8 is a way of sharing all the lessons learned from our collaboration with the AHRC and making sure that the research findings produced by the funded projects are made the best use of. It contains articles from the likes of Bill Thompson, Kathryn Corrick and Pat Kane on, amongst other things, media literacy, the ethics of play and digital inclusion. There are contact details for all researchers involved in the studies and an official view of KEP's aims from the lead AHRC and BBC partners. There's also a graphical representation of one of the projects - a collaboration between the production team working on CBBC's virtual word for children, Adventure Rock, and the University of Westminster - which shows the connections and influence a collaborative project builds over time.

The KEP is a pilot programme. It has shown that deep level academic analyses of BBC services are of incredible value to both the BBC and its audiences. It provides a key to unlocking the full business potential of digital media and has the potential to reshape how we deliver future content, in ways we can all be a part of. We hope that the KEP will act as a springboard for BBC Research & Development in its work to remain at the cutting edge of the collaboration and innovation agendas. This very much relies on our stakeholders being made aware of the programme and its successes. Our hope is that 8 will encourage them to sit up and take notice.

You can download a PDF copy of 8 here. If you'd like a copy of the actual newspaper please contact christianna.salako@bbc.co.uk from BBC R&D's Innovation Culture. The research studies themselves are all available in the box on the right. 8 was produced in association with the Newspaper Club.

Brendan

'Adventure Rock' is a 3D virtual play environment for 6-12 year olds which launched in April, 2008. Children explore an open air world to solve the mysteries of the island, meet crocodiles and robots, play games, go snowboarding, make videos, cartoons, invent contraptions and go dancing, and so on. We ran a year-long research project aimed to find out what children thought of 'Adventure Rock' and other virtual worlds for children such as Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters. The main researchers were Lizzie Jackson (myself) and David Gauntlett, from the University of Westminster, working primarily with Rachel Bardill and Pete Davies at BBC Children's.

90 children aged 7-11 from Cardiff, Belfast, Glasgow and London took part. The children told us what they liked and didn't like in two sets of creative workshops and in diaries. Their parents also gave us their views via a questionnaire and we spent time with the producers of 'Adventure Rock'.

The children told us they wanted to be sociable, creative, to have control of the space and to be able to change it, to have a visible status, to know where they were, to have a clear mission. They also liked the fact that 'Adventure Rock' was 'outdoors' and that there was some humour. Children felt virtual worlds should provide help when you need it, and they wanted to see professional video from CBBC, plus their own work and other children's work in the worlds. They wanted somewhere to live (a home, hotel or town), and to have shops and a place away from adult rules!

After they had seen the findings BBC Children's producers decided to place more video within the world and the activities children could do together were increased by extending the accompanying website. The research showed 'Adventure Rock' didn't offer all the things the children wanted, however both the children and the parents felt the BBC should be providing content like 'Adventure Rock'. To read both an overview report for general readers and a fuller report with more information on 'Adventure Rock' project go to artlab.org.uk

Lizzie

Brendan

The sample of online fans that responded to the online questionnaire was predominantly female (76%), white British (81%) and aged 40-59 (62%). Despite stories reflecting the multicultural nature of British society, online fan cultures around The Archers remain white spaces. The level of education was very high indeed - 74% have been through Higher Education. The Archers is unique among British soap operas in attracting this middle-class, highly educated demographic, and the BBC Archers website has reinforced this effect. It provides a space for keen listeners to keep up with the programme and exchange views with others. Catching up with the programme via Listen Again, podcasts or synopses is the most popular use of the site. The weekly vote - which significantly is easily accessed from the home page - is also popular. For some, the website provides a visual accompaniment to the programme.

Only a third of our respondents said that they used the BBC Archers messageboards, which nonetheless were the most active of all the Archers fan sites we mapped. The Facebook Archers Appreciation group is also growing rapidly and has over 2000 members and a younger demographic. We found much less activity on most of the independent fan sites, with the exception of the 'umra' usenet group, which has about 100 regular posters (posting mainly on topics other than the programme). The official fan club site, the 'Archers Addicts' has a faithful group of around 20 posters.

For some, the BBC messageboards are an important social network, and they can be a lifeline. They can also intensify the pleasures of the programme by providing a 'double dose soap' in the form of the messageboard 'characters' and their exchanges. Some of the posters on the BBC Discuss The Archers board negotiate the apparent contradiction between their middle-class cultural status and soap opera fandom by adopting ironic or even 'anti-fan' postures, while others are more celebratory. This clash of different versions of fandom, or 'fan-tagonisms' is, however, typical of fan cultures generally, and by stimulating discussion, it contributes to the liveliness of the boards. Those who find the discussion 'too critical', too fast-moving or intense, migrate to other online spaces such as the 'Archers Addicts' or the Facebook Archers Appreciation group. It's possible that if the BBC Archers site provided an alternative, easily accessed space, with a lighter kind of discussion, they might find their way there. The presence of the host 'Mr Keri' on the BBC boards and the sense of connection with the programme and the producers that this provides make the posters feel at home and 'listened to'.

The online discussions provide a space in which very detailed visualisations of characters and scenes can be developed, shared and compared. Comparing imagined versions of characters or scenes permits multiple interpretations, in contrast to the threatening closure of photographs of actors (which in the case of The Archers, listeners frequently refuse to look at). In this way, the messageboards extend the openness of radio, by providing a space where new meanings and stories can be generated by listeners, and where the imaginative work of listening can, in some measure, be captured.

