BBC Media Action’s communication projects are rooted in local people’s experiences and understanding. Our extensive research programme - called "world class” by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) - provides insight into audiences’ lives to ensure that our projects reflect their needs and circumstances. We also use our data to monitor how effectively our programmes engage people and stimulate change; lessons learned are then built into future projects. To share our findings and learning as widely as possible, we publish policy and research reports and briefings to inform communication for development practitioners and policy-makers. Since we are not funded by the licence fee, none of this work would be possible without the backing of our generous donors - governments, foundations, corporations and individuals. In Nigeria, BBC Media Action run a number of multiplatform and capacity-strengthening projects including health radio shows tackling maternal and neonatal health, HIV and AIDS and pneumonia and diarrhoea. A long-running radio drama and magazine shows in both Hausa and Pidgin English address governance issues.
Job Purpose
- The Digital Research Manager will be responsible for ensuring research is well designed technically across a portfolio of countries, and is appropriately resourced, implemented, reported and disseminated to a range of audiences.
- Reporting to a Senior Research Manager, the Digital Research Manager will be responsible for managing the research programme in multiple countries.
- The Digital Research Manager will work with their local counterparts to conduct research both to support media production teams’ requirements and to evaluate the impact of projects.
- As more BBC Media Action projects focus on using digital platforms to reach, engage and inform audiences, the Digital Research Manager will specialise in conducting research which will help to understand digital audiences and advance organisational understanding and management of digital metrics, as well as the measurement of the impact of digital projects.
Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
- Undertake, and support others to design and undertake research and analysis that will help to understand audiences’ changing use of digital and online media in developing contexts, to support the development of media and communication products.
- Design, develop, and support the implementation of an improved system of data analytics, segmentation, and visualisation using existing social media data and other digital data across projects. Support and mentor in-country research teams to use such systems.
- Conduct analysis of large and complex quantitative data sets and communicate insights of such datasets in a simple and intuitive format for all stakeholders, supporting interpretation and utilisation of the findings, working in partnership with in-country research teams to deliver such analysis.
- Support the team to design and conduct innovative digital research to inform and understand the impact of digital output.
- Support and develop local research team, including coaching, mentoring and/or training to develop their research and management skills and technical skills; providing quality oversight at the agreed level for each project.
- Communicate complex technical ideas using non-technical language to a wide range of audiences from journalists, production staff and development practitioners.
- Work closely with in-country research managers and local researchers to ensure that all research activities are designed with safeguarding in mind, and that research design documents and tools reflect this.
- Participate in relevant mandatory training on Safeguarding and Respect at Work and implement these within all aspects of work.
Knowledge, Skills, Training & Experience
- Good knowledge of quantitative and/or qualitative research techniques (gained ideally through experience of digital and social research across different populations and contexts and across any of media, governance, health and resilience sectors), making sure they are fit for purpose and of value.
- Understanding of or experience of working with AI, machine learning and chat bots.
- Strong skills in analysis, visualisation and interpretation of data. Skills in some or all of the following are a great benefit: statistical modelling tools (e.g. SPSS, R, Python, STATA), data visualisation tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI) and/or social listening tools (e.g., Brandwatch, Meltwater, CrowdTangle/Meta Content Library).
- Skills and experience in using digital research approaches to monitor and evaluate the impact of social media or digital media interventions.
- Excellent skills in communicating complex data and insights to a range of stakeholders (including non-researchers and those whose first language is not English) in non-technical, creative and engaging ways – translating theoretical research into practical applications.
- Strong digital research experience, including conducting research to understand digital media usage, analysing social media data (such as social listening, sentiment analysis, and/or network analysis), and reporting on/visualising social media metrics and working with others to interpret them.
- Experience monitoring trends in digital media usage, particularly among youth audiences. Existing knowledge of emerging digital media usage trends in markets where BBC Media Action works desirable.
- Experience and understanding of applying and training others to use social media analytics and social listening tools (e.g., Brandwatch, Meltwater, CrowdTangle/Meta Content Library, web analytics), and using these to provide useful insights to project delivery/production teams.
- Strong experience of supporting others in data analysis.
Additional Information:
- The role will be based in one of BBC Media Action’s offices in Africa or Asia. Current BBC Media Action offices are in the following cities, and the role could be based in any of these, subject to the prevailing security situation at the time of appointment: Abuja, Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salaam, Delhi, Dhaka, Freetown, Hargeisa, Jakarta, Juba, Kabul, Kathmandu, Lusaka, Nairobi, Phnom Penh, Tunis, Yangon.
- Candidates based in these countries but outside these cities would be offered support to relocate if necessary.
Method of Application
Signup to view application details.
Signup Now
