Institutional online communities - ABC Pool as a collaborative, creative community within the...

Institutional Online Communities – ABC Pool as a Collaborative, Creative Community within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Jonathon Hutchinson, PhD Candidate ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation

My Background

• @dhutchman• PhD (Creative Industries) researcher• Thesis title: “Connections, Collaborations &

Consequences: A study on the effects of Pool and its community within the ABC”

• Ethnographic action methodology• Part time employment as Community Manager of ABC• Research informs practice informs research

Research Questions

How does the ABC Community Manager coordinate the activities of an online community with the core values of

the public service broadcaster?

What is the role the national broadcaster might play in developing social capital within community cultural

development?

Institutional Online Community…

An online community operating within a public, commercial or non-commercial institution and not an open,

independently facilitated online community

ABC Pool – abc.net.au/pool

ABC Pool Community Manager Core Activity Breakdown

ABC Pool Communication Model, Stakeholders, Core Activities

It might not be the “Community Manager”?

The cultural intermediary:

“… comes into its own in all the occupations involving presentation and representation … in all the institutions

providing symbolic goods and services” (Bourdieu 1984: 359)

“… this new class faction tends to blur a number of conventional distinctions. Most notably here is the division between high art/pop culture and the divide between personal taste and

professional judgement (or leisure and work)” (Negus 2002: 503).

ABC Cultural Intermediary

The Expertise of Cultural Intermediaries

• Interactional: “a translation role that facilitates and supports communication, dialogue and exchange across expertise domains” (Banks, 2008)

• Contributory: “tacit knowledge, practical or craft skill” (Evans 2008)

• Referred: Collins and Sanders (2007) suggest what can be learned in one area can be applied to another

ABC Cultural Intermediary and Expertise Model

The Emerging Cultural Intermediary

• Cultural intermediaries are positioned to build social capital through collaborative symbol production

• Cultural intermediaries have close access to national cultural conversation with Australian communities

• These new players impact on the public sphere and also the emergence of a transforming cultural sphere

Research Potential

• Distinguishing the “Community Manager” role – unique research of emerging role within broad industries

• Unique research from inside of the ABC (ethnographic action research) – first hand perspective

• This knowledge can be operationalised for this role as it develops

• Context of media industry, particularly PSM, identifying how audience engagement is shifting

Jonathon Hutchinson

jp.hutchinson@student.qut.edu.au

hutchinson.jonathon@abc.net.au

@dhutchman

http://jonathonhutchinson.com