They have ‘undertaken initiatives’ to build collaboration between researchers, service providers and external universities.

http://eresearch.griffith.edu.au/

The Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative agrees on many of these key themes, defining eResearch as:
a) eResearch enables researchers to collaboratively accomplish studies that are beyond the scope of individuals
b) eResearch enables the processing and sharing of data in quantities that has never been possible before

Some examples of their existing eResearch activities in the humanities are:

3D imaging of Cultural Objects
Bringing Melbourne and La Trobe universities together, as well as the Australian Institute of Archaeology to working to find a solution to ‘issues of access to and the preservation of material artefacts are presenting challenging problems to institutional cultural collections.’ They are doing this through an internal infrastructure cloud storage system. They are also engaging with traditional research and debate about the best way to store artifacts in 3D and to maintain their social/political value as much as possible in that form.

People and Place
La Trobe University and funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) consolidated a variety of discrete archaeological databases into a larger public database, which will contribute to the ANDS Research Data Australia Collection.

Political Issues Analysis System
Funded as a seed project by the University of Melbourne’s Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society (IBES), VeRSI is investigating the ways people interact with political information on the internet by evaluating their decision-making and deliberative processes. Doing this by testing users’ needs, illuminating the online tools that are proving useful and identifying what tools still need to be developed to assist users searching for information online.

Youth Research Centre
The University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education has conducted a study looking at the life patterns of Gen X high school leavers compared to Gen Y graduates. VeRSI are working to improve the quantitative research process by helping the centre to enable wider access and use of the data; to streamline the capture of new data; to build capacity to respond to requests for derived data sets; and to develop tools which will capture the relevant metadata, extracting it from workflows.

Video Data Capture
The University of Melbourne and VeRSI are developing an automated video system, which will add metadata capture from future and existing video footage and store it in standardized deposit services for use around the university.

[https://www.versi.edu.au/versi-projects/humanities-projects]

The Manchester eResearch Centre (UK) is pursuing two strands of work, Applications and Social Shapings. Applications seeks to develop an enabling information and communications infrastructure for social scientists, while Social shaping hopes to adopt a social studies of science and technology approach to understanding e-social science is being developed, used and its implications for scientific practices and research outcomes.

[http://www.merc.ac.uk]

The National Centre for e-Social Sciences (UK) describe the key goals of ‘e-social science’ as:
a) Improved access
b) Better collaboration across different sites
c) Link Data for richer results
d) Save time

[http://www.ncess.ac.uk/]

Intersect NSW, uses the term ‘eResearch’ to refer to the application of advanced information and communication technologies to the practice of research. It enhances existing research processes, making them more efficient and effective, and it enables new kinds of research processes. They determine that key areas include high-performance computing, data management and access, collaboration, networking and security.

[http://www.intersect.org.au/]

eResearch SA considers ‘eResearch’ to be a broad and fluid term which is usually characterized by collaboration and facilitated by fast, high capacity networks, the range of eResearch activities is diverse and multi-disciplinary. Like many, they consider it covers four core areas,
a) Data storage and access
b) Collaborative tools (instant messaging onwards, video chat, and onwards) allowing multiple researchers to conduct research at a more detailed level and larger scale than previously possible.
c) Data infrastructure capable of visualizing complicated data
d) Time savings in traditional research methods

In Australia, the idea of eResearch has largely focused around developing tools and services which support four key aims. These aims are firstly, improved data storage and access (ie, consolidating data into a central site or storing large amounts of data in a commonly accessible ‘cloud’). Secondly, the development and implementation of collaborative tools (such as instant messaging, video chat, and social document drafting). Thirdly, developing data infrastructure capable of visualising complicated data. And fourthly, developing digital workflows which create efficiencies in existing research methods. Adoption of these tools and services has been highly variable across research disciplines.

The Federal Government had over many years supported various information infrastructure initiatives, and launched an eResearch Coordinating Committee which reported in April 2007.  The resulting activities from those programs are now managed by the Department of Innovation Industry Science and Research.

