tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/audience-27530/articlesAudience – The Conversation2023-04-02T20:03:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959392023-04-02T20:03:15Z2023-04-02T20:03:15ZEver feel like your life is a performance? Everyone does – and this 1959 book explains roles, scripts and hiding backstage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516550/original/file-20230321-14-d8qd03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our cultural touchstones series looks at books that have made an impact.</em></p>
<p>Shakespeare’s adage — “All the world’s a stage” — suggests human beings are conditioned to perform, and to possess an acute social awareness of how they appear in front of others. </p>
<p>It resonates in the age of social media, where we’re all performing ourselves on our screens and watching each other’s performances play out. Increasingly, those screen performances are how we meet people, and how we form relationships: from online dating, to remote work, to staying in touch with family.</p>
<p>While the idea of performance as central to social life has been around for centuries, <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199756384/obo-9780199756384-0228.xml">Erving Goffman</a> was the first to attempt a comprehensive account of society and everyday life using theatre as an analogy. </p>
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<span class="caption">In the social media age, we’re all performing ourselves on our screens and watching each other’s performances play out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Milton/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>His influential 1959 book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-9780241547991">The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</a> is something of a “bible” for scholars interested in questions of how we operate in everyday life. It became a surprise US bestseller on publication, crossing over to a general readership.</p>
<p>Goffman wrote about how we perform different versions of ourselves in different social environments, while keeping our “backstage” essential selves private. He called his idea <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003160861-3/dramaturgy-charles-edgley?context=ubx&refId=6e9b71d0-973c-4ebe-b90b-41a372d12623">dramaturgy</a>.</p>
<p>Playwright Alan Bennett <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n19/alan-bennett/cold-sweat">wrote admiringly</a> of him, “Individuals knew they behaved in this way, but Goffman knew <em>everybody</em> behaved like this and so did I.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-shifting-identities-performing-sexual-selves-on-social-media-145322">Friday essay: shifting identities - performing sexual selves on social media</a>
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<h2>Goffman as influencer (and suspected spy)</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/history-of-isa/books-of-the-xx-century">poll of professional sociologists</a>, Goffman’s book ranked in the top ten publications of the 20th century. </p>
<p>It influenced playwrights such as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019027250907200402">Tom Stoppard</a> and, of course, Bennett, who <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Alan-Bennett-A-Critical-Introduction/OMealy/p/book/9780815335405">was interested in</a> depicting and analysing the role-playing of everyday life that Goffman identified. </p>
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<p>Goffman was <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781444396621.ch24">born in Mannville</a>, Alberta in 1922 to Ukrainian Jewish parents who migrated to Canada. The sister of the man who would become famous for his theatre analogies was an actor, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0062844/">Frances Bay</a>: late in life, she would play quirky, recognisable roles such as the “marble rye” lady on <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-of-seinfeld-131606">Seinfeld</a> and a recurring part on <a href="https://theconversation.com/ill-see-you-again-in-25-years-the-return-to-twin-peaks-32624">Twin Peaks</a> (as Mrs Tremond/Chalfant).</p>
<p>The path to Goffman’s book was an unusual one. It didn’t come from directly studying the theatre, or even from asking questions about theatregoers.</p>
<p>While completing postgraduate studies at the the University of Chicago, Goffman was given the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in the Shetland Islands, an isolated part of northern Scotland, for his <a href="https://www.mediastudies.press/pub/ns-ccic/release/4">PhD dissertation</a>.</p>
<p>Goffman pretended to be there to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470999912.ch3">study agricultural techniques</a>. But his actual reason was to examine the everyday life of the Shetland Islanders. As he observed the everyday practices and rituals of the remote island community, he had to negotiate suspicions he may <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goffman-Social-Organization-Sociological-Routledge/dp/0415112044?">have been a spy</a>. </p>
<p>In Goffman’s published book, the ethnography of the Shetland Islands takes a back seat to his dramaturgical theory.</p>
<h2>More than a popular how-to manual</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-9780241547991">The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</a> quickly became <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Sociological-Bent-InsideMetro-Culture/dp/0170120015">a national bestseller</a>. It was picked up by general readers “as a guide to social manners and on how to be clever and calculating in social intercourse without being obvious”.</p>
<p>This fascinating and complex academic work could indeed be read as a “how-to” manual on how to impress others and mitigate negative impressions. But Goffman <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Erving-Goffman/Smith/p/book/9780415355919">didn’t mean</a> “performance” literally. Reading the book as a guide to middle-class etiquette misses some of its nuances.</p>
<p>One is the sophisticated understanding of how reality and contrivance relate to each other. A good performance is one that appears “unselfconscious”; a “contrived” performance is one where the fact the social actor is performing a role is “painstakingly evident”. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A ‘contrived’ performance is when the actor playing a social role is ‘painstakingly evident’, or trying too hard.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In everyday language, we tend to describe the latter as trying too hard. But Goffman is making a more general point, about the way we all perform ourselves, all the time – whether the effort is visible or not.</p>
<p>If “All the world is not, of course, a stage”, then “the crucial ways in which it isn’t are not easy to specify”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-emotional-labour-and-how-do-we-get-it-wrong-185773">What is emotional labour - and how do we get it wrong?</a>
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<h2>Playing roles and being in character</h2>
<p>Today, we regularly use theatrical terms like “role”, “script”, “props”, “audience” and being “in and out of character” to describe how people behave in their everyday social life. But Goffman is the one who introduced these concepts, which have become part of our shared language.</p>
<p>Together, they highlight how social life depends on what Goffman terms a shared definition of particular situations. </p>
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<span class="caption">Goffman introduced theatrical terms like ‘role’, ‘script’ and being ‘in and out of character’ as ways of talking about social performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica Silvestre/Pexels</span></span>
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<p>Whether we are performing our work roles, having dinner with someone for whom we have romantic affections, or dealing with strangers in a public setting, we need to produce and maintain the appropriate definition of that reality. </p>
<p>These activities are “performances”, according to Goffman, because they involve mutual awareness or attentiveness to the information others emit. This mutual awareness, or attention to others, means humans are constantly performing for audiences in their everyday lives.</p>
<h2>Being in and out of character</h2>
<p>It matters who the audience is – and what type of audience we have for our performances. When thinking about how people adapt their behaviour for others, Goffman differentiates between “front regions” and “back regions”. </p>
<p>Front regions are where we must present what is often referred to as the “best version of ourselves”. In an open-plan office, a worker needs to look busy if their supervisor is about. So, in the front region, they need to look engaged, industrious and generally perform the role of being a worker. In an open-plan office, a worker needs to be constantly “in character”, as Goffman puts it.</p>
<p>Back regions are where a social actor can “let their guard down”. In the context of a workplace, the back regions might refer to the bathroom, the lunchroom or anywhere else where the worker can relax their performance and potentially resort to “out of character” behaviour. </p>
