV related bodies. We aim to support their medium and long term thinking through our work with our body of 'proxy publics'. By making intelligent use of the opportunities presented by the BBC and OU's exclusive agreement around archive usage we can overcome obstacles presented by restrictive rights regimes and gather unique insights into the practices and expectations of archive users. Our research design for this aspect of the project is based on a co-production model suited to emerging relationships between cultural institutions and users. The primary paths to impact are the two workshops and end of project conference, the concise industry-focused report and some targeted media work with trade/sectoral media.
For industries working with digital media:
The first speech by the BBC's new Director General George Entwistle confirmed the ways in which media production is moving towards more integrated generation of content across platforms. Archive content has long been important in TV production, but the prospect of its wider release, in the context of easy public access to digital media production and publication tools, and the rising prominence of social media, make for a heady and novel mix. The workshops, end of project conference and industry focused report will all nourish debates at this intersection.
For research funders/publishers:
We believe collateral benefits will flow to research funding agencies and publishers through following our experience of experimenting with: an e-book as monograph, including access to non-linear experiences of qualitative research data and a pop-up exhibition and printed content as a form of outreach and impact.
Organisations
- The Open University (Lead Research Organisation)
- Almeida Theatre (Collaboration)
- Global Witness (Collaboration)
- Geographical Association (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Geography Collective (Collaboration)
- University of East Anglia (Collaboration)
- Greenpeace International (Collaboration)
- John Smedley (Collaboration)
- Free Word Centre (Collaboration)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (Collaboration)
- Hewlett Packard Ltd (Collaboration)
- KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
- Cape Farewell (Collaboration)
- Science Museum (Collaboration)
- ARTSADMIN (Collaboration)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
Publications
Hammond K
(2020)
Communities, Archives and New Collaborative Practices
Hammond K.
Digital histories of environmental change: collaborative pathfinding in the BBC archive
in Students as partners in the co-production of teaching, learning and assessment (session title)
Hammond, K
Earth in Vision: Pathfinding in the BBC's archive of environmental broadcasting
in The Historian
Revill G
(2018)
Digital archives, e-books and narrative space
in Area
Revill G.
Earth in Vision: interactive archives and 'digital ideologies'
in The Co-production of Digital Geography (1): Theorizing and Positioning Digital Geography (session title)
Title | Broadcast clips and mash ups |
Description | We are developing different video outputs drawn for clips drawn for the BBC broadcast archives within our study. We will clear rights so that our own and different partner groups video outputs can be shown on our website |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Impact | Workshops using clips with OU students have informed our thinking around how students/teachers can use broadcats archives. This is ongoing, we expect more creative 'story telling' elements to emerge. |
Title | Voice Over productions |
Description | We have created a number of 'voice over' audio video files: these are the voices of workshop participants who have been shown a silent clip of an environemnt themed programme and the task of following a set a title / storyline to write and then speak (voice over) a new story. the idea is to show one of the many potential uses of digital brioadcast archives. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Impact | Particiapants (students, teachers, public) report how much they enjoyed this activity and how it helped them to see the creative potential of opening up broadcast archives, for example for understanding what it means to be the person who is telling the story; for understanding the production prcesses of broadcasting (how image and sound are used); the power of telling new stories. |
Title | public making wildlife film narratives |
Description | We have been devloping ways for workshop atendees to make thier own natural history narratives using voice over with cleared images on tablets with movie making software. These exercises aim to help people to think about story telling and environemntal issues, how natural histopry is presented to us by broadcasters, and how, in a digital age where we are potentially all broadcasters, how they might begin to make thier own natural history broadcasts, and the role digital broadcast archives can / could play in facilitating this. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Impact | Feedback has been very positive. Especially in the workshops with school aged children, who took away their own wildlife films |
Description | Archive content has powerful potential for public engagement, teaching and learning, way beyond its main current application within broadcast production (i.e. mining for clips). We have experimented with public workshops with a range of demographics. These have nourished ideas for a follow on project but also shaped our approach to our main public facing professional facing outputs - the three ebooks and website. Rights clearances have been very slow to clear (beyond our control) but we will soon launch these publicly. We have also formed an idea for a follow on project linked to the school curriculum.The website below will shortly (within six weeks) hold all ebooks and all interviews. |