Key was the development of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy in 2005, which realised that systemic infrastructure could not be developed from small project competitive grant schemes. NCRIS identified 16 key capability areas in a wide range of (but not all) disciplines for targeted investment of $542million over 2005-2011.

One of the NCRIS capability areas is the use of eResearch to support Australian research disciplines and institutions, and led to the formation of the Platforms-for-Collaboration program, funded with $82million. PfC identified the key areas for investment as:

• High-performance computing, through the National Computational Infrastructure
• Collaboration tools and services, through the Australian Research Collaboration Service
• Research data management, preservation and access, through the Australian National Data Service
• Connectivity through networks managed by AARNet
• Authentication and Authorisation services for access control, through the Australian Access Federation.

In 2009 an additional $312million was allocated for 2009-2013 for the nation’s eResearch infrastructure and services developments.

The infrastructure and services are delivered through the above national programs in partnerships with major state-based initiatives such as Intersect in NSW.

eResearch Support Groups and initiatives

Victorian State eResearch Support Group
Very ‘Science’ orientated, but strong focus on developing collaborative practice and acknowledges the value and blossoming interest in the humanities, arts and social sciences.
http://versi.edu.au/

eResearch SA
A collaborative joint venture between University of Adelaide, Flinders University, and the University of South Australia. Follows the usual ‘Collaboration, data management and sharing, high performance computing across disciplines’ line, but with the addition of visualization and haptics. Background seems rooted in IT and Science.
http://www.ersa.edu.au/

National initiative
http://www.eresearch.edu.au/

NSW State eResearch Support Group
A not-for-profit company established by a variety of universities, focused on the application of eResearch in the Humanities, arts, social sciences.
http://www.intersect.org.au/

National Centre for e-Social Science UK
This website is archived and is not maintained. See below for current initiative.
http://www.ncess.ac.uk/

Manchester eResearch Centre
Similar themes are expressed as Australian Universities, but not a lot of substantial theoretical or practice detail. Their priorities are
http://www.merc.ac.uk/

Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation
A non-profit foundation with six member universities; University of Queensland, James Cook University, Griffith, QUT, University of Southern Queensland, CQ University and the University of the Sunshine Coast. Seems heavily ICT Infrastructure focused.
http://www.qcif.edu.au/

Conferences

eResearch Australasia 2010
The University of Queensland eResearch committee seems to have organized this event, exploring a humanities approach to eResearch.
http://www.arcs.org.au/index.php/component/content/article/66-information/385-eres10-evo

eResearch Australasia 2011
Website for their forthcoming conference in November, this time in melbourne.
http://conference.eresearch.edu.au/

Other

Common international synonyms “e-Science” in UK or “Cyberinfastructure” in US.

EVO
EVO@AU is a desktop collaboration tool developed specifically for academic purposes by the QCIF from above.

For more information: http://www.qcif.edu.au/node/108

Claims of fragmentation and an independent audience

In the late 2000s, a great deal of research around audiences and media consumption argued we were moving into a world of increasingly fragmented audiences, as users were able to engage with a multitude of media modes in a variety of devices and contexts. Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture was perhaps the best argued example of this strain of thought, which is well respected both colloquially and empirically. Back then I wrote a paper arguing that the popularity of DVD Box Sets, iTunes sales, torrent traffic, TiVo and (then brand new) services like ABC’s iView and the US Hulu were evidence of audience fragmentation. Suggesting that as traditional media producers were directly remunerated for their work, it would have significant effects for traditional broadcast/distribution networks as well as advertisers. This wasn’t to say traditional TV networks would cease to exist, however I suggested their role in commissioning content would be somewhat reduced as smaller production companies and television studios could be directly funded by niche audiences who subscribed to particular programmes. This train of thought found its roots in the explosion of high quality, niche drama which began to be produced during the 2000s by subscription based US cable channels such as HBO (think shows like The Sopranos, 1999; Sex and the City, 1998; Mad Men, 2007; Weeds, 2005; Dexter, 2006; Californication, 2007… the list goes on). These programmes were lauded for their unusual stories, complex characters and high level of production artistry. It was as if television had finally grown up, thinking of itself as a peer to the cinema rather than its poor nephew. To achieve this, these programmes were given substantial budgets with comparatively less network oversight to which large numbers of individual audience members responded – voting with their dollar (through cable subscriptions, DVD sales, etc).

