Remix Theory

Really enjoying these videos by Kirby Ferguson on Remix Theory. The content doesn't explicitly link in with my area of the essay or presentation but none-the-less, what excellently produced content here. So informative as well.


Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.


Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.


Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

How much tech can children take? | Analysis | Features | PC Pro

How much tech can children take? | Analysis | Features | PC Pro

This is an article I found in PC Pro that links in with my previous post about technology overload on the youth generation.

Louis.

Technology is affecting today's youth

This is a point I've addressed in detail in my section of the academic essay about challenges to society. Kids and students are growing up and adapting into an education system that champions the use of VLEs, online resources, educational television channels, podcasts, e-learning websites like BBC bite size too. Through using all this new media content online, this youth generation is becoming a lot more tech savvy and thus they have more knowledge of technology and media than their elders.

This is a real challenge because without so much life experience, this youth generation is more naive than their elders, but without well-informed support from their elders, the media can work in a way similar to the hypodermic syringe theory and infuse the youth with questionable ideologies.

Also, with so much social media and technology like video games converging so that high scores can be posted online in a 'braggodocian' manner (as Eric Qualman states in Socialnomics, with today's social media users competing for the best status), sure there is a competitive element but ultimately this communication and activity is happening alone, with the youth generation failing to develop sound social skills. It links in with technology overload.. there is so much choice of content/media to consume, it is acting as a real distraction.

I feel this video is a great illustration of behaviour that varies across the world but behaviour that is informed by different cultures, and I think what we are seeing the UK is similar to the USA. Do enjoy.



Louis.

Louis' Reading Material

As I've been researching for my 'Challenges that media convergence presents for creative industries and society' section of the group essay, I've been engrossed in various books and I've been actively reading a number of websites' content.

One of the key books that has informed my writing is Socialnomics by Eric Qualman. The book explores how social media is transforming the way we live and do business. It delves into how social media actually makes us more productive, how it can be used to market products and keep in contact with friends. It offers a real insight into the ever-developing online social landscape and it is interesting to deduce the opportunities and challenges it presents to both the individual and the business.

Another piece of literature I've particularly enjoyed is a book called Get Noticed by Marcus Taylor and Rob Lawrence. Marcus is a pal of mine anyway and it was a joy to read his new book - a great follow up to "The Musicians Guide To World Domination": a really insightful book into how up-and-coming musicians should go about promoting themselves in the music industry. One of the sections in The Musicians Guide actually talks about mailing lists and fan groups on social media so that is relevant to today's project.
Get Noticed, however, is totally relevant to my research on social media. The ethos of the book is to teach and inform readers how to get noticed in a world where 'who you know' plays a crucial role in getting anywhere. The chapter for getting noticed online was particularly helpful and I did pick up an incredibly useful statistic about how crucial human communication is, rather than communicating through a computer where you loose a massive amount of communicative power through body language.

Other reading materials that have influenced my viewpoint on media convergence include the new 'Creative Documentary' book by Wilma De Jong, Eric Knudsen and Jerry Rothwell. I learnt a great deal about technological convergence and how film-makers can harness new technology to produce excellent content in the digital age.

Slightly aside from the Media Convergence subject I have been enjoying a new book by Paul Hollins and Paul Chandler called Hang the DJ?, which, as a Radio Presenter, is a crucial read! It offers an insight into the potential pitfalls a presenter could make on air that can result in huge court cases and financial settlements. What comments could be considered libellous? What is acceptable on air conduct? It's a read that goes hand in hand with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, but having the real life examples of where thing's have gone wrong illustrates how crucial it is to know the game and play it faultlessly.
It's also interesting to read that book alongside the media convergence course, with:

• Technology convergence
• Economy convergence
• Audience convergence
• Content convergence

It doesn't matter how much advance is made in these areas, if something is said out of place, it could upset the whole balance. 

For online research I've been actively searching the MediaGuardian website which is crammed full of the latest and biggest media stories. I like the Guardian's standpoint on these issues as well. Interestingly the comment section is useful to take a look at because it goes hand in hand with our studies on participatory audiences. 

I've also been really captivated by the recent episodes of two podcasts, The Media Show from Radio 4 and RadioTalk from the Radio Academy. Both shows are extremely well produced and feature excellent guests, who's opinions on complex media and radio topics create a really engrossing listen. 

All of the various resources I have mentioned above have really helped my studies into media convergence.

Louis.

