Co-creative media : theorising digital storytelling as a platform for researching and developing participatory culture

This paper considers the question, ‘what is co-creative media, and why is it a useful idea in social media research’? The term ‘co-creative media’ is now used by Creative Industries researchers at QUT to describe their digital storytelling practices. Digital storytelling is a set of collaborative digital media production techniques that have been used to facilitate social participation in numerous Australian and international contexts. Digital storytelling has been adapted by Creative Industries researchers at QUT as a platform for researching the potential of vernacular creativity in a variety of contexts, including social inclusion of marginalized and disadvantaged groups; inclusion in public histories of narratives that might be overlooked; and articulation of voices that otherwise remain silent in the formulation of social and economic development strategies. The adaption of digital storytelling to different contexts has been shaped by the reflexive, recursive, and pragmatic requirements of action research. Amongst other things, this activity draws attention to the agency of researchers in facilitating these kinds of participatory media processes and outcomes. This discussion serves to problematise concepts of participatory media by introducing the term ‘co-creative media’ and differentiating these from other social media production practices.

The Uses of Digital Literacy

Online social networks, user-created content and participatory media are often still ignored by professionals, denounced in the press and banned in schools. but the potential of digital literacy should not be underestimated. Hartley reassesses the historical and global context, commercial and cultural dynamics and the potential of popular productivity through analysis of the use of digital media in various domains, including creative industries, digital storytelling, YouTube, journalism and mediated fashion.

The digital practice ecosystem : supporting change in the construction industry through digital practice

The Digital Practice Ecosystem is a network of professional architectural, engineering and contracting firms, government agencies and professional bodies, academic, educational, and research institutions that have the shared goal of fostering changes in the construction industry through applications of digital practice. Changing the process of designing and constructing buildings using digital models will improve quality and efficiency and reduce costs allowing completion on time and on budget.

Story Circle : Digital Storytelling Around the World

Story Circle is the first collection ever devoted to a comprehensive international study of the digital storytelling movement. Exploring subjects of central importance on the emergent and ever-shifting digital landscape-consumer-generated content, memory grids, the digital storytelling youth movement, and micro-documentary- Story Circle pinpoints who is telling what stories, where, on what terms, and what they look and sound like.

Uses of YouTube : digital literacy and the growth of knowledge

I invented YouTube. Well, not YouTube exactly, but something close – something called YIRN; and not by myself exactly, but with a team. In 2003-5 I led a research project designed to link geographically dispersed young people, to allow them to post their own photos, videos and music, and to comment on the same from various points of view – peer to peer, author to public, or impresario to audience. We wanted to find a way to take the individual creative productivity that is associated with the Internet and combine it with the easy accessibility and openness to other people’s imagination that is associated with broadcasting; especially, in the context of young people, listening to the radio. So we called it the Youth Internet Radio Network, or YIRN.

Digital scholarship and pedagogy, the next step : cultural science.

There are two aspects to the problem of digital scholarship and pedagogy. One is to do with scholarship; the other with pedagogy. In scholarship, the association of knowledge with its printed form remains dominant. In pedagogy, the desire to abandon print for ‘new’ media is urgent, at least in some parts of the academy. Film and media studies are thus at the intersection of opposing forces – pulling the field ‘back’ to print and ‘forward’ to digital media. These tensions may be especially painful in a field whose own object of study is another form of communication, neither print nor digital but broadcast. Although print has been overtaken in the popular marketplace by audio-visual forms, this was never achieved in the domain of scholarship. Even when it is digitally distributed, the output of research is still a ‘paper.’ But meanwhile, in the realm of teaching, production- and practice-based pedagogy has become firmly established. Nevertheless a disjunction remains, between high-end scholarship in research universities and vocational training in teaching institutions; but neither is well equipped to deal with the digital challenge.

