Research at BBC Media Action: Putting Our Audience First

"Research is embedded across our project life cycle. Findings inform our work, bridging theory and practice to provide an evidence base both for our own programmes and for anyone working in media and development worldwide."

This Research and Learning document from BBC Media Action describes their thinking and strategies on their qualitative and quantitative research done in 42 languages across 37 countries (in 24 countries in 2013 - see the map on page 2 of the document).

The research is done to:

1. inform their programmes;
2. to evaluate the impact; and
3. to contribute to knowledge in the media for development sector.

Examples include:

• Research informs - For Our Tukul (Our House) radio broadcast in South Sudan, findings suggested including "that women breastfeed for two cropping cycles - equivalent to the recommended six months" as a way to communicate the recommendation in a locally understandable way.
• Research poses questions - For Climate Asia, which includes "exploring people’s experiences with farming, livelihoods, health, media, governments, access to food and water, views on the future, fundamental values", "data taken from surveys, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and community assessments is being shared in a custom-built online data portal...."
• Research evaluates - In Sierra Leone, the radio talk show Fo Rod (Crossroads) and the debate programme Tok Bot Salone (Talk About Sierra Leone) reach 37% of adults in areas where they are broadcast; "96% of regular listeners thought the programme is a useful tool for citizens to air their concerns about how the country is run."
• Research provides evidence - The Nepali political debate programme Sajha Sawa (Common Questions) evaluation surveyed 4,000 audience members and interviewed partner radio station staff and public figures yielding evidence that listening to Sajha Sawa is associated with higher levels of political participation, knowledge and efficacy.

See below for summaries related to these examples.

Formative research includes the following research methods: focus group discussion, in-depth interview, baseline survey, pre-test, and defining the population of interest. Understanding audience priorities includes the following research methods: large-scale quantitative surveys, representative sample, different kinds of statistical analysis, triangulation, and regression and propensity score matching.