Exploitation Route | The body of professional interviews are a rare resource for young media producers, giving access to in depth insights to 20 plus leading presenters, producers, cinematographers etc. Our academic publications and their more public versions serve to support more critical approaches to representations of global environmental issues in broadcasting. The PI has applied findings from the research in a series of professional seminars for senior broadcast decision makers and producers across the life of the project. It is envisaged that these will continue. The Follow On project idea would see us pilot our approach to new production, mash-ups of archive content and sharing of outputs by schoolchildren at a fixed point in the year. |
Sectors | Creative Economy Environment Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Government Democracy and Justice Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
URL | https://earthinvision.org |
Description | We have completed the funded period of the project. However we continue to work with the materials for further academic publications and presentations and to finalise public outputs (3 ebooks and a website of rights-cleared materials and interviews). We have now published a series of papers linked to the project as well as conference paper presentations. In addition we have, as we hoped, found that the process of conducting workshops and interviews with key industry and cultural players has served to encourage critical thinking both about representations of environmental change, but also about the nature and potential form of digital broadcast archives. We have directly engaged with professionals and influencers in media, education and the digital economy. |
First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural |
Description | BBC3 Climate Change Brainstorm |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | I devised, cast and facilitated a workshop for BBC Three senior commissioners and executives and a body of independent and in house producers that introduced them to the state of the latest thinking on climate change in the wake of the Paris UNFCCC talks (COP21). This took the form of a 50:50 'expert/media' meeting of around 20 people. My script was informed by my close knowledge of BBC treatment of climate change across three decades, drawing on the AHRC funded Earth in Vision project. But amongst the 'experts' were two of the young people who had participated the previous summer in the AHRC funded Stories of Change project. They represent the channels target demographic, and were able to talk about their own journey with energy and climate change issues, and own experience of producing their own media on the topic, due to their involvement in the project. The meeting was designed to help BBC Three consider commissions on the topic and encourage independent producers to develop ideas to pitch. But it was also designed to give the experts present - including people from architecture, fashion, and energy fields, UK and international - greater insights into media decision making. |
Description | Climate Change on Television: What the Paris Agreement means for broadcasters |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | This seminar for television executives was attended by representatives from all major UK broadcasters (several of them with global reach). Attendees were all of commissioner level or above, or executive level if they came from independent production companies. I designed the seminar and contributed a summary of my report (separately posted on researchfish) of the same name. There were five senior research / policy figures and a further 20 media executives. We are tracking the impact of the report and seminar (and associated series of seminars), but note that already this bundle of activity has seen commissioners encourage more proposals from production companies. |
URL | http://www.ibt.org.uk/reports/climate-change-television/ |
Description | Stories of Change: Reflections on a creative response to climate change. Lunchtime seminar for UKRC staff (including impact and engagement teams from AHRC, NERC and ESRC) |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | around 25 UKRC staff attended this lunchtime seminar, convened by the AHRC communications team, at which I shared our experience of designing and delivering the impact and engagement elements of the Stories of Change project. I also referenced the Earth in Vision project, and our new work with climate change scenarios. Regarding this latter work Gary Grubb asked more about our innovative networked artist residency programme and we will be sharing more detail on that with him and other UKRC colleagues (eg NERC engagement team) when we have published a review of the work in an e.g. arts professional publication. |
Title | Culture and Climate Change: experiments in impact and engagement, Open University Seminar series 13th March 2018 |
Description | Summary of methodological innovations and theoretical underpinnings of our work on a body of culture and climate change projects. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Pilot of 'citizen geography' initiative planned for summer 2019 at J Smith's new place of work (as Director), the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). |
Title | Culture and Climate Change: experiments in impact and engagement, Oxford University Geography Students group & RGS-IBG Regional Group, 31st October 2018 |
Description | Participatory methods in interdisciplinary social science/humanities research |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | (as reported elsewhere in researchfish): Citizen geography pilot programme planned for summer 2019 |
