Papers by Stuart Cunningham
Journal of Family Violence, 2019
Digital and social media have grown exponentially to become highly influential spheres of public ... more Digital and social media have grown exponentially to become highly influential spheres of public communication – increasingly crowded, contested, and corrupted, and increasingly in need of scholarly engagement. As public debate is conducted more through social and digital media, alternative metrics (‘altmetrics’) that are generated from social and digital media platforms become important as indicators of impact and engagement. We review the growth of amplifier platforms and the academic and contextual reasons for their growth. Amplifier platforms are defined to distinguish them from traditional media outlets (where the scholarly voice is mediated through and 'gatekept’ by journalists, whose editors retain final control), personal blogs (very few of which can be maintained over time) and from social media platforms (where the scholarly voice is accorded no presumptive standing). A significant range of amplifier platforms is canvassed while acknowledging that in Australia, the amplifier platform The Conversation plays a central role.
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2019
This article examines conditions placing China’s livestreamers as central focal points in the inc... more This article examines conditions placing China’s livestreamers as central focal points in the increasing tensions between the cultural politics and economic ambitions of digital China. Framed by concerns around ‘platformization’, this research uses a creator-centric critical media industries studies perspective. Chinese livestreamers enjoy a greater degree of opportunity than their Western counterparts, including competing gameplay platforms that vie for premier gameplayers who can dictate their own terms. Decades-old cultural policies fostered underlying conditions that advantage female streamers engaging in gendered performativity to appeal to lonely rich men. Livestreamers ride marketing imperatives directing consumers to cross-integrated e-commerce platforms that fuel China’s emerging consumption culture. But livestreamers engage in ‘edge ball’ violations of Chinese norms that make them subject to an ever-increasing level of state regulatory restraint, signaling the return of ideology designed to mold online expression and behavior.
Media International Australia, 2017
The thoroughgoing digital disruption of the entertainment-based screen industries has now been we... more The thoroughgoing digital disruption of the entertainment-based screen industries has now been well documented. But the factors that drive such disruption are in no way unique to mainstream media industries. The distribution and use of screen content in education in many ways parallel the experience of the broader screen industries. Just as traditional entertainment and information are being challenged by new online services, so too traditional modes of distributing and accessing screen content in education are being disrupted by online services. This article analyses these dynamics in Australia, placing them in historical perspective and using three contrasting case studies to exemplify key aspects of the digital disruption of education: ABC Splash exemplifies the public service broadcasting (PSB) ‘tutelage’ model; YouTube exemplifies digital disruption—immensely popular despite numerous education authorities’ attempts to restrict access to it; and ClickView exemplifies the ‘born digital’ company employing advanced technology, business strategy, and professional pedagogics.
Media International Australia, 2018
This article traverses aspects of a personal journey of a humanities scholar, trained in traditio... more This article traverses aspects of a personal journey of a humanities scholar, trained in traditional disciplines of textual analysis and aesthetic appreciation, working with evolutionary economics. Reflecting on a 2008 article for the Journal of Cultural Economics that hypothesised the importance of social network markets as a new definition of creative industries, the article notes how remarkably this had come to pass, with the emergence of social media entertainment. This new industry is based on previously amateur creators engaging in content innovation and media entrepreneurship across multiple social media platforms to aggregate global fan communities and incubate their own media brands. The implications of social media entertainment for screen policy, both through cultural and industry agency support and through regulation and programme innovation, are explored internationally as well as in the context of the current Australian Content and Children’s Review.
The Conversation, 2018
By harnessing social media, the teenage survivors of the Parkland, Florida massacre in the United... more By harnessing social media, the teenage survivors of the Parkland, Florida massacre in the United States have started a movement that might finally shift the dial on gun control.
The Conversation, 2017
In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. elections, numerous accounts surfaced of nefarious content crea... more In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. elections, numerous accounts surfaced of nefarious content creators profiting by posting fake content on social media. The most successful engaged in “anti-Clinton fervor,” promoted Donald Trump’s candidacy and spread right wing news, all for profit...
Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference 2016, 2017
Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are central to people’s experiences of ... more Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are central to people’s experiences of the internet and mobile media, and increasingly extend far beyond communication or entertainment, into transport, health, and finance. These platforms also serve up and serve as data for internet scholars and practitioners. How should we best approach platforms as objects of study? How do platforms’ rules and norms for engagement shape the practices we study? How do the material rules of these systems – their algorithms, their APIs, the analytics they provide – shape what we can know about them?
