Content uploaded by Jonathon Hutchinson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Jonathon Hutchinson on Feb 10, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
This is the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for pub-
lication in the following source:
Hutchinson, Jonathon (2012) Extending the ABC’s public service remit
through ABC Pool. In Lowe, Gregory & Martin, Fiona (Eds.) RIPE, 5-6
September 2012, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.
This file was downloaded from:
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/56842/
c
Copyright 2012 Jonathon Hutchinson
Notice:Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such as
copy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this document. For a
definitive version of this work, please refer to the published source:
1
Extending the ABC’s Public Service Remit through ABC Pool
Jonathon Hutchinson, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and
Innovation, Queensland University of Technology - PhD Candidate
Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Content Maker Multiplatform
Abstract
Historically, the public service broadcaster (PSB) acted beyond its institutional
broadcasting remit by initiating and facilitating activities to support cultural
infrastructure and national identity (Wilson, Hutchinson and Shea 2010). The
recent focus to develop new content delivery platforms and services (Debrett
2010) signifies a semantic shift from the PSB to the public service media
(PSM) organisation. The Australian PSM organisation, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has moved beyond the era of ‘online’
publishing to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies to foster new relationships
with the audience (Walker 2009) and engage in production activities with
participatory cultures (Jenkins 2006). This shift presents opportunities and
challenges to traditional media production, the existing editorial policies and
governance models, and raises questions around the value of PSM
experimental and innovative activities. Further, the incorporation of
information communication technologies and participatory cultures challenge
the core values of ‘public service’ within PSM. This paper examines ABC Pool
(abc.net.au/pool) as a means of extending the ABC’s public service remit by
2
incorporating participatory cultures into the production and governance
models of the corporation and critically analyses the public value of such
innovative experiments.
Introduction
Public service media is in a ‘crisis of legitimisation’ (Jacubowicz 2007). The
core Reithian values of PSB include “the application of core principles of
universality of availability and appeal, provision for minorities, education of the
public, distance from vested interests, quality programming standards,
program maker independence, and fostering of national culture and the public
sphere” (Cunningham 2012: 62). However, the current media landscape
includes a fragmented audience pursuing niche topics, often described as a
“personalised media-use environment” (McClean 2008: 5). Further, PSM is
under market pressure to produce content that not only satisfies the core
principles of PSB but also adds a sense of populism to attract larger
audiences (ibid). If PSM is engaging in activities predominantly serviced by
commercial media organisations, this non-‘market failure’ characteristic raises
concerns around the role of the PSM specifically challenging its provision for
minorities and the inclusiveness of marginalised voices (De Bens 2007).
Although Australian PSM governance has avoided tools such as the UK
‘Public Value Test’ or Germany’s ‘Drei-Strufen-Test’ (three-step test), it is still
accountable for its operation to the Australian citizens, and to the Australian
Federal Government who primarily fund these organisations. Within this
context, public value and the relevance of PSM come into question: that is
3
“Why should taxpayer money… subsidise services used by few, often
described as ‘elite’, audiences?” (McClean 2008: 5).
Adding to the crisis of legitimisation, recent disruptive Web 2.0 technologies
challenge the existing production and governance models of PSM. In the spirit
of ‘here comes everybody’ (Shirky 2008), PSM is faced with navigating a
rapidly changing media landscape in which audiences no longer watch and
consume content but now also actively participate in the making and sharing
of media content. The role of the PSM in this situation is to not only produce
content, but to engage in co-creative practices with its audience. Burgess and
Banks (2010) define co-creation as a “descriptive term that highlights the
ways that users or consumers, within the constraints and affordances of
platforms provided by others, collectively contribute to the social, cultural and
economic value of the media products and experiences associated with those
platforms; and likewise, it indicates the ways in which platform providers
(however imperfectly) integrate user-participation into their own models of
production” (Burgess and Banks 2010: 298). Within the co-creation model,
PSM may incorporate the users into the production process, not only through
content production but also utilising user generated techniques and platforms
that are traditionally controlled by the expert staff of the broadcaster.