Title | e-books as dissemination and impact tool |
Description | Development of e-book (two volume; multi part) as a novel approach to seeking impact with key decision-makers but also wide public and professional engagement for 'light' versionings of papers etc. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Presented to iDocs 2016 by PDRA Kim Hammond and our e-book consultant Alison Kahn (Oxford Brookes University). The e-books are a work in progress |
Title | Database of Written Files from the BBC archives (pre 1990s) - Environment Themed programmes including those in our BBC pilot study archive) |
Description | The database is comprised of PDF files of the programme files in the BBC written archives at caversham. These were produced by photogrpahing the file contents and then collating the images into the original file form, so one pdf per file. these images / files are copyright protected so permission needs to be granted for them to be used publicly / cited. therefore we cannot make them public, though we could show these to the BBC office at Caversham as a model for digitalising their archives if they can see a way forward with this considering the copyright permissions procedure needed. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The impact is one of demonstrating how such data could be used to contextualise digital broadcast archives: this is a path finding exercise in the contruction of DBAs, for example here the BBC DBA on environemnt themed programmes. . |
Title | Database of collaborative pathfinding with digital citizens |
Description | We are making a database of the responses from 'digital citizens' who are collaborating via our workshops to tell us how they would / imagine they would use a Digital Broadcast Archive (such as a BBC DBA) and thinking through what tools they would need/want. This speaks to our second main aim, which is a 'bottom up' approach to DBA development: informing developers of DBAs of what potential users would like/need from a DBA. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | This work will inform the second volume of our ebook, and we will report on impacts when this has been published |
Title | Database of some 20 interviews with key natural history film makers and producers (including BBC NHU) |
Description | We filmed over 20 interviews with natural history film makers / producers at Wildscreen Fim festival in Bristol and also Sir David Attenborough (in Richmond). This makes a unique collection of interviews which will be useful as a resources for new film makers, environment and media students, teachers and researchers, scholls and the genral public / media professionals. This body of interviews will be made available on the Open University public facing website (Open Learn) as well as being incorporated into Open University Teaching modules. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2015 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | To be added Add URL in July |
Title | Metadata table for selected BBC broadcast archive content (50 hours) |
Description | A database is being developed to contain a range of metadata and materials associated with some 100 broadcast radio and TV programmes from the BBC archives. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Yes to be seen |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Almeida Theatre |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Artsadmin |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Cape Farewell |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Free Word Centre |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Geographical Association |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Geography Collective |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Global Witness |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Greenpeace International |
Department | Greenpeace UK |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Hewlett Packard Ltd |
Department | TippingPoint |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | John Smedley |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | King's College London |
Department | Depression Case Control Study (DeCC) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | Science Museum Group |
Department | The Science Museum |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board |
Organisation | University of East Anglia |
Department | East Anglian Film Archive |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We brought together a team of professionals working in different ways towards opening up/developing/using digital broadcast archives, facilitating discussion and actions, for example trialing workshops using broadcast materials, possible assigning of phD through partners |
Collaborator Contribution | for example: trialling workshops using broadcast materials in different arenas, possible assigning of phD through partners, networking and contacts, writing contributions to ebook, supporting and informing our project aims and direction, and our research |
Impact | Curriculum work in school (Geography); Workshop at GA (Geography) |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Advisory Board meeting/workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Inspired engagement about the project aims and the emerging field of online digital broadcast archives, chaired by an industry professional Engagement with AB members for different elements of the project work including: developing and running curriculum exercises in schools; planning a workshop presentation for the Geographical Association Conference in 2015; netwrking for contacts; planning a workshop at the Science Museum |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