This reading of the contemporary television landscape as one which is fragmenting is firmly built on the conceptual foundation advocated by theorsists such as de Certeau; Fiske and Hartley; Ang; Penley; and Hall, Morley & Chen, who argued that the massified concepts of audience used in mass media for so long did not reflect the actual composition of individuals who engaged in their media. To say that all women over 30 will want to watch Martha Stewart is overly simplistic, and negates the unique and individual preferences of thousands of people. Commentators and researchers alike saw the simultaneous shift towards both a demassified conception of audience and technologies which enabled individual control of media consumption as evidence of an inevitable shift away from “appointment television” (a historical term developed by advertisers to characterise the kind of programmes audience members would plane their schedules around) towards deeply fragmented audiences.

The social intervention

Significantly, this kind of carte blanche individualisation of audience consumption does not appear to have continued at the rate predicted. I suggest that as real-time, public and mobile social networks have grown in size and relevance to those very same television viewers, we have actually seen a resurgence in appointment television. How could these platforms have dragged audiences kicking and screaming back to someone else’s schedule? The easy answer is; they haven’t. People have always found value in the idea of communally sharing experiences, which is exactly the added value that has seen large numbers of Australians come together at a scheduled time. Historically this shared experience has been one confined to your own living room, and organising a communal experience has been difficult or bothersome (only truly special occasions warranted the effort, like Grand Finals, Election nights or programme finales). Due to tools like Twitter, there is no longer an effort cost for partaking in this communal experience. This is a view shared by Twitter’s Robin Sloane,

“[In the last 18 months], I think we actually saw the pendulum swing back toward things like shared experiences, back toward live TV. I think Twitter, of course, is one of the things that drove this”

Indeed a recent study by Deloitte of 2000 American consumers aged 14 to 75 found that 42 percent sometimes surfed the Internet while watching TV, and 26 percent sometimes sent instant messages or texts. However, not all television programmes are feeling the benefit of this internet enabled communal experience. I’d argue a degree of tension and uncertainty is fundamental to a programme becoming appointment viewing—as is often seen in competitions, live programmes, award shows or reality television. Sloane suggests this kind of “synchronous tweeting” can be leveraged by media producers in a number of ways, such as simply featuring the nominated hashtag on the programme, right through to actively contributing alternative perspectives, narratives, questions/answers or commentary to the backchannel—as such expanding the media product as a whole into the social space. An idea he describes as “sort of like a new, live [and interactive] DVD commentary track”, with a great recent example being conducted by MTV and Stamen for their annual VMAs. The producers of the media also stand to gain substantially from this extra effort, as those engaging in the converstion do so publicly—and as such the hype and content of their conversational energy is likely to spread amongst their networks and attract members of their broader network to share the experience.

Aside from major events and live shows, programmes which have very specific subcultural or demographic roots also seem to foster the right conditions for a back-channel to form. The greatest example of this in the Australian context is ABC’s Good Game, whose hosts have taken to “live tweeting” episodes along with their young, tech-savvy audience. I spoke to one of them, Hex, about how the production team approaches their presence on Twitter and what effect they believed it to be having on their audience. Saying,

“[Live tweeting] gives [the audience] a chance to participate in something with us, but it also allows us to get an immediate response from people of what they’ve seen, what they liked or didn’t… what they found funny, etc. And from this, we can discuss these reactions and responses and if necessary make adjustments to the content or the way we do things in future episodes. It’s also just really nice to be able to witness positive responses to the show in real time – which isn’t a luxury we’ve had in television [before].”

Ian Schafer, the chief executive of the digital agency Deep Focus agrees, recently telling The New York Times that Twitter and Facebook messages about TV programs may well be “the most efficient way to drive tune-in.” Schafer said he observes it when a news segment catches his attention or a basketball game is in overtime.

“I’ll say on Twitter or Facebook, ‘You have got to tune into ‘Nightline’ or ‘60 Minutes’ right now,’ and then I’ll get people saying, ‘Oh, thanks for alerting me,’ ” he said.