In this paper, I argue that although PSM is challenging its core values by
accommodating the increased engagement levels of niche users participating
in the production of popular cultural artifacts, it may not be in a ‘crisis of
legitimisation’. Rather, the shifting media environment and surrounding
4
technologies that enable users to engage in new and innovative ways
presents opportunities for the PSM to strengthen its relationship with its
audience and concentrate on fostering national culture while building a
dynamic and democratic public sphere. Concurrently, the shifting media
environment’s governance system suggests we should look historically at the
polity of PSB and couple the core values with developing and emerging
methods. “Practices do not swiftly change in the digital era. Rather than
replacing established policy tools and regulatory actors, novel mechanisms
modify and extend existing arrangements” (Moe 2010: 208). However,
extending the PSM’s public service remit while decentralising media
governance is not a simple process: it is one that requires the coordination of
multiple stakeholders by specific intermediaries skilled in both PSM production
and community cultural development, defined here as the ability to empower
individuals through creative practice pedagogy.
In what follows, I explore the explicit tensions of introducing participatory
cultures to the production process of PSM. I then highlight the challenges and
opportunities within the New Beginnings collaborative project between the
ABC Radio National (RN) program 360documentaries and ABC Pool – a user-
generated content space of the ABC engaging in the production of
collaborative cultural products. By using Lave and Wenger’s Community of
Practice (1991) lens, I highlight how these types of arrangements rely on the
supportive efforts and negotiation skills of an intermediary. Finally, I argue this
process is paramount in the argument of public value within PSM, where ABC
Pool “comprises the indispensable institutional basis for social deliberation-
5
discussion, debate and decision making-beyond elite forums” (McChesney
2008: 336) through the production of cultural artifacts.
Methodology
The data presented within this paper is gathered from my PhD project using
an ethnographic action research design to examine the role of the community
manager within ABC Pool. The focus of the research is to identify and analyse
the impact of ABC online communities upon the existing publishing practices
of the ABC. I conducted the ethnographic action research over a two-year
period embedded within the ABC as a community manager of ABC Pool.
Each role is complimentary to the other where one role focuses on identifying
and understanding how the community operates (ethnography) while the other
utilises that knowledge to enhance the project and its research (action)
(Hutchinson 2012).
Ethnography builds on anthropology that assumes “a society’s culture
consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a
manner acceptable to its members” (Goodenough 1964: 36). The participant
observation method distinguishes ethnography from anthropology where the
researcher blurs the line between being the researcher and the researched.
Participant observation “is a method based on failure, on learning from
mistakes to develop a theory for how a culture is lived—for its norms and its
“feel”—that may not be reducible to rules” (Boellstorff 2006: 32).
Understanding how a group, or in this case an online community is organised
6
and operates within a commonly acknowledged set of norms, enabled me to
actively participate as a member within the research field. A system of trial
and error of what I understood to be the norms enabled me to identify and
understand how the community does operate and not how it is said to.
My research design coupled ethnography methods with an iterative action
research approach. “Action research means integrating your research into the
development of your project” (Tacchi, Slater & Hearn 2003: 12) and “is used
to bring about new activities through new understandings of situations” (ibid:
1) . Ethnographic action research then, is a two-phase process that embeds
the researcher within the research field for an extended period of time
engaging in participant observation to understand the society mechanics,
while engaging this knowledge to improve the research project. Ethnographic
action research is also an approach in understanding the impact of
information communication technologies upon groups of its users. It is an
iterative process that follows four-steps of planning, doing, observing and
reflecting (Tacchi et al. 2003). Within ABC Pool, I was able to gain knowledge
of the online community operation and norms to undertake my role as the
community manager, and develop the research project by collecting rich data
and improving the modus operandi of the project.