Description | Afternoon workshop for public attending an Open Garden Day at Foxcombe Hall (Open University's Oxford Regional Centre) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The workshop raised awareness about the history of BBC radio and TV garening broadcast programmes and about how digital broadcast archives are emerging. there was discussion about how particpants might want to use such archives, including a questionnaire which they completed around how they use websites, their personal experiences of gardening broadcasts, and what they would want to do in a DBA and what tools they would like. they also wrote a mesaage for the BBC People said that they had found the workshop and questions interesting and stimulating |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | All day workshop for Chinese government officials from the Zhejiang Department of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | 20 media professionals from Zhejiang Department of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television attended an all day Earth in Vision workshop. We introduced the project and ran various interactive exercises (assisted by a translator). The event sparked discussion about the value of the BBC archives as an extremely important international cultural resource, with debate around what Chinese culture could learn form the UKs archive footage around environmental problems, policy, reporting and so forth. In addition, it raised an exciting discussion about how media professional working in education could use media resources in the classroom, and how media professionals could use archive footage to tell new environmental stories. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Climate Change in the Media: The greatest story never told? |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Gave a lecture to Cambridge University Geography Society (students, u/g and p/g) as described below. Drew on Stories of Change and Earth in Vision material as well as longer running climate change/media work. Promoted participation in forthcoming Stories of Change activities. Thursday 2nd February 2017, 6:00 - 7:15pm Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Geography Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, and at the same time a story that the mainstream media seem to have little appetite for. What is going wrong, and who is responsible? Joe will draw on twenty years of experience of research but also practical projects at the join between media decision-making and environmental research and policy to sketch out some answers. He will explore the roles of media organisations, environmental NGOs, the research and policy communities and audiences/citizens/publics (us!) in constructing climate change as a 'difficult story'. Joe will also test and invite ideas about how we can all play a part in devising new storylines - above all some hopeful ones. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | http://www.cugs.co.uk/events/2017-02-02-joe-smith---climate-change-in-the-media%3A-the-greatest-stor... |
Description | Climate News Network journalism training |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | 12 journalists from the Global South (South Asia; China; Africa) attended a five day training workshop. I presented a talk and led discussion on the first day, held at the International Herald Tribune's Paris office. I talked to the theme of the past, present and future of media representations of climate change, drawing on my research for the Earth in Vision project, and past work. The journalists were selected from amongst 60 applicants. I also recorded interviews with trainee journalists and trainers which will appear in due course on the Creative Climate website which is also holding our main body of Earth in Vision interviews. The wider workshop did not explicitly draw on my Earth in Vision research, but my presentation on day one did, and helped to contextualise the early career journalists' work at the climate conference. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://climatenewsnetwork.net/journalist-training-at-cop21-paris/ |
Description | Culture and Climate Change: experiments in public geography |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | A plenary lecture by Prof R. Tyszczuk and Prof Joe Smith: 'Geography & Public Engagement' to the Annual meeting of the Association of Italian Geographers, University of Padua - Palazzo Bo, September 2018. Approximately 500 academics, researchers, artists and NGO participants. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Delivered a workshop at iDocs (interactive documentary) festival/conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | exchange of knowledge around the use of digital broadcast archives by professional in film/documentary making indeustry; specifically talking about what uses this audiemnce would have and what tools they would need; also disseminating information about the project and about the emergence of broadcast archives networking with relevant people; we were inspired by the interactive documentary format and what peope are doing with this; we were invited to write a blog piece for the iDocs website |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://idocs2014.dcrc.org.uk/ |
Description | Delivered 2 Earth in Vision Workshops, Open University Belfast: My Life with Attenborough and Change the World |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Workshops inspired thinking and discussion, and those attending learnt different skills and knowledge from participating in exercsies Participants feedback was very positive and after the workshops staff at the Belfast OU office asked if i would come back and do more open workshops in Belfast and Dublin; some Associate lecturers who attended suggested these workshops could be used in OU online teaching sessions; and that they were inspired to use some of the techniques. Participants said it inspired them enage with broadcast archives. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/ResearchEnterprise/ResearchDevelopment/TrainingandEvents/UpcomingE... |
