I was invited to speak about crossmedia at the recent Cross Media Storytelling International Conference in Mechelen, Belgium. My presentation can be accessed here.
The conference brought together a wide mix of speakers, including amongst many others, Piet Bakker (School of Journalism and Communication at the Hogeschool Utrecht), who spoke about “young people and media use”, Kris Hoet (EMEA Marketing Manager), who discussed the multiplatform capabilities of MSN's side of Live Earth and Stan van Engelen, founder of Holland Doc and new cross media developer for VPRO TV, who showed us the intriguing cross media documentary project In Europa. I shared a panel with Nico Carpentier (Communication Studies Departments of the Free University of Brussels - VUB) who conducted an apt deconstruction of the idea of 'participation' and the conference's keynote speaker Gary Hayes (Director of LAMP) who talked enthusiastically about immersive environments as the future of co-creative media.
Screenshot of In Europa (VPRO 2007)
Gary would have us divided between 'forward thinking practitioners, catch-up heritage media representatives and theoretical, reflective academics' (personalize media, 26 Nov 2007), but such easy categorisations don't really get to the crux of the complex ideas shared within the conference or the degree of crossovers that exist between each category he projects. Our panel was expertly umpired by Geoffroy Patriarche (Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis and chair member of ECREA). I say umpired, because Gary was outspokenly uneasy about, as he put it on the day, 'being sandwiched between' two academics. How old-school.
The existence of this blog and correlative posts on the CEMP interactive community, indeed the existence of IPE, CEMP, The Interactive Media Production Blog and many other ventures of their kind across contemporary universities, such as the ArtLab and FutureLab, make up a more complex narrative. I exist alongside many other academics who are theoreticians and practitioners simultaneously. Try Neal White or Sean Street for a more varied taster. Not all academics class themselves as both, indeed some would never class themselves as theoreticians. Having experienced the more traditional university cultures of Cardiff and Sussex, where media practice education has only been offered at the levels of postgraduate vocational diplomas or, in Sussex's case a new generalist media practice and theory degree, I continue intrigued by the degree of media practice specialism and innovation that exists at The Media School, Bournemouth. Yet, here, we are grappling with ways to be a reflective practitioner. Contrary to Gary's diagram below, many of us are sharers, creators, critics, editors and consumers at any one time or simultaneously. Indeed, Ang (1985) has long tore the notion that consumers are passive apart.
Click on the diagram to view Gary Hayes' large version
Equally, online participation is a multi-dimensional plane, rather than a fence with two sides. This is the crux of the argument I make in my presentation. Online participation by the people for the people has come a long way in twenty years, but its continually being re-institutionalised, re-channelled, repurposed, repackaged. I used my platform to get the European industry to think a little bit more about this issue - that doesn't make me anti-corporatist in and of itself. Though I am. And funnily, Kris Hoet (EMEA Marketing Manager) made one of the most charismatic presentations. It's because I believe in online participation and the multi-channel, multi-voiced opportunities to make a better world the net offers that I do what I do. At the same time I don't think technology is the only way to get there. The essence of my argument is that if we are to really begin to think about co-creative crossmedia futures then we need to think about collaborative story-making not story-telling. The reality is that many out there just aren't buying into the crossmedia marketing spiel.
I set up an open facebook group Crossmedia Narratives: What are they to you? to gage what crossmedia meant to people before I wrote the presentation for the conference. Now there's an irony in co-creation in and of itself. Out of the 42 members it accrued in 2 days and 64 members it has to date; only a handful have made any influential mark. That's the other irony. Here are a couple of comments that arose:
"Crossmedia Narratives: What are they to you?"
more ways of creating audiences to sell things to?
more ways of 'knowing' consumers?
more ways of allowing an audience member who sees herself as 'active' to make use of illusory agency?
Galit Ferguson, London, 21 November, 2007
They're mainly a way for old media to try to hustle something it couldn't hustle in old media on new media, by spending a huge bundle on: YouTube, Twitter, Second Life, Internet sites?
They're not my narrative.
My narrative stays in one media, and uses the other media only to advertise that venue that I find to be the main one. So a Second Life event or build is advertised on my blog, on Twitter, etc. I also like Koinup. I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to equalize the presence on all media so I can brag that I'm cross media. It's enough that I cross genders on my SL avatar. Thank you, and good night.
Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick, Silicon Valley, 23 December, 2007
The latest Pew figures on the growth of US youth online participation (click here for pdf report) are encouraging, but last year's Pew's predictions for the Future of the Internet weren't. My research on children's online experiences www.altcyberkids.org makes for a more complicated story. Indeed, Pew editors and Gary Hayes read like the traditional journalists they are, continually claiming cultural instances as waves of a new phenomenon on the horizon - Humanity Slowly Returns to Creativity? Com'on!
Gary is right when he says that 'when you perform any action in society (online or real world) you are participating in it' (personalize media, 26 Nov 2007). It is because of LAMP's worthy contributions to online participation that I am responding to his dare, as a critic, sharer, editor and creator. Yet, to see the future of online co-creation as so bright we have to wear VR shades is misguided. Participation for me is not creaming over a cross-reality world where TV contestants take the form of avatars. To me that's utter kakotopia.
