Julia Knight

DVD, Video and Reaching Audiences: Experiments in Moving-Image Distribution

The advent of the internet (as a means of marketing and selling) and DVD (as a delivery medium) has revitalized interest in selling/delivering ‘alternative’ moving image work direct to the public. The potential these avenues offer for reaching wider audiences are proving particularly attractive in the light of the recent UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity. However, similar initiatives were undertaken when VHS took off as a mass delivery medium in the 1980s. This article examines some of the attempts to embrace the video sell-through market in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting artists’/independent moving-image work to a wider public. However, these attempts met with mixed results. The reasons for this are discussed, and the article concludes that while digital technology has in some ways made it easier to reach audiences, there are important lessons to be learned from its video precursor, if the potential of DVD and the internet is to be maximized.

Identity and social media

Given the quantity of data social networks produce – millions of data points and in some cases billions on the scale of big data analysis – how do we frame the quantitative analysis of this data in terms of theoretical models of identity? In 2008, Vincent Miller’s article in Convergence recognized in our ubiquitous and pervasive media the essential role of phatic communication which forms our connection to the here and now. Social media has become a native habitus for many and is a place to perform our various roles in our multimodal lives, as a professional, a parent, an acquaintance, and a colleague. The current generation has grown up with social media and like the 10-year-old Facebook, Twitter too has become part of some people’s everyday here and now. In this issue, Nicholas Carah, Sven Brodmerkel, and Lorena Hernandez focus on how Facebook works not just as a platform to harvest data but also as a platform to manage the circulation of affect and creation of social connections around brands. Looking specifically at drinking culture and Facebook, they argue that some social media engagement practices allow for circumventing regulatory regimes by prompting connections between mediations of drinking culture and the brand that would not be possible in other media channels. Yet do we understand the aspects and patterns of identity development in virtual worlds? As Margaretten and Gaber (2014) have proposed the concept of ‘authentic talk’ identified as ‘spontaneous, unrehearsed discourse’ on Twitter, in this issue Bernadett Koles and Peter Nagy offer an alternative conceptual model to researchers of a virtual identity developed to capture this complex conglomerate of personal, social, relational, and material aspects. While Tamara Shepherd and Thorsten Busch argue that Twitter has acquired the critical mass of users necessary to successfully establish a robust and financially viable social network. Employing a business ethics perspective, Shepherd and Busch examine Twitter’s ethos in relation to debates around democratic communication in relation to corporate social responsibility. ‘This issue becomes all the more pressing because online social networks to a certain extent have taken on the role of quasi-governmental bodies today, regulating what their users can and cannot do, thus raising questions of accountability and legitimacy’ (2014: 294).

The ‘Alternative’ End of Marketing: Building Audiences for Artists’/Community Film and Video in Britain since 1980

This article draws on findings from a three-year AHRC-funded research project that has been examining artists’ and community film/video distribution in the UK from the late 1960s to around 2004—what in the 1980s was termed the ‘independent film and video sector.’ The primary focus of the project has been the London FilmMakers’ Co-op (LFMC), London Video Arts/London Electronic Arts (LVA/LEA), the Lux, Circles, Cinema of Women (COW), Cinenova, Film and Video Umbrella (FVU), The Other Cinema, and Albany Video Distribution, together with the Arts Council, the British Film Institute (BFI), Channel 4 and the Greater London Council as their key funders, and has utilised a combination of archive research and research interviews. Although the project has been concerned with distribution organisations, beyond the physical process of delivering film reels, video tapes or digital files to screening venues, the main function of distributors is to undertake promotion, marketing and finding or building audiences for the work they distribute. In the case of mainstream film, distributors and investors are concerned with maximising audiences in order to exploit the film as a commercial product and thereby make a profit. However, non-mainstream work such as artists’ and community film/ video is not usually made for commercial reasons and is usually (although not always) unlikely to attract particularly large audiences. This is because it is either formally

'Honey, don't touch, it's not meant to be touched!'

However, as we debate the nature of ’interactivity’ we frequently forget the implications of presenting interactive works in a traditional exhibition or art gallery context. Although the degree and type of interactivity varies from artwork to artwork, it’s possible to argue that the quality of the experience of any kind of interactive artwork even with those offering only a very limited level of interactivity ultimately rests with the user’s willingness and ability to fully engage with the work. This might sound obvious but it is, I think, a point frequently overlooked. And I want to suggest that if we are to maximise the quality of that experience we have to address the implications of staging interactive art in a traditional exhibition or art gallery context.

