Media Industries 1 has allowed me to develop my skills as a collaborator and practitioner within the media landscape. The group I was a part of worked well as a cohesive unit, discovering the value of continuous question-asking and re-framing.
Role --
My role
within the group shifted throughout the semester. When our groups were first
assigned, I was integral in the formulation of our research question as I
had recently completed a 6 month internship at VICE Magazine. Due to my
existing knowledge of that media conglomerate, Daniel, John, Jesse, and I came
to think about free media and how it is a viable product. At this point, as we
were fleshing out the questions we had and exploring what we already knew of
the topic area, all of our roles were equal. There was a steady flow of
thoughts and ideas between all four of us. As the next few weeks progressed, it
became clear that Daniel was leading the charge. My role at this point shifted
from being the a key instigator of our research question to a collaborator with
the other members of the group. After some discussion, we settled on the idea
that we would create and produce a documentary as our ‘answer’ to the research
question. Within the documentary framework, my role was to be the producer. I was
to handle logistics, gaining interviews with key media practitioners, handling
release forms, and generally assisting the direction of the film. Within this role, I believe I fulfilled
most of my duties. Finding interviews was not straight forward or easy, and
mostly relied on the personal connections of members of the group. After coming
to the realisation that we weren’t going to have time to produce the sort of
documentary we would be happy with, we decided to do a few video interviews
that would complement our written work. My connections at VICE Magazine allowed
me to contact a former co-worker for an interview. For the purpose of our final
research report, I had two 2000 word case studies on VICE Magazine and
Broadsheet Media, examining their viability in the online world, their
strategies, marketing tools, revenue streams, and overall success as media
companies.
Progress
–
Researching
my two case studies of Broadsheet and VICE was a polarising task. I found that
on the one hand, I had access to huge amounts of online commentary on both the
publications, particularly VIVE, but there was virtually no academic writing on
either VICE or Broadsheet. I also discovered that VICE was much easier to
research due to the fact that it has been around for much longer than
Broadsheet, and because it is a much larger, international publication.
Broadsheet is small, localised to Melbourne and Sydney, and barely three years
old. Therefore the challenge of finding statistics, commentary, and vital
information on the publication itself was much more difficult. I found that I
progressed throughout the semester from merely typing the publication into
Google and hoping for interesting results, as towards the conclusion of our
research project, I was targeting the publications directly, asking for
interviews, media kits, and looking closely at the design agencies and
advertising agencies that work directly with the two companies. This is where
most of the hard data was found, as well as where the movement and changes in the
companies could be found. I let myself down in terms of academic research. It
was virtually impossible to find academic work done on either VICE or
Broadsheet, but I probably could have found more commentary from academics on
the trends that Broadsheet and VICE are showing.
Strategies
–
Because
our research topic morphed from being an exploration of heritage media in the
online world, to a study of free media, to finally coming to the viability of
online media, our strategy as a team shifted quite dramatically, especially as
we were hell-bent on making a documentary. My personal strategy for researching
VICE and Broadsheet was to source as much online data and material I could
find, edit this down, and come to some conclusion about where these two publications
could be headed, or indeed, where they are situated in the world of free,
online content. This strategy worked quite well for me. I aligned this research
with a thorough understanding of both VICE and Broadsheet which allowed me to
understand the data and commentary that I found on the two publications with
ease. I believe that my choices in researching this particular way were
appropriate and worked well for my case studies. As I stated in the previous
section, I found that my research technique shifted after discovering my
initial attempts were failing. By targeting VICE and Broadsheet more directly,
asking for media kits, the back catalogue of issues, looking at the agencies
that have helped to shape them, and examining their affiliated companies, my
research became much more thorough and comprehensive. What did not work as well
was my academic research into the two case studies. While there is not a total
lack of academic referencing, the two case studies would have benefited from a
more theoretical analysis backed up by academic commentary.
Problems
–
Our
groups faced several problems throughout our research. Initially, it took us
several weeks to come to an agreement on the actual finite nature of our
research question. We found it difficult to pinpoint what we were actually
asking as our questions were all ambiguous and we felt that the answer to each
of them was probably easily found. Once we settled on The Viabilty Of Online
Media we agreed that it wasn’t going to be a finite question and answer type of
research, rather that such a question or subject matter, due to its very
nature, cannot be confined into a series of short essays. We worked through
this problem by deciding to create a series of case studies, provide an
overview of changing technologies and the Melbourne demographic, as well as
provide some basic background and structure for our research. All of this
examining lead us to our conclusion: Where could online media be headed? Another
problem our group faced was in the few weeks we spent struggling to turn our
research into a documentary. We wanted to create an essay style documentary
that would be informative yet still engaging. We looked at existing
documentaries by directors such as Errol Morris, however we found that we just
didn’t have enough time to produce what we wanted/needed to. We worked though
this by deciding we would do a series of filmed interviews with media
practitioners and supplement these with written work. I feel that this works
well as it offers the reader/viewer a range of content that is informative and
engaging.
Connections
and Intersections—
Media
Industries 1 has been valuable because it has not only allowed me to research a
field that will most likely become my area of work – online media – but it has
also allowed me to hone in on my research ability. As a problem solving task,
our group came to compromises or a middle ground on all of our hurdles. We all
worked very well together. Of course, this is not always the case, however when
a group seems to have symbiosis with each other, it makes the research much
easier. As a learner, I have found this course has taught me that providing an
answer to a momentous research question is almost impossible, rather, it is
possible to provide theories and statistics, allowing varied conclusions to be
drawn and presented to the reader in an interesting way. I was fortunate enough
to already have connections with VICE which made networking with that media
company a lot easier than it might have been. As for Broadsheet, the
accessibility of the publication allowed me to feel as though I was able to
gain a thorough understanding of the company’s ethos. What our group deduced
from our research of the viability of online media is that generating
innovative content is key. My two case studies taught me that online content
combined with physical environments for consumers to experience a brand is a
vital part of both Broadsheet and VICE’s success. It is an interesting marriage
of the cyber and the real that combines to allow brands to understand their
audience in a way that has not yet been achieved. By knowing their demographic,
a brand or media company can then tailor make online content to appeal to the hearts
and minds of their audience. I feel that my research into both VICE and
Broadsheet will assist me as a media maker/practitioner/researcher, as it has
taught me the value of innovation in both content and business strategy, as
well as the value of allowing a research question to continue to challenge you
long after the final summaries have been presented (as it has for us on Tumblr).
Taking
the above points into mind, for this course, I award myself a Distinction.