To deepen my understanding of the ABC Pool website, I evolved my
methodology to combine ethnographic action research with ‘online
ethnography’, also known as netnography. Bowler (2010) defines
netnography as “a number of related online research methods that adapt to
7
the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated
social interaction” (Bowler 2010: 1270). A combination of research methods
including surveys, focus groups, semi-structured interviews (email and
phone), textual analysis of forums and comment threads, and mapping the
Pool member base highlighted who the Pool community is, what their
interests are, and how they interact with each other. That is, netnography
identified the actors within ABC Pool (ABC Pool Team, ABC Pool members,
other ABC staff), the norms under which they operate (community rules,
symbols and language; ABC organisational rules), and how those interests
are negotiated (the role of the intermediary). Within this paper, I use the data
gathered through netnography to demonstrate how the intermediary operates
within a co-creative production model.
Extending the Public Service Remit through Participatory Cultures
The inclusion of users engaging with Web 2.0 is not unique to PSM but is also
common within other activities of participatory cultures for broadening
engagement within economics (Benkler 2006), politics (Castells 2002), culture
(Jenkins 2006), and journalism (Bruns 2008). A way of highlighting the
tensions of participatory cultures within PSM is to explore its key characteristic
of the (apparent) absence of gatekeepers. Bruns (2008) argues that in the
case of Wikipedia, the “anyone can edit” slogan has a direct relationship to
the granularity of the editorial process in that users are experts on a few
topics and can contribute their expertise in those areas. By engaging in the
‘collective intelligence’ (Levy 1994) of all the contributors, the depth and
8
quality of information generated is both unique and rich. However for the ABC
who service a global audience, the expectation for high quality content
through accuracy and validity is outlined within the core values of the Charter
(ABC 1983) and is governed by the Editorial Policies (ABC 2008). As stated
within the Charter, the ABC is to include production values that “inform,
educate and entertain” (ABC 1983), however these core values are
problematic when considering and attempting to incorporate the
inconsistencies of participatory cultures.
The ABC is faced with the integrity problem of maintaining high production
quality, engaging mass audiences, and delivering true and accurate
information while minimising the editorial control over participatory cultures in
a collaborative production process. The Department of Broadband,
Communication and Digital Economy (2008) and later Debrett (2010) suggest
the role of PSM in the digital era should include two prongs: enhance the
deployment of new media platforms and develop digital technologies that
engage the audience in new ways. Mark Scott, the Managing Director of the
ABC, recently asked the question in his 2012 Strategic Forum, “What is the
place of the ABC in a media rich environment that has global input?” (Scott
2012). He continued by suggesting the ABC think more carefully about its
audience and not only its content delivery platforms. By engaging audiences
in new ways, the ABC aligns with Hesmondhalgh’s (2007) ‘pattern of
change/continuity’ theory to incorporate user-generated content (change) with
traditional media practices (continuity). Hesmondhalgh’s theory outline the
production model the ABC is pursuing is blurring the boundaries between
9
producer and consumer. Bruns defines this phenomenon as ‘Produsage’
suggesting, “the role of ‘consumer’ and even that of ‘end user’ have long
disappeared, and the distinctions between producers and users of content
have faded into comparative insignificance” (Bruns 2008: 2). Further to Bruns’
theory, Holly Goodier of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
completed long-term research into the activity rates of the UK online
population and debunked the 90:9:1 ratio of participation. “The model which
has guided many people’s thinking in this area, the 1/9/90 rule is outmoded.
The number of people participating online is significantly higher than 10%.
Participation is now the rule rather than the exception: 77% of the UK online
population is now active in some way” (Goodier 2012). Through PSM
providing new platforms and tools, the audience participation rate has
increased, compounding the effects of produsage.
How then does increased participation over new platforms indicate increased
levels of public value, or extend the public service remit of the ABC? The BBC
began exploring this question mid way through the last decade, and in 2006
produced Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for a digital world. One of
the foundational arguments in the paper suggests the broadcaster is crucial
for building social capital through programs that make the public “spruce up
[their] houses and improve [their] neighbourhood” (p 6), or more significantly
“In a national emergency, the right broadcast information might save [their]
life” (P 6). Social capital can also be defined as “the networks of strong
personal relationships, developed over time, that provide the basis for trust,
co-operation, and collective action” (Cummings, Heeks & Huysman 2006:
10
574). Additionally, Building Public Value addresses the core values of the
broadcaster to “inform, educate and entertain” within the existing media
environment. The findings suggest it is not enough to simply say the PSM
should inform, educate and entertain, but given the basis of building social
capital, “quality” should be included in the core values. “Public value is a
measure of the BBC’s contribution to the quality of life in the UK” (p 8).
