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Student Digital Media Project Showcase
After getting off to a decent start with my blogging about student creativity this year, I seem to have fallen a little behind. I’ve had this post in draft form for ages, waiting for some insightful commentary to spring forth from my uncooperative brain, but alas, none has emerged so I thought I’d just showcase a few outstanding examples from my Digital Media (Comm2203) unit last semester and let them speak for themselves! While the first Student News assignment in this unit asked students to make a relatively traditional television news-style story (the best of which were screened on local tv), the final project was rather different as it was designed to provoke some hard thinking about digital media more broadly both in form and content. The outline for the final projects stated:
The Digital Media Project is designed to explore the affordances of digital video and media in an online context. Working in teams (the same as your Student News Project team), students will produce a 3-minute short digital video piece which critically explores an idea, concept or area which was discussed in or, or directly provoked by, the ‘Convergence & Transmedia Storytelling’ or ‘Citizen Journalism and Participatory Culture’ lectures, readings and seminars.
This project emphasizes (a) research in the area of digital media, (b) clarity in communicating and sharing a research-informed perspective or argument about part of the digital media landscape; (c) taking an innovative approach to creating digital media; and (d) technical proficiency in creating digital media.
Given that the first half of the unit was largely practical – many were first-time users of digital video cameras, sound equipment and non-linear editing software – I wondered if introducing conceptual material from the likes of Henry Jenkins and Axel Bruns might overwhelm students; on the contrary, I found almost everyone excelled at combining their newfound practical skills with wider issues and concepts. All 28 projects submitted were of a high quality, and everyone who took this unit should be proud of their work, but a few really did stand out amongst the rest and are well worth highlighting here.
The first project I want to mention is ‘Citizen Journ vs Traditional Journ‘ which mimics the style of the Mac Vs PC advertisements, with a stop-motion twist, to explore the changing relationship between traditional journalists and citizen journalists:
In a similar vein but using a really different technique, ‘Something Old, Something New‘ mixes excerpts from a 1940s documentary on being a journalist with contemporary footage to examine exactly how far journalism has changed in the face of participatory culture:
Looking at web 2.0 culture more broadly, ‘A Blog’s Life’ is a comical look at the evolution of blogging, in the style of a nature documentary:
And in a slightly more academic tone, ‘Transmedia Storytelling and Convergence’ gives a pretty good rundown of some core features of Henry Jenkins’ arguments about transmedia in the digital media landscape:
Finally, ‘Joe Bloggs Presents Web 2.0’ is a laugh out loud satire looking at the average blogger (A LANGUAGE WARNING, though: Joe Bloggs swears like an angry trooper!):
And, yes, I did have what can best be described as an awkward cameo appearance in that the adventures of Web 2.0 there – but it was worth if, if nothing else, for that outstanding end credits song! If you’re inspired to see more, 27 of the digital media projects can be found here. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the majority of students chose to post their work under a Creative Commons license (not all, I should add, but I’m pleased enough that by the end of the course everyone knew enough to make an informed choice one way or another).
Oh and quick shout out: my partner in crime in teaching Digital Media was Christina Chau who was an excellent tutor and whose own thoughts on the unit can be read here!
Links for August 31st 2008
Interesting links for August 28th 2008 through August 31st 2008:
- Wikipedia Edits Forecast Vice Presidential Picks [Washingtonpost.com] – “In the days leading up to Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate announcement, political junkies glued to broadcasts and blogs for clues of McCain’s veep choice might have done better to keep a sharp eye on each candidate’s Wikipedia entry. Just hours before McCain declared his veep choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her Wiki page saw a flurry of activity, with editors adding details about her approval rating and husband’s employment. Perhaps more tellingly, some of the same users editing her page were almost simultaneously updating McCain’s Wiki entry, adding information dealing with accuracy, sources and footnotes to each.” [Via]
- Lewd Hudson makes waves on Facebook [Nine MSN] – “Hockeyroos captain Nikki Hudson has apologised for a sexually explicit joke she made about herself on Facebook after it made its way into the public domain. Hudson, 32, wrote she would like to be “impaled” by the Spanish men’s hockey team in a message posted on August 22, the Sunday Mail reported. “Nikki thinks the running of the bulls should be changed & we should be chased by the spainish [sic] mens hockey team,” she wrote, according to the Mail. “I would definately [sic] make sure I got caught and impaled!” The veteran Hockeyroo, whose fancied team had just been eliminated from the Olympics, regularly posted candid messages throughout her time in Beijing on topics ranging from the food to her thoughts on men.” [Via Alex @ iGeneration]
- Macquarie University opens up access to its academics’ research papers [The Australian] – “Macquarie University has joined the small club of Australian institutions that require academics to make their research papers freely available over the Internet. “We think it’s a blow for academic freedom and for universal access to scholarly work,” said Steven Schwartz, Macquarie’s vice chancellor. Under a new policy, academics must send a copy of journal articles to Macquarie’s open access repository. The open access movement seeks to maximise the public benefit from research by disseminating it beyond subscription-based journals, which are costly. The movement gained pace this year with institutions such as Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the British funding agency the Welcome Trust adopting policies that require, rather than simply encourage, researchers to use online repositories.”
