This critical exegesis of my podcast, ‘BabelSwarm’, will briefly explore how the interactive, audiovisual, virtual art project of BabelSwarm exemplifies certain aspects of participatory culture, those of collective intelligence, interactivity and community. The internet has given rise to new communities that are connected across the globe, and with it the potentials for gaming, social networking and other activities, such as art, have expanded. BabelSwarm connects with ideas of community through the virtual, amongst other things, but the breadth of possible discussion – and the complexity of the art project itself – also presented me with a challenge when creating my podcast.

In ‘Interactive Audiences?: The ‘Collective Intelligence’ of Media Fans’, Henry Jenkins identifies three key characteristics of participatory culture. While the second and third are less specifically relevant to my project, the first – new tools and technologies that enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content (Jenkins, 2002) – is fundamental to a project such as BabelSwarm. The potential for interactive experiences is hugely amplified by digital technology, and particularly the connecting nature of the web. BabelSwarm fits into participatory culture both as an artwork that is created with digital technology, and because of its location within Second Life.

Second Life is a virtual world that attempts to literally give people a ‘second life’. While still restricted by technological limitations and the economic concerns of the company that controls it (Clemens, 2008: 15), Second Life sees people re-creating themselves as avatars, making friendships, buying land, decorating homes, getting married, being buried, and numerous other simulations of real-life activities. Constructing art in Second Life is one such pastime, and is now being supported in the real world. BabelSwarm, as an art installation in the virtual world, was funded by the largest grant yet seen for a Second Life project (Clemens, 2008: 2).

Second Life – and other similar virtual worlds and forums – fosters community on a global scale. Members are from all around the world, and accessing the same online world from innumerable locations. It’s a prime site for communities to form in ways never possible before. Pierre Levy predicted this result from the impact of internet technologies in stating that, ‘we are passing from the Cartesian cogito”—I think, therefore I am—“to cogitamus”—we think, therefore we are.’ (McGonigal, 2007: 1). Unlike the example of I Love Bees in Jane McGonigal’s essay on collective intelligence, BabelSwarm does not present a problem to be solved, and is without an implicit purpose in the way that online games have goals. This initially presented me with a challenge when thinking about the project from a theoretical standpoint. It seems to be that BabelSwarm does not produce or use a collective intelligence so much as it exemplifies it. It is like an enormous picture of collective intelligence.

Jenkins writes about the collective intelligence of media fans and uses Pierre Levy’s Collective Intelligence to discuss the new knowledge space that emerges when boundaries between groups and nations break down. The internet has enabled this knowledge community, which operates on the principle that no one knows everything, but everyone knows something (Jenkins, 2002). This concept is acted out by swarm intelligence: picture a group of beings without a single being governing them. By their local interactions, in pockets of individuals you might say, the group as a whole can achieve greater ends than were possible on their own. It is a picture of sharing and communication – and BabelSwarm fits right in.

>Each of the letters in BabelSwarm have been separated from their place within the word they were born in; but each letter is also programmed to search out those letters on either side of its original position. There is no all-encompassing order, but small interactive movements by each letter to reform some whole.

Interaction is also present on the part of the human user. The tower of BabelSwarm consists of words and letter that have been spoken (in real speech) and translated via software into 3-D images (in the virtual). The installation could not exist without that speech. There is also the response evoked by an avatar’s contact with letters – if hibernating, the letter will be reawaken, but if in seeking mode, it will be obliterated. Every new interaction changes the structure of the installation, building on what was previously done.

These thoughts on BabelSwarm’s significance are very perfunctory, since the project is relevant in various discussions, whether of language and history, culture and the arts, online games and the virtual/real divide, or otherwise. It is fascinating from any angle (literally and metaphorically), and hopefully the podcast I have created reflects this.

babelswarm

Clemens, Justin (c.2008) ‘BabelSwarm’. http://www.iconinc.com.au/acva/babelswarm_essay.pdf (accessed 11 September 2008).

Jenkins, Henry (2002) ‘Interactive Audiences?: The ‘Collective Intelligence’ of Media Fans’. http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/collective%20intelligence.html (accessed 11 September 2008)

McGonigal, Jane (2007) ‘Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming’. http://avantgame.com/McGonigal_WhyILoveBees_Feb2007.pdf (accessed 11 September 2008).

