BBC charter review: public consultation

The constitutional basis of the BBC is the Royal Charter, which is due to expire at the end of 2016. This consultation paper therefore seeks to engage the UK in a dialogue about the future of the BBC. The BBC is one of the great institutions of Britain, but to continue to thrive it must continue to evolve. The Charter Review will explore four areas of possible change: Mission, Purpose and Values – what the BBC is for, examining the overall rationale for the BBC and the case for reform of its public purposes; Scale and scope – what the BBC therefore should do, examining the services it should deliver and the audiences it should be seeking to serve; Funding – how the BBC should be paid for, examining not just future potential funding models but related issues such as how best to enforce payment; and Governance – how the BBC should be overseen, examining options for reform of the current Trust model alongside other governance issues. The BBC has changed considerably over the nearly 100 years since it was established. So too has the world in which it operates. In the decade since the current Charter was  introduced we have arguably seen more change in the media sector than in any previous decade – with an explosion in choice for audiences both in terms of the ways of accessing content and the variety of providers. As these changes have occurred, some of the original arguments for the BBC have become less relevant. But the rationale for a publicly-funded BBC that “informs, educates and entertains” as part of a wider public service broadcasting ecology remains strong even in the current media age. The Government is therefore committed both to the future of the BBC and to its underlying Reithian mission. This changed and changing media landscape does, however, raise some questions about how best to define the unique role of the BBC. One question that is particularly important is how we can best understand the idea of ‘universality’. As more and more options become available for how audiences watch, read and listen to content, the question of the extent to which the BBC should focus on providing programmes and services for all audiences, and on an equal basis, across every platform, or whether it should instead focus more on particular or underserved audiences with its output, becomes relevant. A second question relates to whether the BBC should instead have a more targeted or prioritised set of purposes to reflect its increasingly varied and competitive environment

The re-regulation of broadcasting: Or the mill owners’ triumph

Discusses the driving forces behind the Communications Bill 2001 of Great Britain. Terms of the bill; Arguments concerning the re-regulation

Sport development in challenging times: leverage of sports events for legacy in disadvantaged communities

This research project focused on legacy around the 2016 BMX World SuperCross event held in Manchester at the National Cycling Centre. In the current social, political and economic climate, the consideration of wider impacts of major events have come under increasing scrutiny. There has been an increasingly critical debate about social benefits, sporting and community impacts, methods to achieve increases in sport participation and event legacy. This paper considers the impacts on people, processes and practice, or ‘soft legacy’ of the event, through the realistic evaluation of two BMX projects which were based on hosting of the BMX World Cup event. The impact of attempts to leverage social and sport development impacts, in particularly challenging circumstances and communities are highlighted, applying a Realistic Evaluation framework (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) on two programmes. Results showed that though the programme of Street BMX was successful in reaching over 500 participant as planned, there was no evidence of transition into BMX community track sessions. In the targeted event-based programme there were positive benefits to the participants, but limited impact on their educational outcomes. This paper highlights the implications for those planning event-based sport development interventions attempting to engage hard-pressed communities

Modernisation and governance in UK national governing bodies of sport: how modernisation influences the way board members perceive and enact their roles

Modernisation has been a key objective of many national governments for at least the last two decades. A significant element of the modernisation agenda has been the focus on improving the governance of public sector and, more recently, voluntary sector organisations. In the UK voluntary sport sector, this has involved policy statements, governance monitoring systems linked to public funding and a number of ‘good governance’ guides, aimed primarily at the boards of national governing bodies of sport (NGBs). Previous research has critically analysed modernisation and explored its effects, most often at a macro level. Very little research, to date, however, has looked at the influence of modernisation on the boards of NGBs. This article seeks to do just that, drawing on the first national survey of board-level governance in the UK and an in-depth, longitudinal case study of one UK-based NGB. It empirically examines which board roles NGBs consider most important and statistically compares large and small NGBs. It then draws on direct observation of board and committee meetings, in-depth interviews and analysis of key organisational documents to examine how modernisation influences the way board members perceive and enact their roles. In so doing, this article draws together the political science research on modernisation and the sport governance research on board roles and seeks to promote closer integration between these complementary streams of research

Media Literacy: The UK’s undead cultural policy

This article examines media literacy in the UK: a policy that emerged within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the late 1990s, was adopted by the New Labour administration, and enshrined in the Communications Act 2003. That legislation gave the new media regulator, Ofcom, a duty to ‘promote’ media literacy, although it left the term undefined. The article describes how Ofcom managed this regulatory duty. It argues that over time, media literacy was progressively reduced in scope, focusing on two policy priorities related to the growth of the internet. In the process, media literacy’s broader educative purpose, so clearly articulated in much of the early policy rhetoric, was effectively marginalized. From the Coalition government onwards, the promotion of media literacy was reduced further to a matter of market research. Today, if not altogether dead, the policy is governed by entirely different priorities to those imagined at its birth

Differentiating normal and problem gambling: a grounded theory approach.

A previous study (Ricketts &amp; Macaskill, 2003) delineated a theory of problem gambling based on the experiences of treatment seeking male gamblers and allowed predictions to be made regarding the processes that differentiate between normal and problem gamblers. These predictions are the focus of the present study, which also utilised a grounded theory approach, but with a sample of male high frequency normal gamblers. The findings suggest that there are common aspects of gambling associated with arousal and a sense of achievement. The use of gambling to manage negative emotional states differentiated normal and problem gambling. Perceived self-efficacy , emotion management skills and perceived likelihood of winning money back were intervening variables differentiating problem and normal gamblers.</p

Who teaches primary physical education? Change and transformation through the eyes of subject leaders

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Sport, Education and Society on 02/07/2015, available online: DOI: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13573322.2015.1061987Primary physical education (PE) lessons tend to be taught by one, or a combination of, three different groups: generalist classroom teachers, specialist primary PE teachers and so-called ‘adults other than teachers’, who are almost exclusively sports coaches. Drawing upon data gathered from one-to-one interviews with 36 subject leaders (SLs), this study sought answers to two main questions: “Who delivers primary PE nowadays?” and “What are the consequences?” The findings revealed that the most common model for the delivery of PE involved responsibility being shared between the generalist class teacher and either a sports coach or specialist PE teacher. The SLs recognised strengths and weaknesses in all of the three main approaches used. However, while they favoured the use of specialist teachers because of their subject knowledge and expertise, the more prosaic constraints of cost and flexibility meant that the use of coaches had become increasingly popular. Whether or not, the growth of coaches is de-professionalizing the delivery of PE, it certainly appears to be exacerbating any existing tendency to turn primary PE into a pale imitation of the sport-biased curricular of secondary schools. Ironically, the apparent ‘threat’ to the status of PE in the primary curriculum (as well as the status of PE specialists) posed by the growth of coaches in curricular PE in primary schools may well be exaggerated by the Primary PE and Sport Premium which appears to have added momentum to a change of direction regarding staffing the subject – towards sports coaches and away from generalist classroom teachers and PE specialists. As the shift towards outsourcing PE to commercial sports coaches becomes increasingly commonplace it seems appropriate to talk of transformation, rather than mere change, in the delivery of primary PE