Public Understanding of Business: Television, Representation and Entrepreneurship

摘要这项研究将考察诸如BBC的《龙穴》和《学徒》等广受欢迎的真人秀电视节目在培养和塑造关于当代英国社会创业的文化和经济地位的知识模式和理解水平方面所起的作用和影响。随着电视和社会在过去十年中发生了变化，商业世界在真人秀中的表现方式也发生了变化。这项研究将考察过去十年来英国电视上对企业家和创业者的文本表现及其产生的知识领域的范围是如何变化的。该项目将寻求找出导致这些代表变化的电视行业和更广泛经济中的关键结构性变化。这项调查将加强我们对娱乐驱动的电视在有关创业的特定理念--以及更广泛的商业--进入并在更广泛的公共话语中传播的过程中所扮演的角色的理解。尽管对电视和代表性问题进行了广泛的研究，但很少关注商业文化和创业精神。因此，这个项目解决了我们对如何构建关于创业活动及其在英国社会文化和经济生活中的作用的公共知识的理解上的一个空白。将研究的主要电视节目包括英国广播公司电视台的《学徒》(2005年至今)、《龙穴》(2005年至今)、《店铺玛丽女王》(2007年至今)、第四频道《S冒一切危险》(2004年至今)、拉姆齐的《厨房噩梦》(2004年至今)；《财产阶梯》(2004年至今)、《让我一百万》(2005年至今)、英国独立电视台大亨(2007年)和天空电视台的《獾或半身像》(2007年至今)。这个项目的独特之处在于，它专注于识别和理解社会和相关媒体生态中更广泛的变化，这些变化正在帮助构建对商业和金融在我们个人和集体生活中所扮演角色的新解读。这项研究将考察英国电视对商业和创业问题日益增长的兴趣在多大程度上只是对社会更广泛的社会和经济变化的回应。一个更商业化、竞争更激烈的电视市场是否意味着，媒体本身通过特别关注戏剧、娱乐和表演，现在在重新定义社会如何界定其与商业、金融、创业、风险和财富创造的框架方面发挥了关键作用？这个项目的核心是关注理解娱乐叙事和电视表现在反映和折射当代社会中更广泛的公众态度方面所起的作用。这项研究旨在调查流行电视在多大程度上实际上在社会各阶层中创造了一种关于商业、创业和风险的角色和地位的“舆论氛围”。研究将描绘创业电视构建的叙事，并分析产生它们的背景。研究亦会调查电视观众如何参与这类节目，以及这些节目可能对公众了解社会上企业家精神的性质有何影响。研究结果将会令关注电视、企业家精神与公众知识和理解之间关系的学术界、商界和传媒业人士感兴趣。这也会引起更广泛的公众的兴趣。

SUMMARYThis research will examine the role and impact that popular factual entertainment television programmes such as the BBC's Dragons' Den and The Apprentice have in fostering and shaping patterns of knowledge and levels of understanding about the cultural and economic position of entrepreneurship in contemporary British society.As television and society have changed over the last decade so have the ways in which the world of business is represented in factual television. This research will examine how the range of textual representations of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs and the fields of knowledge they generate have changed on British television over the past decade. The project will seek to identify what have been the key structural shifts in both the television industry and the wider economy that account for these changing representations.This investigation will enhance our understanding of the role played by entertainment-driven television in the process by which particular ideas about entrepreneurship - and business more generally - enter and circulate in wider public discourse. Despite the wide range of research on television and issues of representation little has focused on business culture and entrepreneurship. This project therefore addresses a gap in our understanding of how public knowledge is constructed about entrepreneurial activity and its role in the cultural and economic life of British society. Key television programmes that will be studied include BBC television's The Apprentice (2005 - present), Dragons' Den (2005 - present), Mary Queen of Shops (2007 - present), Channel 4's Risking it all (2004 - present), Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, (2004 - present); Property Ladder, (2004 - present), Make Me a Million, (2005 / present), ITV's Tycoon (2007) and Sky's Badger or Bust (2007 -present).This project is distinctive in its focus on identifying and making sense of the wider shifts in society and the related media ecology that are helping to construct a new interpretation of the role played by business and finance in our individual and collective lives. The research will examine the extent to which television's developing interest in business and entrepreneurial issues in Britain is simply a response to wider social and economic change in society. Has a more commercial and competitive television marketplace meant that the medium itself, through a particular focus on drama, entertainment and performance, now plays a key role in re-defining how society frames its engagement with business, finance, entrepreneurship, risk and wealth creation? At the core of this project is a concern with understanding the role that entertainment narratives and television representations play both in reflecting and refracting broader public attitudes within contemporary society. The research aims to investigate the extent to which popular television is actually creating a 'climate of opinion' among sections of society regarding the role and position of business, entrepreneurship and risk.The research will map the narratives of entrepreneurship television constructs and analyse the context that produces them. It will also investigate how the television audience engages with such programmes and the possible impact these may have on public understanding about the nature of entrepreneurship in society.The research output will be of interest to those in the academic, business and media industry concerned with the relationship between television, entrepreneurship and public knowledge and understanding. It will also be of interest to the public more generally.