Public Service Media and Social TV: Co-Creating Television Comedy with the Network Influencers of the ABC’s #7DaysLater

J O N AT H O N H U TC H I N S O N , U N I VE R S I T Y O F S Y D N E Y@ d h u t c h m a njo n a th on . h u t c h i n s o n @ s y d n e y. e d u . a u

AoIR15 Conference, Daegu South Korea, October 2014

S OC I A L T V

“the interactions among other viewers and between viewers, the characters, and the producers of the show enabled by the ‘second-screen’ practice”

(Giglietto and Selva, 2014: 260)

Moving Twitter Beyond Second Screening…

C H A L L E N G E S O P PO RT U N I T I E S

AU D I ENC E V I S I B I L I TY - FRAG MENTAT I ON

C U T THR OU G H NO I S E

G R OW D I G I TAL P R ES ENC E

R EG U L AT I ON

P R ODU C T I ON METHODOLOGY EX P ER I MENT

AU D I ENC E PART I C I PAT I ON

I NVES T I N ‘ U P & C OMI NG ’ TAL E NT

Huddleston, 2014

Professional quality

&

Social relevance

Image: ABC, CC BY NC

“the application of the principles of universality of availability, universality of

appeal, provision for minorities, education of the public, distance from vested interests, quality programming standards, program

maker independence, fostering of the public sphere”

PSB Reithian values:

(Cunningham, 2013: 62)

“it is better to understand the ABC and SBS as public

service media organizations, rather than

public service broadcasters”

“The ABC and SBS have the potential to be content

innovators in the provision of news and information in the ways that utilise UCC

(user-created content) strategies”

Flew et al., 2008: 2

“Communications Minister

Stephen Conroy has also

announced the ABC and SBS

charters will be updated to

take into account their online

and digital content.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/conroy-announces-media-reforms/4567550

#7DaysLater is a program “…

taking comedy to the scary

arena of interactive

storytelling where the

audience gets to write the

brief via social media for each

weekly episode that will air

just seven days later on

ABC2”

(ABC, 2013).

T H E W O R K P I P E L I N E

1. @7DaysLaterTV2. @Daley_Pearson3. @HarrisonTheFan4. @MWhalan5. @henry_and_aaron6. @bajopants7. @ABC28. @WASHINGTONx9. @JordanRasko10. @tomandalex

1. #7DaysLater2. #qanda3. #ZandA4. #spooky5. #Animation6. #FlightoftheConchords7. #Western8. #Hawaii9. #ggtv10. #zombie

“I eventually want to end up writing and producing for film and television and thought this would be just a good experience to start

with. I mainly have a background in writing and directing for theatre and handling social media (as

a job), so this was the perfect crossover.”

@HarrisonTheFan

T H E C A S E F O R C U LT U RA L I N T E R M E D I AT I O N

• The ABC has increased its responsibility as a cultural co-creative institution through social TV

• It must contribute more than merely the platforms to promote user contribution

• To avoid ‘the usual voices’, cultural intermediaries must engage the fringe voices, along with the network influencers

• Cultural intermediation promotes the expertise networks to add value to the production of cultural goods

S O W H AT ?

• Given the ABC’s remit, useful to understand inclusion via social media platforms

• Effective social media strategy when combined with the social media person

• Innovative production model, built on digital ethnography methodology

• Significant role for the cultural intermediary to engage outlier participants - realisation for the ABC

Jonathon HutchinsonThe University of Sydney

@dhutchmanjonathon.hutchinson@sydney.edu.au