Here’s some advice for students doing a Master of Arts.

The exegesis

The exegesis will be based on the same body of research that informs the creative work. It will explore a topic implicitly or explicitly related to the creative work, or the literary and/or cultural fields relevant to the creative work.

The connection between the exegesis and the creative work should be obvious to examiners. They must be clearly related.

The exegesis will conform with the conventions and style appropriate to contemporary academic prose and be written in a style appropriate to its target readership and genre. It must demonstrate mastery of the more traditional conceptual and scholarly skills expected of a MA candidate—for example:

• wide reading; being informed about the field; referencing other primary and secondary works/sources
• being rigorous and ethical
• making substantial contribution to knowledge
• writing with aesthetic merit and impact; using the language of the discourse/discipline
• arguing, including pre-emptive argument, and providing evidence for positions
• positioning the voice of the researcher

The exegesis will ordinarily represent a writing discipline different from that of the creative work. Exceptions are possible with approval of supervisors.

Word length

The exegesis will normally be 5-10,000 words in length: it should have a narrow enough field to be adequately dealt with in 5-10,000 words.

Timing

The exegesis does not usually precede the creative work, although this is not unheard of. And while not necessarily written synchronously with the creative work, you should commence from the beginning of your research and candidature to read, keep accurate records of references, and take notes.

It has changed hugely from my initial ideas. I think you could say that I’m using psychogeography very loosely. It is exploring the urban environment of Melbourne, but not in an unplanned way like Debord and his mates would have done it.

But through the interviews and vox pops I have discovered things I never would have. And I’ve been looking at Melbourne with my eyes open, if you know what I mean. Whereas normally I would hear about something like a clothing exchange, think it’s interesting and not get around to going to it. With the podcast as a motivation I’ve been much more open to every opportunity Melbourne can offer.

It’s been taking me less and less time to edit as I’ve been making the podcasts too. Keeping it simple is the way to go.

” that participatory publishing provides a golden opportunity for
traditional journalism to rethink and react in the way it is meant to be. In order to
survive well with the ideal of public service, however, journalism must change from a
lecture to a conversation,” (pg. 2)

“In South Korea, within only three years
since its launch on 22/02/2000, OhmyNews, a collaborative news service operating
with the motto: “Every citizen is a reporter”, had become the country’s most
influential online news site” (pg. 5)

“However, in general, Australian online participation remains much more limited than
in the US.” (pg. 6) Is this still true three years on??

Australia has generally been slow in taking up these opportunities for communication. “Except for the ABC and, to some extent, the SBS, which have a fairly rigorous
tradition in tapping the power of forums, weblogs, podcasting and other online
participation services, the Australian commercial media have generally been rather
indifferent to the potential of online PP platforms. When locating resources for this
article, I found it quite astonishing that it was not until 2004 that weblogs began to
receive a substantial coverage, if any, in commercial publications. Blogger and
academic Axel Bruns (2005, web document) went further to accuse traditional
media’s online outlets of continuing to “hinder rather help their users” to engage in
online content and public debate via such mechanisms such as using online
registration as a compulsory requirement for full content access.” (pg. 7)

Some Australian companies are breaking the mould. ” Despite this, there have been a few notable successes that indicate the potential
influence of PP on the outcome of public affairs in Australia – such as the breaking of
the well-known Meg Lees and the Kernot/Evans affairs by the notorious
Crikey.com.au, which had a mailing list of 6,500 elite subscribers as of September
2005″ (pg. 8)

This doesn’t have to mean the end of journalism. “the power to govern the public sphere no longer belongs solely to
the media, generating abundant speculations about the death of journalism in online
communities. This, however, should be seen as excessive technological determinism:
PP, when closely examined, can even intensify the crucial role of journalism – a more
reactive and responsive journalism, to be exact – in the information age.” (pg. 8)

“As Rebecca Blood – a most
authoritative voice in the world of weblogs – is radically correct in declaring: “The
weblog’s greatest strength – its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice – is also
its greatest weakness” (quoted in Lane, 2002, web document). The same thing applies
to online forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards and the like in this “publish, then filter”
– rather than “filter, then publish” – world, as Clay Shirky (2002, web document)
called it. The online public sphere, therefore, risks easily becoming a chaotic and
anarchic space, which might eventually turn people into more sensationalised and
even more desensitised, rather than scientifically critical, citizens.” (pg. 10)

“the need for the
professional moderation and facilitation of a responsible journalism to avoid further
social and ideological fragmentation and to work toward consensus is still there, if not
intensified.” (pg. 10)

“responsible journalism would only have an even higher chance to become a lifebuoy
for a public being swamped in an information overload. And in a time when
technologies allow ordinary people to even fool the whole global media system (such
as the self-produced video clip of Nick Berg’s beheading in 2003), the gate-keeping
function of the press is strengthened rather than becomes obsolete.” (pg. 11)

“What if journalists still do not care? At the best, the emerging “fifth estate” will act as
the “gatekeeper of gatekeepers”, using their collective power to correct it.” (pg. 17)

“advertisers have begun to tap the power of
PP, sounds a warning toll that if journalism is not performed well, the rising PP
ventures might become a good alternative. If this happens, the most practical outcome
would be clear: declining readership trends would continue; advertising funding
would plunge; and certainly loss of job opportunities for journalists themselves would
occur.” (pg. 18)