<p>If the worker takes a diversionary break to gossip with a colleague when their supervisor is no longer in earshot, they could be said to be engaging in back region conduct.</p>
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<span class="caption">In an open-plan office, a worker needs to be constantly ‘in character’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Israel Andrade/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Front and back regions are not defined by physical locations. A back region is any situation in which the individual can relax and drop their performance. (Of course, this means regions overlap with physical locations to some extent – people are more likely to be able to relax when they’re in more private settings.)</p>
<p>Thus, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/opinion/open-plan-office-awful.html">open-plan offices</a> are often unpopular because workers feel they are constantly under surveillance. Conversely, the work-from-home arrangements that have become more common since the era of COVID lockdowns are popular because they allow people to relax their work personae.</p>
<p>Renowned writer Jenny Diski <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n05/jenny-diski/think-of-mrs-darling">reflected</a> in 2004:</p>
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<p>Reading Goffman now is alarmingly claustrophobic. He presents a world where there is nowhere to run; a perpetual dinner party of status seeking, jockeying for position and saving face. Any idea of an authentic self becomes a nonsense. You may or may not believe in what you are performing; either type of performance is believed in or it is not. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-moscow-stage-to-monroe-and-de-niro-how-the-method-defined-20th-century-acting-179088">From the Moscow stage to Monroe and De Niro: how the Method defined 20th-century acting</a>
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<h2>21st-century Goffman</h2>
<p>Dramaturgy has survived the onset of our new media environment, where the presentation of the self has migrated to platforms as diverse as <a href="https://theconversation.com/instagram-and-facebook-are-stalking-you-on-websites-accessed-through-their-apps-what-can-you-do-about-it-188645">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-corn-how-the-online-viral-corn-kid-is-on-a-well-worn-path-to-fame-in-the-child-influencer-industry-189974">TikTok</a>. In some ways, it’s more relevant than ever. </p>
<p>Goffman’s approach has been applied to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/no-sense-of-place-9780195042313?cc=au&lang=en&">electronic media</a>, radio and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Media_and_Modernity/asB7QgAACAAJ?hl=en">television</a> <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003160861-19/reception-goffman-work-media-studies-peter-lunt">studies</a>, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262515047/new-tech-new-ties/">mobile phones</a> – and, more recently, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565211036797">social media</a> and even <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263276419829541">AI studies</a>.</p>
<p>The “successful staging” (as Goffman terms it) of our social roles has only become more complex. This is perfectly illustrated by “BBC Dad” Robert Kelly, whose 2017 <a href="https://junkee.com/bbc-dad-pictures-kids-now-marion-james/324165">live television interview</a> from his home study was interrupted when his children wandered into the room. This was before COVID lockdowns, when our home and work lives (and personae) increasingly merged. </p>
<p>“Everyone understands that now,” <a href="https://junkee.com/bbc-dad-pictures-kids-now-marion-james/324165">wrote Reena Gupta</a> in 2022. “You or someone in your family or circle of friends has been BBC Dad.”</p>
<p>Maintaining and maximising performances still matters. And so does Goffman.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is a ‘bible’ for scholars, voted a top 10 book of the 20th century. It also fascinated general readers, as a guide to social manners.Michael James Walsh, Associate Professor in Social Sciences, University of CanberraEduardo de la Fuente, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Justice and Society, UniSA, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008702023-03-20T16:17:56Z2023-03-20T16:17:56ZBallet dancers in sensor suits: new research explores how dance is used as a form of communication<p>Audio guides, maps, traditional and interactive texts help people attending art exhibitions to understand the works in front of them. With dance, however, the audience’s understanding is usually taken for granted.</p>
<p>It’s assumed they will make sense of a performance thanks to the synopsis included in programmes, or reviews published in newspapers and magazines. These supporting materials are optional and do not work during performance. However, the English National Ballet (ENB), for example, has produced <a href="https://www.ballet.org.uk/production/my-first-ballet-sleeping-beauty/">versions of classical ballets for young audiences</a> where dancers perform a shortened version of a well-known classical ballet while a narrator recites the story.</p>
<p>But words cannot translate everything dance expresses. Verbal and movement-based communication can convey similar meanings, but they do so in very different ways. Whereas verbal language is immediately understood, the language of dance can be lost to a general audience.</p>
<p>So how can dance performances become a more accessible source of cultural and social information for people who are not specialists?</p>
<h2>Detecting communication</h2>
<p>Our research group focuses on <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Kinesemiotics-Modelling-How-Choreographed-Movement-Means-in-Space/Maiorani/p/book/9780367641009">Kinesemiotics</a>, the study of meaning made by movement, an area we are developing. Our project, called <a href="https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/fb-10/forschung/institute/bitt/forschung-und-lehre/multimodalitaetsforschung-in-bremen/projekte/kinesemiotic-body">The Knesemiotic Body</a>, is carried out at Loughborough University in collaboration with researchers at the University of Bremen and the ENB.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315621180-9/making-meaning-movement-functional-grammar-dance-movement-arianna-maiorani">The Functional Grammar of Dance</a> (FGD) explains how body parts create meaning by interacting with the space and the people surrounding dancers in a performance. We used it to annotate and interpret data collected from live dance rehearsals.</p>
<p>The FGD draws on linguistics and semiotic theories (how people communicate through signs) and is based on “projections”. Projections are the trajectories designed by dancers when extending their body parts towards meaningful portions of the performance space.</p>
<p>Projections connect extended body parts to surrounding people or objects, creating a meaningful visual interaction. Imagine a dancer moving towards a lake, painted on the backdrop of a stage. They extend an arm forward towards the lake and a leg backwards towards a stage prop representing a shed. That extended arm will mean “going to lake” while the leg will mean “coming from shed”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop wear the black strappy sensors while dancing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">English National Ballet’s Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop wearing special movement sensors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">M Zecca / Kinesemiotic Body website</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Projections can also be directed to the audience creating an “involving” effect. This is achieved, for example, when a dancer extends their arms towards the audience while facing them with their face and torso. This looks as if they are addressing them directly, acknowledging their presence and breaking the invisible wall between them.</p>
<p>Projections are like speech bubbles made by movement. Our research captured them through sensor suits that dancers wear during our data collection and we decoded them using the FGD. When we annotate the data produced by the suits, we basically fill those speech bubbles with meaning that people can understand without having background knowledge of dance. Our recordings and annotations capture not only movements, but also the intended meaning behind them.</p>
<p>During our sessions, we worked with two pairs of fantastic dancers: Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop from the ENB, and school graduates Elizabeth Riley and Jamie Constance.</p>
<p>We have achieved interesting results. By annotating choreography with our system, it is possible to discover patterns of movement-based communication. These patterns may not be immediately visible to the naked eye, but clearly inform the message the audience perceives.</p>
<p>We also found out that it is possible to study how movement patterns work in relation to costumes, which is especially interesting when choreographers experiment with innovative clothing and props. </p>
<p>For example, we worked on the effects of movement combined with elastic cloth that covered a dancer’s body almost entirely. This highlighted how a particular type of costume choice would impact on the expressive potential of movement.</p>