McClean (2008) supports quality as a PSM core value, suggesting it improves
“the vision of a desired public culture, greater participation in public life and
genuine cultural pluralism (McClean 2008: 6). Cultural pluralism is achieved
through the inclusion of multiple voices, particularly those that are
marginalised.
Strengthening Audience Relationships through New Beginnings
Increased public value may be achieved through cultural pluralism as
participation of the ABC audience, improving quality, information, education,
and entertainment. One ABC project experimenting with collaborative
creativity is ABC Pool. ABC Pool is a platform providing an opportunity to
incorporate creative online communities into the ABC. ABC Pool members
can contribute and interact with media (audio, photos, text, videos), engage in
conversations with other users, contribute media to themed projects, and
have access to the expertise of ABC staff. The ABC resource the space and
provide access to media and cultural expertise, a secure online platform and
access to ABC archival material, while operating under Creative Commons
licensing. One regular exercise of ABC Pool is to facilitate the broadcast of
11
Pool contributions on RN programs, where users contribute their creative work
that is curated and aligned with the production values of a particular RN
program. The case study within this paper is the recent ABC Pool
collaborative project with RN 360documentaries, New Beginnings.
Mike Williams, 360documentaries and New Beginnings producer, designed
the call to action:
“ABC Pool wants to hear your New Beginnings story!
Starting something new can be exciting, refreshing and stimulating but also
very daunting and scary. Whether it’s a new job, new family member, new
home, or maybe even a new love interest, we’re often faced with the
challenge of having to start afresh in a new situation.
This project is about expressing your stories, your experiences and your
emotions when you’ve gone through a new beginning.” (Williams 2012)
New Beginnings is exemplary of the co-creative process outlined by Burgess
and Banks in that it added cultural and social value to the production of ABC
content while accommodating the needs of the project’s contributors. Through
the “call to action”, Williams designed a project with broad appeal for the ABC
Pool members and RN audience, yet focused enough to motivate the
participants to contribute to the 53-minute radio feature. By inviting the
audience to become ‘co-creators’ of the feature, Williams embedded personal
Australian stories in the piece. The project received 87 contributions
12
consisting primarily of audio with some text and video productions. There was
also a small but dedicated group of 44 project members who were contributing
work and engaging in conversations around those contributions. These
conversations included technical discussion on how the contributions were
made, the clarification of facts relating to stories, or general encouragement
from both Williams and other participants.
Unlike other radio features constructed through a series of decision making
points by the producer (Lindgren 2011), for example researching the subject
matter, sourcing experts or creatives to assist in the story-telling, recording
the talent, designing the sound, mastering the outcome, broadcasting the
finished product, this project sought to include the audience in that process.
The New Beginnings call-out initialised personal story contributions, where
Williams conducted a curatorial selection of the contributions to reveal the
narrative. With the narrative partially realised, a co-creative process refined
the contributions, as most did not satisfy the technical or stylistic standards of
Radio National. He invited a selection of contributors into the ABC studios
around Australia to direct them while they recorded their story, retaining the
personal aesthetic.
