Alma Economics - Terms of participation: Public Service Broadcasters Social Value Research - Audience Diaries


Terms of participation – Online diaries 

Project: Public Service Broadcasters Social Value Research 

Participant Information Sheet 

What is the purpose of the study? 

Alma Economics invite you to take part in a research project exploring how public service broadcaster's (such as the BBC) create social value for people across the UK. This research was commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and aims understand the benefits these public service broadcasters provide - including how they inform and educate the public, support culture and creativity, and deliver trusted news and information.  

As part of this research, we are conducting online diaries with media audiences to capture your day-to-day experiences of watching and listening to television and radio. These diaries will help us to understand which programmes you engage with and how, how they contribute to your everyday life, and the extent to which you feel represented by the programmes you watch or listen to.  

Do I have to take part? 

It is up to you and you alone whether you wish to take part. If you decide to participate, you can choose how often you would like to contribute, choosing to stop at any time you like over the 12-day submission period. You are free to withdraw from the research until Monday 26 January 2026 without providing a reason and without any negative consequences.  

What would I be required to do? 

You are invited to take part in an online audience diary study, which aims to capture how you engage with all types of content, including TV, radio, streaming services, online videos, and podcasts. Over a 12-day period, you will be asked to record what you watched or listened to each day, completing up to 10 daily updates. Each update should reflect everything you engaged with that day and can include multiple programmes or pieces of content. 

For each piece of content, you will be asked to rate it using a simple scale across a set of questions covering aspects such as how engaging it was, how well it represented your local community, whether it helped you feel connected or informed, how useful it was in your everyday life etc. You will also be asked to provide a brief comment about how this piece of content made you feel. 

You will be asked to complete this diary every day, up to 10 days in total, over a 12-day period (January 5 to January 16). You will be provided with an online spreadsheet that you can access at any time. Each day, we will send a reminder to record the programmes you watched or listened to, with an additional reminder in the evening.  

The diary is designed in a simple log (spreadsheet) format, making it easy to complete and taking approximately 15–20 minutes per day. You will be sent detailed instructions on how to take part when the research begins. You will also be assigned a ‘buddy’ researcher to contact if you have any questions or concerns during the research.  

After the online diaries have concluded, you may be invited to participate in a follow-up interview, which will last up to 45 minutes. The interview will cover specific topics raised in your entries in more depth. Participation in these interviews is entirely optional. If you are contacted about an interview and agree to take part, this will take place during the week commencing 19 January 2026. All information in this document also applies to data collected as part of these interviews.  

Will others know I have participated in this research? 

Your participation will be confidential, and your personal information will not appear in any published material. If we choose to quote directly some of your words, we will not use your real name. Quotes and examples will be further edited where needed to omit information that could result in your identification. Please note that this does not mean that you will necessarily be quoted, which will be determined by the needs of the analysis.  

Thank you voucher 

All participants who take part in the online diaries will receive a thank-you voucher to recognise their time and contribution. The value of the incentive depends on the number of daily updates you provided, with daily update representing one day of participation over the 12-day engagement period. Participants who complete at least one diary entry (1 day) will receive a guaranteed £12 as a thank-you for taking part. 

In addition, participants can earn extra payments based on the number of daily updated completed successfully. Incentives increase proportionally with engagement: those who provide all 10 daily updates (10 days) will receive a total of £60, while participants completing fewer daily updates will receive a scaled payment reflecting their level of participation. To be eligible for the voucher, participants must provide at least 1 daily update.  

How incentives work: 

  • You are paid per day of participation, not per piece of content reported. 
  • To earn the daily incentive, you must submit information for at least one piece of content per day. Content for a given day can be submitted either on the same calendar day or by the end of the following calendar day at the latest. 
  • You are encouraged to submit more than one piece of content per day, but this does not increase your payment. 
  • It is important that you log your content either on the same day or, at the latest, the following day. If you miss a day, you may continue participating, but you cannot receive payment for missed days. This means you cannot submit content retrospectively more than one day later, and it is not allowed to submit all content on the final day. 

Examples of how daily submissions work 

The examples below show how you can submit content for a day and still be eligible for the incentive: 

  • To earn the incentive for January 5th, you can submit at least one entry either on January 5 or anytime on January 6th, as long as it is submitted by the end of that day. If information for January 5 is submitted on January 7th or later, the entry will be considered invalid and payment will be lost. 
  • To earn the incentive for January 6th, you can submit at least one entry either on January 6 or anytime on January 7th, as long as it is submitted by the end of that day. If information for January 6th is submitted on January 8th or later, the entry will be considered invalid and payment will be lost. 

Incentive Amounts per Day of Participation 

The table below outlines the incentive amounts per daily update. 

Daily activity update(s) 

Incentive 

0 

£0.00 

1 

£12.00 

2 

£17.00 

3 

£23.00 

4 

£28.00 

5 

£33.00 

6 

£39.00 

7 

£44.00 

8 

£49.00 

9 

£55.00 

10 

£60.00 

Furthermore, participants that are selected and participate in a follow-up interview will be compensated with an additional £30 for their time.  

