Abstract
This chapter explores the use of new media by the BBC as a strategy for the institution to sustain its legitimacy under a new regulative regime that favours open market competition. Even though the BBC, one of the major Public Service Broadcasting institutions worldwide, is not privatized, it is, nonetheless, now obliged both to adopt practices that originate in the private sector in order to remain competitive in the changing media environment, and, at the same time, continually to secure and consolidate its justification for public funding. We argue that one of the practices strategically employed by the BBC in this process is the use of new media for purposes of public participation and self-representation by ordinary people, and we focus on a particular case study of this practice: Capture Wales, a BBC Wales Internet-based project that pictures Wales from the citizens’ autobiographical perspectives.1
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beckett, C. (2008) SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So That It Can Save The World (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).
Beeson, I. and Miskelly, C. (2005) ‘Digital Stories Of Community: Mobilisation, Coherence and Continuity’. Available at web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit4/papers/beeson-miskelly.pdf
Bennett, W.L. and Entman, R.N. (eds) (2001) Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
BBC (2004) ‘Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for a Digital World’, June: 72.
BBC (2006) ‘A Public Service for All: The BBC in the Digital Age’, White Paper (London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport).
Blauge, R., Horner, L. and Lekhi, R. (2006) ‘Heritage, Democracy and Public Value’, Conference proceedings of ‘Capturing the Public Value of Heritage’, 25–26 January 2006, Royal Geographical Society, London.
Born, G. (2004) Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (London: Secker and Warburg).
Burgess, J. (2006) ‘Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling’, Continuum, Journal of Media and Culture Studies, 20(2), June, 201–14.
Chouliaraki, L. (2008) ‘Mediation as Moral Education’, Media, Culture & Society, 30(6): 831–52.
Cole, M. and Parston, G. (2006) Unlocking Public Value (London: Wiley).
Couldry, N., Livingstone, S. and Markham, T. (2007) Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the Presumption of Attention (Basingstoke: Palgrave).
Grade, M. (2004) Keynote address, CBI Conference, Birmingham.
Hartley, J. and McWilliam, K. (2009) Story Circle. Digital Storytelling Around the World (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell).
Highfield, A. (2006) ‘BBC Makes Long-Term Plans for New Media’, New Media Age, 13 April.
Horner, L., Lekhi, R. and Blau, R (2006) ‘Deliberative Democracy and the Role of Public Managers’, Final Report of the Work Foundation’s Public Value Consortium, London, November.
Kidd, J. (2005) ‘Capture Wales: Digital Storytelling at the BBC’, Wales Media Journal, 2: 66–85.
Lambert, J. (2002) Capturing Lives, Making Creating Community (Berkeley, California: Centre for Digital Storytelling).
Lundby, K. (ed.) (2008) Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-Representations in New Media. Digital Formations, 52 (New York: Peter Lang).
Matthews, N. (2002) ‘Surveying the Self: Broadcast Home Video as Cultural Technology’, in J. Campbell and J. Harbord (eds), Temporalities Autobiography And Everyday Life (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
McQuail, D. (2000) Mcquail’s Mass Communication Theory, 4th edn (London: Sage).
McQuail, D. and Siune, K. (1998) Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration, and Commerce (London: Sage).
Moore, M.H. (1995) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (Boston: Harvard University Press).
Murdock, G. (1999) ‘Rights and Representations: Public Discourse and Cultural Citizenship’, in J. Gripsrud (ed.), Television and Common Knowledge (London: Routledge).
Oakley, K., Naylor, R. and Lee, D. (2006) Giving Them What They Want: The Construction of the Public in ‘Public Value’ (London: BOP Consulting).
Smith, A. (ed.) (1974) British Broadcasting, compiled and edited by Anthony Smith. (Newton Abbot: David and Charles Holdings).
Thumim, N. (2007) ‘Mediating Self-Representations: Tensions Surrounding “Ordinary” Participation in Public Sector Projects’, Unpublished PhD thesis, LSE, University of London
Thumim, N. (Forthcoming, 2009) ‘“Everyone Has a Story to Tell”: Mediation and Self-representation in Two UK Institutions’, International Journal of Cultural Studies.
Van Zoonen, L. (2001) ‘Desire and Resistance: Big Brother and the Recognition of Everyday Life’, Media, Culture & Society, 23(5): 669–77.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thumim, N., Chouliaraki, L. (2010). BBC and New Media: Legitimization Strategies of a Public Service Broadcaster in a Corporate Market Environment. In: Chouliaraki, L., Morsing, M. (eds) Media, Organizations and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230248397_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230248397_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35390-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-24839-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)