Cultural Interaction and New Media
Digital media are increasingly used as the framework for cultural communication and expression across the globe. Trans/forming Cultures research in this area considers the intended uses of new media (those that are built into industrial design), as well as the unintended uses that emerge from real cultural needs. Research projects focus on cultural interaction in the public domain and investigate issues of technological literacy and education, and of public access and political participation. The relationship between new technologies and the variously defined user/consumer/citizen is therefore considered in the context of the political economy of the media, the uses of media by consumers, communities and citizens, and the processes and outcomes of production.
TfC is strongly committed to cross-boundary, interdisciplinary work, and most of our research projects relate to other program areas, and to TfC Events.
Current TfC projects in this area include:
ABC Online as a media Internet site
Busting the colour bar: the Aboriginal challenge to segregated education in NSW
Communities and Places: youth community study
The New Services Industry Model: implications for audio-visual media
Remaking Multicultural Australia
Selected completed TfC projects in this area include:
Making Multicultural Australia
ABC Online as a media Internet site
Researcher: Liz Jacka
Public service broadcasting is under threat in the digital environment. Like other media organisations the ABC has established an Internet site which aims to provide audiences with new types of information and entertainment, packaged in new ways and involving various levels of interactivity. This study involves a comparative examination of a number of media Internet sites in order to discover whether and how they are creating new content, forms of interactivity and new audiences. This study will provide a perspective from which to judge the future relevance of the ABC in a multi-channel environment.
Photo: Andrew Jakubowicz
Branding Cities on the West Pacific Rim: cinematic traditions and tourism marketing strategies in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sydney
Researcher: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, John Gammack, Griffith University
The purpose of this project is to investigate the links between the commercial orientation of tourism marketing, and the historical and contemporary cultural affect of filmmaking. In particular, this research proposes to evaluate the visual discourses, or codes of communication, specific to seemingly discrete areas of activity: online city logo design and cinema, in relation to the citizen and visitors' idea of the city. This research seeks to answer the question of to what extent that those producing city images in the tourism industry learn - whether consciously or unconsciously - from the tradition of cinematic representations of cities, and to discover the extent to which the dynamics of everyday cultural interaction are investigated by professional 'creatives'.
Aboriginal children denied schooling in Collarenebri, 1938
Photo: The Abo Call, Edition 5, August 1938 (an Aboriginal-controlled newspaper edited by J.T. Patten)
Busting the colour bar: the Aboriginal challenge to segregated education in NSW
Researcher: Heather Goodall, Karen Flick
Partner: Bob Jansen, Turtle Lane Studios
Few Australians are aware that our public schools were segregated on colour lines until the mid 20th Century. Fewer still realise that Aboriginal families and communities carried out sustained campaigns to break down the colour bars and gain free entry into the schools for their children. This website project is documenting the policies, the effects and the Aboriginal resistance, focussing on one case study in the western NSW township of Collarenebri. It is being told in the words of Aboriginal eyewitnesses and accessing a store of archival photographs, government records and newspaper accounts about this case study and many others across the state. This project's outcome as a website makes it an innovative exploration of new media approaches to engaging indigenous spoken traditions with western history methodologies. It will be an important historical studies and mature-age literacy resource for Indigenous communities across the continent as well as enriching the knowledge of the wider community.
The partners in the research are Turtle Lane Studios, a software design developer with a commitment to socially engaged projects. They are currently working in collaboration with the indigenous community at Lockhardt River in WA on an interactive dictionary which translates from Kuuku Ya'u and Umpila languages to and from English. They have completed a widely admired online exhibition for the Jewish Museum drawing on their Testimony software.
Communities and Places: youth community study
Researcher: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Margot Brereton, University of Queensland
Workshop Leader: Megan Jones, UTS
Partner: CRC for Interaction Design ( ACID)
This is a design-driven project with an aim to create new communicative methods for self-identifying groups. The youth study - currently being undertaken through Ryde Public School in Sydney - involves young people in discussions on cost, function, and designs of technologies of communication. Their involvement will deepen designers' understanding of ways in which young people use such technologies, why they use them, and how new designs might better adapt to the needs and experiences of young users.
British disability theorist Dr Tom Shakespeare speaking at The Disability with Attitude conference, celebrating 20 years after the International Year of Disabled People, February, 2001.
Photo: Andrew Jakubowicz
Disability and Media
Researcher: Andrew Jakubowicz, Helen Meekosha, University of New South Wales; Gerard Goggin, University of Queensland; Stephen Tanner, Murdoch University; Chrissie Tucker, Australian Broadcasting Commission
Partner: Disability Studies and Research Institute
Disability is a social relationship between people with impairments and the wider society. The media play a critical role in enabling or disabling people with impairments through the creation of stereotypes, offering or denying access to story telling, and through exclusion or inclusion in employment. In collaboration with universities around Australia, the disability movement, and the media, this project examines the processes through which the media constitute disability discourses, and the potential that exists for moving beyond traditional subordinating practices. A range of media are covered from news and current affairs, through advertising, drama and comedy, to popular entertainment. A website is under development in collaboration with the Disability Studies and Research Institute to report the research and encourage community participation.
