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The development of global social networking sites using Web 2.0 technologies (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, etc.) is signalling a shift in media usage towards an environment in which the distinction between producer and consumer is less clearly defined. While audiences still demand and enjoy a quality professional product their active personal experience of media production means that they are no longer content to remain outside the production process. This paper outlines the first part of a multi-stage research project that is monitoring responses on both sides of the divide. Through analysis of media coverage, policy reports, submissions to government and interviews with a number of senior executives in leading Australian screen agencies and industry organisations, we have identified four distinct categories of Australian film industry response to technological change and shifts in media consumption, provisionally referred to as 'Denial', 'Panic', 'Embrace' and 'Co-create '. In this paper, we offer a critical examination of these responses.

This article is an abbreviated version of a debate between two economists holding somewhat different perspectives on the nature of non-market production in the space of new digital media. While the ostensible focus here is on the role of markets in the innovation of new technologies to create new economic value, this context also serves to highlight the private and public value of digital literacy.

This paper argues that digital technologies offer an opportunity to open up and rethink cultural literacy. It discusses and critiques prevalent approaches to digital literacy, and examines the kinds of new literacies emerging from mobile phone culture and developments in mobile media. The paper concludes with suggestions for how mobiles can inform not only an understanding of digital literacy, but directions in literacy in general.

What are the education-to-work transition experiences of graduate creative professionals in a time when user-generated content is radically changing the organisations in which they will work? 60Sox is an online creative ecology for these emerging professionals that attempts to answer this question, in the process of showcasing and developing their creative and generic career capacities. We report here on the development and operation of 60Sox.org.au, and argue for its significance in terms of: (1) the centrality of human capital arguments in the operation of the creative economy; (2) the importance of 'creative ecologies' as an emerging business concept, particularly in the digital industries; (3) the arrival of online and peer-to-peer (p2p) architecture as a changing distribution mode within the digital content industries; (4) the related importance of pro-am creativity; and (5) the recognition of skill shortages and training requirements in Australia's digital content industries.

Digital technologies are clearly enabling greater access to cultural production, broadening the spaces in which we market our sense of self and thus facilitating small-scale creative entrepreneurialism. However, alongside the many opportunities undoubtedly offered by co-creator Web 2.0 technologies, true digital literacy requires an as yet unclear level of control over the whole process--both in the short and long term--in order to ensure that creative development is undertaken in a personally and collectively sustainable fashion. This article briefly outlines some of new digital literacies on which educators need to focus if we are to empower people for creation (production), not just consumption, in this emerging media landscape.

This paper examines the role of community media organisations in the diffusion of digital literacy. In Australia, a number of media organisations, established by the so-called 'digital generation', are experimenting with new training methods and content forms. Such groups aim to provide their constituents with deep and immersive media opportunities. We examine the methods and outcomes of SYN Media (a youth-run media organisation in Melbourne) and discuss the implications for digital literacy. Our research suggests that, although the systems and forms that make up digital literacy are in still under development, organisations like SYN are allowing that development to occur. Both audience and the particular habitus of the media workplace are important factors in SYN's success.

This paper provides an outline and analysis of the strategies with which the 'old' media empires of print and television have met the challenge of 'new' media in Australia, notably the internet. It places particular emphasis on the protection of or the gaining of access to, advertising revenue as a motivating factor in such corporate strategies since the early 1990s. In order to achieve some historical perspective and narrative continuity on this process, the discussion is divided into a rough periodisation. The first period saw the beginning of internet advertising and media organisations establishing a web presence, before the dot.com crash of 2000. A period of more cautious consolidation of positions then followed, and internet advertising became differentiated into categories of search, directories, classified and display, leading up to the corporate discovery of social networking in 2005. The paper concludes with some observations on the recent influx of private equity capital, particularly noting the agile response of 'old' media proprietors.

The e-tuktuk is a mobile information and communication centre located within a three-wheeled auto rickshaw. It operates out of the Kothmale Community Multimedia Centre in Central Province, Sri Lanka. In this paper, we examine this innovative use of new technology through drawing an analogy between the technology of irrigation and the technologies of information and communication. We argue that it is the particular context of Sri Lanka, and the culturally significant notion of reaching out to villages, that makes the e-tuktuk meaningful in this place at this time. We describe how a particularly Sri Lankan form of community media began in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, and how it has since developed. The e-tuktuk is presented as a recent and interesting example of participatory community media that uses radio and mobile technologies to reach out to villages. It is, in this context, a highly meaningful set of social, cultural political and symbolic behaviours that have clear modern and ancient precedents.

Prior to the introduction of the telegraph system, information moved from one place to another at the speed of a steam locomotive, a dashing pony express, or a lumbering ocean [...]

Social-media technology is evolving at a rapid pace. New tools enabling increased communication with various constituencies are being introduced on a frequent basis. While the franchising community is not yet [...]

This issue of MIA is based on several of the papers presented at the Digital Literacy and Creative Innovation in a Knowledge Economy symposium held by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT and the ARC Cultural Research Network in March 2007. The articles in this issue consider how the rapid development of digital technologies has changed the production and consumption of media content, altering the very nature of the relationship between 'producers' and 'consumers'.

The low levels of trust in the media in the U.S. and abroad can be attributed, at least in part, to the deterioration of public discourse. Maria Ramirez, a 2018 [...]

Key new media executives on Wednesday discussed one of the hottest topics of the year in digital media -- how traditional and digital journalism can live side-by-side. The panel discussion [...]

A guide is presented to help creative professionals understand better how to work with information technology and to ensure the integrity of their work. It is concluded that like design, the technology should be driven by the user experience and business need, and understanding will build one's confidence that will allow one to boldly explore the hundreds of new design channels that technology has created and will create.

It was the late-night news junkies, monitoring computers for breaking news stories, who knew first about Bell Atlantic Corp.'s proposal to Tele-Communications Inc. In a deal that signals the reshaping [...]

Media consumption has expanded over the past decade and the way content is consumed has changed. A number of technologies have surfaced to help build new business models for digital [...]

A new media for news delivery has emerged in which print, photographs, video, and audio can be integrated into personalized multimedia news presentations. An electronic news delivery system produces personal 'editions' by selecting news items from various sources in a variety of media types and ordering and/or grouping these items for presentation. Clearly, if personalized and dynamic 'editions' of news are to be a reality then algorithms are needed that select and group items with minimal human intervention. In this paper we will examine only one of the problems involved in the automatic generation of electronic editions: the association of related items of different media type, specifically photos and stories. The goal of this research is to be able to determine to what degree any two news items refer to the same news event. This metric has several uses. First, it can be used to link multimedia items that can be shown together, such as a video, photo, and text story related to a shipwreck or state visit. Second, it can be used to form clusters of very similar items from a variety of sources so that one or two can be chosen to represent that event in an edition. In this paper we discuss the specific association of text and photo news items although our approach to the problem of defining relationships between photos and stories applies to a larger domain of news items including scripted news video clips and scripted radio broadcasts.