58201 Communication and Cultural Industries and Practices;;

FAQ — Assignment 3: Response to professional and community engagement brief
Assignment 3 task description
Students will prepare a response to a scenario-based brief. The scenario will present a professional opportunity for a multi-disciplinary team across the communication and cultural industries. The submission for the assignment should include:
o A scoping of the issues raised by the scenario in relation to the theories and information about media convergence explored throughout the semester.
o An outline of a creative and appropriate way to approach the brief given in the scenario, including how an appropriate project team would be composed.
o An overview of the outcomes and deliverables of the team’s work on the project.
o An overview of your own role within the project, from the perspective of the professional role your major is equipping you for, which identifies your own individual strengths and weaknesses within the multi-disciplinary team. This component should include some reflection on the group task completed for Assignment 2.
o A reflection on your own professional development to date and career goals, and an assessment of how an opportunity like the one described might enhance your career trajectory.
Word count: 1800 words
Criteria
o critical insight into how subject concepts relate to the brief
o creativity and feasibility of the approach proposed
o evaluation of own strengths and weaknesses in relation to the approach
o understanding of own study and career goals in relation to developments in communication and cultural industries
How does this assignment fit with the other two assignments for this subject?
We’ve covered quite a lot of ground in this subject. As explained in the lectures at the beginning of the semester, CCIP aims to give you an understanding of:
o the big picture of how the Communications and Cultural Industries are impacted by the global trends and transformations of media convergence
o concrete knowledge of how particular segments of these industries are organised, particularly those you might be interested in being professionally engaged in
o how you might position yourself in relation to the first two points, to help you to start to think strategically about your professional and personal development through the rest of your degree and beyond.
The first assignment, the literature review, focused mainly on the first of these points, the big picture issues of media convergence. The second assignment related mainly to the second point, and asked you to build on this knowledge by looking in detail at a particular industry segment. The third assignment task for CCIP shifts the focus to the third point – your own position in relation to the topics we’ve covered in the subject.
What is the assignment trying to assess?
Assignment 3 relates to three of the learning objectives of this subject, as given in the Subject Outline:
1.    Effectively synthesise information gathered from diverse sources and communicate it in engaging and appropriate ways for an audience of their peers.
2.    Critically evaluate existing practices in communication and cultural industries and imagine how they might change in response to dynamic conditions of today and in the future.
3.    Critically reflect on study and career goals in relation to contemporary developments within communication and cultural industries.
Assignments 1 and 2 partially covered objectives (c) and (d). Assignment 3 is the only assignment for the subject that addresses objective (e).
What’s the purpose of this assignment? Why does it involve responding to a hypothetical situation?
Rather than asking you to reflect on your own career future in abstract terms, the scenarios are designed to help shape your thinking and for you to imaginatively project yourself into your future professional self.
The scenarios have real-world relevance and provide a selection of models for realistic situations that you might find yourself in when you’ve graduated from your degree. The purpose of the scenarios is to get you to think about your potential role within a multi- disciplinary team and about what you might be able to contribute as an individual to a project. In addressing this assessment task, you need to think about your future self and how you will apply the skills and expertise developed through your degree to a situation in the real world.
Shopfront has provided background information and resources to help you to understand the context for each scenario, and has also provided a project planning guide (see below), which will help you to think through possible approaches to the scenario and designing outcomes and deliverables.
How do I come up with a potential approach to the scenario?
Try to come up with an imaginative and creative approach to the scenario, but one that you can realistically imagine being able to implement if you were a member of a team with an appropriate mix of expertise and experience.
The steps in the Shopfront project planning guide below will help you with scoping and planning the project – which means considering carefully what can be realistically achieved in a limited time frame. A reasonable time frame you might select for a project could be 3-6 months. You can assume that a modest budget has been allocated to the project to cover expenses, and that the host organization for the project will make some in-kind resources available (things like office space, photocopying, phone, postage and so on). If the project you are proposing has other major resource requirements, you could include in your project planning that funding will be applied for, or some fund-
raising will be done, or that there will be project income through ticket sales, or you could specify some other way these requirements will be covered. You don’t need to give a detailed budget or go into any specifics about what might be required, just to demonstrate that you have an understanding of what might be needed to implement your project.