<p>Our data also highlighted how dancers playing the same role can create different versions of the same character according to variations they make in performing projections. For example, one dancer might decide to engage more with the audience than another by performing more projections that directly address the viewers.</p>
<p>We can also check how a dancer manages physical balance during a performance in relation to these projections, which is particularly clear in their legwork and footwork. This type of information can be particularly helpful for physical rehabilitation. </p>
<p>An injury can deeply affect a dancer’s or an athlete’s ability to manage body balance and our annotation highlighted the specific choices a dancer makes when managing it. The information provided by our data annotation can therefore provide valuable information on how a dancer works towards recovery. </p>
<p>In future our work will look at whether specific projections can help audiences with different degrees of familiarity with dance to engage with a dance performance more easily.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arianna Maiorani receives funding from AHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chun Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The language of dance is often lost on a general audience. Now new research has used sensor suits to discover patterns of movement-based communication in ballet performance.Arianna Maiorani, Reader in Linguistics and Multimodality, Loughborough UniversityChun Liu, Research Associate, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1111472019-04-16T10:46:25Z2019-04-16T10:46:25ZWhat it means to ‘know your audience’ when communicating about science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267853/original/file-20190405-180036-19aamqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1625%2C745%2C4365%2C3206&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You have a lot of work to do before you step up to the mic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/microphone-voice-speaker-seminar-classroom-lecture-534042616">Chinnapong/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Communication experts love to tell people to know their audience, but it is not always clear what they’re meant to know.</p>
<p>Knowing someone’s age, education and gender is nice. So too is knowing context about economic, educational, cultural and ideological background. These are typically what the two of us hear when <a href="http://strategicsciencecommunication.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Landscape-Overview-Website-Discussion-Final.pdf">we’ve asked science communication trainers</a> what they think the expression means. </p>
<p>Knowing such things are helpful, but there’s a lot more a strategic communicator might want to know.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0ssM57wAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Our own</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WHQF1CUAAAAJ&hl=en">ongoing research</a> on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662517728478">strategic science communication objectives</a> suggests some more targeted pieces of information that could help communicators – whether scientists or anyone else – effectively share their message.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266172/original/file-20190327-139356-a7cv19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Choosing to take part in a particular event suggests certain things about attendees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrcs_south_dakota/8267472111">USDA NRCS South Dakota/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Know your audience by picking your audience</h2>
<p>To start, if you’re being strategic, you should know something about your audience because you should have picked who you’re communicating with based on your goals.</p>
<p>In general, the hope is that experts like the scientists we study would have shifted valuable time or resources from their regular work to communication because there’s some sort of behavior they want to see in some specific group or groups. The behavior could be individual – things such as drinking less, buying greener products, choosing a science career – or civic – behaviors such as supporting, opposing or disregarding an issue.</p>
<p>No communicator – including scientists – should spend limited time, money and opportunity on audiences that aren’t a priority given their goals. It will rarely make sense to spend resources trying to get an arch-liberal to donate to the National Rifle Association or a diehard lover of science to embrace science even more.</p>
<p>Once you know what you want to accomplish and who you want to accomplish it with, you’re a lot closer to figuring out what you need to know about your audience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267855/original/file-20190405-180036-1xvklaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Audiences aren’t obligated to hang on your every word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/microphone-voice-speaker-seminar-classroom-lecture-534042616">Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What does your audience think and feel?</h2>
<p>The next step is figuring something out about the target audience’s beliefs, feelings or way of framing a topic. It is these beliefs, feelings and frames that can change and it is these changes that will increase the odds an audience will meaningfully consider your hoped-for behavior.</p>
<p>The most common types of beliefs that the scientists we study like to share are those related to the knowledge they’re creating through their research. This might be something about new evidence connecting how rising greenhouse gases are changing the climate, a lack of connection between vaccines and risk, or any other new finding. This preference seems to stem from scientists’ belief that their audience has a crucial gap in its knowledge or way of thinking.</p>
<p>Increasing basic knowledge sometimes gets dismissed in science communication circles; there’s little evidence that <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/23595/chapter/1">information-focused initiatives</a> work very well. More and more facts rarely produce substantial behavioral changes. Worse, although researchers haven’t carefully tested it, anyone who’s sat through a boring lecture can probably attest to the fact that sharing too much technical detail can turn an audience off.</p>
<p>On the other hand, most audiences probably expect to hear about experts’ work and so experts likely need to share some information about what they’re finding or they risk failing to meet people’s expectations.</p>
<p>Just as importantly, there are many other facts beyond those associated with technical knowledge that communicators could ethically want people to come to believe.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266175/original/file-20190327-139349-p135i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Expressing shared values can help build trust and connection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvids/5447684077">DVIDSHUB/Spc. Tobey White/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the topics we study, it might be helpful to really know, for example, if an audience believes the research team is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119206422.ch21">competent, honest, caring</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2015.1118149">open</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/0272-4332.216173">similar to them</a> when it comes to values. If this is not how the scientists are perceived, it’s important to know so the communicator can make communication choices that give the audience a chance to learn a bit more about the team – assuming they do embody these characteristics.</p>
<p>This might mean sharing a bit about their credentials and the sophisticated effort that went into the pertinent research, the motives that drive the team or what they do to make sure they’re always listening to others’ views.</p>
<p>These trust-related communication objectives may be particularly important for making it more likely that someone <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1952-5_10">will pay attention and think about what you have to say</a>. For example, audience members may lack the motivation to truly listen to someone that they believe is dishonest or incompetent.</p>
<p>Similarly, if the goal is to promote behaviors, it helps to know what the audience thinks about those behaviors. Do they believe in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2016.01.003">risks or benefits</a> of what the research suggests? Which do they think about most? And what do they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.11.012">think their family and friends think and do</a> – what social psychologists call subjective and descriptive norms? Do they think they even have the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515595348">ability to do what’s being suggested</a> or believe that doing so will make a difference?</p>
<p>It may also be important to know <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.04.006">how the audience feels</a>, what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13282">emotions are driving behavior</a> and how they <a href="https://doi.org/10.3200/ENVT.51.2.12-23">mentally frame the issue</a>.</p>
