When user-generated content (UGC) emerged as a central facet of the BBC's digital presence, it seemed to engage directly with the public service remit in a modern and multiplatform way. Content Cultures examines this key moment of digital affluence and creativity as the BBC embraced user-generated content across the news, civic and creative spheres.
Based on original research, the book explores the resources generated using UGC, from Blast to Adventure Rock, from the BBC Hub to Newsround and The Archers message boards. Whether UGC referred to citizen journalism, oral and digital
storytelling, the civic, political or creative engagement of young people, disseminating stories from local communities, or reflecting on historical moments, it appeared to promote and transform longstanding BBC agendas into and within a digital era.
This book also presents the lessons we need to carry forward as the digital and new media landscape evolves, and as the
BBC continues to shape this terrain.
Simon Popple is Senior Lecturer in Cinema and Director of Impact and Innovation in the Institute of Communications Studies at Leeds University, UK. He is founder and joint editor of the journal "Early Popular Visual Culture" and his books include "Digging the Seam: Popular Cultures of the Miners' Strike" (2012). Helen Thornham is a Research Fellow in Transformations of Media at Leeds University. She is the author of" Ethnographies of the Videogame" (2011) and co-editor, with Elke Weissmann, of "Renewing Feminisms: Radical Narratives, Fantasies and Futures in Media Studies" (I.B. Tauris, 2013).