Social Science in the Public Sphere- Riots, Class and Impact

Introduction by

Professor Patrick Dunleavy

2nd July 2013

#LSEimpact

Social Science in the Public Sphere

Reading the Riots

Tim Newburn@TimNewburn

Department of Social Policy

The 2011 riots

• Thurs 4th August: Mark Duggan shot

• Sat 6th August: Tottenham

• Sun 7th August: Wood Green, Enfield, Brixton

• 8th August: Ealing, Camden Town, Kingsland Rd, Barking, Enfield, Notting Hill, Hackney, Peckham, Camberwell, Croydon, Clapham, Bromley, Merton, Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham

• 9th August: Woolwich; West Bromwich; Wolverhampton; Birmingham; Nottingham; Manchester; Salford; Gloucester

Croydon

Tottenham

Birmingham

The riots: reaction

• But nobody doubts that the violence we have seen over the last five days is the symptom of something very deeply wrong with our society… Why does a violent gang culture exist in so many of our towns and cities?

• This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated.

• What I found most disturbing was the sense that the hardcore of rioters came from a feral underclass, cut off from the mainstream in everything but its materialism.

Phase one: timetable

August September October November December

6-9th Riots 5th Launch project 3-4th Interviewer training Early: start planning launch & conference

5th Findings: Policing ‘Newsnight special’

16th First conversation between Paul Lewis & Tim Newburn

5th Advertise for interviewers

5th Fieldwork begins Mid: Fieldwork ends 6th Findings: Looting; poverty

22nd Start planning project 19th Shortlisting 11th Analysis begins End: initial analysis ends; write-up starts; planning phase two

7th Findings: Gangs; policing

24th Start talking to funders

From 19th Recruit analytical team

From 17th Recruit ‘fixers’ 8th Findings: Social media

w/b 26th Seek ethical approval

w/b 17th Start sharing data analysis

9th Findings: Ethnicity

23rd – 28th Recruit fieldworkers

10th Findings: Gender; phase two

14th LSE Conference

An unusual project: staffing • Directed by:

– Guardian and LSE

With:

– Journalists

– Freelancers

– Analysts

- Interviewers (over 30 in all)

An unusual project: publication…

• Phase One

– 6 days early December 2011

• Rioters & the police

• Looting

• Gangs

• Social media

• Policing, victims

• Phase Two

– 3 days early July 2012

• Policing

• Victims/vigilantes

• Criminal justice system

Impact?• 23 pages in Guardian in Dec ‘11

• Further 10/11 pages in July ‘12

• 2 Newsnight ‘specials’; BBC verbatim

drama; Today programme; all major news

bulletins; over 50 media interviews on

launch day alone;

• Responses to RtR from: Home Secretary;

Shadow HSec; Leader of Opposition;

Archbishop of Canterbury; Justice

Minister; Commissioner of the Met Police;

ACPO…

• Evidence to Home Affairs Committee;

Victims and Communities Panel

• Shortlisted for THES ‘research project of

the year’ 2012

• Winner ‘Innovation of the Year’, British

Journalism Awards

Advantages of working with a

news organisation• Speed

• ‘Can do’ culture

• Flexibility

• Access

– Powerful

– Powerless

• ‘Reach’

– TV; radio; newspapers; opinion formers;

politicians; general promulgation

• Resources – Multi-media; data visualisation

• (The one thing you don’t worry about

is whether you have a ‘story’)

Challenges of working with a

news organisation

• Speed

• ‘Cultural’ contrasts

– Methodological contrasts

• Interviewing

• Rigour

– The story in advance?

– The headline

– Focusing on ‘ends’ or ‘means’?

• Reputation (works both ways)

– When not to mention The Guardian

– When not to mention the LSE

Impact?• RtR had great ‘impact’ in one sense,

but perhaps not in REF terms

• REF Impact case studies:– Summary of impact

– Underpinning research

– References to research

– Details of impact

– Sources to corroborate

• Challenges for RtRs:– Non-traditional publication

– No obvious means of citation

– Directly critical of current policy direction

– Timetable..