The New Services Industry Model: implications for audio-visual media
Researcher: Liz Jacka,Stuart Cunningham, Queensland University of Technology; Tom O'Regan, University of Queensland; Julian Thomas, Swinburne University of Technology
This project examines important cultural changes in the understanding of audio-visual media. Governments, academics, industry players and international organisations have developed a new 'services industry model' to map future directions and policies for audio-visual industries. However, little attention has been given to how this model may apply to the complex cultural and social role of audio-visual media. This project aims to fill this gap through a series of substantial publications on four key problems: the conversion to digital transmission platforms; public broadcasting and its future role; international policy dynamics, and the re-evaluation of longstanding domestic social and cultural policy objectives.
Outside the Box
Researchers: Liz Jacka, Ross Gibson (UTS, Research Leader, Emerging Field in New Media and Digital Culture), John Galloway (UTS, Faculty of Business).
Associate Researchers: Annmarie Chandler (UTS, Course Director, Emerging Field in New Media and Digital Culture), Andy Lloyd James (UTS, Adjunct Professor and former Head of the ABC's National TV, Radio and OnLine networks) and Hugh Pattinson (Director, Scenario Planning and Storytelling Programs, Complex Systems Research Centre).
What is television? Ten years from now, how might we answer this question? What technological, legal, psychological and sociological factors would we need to understand? Interweaving several 'knowledge domains', what might we learn not only about television but also about our 'knowledge economy' and 'creative industries'?
This project, initiated by Adjunct Professor Andy Lloyd James and Annmarie Chandler, uses scenario planning to scope, define and analyse the influences which will shape Australian television in 2015 and explore the impact those influences will have on content suppliers and Australian audiences.
The seeding phase is a collaboration with the Strategic Projects Division of the NSW Premiers Department and the Bournemouth Media School. The seeding phase also involves the co-operation and support of AIMIA (the peak industry body for interactive media) and the Australian Broadcasting Authority. The seeding phase prepares for an ARC Linkage Grant which will bring together key planners and program-makers from industry, government and education, at state, federal and international levels.
Poster for Polly Chan, Unity Party (anti-racism), Sydney Chinatown, March 2003
Photo: Andrew Jakubowicz
Remaking Multicultural Australia
Researcher: Andrew Jakubowicz
Partner: NSW Board of Studies and NSW Department of Education and Training
It is over a generation since the Australian government adopted the policy of multiculturalism. The policy remains controversial, even though Australia has developed as a diverse and tolerant society. This project, initiated in 1992 in conjunction with the NSW Board of Studies as a CD-ROM-based examination of the history and issues in multicultural Australia, has now developed into a globally unique powerful data-based online resource (launched in 2004). The site includes a deep exploration of Australia as a diverse society, and an examination of points of controversy - Hotwords. There are learning packages and study kits, and a huge library of video, image, audio and documentary material suitable for general information, primary and secondary schools, and university level research. New material keeps the site relevant and topical, as well as offering reflective and analytical writing by scholars and public commentators. User feedback is a major part of the site expansion and update process. Strategies have been developed to systematically update material from around Australia.
Social Science and New Media
Researcher: Andrew Jakubowicz
New media - an expression of the digital revolution in communication - have been a crucial part of globalisation. Social science has sought to examine the social frameworks and impact of new media, their use and applications, and raised questions about the cultural and social transformations involved. This project focuses on the way in which social science understandings of new media are mobilised in the creation of new media projects, especially in the application of new media to situations of cultural complexity and social change. It examines specific experiments that have demonstrated a combination of original research and innovative creative production, including work in museums, online, and on interactive CD-ROM and DVD.
Phillip Ruddock, Minister for Immigration, 1996-2003.
Photo: Andrew Jakubowicz
Making Multicultural Australia
Researcher: Andrew Jakubowicz
Project producer: Lyndon Sharp
Project designer: Lloyd Sharp
Partners: Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW, Australia Council, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, NSW Board of Studies
In the early 1990s ethnic leaders from around Australia decided that the story of the struggle to create multiculturalism was needed, in the face of rising antipathy and government disinterest. Initially the project was conceived of as a book, but the availability of new media technology presented a challenge and an opportunity to communicate with young Australians.
The project grew into a 3 CDROM set (the largest educational multimedia project at that time produced in Australia), launched by the NSW Education Minister in 1999. The project used over 300 original interviews with politicians, activists, community leaders and artists, drawing on research undertaken over a 20 year period, and original photography and art works. It presents the diversity, dynamism and controversy of multicultural Australia, in an interactive framework that enhances discovery learning. Three major elements - a timeline history, an exploration of the controversies and issues, and a research library - provide potential for educational development from senior primary to tertiary levels.
Another outcome of this project was the book chapter 'Multiculturalism and the Cultural Politics of Cyberspace', see Book Chapters in Publications for details.