The Cherry Blues Project, ‘Cosmic #1’ (Music) n.d. c.2007, http://www.opsound.org/artist/thecherrybluesproject/, CC BY SA 2.5

The Cherry Blues Project, ‘Blue Space’ (Music) n.d. c.2007, http://www.opsound.org/artist/thecherrybluesproject/, CC BY SA 2.5

Macroform, ‘Lying Down’ (Music) n.d. c.2008, http://www.opsound.org/artist/macroform/, CC BY SA 2.5

Acclivity, ‘OlgaNR1.mp3’ (sound recording) 2006, http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=14261, CC SP 1.0

Dobroide, ‘cave.large.hall.mp3’ (sound recording) 2005, http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=4203, CC SP 1.0

Dobroide, ‘voc.art.gallery.wav’ (sound recording) 2006, http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=15656, CC SP 1.0

Anton, ‘keyboard-typing.wav’ (sound recording) 2005, http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=137, CC SP 1.0

Exegesis

This podcast aimed to educate listeners about an aspect of community and participatory culture. A participatory culture is a ‘culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices’ and where the ‘members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another’. (Henry Jenkins, ‘Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century’) 6EBA World Radio immediately came to mind as a topic choice, as I have personally experienced the participatory nature of the station and few groups, activities or events in our society merge the concepts of community and participatory culture better than community radio.

As explored through various topics throughout the seminar, catering for the needs of small groups is as, if not more important, than providing support and opportunity for interaction for the larger groups in communities. Dani Cinnamon points out in the podcast that added together, those small groups make up quite a large section of a society and often community radio is one of the only ways in which smaller communities can keep in touch, be informed of community events and the current affairs in their countries. Michael Hedges states that ‘the health of the medium [community radio] depends on reaching real people, no matter how small the audience’. (Michael Hedges, ‘State Council overturns regulator on community radio’) Through offering an intense variety of programming featuring several languages and topics, community radio reaches assorted groups and individuals whom are not catered for by the larger, commercial stations that are aimed at a boarder audience. As media giants such as Amazon.com have discovered, ‘the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets’, most entertainment forms are moving towards a more personalised and individual experiences for their intended audiences. (Chris Anderson, ‘The Long Tail’) While this has continuously been the trend in community radio, the direction of new media forms (such as Social Networking Sites) raises the question of whether community radio will be the only provider of support, interaction and participation for smaller niche groups, and in turn whether it has a future as society moves further into the digital age.

A common conception of digital technologies and the movement towards a digital age is that it is going to enable increased audience and community participation, and move away from the ‘top-down’ experiences of media creation that have shaped our past as a consumer culture. When I raised the question to Cinnamon, she explained that the amount of digital channel available to community radio was limited and the digital channel was mainly going to allocated to commercial channels. (Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, ‘The challenges for community broadcasting’) The fact that community radio is only receiving a smaller fraction of the digital channel than currently available means that there will be less opportunity for participation, or at least less available opportunities for varied cultures and communities with smaller intended audiences to participate. It is an interesting turn in the ideologies surrounding digital media, which is often promoted as a space where there will be and is increased participation, digital media, ‘gets the audience involved, provide[s] opportunities for everyone to be a content creator, to distribute the content, and to present content in new venues’. Additionally the changes involved in the translation from analogue broadcasting to broadcasting on the digital channel bring challenges in the form of funding, management of the station and the technical structures that would be required. (Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, ‘The challenges for community broadcasting’)

I chose to record my podcast in the 6EBA studio, primarily as that was where I would be meeting my interviewee but also because this provided, what I felt, was a much higher quality of sound than a handheld recording device would. Additionally, I was then able to use audio editing software that I was already familiar with at 6EBA, and so did not have to familiarise myself with another system. Overall, this allowed for a great recording experience, as I was able to watch the interview be recorded onto the computer and so did not have any concerns about issues accessing the recording from a device. The only challenge that I came across was that the time limit of the podcast was somewhat restrictive, and consequently I had to cut out several questions and some answers that would have also contributed to concepts of participatory culture and community.

While the future of community radio is uncertain due to changes in technologies and media, it currently provides support and opportunities for participation that are not available elsewhere to small groups and communities either within or outside their community.