Source material:

Qualman, E (2009.) Socialnomics. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Taylor, M., & Lawrence, R. (2011.) Get Noticed 

de Jong, W., Knudsen, E., Rothwell, J. (2012.) Creative Documentary. Hawlow: Pearson Education Limited

Hollins, P,. & Chantlet, P. (2011) Hang The DJ?. Marston Gate: Amazon.co.uk, Ltd.,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media

http://www.radioacademy.org/podcasts/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/media

Group Meeting

The group had a meeting today to discuss plans for the presentation next week. Each group member has been working on a section of an academic essay about the opportunities and challenges media convergences presents.

The breakdown of sections looks like this:

What is Media Convergence? - Alistair Dickson

Opportunities - Dorit Vaknine

Challenges - Louis Chadwick

Impact on Society - Steven Alex Quinn


It's going to be great to translate the essay writing into a presentation, adding more information, graphics, audio and video to make really enhance the visuals of the keynote.

Interview completed

Alistair and Louis went along to Dreamscope Production yesterday to film with Darren Hutchinson. They were keen to ask Darren about his projects and explore whether the way he works these days is different to that of a decade ago.

They questioned Darren about the impact of social media in the television and radio landscape of today, they also explored the challenges that face broadcasters at this current time. The interview is now being edited, here is a little peek at some of the content

Media convergence is your friend... if you're Radio 1

The last blog I posted, about the impact of social media marketing for radio, was an insight into how one avenue of todays new media arena has provided an opportunity to benefit broadcasters. But just the one avenue: social media.

I’m quite keen to probe into how two successful broadcasters are using (or not using, quite incidentally) and them delve into how one of them is leading the way in online and interactive presence.

The two stations I’d like to look at are actually BBC ones, but I feel their audiences represent two distinct demographics, which in turn will illustrate who is responding not just the rudimentary output on air, but also their cross-media content.

Let’s begin:

Criteria	BBC Radio 1	BBC Radio 2
Target audience	15 - 29	25+
Audience share (of 51,951,000 in UK -RAJAR SEPT 2011)	9.1%	15.9%
	http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php
How much of that audience has listened/is listening online?	7,852,484 live listening requests in Sept 2011	5,197,388 live listening request in Sept 2011
Average unique website browsers (web surfers)	2,314,357 in Sept 11	382,988 in Sept 11
	http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/siteusage/#notes
Facebook fans	921,848, with 12,532 people ‘talking about this’ at time of writing	13,241 with 817 people ‘talking about this’ at time of writing
Twitter followers	274,126	44,343
Visualisation	Webcam stream for shows, interviews, live lounge streams. Videos available on demand access to content after broadcast.	Pre-packaged videos available after certain events. Prominent gig features available – eg. currently Jo Whiley’s special with Elbow.
BBC Red Button visuals	Regular use for Chris Moyles’ one-off shows and special outside broadcast / live events.	Nothing springs to mind… thoughts?
Blogs	Active blogging from presenters, inc Greg James, Chris Moyles team. Specialist music blogs too.	Chris Evans and Simon Mayo blogs prominent. Specialist music blogs available.
Podcasts	Chris Moyles, Scott Mills, Zane Lowe and other specialist shows.	Chris Evans, Steve Wright, Wogan and other specialist content
Interactivity on air	Texts, tweets and facebook comments, phone calls.	Texts, tweets and facebook comments. Also letters and emails sent in, phone calls too.

Right let’s cut that for the moment, what are we learning here? There’s a lot of information there that gives a good overview of how Radio 1 and Radio 2 are spreading themselves across multiple platforms.

Both of them are doing excellently considering you don’t have to go back far until you hit a point where radio was just radio. Social media hadn’t even been thought of and what you heard on FM was the be all and end all.

However looking at things now, it’s absolutely clear to see that Radio 1 are leading the way when it comes to sharing content. We’ll leave Radio 2 aside for just a moment… Like I said in a previous blog post, ‘Listen, watch, share’ (their new slogan) are three words that capture everything Radio 1 currently champion.

•  Listen: I tweeted earlier this afternoon –

@sirchaddy: post for our media blog: social media is your friend, if you're radio 1. Amazing stats..but they're empty stats- love the output regardless

Radio 1’s output has always been at the top of its game when it comes to providing exciting, relatable content for an audience of 15-29yr old people. No amount of technology, social media or cross-platform content is going to change the great on-air sound (it may enhance it, or give them a different angle for broadcast) but at the end of the day, you need the base of a cake before you sprinkle the sweets on – in essence, you need the quality radio to start with. 