Negotiating freedoms in the convergent mediascape

The research in this issue questions whether media convergence is opening new possibilities for a greater range of voices to be heard or threatening to close down channels through which diversity and democracy is being expressed. Ross Tapsell argues that convergence is both contributing to and undermining freedom in Indonesia. He observes that scholars have viewed media freedom as threatened and explores the factors that have led technological convergence to commercial convergence. In comparison, Sarah Harris’ analyses of two cases of digital activism in Turkey evidence how censorship is a systematic process grounded in legal and media infrastructures. Her case studies show the effect of erasure on both public and individual discourse; for example, Blocked Web collects and organizes data on state-classified website bans, whilst Interactive Mass Grave Map marks the locations of hundreds of unmarked graves in which disappeared citizens are thought to be buried. Both are unpleasant reminders of the attempts of the powerful to shut down voices of dissent. Beyond state and media infrastructures media creators are exploring the textual and linguistic borderlands provided by new technologies for spaces for discourses of diversity and formation of new meaning. Megan Condis cites BioWare’s decision to include diversity in games like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Dragon Age II, by adding the option to play as a gay male character. Through her analysis she questions how titles such as ‘fan’ or ‘gamer’ are being contested along the lines of gender and sexuality. Aylish Wood on the other hand examines how virtual spaces afford new locations for meaning construction. Her examples are the three-dimensional (3D) cinematic space in Hugo and the IMAX format in The Dark Knight. Such a space offers multiple points of engagement for an audience. Both articles focus on case studies that extend the vocabulary of their media discourse. The new media aesthetics of 3D cinema previously featured in a guest-edited special section of Convergence (November 2013, Vol. 19, issue 4). Wood’s article follows on from this and extends

Media literacy and transmedia storytelling

In the United Kingdom there is a debate about how media studies should be taught to 16 to 18 year olds. Should they be studying the artefacts as literature students do with canonical readings of Austen and Shakespeare or the institutions and hegemonic structures of the means of production? If they are to study artefacts then what artefacts should these be? BBC news and the much exported period drama Downton Abbey or popular television franchises which have worldwide take-up such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (ITV 1998-) The problem with this debate is that it misunderstands the ontological basis of media studies. Media studies have claimed the realms of television, newspapers, cinema, radio and audiovisual texts, their forms, the industries that produce them and the means of distribution and consumption as its object of study. New media researchers have added identity, interactivity, geolocation, engagement, affectivity, sharing, creativity and fan crowd and other forms of online and real life community building through new communications technologies. Ontologically we accept as a basis of our field that as humans we construct and visualize stories – both from fact and fiction – to make sense of the world around us and that by analysing and deconstructing these narratives as researchers we review, challenge or change erroneous or simply dominant knowledge paradigms. Contrary to this basis of media studies, in this debate we are being asked to give dominance to the best of the type. For students and early career researchers this is confusing and we swiftly fall into a definitional mele: is this the form of the period drama or the industry format of the game show or the professional procedures that provenance and verify news stories we are required to study? Educationalists may refer to the canon of English literature, yet new media critics will cite the fans’ definition of the canon as the storyworld or the storyworld’s ‘bible’ or past set characters, storylines and rules. Just consider for a moment the array of attempts to define and revise the definition of transmedia storytelling. Researchers have found it easier to state the platforms and channels for transmedia stories – the book, periodical, game, television, Web, cinema, mobile app., radio and event – than to say comprehensively and decisively what it is. Like much of new media, transmedia storytelling is participatory, often soliciting creative contributions, it is user-led and

Participation that matters

This issue of Convergence opens with an extended special Debates section, edited by Irena Reifová and Jaroslav Švelch, which – as they explain in their Introduction – brings together a selection of papers resulting from a symposium they held in June 2012 in Prague. At the heart of the symposium was discussion about and investigation of media audience ‘participation’ in the digital era, which generated post-symposium the wide ranging and illuminating conversation between Henry Jenkins and Nico Carpentier that opens and frames the Debates section. In particular, the symposium organisers, together with Jenkins and Carpentier, were keen to not only interrogate the ‘grand narratives’ that have emerged in the ‘age of media convergence’ but perhaps more importantly focus in more depth on the kinds of participation that have developed, under what circumstances and for what purpose. In both Jenkins and Carpentier’s opening conversation and the shorter pieces that follow, the contributors to this special Debates section explore a wide range of participatory practices, from those with more overtly political aims, like the Invisible Children group discussed by Jenkins, through to the supposedly more playful, ‘just for fun’ Bollywood flash mobs studied by Sangita Shresthova. However, what emerges from these Debates is the complexity of participatory practices. For instance, it involves Jenkins and Carpentier in a detailed discussion of how we define ‘participation’ – and related terms such as interaction, engagement, interpretation and access – and prompts recognition by Jenkins that inequality of access to technological infrastructure, opportunities, skills and knowledge make it more difficult for some groups to participate than others, while Carpentier asserts that full participatory culture will never be realised. But the Debates section also raises the thorny issue of participation in what? As Jenkins notes, although many new platforms, such as YouTube, describe themselves as participatory, the emphasis remains on individual self-expression rather than facilitating or supporting a participatory community based on shared values. In the course of their conversation, Jenkins acknowledges that his research tends to start with specific case studies and look for conceptual tools to explain what’s being observed, whereas Carpentier begins with abstract definitions and assesses their applicability to specific cases. Yet editors Reifová and Švelch argue that their Debates section precisely demonstrates that our

