MECO Book Launch and Lecture, Wed 27th Sep
Agata Stepnik
Discipline of Media and Communications
MECO Book Launch and Lecture
Event hosted by the Discipline of Media and Communications
Wednesday 27th September 2023
5:30pm to 8:00pm
Lecture Theatre 200, Social Sciences Building (A02)
Science Road, The University of Sydney
NSW 2006
This will be a hybrid in person/streamed event.
The discipline of Media and Communication is proud to showcase new books from our scholars with a celebratory event. Join us as we hear a special lecture from Professor
John Hartley AM, followed by introductions to new titles from Dr
Jonathon Hutchinson and Dr
Chunmeizi Su. The evening will close out with a celebratory reception.
Opening Lecture
Submarines at the end of the world. ‘Great Game’ or make believe? with Professor John Hartley AM
Journalism needs to be more careful about whose stories to tell. Strategic storytelling – part of the imperial Great Game going back to the 1840s – specialises in foe creation. But the stories are make-believe: scenarios for doom-laden futures, not a description of real events. This year, Australian headlines have been preoccupied with nuclear submarines. My hometown of Fremantle is gearing up for war. But Australian subs soon ‘melt into air’ – they currently exist entirely in story. What is promised does not have to be delivered: just believed. They may never exist in reality. The story is the geostrategic policy.
If journalism has a future, it won’t be found in the press releases of the defence industry. The popular values and appeal of journalism have broken from institutional control to reach anthropological extent: widely
diffused among a heterogenous population; taking new forms among new groups and organizations. Now journalism is no longer an occupation but a competence, distributed among entire publics. The challenge for educators is to turn away from the truth/war mentality,
in order to teach media literacy and participation as a civic practice, for a journalism that promotes what Donna Haraway calls ‘storytelling for earthly survival’.
Book Launch Presentations
Digital Intermediation: Unseen Infrastructure for Cultural Production (Routledge) by Dr Jonathon Hutchinson
With introduction by Associate Professor Heather Ford (UTS)
This book offers a new framework for understanding content creation and distribution across automated media platforms – a new mediatisation process. The book draws on three years of empirical and theoretical research
to carefully identify and describe a number of unseen digital infrastructures that contribute to predictive media (algorithmic platforms) within the media production process: digital intermediation. The empirical field data is drawn from several international
sites, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, London, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Sydney and Cartagena. By highlighting the automated content production and distribution process, the book responds to a number of regulatory debates emerging
around the societal impact of platformisation. Digital Intermediation: Towards transparent digital infrastructure describes and highlights the importance of key developments that help shape the production and distribution of content, including micro-platformisation
and digital first personalities. The book explains how digital agencies and multichannel networks use platforms strategically to increase exposure for the talent they manage, while providing inside access to the processes and requirements of developers who
create algorithms for platforms. The findings in this book provide key recommendations for policy makers working within digital media platforms based on the everyday operation of content production and consumption within automated media environments. Finally,
this book highlights user agency as a strategy for consumers who seek information on automated social media content distribution platforms.
Douyin, TikTok and China’s Online Screen Industry: The Rise of Short-Video Platforms(Routledge) by Dr Chunmeizi Su
With introduction by Professor Michael Keane (QUT)
TikTok has drawn attention from all over the world. Even if you have never used it before, you would still be familiar with its name. Many people have assumed that it is a US-generated platform, and normally awed at its real origin – a Chinese born and operated platform, a sister or parallel platform of Douyin. Because of the short-video platform–TikTok, and also its dispute with the US government, people have started to paying attention to what is really happening and changing in China. Two questions that hang over everyone’s mind seem to be: why China? And why TikTok? This book attempted to answer the question of why short-video platforms such as TikTok—the most popular ‘made in China’ product of all the Chinese digital platforms—became a significant competitor on the global stage.
This book explores the reasons behind the rise of short video platforms in China, with a focus on the sudden and unexpected success of TikTok and its parallel platform Douyin. Beginning with the historical development
of China’s online screen industry, the book goes on to investigate the ICT industry, its business models and impact on the screen industry, to unfold the reasons behind the domestic popularity of Douyin. It draws on a spectrum of sources including policy documents,
industry reports and expert analysis, which is supplemented by interviews with key people in the field. It traces the changing dynamics of the Chinese online screen ecology, and shows how a mixture of technological, industrial and cultural factors contributed
to the proliferation of short-video platforms in China.
About the authors
Dr Jonathon Hutchinson is the Chair of Discipline of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. He is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council LIEF project The International Digital Policy Observatory, and is also a Chief Investigator on the eSafety Commission Research project, Emerging online safety issues: co-creating social media education with young people. For 2023 and 2024, he holds the prestigious position of President of the Australian and New Zealand Communications Association and is the current Editor in Chief of the Policy & Internet Journal. His most recent book, Digital Intermediation: Unseen infrastructure for cultural production is available through Routledge.
Dr Chunmeizi Su is a Lecturer of Digital Cultures at The University of Sydney. Her research interests include platform studies, algorithms, digital policy and platform governance. She has published extensively in Media, Culture & Society, Television and New Media, Global Media and China, etc.
You can also contact cdts.en...@sydney.edu.au if you have any questions about this event.