Is it a disability thing? Community interactions and the BBC’s Ouch! By Anna Claydon, Barry Gunter & Paul Reilly

1. It is a disability thing?
Community Interactions
and the BBC‟s Ouch!
E. Anna Claydon
(University of Leicester)

2. Introduction
 Part of a larger IDeoGRAMS research project at Leicester
with Barrie Gunter and Paul Reilly
 A re-evaluation of Negrine and Cumberbatch (1992) on
representations on TV in the late 1980s is to be reported on
in ESRC event Mediating Disability (UoL, Nov 9 2012)
 Examines and analyses not only the representations of
disability and impairment seen within the media but also how
these representations and presentations are considered and
responded to by those affected by impairment and disability
itself.
 Asks: to what extent are these representations today, given
previous research has generally concluded in the positive,
disabling?

3. Research Aims and Questions
 For this analysis, the aim was to:
 Evaluate the community interactions with BBCOuch!
 Compare the content of the BBCOuch! Blog and Twitter
 Examine if the community discussed experiences concerning:
 specific policy changes in UK law,
 healthcare
 the representation of impairment or disability in the media
 The Research Questions:
 How many blogs or tweets are there in the sample month?
 How many authors?
 What references are there to: policy/law, healthcare, representations in the media?
 What references to new media are present?
 What participant interaction is evident?
 Where is there evidence of connectivity between the corporate website and the
twitter-feed?
 Working Hypothesis: There is significant interaction on twitter (followers are
over 5000) which takes discussions away from the limits of BBC editorial
control.

4. Context: Approaches to Analysis
 In 1992, Cumberbatch and Negrine, were focussing on what we now
call „old‟ media and framing representations within terminology that
even twenty-years ago was already beginning to sound antiquated.
 However, whilst Cumberbatch and Negrine were examining drama,
the area which they analysed which is most relevant in going forward
for this specific analysis is how „news‟ was represented.
 What „news‟ is, though, is something which the last two decades of
increased media convergences and divergencies, has made
multivalent as the audiences increasing shapes and defines the
newsworthy rather than the patriarchal narrator: and this is a principle
effect of the immediacy of the internet and the ability of participants
on the world wide web to shape the news; it is an effect of the rise of
the citizen journalist.

5. Online participant „ethnographies‟
 New work on the representations of impairment and disability must take account
of the participatory role of those who watch or listen those representations in
shaping what is seen, heard and/or understood.
 A repeated question by sports commentators and newscasters across UK
television during the Paralympics, to athletes with impairments has been “Will
this change anything in terms of how disabled people are seen?” To which the
typical answer has been “I hope so”
 In short, for new research on media representations of disability and impairment
to move forwards, not only do new programmes and texts need to be analysed
but new media and methods of viewing incorporated into the sources.
 A combination of text-based and observer and/or participant ethnography is
required to position online research such as this as part of audience discourse
and analysis.
 Thus, methodologically, if participant-based research, virtual „ethnography‟, is to
be performed ethically, key responsibilities must be borne in mind, such as the
typical identification of a person with an impairment as „vulnerable‟ within any
research ethics assessment.

6. Methodology
 1 month analysed - selected based upon number of blogs on the
BBCOuch! Website (November 2011 had 20, average was 17-23)
 Content analysis of text content of blogs and tweets (virtual
observant ethnography)
 Coding based upon focussed research questions
 Data collected with a view to further work to develop a detailed
discourse analysis but this stage is focussed on the numerical
evidence
 All tweeters anonymised apart from @bbcouch! Blogs treated as
public journalism
 To read tweeted conversations being a follower was required,
hence becoming a closed, if large, circle. Thus treated as private
communications

7. BBC Ouch! Website
 Until August 2011, BBC Ouch! was a website run by the BBC which offered
an online magazine and meeting point for media audiences with interests
in impairment and disability related issues.
 Both a platform for the BBC‟s own output and a space in which media and
political debates around disability were played out through articles,
podcasts and the forum.
 Unfortunately, as a symptom of the same cuts that led to the attempt to
close BBC Radio 6, the website, whilst still functioning, has been reduced
to a series of weekly blogs, the connected twitter feed and facebook
pages, administered by a skeleton staff (only two names appear on the
website, for example).
 The cuts also impacted upon the BBC‟s other impairment related
programming, such as the magazine show See Hear which is more like an
expanded local TV news insert with signing than the deaf viewers‟
Panorama it use to be.

