Week 10’s lectorial focused on institutions, which was highly relevant for project brief 4. Institution is a term stemming from sociology which is concerned with the organising structures of society and social, cultural and political relations. Media institutions are basically these, involved with media. They help organise the production, spread and usage regarding media and include, the ABC, journalism, cinema, broadcast radio and commercial channels. This discussion then turned to power and how media institutions use it and has been used in the past to push agendas.

This lectorial focuses on the audience and what that means for broadcasting and post-broadcasting. It outlined what the importance of an audience was, both at a local scale and what it means for business and broadcasters, such as television and how it uses audience information.

There was increased elaboration on mass culture and mass audience and how media broadcasters are involved with lab experiments, focus groups, observation and audience manipulation. Adorni and Horkheimer (1963) suggest that the loss of imagination and spontaneity are ‘attributed to the objective nature of the products themselves’.

It was interesting to see how opinions on what an audience is and its role in broadcasting has changed over the years and would be useful to study audiences for in project brief 4.

I have been listening to this album, almost constantly, for the past few weeks. It is exceptionally soothing and uplifting and something that has allowed me to relax when studying and working.

For me, it is a perfect background piece that I can casually listen to for a filler effect, as well as actively listen to the music and how the band alters their sound between songs.

My favourite tracks off the album are Novorossiysk and L4. They have perfect moments of tender, quietness, followed by a gradual buildup to a strong and powerful movement. I feel that this blend and gradual blur allow me to focus and enjoy the moment.

 

Personally, I found researching and writing the annotated bibliography to be quite tedious and boring. There was some interesting pieces of information that I found, but summarising and analysing its value in terms of project brief 4 was not interesting.

In the end, it was not entirely useful as we shifted our focus from social media to ACMI, which meant that some of our research was not used, if at all, for the end project. There were some interesting points made, nonetheless, especially in terms of youth usage of social media. It indicated how there is a balance between the corporate institutions using their products and the usage by communities, who make use of forums, blogs, discussion, image and video media.

The week 8 workshop had a number of focuses, such as finishing the collaborative contract, watching and discussing audio essay techniques through a RadioLab example and working on our annotated bibliographies.

The collaborative contract for project brief 4 was used as a project management document, as well as evidence of collaboration and initial planning. It helps outline the project statement, group goals and group governance for the project, such as communication, meeting times, and procedure and individual roles. It provides an outlet to discuss how the project will unravel and ways resolve problems with negotiation or other unforeseen problems.

For our contract we outlined our initial thoughts on the project, which was difficult as we didn’t have a solid grasp as to what we should cover for our audio and video essays. We initially planned to cover social media and its role as an institution, but we gradually changed our ideas and focussed on ACMI.

This workshop also covered a RadioLab example, which discussed dolphins and sleeping patterns. We discussed some features that the show utilises, such as hosts, interviewers and interviewees, stories and structure. We noticed the use of sound effects was constant throughout the show, such as brain waves, drills, dolphin noises and sleeping sounds. The information they covered was presented in multiple ways, where the hosts act as the leading speaker and the audience towards guest speakers, such as experts and interviewees.

The final aspect of class we worked on our annotate bibliographies. Like the annotated contract, we did not have a solid grasp on where our project was headed. We initially researched social media topics, such as trends and its role in media and institutions. This was an interesting perspective, but we eventually changed our minds and focussed on ACMI and local media institutes.

Extracts from A. Murphie and J. Potts (2002), Culture and Technology (Palgrave MacMillan)

This piece analyses the link between technology and culture, in particular how the emergence of new media forms, multimedia and digital media, are heavily related to technology. It discusses the ‘pervasive influence of technology [and how it] makes the issue [of culture] pertinent to a number of other pursuits and disciplines’. It further discusses what is technology and technique and how these terms are applied to the creation of media and culture.