Likelihood-maximising frameworks for enhanced in-car speech recognition

Speech recognition in car environments has been identified as a valuable means for reducing driver distraction when operating non-critical in-car systems. Likelihood-maximising (LIMA) frameworks optimise speech enhancement algorithms based on recognised state sequences rather than traditional signal-level criteria such as maximising signal-to-noise ratio. Previously presented LIMA frameworks require calibration utterances to generate optimised enhancement parameters which are used for all subsequent utterances. Sub-optimal recognition performance occurs in noise conditions which are significantly different from that present during the calibration session - a serious problem in rapidly changing noise environments. We propose a dialog-based design which allows regular optimisation iterations in order to track the changing noise conditions. Experiments using Mel-filterbank spectral subtraction are performed to determine the optimisation requirements for vehicular environments and show that minimal optimisation assists real-time operation with improved speech recognition accuracy. It is also shown that the proposed design is able to provide improved recognition performance over frameworks incorporating a calibration session.

Mobile digital technology : emerging issues for marketing

The growth of direct marketing has been attributed to rapid advances in techn ology and the changing market context. The fundamental ability of direct marketers to communicate with consumers and to elicit a response, combined with the ubiquitous nature and power of mobile digital technology, provides a synergy that will increase the potential for the success of direct marketing. The aim of this paper is to provide an analytical framework identifying the developments in the digital environment from e-marketing to m-marketing, and to alert direct marketers to the enhanced capabilities available to them.

Cipher cities : effective user interface design for building a digital social network around location-based gaming

In this paper we explore what is required of a User Interface (UI) design in order to encourage participation around playing and creating Location-Based Games (LBGs). To base our research in practice, we present Cipher Cities, a web based system. Through the design of this system, we investigate how UI design can provide tools for complex content creation to compliment and encourage the use of mobile phones for designing, distributing, and playing LBGs. Furthermore we discuss how UI design can promote and support socialisation around LBGs through the design of functional interface components and services such as groups, user profiles, and player status listings.

E-Government and the digital divide

Many governments world wide are attempting to increase accountability, transparency, and the quality of services by adopting information and communications technologies (ICTs) to modernize and change the way their administrations work. Meanwhile e-government is becoming a significant decision-making and service tool at local, regional and national government levels. The vast majority of users of these government online services see significant benefits from being able to access services online. The rapid pace of technological development has created increasingly more powerful ICTs that are capable of radically transforming public institutions and private organizations alike. These technologies have proven to be extraordinarily useful instruments in enabling governments to enhance the quality, speed of delivery and reliability of services to citizens and to business (VanderMeer & VanWinden, 2003). However, just because the technology is available does not mean it is accessible to all. The term digital divide has been used since the 1990s to describe patterns of unequal access to ICTs—primarily computers and the Internet—based on income, ethnicity, geography, age, and other factors. Over time it has evolved to more broadly define disparities in technology usage, resulting from a lack of access, skills, or interest in using technology. This article provides an overview of recent literature on e-government and the digital divide, and includes a discussion on the potential of e-government in addressing the digital divide.

Power network in the loop : subsystem testing using a switching amplifier

“Hardware in the Loop” (HIL) testing is widely used in the automotive industry. The sophisticated electronic control units used for vehicle control are usually tested and evaluated using HIL-simulations. The HIL increases the degree of realistic testing of any system. Moreover, it helps in designing the structure and control of the system under test so that it works effectively in the situations that will be encountered in the system. Due to the size and the complexity of interaction within a power network, most research is based on pure simulation. To validate the performance of physical generator or protection system, most testing is constrained to very simple power network. This research, however, examines a method to test power system hardware within a complex virtual environment using the concept of the HIL. The HIL testing for electronic control units and power systems protection device can be easily performed at signal level. But performance of power systems equipments, such as distributed generation systems can not be evaluated at signal level using HIL testing. The HIL testing for power systems equipments is termed here as ‘Power Network in the Loop’ (PNIL). PNIL testing can only be performed at power level and requires a power amplifier that can amplify the simulation signal to the power level. A power network is divided in two parts. One part represents the Power Network Under Test (PNUT) and the other part represents the rest of the complex network. The complex network is simulated in real time simulator (RTS) while the PNUT is connected to the Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based power amplifier. Two way interaction between the simulator and amplifier is performed using analog to digital (A/D) and digital to analog (D/A) converters. The power amplifier amplifies the current or voltage signal of simulator to the power level and establishes the power level interaction between RTS and PNUT. In the first part of this thesis, design and control of a VSC based power amplifier that can amplify a broadband voltage signal is presented. A new Hybrid Discontinuous Control method is proposed for the amplifier. This amplifier can be used for several power systems applications. In the first part of the thesis, use of this amplifier in DSTATCOM and UPS applications are presented. In the later part of this thesis the solution of network in the loop testing with the help of this amplifier is reported. The experimental setup for PNIL testing is built in the laboratory of Queensland University of Technology and the feasibility of PNIL testing has been evaluated using the experimental studies. In the last section of this thesis a universal load with power regenerative capability is designed. This universal load is used to test the DG system using PNIL concepts. This thesis is composed of published/submitted papers that form the chapters in this dissertation. Each paper has been published or submitted during the period of candidature. Chapter 1 integrates all the papers to provide a coherent view of wide bandwidth switching amplifier and its used in different power systems applications specially for the solution of power systems testing using PNIL.