Take time initially to imagine what might be possible and then refine it to define what it is that you would want to do and how you would want to do it. Be as specific as you can and limit yourself to something that you are confident could be achieved in the time available. Remember, the idea is that you would be involved in the project as part of a team, so you wouldn’t have to do everything yourself, but you will need to describe what your own role in the project would be.
I don’t know what other students are doing in their majors, so I’m having difficulty working out what kind of team I need for the project I’m developing
The best way to approach this assignment is to focus on thinking about what the project would look like and the tasks that would be involved. If you follow the process of project planning as it’s described in the FAQ/Shopfront planning process outlined below you will be fine. What’s most important is for you to think about how your own skills and experience can contribute to the project but you don’t need a lot of detail about exactly how many other people there would be and their specific skill sets. You can describe these in generic terms (e.g. fund- raising, marketing and promotion, graphic design, programming and so on).
SHOPFRONT GUIDE TO PROJECT PLANNING
For 58201 CCIP ASSIGNMENT 3 SCENARIOS
This document is intended to help you to respond to your choice of scenario in CCIP Assessment Item 3.
Below is a step-by-step process that you could follow to help you think through the decisions you need to make in defining your proposed project.
What is the aim of the project? An aim should be general. It is a statement of the overall purpose of the project. It should describe what you want to achieve. A project might have a number of component parts but should have one overall aim.
An example of an aim might be ‘To reduce violence against young women in the community’.
Do your research – a background information package has been provided for each of the scenarios. Read this information so that you have an understanding of the context you would be working in. You may also collect ideas, reading or approaches to the issue from the Internet or elsewhere.
You also need to consider how the concepts and information explored through the semester might be exploited in the project. Which of the areas of the communications and cultural industries might be engaged to address the project’s aim? How do the issues of media convergence impact on the background and context for the project? What are the different Communications and other disciplines that could contribute effectively to delivering an exciting and innovative project?
To keep the project manageable and to give it a coherent focus, ask yourself what is the primary audience for this project to determine the form, voice and content for the project. It would be rare for there to be only a single target audience for any project, but when you consider the scenario you have chosen to work with and have done your background research, you should then decide what the core audience is that you are trying to reach or influence with this project. Some possible target audiences might be:
•    Culturally and linguistically diverse communities
•    geographically linked communities
•    government decision makers – federal, state or local
•    funding bodies
•    a particular demographic group – e.g. young people.
STEP 1 – WHY? (AIM and BACKGROUND)
STEP 2 – WHO? (TARGET AUDIENCE)
•    the media – local, state or national. Who would you be trying to reach or influence through the media?
•    the NSW Minister for Health – a target audience of one!
Some relevant target audiences have also been included in the scenarios. Once you have determined the target audience you need to decide the form your project will take to reach that audience.
Thinking about your aim and your target audience, how you will go about achieving what it is that you want to do? What are the project’s objectives? An objective is a specific statement of what the project will achieve. Your project may have several objectives. Objectives are the specific ways of addressing the more general aim of the project.
If the project’s aim is ‘to reduce violence against young women in the community’, some appropriate objectives might be to:
•    produce a training film for workers in health centres and teachers on violence and young women
•    run a series of workshops with young people on violence prevention Deliverables describe the specific tangible products that are being produced by
the project. Deliverables for the first of the objectives above might be:
•    a short film
•    piloting the film with a focus group
•    distributing the film to three health centres and four schools
Once you’ve worked out what you will produce, you need to work out a sequence of tasks and consider the composition of the team you would need to deliver the project. The task list forms a plan for how the project would be undertaken, and gives a rough estimate of how long each task should take.
