Latest news

Matthew Allen, 1st August 2010

Abstract
Network technologies are very desirable for social action, allowing activists to achieve more with less, more quickly and with broader impact; on the other hand, the very advantages they bring are equally important to the world of contemporary capitalism that social action seeks to change. Thus, we must look beyond network technologies as the easy solution to every problem, and focus instead on the human relationships which might be enabled by them. This focus on relationships requires us to ‘de-tool’ information technology. Instead, for social action, it is more valuable to think of networked computing as part of the environment within which action can occur; an important purpose for such action; and as a medium that nurtures expression and engagement of self and belief.

Juan Francisco Salazar, 1st August 2010

Abstract
This article provides a critical examination of community media practices by young recently arrived African refugees and Cambodian young migrants in Western Sydney, Australia. Against the backdrop of contemporary cultural politics of migration in Australia the article is grounded on a recent participatory community media research project conducted in 2008-2009, which aimed to conceptualise the emerging spaces for claiming new forms of citizen agency and contest the general representations of newly arrived migrants in the mainstream media. The paper argues that community media is better positioned to recognise changing attitudes towards migrants and refugees, and that these changes must also take place from the bottom up. Extending existing notions of citizens’ media the paper articulates a view that young media practitioners become active citizens in the exercise of their civil and communication rights and their self-representation, by owning the process of content creation and communication, thus redefining the content (rather than the form) of what citizenship means in different social contexts.

Ellie Rennie, Leo Berkeley & Blaise Murphet, 1st August 2010

Abstract
The internet provides a means for non-professional media-makers to produce and publish their own video and audio content, as community television and radio have done for several decades. While the web seems to exemplify the principles of media access and diversity championed by the community media sector, it also raises challenges for broadcast community media participants and their online equivalents, not least being the co-opting of the term ‘community media’ by large commercial interests. A symposium held in Melbourne by Open Spectrum Australia (‘Quality/Control’, State Library of Victoria, Oct 2008) brought together people with a wide range of community media experience to discuss this and other issues, particularly the possibilities for greater cooperation between broadcast and online community media participants.

This paper draws on participant contributions at the symposium to explore the relationship between broadcast and online community media. Despite shared values, we identify different, and possibly incompatible, cultures within the two groups. We argue that this disjoint stems from two different systems of control or validation (licensing and networks), as well as producer-centered accounts of community media that are out of sync with the contemporary media environment. Instead, we propose that theory and practice begin to address issues of consumption in relation to community media, including identification, navigation and the notion of ethical choice.

Marcus Foth, 1st October 2009

Editorial

 

Marcus Foth

Creative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

 

Helen Simondson, 1st October 2009

Abstract
What is particular to the culture of our time is the pace at which everything changes. The moving image is entrenched into every part of our lives. We not only rely on it to entertain us; we also expect to be able to interact with it and participate in its making, whether as consumer or content producer. The moving image has become the ubiquitous lens through which we view the world, and through it we explore and understand ourselves, other cultures and societies, experiences and places. It helps us shape our identity.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image is a cultural institution situated in Melbourne and dedicated to the moving image. It is a place where the moving image is presented in all its forms, with a charter to research, create, collect, exhibit, teach, nurture and advocate the use of the moving image in all areas of society. It is one of the few centres of its kind world wide.

This paper charts the development of the Digital Storytelling program at ACMI. In doing so, it captures some of the understandings gleaned as a result of being one of the first cultural institutions to develop a major user-generated content program, and identifies the challenges for the organisation in ensuring this program stays relevant in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Jean Burgess and Helen Klaebe, 1st October 2009

Abstract
This article discusses a pilot project that adapted the methods of digital storytelling and oral history to capture a range of personal responses to the official Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 13 February 2008. The project was an initiative of State Library of Queensland and resulted in a small collection of multimedia stories, incorporating a variety of personal and political perspectives. The article describes how the traditional digital storytelling workshop method was adapted for use in the project, and then proceeds to reflect on the outcomes and continuing life of the project. The article concludes by suggesting that aspects of the resultant model might be applied to other projects carried out by cultural institutions and community-based media organizations.

