The digital citizen: working upstream of digital and broadcast archive developments

Abstract

This chapter explores the potential and significance of digital broadcast archives (DBAs) and associated tools for supporting civic engagement with complex topics. It draws on a three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, Earth in Vision, which worked with a sample of 50 hours of environment-themed broadcasts drawn from over five decades of BBC television and radio archives. The project critically examines the potential of such broadcast archive content as a resource for the making and debating of environmental histories in the context of imagining and planning for environmental futures. It builds on the principles of co-production and social learning and aims to support more plural and dynamic accounts of environmental change. The overarching question the project addresses is how digital broadcast archives can inform environmental history and support public understanding of, and learning about, environmental change issues.