The role of the Cultural Intermediary within professional participatory
communication: Lessons from ABC Pool
Jonathon Hutchinson
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCi),
Queensland University of Technology
@dhutchman
IAMCR, Dublin 2013
Creative Destruction and Intermediation Cycles
Web 2.0 technology affordances
Creative innovation
Audience as user – participatory cultures/communication
ABC Pool
Cultural intermediation
Creative Destruction = user led political, organisational and socio-technical innovations
Intermediation cycles
Participatory Cultures
Web 2.0 affordances
Strong disintermediation
Heterarchy over Hierarchy
Institutional online communities
Regulatory frameworks – negotiation processes
Cultural intermediation
Human and non-human actors
Conduit actors within the the cultural production process
We are now in the reintermediation phase of the IDR cycle moving toward intermediation
Methodology
Ethnographic action research – participant observation
Surveys
Focus Groups
Interviews
The ABC
Australia has a dual licensing system
ABC history of cultural infrastructure
Responsible for ‘distinctive innovation’
Crowding out argument
Conroy media reforms – legislative inclusion of online services
ABC Pool
ABC Pool users
ABC Pool Community Manager
Cultural Intermediary
Institutional Online Community Governance
Conclusions
Creative destruction provides opportunities
Strengthened through ICTs
We have reentered the intermediation phase
Cultural intermediation operationalises innovation
Emerging Online community governance models