Submission to the BBC Editorial Guidelines Consultation

This is a submission made by the Branded Content Governance Project in response to the public consultation by the BBC on its Editorial Guidelines.

Our submission focuses on the matters most relevant to the Branded Content Governance Project, a three-year research project funded by UK Research and Innovation, concerning marketing communications and brand sponsored content. However, our project is also concerned with the common elements and connections across a range of issues, from AI to disinformation to contributor credentials, which concern the appropriate management, identification and attribution of sources of content to serve and support users. This submission addresses issues of notification and identification of content including the attribution of contributors; AI-assisted and AI-generated content; commercial communications, sponsorship and promotion. Our submission responds to all three of the consultation questions with a particular focus on the third question: Do they sufficiently reflect the changes in the media landscape since the last review in 2019?

The submission was written by Prof. Jonathan Hardy, and Prof. Iain MacRury for the Branded Content Governance Project and submitted on 18 December 2024.