• Watch: This is where technological convergence is entering the radio environment. Over the last 5 years, you’ll have noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of air-time that is given to the promotion of Radio 1’s online videos, their red button stream and the webcam. Every other link seems to be: “go to our website and see the video of this”… “hit the red button and see us doing that”, and so on. Take the Marathon show – I sat there, avidly watching Moyles and his team attempt to stay on air for 50 hours for Comic Relief, what a great achievement. But would it been as emphatic if we couldn’t see their emotions, struggles and guests on television or online? I doubt it. The visualisation team at Radio 1 are enhancing the experience of radio quite dramatically and I think it’s making for, overall, more enjoyable consumption of radio.

• Share: “Go to our website and see the video of this”… “hit the red button and see us doing that” – It’s only any good producing all this fantastic content if audiences are going to go and consume it! The beautiful thing for Radio 1 is their tech-savvy young target audience  - this is where the stats for web listening, browsing, facebook fans and twitter followers really play a part in Radio 1’s ethos. I don’t think Radio 2 could pull off half the visualisation projects that Radio 1 can because they haven't engaged their audience in a receptive way, yet..

However, in a world where ‘two-screen media’ is the norm (ie. when you watch the TV, do you have your laptop on too?) it’s a similar principle with radio. When you listen to the radio over breakfast, are you checking twitter and facebook on your phone or laptop? The answer, on the whole, is yes, and that yes probability is significantly heightened if you’re a 15-29yr old Radio 1 listener. In this respect, the Listen, Watch, Share branding is spot on and their current ethos is seriously resonating well with the audience they have. 

Okay, time to flip this on it's head for just a second. Radio 1's average listener is 32 years old - that fits in Radio 2's bracket, and if they're sharing content readily, then Radio 2 could potentially be missing out on a whole gold-mine of listeners who would happily re-post, re-tweet and generally share their amazing content. To push that thought even further, in todays world, who even knows where sharing stops? This links back to the point I made in my last blog about Facebook users - the largest growing segment of users on Facebook is over 35... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090330091555.htm Surely there's some work to be done here for Radio 2.


So where media convergence is an opportunity for Radio 1, it is a challenge for Radio 2 - a station with a bigger audience but less of a grasp of its online interactive market. I don't think we live in a world anymore where any broadcaster can say "our audience is not interested in cross-media content". We have come on so far from those days of purely FM radio and we are continuing to develop how much multi-platform content we create.
If I was a programme controller I wouldn't be looking for standard radio shows, I'd be looking for a cross-media package with the radio show driving it. That seems to be Radio 1's way of doing things, not seeing it so much for Radio 2...

Louis.

Essay plan - Challenges

I did some thinking on the train last night about what I could include in the 'Challenges' section of the essay that I am concentrating on. From the various literature I had on me, I found a couple of sources but highlighted some key areas to comment on:

Challenges:

• ·      Technology is confusing
• ·      Copyright issues for institutions
• ·      People beginning to lack important social skills as a result of communicating electronically.
• ·      It’s expensive keeping up with today’s technology
• ·      Hard for audiences to keep up with advancing tech / more cross-platform media
• ·      Print industry loosing money year on year
• ·      Online products inaccessible to some areas of the UK
• o   http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/01/home-broadband-download-17-gigabytes
• ·      Media institutions becoming bullies – eg. X factor exploiting contestants
• ·      Lack of mediation
• ·      Increasing competition across all platforms
• ·      Syndication of programming means job cuts – how do insititutions then expect to improve with less talent at their disposal?
• ·      Audience fragmentation
• ·      Confusion between secondary and primary media
• ·      How does the tabloid press re-establish a good name after scandals?
• ·      How do small institutions keep up with the advances large companies in the same market are making?
• ·      Citizen journalism making an impact on large press journalism.

 Television is the main platform, integrated with the (mobile) phone platform for audience feedback, and supplemented by the web platform. (see BBC)

A convergent media infrastructure is composed of practices, artefacts and social arrangements (Star & Bowker).

Redefining resources: 1) audience as a resource; 2) recycle and reuse your resources (assets)

Doyle, G. (2010). From Television to Multi- Platform: Less from More or More for Less? Convergence, 16(4), pp. 431-449.


Louis.