The Art of Listening: BBC Monitoring and the Historical Significance of Open Source Intelligence

In the context of our present fascination with the power of global communication networks to influence our lives, from the quotidian to the geostrategic, Dr. Webb examines the historical significance of open-source intelligence (OSINT), as both a record of the everyday and the means through which international relations are conducted. Since the start of the Second World War, the BBC Monitoring Service in tandem with its US counterpart, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), maintained a global watch, surveying the ether for broadcast intelligence as part of the U.K./U.S. “Special Relationship.” By studying their newly digitized archives, it is now possible to reveal the experience of the past from a remarkable and illuminating new perspective.