- SMH columnist Carlton sacked over Fairfax strike [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Columnist Mike Carlton has been sacked from The Sydney Morning Herald. Sources have told the ABC that Mr Carlton refused to write his regular column for the paper’s Saturday edition because of the current strike by journalists and editorial staff. He was told that he would no longer be writing for the newspaper as a result.”
- YouTube Adds Captions [NewTeeVee] – YouTube has launched a captions feature to its videos. With captions, video uploaders can add a translation into a foreign language, provide clarification for garbled dialog or make the video more accessible to the hard of hearing. In order to add captions, you’ll need to have files with captions or subtitles in them, created using software or a service. Once added, the captions can be accessed by clicking on the arrow in the lower right hand corner of the video. Like video annotations, captions don’t seem to work with embeds.
Links for August 22nd 2008
Interesting links for August 21st 2008 through August 22nd 2008:
- Monkey Magic – Karen Lury / University of Glasgow [Flow TV, 8.06] – Playful and engaging reading of the BBC Monkey-style BBC Opening for the Olympic Games: “A playful, irreverent choice then: a trailer that reverses a mythic journey (from West to East) and which pays overt homage to a cult TV series that was never – in any coherent sense – an ‘authentic’ reflection or interpretation of Chinese culture or mythology. … The animation itself reproduces certain static poses and a colour scheme that may have been inspired by Chinese illustration and Japanese Manga; but for Hewlett fans, this is recognisably a Hewlett world – a world that is both menacing and cute (and where ‘cute’ is revealingly close to its roots in the freakish world of the side-show). It is funny and slightly unsettling as Pigsy smirks provocatively or when Monkey opens his mouth to reveal his dirty and surprisingly sharp teeth.”
- Tiger Woods Responds to Fan’s YouTube Video [Micro Persuasion] – “This video response is brilliant marketing on the part of Electronic Arts and Tiger Woods. A fan posted on YouTube that it’s possible for Woods to hit a golf ball in Tiger Woods 08 while walking on water. How does Tiger react? By showing how it’s done and promoting Tiger Woods 09 in the process. It shows they listen and bring in the big guns to engage.”
- Digital futures report: the internet in Australia [CCI] – “This report provides an overview of our work, presenting results for each of the questions asked. We will also be publishing work that examines relationships between our key variables exploring, for example, differences between users with broadband access at home and those on dial-up connections and the differences that age, gender and education levels make to people’s use and experience of the internet. Analysis we have already conducted shows that broadband does make a substantial difference to peoples’ use of the internet. The internet is more highly valued by those with broadband connections and they use the internet for longer and for a greater variety of purposes. Younger people have been quick to integrate the internet into their lives, they use the internet more and particularly for entertainment.” [Full Report PDF]
- Few lives left for Second Life [The Age] – “Separately, figures released by the virtual world’s creator Linden Lab in April show there are only 12,245 active Australian Second Life users, down from highs of 16,000 towards the end of last year. … Australians appear to have lost interest in Second Life and the users still there appear to be shying away from the big corporate brands. Kim MacKenzie, a PhD student at the Queensland University of Technology, centred her honours year thesis around the business applications of Second Life. She studied the Second Life bases of 20 international brands over three months last year, including Dell, Toyota, Coca-Cola, BMW, AOL and Vodafone. “They were like ghost towns,” said MacKenzie, adding that many of the users she saw on the company islands appeared to be staff members.” (A significant rebuttal of the information and argument in this article can be found at Personalize Media.