The Podcast

Community Radio [4:46]

Bibliography

Henry Jenkins, ‘Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century.’ http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF (accessed 10 September 2008).

Michael Hedges (2008) ‘State Council overturns regulator on community radio.’ http://www.followthemedia.com/mediarules/gazelle01092008.htm (accessed 10 September 2008).

Chris Anderson (2004) ‘The Long Tail.’ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html (accessed 10 September 2008).

Community Broadcasting Association of Australia ‘The challenges for community broadcasting.’ http://www.cbaa.org.au/content.php/506.html (accessed 10 September 2008).

Ethnosphere Volume 2, ‘Track 23’ (Music), n.d.

      Ethnic-language media is one of the most important elements in the lives of international students, long-term travelers and both old and new migrants in their new host country. According to Zhou et al., publications is placed in a dominant position among various media forms in ethnic-language media (2006, p.52). Community newspapers actually provide a source for these ‘foreign’ people to gather informations on different aspect of life, ranging from news to suggestions for dinner. This audio project aims to examine how one of the most widely circulated community newspaper, Australia Asia Business Weekly (formerly Asia Times), contribute to the Chinese community in Perth, as well as the experience of participating in such publication.

      As a small-scale community weekly, it allows the participation of non/semi-professional people, such as students, in the production process. The interviewee in the podcast is one of them. In this case, a supposed-to-be consumer becomes a producer. Reporters can decide what they want to cover in some of the pages apart from hard news, with the approval of the editor at the end, but they do have the power to determine their own focus of stories that they are writing. Though the top down relationship of producer and audiences still exist, but the hierarchy is being relaxed.

      As mentioned in the project, both the reporter (interviewee) and readers have a feel of home and sense of belonging to the community by writing and reading the weekly. Chavis argues the ‘sense of community’ or identity is more important to a community than physical locality (cited by Gooch, 2008, p.19). The Chinese community has the advantage of living in the same area, and the sense of belonging created by the newspaper enhances the ‘social bond’ among the community. The ‘social bond’ (2002) suggested by Jenkins has being intensified by the internet. Unlike the internet, the community newspaper does not provide immediate access and speedy interactions between readers, but the ‘social bond’ still has developed within the community. The community has formed their own ‘ethnic networks to find housing, jobs and their way around’ (Zhou et al., 2006, p.67).

      In addition, the community newspaper creates linkage between the diasporians and their homeland. The Chinese newspaper emphasizes particularly on news in China and other Southeast Asian region, so it ‘keeps immigrants in close contact with the homeland, thus easing the psychological and emotional problems of being a foreigner’ (Zhou et al., 2006, p.69). Once again it creates a ‘sense of community’ (Gooch, 2008, p.19) to the Chinese people in Perth, but this time with the people in their homeland, especially friends and relatives. Although people staying in different localities cannot conduct immediate conversations through the newspaper, still it brings forth a sense of community which transcends geographical locations.

      This audio project is produced in the form of a podcast and supposedly being uploaded to a blog, which people can browse freely while they surf the World Wide Web. The circulation of newspaper is limited to physical locality as readers have to show up at the distribution point to get copies, as well as promotion of the paper is greatly limited to mouth-to-mouth transfer. Like fandom before the emergence of internet, it is a ‘week-end only world’ (2002), as Jenkins suggests. However, since the World Wide Web gives ‘a surprising degree of public visibility’ (ibid.) to its contents, the efficiency of promotion will be rocketed if it is publicised through the internet, allowing more people to acknowledge its presence and advantages brought to the community. Sadly, the newspaper remains as a ‘week-end only world’, since the newspaper is published once a week, and still being limited to its physical distribution.

      Apart from how the contents of the podcast engage in participatory culture, as mentioned above, the podcast is being uploaded to the internet so that people with the connection would have the chance of approaching it. That means the person who creates and uploads the podcast, which is me, has also engaged in participatory culture. Dery describes ‘all forms of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) media as “jamming”’ (Cited by Jenkins, 2002). The podcast jammed the Australian and Chinese culture together as it talks about Chinese community newspaper in Perth.