<h2>You can’t know everything about your audience</h2>
<p>Of course it’s impossible to know everything about your audience. You can make educated bets – and you can also ask for help from a communication expert or longtime leader in your organization or a group you belong to. In our area of study, these might be the public information officers at universities or scientific societies. They want to help and the good ones are constantly tracking stakeholder views on various issues you might want to address.</p>
<p>There are also many things you probably can’t change about your audience through communication – like an individual’s core values – although these can affect how what you communicate gets interpreted. And that’s why you have to prioritize by being clear on your goals and starting with an understanding of your audience. Communication theory and formative research are meant to <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/public-communication-campaigns/book234975">help with such strategizing</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John C. Besley receives or has received funding from the National Science Foundation (AISL 1421214-1421723), the United States Department of Agriculture (MICL02468), the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Kavli Foundation for research related to this article. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Dudo receives funding or has received funding from the National Science Foundation (AISL 1421214-1421723), the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Kavli Foundation for research related to this article. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations. </span></em></p>Connecting with an audience in a productive way can mean first figuring out what they think, feel and believe before you start sharing your message.John C. Besley, Ellis N. Brandt Professor of Public Relations, Michigan State UniversityAnthony Dudo, Associate Professor of Advertising and Public Relations, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1092212019-02-07T11:34:29Z2019-02-07T11:34:29ZJournalism needs an audience to survive, but isn’t sure how to earn its loyalty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257107/original/file-20190204-193209-y8z40k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is connecting with their audience key to journalism's future?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/622114808?src=cs3W5hDZDID0j5r-VUACEg-1-39&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Journalism is in the midst of an existential crisis: the profession has undergone decades of declines in <a href="http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/">readership</a>, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/01/circulation-and-revenue-fall-for-newspaper-industry/">revenue</a> and <a href="https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trust-in-media-down.php">public trust</a>, with no obvious end in sight. </p>
<p>Many in the industry believe that the best way for newsrooms to recover both <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/how-to-decide-between-subscription-membership-donation.php">revenue</a> and <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/focused-listening-trust/">public trust</a> is to improve their relationship with their audiences. </p>
<p>News organizations once boasted huge profit margins, which left many feeling confident that they knew exactly what they needed to do in order to reach the public. As a result, journalists rarely sought feedback from their readers. </p>
<p>However, the advent of the internet brought huge drops in journalism revenue. Between 2000 and 2015, newspaper ad revenue in the U.S. fell, as an Atlantic article describes, “from about $60 billion to about $20 billion, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/the-print-apocalypse-and-how-to-survive-it/506429/">wiping out the gains of the previous 50 years.”</a></p>
<p>As the news industry struggles to recapture this increasingly distant financial foothold, many within it are certain that the first step forward is to no longer take their audiences for granted. Instead, they have to be more deliberate about earning the audience’s loyalty.</p>
<p>Yet this newfound consensus within the industry has resulted in a lot of uncertainty: How, exactly, should journalists do this? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257098/original/file-20190204-193217-6sxeyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How should journalists reach their audience?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/freelance-writer-journalist-workplace-laptop-pc-730449052">Shutterstock/by Abscent</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>One goal, different methods</h2>
<p>Newsroom strategies for better understanding and connecting with their readers, viewers and listeners differ from one organization to the next. These differences matter because journalism’s future, and the audience’s role in it, will depend in no small part on which of these strategies succeed.</p>
<p>Some rely on digital metrics to determine what their readers like and dislike, and use that information to give them more of the former and less of the latter. The news company BuzzFeed, for example, is legendary for its use of data to predict <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/daozers/how-buzzfeed-thinks-about-data-science#.vy7BqM5Zz">which of its stories will “go viral</a>.”</p>
<p>Others rely on more qualitative information. <a href="https://www.citybureau.org/">City Bureau</a>, a Chicago-based, nonprofit news organization, hosts weekly “public newsrooms” <a href="https://medium.com/city-bureau/want-to-steal-the-public-newsroom-heres-why-you-should-and-how-faabd1b8e268">intended to</a> “gather journalists and the public to discuss local issues and share resources and knowledge to foster better local reporting.”</p>
<p>What accounts for journalism’s varying approaches to the news audience? </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=keaFci8AAAAJ&hl=en">I research the relationship</a> between journalism and the public. In two recently published studies, my collaborators and I concluded that how journalists perceive their audiences powerfully affects what they do to reach them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257108/original/file-20190204-193213-cclo6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BuzzFeed used data to predict story popularity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/BuzzFeed-Layoffs/b4544752653d48dbba58babd7ed7d73c/127/0">AP/Richard Vogel, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Making meaning from audience metrics</h2>
<p>The first study, published in the academic journal <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1547122?scroll=top&needAccess=true">Journalism Studies</a>, drew on interview and observational data collected from a large daily newspaper. </p>
<p>My co-author <a href="http://research.ntu.edu.sg/expertise/academicprofile/Pages/StaffProfile.aspx?ST_EMAILID=EDSON">Edson C. Tandoc Jr.</a> and I examined how journalists use audience measurement data to understand who their work reaches. </p>
<p>We found that, when presented with a variety of sophisticated tools available for analyzing reader behavior, the newsroom’s staff tended to favor audience size measures above all others. They wanted to know which story got the most readers.</p>
<p>The journalists we spoke to explained their focus on audience size metrics in two ways. </p>
<p>The first was economic: Media companies depend on advertising and subscription revenue. The larger the audience, the more advertisers will pay to reach it and the more financially secure the organization. </p>
<p>The second related to the watchdog mission of the newspaper: The journalists argued that their stories can’t make an impact on their community if no one reads them.</p>
<p>The reliance on these metrics made clear an important assumption these journalists held about the nature of their audience. When they used metrics to observe that readers tended to click on “soft” news stories (e.g., lifestyle, sports, dining) and not “hard” news stories (e.g., city hall), many of the journalists we interviewed concluded that a majority of the public is simply not interested in what they deemed “important” public affairs news. </p>
<p>As one of the paper’s senior editors explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The mission journalism — the watchdog journalism, the covering city events, making sure that people aren’t getting screwed over, etc. … There’s not enough people reading those stories … to keep us where we are now. … The money does not exist there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In short, the increasing emphasis on understanding and measuring the news audience revealed that many within this newsroom perceive reaching a large audience and publishing public service journalism as separate pursuits. </p>
