Connected Histories of the BBC

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

I wear many hats, and aside from working on the Connected Histories of the BBC project (CHBBC), I am an English teacher. As the project develops, and new archive materials are released, I’m fascinated by the wealth of resources on offer, and feel profoundly privileged to read materials ahead of their release. Today’s blog highlights some aspects of the “Voices of the BBC” websites that we are creating for the BBC as part of this project, and how they can be used in teaching.

JUNE 5, 2020

We’re delighted to announce that Professor Margaretta Jolly, a co-investigator in the Connected Histories of the BBC project, has just been awarded the 2019 Hogan Prize. The prize is given to an ‘outstanding essay’ submitted to a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.

APRIL 9, 2020

Former BBC Monitoring Service employee’s journals found and adapted into a new web series.

“I don’t know what the future may bring, but I think there are fairly good prospects in the BBC. After two years there, I have a good chance of getting on the established staff and thus qualifying for a pension. So, perhaps for the first time in my life, I am in a good steady job at last.” Dick Perceval, 12^th June 1950.

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

What was it like to work for the BBC during the Second World War and did it play a special role in shaping the public’s experience of war? These are two of the issues addressed during our project’s third public event held on Saturday 19 October 2019 at The Keep in Brighton.

OCTOBER 31, 2019

We’ve recently launched the sixth of our Voices of the BBC websites, featuring some enticing highlights from the Corporation’s oral history archives. It’s all about The BBC and World War Two and it went live on 3 September 2019, to coincide with the 80^th anniversary of the announcement that Britain was at war with Hitler’s Germany.

AUGUST 20, 2019

One of my first tasks as project administrator was to identify a Project Management System for the Connected Histories team to use. As an information professional, with a background in libraries management, and a techie at heart, this is the sort of challenge I relish.

JULY 26, 2019

Most historians work in text – we imagine ourselves surrounded by books and filing cabinets full of archival scribblings. But increasingly, we also work with other kinds of data. For myself, the BBC Connected Histories project has challenged me to think differently about how I do research and what kinds of sources I use. In part this is because the project focuses on an ‘oral history’ collection – the BBC’s own oral history. But much more importantly, by obliging me to think about ‘sound’, it has also obliged me to think about space and place; video and image in new ways.

MAY 23, 2019

Anna-Maria Sichani

When I initially started working for ‘Connected Histories of the BBC’ as a PostDoc Research Fellow, almost a year ago, I naively felt rather confident about my knowledge of what an archive might contain. I have previously worked with various mainly textual-based archives for my PhD research, as well as for different Digital Humanities (DH) projects I was involved with in recent years. I am familiar with the “allure of the archives” but also with the undocumented, scattered, unexpected assets, the often chaotic structure of files, folders and boxes. I am aware of – and by now, trained in – how to treat and respect the original archival order, how to cite and use archival assets as a way to understand and narrate (often hidden) histories about the past.

MARCH 15, 2019

We’re entering a particularly busy time in the life of the Connected Histories of the BBC project. This month’s blog focuses on some of our upcoming events.

JANUARY 10, 2019

Introspective, sometimes confessional, the 650+ filmed interviews with former staff in an ongoing oral history of the BBC contrast dramatically with the broadcaster’s lustrous front face. But for anyone wanting to understand the policies, people, direction and self-image of a broadcaster so uniquely powerful and respected, they are a treasure trove.

Former war correspondent, later BBC executive Frank Gillard’s inspired decision in 1971 to interview retiring staff anticipated the rise of ‘corporate oral history’. Today, recordings of the memories – and voices – of employees at all levels are recognised as valuable additions to the business archive, enhancing our understanding of a company’s development and culture.

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As part of the AHRC-Connected Histories of the BBC, Saturday1^st December 2018 saw the launch of the fifth in the series of BBC websites, Voices of the BBC.

Pioneering Women is published to coincide with the centenary of women’s suffrage in the UK, and explores the contribution that women have made to shaping close to 100 years of British broadcasting.

JULY 18, 2018

The BBC has opened up its archives for exploration of how TV and radio have understood and covered race, immigration, British identity, and nation across the twentieth century.

As part of the AHRC-Connected Histories of the BBC, the fourth in a series of BBC websites, Voices of the BBC, has been released. It’s called People, Nation, Empire. Published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush and the King’s formal renunciation of the title of Emperor of India, it explores how the BBC has tried to reimagine itself in the multicultural and postimperial age – how it’s grappled over the years with the wider issue of who exactly gets to speak on air and who exactly gets to appear on screen. You can see it here