- For YouTube videos, a ‘fair use’ boost [News.com] – “Copyright owners, such as NBC Universal, Warner Bros., and Viacom, were put on notice Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that they must not order video be removed from Web sites indiscriminately. Before taking action against a clip, copyright owners, must form a “good-faith belief ” that a video is infringing, according to Corynne McSherry, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “
- Poor earning virtual gaming gold [BBC NEWS | Technology] – “Nearly half a million people are employed in developing countries earning virtual goods in online games to sell to players, a study has found. Research by Manchester University shows that the practice, known as gold-farming, is growing rapidly. Researchers say the industry, which is largely based in China, currently employs about 400,000 young people who earn £80 per month on average.” (Good article, but really, “playbourers”?)
- Up, Up, and Away? Separating Fact from Fiction in the Comic Book Business [Alisa Perren / Georgia State University – Flow TV 8.06] – A timely look at the relationship between comic book sales and the blockbuster movies they’ve been driving so successfully this year: “Myth #1: Comic-Con is all about comics. From its inception in 1970 well into the 1990s, this was largely the case. However, in recent years, the Hollywood studios increasingly have focused their energies on using the annual event as a means of promoting upcoming films and television programs. … Myth #2: Since movies based on comics are all the rage, comic books must be selling like crazy.”
- iTunes blocked in China after protest stunt [WA Today] – “Access to Apple’s online iTunes Store has been blocked in China after it emerged that Olympic athletes have been downloading and possibly listening to a pro-Tibetan music album in a subtle act of protest against China’s rule over the province. The album, called Songs for Tibet, was produced by an a group called The Art of Peace Foundation, and features 20 tracks from well-known singers and songwriters including Sting, Moby, Suzanne Vega and Alanis Morissette. It was released as a download on the iTunes Store on August 5 – three days before the start of the Olympics – with the physical CD launched on Tuesday this week. The Foundation provided free downloads of the album to Olympic athletes, urging them to play the songs on their iPods during the Games as a show of support.”
Links for August 11th 2008
Interesting links for August 10th 2008 through August 11th 2008:
- having “exclusive rights” in a region is a remnant of the twentieth century’s mass media [jill/txt] – “The tyranny of digital distance is most often experienced by people outside of the United States. … Another aspect of these cultural blockades where being outside of the US has been an advantage is baseball. In the US, if you’ve moved away from where the team you support is based you often won’t be able to watch their games because the local television stations won’t broadcast them. So MLB.tv lets you subscribe to watch all baseball games – except local ones, because the local television stations have exclusive rights to them. If you live outside of the US, you have no local games – so you can watch every baseball game live, no holds barred.”
- Wizard People, Dear Reader by Brad Neely (NOT Harry Potter) [Illegal Art] – Brad Neely’s hilarious “unauthorized re-envisioning of Harry Potter and the Philosophers/Sorcerer’s Stone”, released in 2004. It’s a long audio parody to be played at the same time as the DVD of the first Harry Potter film. Like a DVD commentary for evil! [YouTube Version] [Script] [Wikipedia Entry]
- 1.8 million hits in four days for grocery pricing website. [WA Today] – “The new GROCERYchoice website received 1.8 million hits in its first four days, showing consumers are interested in the information it provides, federal Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen says. GROCERYchoice was launched last week by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to provide consumers with more information about grocery prices.”
- How to Get Your Indie Film on iTunes (…It’s Not Easy) [CinemaTech] – Scott Kirsner’s really useful guide to distributing independent films via iTunes and (more feasibly) via their main competitors like Amazon Unbox. For the upcoming filmmakers of tomorrow, this is essential information! (Especially if you’re already planning your own Dr Horrible!)