<p>While we can’t generalize from our study of this one organization, a number of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444814530541">other</a> <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D80293W1">academic</a> <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/08/when-it-comes-to-chasing-clicks-journalists-say-one-thing-but-feel-pressure-to-do-another/">studies</a> have similarly observed that journalists associate what people click on with what they like. Since people tend to click more soft news than hard, this association has led <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08900523.2004.9679688">some journalism scholars to worry</a>: “The market requires giving the public what it wants; democracy requires giving the public what it needs.”</p>
<h2>From measurement to engagement</h2>
<p>Not everyone in journalism shares this assumption. A growing group of news industry innovators believes a majority of the public is genuinely interested in reading about civic issues, despite what some of the data appear to say.</p>
<p>This other group believes it’s not a lack of interest that keeps citizens away from those stories, but a disdain for how those stories are being reported. </p>
<p>They argue the public feels alienated by, and distrustful of, journalism that rarely solicits their perspectives and, consequently, fails to accurately reflect their lives. To fix this, journalists need to more actively “engage” with the public. <a href="https://dl.orangedox.com/putting-engagement-to-work">As the journalism researchers Thomas R. Schmidt and Regina Lawrence write</a>, “Many increasingly see engaging with audiences and communities as a key strategy to maintain relevance and achieve sustainability.”</p>
<p>The motivations and pursuit of engaged journalism came up in another study recently published in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2018.1542975?journalCode=rjop20">academic journal Journalism Practice</a>, which I co-authored with <a href="https://www.valeriebelairgagnon.com/">Valerie Belair-Gagnon</a> and <a href="http://sethlewis.org/">Seth C. Lewis</a>. </p>
<p>We examined how journalists at two different public media news organizations attempt to engage with their audiences. This research also relied on interview and observational data. </p>
<p>We found that these journalists felt strongly about creating opportunities for more meaningful engagement with the public than has traditionally been the case, especially with communities the journalists felt had been “left out.” </p>
<p>These opportunities included online initiatives <a href="https://www.wuwm.com/post/beats-me-what-questions-do-you-have-wuwms-beat-reporters#stream/0">like soliciting questions from listeners about topics they are interested in</a>, as well as offline events like “listening sessions” designed to build trust and strengthen ties with minority residents whom these journalists cover in their reporting – but do not necessarily reach with their reporting. </p>
<p>For example, when the 2010 census revealed that <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/08/how-wisconsin-became-the-home-of-black-incarceration/496130/">Wisconsin led the nation in black male incarceration</a>, this newsroom hosted a listening session with black men who had been released from prison. </p>
<p>The journalists we interviewed explained that the session was led by a university professor who had experience guiding a listening session and creating a safe place for people to share their stories. </p>
<p>“We didn’t record it or anything. We used it more as a way to try to understand the issues that we’re overlooking,” one of the editors who organized the session said. “Out of that grew this sense that we weren’t really giving these men a place … to tell their own stories” in the newsroom’s reporting.</p>
<p>By pursuing these initiatives, these journalists sought to ensure their stories did not solely originate from what they believed to be the most important issues facing their readers. </p>
<p>Instead, they wanted to create opportunities to hear from their readers – specifically those who they infrequently hear from – about what they believed needed to be covered.</p>
<h2>Same goal, different assumptions</h2>
<p>These two studies show that journalism’s growing focus on the news audience has not been accompanied by a growing consensus about who these audiences comprise and what they want from news. </p>
<p>Even when journalists agree that the audience consumes less public affairs news than it does other kinds, they draw different conclusions about why this is the case. Some blame the audience, others blame the journalists. </p>
<p>One thing that these studies make clear: As the news industry struggles to survive, many within it increasingly believe their best path forward lies with an improved relationship with the public. </p>
<p>However, the steps journalists take to do the work of improving that relationship remains an open question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob Nelson receives funding from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. </span></em></p>Journalism’s crisis – loss of readers, revenue and respect – has led many to conclude that if the news business is to survive, it has to do a better job of connecting with its audience. How can it be done?Jacob L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of digital audience engagement, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963012018-05-29T08:49:14Z2018-05-29T08:49:14ZHow Shakespeare used music to tell stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220260/original/file-20180524-51141-1t9dgpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Francia_-_Madonna_and_Saints_(detail)_-_WGA08174.jpg">Francesco Francia, Madonna and Saints (detail).</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today we fully expect film, television and theatre to use music to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-one-man-changed-the-landscape-of-film-music-29191">shape meaning</a>. The screeching violins of Psycho and the menacing <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-jaws-ate-the-horror-genre-and-has-yet-to-spit-it-out-43511">Jaws</a> theme, for instance, both depend upon a shared 20th-century dramatic language in which music indicates mood. Rewind 400 years and it may not seem like the same is true. Take Shakespearean drama. Many modern productions choose to avoid historical music altogether, preferring new compositions or pre-recorded popular songs that more obviously indicate mood to modern ears.</p>
<p>Yes, early modern theatre was a little more restrained in its musical practices when compared to the near-constant musical underscore of screens large and small today. But music was actually an equally important component of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy, often combined with words, action and the occasional firework to shape dramatic meaning. </p>
<p>Indeed, 16th and 17th-century playhouse music was in one sense even more “real” than later equivalents. It typically existed within the world of the play: it was audible to the onstage characters. In contrast, the modern norm is music as underscore, sounds that shape mood for the audience but are not part of the dramatic world.</p>
<p>To understand just how important music is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/shakespeare-6387">Shakespeare’s dramatic craft</a>, we have to do more than simply recover playhouse musical practices. We must also consider what it meant to listen to music with early modern ears, and therefore how Shakespeare expected his audiences to respond.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vxPB76pmWss?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>How would a Jacobean servant react to a trumpet flourish? What about a merchant to an emotive ballad? Or hidden music, rumbling up from under the stage? I have been pondering these questions of late, surveying many texts of the period in search of popular ideas of how music might affect you. In particular, <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/9781107180840">my recent research</a> traced ideas apparently familiar to the average playgoer, rather than the specialist views of composers, theorists and occupational musicians.</p>
<h2>A winter’s miracle</h2>
<p>What emerges is not always as we might expect. Shakespeare’s audience firmly believed that music needed to be seen as well as heard to be experienced properly. They had an extremely high opinion of music’s connection to the celestial and the supernatural and therefore its power over body and soul, to the degree that it was considered physically impossible not to listen when harmony sounded. Even music’s relationship with memory and imagination was understood in terms very different from those of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198722946.001.0001">modern neurological studies</a>.</p>