During the recording process, New Beginnings displayed pedagogical aspects
in its design by empowering its contributors and transferring knowledge
between the participants. By aligning it with the core principals of a community
of practice, users became radio feature makers when they were empowered
as such (Lave and Wenger, 1991). A community of practice is a “set of
13
relations amongst persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with
other tangential and overlapping communities…” (Lave and Wenger 1991:
98). It is also a system of recognised peripheral skills, used and exchanged
for additional skills and knowledge. The New Beginnings participants engaged
in the production of cultural goods by contributing their ideas and media, in
turn entering into a skills exchange arrangement. The production process
mentioned above is a useful example: a member would contribute a story or
short audio piece to the project, the producer engages new ideas or
production methods, and the member would be invited into the ABC studio to
record the contribution. During the recording session, the individuals develop
relationships with each other: the ABC Pool members gain knowledge of
professional radio feature making while contributing their own skills to the
session and the ABC staff were exposed to the benefits of incorporating user-
generated content (UGC) into the production process. Podkalicka and Wilson
(2012) outline a similar example through the collaborative pedagogical
process of filmmaking within the Melbourne based Youthworx project. They
note “While this process necessarily involves the mastery of new knowledge
and skills, it is through the broader capacity for participation, acceptance and
acknowledgement by adept practitioners within the community of practice that
the meaning of this learning is configured and validated, therefore acting as a
motivating force” (Podkalicka and Wilson 2012: 8). The skill and knowledge
exchange demonstrated by New Beginnings frames the project as both a
pedagogical process and collaborative cultural production exercise.
14
The media production skills of the contributors were varied, however these
people were acknowledged as competent radio producers and responded to
the role. Simultaneously, the skills exchanged amongst the participants were
noticeable. Users were gaining technical knowledge on how to professionally
record broadcast standard material while learning the craft of radio feature
making from the ABC staff. New Beginnings was also an exercise in
developing users’ skills in creative practices more broadly than just radio
production:
“Of all my writing achievements, I have to say hearing my words float
out on Radio National, in City Nights and New Beginnings, is by FAR
what I'm proudest of. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of
this; it's really something to put on my resume, and make me feel
better whenever I get a rejection from a publisher. I got one this
morning and you know, I barely even blinked, for once. After the smile
put on my face with the broadcast, I don't think it's going to be wiped
off that easily!” (Name withheld, email, 10th April 2012)
Skills were exchanged with Williams also who learned from the personal
stories of the contributors, built social capital with the audience members, and
fostered open participation within the production process.
“Through the New Beginnings process I have a better understanding
about the Pool community, what to expect from UGC – the diversity in
UGC, the importance of a production model with set times, how much
15
time a UGC project takes, what worked and what didn’t work in terms
of a production model, how to keep co-creation as flat as possible -
how can users be involved in decisions, the importance of talking to
users – the power of interpreting the story, and how a flat production
model can help iron out some potential issues” (Mike Williams,
interview 16th May, 2012).
New Beginnings was broadcast on 360documentaries on Sunday the 8th April,
with notable public support:
“What marvelous listening...true story telling. A most enjoyable hour
that I will want to hear again and again.! Thanks to all ... tremendous
contributions & production” (Linde 360documentaries website, 9th April
2012).
The successes New Beginnings required the input of one person mediating
the interests of all those involved in the process. This role acts as the ‘glue’
between these social capital exercises and enables them to occur within the
institutional setting. The following section describes how that person operates
within institutional online communities engaging in collaborative production.
The role of the Intermediary within New Beginnings
The intermediary role takes on many forms within the ABC more broadly.
These include: ABC Open producers (abc.net.au/open) who engage regional
audiences and develop their digital literacy through participatory projects;
16
Social Media Producers who develop online communication strategies and
procedural practices for content makers engaging their audiences; and Online
Moderators who monitor contributions on platforms including, but not limited
to, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, online forums, and ABC web pages. One
specific form of skilled intermediary work within co-creative practices at the
ABC is demonstrated through the project management of collaborative
productions. The New Beginnings project is exemplary of this, where the
intermediary interfaces between multiple stakeholders engaging in co-creative
practices. This role combines traditional methods with new experimental
modes of production and online community governance and may assist in
developing new regulatory frameworks for public service media.
In an online community defined as a group of online users sharing in a
combination of social capital, social support, and common culture (Bonniface,
Green, and Swanson 2006), the intermediary role is often referred to as the
‘community manager’. Jono Bacon suggests the role of the community
manager is one who encourages the online community’s participants, while
engaging and fostering relationships with its members (Bacon 2009). The
community manager has also been described as an advocate or
representative of the online community to the institution that resources it
(Banks 2007). Both definitions indicate the community manager is situated
between multiple stakeholders, where a comprehensive understanding of
those participants’ interests is required for communication between them. By
understanding the participants’ interests, the community manager uses
management techniques to negotiate consensus when complicated situations
17
arise (Collins 2007). This may include using diplomatic negotiating skills to
resolve a disagreement between participants on how an activity should be
performed.