8. BBC Ouch! Blogs
1-13th Nov 2011
19 TV/Radio Listings Hotspots Nov 2011
4 authors
Weds 2nd Nov
3 programmes featured or named
Weds 9th Nov
outside the listings (includes 1
Weds 16th Nov
repeated x 3)
Weds 23rd Nov
6 charities mentioned (1 twice) Weds 30th Nov
3 references to policy or law (reforms
twice)
18 newspapers referred to (8 online)
– range of 9
16 references to BBC news (1 TV)
7 new media references
25 references to specific impairments
10 references to healthcare

9. BBC Ouch! Blogs
14-21st Nov 2011 22-30th Nov 2011
12 TV/Radio Listings 19 TV/Radio Listings
4 authors 3 authors
6 programmes featured or 5 programmes are featured or named
named outside the listings outside of the listings
(includes 1 film)
6 charities mentioned
2 charities mentioned
8 references to policy or law
2 references to policy or law
10 newspapers referred to (3 online)
9 newspapers referred to (2
10 references to BBC news
online)
8 new media references
5 references to BBC news
17 references to specific impairments
5 new media references
7 references to healthcare
17 references to specific
impairments
4 references to healthcare

10. Twitter Sample
 November General Results:
 144 tweets
 120 by @bbcouch
 4 male, 14 female, 5 unknown (other than @bbcouch)
 24 retweeted by @bbcouch
 48 conversation participants
 Hotspots:
 Thursday 3rd Nov (15 tweets)
 Wednesday 23rd Nov (37 tweets) -
 Thursday 24th Nov (15 tweets)
 Wednesday 30th Nov (20 tweets)
 Main content descriptors:
 @bbcouch seeking information
 Participants responding to these
 Participants retweeting @bbcouch posts

11. Inform
Reithian concepts for the BBC: to educate, inform and entertain. How
does the BBCOuch! Website and the @bbcouch twitter feed fulfil
these?
 The twitter feed often refers back to the blog (note the hot
spots are Wednesdays (when the TV listings are posted) or
Thursdays – as readers catch-up).
 The feed often refers followers to other links (other twitter
feeds, youtube clips, websites etc…)

12. Educate
Does the status of @bbcouch add anything distinctive?
 Peer-education
 Advice passed downwards and upward
 Fact or experientially based commentaries
Yet these are components of most twitter feeds which are issue based
anyway.

13. Entertain
If the majority of people see social media as an entertainment,
how does @bbcouch! entertain the communities reading it?
 The number of followers (over 5000) and participants in
conversations proves that @bbcouch! reaches an audience
but that it is comparatively small.
 25% of those participating on the twitter feed are repeat
participants. It can be therefore extrapolated that whilst the
48 participants in conversations represents <1% of the 5000
followers, it is likely that a similar proportion are repeat
readers of the twitter feed (25% = 1250).

14. Findings
 Hypothesis proven or disproven?
 H: There is significant interaction on twitter (followers are over 5000) which
takes discussions away from the limits of BBC editorial control.
 R1: Interaction is much less than expected but the tone is friendly and
informal.
 R2: Discussions are focussed upon topics generally triggered by BBC
bloggers and tweeters and signify the editorial component (hence extensive
coverage of Life’s Too Short).
 Surprise findings
 This study had been begun prior to the news of Jimmy Saville‟s abuse of
people across the country in vulnerable positions but the sample coincided
with his death and the blog and twitter contact (albeit brief) was an
interesting extra component.
 The number of radio programmes highlighted by the blog help confirm that
radio is an area which requires further study regarding the representation of
impairment and disability.

15. Ethical Considerations
 Treating online text as text permits linguistic contents analysis
and a sentiment analysis based on this but does not permit
further in depth consideration of why people are using
BBCOuch!/@bbcouch beyond the words they write.
 The ability of users to make contributions confidential within the
twitter feed enables people to „opt out‟ or signal their
vulnerability.
 For a virtual ethnography to go deeper, the participants need to
be engaged more directly but at his level, the best comparison is
as observer ethnography from which the ethnographer can only
extrapolate generalities and patterns of behaviour.
 We have therefore statistical evidence of participation but not of
the integration of communication types (as such further work
could consider this level of online-bulletins-f2f interactions within
communities).