“Please send us your money”: The BBC’s evolving relationship with charitable causes, fundraising and humanitarian appeals

Fundraising for charitable causes has had a key place in the BBC’s schedule since the earliest days of the corporation and the establishment of the weekly radio appeal. As new forms of fundraising through high-profile media events developed in the 1980s, raising unprecedentedly large sums for charity, the BBC had to adjust the way it negotiated with good causes and audiences. These changes coincided with professionalization and rapid growth of the NGO sector, which sought to elicit funds from a wider public using innovative techniques and new ways of reaching out through the media. This article uses internal BBC documents to examine how, against this rapidly changing background, the organization navigated the rules behind broadcasting of appeals. This includes the way that the BBC interacted with the Disasters Emergency Committee that had been established in the 1960s to provide an interface between broadcasters and charities to oversee exceptional fundraising for international causes. In some cases, the BBC faced difficulties in reconciling its duty to educate audiences about charitable causes with the fundraising imperative which relied on TV extravaganzas. In other cases, the BBC confronted the question of whether it was hosting a global fundraising event or simply covering an event organized by others. These kinds of emerging challenges which arose out of new innovations in fundraising via broadcasting produced interesting debates that are still evolving both within the charitable sector and in the way it relates to the media. The BBC’s role within this ecology provides some illuminating insights about the issues connected with raising funds for humanitarian causes

An investigation to establish whether property maintenance can diminish the number of empty commercial buildings in Sheffield and Leeds

Property maintenance has long been considered an undesirable and overlooked area amongst the construction and property industries; however, a large proportion of construction output comes from such maintenance works. Empty commercial property is an emotive and challenging area, which has been made more topical due to the implementation of the Rating (Empty Property) Act 2007 placing further financial liability on owners with the aim of „incentivising‟ them either to develop, re-let or sell their vacant buildings. As such, the level of property maintenance is important to allow the building to be at a lettable or saleable standard, which in turn should allow the number of unused commercial buildings in the United Kingdom (UK) to reduce. A mixture of primary and secondary sources were utilised to fulfil this research to determine whether incentives exist or can exist to increase the level of property maintenance to diminish the number of vacant commercial buildings in Leeds and Sheffield. The primary data was based on six case studies, four example cases in point and two interviews. Ratings were assigned according to factors and incentives to analyse the data to assist in the findings of this research. This change in Government policy is causing outrage amongst UK businesses and professional bodies of the property industry, in extreme cases leading to the demolition of the building to avoid liability and other detrimental consequences, such as staff reductions to make up for the liability. It has come also alongside the worst recession of recent times

Effects of the topology of social networks on information transmission

Social behaviours cannot be fully understood without considering the network structures that underlie them. Developments in network theory provide us with relevant modelling tools. The topology of social networks may be due to selection for information transmission. To investigate this, we generated network topologies with varying proportions of random connections and degrees of preferential attachment. We simulated two social tasks on these networks: a spreading innovation model and a simple market. Results indicated that non-zero levels of random connections and low levels of preferential attachment led to more efficient information transmission. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

From pictures to policy: How does humanitarian reporting have an influence?

The degree of influence of media coverage upon policy is part of a longstanding debate. There are many and varied strands to these relationships and the way that media coverage may or may not influence political decision making in relation to foreign policy. Trying to separate out the precise impact of media effects is invariably complex and often opaque. This chapter analyses the state of the contemporary debates. But it also uses historical analysis to assess the arguments about how media influence affected decision making in the period after the television coverage of the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, which was a key moment in the way that television reported humanitarian crises

BBC reporting in India in the 1970s and 1980s: globally connected media ahead of its time

We are accustomed to the complaint that western media depict the developing world in a stereotyped and inadequate manner. However this article, using exclusive access to BBC archives, demonstrates that the way India was reported in the period 1970-1987 provides an exception to this characterisation. The material reveals that the there was surprisingly, an intense care and attention shown by broadcasters and managers to the coverage of India. The factors which underlay this include the growing confidence of the Indian diaspora population, a continuing interest by individual broadcasters in Indian affairs and the influence of an exceptional correspondent in Delhi throughout this period. Moreover the Indian government and indeed many Indian individuals maintained a critical interest, bordering sometimes on an obsession, in the portrayal of Indian affairs by the BBC. The networks between India and its UK diaspora enabled pressure to be exerted on the BBC which, as the records demonstrate, broadcasters took very seriously. This ability of Indians to ‘access’ their coverage (and then complain about it) is an early precursor to the much more available pattern of foreign reporting which prevails today in an era of globally available media

Reporting famine; changing nothing

The media coverage of famine in Africa has been inextricably intertwined with politics and the use of aid. In the 30 years since the BBC famously reported famine in Ethiopia little, if anything, has changed about the media’s over-simplification of the subject

Inserting political understanding into the humanitarian narrative

Western media reporting of disasters in faraway countries (especially in Africa) frequently follows a template which fails to take account of political circumstances. Very often journalism relies upon familiar stereotypes –using frames such as ‘primitive tribal hatreds' or resorting to explanations based upon ‘natural disaster,’ when there are in fact complex underlying social and political causes to many crises and complex emergencies. This paper will analyse the way that so called ‘humanitarian reporting’ has failed to take account of political explanations with reference to key case studies and explain why this is a matter of vital concern. It will highlight the powerful and consciously apolitical position of international aid agencies and examine the many layered and interrelated factors which contribute to the absence of political analysis in the way that distant crises are described and understood

Water Elevation Changes in the Fox River, Green Bay, Wisconsin

The Fox River begins at Lake Winnebago and flows northeast for 63 km (39 miles) where it enters Green Bay and Lake Michigan. OU 4 is the lowermost stretch of the Fox River between the De Pere Dam and Green Bay. The Fox River is the site of the largest cleanup of PCBs from a waterway in the US. This investigation builds upon prior studies about sediment transport in the Fox River and an oscillation behavior documented in the Buffalo River (Buffalo, NY). It aims to answer the question: Does the Lower Fox River oscillate and if it does, is its pattern similar or different than the oscillation that occurs in the Buffalo River? To answer these questions, two water level recorders with temperature sensors were deployed in the Fox River from June 21 to November 16, 2013. One recorder was placed near the mouth of the river; the second recorder was placed ~8 km upriver. Measurements were collected every 5 minutes. These data reveal that OU 4 of the Fox River displays several distinct patterns including: seiche-driven changes in river elevation, non-seiche related elevation changes, and minimal variation in river elevation. To explain the cause(s) of these patterns we are utilizing other available data, including wind velocity and direction and river velocities and gage heights recorded at the USGS Oil Tank Depot at Green Bay, WI