While the importance of and methods for studying platforms have long been debated in game studies (Bogost & Montfort, 2009; Apperley & Parikka, 2015), this panel represents a second wave of platform studies, one that focuses on thinking critically about the best ways to understand the roles platforms play in mediating our media, communication and cultural environments; and one that integrates materialist approaches such as software studies with the core concerns of the media and communication disciplines understood more broadly. We bring together four papers that examine, first, how platforms shape what can be known about them; and second, to what extent we can understand them not only despite but through those processes and the traces they leave behind.
Each paper models a distinctive theoretical and/or methodological approach; and they collectively engage with and across diverse media cultures, paying specific attention to the sociotechnical arrangements that coordinate and influence them.
Media International Australia, 2017
The phenomenon of toy unboxing describes rapidly scaling and commercializing videos featuring the... more The phenomenon of toy unboxing describes rapidly scaling and commercializing videos featuring the opening, assembling, and demonstration of children's toys, often by children, across social media platforms. This phenomenon has fostered concerns by parents and advocates around children's access to and participation in social media. This article provides a brief history of this phenomenon, noting the very limited scholarship on the issue while engaging with the new regulatory questions it provokes. We describe how these videos represent forms of creator labor and operate within the structural and material interests of social media entertainment (SME). SME refers to a proto-industry featuring professionalising-amateur content creators engaging in content innovation and media entrepreneurship across multiple social media platforms to aggregate global fan communities and incubate their own media brands. Our analysis accounts for how unboxing videos work both for children as agents and as small businesses, and provides pointers to more nuanced regulatory approaches.
Media International Australia, 2017
This article outlines how teachers curate Australian screen content for use in classrooms from pr... more This article outlines how teachers curate Australian screen content for use in classrooms from pre-school to senior secondary school. It suggests teachers use their professional knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy to arrange screen resources, curriculum concepts and student experiences to promote learning. This complex curatorial process adds value to broadcaster and producer curation processes that aim to position cut-down clips and educational resources for classroom use. The article draws on a national research project that undertook interviews with 150 teachers in schools across Australia. The authors suggest the ongoing digital disruption of the school sector presents both opportunities and challenges for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Special Broadcasting Service and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.
Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 2018
This article develops an analytical framework to understand the modes of address of native-to-onl... more This article develops an analytical framework to understand the modes of address of native-to-online content types (gameplay, do-it-yourself (DIY) beauty, personality vlogging). These types of content differ sharply from established screen entertainment and are constituted from intrinsically interactive audience-centricity and appeal to authenticity and community in a commercialising space which we call ‘social media entertainment’. The article offers a revisionist analysis of the shaping and disciplining of brand culture through the twinned discourses of authenticity and community. The significance of social media entertainment lies in that, for a great many especially young viewers, this is what television is, now.
The Conversation, 2018
Until 2010, the pathway to success in the screen industry depended on convincing broadcasters and... more Until 2010, the pathway to success in the screen industry depended on convincing broadcasters and film producers to give to you airtime or production resources. These days, all you need is an internet connection and a laptop or smartphone...
The Conversation, 2018
Australians in creative industries have grown from 3.7% of the workforce in 1986 to 5.5% in the l... more Australians in creative industries have grown from 3.7% of the workforce in 1986 to 5.5% in the latest census.Creative services, a subset of the creative economy that includes software and digital content (including web design and games) and social media management and marketing, are growing as much as three times the rate of the overall workforce.
Media Distribution in the Digital Age, 2019
Screen Distribution and the New King Kongs of the Online World, 2013
The paper tracks the fate of content as it passes across three grids of understanding: across the... more The paper tracks the fate of content as it passes across three grids of understanding: across the grid of 'culture', of 'services', and of 'knowledge'. These grids also serve as historical and/or possible rationales for state intervention in the creative industries, as well as industry's own understandings of their nature and role. While there was a cultural industries and policy 'heyday' around the 1980s and 1990s, as the domain of culture expanded, cultural policy fundamentals are now being squeezed by the combined effects of the 'big three' -convergence, globalisation and digitisationwhich are underpinning a services industries model of industry development and regulation. This model, despite dangers, carries advantages in that it can mainstream the content and creative industries as economic actors and lead to possible rejuvenation of hitherto marginalised types of content production.