The Archers has a unique relationship with its audience because of the fact that many have been listening since childhood. The culture of the programme and of many of the online websites we analysed is one of femininity, which of course does not prevent a minority of men from participating. However, for the mainly female fans, narratives emphasising the capacity to repair relationships and the role of community in supporting vulnerable individuals are likely to be pleasurable.

The 'anti-fan' and ironic fan postures adopted by some BBC messageboard posters can lead to a strongly critical tone which those involved in the programme's production may, quite understandably, find undermining at times. However, our research shows both that the messageboard posters are a minority, even among online fans, and that these kinds of engagements are typical of fan cultures more broadly, particularly in online spaces. We would recommend that these discussions, like the website as a whole, be seen as a successful adjunct to the programme - a sign of, and opportunity for passionate investment in the programme by some listeners. They also indicate that The Archers is part of a changing context where new technologies are blurring the boundaries between cultural producers and consumers. Fan cultures, as the independent development of the Facebook site attests, have their own modalities and conventions, and cannot be predicted or indeed controlled.

Lyn Thomas is the Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of European Transformations, London Metropolitan University. Her paper forms part of the output from a collaborative research team funded through the AHRC/BBC Knowledge Exchange Programme. Details of a parallel study into the fan cultures of Radio 2 listeners by Bethany Klein from University of Leeds can be found on the Radiolabs blog. The full AHRC/BBC KEP report includes contributions from Tim Wall & Andrew Dubber (Birmingham City University) and Matt Hills (Cardiff University) and further examines the fan cultures of Archers listeners as well as the online communities built around personality DJs and specialist music. The report can be found here.

Brendan

"In July 2007 I started running one of the AHRC/BBC projects. It was focused on User Generated Content in the news. I say focused but it felt quite the opposite. We were researching radio, television and online newsrooms across England and Wales, as well as Network newsrooms. We interviewed 115 journalists and 10 senior managers, undertook a nationally representative survey to find out who actually submits UGC, placed an online survey on the BBC website and organised and ran 12 focus groups to find out why people submit, but also the barriers which prevent others from contributing. It was a year-long project which produced a huge amount of data, and proved to be the first significant study of UGC at a broadcast organisation.

The report was finished in September and can be downloaded here.

That's when things got interesting. Disseminating research is always a significant challenge, but in an organisation the size of the BBC, even more tricky. So we arranged a 6 month secondment and I'm now based in Birmingham working with the English Regions New Media team.

This for me is what knowledge exchange is all about. I've been here 2 months so far and I've already had so many informal conversations with people from all over the BBC about the research, whether it's over coffee, or at after work drinks when someone says 'what do you do?' or being put in contact with someone through someone else.... I'm learning an enormous amount and hopefully my in-depth knowledge of the research is more useful than a 60 page report lying on a desk, marked 'to read'.

BBC Local is currently going through big changes. There is a roll-out of newly designed websites and I'm able to work with the team to find ways of managing UGC and making it easier for audiences to contact the newsrooms. Perhaps more importantly, I'm working on building 'community' on the local sites. Looking at excellent examples from the States particularly in terms of web 2.0 initiatives, I'm working with the team to see how we can build some new and exciting tools into the websites as they are rolled out. It's fascinating to be working in a new environment, but on a personal level, it feels such a luxury to be able to just spend time thinking, researching and attempting to make change come about. I'd recommend this way of exchanging knowledge over all others.

Claire"

The best ideas come from combining different skills and points of view. Often the most valid contribution comes from those with a standpoint outside the core area of interest - insights that elude those standing closer to their subject matter. In short, different points of view lead to good conversations. To facilitate a model of collaboration between academia, the BBC and the wider media industry that reflects this philosophy we've created beebac.

beebac is a space where academics and media professionals can find people and projects that interest them. It is a network for BBC staff, academics and industry partners. It enables you to find people and projects you want to be involved with, explore areas of mutual interest and exchange ideas and resources. You can explore subjects that interest you by joining the relevant groups on the network or set up your own topics of discussion and invite others to join you. There are graded levels of privacy that allow you to choose who you share your information with and a powerful search engine that prioritises results by people and subject matter so you can find what interests you. There are a number of different ways of sharing and messaging other users that protect your privacy while allowing you to gain the benefits of working collaboratively
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From a BBC perspective beebac is about having continued access to a massive community of professionals whose jobs are dedicated to studying the relationship between media, society and culture. It is also about exploring the responsibilities we have as a public service broadcaster that stretch beyond simply our output. From an academic point of view it's about getting access to the vast store of data that broadcasters have to offer and the opportunity to converse with media professionals who are in a position to make real use of research findings. From all angles it's about the opportunities afforded by networking with likeminded individuals and working in a truly cross-disciplinary manner. beebac is also the online home for the AHRC/BBC Knowledge Exchange Programme. We'll use the site to keep you up to date with everything related to the KEP, highlight upcoming events and funding calls and point you to other places on the web that we think are doing interesting things.

Funding calls provide one framework around which collaboration can take place but they are not necessarily the only way that it can be supported, or the most sustainable. If the BBC is going to continue to work in conjunction with academia it is important to start building a community that can sustain itself and direct members to topics of interest as well as other like-minded individuals.

beebac is currently in beta testing and you can sign up here. Once you've received your authorisation email head to The Hub for up to date information on everything that's new on the network and beyond. beebac is a pilot project and it would be great to get the community to a stage where we can assess whether this model of collaboration between the BBC, the media industry and academia has a future. Please feel free to drop me a line once you're signed up.

Brendan