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.

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.

Australian Television and International Mediascapes

This book addresses current debates about globalization and culture by tracing the emergence of Australia as a significant exporter of television to the world market. The authors investigate why Australian programs have found international popularity. The book describes the Australian industry and the international television marketplace. It also examines the impact of Australian programs on the television cultures of the importing countries. The authors outline policy implications and speculate on future directions of Australian television.

New Patterns in Global Television : Peripheral Vision

Over recent decades, the flow of television programmes and services between nations has prompted concerns about `Cultural Imperialism', the idea that the powerful metropolitan nations at the centre of the world system are breaking down the integrity and autonomy of the peripheral countries. New Patterns in Global Television challenges that notion by showing that some of the countries outside the traditionally dominant centres have now developed strong television industries of their own, and have been expanding into regional markets, especially - but not exclusively - where linguistic and cultural similarities exist. This book brings together contributions from specialist researchers on the most dynamic of these regions: Latin America, India, the Middle East, Greater China and, in the English-speaking world, Canada and Australia. It provides the first comprehensive overview of the new patterns of flow in international television programme exchange and service provision in the satellite era, patterns unrecognised by the perspective of the prevailing theoretical orthodoxies in international communication research and policy.

2006 International digital art awards : Beijing film academy galleries, China

The field was the curation of new media within large-scale exhibition practice for Chinese audiences. The context was improved understandings of the intertwining cultures and concerns of Chinese and Western contemporary practitioners. The research uncovered a range of connective and dialogical concerns around cultural displacement and re-identification, germane to the chosen group of media artists. The methodology was principally practice-led. The research brought together 31 practitioners from Asian, European and Australasian cultures within a major highly visible Chinese exhibition context. By identifying and promoting a distinct commonality within difference amongst the diverse practitioners the exhibition successfully activated a global dialogue that incorporated environmental and cultural identity agendas within a major Chinese educational and public context - thereby promulgating cross-cultural understanding, despite the often oppressive shadowing of domestic political processes. The project was developed under the international aegis of IDA Projects (established since 1999) and was substantially supported by the Fine Art Department of the Beijing Film Academy, QUT Precincts and Platform China Art Institute. It built upon IDA’s 2005 inaugural new media exhibition at the ‘Today Art’ Museum in Beijing – now recognised as one of the leading art spaces in China. Numerous peer-reviewed grants won included the Australian Embassy in China and the Australia China Council. Through subsequent invitations from external curators the work then traveled in a range of reconfigured formats to other major venues including the Block Gallery at QUT, Brisbane and ZAIM Artspace, Yokohama Japan. A major catalogue with authoritative essays was also printed.

Visualizing digital media interactions : providing feedback on jam2jam AV performances

Instrumental music performance is a well-established case of real-time interaction with technology and, when extended to ensembles, of interaction with others. However, these interactions are fleeting and the opportunities to reflect on action is limited, even though audio and video recording has recently provided important opportunities in this regard. In this paper we report on research to further extend these reflective opportunities through the capture and visualization of gestural data collected during collaborative virtual performances; specifically using the digital media instrument Jam2jam AV and the specifically-developed visualization software Jam2jam AV Visualize. We discusses how such visualization may assist performance development and understanding. The discussion engages with issues of representation, authenticity of virtual experiences, intersubjectivity and wordless collaboration, and creativity support. Two usage scenarios are described showing that collaborative intent is evident in the data visualizations more clearly than in audio-visual recordings alone, indicating that the visualization of performance gestures can be an efficient way of identifying deliberate and co-operative performance behaviours.

Rethinking public service media and citizenship : digital strategies for news and current affairs at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)

This article considers the concept of media citizenship in relation to the digital strategies of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). At SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, there is a critical appraisal of its strategies to harness user-created content (UCC) and social media to promote greater audience participation through its news and current affairs Web sites. The article looks at the opportunities and challenges that user-related content presents for public service media organizations as they consolidate multiplatform service delivery. Also analyzed are the implications of radio and television broadcasters’ moves to develop online services. It is proposed that case study methodologies enable an understanding of media citizenship to be developed that maintains a focus on the interaction between delivery technologies, organizational structures and cultures, and program content that is essential for understanding the changing focus of 21st-century public service media.

Rethinking public service media and citizenship: digital strategies for news and current affairs at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service

This article considers the concept of media citizenship in relation to the digital strategies of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). At SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, there is a critical appraisal of its strategies to harness user-created content (UCC) and social media to promote greater audience participation through its news and current affairs Web sites. The article looks at the opportunities and challenges that user-created content presents for public service media organizations as they consolidate multiplatform service delivery. Also analyzed are the implications of radio and television broadcasters’ moves to develop online services. It is proposed that case study methodologies enable an understanding of media citizenship to be developed that maintains a focus on the interaction between delivery technologies, organizational structures and cultures, and program content that is essential for understanding the changing focus of 21st-century public service media.