Media, Culture & Society, 1996
Cult Stud, 1994
... examination of telenovelas or, for example Malaysian soap opera, makes this clear ... elegant... more ... examination of telenovelas or, for example Malaysian soap opera, makes this clear ... elegant analyses of the selected group respondents in Israel, Japan and the US in their study. ... the failure of the programme in Japan-that Japanese viewers had a broader prime-time range from ...
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Papers by Stuart Cunningham
While the importance of and methods for studying platforms have long been debated in game studies (Bogost & Montfort, 2009; Apperley & Parikka, 2015), this panel represents a second wave of platform studies, one that focuses on thinking critically about the best ways to understand the roles platforms play in mediating our media, communication and cultural environments; and one that integrates materialist approaches such as software studies with the core concerns of the media and communication disciplines understood more broadly. We bring together four papers that examine, first, how platforms shape what can be known about them; and second, to what extent we can understand them not only despite but through those processes and the traces they leave behind.
Each paper models a distinctive theoretical and/or methodological approach; and they collectively engage with and across diverse media cultures, paying specific attention to the sociotechnical arrangements that coordinate and influence them.
While the importance of and methods for studying platforms have long been debated in game studies (Bogost & Montfort, 2009; Apperley & Parikka, 2015), this panel represents a second wave of platform studies, one that focuses on thinking critically about the best ways to understand the roles platforms play in mediating our media, communication and cultural environments; and one that integrates materialist approaches such as software studies with the core concerns of the media and communication disciplines understood more broadly. We bring together four papers that examine, first, how platforms shape what can be known about them; and second, to what extent we can understand them not only despite but through those processes and the traces they leave behind.
Each paper models a distinctive theoretical and/or methodological approach; and they collectively engage with and across diverse media cultures, paying specific attention to the sociotechnical arrangements that coordinate and influence them.
Companion chapters include original essays by some of the leading scholars of television studies as well as emerging voices engaging television on six continents, offering readers a truly global range of perspectives. The volume features multidisciplinary analyses that offer models and guides for the study of global television, with approaches focused on the theories, audiences, content, culture, and institutions of television. A wide array of examples and case studies engage the transforming practices, technologies, systems, and texts constituing television around the world today, providing readers with a contemporary and multi-faceted perspective.
In this volume, editor Shawn Shimpach has brought together an essential guide to understanding television in the world today, how it works and what it means – perfect for students, scholars, and anyone else interested in television, global media studies, and beyond.
Creative Industries: Critical Readings brings together the key writings - drawing on both journals and books - to present an authoritative and wide-ranging survey of this emerging field of study.
The set is presented with an introduction and the writings are divided into four volumes, organized thematically:
Volume 1: Concepts - focuses on the concept of creativity and the development of government and industry interest in creative industries;
Volume 2: Economy - maps the role and function of creative industries in the economy at large;
Volume 3: Organization - examines the ways in which creative institutions organize themselves; and
Volume 4: Work - addresses issues of creative work, labour and careers
This major reference work will be invaluable to scholars in economics, cultural studies, sociology, media studies and organization studies.
This project is a ‘creative industries precinct’ in inner suburban Brisbane involving my university, Queensland University of Technology, the Queensland state government through its Department of State Development, a variety of industry players, and retail and property developers.
There is theoretical purchase in distinguishing the two terms, in part to put further flesh on the bones of claims about the nature of the knowledge-based economy and its relation to culture and creativity. Shifts in the nature of the industries usually described by the terms also need to be captured effectively, as do different policy regimes that come into play as regulation of and support for cultural and creative industries.
In a little over a decade, competing social media platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, have given rise to a new creative industry: social media entertainment. Operating at the intersection of the entertainment and interactivity, communication and content industries, social media entertainment creators have harnessed these platforms to generate new kinds of content separate from the century-long model of intellectual property control in the traditional entertainment industry.