However, it is important to note that it is difficult to empirically assess whether the backchannel has directly improved ratings, however Hex suggests “I feel like it certainly strengthens the viewership that we already have.”

Why should producers care, and what do they stand to gain?

Twitter recently unveiled an Australia specific “Trending Topics”, which gives us a great insight into the Australian context. Within this location specific set of terms, it was surprising to see just how regularly television programmes featured. It is also interesting to note there was substantial correlation between television programmes which received high ratings (particularly those which “won the night” according to OzTam/Nielson) and those which had been popular discussion topics on Twitter that evening. Examples include Ten’s MasterChef and MasterChef Junior, ABC’s Q&A, and earlier episodes of Nine’s Hey Hey its Saturday. Indeed, I have also spoken to people who have suddenly found themselves watching Question Time on a regular basis as a result of the vibrancy of conversation which accompanies it through these networks.

Beyond this correlation, there seems to be mounting evidence that real-time, public and mobile networks are supporting a move towards appointment viewing. Sloane argues that integrating Twitter into a show’s overall strategy can dramatically affect ratings. Citing a test conducted by Oxygen media, who held a “social viewing party” for Bad Girls Club viewers finding that on the East Coast, ratings went up 92%. The same show on the West Coast, which didn’t have a social viewing party, only went up 14%. “A Twitter strategy,” Sloan argues, “is just as important as focusing the lights and charging up the microphones.” This is a view shared by Mark Scott, the Managing Director of the ABC, who recently said he felt the use of Twitter on Q&A ”reinforce[d the view] that Q&A is live. That it is unscripted. That it is, as we have seen, unpredicatble. And as a result, it is appointment viewing. And since we put the Twitter feed on, audiences are up 40%”.

As such it would seem incorporating Twitter into Q&A fulfilled two key goals of the program. Firstly, achieving the conceptual goal of the programme, by adding to the number of voices involved in discussions around public issues and secondly, by channelling that conversational energy into ratings (to the point it now competes with commercial offerings—an uncommon feat for the national broadcaster). With this in mind, it is surprising more commercial programmes aren’t actively including or promoting back-channels—especially given the relative ease from an administrative point of view. It is even more surprising that commercial media producers seem to infact be fighting the idea. The Australian recently wrote of Q&A’s back channel,

[Twitter] has become the dunny-door graffiti of the digital age, adding precisely nothing to the sum of human knowledge. So why is it that the ABC has opted to include it in the broadcaster’s serious current affairs offerings?… Supporters see it as democracy in action, but the ABC would be better off leaving viewers with a blank space than dignifying this gratuitous feedback”.

Possible failings

Despite the opportunities for media producers on these networks, I do believe there are some pitfalls. The most obvious one being conversations conducted on these platforms are synchronous, and as such, if you wanted to watch Q&A on iView the next day there is no facility to engage in the conversation (either actively or passively). Speaking from my personal experience, this greatly diminishes my interest in catching up with a programme after it airs. Additionally, due to the difficulty of avoiding these very public conversations, users are faced with the dilemma of either being forced back into the broadcast schedule to avoid having those unpredictable moments and narrative developments spoiled, or being forcibly disconnected from their social group until they catch up. As the latter is unacceptable to many, this essentially means users are often viewing a compromised version of the programme or are watching it as close to the original broadcast time as humanly possible. Either way—the kind of absolute individual control heralded by early proponents of convergence and audience fragmentation seems to be falling flat.

All of which, oddly, brings us back to where we began. It seems obvious that the facility to timeshift viewing onto a variety of devices is one which is resonating with users and will continue to do so. However, we need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the way viewers engage with television programmes, which understands that television viewing has always been a communal (if just in the abstract) experience.

Conan’s use of interpersonal media was a key pillar of this success, sustaining his audience over the 9 month recess and creating the impression of a dialogical relationship between fans and Conan himself (whether or not it actually was is another question). The audience solidarity built through these tools was acknowledged by Conan in his introductory monologue, saying “I know what you’re thinking – it’s that guy from Twitter” going on to say “seriously though, Those people saved my ass!”.