Connected digital cities

In the future we will have a detailed ecological model of the whole planet with capabilities to explore and predict the consequences of alternative futures. However, such a planetary eco-model will take time to develop, time to populate with data, and time to validate - time the planet doesn't have. In the interim, we can model the major concentrations of energy use and pollution - our cities - and connect them to form a "talking cities network". Such a networked city model would be much quicker to build and validate. And the advantage of this approach is that it is safer and more effective for us to interfere with the operation of our cities than to tamper directly with the behaviour of natural systems. Essentially, it could be thought of as providing the planet with a nervous system and would empower us to better develop and manage sustainable cities.

Digital storytelling as participatory public history in Australia

This chapter discusses digital storytelling as a methodology for participatory public history through a detailed reflection on an applied research project that integrated both public history and digital storytelling in the context of a new master-planned urban development: the Kelvin Grove Urban Village Sharing Stories project.

Amphibian

Amphibian is an 10’00’’ musical work which explores new musical interfaces and approaches to hybridising performance practices from the popular music, electronic dance music and computer music traditions. The work is designed to be presented in a range of contexts associated with the electro-acoustic, popular and classical music traditions. The work is for two performers using two synchronised laptops, an electric guitar and a custom designed gestural interface for vocal performers - the e-Mic (Extended Mic-stand Interface Controller). This interface was developed by one of the co-authors, Donna Hewitt. The e-Mic allows a vocal performer to manipulate the voice in real time through the capture of physical gestures via an array of sensors - pressure, distance, tilt - along with ribbon controllers and an X-Y joystick microphone mount. Performance data are then sent to a computer, running audio-processing software, which is used to transform the audio signal from the microphone. In this work, data is also exchanged between performers via a local wireless network, allowing performers to work with shared data streams. The duo employs the gestural conventions of guitarist and singer (i.e. 'a band' in a popular music context), but transform these sounds and gestures into new digital music. The gestural language of popular music is deliberately subverted and taken into a new context. The piece thus explores the nexus between the sonic and performative practices of electro acoustic music and intelligent electronic dance music (‘idm’). This work was situated in the research fields of new musical interfacing, interaction design, experimental music composition and performance. The contexts in which the research was conducted were live musical performance and studio music production. The work investigated new methods for musical interfacing, performance data mapping, hybrid performance and compositional practices in electronic music. The research methodology was practice-led. New insights were gained from the iterative experimental workshopping of gestural inputs, musical data mapping, inter-performer data exchange, software patch design, data and audio processing chains. In respect of interfacing, there were innovations in the design and implementation of a novel sensor-based gestural interface for singers, the e-Mic, one of the only existing gestural controllers for singers. This work explored the compositional potential of sharing real time performance data between performers and deployed novel methods for inter-performer data exchange and mapping. As regards stylistic and performance innovation, the work explored and demonstrated an approach to the hybridisation of the gestural and sonic language of popular music with recent ‘post-digital’ approaches to laptop based experimental music The development of the work was supported by an Australia Council Grant. Research findings have been disseminated via a range of international conference publications, recordings, radio interviews (ABC Classic FM), broadcasts, and performances at international events and festivals. The work was curated into the major Australian international festival, Liquid Architecture, and was selected by an international music jury (through blind peer review) for presentation at the International Computer Music Conference in Belfast, N. Ireland.