Whatever happened to Vera?

The road to technological progress is littered with unsuccessful prototypes and their inventors. In British television there is perhaps no better example than John Logie Baird, universally recognised as the successful inventor of the technology, but not of the successful business model. Another, lesser known, casualty is the Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus (VERA), developed within the BBC Design Unit between 1952 and 1958. VERA had the potential to change the production and working practices of British television, in ways yet to be imagined or apparent, but just as it reached completion it was superceded by an American import. This article, based entirely on secondary sources, seeks to illuminate and narrativise some of the threads in the hidden, or certainly largely unexplored, history of video in British television, to identify a pathway for further development of this research, notably at the BBC Written Archive at Caversham. The start date of 1955 recognises the ending of the BBC’s television monopoly and the changes and shifts that the BBC had to adjust to as broadcasting became a duopolistic and unionised industry. The end date reflects a point where the quality of ‘non-broadcast’ video technology reached the standard that had previously been set as the broadcast minimum by the broadcasting unions

Documents of Ordinariness: Authority and Participation in the BBC Video Nation 1994–2011

This research examines authority and participation within the BBC, using as its case study Video Nation, a participatory project that invited those constructed as ‘ordinary people’ to represent themselves in self-made video shorts. These ‘documents of ordinariness’ were broadcast in week-night slots between 1994 and 2000. The project was subsequently relaunched for online distribution in 2001 and as a web 2.0 project in 2009 before its closure in 2011. The thesis advances a historiography of the BBC in order to contextualise attitudes towards ‘ordinary people’ within the BBC from its formation through to the work of the Community Programmes Unit (CPU) in the 1970s up until 2011. This historiography is largely based on the BBC Yearbooks and other Corporation publications, and the work of the BBC’s first historian, Asa Briggs. It explores the changing usage and understanding of the phrase ‘ordinary people’ within the BBC, and the contexts within which they were represented. The thesis responds to the following research questions: How has the BBC imposed its cultural authority in relation to the representation of ‘ordinary people’? What were the affordances and constraints of emerging technologies and working practices on their representation? What was the extent of participation offered in the various iterations of the Video Nation project, and how did this impact on the representation of ‘ordinary people’? The case study was accomplished through qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. These included attendance at Video Nation training days and events, indepth personal interviews with project participants and institutional players, and content analysis of a randomised sample of the web output of the project and of the website interface. Primary research was undertaken at the BBC Written Archives at Caversham; substantial secondary materials (institutional documents and publications, newspaper articles and reviews) were consulted alongside the work of BBC broadcasting historians including Georgina Born, Asa Briggs, Tom Burns, David Cardiff and Paddy Scannell, among others, to present this overarching history of an important participatory media project. The overall contention of this thesis is that, counterintuitively, higher levels of institutional control and authority and diminished participation were evident in the web project, while Video Nation’s broadcast phase offered considerably more open forms of participation and access, compared with the web project. This runs counter to some new media theory regarding the democratisation of the media and the thesis offers a critical view of ‘user-generated’ content on the institutional platform of the BBC. The research aims to contribute to the literature on participatory media forms in institutional contexts. It complements existing work on representation of ‘ordinary people’ and the BBC and their participation in it in several ways. Firstly, it presents a durational study of a BBC project, investigating the attitudes towards ‘ordinary people’ and the introduction of specific maximalist modes of participation. Secondly, it presents a narrative of the CPU that identifies some of the concerns within the BBC that this type of participatory content raised, and the fluctuating motivations of channel controllers to its production. Thirdly, the research examines issues created by the introduction of new technology that enabled production in new contexts by new subjects for new formats, channels and delivery platforms

“It’s just part of being a person”— Sincerity, Support & Self Expression in Vignette Games

Personal vignettes are encapsulated game works with minimal interactions, focused on aspects of lived experiences. Often created by under-represented games creators, they draw on techniques of poetry, art and theatre to tell diverse and complex stories in small spaces. This study explores the experiences of personal vignette creators and their creative processes. The study conducted a thematic analysis of 16 interviews with creators, focusing on how they engaged with their practice and their audiences. The findings suggest that facilitation, experimentation, disruption and expression are cornerstones of the vignette game ethos; a form of game creation under the creator's own terms, which utilises design through positive restriction, as a playful creativity and for self expression

Let the people speak – The Community Programmes Unit 1972–2002

Fifty years ago, the controller of BBC 2, (now Sir) David Attenborough supported an initiative to expand the range of voices and opinions on the BBC through a specialist Community Programmes Unit (CPU). The Unit formed in 1972, a time when the function of broadcasting was subjected to intense public scrutiny in the run-up to the delayed Annan Committee, which finally reported in 1977. Using archival sources, this article builds on the limited literature on the CPU to provide a fuller account of the content it created, the contexts it used and the challenges it faced in its 30-year duration