Steve Koonin, head of Turner Entertainment Networks (which owns tbs), spoke proudly of the role played by Twitter in building a sense of audience solidarity, saying ”Conan’s audience has been very vocal online, and he clearly made a smooth transition from Twitter to tbs”.

So if it seems to have been so effective, the question then is – how did Team Coco do it? Austin Carr has been exploring this in some great articles over at Fast Company, such as an interview with John Wooden (GM and executive producer of Team Coco Digital) and this discussion of the various different strategies used.

Catherine Taylor is less confident though, using the (proprotionally) lower viewer count of the Team Coco live stream as evidence new media techniques don’t have as much traction and influence as conventional media ones, saying “Being everywhere doesn’t mean that everyone is watching.” However, this criticism fails to acknowledge the role of projects such as the live stream.  I bet no one expected it to be watched constantly and by large numbers of people, but when you’re engaging individuals who use real-time platforms with a constant flow of media – it makes sense to provide a show specifically tailored to that mindset. It may not have been interesting 100% of the time, but it did provide something new for people to watch, discuss and importantly – engage with – 100% of the time.

Update: Sysomos just posted some preliminary analysis of the computer mediated conversations occurring around Conan’s dismissal and return. Interesting stuff!

The premise to some of these techniques is surprisingly simple. Have you just added someone? Suddenly started looking at their page alot? Did that progress to wall posts, to private messages and chatting every night? Did you start “attending” the same events (ie, meeting up in the real world)? At those events, did you have a whole bunch of photos taken, with you both tagged next to each other? How close were the tags? Almost on top of each other? Sounds like it was getting pretty hot – I wouldn’t mind seeing that picture.

In David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect, he writes about these tools in their early stages (pre-chat, tagging, etc):

“As the service’s engineers built more and more tools that could uncover such insights, Zuckerberg sometimes amused himself by conducting experiments. For instance, he concluded that by examining friend relationships and communications patterns he could determine with about 33 percent accuracy who a user was going to be in a relationship with a week from now. To deduce this he studied who was looking which profiles, who your friends were friends with, and who was newly single, among other indicators.”

I’m led to believe this tool has progressed substantially, and is now a core element of the “Top News” feed – working to calculate whose activity items are most relevant to you. I also suspect the most unnerving part of the new friendship comparison feature is it exposes just how much of this information Facebook has on record about your relationship with others.

Another unusual tool was developed by an MIT research project, which was able to predict the sexual orientation of undergraduate students with astounding accuracy. However, I’ll let this rather comprehensive article by Carolyn Johnson explore that. But that’s not it, there’s a bunch of other tricky ways your identity can be usurped, like this trick that reveals user traits to employers (because their ads are only shown to people with specific criteria).

However, despite all of this – Facebook has managed to become the platform for  almost all of our computer mediated social interaction (some even suggesting it may overcome the wider web). As such, you can quit if you want – but have fun being lonely and disconnected. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

What Was the Hipster? A critical history from The New Yorker exploring our era’s most controversial archetype, beginning with the sleazy, mocking late-nineties fetishization of lower-middle-class whiteness and ending, perhaps, with political and artistic enlightenment.

Update: Another Sociological exploration of hipster-ism, “The Hipster in the Mirror” by Mark Grief.

“But if you’re taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to be a hierarchy. The Montgomery bus boycott required the participation of tens of thousands of people who depended on public transit to get to and from work each day. It lasted a year. In order to persuade those people to stay true to the cause, the boycott’s organizers tasked each local black church with maintaining morale, and put together a free alternative private carpool service, with forty-eight dispatchers and forty-two pickup stations. Even the White Citizens Council, King later said, conceded that the carpool system moved with “military precision.”