Dedication to Rebecca Coyle

Our regular readers will be familiar with the international scope and coverage of Convergence. Although we have editorial board members across the globe, we have enjoyed a particularly strong link with Australia and that has been due to a large extent to one of our associate editors, Rebecca Coyle. Sadly, Rebecca passed away in November last year after a year-long illness and in recognition of her contribution to Convergence, we would like to dedicate this issue to her. Rebecca was based at the Lismore campus of Southern Cross University but had also taught at Macquarie University and the University of Technology, both in Sydney. She had been a member of our editorial board since the first issue, back in 1995, and became one of our first associate editors. We asked her to join the editorial board partly because of her research specialisms at the time in radio, sound and holography but also because of her energy, dedication and professionalism. In addition to her normal editorial duties, she guest edited two issues of Convergence – one on music and sound performance, perception and interactivity and one on the transformations occurring in radio – and in 2006, she convened, chaired and contributed to a Convergence panel at the Association of Internet Researchers conference in Brisbane. Rebecca was also a prolific academic, researching and publishing more recently on screen music and sound as well as regional and rural creative industries. True to character, she continued working throughout her illness. It is with deep regret that we can no longer rely on her tireless support and sharp analysis, but it seems appropriate that Convergence’s international scope to which she contributed so much is exemplified in this issue by articles from a range of countries, including the Netherlands, North America, Sweden, the United Kingdom and fittingly her native Australia. In our opening debates piece, Jonathan Westin views the transference of book formats from analogue to digital through the lens of translation studies. He examines how the book’s change of format provokes questions about cultural values that are embedded in the physicality of the book and how these are acquired, reinforced or negotiated away in the translation process from one format to another. In a similar vein, Weedon (2012) has questioned the values associated with the book – cultural, humanitarian and economic – arguing that the book is neither the locked or liberated text McLuhan (1964) and Ong (1982) describe nor a cultural concept as Carrière and Eco (2011) propose, but is rather a dynamic system through which ideas and cultural expressions are

Near)ubiquitous connectivity is seductive

Wifi, 3G and other wireless technologies have raised our expectations of connectivity and as a result irrevocably changed our social interactions. We can, as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and my email inboxes tell me, connect as an individual to more people more directly than we have ever been able to do so before. But if communication is liberated though new technologies, who holds the reins of responsibility? Investigating this question reveals a complexity of professional practices, which are explored in this issue of Convergence. One of the advantages of wireless for us is the ability to access the virtual world from different devices. For example I can read a book in the coffee queue on a portable HTC phone or on the train on an outsized (A4) kindle with its ability to enlarge the type. When synced, I can pick up the page anywhere I can connect to the wifi. This means that the text becomes independent of the physical device but the reading experience is not. As a reader I have a material connection with the screendevice I read the book on. David Beer reminds us in his debates piece that the physicality of mobile devices should not be ignored. Such devices are ‘objects with which individuals may develop an attachment’ and he argues that ‘these connections are actually an important part of how mobile media have become such a prominent and embedded part of contemporary life’. Beer’s debate is thought provoking and can be read next to Kurt Squires and Seann Dikkers’s positive investigation into the use of mobile media devices among young adults to amplify learning in this issue. Squires and Dikkers show how access to mobile devices is deeply tied to personal power for these young adults as they found they were ‘able to function more effectively to meet their goals with employers, teachers, and peers’ (p. 445). The ownership of the physical object – even temporarily – was a part of this feeling of empowerment. Investigating the question of who holds the reins of responsibility when communication is liberated by technology, Fan Dong analyses the complexity of professional practices controlling the internet in China. Her interesting study describes five layers ‘ranging from the government,

Editorial: Etiquette and Engagement with New Media Technologies

The papers of famous people and media companies have often survived preserved by institutions who have recognized and valued their historical significance, while the correspondence of the ordinary individual – listener, viewer, employee or amateur ham – has not been thought worthy of acquisition, and their side of the story has remained untold. In their feature report Stephen Perry and Keith Massie reflect on how online auctions have released hitherto inaccessible private collections of material to the researcher: sources that individuals rather than institutions have thought worthy of preservation. They argue that this offers new opportunities for research and could provide a different reading of the history of the media.