For the short film in the reducing violence against young women example, some of the tasks might include
•    completing background research and data gathering
•    meeting with the client, target group, health workers and other
stakeholders
•    fund-raising
•    locating actors or local young people to take part in the filming
•    still photography for the project, meetings or some of the activities, as part of project documentation and promotional materials
•    script-writing, filming, editing, finalizing the short film
STEP 3 – WHAT (OBJECTIVES and DELIVERABLES)
STEP 4 – HOW (TASKS)
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STEP 5 – WHEN (TIMETABLE)
Once you have decided what the activities are, you can prepare a draft timetable for your tasks, breaking down the sequencing of the project’s activities. You need to think about the number and frequency of activities: how often do you need to meet, how many interviews, how long on background research. When preparing your task list, think about important time-frames in managing the project, such as fixed meeting schedules, promotional lead times, external deadlines. You also need to be aware of the possibility of limited availability of community-based people involved in the project, and allow enough time in the schedule if you need information from them or involvement in project stages.
Remember to
o be realistic—set aside enough time for each activity o include time for organizing of activities
o plan time for reviewing the progress of the project o allow time for presentation of outcomes
For the purposes of CCIP Assignment 3, you aren’t expected to go into a lot of detail or specifics about the timetable for the project, just to demonstrate that you have some understanding of how the different stages of the project would be sequenced, and of the consequences of not completing the most critical activities in the time allowed for them.
Outcomes describe what can be seen at the end of the project if it has achieved its aim. The task and activity list needs to include elements that allow the project team to demonstrate that the project has achieved its aim and objectives.
For the project about reducing violence against young women, outcomes might be:
o A film about violence and young women was produced, distributed and shown in four schools across the region. Evaluation indicated that health workers, teachers and young women in the community became more informed about the issue.
o All of the teachers and health workers who viewed the film indicated that they would use it on a regular basis in their classes and workshops. In this way, the ‘life’ and the aims of the project can be extended, and young women in the community will continue to benefit.
Required texts Weekly reading guide
Week 1: Introduction — 23 February
Razer, H. 2015, ‘How TripleJ de-listicled Buzzfeed over #Tay4Hottest100’, Daily Review, 27 January 2015. http://dailyreview.crikey.com.au/razer-how-triple-j-schooled-buzzfeed-over-tay4hottest100/18008
Week 2: Convergence, an overview — 2 March
Jenkins, H. 2006, ‘Introduction : Worship at the Altar of Convergence, A New Paradigm for Understanding Media Change’, in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York University Press, New York, pp. 1–24. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/24621/58201_jenkinsintroduction.pdf.
Dwyer, T. 2010, ‘Introduction’, in Media Convergence, McGraw Hill/Open University Press, Maidenhead & New York, pp. 1–23. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/33749/58201_DwyerMedia.pdf.
Weber, P. 2014, ‘The baffling revival of the vinyl LP’, The Week, 10 January 2014, http://theweek.com/article/index/254901/the-baffling-revival-of-the-vinyl-lp.
Week 3: New media, new audiences – 9 March
Bruns, A. 2008, ‘The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage’, Fibreculture Journal, 11, http://eleven.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-066-the-future-is-user-led-the-path-towards-widespread-produsage/.
Villi, M. 2012, ‘Social curation in audience communities: udc (user-distributed content) in the networked media ecosystem’, Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 614-632.
https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/36328/
Parkin, S. 2014. ‘A Journey to the End of the World (of Minecraft)’, The New Yorker, 23 January 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/a-journey-to-the-end-of-the-world-of-minecraft.html.
Week 4: Industrial organization and labour — 16 March
Hesmondhalgh, D. 2005, ‘The production of media entertainment’, in J. Curran et al. (eds), Mass Media and Society, 4th Edition, Hodder Arnold, London, pp. 153–71. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/24932/58201_hesmondproduction.pdf.
Cunningham, S. & Potts, J. 2009, ‘New economics for the new media’ in G. Goggin et al. (eds), Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media, Routledge, New York, pp. 131–142.
http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/25060/58201_cunninghamnew.pdf.
Marshall, L. 2013, ‘The recording industry in the twenty-first century’, in L. Marshall (ed.) The International Recording
Industries, Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 53–74. https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/36332/ Week 5: Regulation and policy — 23 March
Hesmondhalgh, David & Pratt, A.C. 2005, ‘Cultural industries and cultural policy’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, vol. 11, no. 1, pp.1–13. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27471.