You, me, the BBC and the license fee

This article lays out some of the critical issues about the future of the BBC and public service broadcasting that will be discussed in the mid-term Charter Review starting April 2022. A theme that will be central is the future funding arrangements, with the intention to abolish the license fee already announced by the government minister responsible for the review. The challenge is to ensure that any alternative to license fee funding supports a richer and more relevant public service broadcasting sector

Gender diversity in the ancestral narratives: Encountering Sarah & Esau through a hermeneutics of cispicion

The Hermeneutics of Cispicion is an attempt to challenge cisnormative presuppositions that shape and, at times, occlude the variations in gender and sex exhibited by key characters in the ancestral narrative of Genesis 12–50. It draws inspiration from Jack [Judith] Halberstam and Marcella Althaus-Reid, along with trans theorists Julia Serano, Viviane Namaste, and Jay Prosser. This facilitates a critique of Deryn Guest’s work on hetero-suspicion, before showing the importance of reading beyond the presuppositions that hetero-suspicion is most attuned to challenge. These emerge in a cisnormative assumption that any character encountered is likely to be fixed and binary in their gender and sex, and that is consistent with the sex assigned at birth. Yet the case studies demonstrate that preconception is flawed. The initial case study addresses the figure of Sarah, who is the proto-matriarch of the ancestral narratives in Genesis. Masculinities contrast with femininities, and Sarah’s own agency makes the picture of a single consistent gender hard to identify. By closely reading the text, different facets of Sarah’s story emerge to emphasise how much the narrative directs the reader towards a cisnormative reading. However, Chapter 3 shows that it is not the only images of Sarah as feminine woman and mother that remain visible. The subject of the second case study, Esau, is regularly judged to be a hypermasculine character due to his bodily appearance, but repeatedly fails to fulfil expectations related to that appearance. Though often condemned as a poor example of (hyper)masculinity, a cispicious reading identifies a richer and more nuanced figure. Attending to Esau’s actions, one sees his rejection of the gendered expectations as intentional, allowing him to settle more comfortably into his own identity. This project advocates for, and demonstrates the value of, creative, indecently whimsical interpretations that challenge both malestream and feminist gender assumptions

Maintaining access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in a pandemic: a service evaluation of telephone-based pre-exposure prophylaxis provision

Objectives: The objective was to perform a survey-based service evaluation of our telephone PrEP clinic (Tele-PrEP), which was instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic, to inform future service delivery. // Methods: We administered parallel, web-based, anonymous surveys to PrEP-users who had a Tele-PrEP appointment between 13.11.2020 and 17.12.2020 and all healthcare professionals (HCPs) conducting Tele-PrEP clinics. We used descriptive statistics to summarise demographic and qualitative data, and thematically categorised free text responses using the Framework for a Systems Approach to Healthcare Delivery. // Results: 62/117 (53%) PrEP-users and 8/9 (89%) HCPs completed the surveys. Tele-PrEP was rated ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ by 61/62 (98%) PrEP-users. All HCPs felt that Tele-PrEP allowed them to assess patients safely and confidently. 10/62 (16%) PrEP-users and 1 (11%) HCP expressed a preference for face-to-face care. Using the Framework for a Systems Approach to Healthcare Delivery we identified key areas important to respondents who highlighted the rapid changes as a result of COVID-19, which required an increase in dedicated resources. HCPs valued teamwork, support/supervision and convenience in achieving quality care for the patient, who in turn, valued convenient, holistic and individualised management to meet their sexual healthcare needs. // Conclusion: Tele-PrEP is feasible and acceptable. While most respondents rated the service highly, others identified a need/preference for face-to-face appointments

Delivering HIV prevention medication online: Findings from a qualitative study exploring the acceptability of an online HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) care pathway among service users and healthcare professionals

Objective: Eliminating HIV transmission worldwide could become a reality with the advent of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) where people take HIV medication to prevent HIV acquisition. Incorporating digital health into PrEP provision could help services scale up and meet increasing demand. We aimed to explore the prospective acceptability of a novel online PrEP care pathway (the ePrEP clinic) among PrEP users and healthcare professionals. The ePrEP clinic is composed of online postal self-sampling for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, an online consultation, and remote medication provision. // Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 PrEP users recruited from a large sexual health service and online cohort, and focus groups with nine healthcare professionals from the same sexual health service (May to December 2021). We analysed data using framework analysis. // Results: Participants found the ePrEP clinic highly acceptable, anticipating that it would provide convenience, empower PrEP users, and increase capacity within sexual health services. The need for blood self-sampling was a considerable barrier for some. Participants anticipated that the ePrEP clinic would be appropriate for established PrEP users with adequate digital health literacy and no medically significant conditions requiring in-clinic monitoring. Participants highlighted the need for support, including access to in-clinic care, and the integration of the ePrEP clinic within existing services. // Conclusions: Our findings provide clear justification for the development of the ePrEP clinic as an addition to in-clinic PrEP care pathways and provide useful insights for those developing digital services for other conditions incorporating testing, consultations, and prescribing