What we can learn from BBC?

Author: Martha Arbayani Zaidan

Some articles about politics by some mass media (including mainstream media) may be bias (or even very bias) from different point of view. However, they tend to deliver quality technological articles for the purpose of marketing, educating people or just to simply introduce the state-of-the-art technological advancement to community.

For example, one of my favourite media, British Broadcasting Corporation  (BBC), always produces beautiful science and technology articles. This media is able to write very high standard articles in the above fields where many readers can really understand and digest well those articles. The BBC sometimes also makes an effort to produce an attractive explanation about a topic through a visual descriptor (e.g. figure, chart, table) and/or an animation. These attractive methods certainly have boosted the number of audience from a wide variety of background.

Let take a look for one specific example in technological article. BBC summarised a very well article about : "AI: 15 key moments in the story of artificial intelligence" [1]. The article summaries very well history of AI, starting from AI where it was triggered by fresh thinking during second world war (1943), science fiction (1950) until the modern era (post 2000). Each description is also supported by Figures or videos to make the article become more interesting .

What can people learn from that article?
Apart of understanding the history behind the AI development, we should also realise that most of high technology that we use and ease our life nowadays can not be separated from the research and development conducted by late scientists in the previous century. The process of technological development is complex and needs a long process. The government really needs to invest money in this field, which will provide return of the investment in the future.
Since this article was written in very handy way and easy to understand, this will motivate young generation to love science and perhaps encouraging them to continue and pursue their degree in science and engineering.

One of BBC's page snapshot about historical AI, where each explanation is combined with a video for better visualisation [2]

Another example focuses on science, where the BBC produces a very well explanation about Tropical rainforest ecosystems [2]. This article directly educates people about the rainforest. This gives any details information about rainforest in very attractive way, including Figure illustration (shown below) and a video. The significance of rainforests, threat of deforestation and some actions to protect tropical forests are also highlighted in this article.

This article, no doubt, has built the awareness about one of the biggest treats within our planet, promote green development to the society and government and finally to conserve well this environment.

Layers of the rainforest [2]

In conclusion, the BBC's broadcasting methods are very attractive to:

• Build awareness 
• Educate community 
• Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to community
• To finally change the world together to be a better place to live and to be shared together (not only between human being, but also to other creatures)

As an Indonesian, who sometimes still read Indonesian media, I hope, they could adopt the way how the BBC really promote science and technology to the society. Even though, it might not be significant, nevertheless adopting their method would "at least" still contribute to the better change in Indonesian society.

As I have been fascinated by BBC (in science and technological articles), I would re-produce (summarise) some of their articles in those fields with additional comments/explanations from the author.

By:
Martha Arbayani Zaidan
Helsinki, 2 January 2016

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zq376fr (Accessed 2 January 2016)
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zpmnb9q/revision (Accessed 2 January 2016)