Video Nation was a

BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

project in

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In ...

and audience interactivity, which ended in 2011.

History

Beginning in 1993, the BBC encouraged people to record their lives on video. These

video diaries ''Video Diaries'' is a BBC television programme produced by the Community Programme Unit. The series of programmes was created in 1990 by producer Jeremy Gibson. The programme's production team offered members of the public basic video training a ...

were then shown on BBC TV and, from 2001 to 2011, were included on the BBC's website. The original project was created by the Community Programme Unit with output intended for broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

. Jeremy Gibson and Tony Steyger developed the original concept with Steyger drawing inspiration from the

Mass-Observation Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation originally aimed to record every ...

Archive to propose 'an anthropology of everyday life.' The project was co-produced between 1993 and 2001 by Chris Mohr and Mandy Rose. A diverse group of fifty people were selected from across the UK, given training in the use of camcorders and invited to record aspects of everyday life during the course of a year. From their recordings the team drew material for a range of programmes, of which the best known are the Shorts which were broadcast before BBC Two's ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

'' current affairs programme. Contributors had a right of veto over their material so that nothing was broadcast without their consent. BBC Two de-commissioned the television series in 2000 at which point a website was built from the existing archive. Hundreds of contributors then went on to make shorts for the site, and Video Nation has returned to BBC TV screens during thematic seasons. On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced that they would be making cuts of 25% to the online budget resulting in a shortfall of £34 million from the budget. As part of this, many websites and services were closed, to achieve a "smaller fitter BBC". Video Nation was part of this category."BBC to cut online budget by 25%"
BBC News, 24 January 2011

References

External links

*https://www.independent.co.uk/news/bbcs-video-nation-faces-the-axe-1101652.html *https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/28/movies/television-do-it-yourself-autobiography-ready-for-prime-time.html BBC Video blogs British video bloggers Social anthropology 1993 British television series debuts 2011 British television series endings 1990s British television series 2000s British television series 2010s British television series 1993 establishments in the United Kingdom 2011 disestablishments in the United Kingdom {{BBC-tv-prog-stub

History

See also

References

External links