Breen, M. 2010, ‘Digital determinism: culture industries in the USA-Australia Free Trade Agreement’, New Media &
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Breen, M. 2010, ‘Digital determinism: culture industries in the USA-Australia Free Trade Agreement’, New Media & Society, vol. 12, no. 4, pp.657–676. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27461/58201_breendigital.pdf.
boyd, d. 2014, ‘Whistleblowing is the new civil disobedience’, Medium, http://medium.com/surveillance-state/9a53415933a9.
Week 6: Creative places — 30 March
Gibson, C. 2008, ‘Creative arts, people and places: which policy directions?’, in L. Anderson et al. (eds), Making Meaning, Making Money: Directions for the Arts and Cultural Industries in the Creative Age, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 42–56. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27476/58206_GibsonCreative.pdf.
Tay, J. 2005, ‘Creative cities’, in J. Hartley (ed), Creative Industries, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, pp. 220–231. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27478/58201_HartleyCreative.pdf.
Delaney, B. 2014, ‘Why we should subsidise hipster novelists’ housing’, The Guardian, 20 January 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/20/why-we-should-subsidise-hipster-novelists-housing
Week 9: Convergence and sustainability — 27 April
Maxwell, R. 2014, ‘Media industries and the ecological crisis’, Media Industries, vol. 1, no. 2. http://www.mediaindustriesjournal.org/index.php/mij/article/view/48/97
Beasley, B. 2013, ‘Social Media and the Value of Truth’, in AB Albarran (ed.), The Social Media Industries, Routledge, New York. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/35492/58201_Beasleysocial.pdf
Week 10: Leadership — 4 May
Goleman, D. 1998, ‘What Makes a Leader?’, Harvard Business Review, no. November-December, pp. 93–102. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/33811/21722_GolemanWhat.pdf.
Briggs, W. & Verma, A. 2006, ‘Sharing the Wealth,’ Communication World, January-February, pp. 25–28. https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/36296/
Week 11: Personal branding — 11 May
Marwick, A.E. & Boyd, D. 2010. ‘I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience’, New Media & Society, vol. 13, no. 1, pp.114–133.
http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/31684/58201_MarwickTweet.pdf.
Nardi, B.A., Whittaker, S. & Schwarz, H. 2000. ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know: work in the information
age’, First Monday, vol. 5, no. 5, pp.1–26. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/32004.
Fischer, E. 1996. ‘Creative Labor (Chapter 2)’, in How to Read Karl Marx, Monthly Review Press, New York,
pp.50–54. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/33772/58201_FischerCreative.pdf.
Week 12: Building professional profile — 18 May
McCowan, C. & Wyganowska, J. 2008, ‘Gathering the real data from creative industries graduates one year out’, Australian Journal of Career Development, vol. 17, no. 1, pp.29–40.
http://www.lib.uts.edu.au.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27497/58201_McCowanGathering.pdf
Deuze, M. 2009, ‘Media Industries, Work and Life’, European Journal of Communication, vol. 24, no. 4, pp.467–480. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/27487/58201_DeuzeMedia.pdf.
Tilley, T. 2013. ‘Search for career satisfaction takes unusual path’, ABC 7.30, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3671770.htm
Week 13: Communities of practice — 25 May
Wenger, E. 2000, ‘Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems’, Organization, vol. 7, no. 2, pp.225–246. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/29758/21878_WengerCommunities.pdf.
Gill, R. 2006, Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat: New media work in Amsterdam a decade after the Web, Network Notebooks 01, http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/17.pdf – Executive summary (pp.5-7), ‘Informality is the new black’ (pp.24-26) and Conclusions (p.43). https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/drr/36334/
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Altucher, J. 2013, ‘How a YouTube sensation beat Justin Timberlake and the Music Industry’, The Week, 18 March 2013, http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/18/how-a-youtube-sensation-beat-justin-timberlake-and-the-music-industry/