- Amazon Adds Universal Wish List [Micro Persuasion] – Amazon.com’s Wish List feature has been around a long time – over 10 years in fact. However, recently the e-commerce site expanded it with a new feature called The Universal Wish List. Using a simple bookmarklet … you can now add any item to your list from anywhere on the web.” (I use Amazon’s wish lists a lot, both for purchases and to fill out bibliographies of new books, so this looks like a really useful little addition to me!)
Links for August 10th 2008
Interesting links for August 9th 2008 through August 10th 2008:
- Barack Roll [YouTube] – Barack Obama gets … or possibly embodies being … rickrolled.
- Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans [NYTimes.com] – “NBC’s decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC’s technological wall — by finding newsfeeds on foreign broadcasters’ Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites. In response, NBC sent frantic requests to Web sites, asking them to take down the illicit clips and restrict authorized video to host countries. As the four-hour ceremony progressed, a game of digital whack-a-mole took place. Network executives tried to regulate leaks on the Web and shut down unauthorized video, while viewers deftly traded new links on blogs and on the Twitter site, redirecting one another to coverage from, say, Germany, or a site with a grainy Spanish-language video stream. As the first Summer Games of the broadband age commenced in China, old network habits have never seemed so archaic — or so irrelevant.”
- Twitter Down for Hitler [Blip TV] – DownFall Hitler parody: “Upon hearing tragic news, Hitler decides to tweet his sadness only to learn it’s down. ” LOL
- So what if you give most of it away?: The Bikini Concept. [The Road To Attversumption] – “I found out the age-old concept of the bikini to apply. That by giving away 90% of the concept, and keeping 10%, the attraction factor was just as strong, if not twice as strong (there are reasons for me saying ‘twice as strong). And yes, what the bikini didn’t reveal, was the part the audience most wanted (naturally), and was the part they were willing to pay for.”
- Hamlet Retold Via Facebook (PNG Image, 1254×1608 pixels) – “Hamlet became a fan of daggers.” Clever little retelling of Hamlet using Facebook stories.
Links for August 8th 2008
Interesting links for August 7th 2008 through August 8th 2008:
- Steal This Hook? Girl Talk Flouts Copyright Law [NYTimes.com] – “Girl Talk, whose real name is Gregg Gillis, makes danceable musical collages out of short clips from other people’s songs; there are more than 300 samples on “Feed the Animals,” the album he released online at illegalart.net in June. He doesn’t get the permission of the composers to use these samples, as United States copyright law mostly requires, because he maintains that the brief snippets he works with are covered by copyright law’s “fair use” principle …Girl Talk’s rising profile has put him at the forefront of a group of musicians who are challenging the traditional restrictions of copyright law along with the usual role of samples in pop music.” Girl Talk’s latest album Feed the Animals can be downloaded for whatever price users choose to pay (including choosing to pay nothing).
- MisUnderstanding YouTube by Joshua Green [Flow TV 8.05] – “… popularity on [YouTube] revolves as much around what is “Most Discussed” or “Most Responded” as it does what is “Most Viewed.” … Understanding this is crucial to effectively accounting for YouTube as a diverse media space. This is not to suggest everyone comes to the site to post a video blog, but rather to come to terms with the fact that YouTube is built as much through practices of audience-ing as it is practices of publishing, and to realize the two as intimately linked. As much as the video blog, YouTube is ruled by the clip and the quote — the short grab or edited selection; these videos are evidence or demonstration of active audience-hood.”
- Human rights group broadcast ‘pirate’ radio show in Beijing [Radio Australia] – “A human rights group has broken China’s tight control of the media by broadcasting a radio show calling for freedom of expression in Beijing. At 8.08am local time, the Paris based group Reporters Without Borders began a twenty minute pirate broadcast on Beijing’s airwaves.” [Via @mpesce]
- It’s public so what’s the privacy issue with Google’s Street View? [The Courier-Mail] – Peter Black tells it like it (legally) is regarding Google Streetview in Australia: “What Google did was perfectly legal. They took photographs of houses, buildings and streets from a public place. If anyone can legally walk up and down your street taking photographs of houses, why can’t Google? They can. Once this is accepted, the argument then becomes one about people randomly caught in the lens of the camera. “Surely they don’t have a right to take a photo of me?” Yes they do. You can have no reasonable expectation of privacy, let alone a right to privacy, when you are in a public area, such as your street.”
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