      In conclusion, this audio project attempts to examine how a supposed-to-be consumer tries to participate in community newspaper publication and how the community newspaper contributes to the Chinese community in Perth. The hierarchy of small-scale community newspaper is relaxed due to the employment of students as volunteer reporters. The newspaper creates a better sense of community to both producers and consumers. Moreover, the podcast itself helps to inform people on the existence of such community newspaper through a much efficient way of publicizing, the World Wide Web. Last but not least, the podcast is also a cultural product engaged in participatory culture.

The Podcast

audio-project-shemila-cheng [4:22]

Bibliography

Gooch, Betsy (2008) ‘The Communication of Fan Culture: The Impact of New Media on Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom.’ http://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/1853/21818/1/gooch_betsy_r_200805_ro.pdf (accessed 8 September 2008)

Jenkins, Henry (2002) ‘Interactive Audiences? The “Collective Intelligence” of Media Fans’, in Dan Harries, ed., The New Media Book. London: British Film Institute, pp.157-170.

Zhou, Min, Wenhong Chen and Guoxuan Cai (2006) ‘Chinese-language media and immigrant life in the United States and Canada’, Wanning Sun, ed., Media and the Chinese Diaspora: Community, Communications and Commerce, New York: Routledge, pp.42-74.

Project Work        

Bibliography

Jenkins, Henry, “Interactive Audiences? The ‘Collective Intelligence’ of Media Fans”, MIT website. http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/collective%20intelligence.html (accessed 09/09/08)

McGonigal, Jane, “Why I Love Bees”, Avant Game website (February 2007). http://avantgame.com/McGonigal_WhyILoveBees_Feb2007.pdf (accessed 10/09/08)

Ng, Aik Kwang (2004) “Why is there a Paradox in Promoting Creativity in the Asian Classroom?”, Liberating the creative spirit in Asian students, Pearson/Prentice Hall, pp. 197-211

Orb Gettarr, ‘Ambient Cake (Remix Ready)’ (Music), n.d.c.2007, http://www.opsound.org/artist/orbgettarr – Ambient-Cake.mp3, CC BY SA 2.5

Orb Gettarr, ‘Another Island Dream’ (Music), n.d.c.2007, http://www.opsound.org/artist/orbgettarr – Another-Island-Dream.mp3, CC BY SA 2.5

Wong, E.L. Angela, Quek, Choon-Lang, Divaharan, Shanti, Liu, Woon-Chia, Peer, Jarina, Williams, D. Michael (2006) “Singapore Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Computer-Supported Project Work Classroom Learning Environments”, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp 449-479

In the course of the interview with Ben, I hoped to discover his opinions on various topics and themes relating to community and participatory culture. These topics and themes are well suited to Ben, in his position as both a producer and consumer of music in the current transitional climate. That is, music is now easier than ever before to produce, and indeed reproduce. The traditional support structures for emerging artists remain, record labels and publishers, with their capacity to both publish the records that contain the music, send them across the world and advertise them to people who may be open to hearing the music. Now one asks oneself “are these necessary”, given the increased ease of distribution afforded by such technology as streaming, or the social phenomena of social networking sites, such as Myspace. Furthermore, Ben offers an insight into the nature of “community feeling” when this is detached from a physical space, and instead triggered by a common interest or similar.

Ben’s opinion is that Myspace is not an ideal space to open a dialogue between fans and musicians, and that it doesn’t really open any new channels of communication and interconnectedness. Although theoretically musicians will communicate with the fans who are their Myspace “friends” this is hardly a dialogue. Fans may post on the wall, and bands may send out bulletins, or write blog notes, but neither is really engaging with the other. To continue along this manner of thinking, online interactions between fans have existed without Myspace, in the form of forums on bands’ official sites. However, one could contend that Myspace, being a Social Networking Site (SNS) engages fans in a manner different from forums, in that it works on a more web-like framework. A fan who looks at a band’s Myspace will see links to personal profiles of other fans, and, perhaps more importantly to other bands, who presumably share some common ground with the original band. While a forum may offer this as a feature, it will be because a user has gone out of their way to create it, whereas it is an integrated feature of Myspace. Whether this feature is promoting of a participatory culture or not is open to conjecture, but it definitely does simplify and extend the web nature of a fan community on Myspace.