Informed consent 

It is important that you are able to give your informed consent before taking part in this research and you will have the opportunity to ask any questions in relation to the research before you sign the Participant Consent form.  

What should I do if I have concerns about this study? 

Please contact the Project Oversight for this study Lawrence Newland at [email protected].  

Contact details 

For any communication other than concerns, please contact Jason Mantineios at [email protected]  

Privacy Notice 

What is personal data?  

Personal data is defined under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) as ‘any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’.  

What personal data will you be collecting from me as part of this research?  

For the purpose of the online diaries, Roots will share the following personal information (also known as ‘personal data’) about you with Alma Economics: 

  • Your name 
  • Your email address  
  • Your age (optional) 
  • Your gender (optional) 
  • Your combined household income (optional) 
  • Your employment status (optional) 
  • Information about where you live, including: 
  • Your region of residence (optional) 
  • The type of area you reside in (optional) 

We will also collect personal information that is considered special category data under UK GDPR. For this study, this includes: 

  • Your ethnicity 
  • Whether or not you have a disability or long-term health condition 

For full details of how Roots process and store your personal information, please contact them to view their privacy notice. 

We collect this information to ensure our online diaries include a diverse range of participants, Equal representation is very important to this research, and we want to make sure that we hear from a wide range of people.  

Under UK GDPR, the lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is your consent. This includes agreeing to the collection and use of special category data (ethnicity and disability or long-term health conditions) for the purposes of this research.  

You can remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting the Audience diaries lead for this study Jason Mantineios at [email protected] 

How will my data be stored, for what period and who will have access to it? 

Your personal data, including special category data (ethnicity and disability or long-term health conditions), will be stored securely electronically. This information will only be accessible to members of the research team who need it for recruitment, sampling, and analysis purposes. 

All of our computers use full disk encryption. This ensures that the whole disk will remain unreadable in case of accidental loss or theft. If we destroy the data, the full disk encryption means any retrieved deleted files are unreadable. 

Your personal data, including special category data, will be deleted six months after the completion of the research project. Your anonymised data (which does not contain any personal information about you) may be retained indefinitely and used for any legitimate purpose in future. 

For more information about Alma Economics IT & Data Security Policy please send an email to: [email protected]. 

How will you use and in what form will you share my data? 

The data you share will be used to inform the research, which will result in a report shared with DCMS. Your participation will be entirely confidential. This means that your personal information will not appear on any published material, and it will not be possible for someone to identify you by reading the report. If we choose to directly quote part of your response or refer to any examples you mention, we will not use your real name. Quotes and examples will be further edited where needed to remove information that could identify you.   

What are my rights regarding the data I provide? 

You have several rights under UK GDPR, including the right to request access to and/ or to withdraw your personal data for the period we hold it (i.e. before it is destroyed). Note that if your data is anonymised, we will not be able to withdraw it, because we will not know which data is yours.  

You can read all of your rights under UK GDPR here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-sharing/data-sharing-a-code-of-practice/the-rights-of-individuals/  

Our Data Protection Officer (DPO) is responsible for explicitly addressing all matters relating to GDPR. Our security policies have been revised to meet GDPR and we have ready-to-use protocols for participants wanting to access or delete data and for data breaches.  

For more information, you can contact our DPO (Evan Spyropoulos) by sending an email to: [email protected]. 

What if I have concerns about how my data is being handled?  

If you have concerns on how we have processed your personal data, you can contact the Project Oversight for this study Lawrence Newland at [email protected].  

You also have the right to raise any concerns you have with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or another data protection regulator.  

You can find details about how to contact ICO at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/contact-us-public/.  

 

Participant Consent Form 

Please consider the following points before signing this form and ask the researcher(s) any outstanding questions you may be having before the commencement of the research. Adding your name in this form confirms that you are willing to participate in this project. You are free to withdraw your participation until Monday 26 January 2026 without providing a reason.  

I understand that my participation is entirely voluntary and that I can withdraw from the study until Monday 26 January 2026 without giving an explanation. 

I understand that by successfully participating in the online diaries and completing at least one daily update, I will receive a thank-you voucher of at least £12, with the total amount increasing up to £60 depending on the number of daily updates I provide. 

I understand that if I am selected and successfully participate in a follow-up interview, I will receive an additional thank-you voucher of £30. 

I understand that I will be able to withdraw my data until Monday 26 January 2026, and I understand that if my data has been anonymised, it cannot be withdrawn. 

I agree to being quoted in relevant research outputs without my real name being used. Please note that this is optional, and you may still take part in this study even if you choose not to be quoted.  

I agree to take part in the above research. 

I give my explicit consent for Alma Economics to collect and use my personal data, including the special category personal data, outlined in the Privacy Notice for this research. 

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Document name: Alma Economics - Terms of participation: Public Service Broadcasters Social Value Research - Audience Diaries
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December 22, 2025 12:01 pm BSTAlma Economics - Terms of participation: Public Service Broadcasters Social Value Research - Audience Diaries Uploaded by Georgie Chaffey - [email protected] IP 82.148.32.25
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