Session 4: The commissioner, the re-user and the director 
Claire Langhamer, University of Sussex

Abstract: This paper focuses upon the Mass-Observation directive, ‘Courting and Dating’ which I commissioned in 2001.  I will discuss my reasons for using M-O; the process of commissioning; the response of correspondents to specifically commissioned directives and the impact of such commissions on the relationship between the MOA and its writers; the relationship between old and new M-O in terms of directive design, response and use.  

Paper notes:
I. Re-use and the Historian.
Re-use as the bread and butter of historical research: if we did not use sources in ways not envisaged by their creators there would be little historical research going on at all. Understanding the context and relations of power that produced the sources is generally central to the historians craft even if a reflexive consideration of our own relationship to the sources is sometimes less well developed. But this is not to say that historians do not engage with the ethics of ‘re-use’. Discuss examples. 

II.	My Project.
General discussion of book project on love and use of Mass-Observation within it.

III. Commissioned Directives
Historians have on the whole made good use of Mass-Observation in its mid-century form; rather fewer have used the second phase as a historical source and even fewer have combined first and second phases together in the same study. Drawing upon both old and new M-O material allows the historian to explore historically sited material and recently solicited memory texts to further illuminate a particular topic and/or to set up a dialogue between these differently located and differently generated materials. Use of second phase Mass-Observation also allows the historian to bridge the historical ‘gap’ within the archive between the material collected up until the 1950s and that which emerges after 1981. The process of solicitation clearly frames the nature of these post-1981 texts just as it frames the material gathered in the first phase: the particularities of the correspondent’s sometimes long-term relationship with the archive, the phrasing of the individual directive and the historical context of the moment of response, as well as broader questions concerning the nature of memory must be carefully considered. Yet the potential benefits of using old and new Mass-Observation together are significant. Give examples of use. Beyond the use of existing directives, old and new, however the M-OA also offers the researcher the possibility of commissioning a new specifically for their own research projects 58 such commissions have been made since the beginning of the new project.  Commissions are an important source of income for the M-OA; they also demonstrate clearly the importance of the Archive for contemporary research activities. In commissioning a directive, a researcher is entering into collaboration with M-O, with the Archive as the senior partner. As Dorothy Sheridan outlines: 'when a directive arises from a suggestion by an outside researcher, every effort is made to "convert" the text into the Mass-Observation house style: to use a colloquial style, to avoid "closed" questions, to stimulate and provoke the writers, and to be as inclusive as possible so that everyone feels they have something to contribute on a subject.' A researcher who commissions a directive gets access to the panel of correspondents. More importantly however they get access to a set of established relationships between the Archive and the Panel; the Archivist and the Panel; the panel and the historic entity 'Mass-Observation'; and the community of Mass-Observers old and new and their sense of collective endeavour. Researchers do not however ‘buy’ ownership of data, or even exclusive use of it, instead [to quote Dorothy again] 'what they "buy" is access to data produced by a panel composed of people with a high level of commitment to the project itself, which ensures that however popular or unpopular the theme of the directive might be, it still yields a response.' 

However the response of the panel themselves to commissioned directives has not always been favourable. Sheridan et all cite the case of a 1992 directive on Nature and the Environment' which apparently tested the loyalty of the panel. In fact the very nature of researcher driven directives, whilst at one level providing an immediate sense of the value of the panel's writing, at another 'intrudes' upon  the established web of relationships between correspondents and the Archive. It can destabilise an established sense of audience or even lack of audience. When M-O asked its correspondents to write specifically about their M-O practices in 1991, the key audiences they identified for their contributions were members of staff in the M-O A and ‘people in the future’, including ‘historians in the future’.  Not necessarily researchers now.  Moreover M-O's correspondents are not passive receivers of the directives they are sent: some deploy their own authority and expertise as part of the panel to adopt the role of internal critic. Even in first phase M-O panellists were encouraged to play this role. In September 1950, for example, they were asked which recent questions they had most or least enjoyed answering; and those they felt were most or least worthwhile. In the 'Design an M-O directive' questions of Summer 2000 Dorothy Sheridan told the panel:' I thought you might like the chance to design your own directive. From time to time, members of our panel of correspondents send in comments on what thy feel about the latest directive. Mostly you seem to enjoy them but occasionally we receive criticism and of course it is the criticisms that I tend to take to heart. One recent recruit, a young man, said he thought the themes were like school essays and he found them boring. Someone else said that asking for a two week diary for the end of 1999 and the start of 2000 was too much to ask. Another writer said that I was too 'prescriptive' and he felt completely obliged to write about everything I asked him to even though he didn't want to.' The point here is that many correspondents see themselves as active participants in, even possessors of the Archive itself, certainly not merely providers of research data and feel that their relationship with the Archive grants them the authority to intervene in this way. 

IV. Designing the Summer 2001 Courting and Dating Directive
Discussion of Directive construction.

V. Mass-Observer responses 
Discussion of the response of two male Correspondents to the text to demonstrate issues about possession, ownership, authority and research relationships and to raise questions about who they see as the users of the Archive and indeed what legitimate use of the archive might be. Use and re-use as issues for them as well as us.

VI. Analysis 
So what did I do with this? 
Key use was to allow me to think critically about the language of courtship, which it became apparent was  unstable and contested, contingent upon a range of factors including generation, geographical location, social background, and gender.