Advertising, according to Gombert is only going to get more niche. A good reason for media producers to get niche, hey?
“Media fragmentation and the shifting of ad dollars from mainstream media like television, newspapers and radio to online channels had disrupted the industry — or so it seemed.” (pg. 1)

“Targeted niche media that reach fewer but more relevant consumers combined with creative approaches beyond traditional mainstream media and the most popular online web properties will be the hallmarks of successful advertising campaigns in 2008. People have been touting this for some time now, but for 2008, small truly is the “new big.”” (pg. 1)

1. Creating your first episode, which can be an audio recording, video, or even a text document. Supported file formats include .m4a, .mp3, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, and .pdf.
2. Posting your episode file(s) on a server with a publicly accessible URL.
3. Creating an RSS feed (an XML file) that:
   • conforms to the RSS 2.0 specification
   • includes the recommended iTunes RSS tags,
   • contains pointers to your episode.
4. Posting the RSS file on a server.
5. Submit the URL for your RSS feed to iTunes.

The rest of the web page goes into more detail about the lements going into the submission.

Off we go…

• scale it down to possible quality work- 6 good podcasts with a well documented blog is great stuff I reckon
• photo slide over it? look up the Chanel podcasts, interviews with photos over it
• an amateur or casual aesthetic may distinguish the podcast from other forms of media
• a personal unaffected style may be more successful than one based on a theory or formal style
• Is a podcast from a news publication inherently an old-media approach?
• It is important to justify the medium and how they are used by the target audience
• Bring form and content together, it seems like it is the way to demonstrate your research
• It’s good that you’re sort of doing a ‘how to?’ concept of a project

And from the discussion afterwards:

• Who’s the audience?
• A house style
• Trend towards more informal news
• Could be like a weekend magazine add on on their website
• Do you lose traditional news values in the podcast medium? The blog fills in the gaps
• Audio slide show perhaps with talking over the photos.

WordPress should be able to host the podcast so once I get some feedback from Nasya I can begin!
Re-evaluating what to put in the rest of my episodes now I’m not going to do all twelve. I think basing the podcast around an interview really works. It gives it a bit more authority and structure.
I’m going to put a few more readings on here over the next few days and update my annotated bibliography. Joy!

Bruns suggests the idea of ‘publishers’ and ‘media’ are outdated, “Especially in digital contexts the producer-consumer dichotomy is crumbling fast, as is evident from a very broad range of emerging practices.” (pg. 1) And that the way we consume media is changed forever, we are now all ‘produsers’!

“Or take the rapid success of the user-produced Wikipedia in dethroning the previously undisputed Encyclopaedia Britannica as the most accessed online encyclopaedia.” (pg. 1) Things can change very rapidly in an online world.

“In this brave new world of grassroots individual and collaborative content production (and distribution!), of vernacular creativity, media organisations do not publish any more, they publicise: they don’t make public, they make more public.” (pg. 1)

He suggests that Australia is going backwards in some areas:

“In Australia the online operations of traditional media outlets have been relatively slow to react to this trend, and continue to hinder rather than help their users. Indeed, sites such as the FairfaxDigital online newspapers have even made a massive step backwards by requiring their users to register before being able to gain full access to their sites. Rather than increasing their reach by allowing users to engage with their content more productively (by linking to it, blogging it, commenting on it), this effectively shuts out casual readers – an utterly ill-considered and frankly stupid move that shows nothing but contempt and mistrust towards potential users.” (pp1-2)

“But whatever the fate of any such individual endeavour, overall the move from consuming to produsing is well underway. The media won’t ever be the same again.” (pg.2)

This paper looks at how citizen journalism is being used, especially in Australia. We seem to be behind other nations, but some news organisations are being to change their habits. The lack of a major disaster is seen as a reason for our slow uptake. They see the new role of the journalist a sifter of user-contributed information and don’t think that established media is threatened by new media.

“There is a move towards accepting contributions from eyewitnesses by traditional media, due to a shift in media consumption for a 24-hour news cycle (Garrison 2005; Quinn and Quinn-Allan 2006)” (pg. 4)

“Media critics have linked the rise of user-generated content with a failing in trust with the traditional media elites and the homogeneous content often produced by mainstream media.” (pg. 4)

“he emergence of independent online media organisations and the growth of blogs are arguably representative of the failure of mainstream media to fulfil its role to the public. This effort to readdress the balance of the media, by representing often unpopular or minority views, establishes independent online journalism as a new form of alternative media.” (pg. 5)

So online media is generally there to fill a void seen in traditional news outlets. And Australian traditional media is being slow to react.

“While globally, media organisations have adapted suitably, the Australian mainstream media has been relatively slow to acclimatise to the shift of news consumption online. Most media companies within Australia have a web presence, but none have fully utilised the interactive capabilities of the online medium (Nguyen 2006;Bruns 2005(a); 2005(b))” (pg. 5)

“One of the reasons for this slow growth is because Australia has not witnessed any comparable natural or human induced disasters that have spurred widespread citizen journalism in Asia, the UK and the US.” (pg. 14)

“In an information-focused society the role of professional journalists in sifting through,modifying, editing and repackaging information into manageable formats is central to public understanding (Quinn pers. comm. 2007).” (pg. 15)

“However, the emergence of citizen media is not necessarily a direct threat to the established media. Mainstream media must learn to adapt and respond to technological advancements and changing audience demands.” (pg. 16)