Samia Goudie and Natalie Davey, 1st October 2009

Abstract
In 2007 the Hope Vale – Pelican project (now in its 6th year) inaugurated a digital storytelling component into the program. The project is a partnership between Hope Vale Elders (championed by Des and Estelle Bowen) and Pelican Expeditions. In 2007 Pelican Expeditions and the Elders invited Samia Goudie, a researcher and digital storytelling consultant, to pilot a digital storytelling project with Natalie Davey, a founding member of Pelican Expeditions. The Hope Vale – Pelican (HVP) project is mainly run out of Connie’s beach, Cape Flattery in Cape York. The success of this pilot resulted in the design and implementation of a larger digital storytelling media camp being embedded as a co-creative practice in the 2008 Hope Vale – Pelican project. This paper seeks to tell the story of this process and explore some of the early findings of both the benefits and problems of using digital storytelling to promote social and emotional wellbeing and caring for country with an Indigenous community within a trans-disciplinary partnership project.

Peta-Marie Standley, Nicola J. Bidwell, Tommy George Senior, Victor Steffensen and Jacqueline Gothe, 1st October 2009

Abstract
With the proliferation of global information and communications technologies (ICT), the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations. Yet, from ecological and social perspectives, connecting people and communities to their immediate environment is now more urgent than ever. In this paper we show how an Indigenous led initiative reaches across geographical and cultural gulfs by using digital media in ways that are profoundly embedded in the values associated with specific places. We refer to a grass-roots Indigenous created and led organization that with support from numerous partnerships across Australia has for many years used media to convey cultural and environmental values. The methodology of Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways (TRKP), co-created according to the ancient knowledge system of the Kuku Thaypan Traditional Owner Elders in Cape York Peninsula, illustrates the way media can be used to traverse disciplinary boundaries and connect both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to places.

We start by describing how the simple act of picking up a camera to film this ancient knowledge system led to the creation of Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways (TKRP). Then, we explain how the methods of using various media are anchored in the Indigenous sense of country and interconnectedness, embedded in the spiritual, philosophical and ideological perspectives of Traditional Knowledge. We outline processes that scaffold these methods, such as the way media is controlled by participating Indigenous communities and incorporated into practice and research in environmental management. This leads us to discussing some of the roles of different media in reflecting on practices, within and between communities, and translating and communicating across worldviews. We conclude by indicating how using media can connect people to place and inspire their reflection upon the mediation by media in these connections. We propose this provides new insights for improving media tools, training methods and approaches to solution making to issues of environmental, social and economic concern.

Aneta Podkalicka and Jonathan Staley, 1st October 2009

Abstract
This paper offers a descriptive account of the development, operation and management of the youth media program YouthWorx Media that engages disadvantaged young people in media creation. Through the combined perspectives of the project manager and researcher working on the project, we reflect on the actual, on-the-ground practices. A provision of intermediary pathways for reconnection with education and employment via media training for Melbourne ‘youth at risk’ is the key objective of the project, against which the project’s ‘real world’ social outcomes are being documented and measured. However, we recognise also the ‘messiness’ of the program’s delivery process, and its uneasy documentation through ethnographic research. The implementation of projects like YouthWorx involves a series of calculated strategic decisions informed by a set of shared values and underlying philosophies (e.g., a pedagogy of working with ‘youth at risk’ via media presented here), but also—and equally important—numerous ad hoc responses to ‘real’ situations at hand. This paper emphasises then an inherent process of translation of the project’s original conceptions or ideas, constantly tested and re-visited, into on-the-ground educational and media activities. It underscores a value of exploring connections between theory/philosophies and practice, social work and academic research, hoping to contribute to a wider discussion of the role of community media/arts initiatives in stimulating positive social change.

Christine Satchell and Marcus Foth, 1st August 2008

Abstract
As the early 21st century society evolves into a hybrid world of digital and physical environments, a new generation of users is traversing seamlessly between online and offline dimensions in these emerging communicative ecologies. This paper explores what happens when young people re-create their human identity in these spaces. How they use the tools of new technologies to capture and share their experiences, and how they represent themselves in relation to the world they live in. We analyse the practices of these users and the changing digital landscapes they occupy to then discuss lessons and potential benefits to strengthen the ability of non-profit and community organisations to engage and interact with young people and other constituents in a Web 2.0 era.

