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Doing Social Science with The BBC: Reflections on the Great British Class Survey ‘Experiment’

Doing Social Science with The BBC: Reflections on the Great British Class Survey ‘Experiment’ . Sam Friedman, City University. Project team: Mike Savage, Fiona Devine, Niall Cunningham, Mark Taylor, Yaojun Li, Johs Hjellbrekke, Brigitte Le Roux, Andrew Miles. April 3rd 2013

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Doing Social Science with The BBC: Reflections on the Great British Class Survey ‘Experiment’

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  1. Doing Social Science with The BBC: Reflections on the Great British Class Survey ‘Experiment’ • Sam Friedman, City University Project team: Mike Savage, Fiona Devine, Niall Cunningham, Mark Taylor, Yaojun Li, Johs Hjellbrekke, Brigitte Le Roux, Andrew Miles

  2. April 3rd 2013 An Explosive Launch • Over 7 million hits on the BBC website • NYT most ‘shared’ world new story of 2013 • One of most tweeted articles in history of social science (altmetric.com) • One of the most popular and controversial pieces of sociology ever conducted in UK • A model for the future?

  3. Emergent Service Workers of the World Unite!‘A political party - but the good kind’

  4. A Rocky Road: The Story of the GBCS • Project developed by BBC’s Lab UK • Attempted to establish ‘public value’ via: • The creation of peer-reviewed scientific knowledge • Popular content for BBC broadcast and web • Initial response to survey was strong with 163,000 taking part...the largest survey on class ever!

  5. A Stormy Relationship • Two problems emerged: 1. Time according to academics vs. time according to BBC journalists! 2. The survey sample – highly skewed towards educated middle class (The BBC audience?) • 26% have a post-graduate qualification (10% UK) • 25% have an arts/ humanities degree (5% UK) • 60% are in professional jobs (23% UK) • 1.9% (3,007) have household income of £200k+ (0.3%? UK)

  6. Finding a Way Forward • Latent class analysis allowed us to assess how underlying social classes could be defined from specific combinations of economic, social and cultural capital. • Main breakthrough when web survey results were weighted to link to the national survey • BBC decided to launch results as a news story rather than through a documentary

  7. The Results at a Glance • The two ‘traditional’ social classes (middle and working) only comprise 39% of the population • There is clear evidence for social polarisation through the existence of an ‘elite’ and a ‘precariat’ • We see the ‘fracturing’ of the middle classes with a ‘technical’ and ‘affluent’ component • We also see evidence for a relatively youthful ‘emergent’ class with cultural capital but relatively poor labour market position.

  8. Translating Different Types of Knowledge • How do you translate complex academic findings into media-friendly formats? • Controversy of the BBC ‘Class Calculator’ • A step too far?

  9. Lessons for the Future • A success? • Unprecedented public interest • Unique experiment in digital social science • Successful collaboration between sociology and BBC • But scientific impact will take years to assess • And Lab UK to close… • Does academic knowledge have a role in creating and cultivating public value at the BBC?

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