<p>These beliefs may seem arcane, and irrelevant to our encounters with Shakespeare today. But by ignoring them, we are missing out on Shakespeare’s dramatic intentions. We may even find ourselves in manifest danger of not understanding him. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-winters-tale/">The Winter’s Tale</a> is an important play in this regard. It hinges on a barely plausible resurrection in the final scene when Hermione’s statue is brought to life by music. Today, the scene is typically staged as an elaborate but somewhat unconvincing deception. Hermione, it is implied, has simply been hiding for the 16 years between her supposed death and the revelation of the statue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mid-19th century ink drawing of the statue of Hermione coming to life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_Hermione_comes_back_to_life.jpg">Folger Shakespeare Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But early modern subjects may have seen this scene very differently, if we consider how they thought of music. Alongside the natural scepticism that this fantastical plotline raises, Shakespeare’s first audiences would have brought with them a firm conviction that music can compel the body and even resurrect. Indeed, Shakespeare seems particularly fond of the “musical resurrection” motif, which has its origins in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/SSO9781107775572.026">alchemical theory</a>. Similarly, in <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/pericles/">Pericles</a>, written a few years before The Winter’s Tale, Cerimon uses “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17450918.2013.766241">rough and woeful</a>” music to help bring Thaisa back to life. </p>
<h2>Music making meaning</h2>
<p>In light of early modern musical beliefs, then, it seems likely that Shakespeare wanted a somewhat complex and equivocal conclusion to The Winter’s Tale. Rather than inviting a straightforward interpretation of the scene, as performances today often encourage, the statue <em>could</em> be a hoax, but could equally be a mythical story of music’s power. A “winter’s tale” is, after all, another name for a fairy story.</p>
<p>Music was a dramatic tool for Shakespeare, used deliberately and precisely to shape meaning at the conclusion of The Winter’s Tale, and in many other plays including <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/">Richard III</a>, <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/othello/">Othello</a> and <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/antony-and-cleopatra/">Antony and Cleopatra</a>. Neither is Shakespeare alone in this regard. Many of his contemporaries, such as John Fletcher, Thomas Heywood, John Marston and Thomas Middleton made similar use of music’s dramatic potential. </p>
<p>Careful consideration of popular musical culture in Shakespeare’s time can help reveal crucial nuances in his storytelling. This is important to note, because these details might otherwise be missed at a historical distance of some four centuries. 20th-century underscoring may be the most famous form of music as a dramatic medium. But in a slightly different idiom, Shakespeare and his contemporaries might just have got there first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Smith received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2010-13) and the Leverhulme Trust (2014-17) to support his research.</span></em></p>How would a Jacobean servant react to a trumpet flourish?Simon Smith, Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945792018-04-10T19:55:02Z2018-04-10T19:55:02ZShould the Commonwealth Games come with a health warning?<p>Governments <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2018-mckenzie011.htm">often justify</a> spending money on sports events like the Commonwealth Games because they leave a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-cities-hosting-major-sporting-events-is-a-double-edged-sword-76929">legacy</a>”, including increases in physical activity among the population. </p>
<p>But the experience of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics show <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/1/e002058.short">this is not the case</a>. After the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow <a href="http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00485587.pdf">physical activity among Scottish adults actually decreased</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, the increased television and online coverage of major sports events encourages people to spend long periods in front of screens, which <a href="https://www.baker.edu.au/news/media-releases/binge-watching-tv">may have a negative impact on health</a>. </p>
<h2>Turn on, tune in 24/7</h2>
<p>Sport is deeply ingrained in many societies, particularly Australia. Yet, despite enduring images of Australia as a “<a href="http://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/a_sporting_nation.pdf">sporting nation</a>”, it is one of the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/obesity-rates-soar-in-australia-a-global-survey-reveals-20140528-394s4.html">fattest nations on earth</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="p0yU5" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/p0yU5/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Aussies definitely enjoy watching sport. In one survey, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/4174.0%7E2009-10%7EMain+Features%7EIntroduction?OpenDocument">43% of Australians</a> aged 15 years and over reported attending a sporting event in the previous 12 months. </p>
<p>Sport dominates <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/au/en/insights/news/2016/game-on-live-sport-dominates-aussie-tv-viewing-over-the-past-15-years.html">television viewing habits</a>. In 2017, <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7508-top-sport-tv-viewing-december-2017-201803020101">76.8% of Australians</a> aged 14 years and over watched some form of sport on TV.</p>
<p>During the 2016 Rio Olympics more than <a href="http://www.sevenwestmedia.com.au/assets/pdfs/seven-launches-expanded-coverage-of-the-australian-open-seriesf48fcc367c326234ba45ff00007fc4f2.pdf">18 million Australians watched some part of the event</a>, taking in 325 million minutes of coverage and an additional 73.8 million social video views. </p>
<p>The screens of the host broadcaster and online channels delivered a total of 20.7 billion minutes of coverage during the Rio Olympics.</p>
<p>So it seems we are primed for the <a href="http://www.sevenwestmedia.com.au/assets/pdfs/seven-is-ready-for-the-commonwealth-games-on-the-gold-coast.pdf">hundreds of hours</a> of Commonwealth Games coverage on television and online across the 11 days of competition. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-commonwealth-games-change-perceptions-of-the-gold-coast-94170">Can the Commonwealth Games change perceptions of the Gold Coast?</a>
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<p>But the federal government’s <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/F01F92328EDADA5BCA257BF0001E720D/$File/brochure%20PA%20Guidelines_A5_18-64yrs.PDF#http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/F01F92328EDADA5BCA257BF0001E720D/$File/b">physical activity and sedentary behaviour guidelines</a> encourage Aussies to reduce the amount of time they spend in front of the screen, in an attempt to reduce overall sedentary behaviour. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://jcsm.aasm.org/viewabstract.aspx?pid=31062">2017 study</a> in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that binge viewing was associated with “poorer sleep quality, increased fatigue and more symptoms of insomnia”. </p>
<p>Another recent study found that higher levels of television viewing are <a href="https://www.baker.edu.au/news/media-releases/binge-watching-tv">associated with</a> increased risk of death from diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and kidney disease. </p>
<p>The good news is that participation in regular <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-check-will-binge-watching-tv-increase-your-risk-for-alzheimers-disease-and-diabetes-84264">physical activity</a> can reduce the risks of mortality associated with <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30370-1/abstract">high television viewing time</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/olympics-success-leaves-a-mixed-legacy-for-australias-sporting-life-7531">Olympics success leaves a mixed legacy for Australia's sporting life</a>
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<p>The Australian government, through the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), <a href="https://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/about/history/sports_tally/2016/a_podium_view">invested A$340 million</a> to provide Australian Olympians with the best chance of success in Rio. </p>
<p>In addition, high-performance funding to sports was A$101.6 million in 2017-18, with $55 million for the high-performance programs featured at the Gold Coast Games. Funding <a href="https://www.ausport.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/660697/34649_Investment_allocation_2017-18_v3.pdf">focusing on sports participation</a> is less than a quarter of this amount. </p>
<p>Australia is not alone in its obsession with national sporting success. Despite the billions the United Kingdom spent on the London Olympics and Paralympics and the Rio Olympics and Paralympics, sports participation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/jul/05/olympic-legacy-failure-sports-participation-figures">has remained relatively stable</a> since 2008.</p>
<p>This level of funding for elite sport may be better invested in grassroots programs and physical activity initiatives. It could help lower the cost of participation in sport or physical activity – Australians spend A$10 billion per year <a href="https://www.ausport.gov.au/supporting/investment_announcements/investment_announcement_2017-18">on fees alone</a>. </p>