Social media entertainment has expanded rapidly and the traditional entertainment industry has been forced to cede significant power and influence to content creators, their fans, and subscribers. Digital platforms have created a natural market for embedded advertising, changing the worlds of marketing and communication in their wake. Combined, these factors have produced new, radically shifting demands on the entertainment industry, posing new challenges for screen regimes, media scholars, industry professionals, content creators, and audiences alike."--publisher website
Creators signifies a distinction from an earlier phase of online content creation characterized by “user-generated content” (UGC). UGC referred to any form of content generated by users of digital platforms and scholarly attention rarely entertained the possibility that such activity might give rise to viable entrepreneurial careers focused on new entertainment genre. We believe the term creator – which we define as commercializing and professionalizing native social media users who generate and circulate original content in close interaction and engagement with their communities on the major social media platforms as well as off-line – is the term that captures best what is at stake in this book’s mapping of approaches to this emerging creator culture. Online creators are dubbed many things now: influencers, vloggers, YouTubers, Wang Hong (China), and livestreamers, amongst others. In addition to these terms, scholars have coined terms such as “micro-celebrities”. This terminological profusion is an index of the increasing importance of this field of study.
Creator Culture: Studying the Social Media Entertainment Industry features scholars engaging with this dynamic, emerging industry from diverse disciplines and global geographies, and using a variety of conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches. This volume draws on a range of scholarship in media and communication studies, science and technology studies, and social media, Internet and platform studies."--publisher website
Framing Culture looks at cultural and media studies, which are rapidly growing fields through which students are introduced to contemporary cultural industries such as television, film and video. It compares these approaches with those used to frame public policy and finds a striking lack of correspondence between them.
Issues such as Australian content on commercial television and in advertising, new technologies and new media, and violence in the media all highlight the gap between contemporary cultural theories and the way culture and communications are debated in public policy. The reasons for this gap must be investigated before closer relations can be established.
Framing Culture brings together cultural studies and policy studies in a lively and innovative way. It suggests avenues for cultural activism that have been neglected in cultural theory and practice, and it will provoke debates which are long overdue.
Traditional media are being reshaped by digital technologies. The funding model for quality journalism has been undermined by the drift of advertising online, demarcations between different forms of media are rapidly fading, and audiences have fragmented. We can catch up with our favourite TV show on a tablet, social media can be more important than mainstream radio in a crisis, and organisations large and small have become publishers in their own right on apps. Nevertheless mainstream media remain powerful.
The Media and Communications in Australia offers a systematic introduction to this dynamic field. Fully updated and revised to take account of recent developments, this fourth edition outlines the key media industries and explains how communications technologies are impacting on them. It provides a thorough overview of the main approaches taken in studying the media, and includes an expanded 'issues' section with new chapters on social media, gaming, apps, the environment, media regulation, ethics and privacy.
With contributions from some of Australia's best researchers and teachers in the field, The Media and Communications in Australia remains the most comprehensive and reliable introduction to media and communications available. It is an ideal student text, and a reference for teachers of media and anyone interested in this influential industry.
But structural changes to advanced economies and societies have brought services industries and the creative sector to greater prominence as key contributors to innovation. Hidden Innovation peels back the veil, tracing the way innovation occurs through new forms of screen production enabled by social media platforms as well as in public broadcasting. It shows that creative workers are contributing fresh ideas across the economy and how creative cities debates need reframing. It traces how policies globally are beginning to catch up with the changing social and economic realities.
In his new book, Cunningham argues that the innovation framework offers the best opportunity in decades to reassess and refresh the case for the public role of the humanities, particularly the media, cultural and communication studies disciplines.
This book is the first to present an organized study of the key concepts that underlie and motivate the field of creative industries. Written by a world-leading team of experts, it presents readers with compact accounts of the history of terms, the debates and tensions associated with their usage, and examples of how they apply to the creative industries around the world.
Crisp and relevant, this is an invaluable text for students of the creative industries across a range of disciplines, especially media, communication, economics, sociology, creative and performing arts and regional studies.
STUART CUNNINGHAM is Professor of Media and Communications, Queensland University of Technology, and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. He is a key figure in cultural policy studies and is well known for his contributions to media, communications and cultural studies and their relevance to industry practice and government policy. His writings include Framing Culture (1992), a critique of the limits of cultural studies as applied to cultural policy. He has co-written or co-edited a number of studies of the global dimensions of audiovisual culture.