Cultural intermediaries : audience participation in media organisations

248 Pages·2017·3.076 MB·English

by  Hutchinson, Jonathon

CULTURAL
INTERMEDIARIES
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IN MEDIA ORGANISATIONS
JONATHON HUTCHINSON
Cultural Intermediaries
Jonathon Hutchinson
Cultural
Intermediaries
Audience Participation in Media Organisations
Foreword by
Gregory Ferrell Lowe
Jonathon Hutchinson
University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-66286-2 ISBN 978-3-319-66287-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-66287-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950726
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For Henry
F
oreword
Renewing the meanings and purposes of ‘public service’ in media provi-
sion has been the focal concern of scholarship in this area of research
since the late 1990s. This book makes an important contribution by
applying Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas (1984) about cultural intermediaries
working as facilitators, translators and mediators where tensions between
diverse stakeholders with respective interests meet. They serve as agents
and conduits of change by effectively translating one form of capital
into other types, for example, economic capital into social capital. Dr.
Hutchinson makes a convincing case for the role of cultural intermedi-
ary as an essential focus for public service media [PSM] organizations
in adapting to an environment characterized by networked communi-
cation systems. The author integrates critical studies on participation in
media, cultural studies on the production and consumption of symbolic
goods, normative theory on the roles and functions of media, and con-
vergence as a socio-technical phenomenon to construct a framework for
the analysis of roles and functions of PSM in contemporary media–soci-
ety relationships. This perspective grounds case study analysis of relevant
projects in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ABC] in recent
years that illustrate what is involved and why it matters. In the process,
Dr. Hutchinson generates insights that are theoretically important with
useful practical implications, three of which are especially important in
my view.
vii
viii FOREWORD
First, the book legitimates the continuing importance of PSB as an
institution per se due to its enormous capacity to serve as an incubator
of experimentation that produces innovation. This is a defining feature of
the complicated and by no means completed transformation from PSB to
PSM. Dr. Hutchinson’s treatment makes clear how and why broadcast-
ing remains important, and explains a key strategic and operational focus
for successful adaptation to a very different media ecology. This ecol-
ogy requires developing new services and fresh approaches that deeply
challenge the PSB heritage while also recognizing the importance of
that heritage. Mediation is no longer primarily about transmission but
mainly about facilitating robust communications in highly mediated soci-
eties that rely on social media platforms. The focus on cultural interme-
diation presents a more demanding role for PSM, and a potentially more
rewarding role, in efforts to facilitate growth in social capital. Fulfilling
this role entails the function of bonding within communities and of
bridging between them, which matters to a profound degree in multi-
cultural societies of which Australia is a highly pertinent case. This role
and function encapsulates a contemporary enlightenment mission that is
essentially about translating between forms of capital. Dr. Hutchinson’s
work makes this clear in a thoroughly contemporary treatment.
Second, this book thoughtfully positions PSM in the ‘third wave’
of scholarship on cultural intermediaries, which recognizes the crucial
importance of moral motivations of intermediary works and civic impor-
tance of the institutional role—a role that emphasizes non-economic
value. As Dr. Hutchinson makes a strong case for accepting the prem-
ise that participation which has social relevance typically requires popular
activity with professional facilitation. ‘Authentic participation’ requires
cultural intermediaries to connect individuals and groups with institu-
tions. PSM is uniquely positioned to serve that function and fulfil such a
role because of the historic PSB ethos that continues to ground current
mandates to maintain a civic orientation as the priority obligation. The
cultural intermediary notion provides an effective tool for aligning the
historic ethos with contemporary conditions, which is crucial for main-
taining institutional legitimacy (external) and constructing professional
identity (internal).
Third, Dr. Hutchinson’s discussion on governance is particularly use-
ful in explaining how the work of cultural intermediation copes with the
tension between users and facilitators in the accomplishment of co-crea-
tion that achieves social relevance. He examines three models of platform
FOREWORD ix
governance in co-creation and generates insights that are useful for prac-
titioners and improved conceptual understanding alike. Linking govern-
ance with opportunities to achieve innovation is a smart move that makes
good sense. In this perspective, the work of cultural intermediation is not
merely to achieve an instrumental end but to achieve innovative results as
a co-creative exercise. Thus, far from being unhelpfully restrictive of pop-
ular involvement in mediation, governance policy can facilitate accom-
plishing social relevance while protecting the institutional ‘brand’ from
problems that can undermine PSM legitimacy and violate legal require-
ments.
Dr. Hutchinson generates timely insights about much beyond these
three in discussions about dynamics and challenges of cultural interme-
diation as an institutional function, public service as an ideal, and com-
plications and opportunities for PSM in a globalized media system. He
provides fascinating case study examples from ABC Pool and other perti-
nent R&D projects at the ABC. He gives the reader an insider’s view by
virtue of his personal experience as an early cultural intermediary worker
at the ABC, and in applying digital ethnography methods to develop the
empirical data.
I have followed the progress of Dr. Hutchinson’s research since he
was a Ph.D. student finalizing his dissertation project on this topic at the
Australian Research Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCi)
at the Queensland University of Technology. He presented a paper about
this in the RIPE@2012 conference that was hosted by his alma mater and
sponsored by the ABC, with participation from the Special Broadcasting
Services [SBS] that cater especially to Australia’s minority and aborigi-
nal populations. I am pleased to see his work as an early career researcher
come to fruition in his first book. Reading the manuscript, I was struck by
how much and well his work encapsulates the foci of RIPE book themes
over the years—from the need to redefine the PSB remit in 2003, to cul-
tural dilemmas in 2005, to making the transition to PSM in 2007, to
public participation in 2009, to challenges caused by the growth of com-
mercial media markets in 2011, to the importance of producing public
value in 2013, to an increasingly global media system in 2015, and the
current focus on PSM in the networked society context. Dr. Hutchinson’s
work on PSM as cultural intermediaries is pertinent to all of that, which I
find remarkable because it speaks to the generalizable importance of his
work. This book offers an important step forward by providing one cru-
cial dimension of the underlying trajectory of development in PSM.
x FOREWORD
I hope our field will embrace his contribution. And I look forward to
the result of the next period of his research and conceptual development.
July 2017 Gregory Ferrell Lowe, Ph.D.
RIPE Continuity Director
Espoo, Finland
P
reFace
User participation in organizational activities has disrupted the existing
status quo between hierarchies and individuals, not only from a gov-
ernance point of view but also from a cultural production perspec-
tive. Within the media industries, participation has been most obvious
through audience engagement, which has been one focus of social sci-
ence scholarship in recent years—particularly the debates surrounding
participatory and convergence cultures. While some scholars support
the convergence of technologies, cultures and media production and
consumption, others argue that audience participation is exploitative,
non-professional, utopianistic and full of futurist rhetoric. This book
interrogates the existing theories of convergence culture and audi-
ence engagement in the media and communication disciplines by pro-
viding grounded examples of social media use as a social mobilization
tool within the media industries. In particular, this book is intended to
provide an explicit overview of how one notable media organization,
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), has incorporated par-
ticipation into its production methodology while maintaining its role as
a cultural infrastructure innovation institution. The ABC can perform
this innovation by engaging its staff as cultural intermediaries; these can
be the taste agents between the production and consumption of cultural
goods, market agents that perform conduit roles between the producers
and consumers of cultural goods or, as has been noted, the ‘third wave’
of cultural intermediaries—those who use cultural capital to improve our
xi