Figure 1 demonstrates the position of the community manager between the
stakeholders of ABC Pool performing their core activity of Project Design
(designing themed projects that encourage member participation that have a
creative outcome, i.e. a broadcast outcome). For example, if the community
manager is interacting with the Pool participants, they do so representing the
interests of the ABC as Institution, along with the interests of the Pool team.
Likewise if they negotiate with the Pool team, they highlight the interests of the
ABC as Institution and the Pool Participants in that discussion. Whichever
stakeholder the community manager is interacting with, they take the interests
and concerns of the other two stakeholders into those interactions. Figure 1
also highlights within the darker overlapping areas how stakeholders
communicate with each other and the core type of activity they engage in. For
example, the area titled “Community Engagement” indicates how the Pool
Participants and the ABC as Institution interact with each other through
activities such as contributing creative work to the ABC, and exchanging
information on how the website operates (Editorial Policies and Terms and
Conditions).
18
Figure 1 The Community Manager within ABC Pool
Mike Williams embodied the community manager role for New Beginnings,
partially in the capacity Banks outlines but more so in the faculty of the
community manager Bacon describes. For that reason the yellow circle would
realistically be positioned more towards the top right hand side of the image to
indicate more activity within the community engagement area. Although
engaging with the users at a very in-depth level, the community manager was
primarily concerned with the production of cultural artifacts from the
institutional perspective of the ABC – that is to produce a 53-minute feature to
be broadcast on RN 360documentaries. In this capacity the role of Williams
within New Beginnings is more closely aligned with that of the ‘cultural
intermediary’, where the ‘cultural intermediary’ is involved in “presentation and
19
representation … in all the institutions providing symbolic goods and services”
(Bourdieu 1984: 359). To situate Bourdieu’s cultural intermediary concept
within ABC Pool more closely, Keith Negus describes the role as one who
manages “the division between high art/pop culture and the divide between
personal taste and professional judgement (or leisure and work)” (Negus
2002: 503). The creative contributions to New Beginnings is a mixture of user-
generated content (pop culture) and professionally produced audio (high art),
where the intermediary constantly curates the work from both a professional
judgement and personal taste perspective.
The New Beginnings cultural intermediary was required to utilise their
collaborative creative skills to produce and curate the elements of the radio
feature. They also required negotiation skills to engage in communicative
activities with the contributors and the ABC staff. Power and authority issues
often arise between audiences engaging in the produsage of cultural artifacts
and the institutions that support these online communities, rationalising the
cultural intermediary role. Within this context and referring to Figure 1, the
yellow circle of the community manager starts to shift towards the upper left
hand side of the diagram to indicate a greater emphasis on their negotiating
skills, or ‘Interacting with the ABC’. By understanding the interests of the
project’s stakeholders (the ABC, RN 360documentaries production staff, RN
audience members, ABC Pool and its members), the cultural intermediary
was required to negotiate a consensus between them to maintain a clear
project scope. A grounded example of the cultural intermediary multi-facing
was Williams explaining to contributors how to improve their work to achieve
20
an ABC standard, while communicating time and budget constraints with the
360documentaries management team. The result was a 360documentaries
program the contributors were proud of that also complied with the high
editorial standards of the ABC.
Figure 2 highlights how intermediary roles operate within the ABC more
broadly. As outlined earlier, the intermediary role operates in many other
capacities from ABC Open Producers to Online Moderators, where these job
titles are exchanged for the Cultural Intermediary label. In this capacity, the
cultural intermediary is responsible for the specific project they manage, for
example ABC Open or the News24 Facebook page. The three stakeholders
concerned with any of these activities always includes Professional Media
Production: any ABC staff member engaging in the professional production of
media (e.g. Directors, Producers, Engineers); Australian User Generated
Content: any form of contribution to the ABC by audience members (e.g.
comments, photographs, stories, talkback); and Site Operation: any platform
engaging in UGC activities (e.g. ABC Open, The Drum, QandA). The core
activities remain the same within these arrangements, supporting the
interchangeable potential of the model developed through ABC Pool and New
Beginnings to the PSM activities more broadly.
