Digital Research Manager at BBC Media Action

Additional job specific responsibilities and accountabilities

• Undertake, and support others to design and undertake, research and analysis which will help to understand audiences changing use of digital and online media in developing contexts, to support the development of digital and online media and communication products.
• Design, develop and support the implementation of an improved system of data analytics, segmentation, and visualization using existing social media data and other digital data across projects, and 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 users, 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.

Knowledge, Skills, Training and Experience

• Strong digital research experience (at least 3 to 5 years with social media analytics/conducting research to understand and evaluate digital content) including conducting research to understand digital media usage; analysing social media
• analytics; experience in social media analysis and reporting on/visualising social media metrics and working with others to interpret them;
• Experience of working with digital analytics to inform content production and development
• Ideally has strong analytical skills, and is used to analysing big data sets to generate insight. Strong skills in quantitative/digital data mining, analysis, visualization and interpretation. Skills in some or all of the following are a great benefit: statistical modelling tools (e.g. SPSS, R, Python, STATA or any other “Big Data” or digital analysis tools, e.g. Tableau, SocialFlow, CrowdTangle, Brand Watch, Google Analytics)
• Strong experience of supporting others to deliver research to understand digital usage e.g. working with others to pre-test digital content, supporting them to understand how people use mobile phones
• Excellent skills in communicating complex data and insights to a range of stakeholders
• Experience of working with AI, machine learning and chat bots
• Quantitative research knowledge, skills, and experience. Is desirable

Working with key stakeholders in donor organisations, Academic institutions, government and media counterparts.

Job Purpose

• Work with local colleagues to deliver a portfolio of digital research in a number of countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Europe to inform media production and donor requirements; to support the broader strategic and business development needs of the organisation.
• Work closely with the in-country Research Manager/s and local colleagues to ensure that all research activities are designed with safeguarding in mind, and that research design documents and tools reflect this.

Build the capacity of local colleagues researchers to be able to design, manage and analyse digital research more effectively.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities

• Deliver insights at the country level to enable decision makers to make better decisions in business development, development of new content and services.
• Understand the needs of the organisation to ensure that all research is tailored and relevant, to deliver simple and valuable insight.
• Support and develop local colleagues 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.
• Share responsibility for development of the Research & Learning (R&L) team, by supporting and helping improve our processes and proactively sharing skills and expertise in the team and the organisation.
• Communicate complex technical ideas using non-technical language to a wide range of audiences from journalists, production staff and development practitioners.
• Visit country offices in East Africa and attend conferences and other events that may be outside normal working hours or place of work as required to undertake the role effectively.
• Adhere to all relevant BBC safety rules, procedures and guidelines including Safeguarding policy and the staff Code of Conduct.
• Participate in relevant mandatory training on Safeguarding and Respect at Work and implement these within all aspects of work.
• Adhere to the BBC’s policies on diversity and to apply the principles of the policy when carrying out the role.