<p>Attending the Games in person may be healthier than watching on television as some degree of activity is required to navigate to and around the venues. However, spectators will still be largely sedentary during events and are <a href="http://www.sportsthinktank.com/blog/2018/04/moving-away-from-pies-and-beers-healthy-eating-at-sports-stadia">likely to eat unhealthily while they are there</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-check-will-binge-watching-tv-increase-your-risk-for-alzheimers-disease-and-diabetes-84264">Research Check: will binge-watching TV increase your risk for Alzheimer's disease and diabetes?</a>
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<p>The rapid development of sports media and the increasing availability of sport on televisions and mobile devices have serious implications for the nation’s health. </p>
<p>In Australia, adults spend an average of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4364.0.55.004Chapter1002011-12">39 hours</a> per week in sedentary activities. Television viewing is the most commonly reported sedentary activity with around 13 hours per week spent in front of the box.</p>
<p>Australians shouldn’t boycott sport spectatorship altogether. But, at the very least, spectators (and those watching at home) should be encouraged to take part in activity breaks during lulls in action. Perhaps it is time for spectators to be warned of the risks to their health.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma George has received funding from the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and ClubsNSW to support research into health and community engagement initiatives delivered through sport. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Parry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Previous Olympics and Commonwealth Games have not led to an increase in sports participation. In fact, there could be a negative impact on health from watching more television.Keith Parry, Senior Lecturer in Sport Management, Western Sydney UniversityEmma George, Senior Lecturer in Health & Physical Education, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811632017-07-19T06:03:45Z2017-07-19T06:03:45ZShame! The ‘technical glitches’ that hit Game of Thrones could limit other popular live-streamed events<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178552/original/file-20170718-21742-pc1t8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not everyone got to see Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey ) and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in the opening season seven episode of Game of Thrones.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654088/mediaviewer/rm1517238016">HBO</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Winter was coming with the first episode of the new Game of Thrones series this week, but the real freeze was a technical one.</p>
<p>Many fans across the world were unable to watch the much anticipated season opener using legal streaming services, such as <a href="https://www.foxtel.com.au/now/index.html">Foxtel Now</a> in Australia. </p>
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<p>Foxtel <a href="http://community.foxtel.com.au/t5/Foxtel-Press-Releases/Game-of-Thrones-phenomenon-crash-sites-across-the-globe/m-p/206549">issued a statement on Monday</a> saying the problem was due to “technical glitches around the world”.</p>
<p>This technical glitch is extremely concerning, not just for fans of Game of Thrones but for the future of streaming video of major events and programming.</p>
<h2>The focus on streaming</h2>
<p>It was only last month that Foxtel launched its new logo and rebranded its Foxtel Play streaming service as Foxtel Now.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178761/original/file-20170719-31776-nwwqw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New logo for Foxtel Now.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.foxtel.com.au/about/media-centre/press-releases/2017/introducing-foxtel-now.html">Foxtel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The company’s <a href="https://www.foxtel.com.au/about/media-centre/press-releases/2017/introducing-foxtel-now.html">announcement</a> of the new service promised Game of Thrones fans – and those of other programs – that they could now enjoy their favourite shows in high definition for as little as A$15 per month.</p>
<p>Previously, the only way to access Game of Thrones legally in Australia was via Foxtel’s “<a href="https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/06/is-foxtel-now-worth-the-money/#Ro4vibhY3UVQSKJc.99">prohibitively expensive Pay TV offerings</a>”. </p>
<p>This restricted access had seen Australians become some of the world’s leaders in <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-convicts-to-pirates-australias-dubious-legacy-of-illegal-downloading-39912">illegally downloading</a> previous seasons of Game of Thrones. </p>
<p>Even with the cheaper access via Foxtel Now, a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/game-of-thrones-one-third-of-australian-fans-planning-to-pirate-season-7-20170629-gx107h.html">Finder.com.au survey</a> showed that more than 30% of people said they would be illegally downloading the new season.</p>
<p>The glitch this week will create headaches for Foxtel, and raises questions over the viability of its cheaper streaming alternative to its premium pay TV service.</p>
<p>Many Australians vented their frustration on social media via the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/foxtelfail">#FoxtelFail</a> and on <a href="http://community.foxtel.com.au/t5/Foxtel-Press-Releases/Game-of-Thrones-phenomenon-crash-sites-across-the-globe/m-p/206549">Foxel’s community board</a>. </p>
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<p>But while Australians targeted their anger at Foxtel, the glitch was global.</p>
<h2>A global problem</h2>
<p>In addition to Australia, fans in the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/game-thrones-season-7-premiere-shatters-viewership-records-article-1.3334919">United States</a>, <a href="http://community.foxtel.com.au/t5/Foxtel-Press-Releases/Game-of-Thrones-on-Foxtel/td-p/206805">Latin America</a> and <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/television/hotstar-failed-to-stream-game-of-thrones-season-7-premiere-episode-and-faced-flak-4754913/">India</a> also faced the same frustrating technical issues.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hotstar.com/">Hotstar</a>, an Indian online streaming service, had been <a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainment/news/game-of-thrones-season-7-episode-1-torrents-download-got-s07e01-hotstar-1725707">promoting</a> an “Hours Before Torrents” promise. Its advertising used the phrases “Torrent Morghulis” and that “torrents must die”, both based on popular Game of Thrones phrases.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178762/original/file-20170719-4932-1em6igt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Advertising ahead of Game of Thrones premiere on Hotstar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/hotstar/photos/a.1559468234297503.1073741827.1506095676301426/1960676820843307/?type=3&theater">Hotstar</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately the creative marketing campaign will now be laughed at as torrents of the premiere program were reportedly <a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/entertainment/news/game-of-thrones-season-7-episode-1-torrents-download-got-s07e01-hotstar-1725707">available illegally</a> 45 minutes before the episode was available on Hotstar.</p>
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<h2>An unexpected surge</h2>
<p>Foxtel has redirected the blame for the technical glitch towards both its own customers – thanks to a <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/foxtel-elaborates-on-game-of-thrones-glitch-458755">40% surge in new subscriptions</a> in the 48 hours before episode one’s screening time – and to Game of Thrones’ <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/foxtel-blames-hbo-for-bungling-game-of-thrones-season-7-premiere/8718624">US production company HBO</a>.</p>
<p>Level 3 Communications is HBO’s partner in delivering its HBO Go streaming service. Diane Tryneski, chief digital officer at HBO, <a href="http://investors.level3.com/investor-relations/press-releases/press-release-details/2017/HBO-Streams-Game-of-Thrones-Season-7-Using-Level-3s-CDN/default.aspx">had said ahead of the season premiere</a> that Level 3 was pivotal in its “ability to stream Game of Thrones and other HBO programming to our customers”.</p>
<p>Laurinda Pang, Level 3’s regional president for North America and Asia Pacific, added that with more viewers and devices accessing HBO GO content, “the importance of relying on a network optimised for media delivery cannot be overstated”.</p>
<p>But it appears that the anticipated numbers of people simultaneously accessing the Game of Thrones opening episode were underestimated. This is a situation to which Australians can relate – a similar congestion-based crash contributed to last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-census-really-suffer-a-denial-of-service-attack-63755">census debacle</a>.</p>
<p>It is hard to acknowledge that viewer estimates for this popular series could be so wrong, given its <a href="http://variety.com/2016/tv/ratings/game-of-thrones-ratings-season-6-finale-record-1201805035/">ratings success at the end of series six</a> in 2016.</p>