They suggest that cultural ramifications of technology are numerous and highly volatile, often ‘making fools of modern day prophets’. They further discuss what culture is, discussing its use in history and its changing meaning. Finally, they link technology and culture to a range of concepts. It is an interesting piece, and relates to another subject I have studied (Popular Culture) and is relevant in its discussion of culture and the emerging form of the internet, in particular.

Dias, M.Arnold , M.Gibbs, B. Nansen & R. Wilken, Asynchronous speeds: Disentangling the discourse of ‘high-speed broadband in relation to Australia’s national broadband network’, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy, Jun 2014, Issue 151, p.117-126

This essay analyses many problems and issues related to the ‘high-speed broadband’ and the role of the National Broadband Network (NBN). It briefly discusses the history and its political issues, including division and differing opinions of the Labor and Liberal Party.

For example, the Liberal Party was critical of Labor’s plan as being ‘far more costly than it needed to be, delivering far greater speeds than people needed or wanted, and being far too slow to build’. They also discuss a number of other issues, including the perception of internet speed, such as relative speeds to what people are accustomed to and upload and download speeds. They argue there is an over-simplification of speed and it is a defining feature of the alternative NBN plan.

It does not seem entirely relevant to the media study and the discussion for project brief 4; however, it does have an insight into how government institutions can affect the capabilities of services, which can effect media production, creation and usage.

Van Dijck and T. Poell,’Making Public Television Social? Public Service Broadcasting and the Challenges of Social Media’,Television & New Media, 2015, Vol.16(2), pp.148-164

This essay is concerned with social media and its presence in terms of public broadcasting (television) in Europe. It suggests how many public entities, such as the BBC and The Dutch broadcasters, have faced a number of challenges regarding the rise of social media and discusses their responses.

The rise of social media ‘affects both the social practice of television and its cultural form’ and has led to many broadcasters finding it difficult to juggle the public social media platform. He explains how many social spaces have developed into commercially exploited, data-driven platforms, especially when this connective media quickly began to be dominated by a handful of large global networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Google). He continues by discussing how this can be managed by these broadcasters, including media creation and involvement by the public.

It applies to institutions as the rise of social media institutions has strongly shaken the scene in media, allowing for a multitude of creators and producers to come forward. It blurs the line between media businesses and local producers.

Henry Jenkins (2014) Rethinking ‘Rethinking Convergence/Culture’, Cultural Studies, 28:2, 267-297.

The article discusses a number of topics related to convergence and participating in culture and media culture, especially the ways it has shifted over time. He addresses numerous links between ‘culture and political participation’, as well as how new media forms are evolving and the challenges and opportunities that arise.

He suggests how media has moved away from only a consumption model, describing how a participatory culture has formed, where means of media production is now in the ‘hands of the masses themselves’. He does outline some concerns that networked communications, such as Facebook, would not necessarily result in a more progressive, inclusive and democratic culture.

He establishes that critics have a tendency to read all grassroots media, as resistant to dominant institutions, rather than acknowledging that citizens sometimes deploy a ‘bottom-up’ means to keep others down. Overall, it does not seem entirely relevant, but does touch upon some interesting points.

Jay Rosen (2006),’The People Formerly Known as the Audience’, PressThink blog, June 27.

This blog post discusses the changing concept known as the audience and its meaning and role in a modern society. He suggests how audiences have evolved past a passive society and into an active, free and engaged group. Rosen writes that once where media was consumed in a top-down model, that relied on a few firms to completely control the media we consume, and now, especially through the internet, allows all people to consume it how they wish. He is critical of how the few engaged with the masses – acknowledging that ‘horizontal flow, citizen-to-citizen, is as real and consequential as the vertical one’.

It is interesting how he highlights that an audience is still perfectly justified, capable and interested in consuming media in the ‘older form’ and can still choose to write in blogs and discuss and create media on their own terms. There is no exclusivity between the audience and ‘the people formerly known as the audience’.

The blog post discusses how media communications have changed in regards to mass consumption and production, illustrating the importance local and free consumption is for society and media studies.