Our Place in The First World War

Lead Research Organisation: Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: History

Abstract

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Publications

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Title BBC radio programmes 
Description I was historical adviser/consultant/presenter on one television and approximately forty radio programmes produced by BBC London for the centenary of the First World War 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact As well as the part-time employment of a BBC producer on these programmes, they were broadcast on BBC London and have been archived online (see below) 
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01p34jj
 
Description The purpose of this grant was not to support academic research but to provide academic support to the BBC's First World War centenary programming at a local level. It was therefore focused on knowledge transfer rather than knowledge creation. This included: consultation with radio producer over programme ideas and stories, background research to test validity/provide more detailed information/identify and locate key sources, acting as an academic broker to put the producer in contact with experts in specific fields, work as a presenter/talking head/commentator on three programmes, one of which was nominated for a Sony Award. On both sides, we believed that the objectives of the grant scheme had been very successfully met: the historical content and accuracy of the programmes was improved and academic understanding of the First World War on the home front was communicated to the public in the accessible, interesting, imaginative way that could only be done by a specialist radio journalist. The consequence of the scheme as a whole was that the BBC's local radio programming provided a rich and varied picture of the effect of the war on specific areas of the UK home front. The contacts made resulted in further collaboration and consultation, in particular over the local coverage of VE Day 1945 in 2015.
It is worth noting in addition that the connection with the BBC also helped to foster a degree of research development - in particular, a detailed study of First World War burials in the London borough of Lambeth's cemetery, designed and overseen by me and undertaken by third year undergraduates, which subsequently became the subject of one of BBC London's programmes. This was novel research into a thus-far overlooked aspect of wartime experience and post-war commemoration - what happened to service personnel who died at home rather than overseas - that could not have taken the form it did without the grant. While not extensive enough to be significant in its own right, it contributed to an ongoing research project into the history of wartime London. This was a good example of the way in which sort of collaboration supported by this grant scheme can have very positive side-effects in stimulating the research/teaching/public engagement nexus: something on which I commented when interviewed by the AHRC about the project for its in-house magazine.
Exploitation Route The findings here relate to outputs and the coordination of academic-media collaboration by the research council, rather than to specific research findings. I believe that this was a successful project, and one reason that it worked was that the AHRC and the BBC put significant effort at the start into trying to educate researchers and journalists into each others' practices and managing expectations on both sides. This helped to ensure a collaboration in which researchers were able to use their expertise in ways that were helpful to their media colleagues. In my particular case, it worked especially well because BBC London allocated a single dedicated news producer who worked on all the story ideas, rather than whoever could be spared from the news team. This allowed the development of a very effective - and enjoyable - working relationship in which my knowledge and research skills were deployed sufficiently early in the story cycle to improve the quality of programming. This went beyond fact-checking and error-spotting to include the development of new story ideas. By inculcating me in some of the practices of radio production - the importance of soundscape and witness accounts - it helped to develop my understanding of how to engage with a broader audience and developed my own historical practice. In other words, the investment in a longer-term connection, rather than the one-off last minute contact which usually forms the basis of researcher-media interactions, had numerous advantageous consequences beyond the base objective of improving the quality of First World War centenary broadcasting.
Sectors Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01p34jj
 
Description Award was to act as historical adviser/collaborator to BBC London, so all the work involved aimed at non-academic impacts. The objective was to advise on and improve the historical quality of local BBC programming connected to the centenary of the First World War. These programmes for BBC London can be accessed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01p34jj. Details of audience and internal impact have been collected by the BBC and communicated to the AHRC.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural