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What Futures for Media Literacy?
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 16:30 — Snurb
ATOM2006
Teaching with Technology
Well, that went well - I went a few minutes over time, but people seemed happy to
stay on even though the final panel at ATOM2006 was about to start. I got to the
panel a little late, and John Hartley is already in full flight - he looks to have begun
by noting that literacy no longer means print literacy, nor even mainstream media
literacy: indeed, most media education now takes place outside of schools, he
suggests. Multimedia literacy has grown up to be totally beyond the control of the
traditional education system. Unfortunately, partly because of this, schooling prefers
control and order over change and innovation, and imagination and interpretation
are reduced to skills and methods. This manifests itself in the prohibition of Google
images and the Wikipedia, in the rise of 'critical literacy' (or ideology-watch) skills,
or in 'multiliteracy' (or office software) skills, for example.
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Teaching the Produsers
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 14:15 — Snurb
Produsers and Produsage
ATOM2006
Teaching with Technology
My own presentation at ATOM2006 comes towards the end of this last day - I'm one
of the featured speakers here. I'm speaking about produsers and produsage (and
I'm happy to have seen the term in good usage throughout the conference already)
- and of course at a conference for teachers of media, I'm particularly interested in
the question of how to shape media education in order to enable the younger
generations to be effective and innovative participants in produsage.
I'm including my Powerpoint here - and the recorded talk is now also online
here.
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Towards a Strong Basis for Everyday Social Documentary
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 14:10 — Snurb
Produsers and Produsage
Internet Technologies
ATOM2006
The last keynote at ATOM2006 is by Andrew Urban, editor of Urban Cinefile, and
previously the creator and host of SBS's Front Up programme. He begins by noting
the importance of media teachers for the future development of society; further, he
also notes the increasing question of information accuracy in an ever more highly
mediatised environment - in Jerry Bruckheimer's words, 'the media are a mile wide
and an inch deep'.
Journalism is today still posited as a noble profession, standing for honesty,
objectivity, and truth - and Andrew shows an excerpt from Edward R. Murrow's
famous 1958 speech (as seen recently in Good Night, and Good Luck) accusing the
television industry of its failings - deluding, amusing, and insulating us. Broadcasting
- and the media more broadly - today are as crucial as then, but their basis has
shifted, now taking in also a broad range of new participants, all the way through to
individual produsers.
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The Media Worlds of New Zealand Children
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 12:35 — Snurb
Internet Technologies
ATOM2006
Geoff Leland from the University of Waikato is the next speaker in this session at
ATOM2006. His research is into the media worlds of young teenagers in New Zealand
- how do they perceive their own worlds? This work has taken place through the
1999-2005 period with some 2000 children in Hamilton and Christchurch, and Geoff
argues that because of the fast pace of technological research such research needs
to be continuous - findings even from only a few years ago are already outdated.
Another reason for tracking changes is also that the New Zealand population profile
is changing markedly through immigration and its accepting of humanitarian refugees
(in stark contrast to Australia's inhumane asylum policy practices which ignore and
breach international humanitarian conventions) - one school Geoff has worked with
has some 18% Somali refugee children, for example.
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Singapore's Media-Literate Society
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 12:34 — Snurb
Politics
Internet Technologies
ATOM2006
Next up is Pam Hu from the Media Development Authority in Singapore - which
is one of the best-connected nations in the world, of course (next to some countries
in Scandinavia, as well as South Korea, and Japan - indeed, the entire country is a
wireless hotspot...). The MDA is similar to the Australian Communications and
Media Authority (ACMA). Singapore is looking to position itself as an East-West
Media Gateway, involving media financing, production, aggregation, and distribution;
this is done in part also through the Asia Media Festival (29 Nov. to 3 Dec. 2006),
including film, television, and animation components, and Broadcast Asia (in June
2007). Singapore is also increasingly placing itself in international media projects to
develop global awareness of what it has to offer. The Media Development Authority
was established on 1 January 2003; it is charged with developing the Singaporean
media industry and acts as a facilitator, promoter, and catalyst.
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New Media, Institutions and Media Education
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 12:27 — Snurb
Produsers and Produsage
ATOM2006
New Media Arts
Ben Goldsmith from the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School is the next
featured presenter at ATOM2006. His focus here is particularly on new media and
institutions (as well as perhaps also on new media institutions). He begins by noting
the convergence of communications networks, computing and information
technology, and content (as explored for example by Henry Jenkins). Such
convergence touches on technological, industrial, cultural, and social aspects - and it
is defined both from the top down (by media conglomerates) and from the bottom
up (by consumers and DIY content creators). People (and not only the young) can
now control content flows, collaborate, access, and build collective intelligence, and
create new content as well as remix old content - and this has a profound impact on
the development of the mediasphere. Ben also notes Mark Pesce's view that
television died on the day that Battlestar Galactica was accessed by viewers in
the U.S. via Bittorrent after its premiere in the UK (rather than waiting for the SciFi
Channel to broadcast it some months later) - and yet it is notable that this did not
affect BSG's ratings when it eventually did screen in the U.S.
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Youth, Media, and Education in the United States
Sun, 08/10/2006 - 09:49 — Snurb
ATOM2006
New Media Arts
Teaching with Technology
Politics
The second day at ATOM2006 has started, and we're beginning with a keynote by
Kathleen Tyner from the University of Texas at Austin. She begins by noting the
relationship between form, content, and context in studies of the media - and that
the relationship between skills and knowledge in media studies and production is very
difficult to reconcile. She also notes 'the tyranny of the narrative' - creating a conflict
between how things are done, from a practical perspective, and what the storyline of
any one media artefact is.
In youth media, there is now a transition to a digital literacy culture, with better
access to lower-cost tools; this has also led to a remix culture supported by greater
availability of content archives and new distribution networks. Further, there is also
now the beginning of more supportive academic standards and practices.
Newseum.org, Internetarchive.org, Livingroomcandidate, and the Library of
Congress's American Memory project are all useful archives which can provide
raw materials for such remix culture projects.
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Online Creative Networks for Kids
Sat, 07/10/2006 - 12:25 — Snurb
Produsage Communities
Produsers and Produsage
Creative Commons
edgeX
ATOM2006
Creative Industries
My colleague Justin Brow is next; he's been involved in the development of
Sticky.net.au and is a researcher in the QUT Institute for Creative Industries
and Innovation (iCi). He begins with a brief introduction to the economic role of
the creative industries - some 140,000 people are working directly in the CI in
Australia, but the focus of CI analysis is now shifting from the production of creative
outputs themselves to creative industries' input into other industries; some 160,000
people in Australia work in creative occupations within other industries. A further
150,000 people work in managerial and administrative roles related to the CI,
establishing a 'creative trident' of occupations and contributing some $21billion to
Australian GDP (this is set to double in the coming years).
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Media Education and Copyright Law
Sat, 07/10/2006 - 12:21 — Snurb
Intellectual Property
Creative Commons
ATOM2006
Cushla Kapitzke is the next speaker here at ATOM2006. She focusses on the
implications of copyright law changes in the wake of the Australia-U.S. Free Trade
Agreement, and how they may impact on media educators. She notes the rise of a
large variety of neologisms - postindustrialism, fast capitalism, the information age,
the creative economy, postmodernity, neoliberalism, globalisation, and
McDonaldisation - even while the U.S. remains firmly routed in the traditional
assumptions of modernity in a variety of ways. Libraries, for example, are often still
excellently set up, but remain largely empty as they've failed to engage with the
post-modern information needs of their clients. Cushla suggest a set of epochal shifts,
from ancient ceremony to the traditional library of modernity, to the new 'libr@ry'
which is being explored developed in a number of configurations by various
organisations.
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Towards an Australian Digital Children's Television Channel?
Sat, 07/10/2006 - 11:06 — Snurb
Produsers and Produsage
ATOM2006
Television
Lee Burton and Peter Maggs from the Australian Children's Television Foundation are
the next keynote speakers at ATOM 2006, speaking on the children's television
debate. The Australian Communications and Media Authority's current review
of children's television standards provides a backdrop to this debate. They begin by
showing a brief video of kids' statements of what thye'd like to see on TV - perhaps
in the form of a dedicated kids' TV channel...
Peter now notes the long history and conflicted future of the ACTF. Government
requirements call for 260 hours of C and 130 hours of P programming; within this C
quota, Australian TV channels must show a total of 32 hours of first-run children's
drama (financed usually around 30% with txpayers' money). However, such shows
are invcreasingly shown at times when the intended audience isn't around - kids
typically aren't home at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon, for example. Daytime
programming is largely filled with U.S.- and Japanese-made animation, which is often
provided to channels free of charge and makes its money through selling related
merchandise. In the afternoon, on the other hand, the 4 p.m. timeslot is filled with
locally-made shows competing for the same audience, even though the audience isn't
likely to be home yet. This could be seen as a waste of taxpayers' money. On the
other hand, the audience figures for kid watching TV peak between 5 and 10 p.m. along with primetime for other demographics.
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