Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
AHRC Grant to Study the impact of Digitalisation on Independent Production
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Staff teaching on Media Studies and Mass Communications courses have been awarded £180K by the Arts & Humanities Research Council to explore the impact of television’s digitalisation and its convergence with digital media on the future of public service broadcasting. Competition for AHRC grants is fierce, with only 12% of applications receiving funding.
Dr James Bennett and Paul Kerr will work with colleagues from the University of Sussex on a 2 year project exploring how independent media companies adapt to and exploit the possibilities of ‘multiplatform’ television.
The bid follows on from the successful 2007 ‘Television Goes Digital’ Conference organised by faculty staff and will involve further international events at LMU, including a conference set to attract key media players from the BBC, Channel 4, media regulator OFCOM and producers in the independent television and digital media industries.
The project will examine how television’s convergence with web, mobile phone and other digital technologies places pressure on, as well as provides opportunities for, those engaged in the production of public service content. By 2012 TV will be digital: no longer simply the “box in the corner”, but experienced and produced across a range of screens, sites and technological platforms. However, the increased options these services provide have called the future of public service broadcasting institutions, such as the BBC and C4, into question.
Our study focuses on these organisation’s adoption of multiplatform production and commissioning strategies as a response to these challenges. More specifically it examines how these changes are also experienced by programme-makers themselves. The team will conduct field research, interviews and analysis of programming from independent television and digital media companies, examining the way public service broadcasting circulates as a culture outside of the BBC and Channel 4. The final project will include a report to industry stakeholders that will help shape public debate on the future of public service broadcasting.
j.bennett@londonmet.ac.uk