Description | Delivered 2 workshops at Open University Student Association Conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Workshop guided activities which enageged participants with using broadcast archive content; how they used the broadcast archive content informed our research Participants feedback - they enjoyed the partcipation and thinking |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.open.ac.uk/ousa/news-and-events/news/conference/your-ou-students-association-conference-2... |
Description | Delivered workshop - Wolfson Press Fellows, Cambridge |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Engaged with press fellows with engaged debate around the use of broadcast archives Exchange of knowledge/learning between reserach team and participants |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
Description | Denbigh School - Ran a Reserach Cafe for school pupils |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | The workshop stimulated discussion and thinking through exercises, and we will use the ideas/data from this workshop to inform our work Pupils were very engaged in the activity and all said they would like to participate further - to come to an open Enquiry event at the open University. We have put in a proposal to run this and are awaiting a response. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.open.ac.uk/about/teaching-and-learning/esteem/primary-links/engaging-opportunities |
Description | Film and Digital Media Students Workshops (Oxford Brookes University) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | We ran 2x 3hour workshops for 2 classes of undergraduate film and digital media students, totally around 50 students. The purpose was to introduce our project and explore with them how they might use digital broadcast archives (DBAs), and to pathfind thier 'user' expectations as digital citizens around uses and tools they would want form such DBAs. Both sessions sparked questions and interest around just seeing the kind of content available form the BBC archives, and about access in terms of digital availability and rights issues around re-use and reversioning broadcast and written materials. Two students asked to join the Earth in Vision project on work placements (80 hours each). We accepted their applications, and they have each been working on a variety of tasks, form reseraching in the written archives to making edits of our film clips and interview films, ebook production work and filmijng interviews. the collaboration has been very successful. Several students told me that thye found the workshops stimulating, and one student said it was the most interesting seminar she'd had all term. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Invited to write a blog piece for the iDocs website |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | reporting of the project to a specific wider audience Publicity for the project |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://i-docs.org/2014/08/07/what-will-we-do-when-we-get-there-anticipating-digital-broadcast-archiv... |
Description | Production of three multi media interactive ebooks (freely available for public to downlaod) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | We have written and produced (built) 3 ebooks:- 1. Earth in Vision: 60 years of environmental change on the BBC 2. Lives in a Landscape: imagining British landscape at the BBC 3. David Attenborough: Making Natural History We have been presenting these as work in progress, and will launch them as freely available to download by the Spring. We hope for (and expect) a wide audience for the ebooks. The reception for these has so far been very positive, and they have sparked much interest and discussion, and have inspired other academics to use ebooks as a route for public engagement. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Public Exhibition: Culture and Climate Change |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | 'Culture and Climate Change' presented an exhibition of work from three research projects, the first two of which were funded by the AHRC: Stories of Change (creative responses to the challenge of decarbonizing energy systems), Earth in Vision (looking at 60 years of broadcasting about global environmental issues) and Provisional Cities (exploring the relationship between environmental crisis and urbanism, which arose from a British Academy Fellowship held by team member Renata Tyszczuk). The exhibition also marks the launch of the books that came out of these projects. These are: Energetic (Shed, 2018) from Stories of Change, the three e-books from Earth in Vision, and Provisional Cities: Cautionary Tales for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2018). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | http://www.cultureandclimatechange.co.uk/ |
