Rix Centre and BBC together in a research programme
The BBC has completed a research programme with the Rix Centre to find out how people with learning disabilities use media.
Twelve young people with learning disabilities monitored their use of media daily. They monitored how often and when they used radio, computer games, the Internet and mobile phones.
They composed daily diaries for a week. They used stickers and their own text comments to log their use of media.
The main outcomes of this research for the Rix centre were:
- People with learning disabilities use their mobile phones less than was expected;
- About half of them have Internet access at their homes;
- They were avid watchers of Big Brother.
The BBC will use this research as a baseline for evaluating some of their services and how they can be improved for their audiences with learning disabilities.
The Rix Centre will use the outcome of this and other research to inform its input to My New Media Life, its conference in October at the British Museum to explore the revolution in social care using multimedia.
The research was led by Pat Staples, Rix Centre Web Project Manager, and Simon Evans, Technical Consultant to the Rix Centre. It was conducted in collaboration with the BBC and the Ellingham Centre local employment service for those with learning disabilities.