Thank you…

All project materials (reports, articles, films etc) available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/reading-the-riots

tter@TimNewburn

Class and ImpactSome Reflections on the Great

British Class Survey

Sam Friedman Fiona Devine

Project Team: Mike Savage, Niall Cunningham, Mark Taylor, Yaojun Li, Johs. Hjellbrekke, Bridgitte Le Roux.

• Over 7 million hits on the BBC website

• NYT most ‘shared’ world news 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?

April 3rd 2013

An Explosive Launch

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

The Story of the GBCS

• Project developed in conjunction with BBC’s Lab UK

• Attempted to establish ‘public value’ via:

• The creation of peer-reviewed scientific knowledge

• Popular content for BBC broadcast and web

• Web survey launched in Jan 2011 with much fanfare

• 161,000 participants - largest survey on class ever!

The GBCS: The Results

• Seven Classes Identified

GBCS GfK

• Elite 22% 6%• Established Middle Class 43% 25%• Technical Middle Class 10% 6%• New Affluent Workers 6% 15%• Emergent Service Workers 17% 19%• Traditional Working Class 2% 14%• Precariart <1% 15%

The GBCS: Two Headlines

• Clear POLARISATION between top and bottom withidentification of elite often overlooked in surveyresearch and a precariat which is not insignificant insize

• Obvious FRAGMENTATION at the middle with thedivide between the establish middle class andtraditional middle class not so clear but andimportant groups in between

What did not go so well? Methodological Issues

• Representativeness of web survey a problem. Heavily skewed to advantaged middle classes. Typical BBC audience?

• Disadvantaged working classes underrepresented. Even those replying would not have been typical. Higher cultural capital?

• BBC funded a face to face survey sample survey to facilitate a more representative picture.

• Required clever statistical analysis when national survey results were weighted to web survey. Took lots of advice.

• Some members of the academic community not overly impressed. Colin Mills and Danny Dorling quick off the mark.

What did not go so well? Change, Time and Analysis

• Working with an organisation and people going through change. Instigator, Philip Trippenbach, left for a new job on launch day.

• Initial lack of ownership, working with different sets of people coming and going, frequent meetings on project on what it was about etc.

• Different conceptions of time for BBC team and academic team. Could not come up with quick results.

• Early results and preliminary reports not especially liked. Important `reboot’ was an important turning point which turned things around.

What did not go so well? Focus on public Discussion

Not easy translating

complex academic

findings into media friendly formats.

Did with the BBC Class Calculator and it has just won a prize

But interest rarely went beyond calculator

Sometimes assumed calculator was all there was!

Preoccupation with place in which of seven classes

What went well: Optimising BBC resource

• Huge resources of BBC behind launch of web survey. Mike Savage on The One Show.

• Attention generated the high level of participation in survey at the beginning.

• Resource came in again with launch of results. Fiona Devine on BBC Breakfast.

• Increased participation again with a further 200,000 doing the full web survey.

What went well?: Despite everything, it happened!• Lots of unfunded research time went into project.

Could well have not seen the light of day. Stuck with it and it did but……!

• A couple of critical people. Richard Cable stayed interested even though he moved on to pastures new.

• Michael Orwell, BBC producer, stayed with the project the whole time, was patient and understood the academic issues at stake.

• Never any threats to our autonomy. Desire for a news story, something highlighting change, but no particular interventions

What went well: GBCS and other experiments

• The Big Personality Test 16,580

• Brain Test Britain 5,194

• The Web Behaviour Test 2,896

• The Stress Test 11,764

• The Big Money Test 17,120

• The Big Risk Test 23,420

• How Musical are You? 29,853

• The Get Yourself Hired Test 5,981

• Test Your Morality 22,183

• Can You Compete Under Pressure 11,270

Lessons learnt: the research

In no particular order…….

patience, patience, patience and hanging in there

maintaining good relationships with key folk

making the best when the situation is not ideal

understanding needs and pressures on both sides

being flexible and creative to continue to make progress

research always messy, this project as messy as any other

scientific value of work will take time to be established

Lessons learnt: from impact

In no particular order….

You have very little control of course!

You have to take the bad with the good

Cannot be too precious or churlish

Important things being learnt from public reaction

New data for analysis which becomes part of the project

It is a ride but it is massive fun

Thank you!

Sam Friedman

Fiona Devine