On the relationship of a band and a record label, Ben clearly feels that bands are still reliant on the support offered by a record label. In order to reach upper echelons and traditional ideas of success it is necessary to have a label, an opinion which rings true, at least as far as I have researched, not knowing of anybody who has achieved widespread commercial success in the truest sense of the word. Incidentally, projects such as DJ DangerMouse’s The Grey Album may not have directly earned the authors any commercial capital, but have acted as free advertising for their later careers, thanks to the social and cultural capital they have earned. Ben views the relationship between artist and publisher as being two-way, with neither being taken advantage of, at least in concept. In practice he has concerns and cites the work of Steve Albini as an example. However, he believes a strong internet following grants a musician a large bargaining chip in negotiating a record deal, and that it is advantageous to have an internet following, even if it no more than a means to an ends. One can contend that if an artist doesn’t necessarily wish to achieve the traditional measures of success, and instead tailors their work to a market that wants low output from individual producers, but a high degree of specialisation. This market model is highly suited to participatory means of distribution, being as it follows the Long Tail theory of economics. The relatively small number of people who are looking for this musician’s product are able to find it thanks to various mechanisms in the internet – tagging of related music, online shops – and given it is exactly what they are looking for, will buy it.

Ben sees geographical proximity is a necessary stepping stone, more effective earlier than the internet community, and not as far reaching, particularly in a place like Perth. With this in mind, he also feels a connection with other bands based on nothing more than similar musical style, and hopes they would share this emotion. Clearly he feels a sense of community with these people, based on their common interests, which is commonly accepted to be a trait of people immersed in participatory culture, articulated by Henry Jenkins (among others) – “People who may not ever meet face to face and thus have few real-world connections with each other can tap into the shared framework of popular culture to facilitate communication” (Jenkins, Henry ‘Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture’ accessed Sept 2008).

Ben offers an opinion that is somewhat reserved about the potential for fullscale change, and almost suggests that the present system is not going to change, at least not for musicians who hope to appeal to (and be exposed to) a large audience, the scale of which we are familiar with today. As an exploration of themes, I feel the podcast went quite well, with satisfactory answers coming to questions posed both by an interviewer and a listener. From a technical point of view, the sound seems crisp and audible above a faint room noise, with no glaringly obvious pops and crackles. The aimed for feel, of a low-budget bedroom/pirate recording is captured in the narration at the beginning and end. The levels are consistent across the multiple takes, providing a seamless transition from one piece of audio to the next. The experiment of having the music panned hard left seems to work also. All in all, the project I believe is a success.

chrisnben [4:58]

References

Anderson, Chris (2004) ‘The Long Tail’ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html accessed Sept. 2008.

Boyd, Dana M. and Nicole B. Ellison (2007) ‘Social Network Sites Definition, History and Scholarship’ http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html accessed Sept. 2008.

Albini, Steve (1993) ‘Some of your Friends are Already This Fucked’ http://www.negativland.com/albini.html accessed Sept 2008.

Jenkins, Henry (2003) ‘Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture’ http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/starwars.html accessed Sept 2008.

The music you hear on this recording is written and recorded by Ben Johnston and Chris Ardley, and is used with permission.

Exegesis
Your exegesis – the critical essay giving the aims, context and rationale for your podcast, using the terms of reference and theory from the course, would go here (first, before the podcast itself).

The Podcast
Tama Test Podcast [1:00]
(The blue triangle is the play button, click it to hear the podcast. It’s a good idea to indicate the total length of the podcast in square brackets so your listener knows how long it runs for!)

Bibliography
Orb Gettarr, ‘The Ghosts of Ancient Light (FL Mix)’ (Music), n.d. c.2007, http://www.tetragrammatonproductionsltd.net/The-Ghosts-of-Ancient
-Light-FL-Mix.mp3, CC BY SA 2.5
With your bibliography, supply whatever information is available and relevant. Include the author (real name if possible, or the band or username is that’s all you can find, the title of the post/song/clip/etc., write the URL out in full, the year if you can find it (if not, use “n.d.” – no date – and if you can estimate the year, something like “c. 2007″ where the “c” means ‘circa’ (which really means ‘as best as I can tell’) and since it’s relevant to what we’re doing, the license under which you’re re-using any music or samples.

Release Forms
You don’t have to scan any release forms you have – just hand them in with your hard copy version of the exegesis.

Category
When writing your podcast post, make sure you select ‘podcast’ as the category, too!