Inspiring entrepreneurs
Issued: Mon, 04 Jul 2011 10:37:00 BST
The Apprentice, Dragons' Den, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Property Ladder and The Secret Millionaire: the world of business, it seems, has become a vastly popular entertainment tool.
Professor of Communications Raymond Boyle, in the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, wants to understand why. He is leading an investigation into how popular factual television programmes are shaping the knowledge and understanding of the cultural and economic position of entrepreneurship in the UK today.
'We’re trying to find out where and why these types of formatted television programmes have arisen,' Professor Boyle explains. 'And why, in the last decade, there has been such an explosion in these programmes.'
Professor Boyle and his colleague Dr Lisa Kelly have been getting the inside track on the evolution of these programmes by conducting interviews with key people within the television industry. Likewise, they are speaking to people in the business community to discover their opinions. Other strands of the project have the researchers exploring the history of how entrepreneurship has been portrayed on television, as well as examining current programmes. And a series of focus groups with members of the public in Glasgow and in London is revealing how audiences engage with the format.
The question of audience engagement is one of the ways in which the project ties in with Professor Boyle’s expertise in cultural and media policy. 'Despite all the talk about this being the age of the internet, television still occupies a very powerful location in our cultural lives,' he says.
In these troubled times, then, perhaps the government should be looking to entertainment programmes to encourage entrepreneurial activity and revitalise our nation’s pool of entrepreneurs.
The findings of the research were recently discussed at a symposium for invited guests, including members of the academic community, representatives from the television industry and enterprise policy makers. A book from the project The Television Entrepreneurs will be published by Ashgate next year.