Description | Public Workshops - The Northern Ireland Science Festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The Earth in Vision team were invited by the Belfast Open University regional Centre to return to Belfast to give the two workshops we had given in 2014, this time for the Science Festival which has recently included nature and environment in their programme. the workhops - titled My Life with Attenborough and Change the World! - were open to all ages and were well attended by both adults and children. Places available were 15 per workshop and we were fully booked (so 60 people). people really engaged with the materials and tasks, with children and adults making voice over climate change clips and making theior own nature documentaries on endangered vs successful species (which they could keep as we sent digital copies to them). One mother emailed me to tell me that her 8 year old boy, a dedicated Attenboruogh fan - had decalred 'I will never forget this day, it was the best day ever'. One young film maker asked if she could be involved in the project on a placement, and we are in the process of responding to this by developing a piece of fim work she could do. We gave feedback forms and these show the workshops were really well received. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Research Seminar (University of Cambridge Geography): Culture and Climate Change: experiments in collaboration and engagement |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Shared our experience of experiments and innovations at the culture-climate change join, emphasising our role as arts/social science/humanities researchers. We aim to encourage innovation amongst other researchers by example, and by critical self-reflection. ABSTRACT of our talk: Climate change is urgent and important, but also, for many, boring, difficult and confusing. What kinds of stories, artworks and other interventions are being created in response to 'the greatest challenge facing humanity' - a challenge that is also apparently forgettable? Joe Smith (Professor of Environment and Society, the Open University) and Renata Tyszczuk (Senior Lecturer in Architecture, University of Sheffield) reflect on their experimental and interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of research, policy and cultural work on climate change. Their recent joint projects include the Interdependence Day project (2005-2011, with the new economics foundation) and the current multi-partner AHRC Stories of Change project on past, present and future energy transitions. They will also reference the current Culture and Climate Change: Scenarios project, including its innovative networked artists residencies. The paper unpacks some of the theoretical and methodological inspirations that nourish their work, including the Mass Observation movement. They will argue for the importance of cultural work on climate change, but caution against any expectation that it provides any communications silver bullets. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/seminars/previous.html#id81391 |
Description | School Visit (Carshalton Boys School, London) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Reserach Associate (Kim Hammond) visited a Geography class who are working with archive broadcast materials to make their own video producrions areound environemntal themes. This curriculum work was in partnership with one of our Advosory Board members - lauren Dunstan - who is the Head of Geography at Carshalton. Around 15 pupils attended, and I presented various elemnets of the project, showing them documents form the written archives and then each group described their film projects to me. The students were very excited by the existence of BBC written archives and asked if the Earth in Vision team could take them to the BBC written archives in Caversham. We tried to arrange this for them but unfortunately Caversham staff felt they did not have the capacity for such a school visit. The students are now submitting their films and filed notes. We aim to publish clips from these in our forthcoming ebook. publish |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Secondary School Curriculum work (Surrey) via Lauren Dunstan (Geography teacher on our Advisory Board) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Pupils learning to work with broadcast archive materials to tell new environment themed stories via broadcast media Pupils have asked to visit the BBC written archives in Caversham but unfortunately Caversham staff can not accommodate such a visit. We are planning to take students to another venue |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Secondary School Geography Teachers workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Workshop sparked interest in the use of broadcast archives in the classroom / curriculum and discussion about how such resources could be used, made available and so forth Teachers who attended the workshop took away the activity sheets for the 'voice over' exercise we ran because they wanted to keep them /develop them for a classroom activity. teachers said they were impressed with how quickly we engaged them in this activity, and that they could see what a useful and enaging classroom activity this would be. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Workshop for Open University alumni/Legacy Day event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The workshops inspired interest in broadcast archives in general, and interest in the history of BBC natural history broadcasting (our case study was David Attenborough themed) and how it has changed over the decades; and in how such archives might be used in Open University teaching and more generally by the public. The feedback suggests that participants found the workshop /presentation interesting and informative, stimulating thinking about what a digital broadcast archive is, and how they might like to use such archives as they become available |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Workshop for undergraduates and academic staff (Geography, History, Politics) at the university of Exeter (Falmouth Campus) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | An Earth in Vision interactive presentation to illustrate how BBC archive materials (broadcast and written files) can be used in research and teaching, and a show and tell of some of one of the ebooks, and an exercise aimed at bringing the archives alive in a teaching environment |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |