The BBC, Democracy & The Internet – Job Done?

by Stephen Hilton on April 1, 2008 · View Comments

As we have heard in comments on this blog, the 1930’s were highly risky times. In 1932 the BBC moved to Portland Place, London and citizens passively consumed whatever media content Broadcasting House doled-out to them. Skip forward 76 years and the BBC has decided to close down its user-generated campaign site, the BBC Action Network.

For those who don’t know it, the BBC launched the Action Network, originally called iCAN, approximately 5 years ago. It offers grass roots campaigners a web space and tools to raise local issues and potentially to attract support from others.

The BBC notes the rise of blogging and Internet petition sites as nails in the coffin of the Action Network and cites the difficulty of keeping up with the pace of Internet innovation…

“Although we’ve continued to update our site with new features, we now feel that the pace and innovation of online democracy means that our members can access a wider range of web tools, and have more control of their campaigns, outside Action Network”

So what messages should we take from the BBC’s decision? Is online democratic activity now so ingrained into the Web that there is no longer a role for public agencies to help develop or facilitate the engagement (or to listen)? Or was the Action Network simply the wrong tool for the job? Would it have been a different story if a cutting-edge outfit like Tom Steinberg’s My Society, or Bristol’s own DELIB, had been driving the site’s development?

However the BBC clearly don’t think that their job is completely done. The web site stresses that the BBC is still committed to ‘helping people engage in civic life’ and announces two new initiatives. The first would appear to be a project aimed at linking topics discussed in mainstream TV and Radio programmes into the wider debate through people’s blogs, campaigns and websites. The second is a wider digital democracy broadband project, aiming to provide video and guides relating to debates and speeches from our main institutions.

Now, I wonder if we can get any funding for Bristol to be a pilot…

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Tagged as: BBC, Bristol, e-democracy

  • I welcome the offer of an open and collaborative approach from Stephen. Before creating anything new though, are there any existing networks that could be used?
  • David - I agree. The BBC Trust certainly ought to connect with the e-democracy community. I'm sure that there's much valuable advice that you and others could offer them. The Centre for Digital Citizenship at Leeds University would be happy to set up a forum for such an exchange of views. Let's see if we can take this forward in a way that will help the BBC to make the best possible plans.
  • David - I agree. The BBC Trust certainly ought to connect with the e-democracy community. I'm sure that there's much valuable advice that you and others could offer them. The Centre for Digital Citizenship at Leeds University would be happy to set up a forum for such an exchange of views. Let's see if we can take this forward in a way that will help the BBC to make the best possible plans.
  • Maybe the BBC will venture into networked journalism, as hinted in the Action Network closure statement http://tinyurl.com/2glo2u
    I hope that the BBC Trust - who have to agree the plans - will give us a chance to engage with them online as well as running their traditional consultation process. I'm sure Bristol could help ...
  • Stephen Coleman
    The difficulty is, Stephen, that, as with so many e-democracy projects, there has been no full evaluation, so we don't know what proved to be too difficult or expensive. As a public-service body, I would expect the BBC to be in the forefront of not only pioneering innovations, but sharing independent evaluations of what became of them.
  • Stephen Hilton
    I recall that when iCan first started, the BBC piloted a number of support models for the site. Things like having a dedicated local reporter whose job it was to identify and promote campaigns; linking campaigns to regional news broadcasts; sharing a weekly round-up via a dedicated local radio programme. I guess that these mechanisms proved to be too difficult to organise internally and / or too expensive?

    The early focus on people and outreach, rather than simply on technology, was an interesting aspect of the Action Network project. I hope the BBC incorporates some of this thinking into the new pilots.

    Stephen
  • I'm reminded of the saying "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."

    I agree that the BBC is well placed to provide a civic commons, but the problem with iCan (and Action Network) was that it didn't work.

    The interface was not intuitive, the user generated content was thin and the (often excellent) BBC generated content was too hard to find. The search interface and the marketing strategy didn't connect with users. There were, in the end, better more relevant tools out there.

    Hopefully, these new pilots will get more traction.
  • Stephen Coleman
    You have raised some very interesting points, Stephen. I conducted an evaluation of the BBC's iCan project after its first year and it's a pity to see that the project didn't prove to be sustainable. I don't think that this is because there's so much high-quality, trusted, well-connected online democracy elsewhere that we don't need the BBC to facilitate it. I'm convinced that the BBC is uniquely placed to develop digital democracy - if it adopts the right policies. Back in 2001 Jay Blumler and I wrote a pamphlet for the Institute for Public Policy Research arguing in favour of an online civic commons that would connect public deliberation to decision-making at every level of government. It can be downloaded from www.citizensonline.org.uk/site/media/documents/925_Realising%20Democracy%20Online.pdf
    We have revised our proposal in the final chapter of our new book, The Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Theory, Practice, Policy, which will be published by Cambridge University Press later this year. I hope that the digital democracy policy-makers at the BBC will read it.
    It would be good to see pilots in which the new BBC projects link citizens directly to the work of their local authorities. Bristol would be ideally placed for this. It's always been a pioneer in the field of intelligent e-participation.
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