Woah! They dedicated a whole bunch of full-time staff towards coordinating a carpooling system for a WHOLE YEAR? Thats incredible! Or atleast it was, when that sort of institution free coordination had historically been unusual. However as Clay Shirkey points out in Cognitive Surplus, this sort of resource coordination isn’t really that much of a shock anymore, citing the rather comparative example of PickupPal.com which has become quite popular in the US to organise carpooling services. You list where you are, where you’re going and whether you can take someone or need a lift. People are then connected based on proximity. Its been running for a number of years now, and continues to grow (particularly amongst the middle aged, middle class demographic you’d least expect) – to the point where Ontario’s bus company decided to take legal action due to the substantial drop in business that had occurred. A similar example many of my friends have used is CouchSurfing.org, which connects travelers with volunteer hosts with a spare room. Just because these systems seem so simple, does not mean we should over look their power. These websites, developed by a small group of people, have allowed a huge number of people to self-coordinate and overcome historically insurmountable resource costs. To achieve this historically, as Gladwell says, we would have had to form an “organisation” to “organise” all of the participants (and we would have had to know who they were and how many of them there was ahead of time, otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth the effort!).

Although these examples may appear radical (though real!), they are suggestive of what can come when resource costs are radically reduced. Traditional political organisations can learn from this as well, by blending these techniques with their existing hierarchical structures. As usual in these matters, a great example can be found in the Obama ‘08 Campaign as well as the Organising For America campaign of 2010. In these campaigns, the Democrats developed iPhone and iPad apps which helped them reduce the resource cost of organising both phone trees and canvasers. The iPhone app connected with each users address book, listing contacts in order of priority based on their congressional district and asking them to speak about issues of immediate relevancy in that area. Similarly, the OFA application allows users to canvas in their local neighbourhood, marking a few houses as theirs to canvas on a centralised Google Map and providing them with a script of local concerns – which is also a questionare that is returned to head office to allow further on-the-ground issue identification. These apps significantly reduce the administrative and coordination overhead for the DNC, allowing the staff who would have traditionally coordinated volunteers to focus on other issues crucial to the campaign – while also encouraging any member of the community to become a volunteer themselves. Each person could engage with as much or as little work as they felt capable of taking on while also lending their personal social capital to the campaign as well (through calling friends or visiting neighbours).

The way internet communications affect social change are different to historical political organising practices. Not because they’re some magical, new utopian silver bullet – but because they are often so different in form, character and tactics. They rely on the personal bonds between people and the individual issues they face. Organising in this way can often be appear to be less dramatic and unified as Gladwell points out, replacing machine work with the power that comes with trust and reciprocally of friends, leading to subtler cultural shift. I do agree that much discussion on this topic can lend itself to hyperbole and utopian fantasy, and as such I am glad Gladwell is making this argument of reservation, but there are shifts (even if small) which are worth acknowledging and can provide a powerful base for the future. These key shifts are to be found in the reduction of the resource and coordination cost for forming groups, and the speed at which they can operate.

From The Atlantic:

Just about every study on attending college comes to the same conclusion: doing so generally leads to a higher income and better job security. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone should go to college. Ilana Garon argues that promoting “college for all” actually makes everybody worse off. After citing a statistic from the College Board which insinuates that not enough young adults obtain college degrees, Garon says:

Statistics like those put out by the College Board are misleading: they promote a foolish sense of tunnel vision, leading students to believe that the only possible way of obtaining even a middle-wage job is through the traditional, four-year college route. Reliance on the standard liberal arts degree as a benchmark for competence belies not only the fact that many jobs simply don’t require such an education, but also that middle-wage jobs are going unfilled due to a lack of applicants with the necessary specialized skills.

Garon goes on to make a quite compelling argument that many young adults should be encouraged to explore technical training for specific jobs instead of college.

Read the full story at Dissent.

Hoax or no Hoax, I’ve been really impressed with the poster for I’m Not There. I’ve been thinking its about time Bodoni was revived. Apparently it was designed by the kids at Kellerhouse, who are also responsible for the pretty cool The Social Network posters amongst a strong portfolio.

Although I do think the “incredibly large, whole poster sized elegant typeface worked into the character portrait” thing is becoming a bit of a trend. It reminds me a lot of the I Am Love poster from last year, amongst a few others.

I saw this headline in a Mosman Newsagency a week or so ago, and couldn’t help but think of Meaghan Morris’ “Grizzling About Facebook” article in the Australian Humanities Review from last year. A recommended read!