Digital dawn : a revolution in movie distribution?

How will the digital technology revolution impact the movie business? Hollywood developed a highly successful industrial system that has functioned well for almost a century in the sense that it enabled the Major film studios to largely control and dominate the industry. However, the new digital technology may now be propelling Hollywood toward the biggest technological transition since the creation of the studio system almost a century ago. For example, Major Hollywood studios are already beginning to provide video-on-demand (VOD) digital distribution of movies over the Internet. This article examines what is happening, and why. It sets out the background and the incipient changes already occurring. It makes an argument regarding the fundamental strategic dynamics, that acetate film was the key to the control of the Hollywood system, and speculates about how a shift away from acetate film to digital video may transform that system. The focus is on the impact on how the Major studios release and market their movies, and how new market and marketing opportunities for the low-budget independent filmmaking sector may arise.

Analysing the effect of digital technology on channel strategy, power and disintermediation in the home video market : the demise of the video store?

The antecedents of channel power (e.g. El-Ansary and Stern, 1972) and the impact of channel structure ( e.g. Anderson and Narus,1984) on channel dynamics have long been important topics within the channel literature. In addition to the theoretical and methodological contributions, research in these areas has helped channel managers to understand how power is generated and used in coordinating distribution strategies in different contexts. The study presented in this paper builds upon these previous literatures, which are first briefly reviewed below.

What is television for?

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Digital broadcasting : a double edge sword in protecting children from disturbing news content

New technologies have the potential to both expose children to and protect them from television news footage likely to disturb or frighten. The advent of cheap, portable and widely available digital technology has vastly increased the possibility of violent news events being captured and potentially broadcast. This material has the potential to be particularly disturbing and harmful to young children. But on the flipside, available digital technology could be used to build in protection for young viewers especially when it comes to preserving scheduled television programming and guarding against violent content being broadcast during live crosses from known trouble spots. Based on interviews with news directors, parents and a review of published material two recommendations are put forward: 1. Digital television technology should be employed to prevent news events "overtaking" scheduled children's programming and to protect safe harbours placed in the classifications zones to protect children. 2. Broadcasters should regain control of the images that go to air during "live" feeds from obviously volatile situations by building in short delays in G classification zones.

YouTube versus the national film and sound archive: Which is the more useful resource for historians of Australian television?

This article compares YouTube and the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) as resources for television historians interested in viewing old Australian television programs. The author searched for seventeen important television programs, identified in a previous research project, to compare what was available in the two archives and how easy it was to find. The analysis focused on differences in curatorial practices of accessioning and cataloguing. NFSA is stronger in current affairs and older programs, while YouTube is stronger in game shows and lifestyle programs. YouTube is stronger than the NFSA on “human interest” material—births, marriages, and deaths. YouTube accessioning more strongly accords with popular histories of Australian television. Both NFSA and YouTube offer complete episodes of programs, while YouTube also offers many short clips of “moments.” YouTube has more surprising pieces of rare ephemera. YouTube cataloguing is more reliable than that of the NFSA, with fewer broken links. The YouTube metadata can be searched more intuitively. The NFSA generally provides more useful reference information about production and broadcast dates.

The digital Dark Ages : a retro-speculative history of possible futures

The Dark Ages are generally held to be a time of technological and intellectual stagnation in western development. But that is not necessarily the case. Indeed, from a certain perspective, nothing could be further from the truth. In this paper we draw historical comparisons, focusing especially on the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, between the technological and intellectual ruptures in Europe during the Dark Ages, and those of our current period. Our analysis is framed in part by Harold Innis’s2 notion of "knowledge monopolies". We give an overview of how these were affected by new media, new power struggles, and new intellectual debates that emerged in thirteenth and fourteenth century Europe. The historical salience of our focus may seem elusive. Our world has changed so much, and history seems to be an increasingly far-from-favoured method for understanding our own period and its future potentials. Yet our seemingly distant historical focus provides some surprising insights into the social dynamics that are at work today: the fracturing of established knowledge and power bases; the democratisation of certain "sacred" forms of communication and knowledge, and, conversely, the "sacrosanct" appropriation of certain vernacular forms; challenges and innovations in social and scientific method and thought; the emergence of social world-shattering media practices; struggles over control of vast networks of media and knowledge monopolies; and the enclosure of public discursive and social spaces for singular, manipulative purposes. The period between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in Europe prefigured what we now call the Enlightenment, perhaps moreso than any other period before or after; it shaped what the Enlightenment was to become. We claim no knowledge of the future here. But in the "post-everything" society, where history is as much up for sale as it is for argument, we argue that our historical perspective provides a useful analogy for grasping the wider trends in the political economy of media, and for recognising clear and actual threats to the future of the public sphere in supposedly democratic societies.