Listening and learning: The BBC and social history in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article explores the capacity of BBC radio to re-mediate its own output from the past and form part of a wider social history. It takes Northern Ireland as a case study, considering the history of its regional/national institutional, public service status and how this influences production practices for archive-based factual radio. The article focuses on the vision behind, the archive-research and pre-production problems encountered, the editorial thinking during production and reception of 80 Listening Years, an eight-part ‘open slot’ series made for Radio Ulster in 2004. Written by the series producer, the article also discusses two other significant talk-based radio series, Your Place or Mine? (1989) and Legacy (1999) exemplifying the particular role that such programmes can play in a relatively small, post-conflict society.

KEYWORDS:

• BBC
• radio
• social history
• Northern Ireland
• public service
• broadcasting