Atari Metcalf, Michelle Blanchard, Trent McCarthy and Jane Burns, 1st August 2008

Abstract
The growth of the internet and related technologies such as mobile phones, digital film and photography in the last decade has seen a substantial shift in the way young people communicate and share information. The role that information and communication technologies (ICT) may play and the impact they may have on the mental health and wellbeing of young people is not well understood and there are gaps in the evidence base surrounding the efficacy of mental health promotion and prevention initiatives that utilise technology. The Bridging the Digital Divide Project examines the potential use of ICT to promote social connectedness and civic engagement in young people experiencing marginalisation. This paper provides an overview of the project rationale and presents preliminary research that explores the barriers and enablers to implementing an ICT based project designed to promote civic engagement and social connectedness with young people experiencing marginalisation.

Marcus Foth, 1st August 2008

This issue of the Journal of Community, Citizen’s and Third Sector Media and Communication brings together research papers that seek to continue a dialogue about key questions started in the last issue of 3CMedia.

Danny Butt, 1st August 2008

Abstract
In 2007, it cannot be denied that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had a transformative impact on communities in Australia. Unfortunately, a results-oriented development framework often continues to advocate what Iris Marion Young calls a ‘distributive paradigm’, without a holistic overview of the outcomes for communities.

In this paper I outline some of the ways that community-practitioners can avoid some of these pitfalls in planning and evaluating their projects. It entails looking beyond the project's practical outcomes which may mask deeper levels of unintended consequences or lack of effectiveness. Central to this process is a need for detailed stakeholder engagement and active management of donor and funder expectations.

Ellie Rennie, 1st December 2007

Abstract
How is media convergence impacting on established, ‘broadcast-era’ community media? This paper takes SYN (a community radio licensee in Melbourne) as a case study and employs media ethnography and policy analysis to identify contemporary challenges facing community media.

Community media requires a different approach to convergence than that which is commonly associated with the professional creative industries. In the community sphere, convergence is led by members and encouraged through open, participative processes. The ‘open source organisation’ is proposed here as a useful way of thinking through the challenges of convergence and the limitations of Australia’s existing communications policy framework.

Barry Melville, 1st December 2007

While community broadcasters continue to wrestle with regulatory constraints, policy limitations, lack of resources and internal conflict, technology is rapidly transforming the way media content i

Kerrie Mackey-Smith, 1st December 2007

Abstract
This article introduces a case study concerned with student engagement by exploring a speaking and listening multimodal literacy option in the classroom.

Peter Collingwood, 1st December 2007

Abstract
To ground an assessment of community radio’s contributions to political life, this paper reviews recent developments in public sphere theory and discourse ethics. Tracing a genealogy of thinking from Habermas to Warner, the paper argues that formative contexts of contemporary politics such as the radical pluralisation of culture, the emergence of lifestyle politics and the epistemic change to a communication paradigm – also powerful forces in community radio – can find parallel theoretical resources in recent writing on the public sphere. The dialectical engagement of open and inclusive publicity (associated with liberal public life), with a more enclosed, strategic approach (associated with community groups’ decision processes) is not a theoretical obstacle, but a highly useful resource. Underpinning ‘circulation of opinion’ analysis, it can ground a contemporary policy analysis which values both normativity and diversity.

Kitty van Vuuren, 1st August 2006

Abstract
Participatory research design appears as an attractive option in the study of community media organisations. It puts the generation of the research question, the design of data collection methods, and the analysis of the results in the hands of the researched. This approach can demystify the research process and can be an empowering experience. But, as I found out with my doctoral research, the researcher needs to carefully assess an organisation’s capacity to undertake do-it-yourself research, because, when things go wrong, this approach can also reveal conflicts within an organisation, as well as give rise to tension resulting from the divergent needs of the researcher and those of the researched. This paper describes the troubles that arose during fieldwork conducted at a community radio station, how these unexpected events forced a reformulation of the research question, and how this eventually led to an improved theoretical insight.

Ellie Rennie, 1st August 2006

I took it as somewhat symbolic that, in a book consisting of four community media case studies, two of them should be located in old fire stations (WFHB and DCTV).

Michelle Johnston, 1st August 2006

Abstract
RO-TV is a community television program, produced in collaboration with Rotary WA that demonstrates the ideals and objectives of community media. This paper discusses the pilot series of RO-TV in both a theoretical and practical sense. The production technique employed by the program and the experience of the program’s participants is explored in terms of the theoretical principles and ideals of community media.