THINK | MAKE | SHOW – Two events on public service media in London
This week we organized two events on Thursday 8th June and Friday 9th June at London South Bank University (LSBU): a one-day "MAKE: The BBC of the Future" to re-invent public service media and a panel debate "THINK: Public Service Media Futures”.
MAKE “The BBC of the Future”
High school students from Waltham Forest College (www.waltham.ac.uk) and Lambeth College (www.lambethcollege.ac.uk) born after 1996 (‘Generation Z’) imagined new forms of public service media such as social media, games, VR, and eSports. Students who came to LSBU’s Edric Theatre were split into four groups to complete a questionnaire and to imagine and draw new kinds of platforms and services. Each the groups were facilitated by Jacqui Taylor (Visiting Professor at LSBU, CEO of FlyingBinary and a Tech City Mentor), Andy Lemon (Course Director, Digital Design BA, LSBU), Ste Curran (Senior Lecturer, Games Design and Development, LSBU), Laura-Jane Filotrani (Course Director, Journalism, LSBU).
Ideas were presented to Emily Pitts (Senior Audience Planner for BBC Digital Platforms), Andrew Cochran (Consultant and ex-Head of Strategy and Transformation for CBC News, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Julian Coles (Advisor to Childnet International and ex-Senior Policy Advisor, BBC) and Klaus Unterberger (Head of Public Value, ORF – the Austrian Public Service Broadcaster). Our guests from the Public Service Broadcasters summarised the event and awarded prizes for the best ideas; a signed certificate.
The most potentially popular service was awarded to a group that developed public service Multi-Glasses, allowing users to orientate and interact with others via smart glasses. The award for the most original service was given to ‘HiveWatch’ a social and e-Sports app allowing users to share content and experiences whilst watching sport events. Finally, the award for the most public service oriented idea was given to a group who imagined a new location-based news service, PostCode News. PostCode News would provide news on the basis of user’s locations.
All the GenZ participants, and the broadcasters thought the MAKE was a success. Our guests from the BBC, ORF and CBC are keen to run similar events themselves. We have also decided to organise a Polish version of MAKE in Warsaw in October 2017.
Read more: News, London South Bank University
THINK “Public Service Media Futures”
On Friday, June 9 we organized a panel session on ‘Public Service Media Futures’ chaired by Professor Janet Jones, Dean of the School of Arts and The Creative Industries. Panellists included Andrew Cochran (ex-Head of News Strategy at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Julian Coles (Advisor to Childnet International and ex-Senior Policy Advisor, BBC), as well as Michał Głowacki (University of Warsaw), Jacqui Taylor (FlyingBinary and Tech City Mentor) and Daniela Cardoso (3rd year Multimedia Journalism student, London South Bank University).
Each panellist was asked to provide thoughts on whether we need public service media and what is the role of PSM when thinking about Generation Z. The panel was followed by the annual Degree SHOW for the Division of Creative Technologies at London South Bank University, featuring live streaming and blogging, game play, demos of new interactive services, live DJ-ing of music composed for film and TV, and demonstrations of VR.
Building on the success of THINK | MAKE | SHOW the universities of LSBU and Warsaw will also explore future collaborations, led by Prof. Janet Jones, Dean of the School of Arts and The Creative Industries at LSBU, and Prof. Janusz Adamowski, Dean of Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies at the University of Warsaw.