21
Figure 2 The Cultural Intermediary Within The ABC
The cultural intermediary acts as a translator or interface between the
stakeholders, while operating as a conduit to ensure the fundamental
principles of the PSM, “inform, educate, entertain” (ABC 1983), are
maintained within the co-creation of cultural artifacts. The cultural intermediary
engaging Produsage and the pattern of change/continuity philosophies, may
champion the notion of ‘quality’ as the BBC suggest should be attached to the
core values of the PSB (2006). By broadening the engagement levels within
the ABC public service, the value of quality increases through improved social
capital. Within these arrangements the value of PSM can be seen, although
still difficult to measure, within the creation and development of cultural
22
intermediary roles that bridge the distance between production and
consumption (Negus 2002).
Conclusion
The granularity of the editorial process aligns with the arguments of scholars
suggesting the role of PSM should engage in activities where a clear market
failure is apparent (McClean 2008). Commercial broadcasters are not
positioned to engage the audience in such a ‘hands-on’ process, purely based
on the time required to develop a project like New Beginnings. However, the
bi-product of co-creative engagement is an increase in public value – “the
communal glue which some call social capital” (BBC 2006: 6). The small, but
immensely strong connections constructed during New Beginnings reflect how
disparate individuals, geographically dispersed throughout Australia, were
connected through a common interest – to produce radio.
This paper has highlighted the challenges PSM faces within the current media
landscape due to shifting trends within audiences, and the crowding-out of the
media market by public broadcasting. This paper also questions of value and
relevance of experimental and innovative projects within PSM, and begins to
outline the benefits that engaging in participatory culture activities has with the
audience. By focussing on New Beginnings through a community of practice
lens, a significant improvement in audience relations and community cultural
development is demonstrated, increasing the value of social capital building
activities by PSM. New Beginnings also highlights the particular skills of the
cultural intermediary within participatory culture activities engaging the
23
production of cultural artifacts. Further research is required to understand how
cultural intermediary roles can be operationalised, how they might interact
with a further segmenting audience engaging with PSM on external third party
platforms, and how to measure a shift within social capital or public value
within participatory culture projects.
Acknowledgements
Mike Williams, John Jacobs, Gretchen Miller, Claudia Tarranto, Sheila Pham,
Ellie Rennie, Anne Galloway.
References Cited
ABC 1983, The ABC Act.
ABC 2009, ABC Documents - Editorial Policies, viewed 10th September 2009
2009, <http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm>.
Bacon, J 2009, The Art of Community, O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol.
Banks, J 2007, 'Opening the Production Pipeline: Unruly Creators', in SD
Castell & J Jenson (eds), Words in Play: International Perspectives on Digital
Games Research, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 143 - 52.
BBC 2006, Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for a Digital World.
Benkler, Y 2006, The Wealth of Networks, 1st edn, Yale University Press,
New Haven.
24
Boellstorff, T 2006, 'A Ludicrous Discipline? Ethnography and Game Studies',
Games and Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 29-35.
Bonniface, L, Green, L & Swanson, M 2006, 'Communication on a Health-
Related Website Offering Therapeutic Support - Phase 1 of the HeartNET
Website', Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 89 - 107.
Bourdieu, P 1984, A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 1st edn,
Routledge, London.
Bowler, GM 2010, 'Netnography: A Method Specifically Designed to Study
Cultures and Communities Online', The Qualitative Report, vol. 15, no. 5, pp.
1270 - 5.
Bruns, A 2008, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production
to Produsage, Peter Lang, New York.
