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Presentation to "Journalism in the 21st Century: Between Globalization and National Identity". International Communications Association regional conference, University of Melbourne, July 16-17, 2009
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ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
Democracy, Participation and Convergent Media: Case Studies in Contemporary News Journalism in Australia
Presentation to Journalism in the 21st Century: Between Globalisation and National Identity, ICA Regional Conference,
Melbourne, Australia, 16-17 July, 2009
Professor Terry Flew
Media and Communication
Creative Industries Faculty and ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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The 21st century zeitgeist
• “a period of unparalleled social creativity when we sought to devise new ways of working together to be more democratic, creative and innovative … creating a collective intelligence on a scale never before possible”
• Charles Leadbeater, We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production, 2008, pp. 3,5.
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Not the Internet, but social production
• Need to periodise Internet history – participatory claims of Web 2.0
• Associated factors in rise of social production (Yochai Benkler)– Rise of knowledge-intensive service industries– Co-ordinate effects of individual activities in
networked information environments– Rise of peer production and sharing of information,
knowledge and culture
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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From mass communications media to convergent media/Web 2.0
MASS COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA (20TH CENTURY)
CONVERGENT MEDIA/WEB 2.0 (21ST CENTURY)
MEDIA DISTRIBUTION Large-scale; barriers to entry Dramatically reduced barriers to entry
MEDIA PRODUCTION Complex division of labour; media professionals as content ‘gatekeepers’
Easy to use web 2.0 technologies; small, multi-purpose teams as “preditors” (Miller)
MEDIA POWER Assymetrical – one-way communications flow
Greater empowerment of users/audiences through interactivity and choice
MEDIA CONTENT Tendency towards standardised “mass appeal” content
Segmentation of media content markets and “long tail” economics (Anderson)
PRODUCER/CONSUMER RELATIONSHIP
Mostly impersonal, anonymous and commoditised (audience as mass market target)
Potential to be more personal; rise of the produser (Bruns); user networks and communities
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Perspectives on media democratisation: beyond the “Cyberbole”
• Hype generates its own counter-hype e.g. Clay Shirky versus Andrew Keen
• Democratising potential of new media practices for news and journalism (e.g. McNair, Hartley, Bruns, Jenkins)
• ‘In the era of cultural chaos, people have access to more information than ever before. If information is the pre-requisite of knowledge, and if knowledge is power, other things remaining equal, this trend corresponds to a power-shift from the traditionally information-rich elite to the no longer so information-poor mass” (Brian McNair, Cultural Chaos, 2006, p. 199)
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Maximalism and optimism: Brian McNair, Cultural Chaos
• New developments in media have strengthened national public spheres and developing a globalised public sphere.
• Criteria:– Opportunities to produce and distribute media are
much more widely available– Opportunities for ‘diversity of bias and balance of
critical opinion’ have increased– Media competition and 24hr. news cycles stimulate
critical scrutiny of political elites
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Democratisation and media citizenship
• Democratisation is a difficult process to define – is the right to vote sufficient? If not, what else needs to be there?
• Citizenship as a way forward, but ‘potentially limitless’ in its scope of application
• Two traditions of citizenship and democracy (Held)– Developmental republicanism: focus on participation
and substantive equality of citizens– Protective republicanism: focus on freedom from
coercion and pluralistic division of powers
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Digital scepticism: Jurgen Habermas
• ‘lack of face-to-face interaction … in a shared practice of collective decision-making’
• ‘lack of reciprocity between roles of speakers and addressees in an egalitarian exchange of claims and opinions’
• ‘power of the media to select, and shape the presentation of, messages’
• ‘strategic use of political and social power to influence agendas’
• ‘fragmentation of … mass audiences into a huge number of isolated issue publics’
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Concept of “voice”• Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970)• Voice as a politicised counter-point to exit (consumer
behaviour in markets)• Participation as linked to voice esp. in digital media
environments• How to avoid ‘revolution of rising expectations’ in political
communication• Democratisation may not appear a priority in liberal-
democratic societies, but other goals (e.g. media diversity) might
• Need to give citizenship some tangibility, rather than simply being a “good other” to “bad neo-liberalism”
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Is the challenge to established media loss of audiences or disaggregation of media content?• Australian evidence on established media outlets does
not show as much decline as the U.S. or Britain• Major online sites are based around established media
(ninemsn, ABC, SMH, The Age and News in Alexa top 25 for Australia)
• ‘It is the loss of control over the format and timing of the distribution of information that presents the true challenge to the traditional media … the value created by traditional media models is based on scarcity, but the Internet supports an environment of information abundance.’ (Miel and Faris, 2008, p. 5)
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Brisbane Times
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Fairfax print media titles have been successful online
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Online-only Fairfax Media titles
• The Vine (young people 18-29 y.o.)• Brisbane Times (Brisbane/S-E Queensland)• WAToday (Perth/Western Australia)• Online classifieds:
– Domain (houses)– My Career (jobs)– Drive (cars)– RSVP (personals/dating)
ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND INNOVATION
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Brisbane Times impact in SE Qld. market
• Very successful when launched
• Employs fraction of journalists of incumbent (Courier-Mail)
• Growth has slowed over 2008-09
• Minimal opening up for user-created content
• Dilemma is whether to invest in “hyperlocal” content generation or to be an inferior version of established media
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