Burgess, J & Banks, J 2010, 'User-created Content and Online Social
Networks', in S Cunningham & G Turner (eds), The Media and
Communications in Australia, 3 edn, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, pp. 295 -
306.
Castells, M 2002, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd edn, Blackwell
Publishers Ltd, Oxford.
25
Collins, H & Sanders, G 2007, 'They Give you the Keys and Say 'Drive It!'
Managers, referred expertise, and other expertise', Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, pp. 621 - 41.
Cummings, S, Heeks, R & Huysman, M 2006, 'Knowledge and Learning in
Online Communities in Development: A Social Capital Perspective',
Development in Practice, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 570 - 86.
Cunningham, S 2012, Hidden Innovation: Policy, Industry and the Creative
Sector, Forthcoming edn, Creative Economy and Innovation Culture,
University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.
DBCDE 2008, ABC and SBS: Towards a digital future., Department of
Broadband, C, and the Digital Economy.
Debrett, M 2010, Reinventing Public Service Television for the Digital Future,
Intellect, Bristol.
Goodenough, W 1964, Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in
Honor of George Peter Merdock, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
Goodier, H 2012, BBC Online Briefing Spring 2012: The Participation Choice,
17th May, 2012, BBC, London,
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/05/bbc_online_briefing_spring_
201_1.html>.
Hesmondhalgh, D 2007, The Cultural Industries, 2nd edn, Sage, London.
26
Hutchinson, J 2012, 'The Ethnographer as Community Manager: Translation
and Negotiation Through Tacit Norms', Manuscript submitted for publication.
Jakubowicz, K 2007, Rude Awakening: Social and Media Change in Central
and Eastern Europe, Hampton Press.
Jakubowicz, K 2007, 'Public Service Broadcasting: A Pawn on an Ideological
Chessboard', in Ed Bens (ed.), Media Between Culture and Commerce,
Intellect, Chicago.
Jenkins, H 2006, Convergence Culture - Where Old and New Media Collide,
1st edn, New York University Press.
Lave, J & Wenger, E 1991, Situated Learning Legitimate Peripheral
Participation, 1st edn, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lévy, P 1994, Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in
Cyberspace, Plenum Trade, New York.
Lindgren, M 2011, 'Journalism as Research: Developing radio documentary
theory from practice', Murdoch University.
McChesney, R 2008, The Political Economy of Media: enduring issues,
emerging dilemmas, Monthly Review Press.
McClean, G 2008, 'Maintaining Relevance: Cultural Diversity and the Case for
Public Service Broadcasting', paper presented to Creating Value Between
27
Commerce and Commons, Brisbane, 25th June, 2008,
<http://cci.edu.au/publications/maintaining-relevance>.
Moe, H 2010, 'Governing Public Service Broadcasting: "Public Value Tests" in
Different National Contexts', Communication, Culture & Critique, vol. 3, no.
(2010), pp. 207-23.
Negus, K 2002, 'The work of cultural intermediaries and the enduring distance
between production and consumption', Cultural Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, pp.
501-15.
Podkalicka, A & Wilson, CK 2012, 'Media 'communities of practice' and youth
participation: connecting the social and the creative', Manuscript submitted for
publication.
Scott, M 2012, 'ABC Strategic Forum 2012', Eugene Goosens Hall, ABC
Headquarters, Sydney, 16th May 2012.
Shirky, C 2008, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organising without
Organisations, Allen Lane, New York.
Tacchi, J, Slater, D & Hearn, G 2003, Ethnographic Action Research - A
User's Handbook Developed to Innovate and Research ICT Applications for
Poverty Eradication, 1st edn, United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation UNESCO, New Delhi.
28
Walker, T 2009, 'New Audience Partnerships for the ABC',
Telecommunications Journal of Australia, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 43.1 - .8.
Williams, M 2012, New Beginnings, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
viewed May 16th 2012, <http://pool.abc.net.au/projects/new-beginnings>.
Wilson, CK, Hutchinson, J & Shea, P 2010, 'Public Service Broadcasting,
Creative Industries and Innovation Infrastructure: The Case of ABC's Pool',
Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 15 - 32.