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<h2>Global streaming future</h2>
<p>But this latest technical glitch raises some bigger questions.</p>
<p>There is continual evidence in <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/be/en/insights/reports/2017/the-nielsen-total-audience-report-q1-2017.html">the US</a> and <a href="http://www.oztam.com.au/documents/Other/Australian%20Video%20Viewing%20Report%20Q1%202017%20Final.pdf">Australia</a> that audiences are changing their viewing behaviours.</p>
<p>There is a global shift from traditional television broadcast to online services, streaming and video-on-demand services. So can these services handle the future loads that are anticipated? </p>
<p>This is not just in reference to prerecorded content such as Game of Thrones, but also to live content in which technical issues, buffering and low quality video will impact the viewing experience. There was <a href="http://www.news.com.au/sport/olympics/sports-life/sevens-olympic-app-plagued-by-technical-problems-blamed-on-unprecedented-demand/news-story/5dc9aa183bb8fd3a0688affc7309c40c">evidence of these types of issues</a> last year with the Rio Olympic Games streaming content.</p>
<p>Streaming video will only continue to grow with predictions it will be 82% of all <a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/complete-white-paper-c11-481360.pdf">consumer internet traffic</a> by 2021. </p>
<p>The growth of video will not just be via IP data, but also mobile. It’s estimated that almost 80% of <a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/mobile-white-paper-c11-520862.html">global mobile data</a> will be video by 2021. </p>
<h2>What’s bigger than Game of Thrones?</h2>
<p>With this in mind, could the internet handle major events such as a Superbowl television audience? </p>
<p>Last year its <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/06/super-bowl-111-million-viewers/">TV audience</a> was more than 111 million in the US alone – far more than the 16 million <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/game-of-thrones-crowned-as-record-audience-wage-war-with-streaming-glitches-20170717-gxd6ze.html">reported</a> to have watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones.</p>
<p>Even adding the <a href="http://community.foxtel.com.au/t5/Foxtel-Press-Releases/Game-of-Thrones-on-Foxtel/td-p/206805">Australian</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/game-of-thrones-crowned-as-record-audience-wage-war-with-streaming-glitches-20170717-gxd6ze.html">UK</a> figures of 1.5 million and 2.8 million respectively, it was far from a Superbowl TV audience.</p>
<p>The Superbowl online audience question was presented to a panel of experts in the US in May this year, with some interesting responses. The <a href="http://www.nscreenmedia.com/live-streaming-super-bowl-size-2022/">experts’ consensus</a> was that a live stream of the event over the internet to match the regular TV audience figure would be possible, but not until about 2023.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott is a board member of C31 Melbourne (Community Television Station).</span></em></p>The problems some people had trying to watch Game of Thrones via the internet shows we still have a long way to go before we can live-stream major events to a mass online audience.Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794202017-06-14T12:34:43Z2017-06-14T12:34:43ZTen Network’s problems are history repeating<p>Reporters at the Ten Network relayed the news of their employer’s <a href="http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20170614/pdf/43jxwxg71wfdt9.pdf">voluntary administration</a>, during a staff meeting. The network was looking to refinance to the tune of A$250 million, after its existing finance was due to expire on December 23.</p>
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<p>But Ten’s directors said they were left no choice but to appoint administrators from KordaMentha to try to recapitalise or sell the business. Lachlan Murdoch, who owns a 7.7% share of Ten (via his private investment fund Illyria), and Bruce Gordon, who owns 14.96% (via Birketu), are <a href="http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20170614/pdf/43jy0d773pglxh.pdf">now teaming up to offer</a> a rescue package to restructure the network, though the details are still to be sorted out.</p>
<p>This will see the two shareholders treated as an association rather than a merged entity to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-14/ten-enters-volutary-administration/8617078">prevent</a> triggering a compulsory acquisition provision or a breach of the existing two-out-of-three cross-media ownership rule.</p>
<p>While this all may appear to be contemporary issues for the company, Ten has faced many hurdles during its lifespan of little over 50 years. </p>
<h2>Ten has been in trouble before</h2>
<p>The network began in the 1960s, originally named the Independent Television Network, before promptly being renamed the 0-10 Network. The network’s Melbourne-based station (ATV-0) began its official broadcast on August 1 1964, with other metro stations starting the year after.</p>
<p>Ken Inglis argues in his book, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=KWfSljNdE4oC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Whose+ABC?:+the+Australian+Broadcasting+Corporation&source=bl&ots=KTLKY29iKa&sig=8GVLX8kr-eFqA4HAafu-TfJ2pFQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY1Iqws7zUAhULV7wKHdi8DR4Q6AEIPjAF#v=onepage&q=Whitlam%E2%80%99s%20people%20had%20thought%20about%20giving&f=false">Whose ABC?</a>, that Ten struggled during its early establishment and that the Whitlam government made attempts to buy the network to use it as a second channel for the ABC. </p>
<p>But the network debuted popular shows during this time, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068114/">Number 96</a>, and its high ratings pushed the price higher than the government was willing to pay.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OPn1r_mCqh8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Remembering Number 96.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ten also faced a crisis after Frank Lowy bought the network from Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch was forced to sell due to changes to the media ownership laws in 1987, which prohibited a media company owning both a newspaper and television station in the same city.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/academic-professional/communication-studies/The-Media-in-Australia-Stuart-Cunningham-Graeme-Turner-9781864482737">Lowy said that</a> “TV was like any other business”, although he quickly found out it was not. Lowy asked Ian Gow, who had previously worked at the Nine Network, to run the network. <a href="https://currencyhouse.org.au/node/138">According to Gow</a>, Lowy had “bought the worst house in the best street and [wanted] to renovate”.</p>
<p>Despite the initiatives Gow implemented, including selling off the Adelaide, Perth and Canberra stations, the network was forced into receivership in September 1990. Communications corporation CanWest Global <a href="https://images.tenplay.com.au/%7E/media/Corporate%20Site%20Media/Files/Corporate%20Governance%20Documents/Prospectus.pdf">bought</a> 57.5% of Network Ten from Westpac Bank for A$275 million and then re-established a capital city network in 1995.</p>
<p>During 1999 Ten formed a joint venture with Village Roadshow Limited, Village Ten Online (VTO). Network Ten <a href="https://images.tenplay.com.au/%7E/media/Corporate%20Site%20Media/Files/Annual%20Reports/2001_Annual_Review.pdf">argued</a> this was a “strategically defensive move” to develop and market <a href="http://admin.villageroadshow.com.au/upload/Document/SCAPE_Rel1.pdf">content for the next generation</a>. Ten stated in its 1999 annual report that the joint venture planned to produce a series of websites targeted specifically at the under-40s market. </p>
<p>The first major announcement of the venture was Scape.com, which was launched in October 2000. The CEO of Ten Ventures, Peter O'Connell, <a href="http://admin.villageroadshow.com.au/upload/Document/SCAPE_Rel1.pdf">described</a> Scape as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An exciting new presence on the Internet, with all the necessary attributes to appeal to increasing numbers of online service users. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in March of the following year, less than six months from its launch, Village Roadshow and Network Ten released a joint press release <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjMhqiyhr3UAhWEw7wKHVggDIAQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvillageroadshow.com.au%2F-%2Fmedia%2FVRL-Corporate-Media-Library%2FDocuments%2FASX-Announcements%2F2001%2FMarch%2FScape_to_Cease_Ops.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGU4a-00RcHI1NtVy0sfcLj99M0uQ&sig2=yq6o_gMotCnnmOGlXhFNqw&cad=rja">stating</a> that Scape had been placed in voluntary administration and ceased operation. Both companies had contributed A$22 million to the joint venture.</p>
<h2>Ten’s future</h2>
<p>Ten’s future is unclear and this will not only impact the network, but some of its key stakeholders. </p>
<p>This recent announcement will affect Bruce Gordon, who holds a 14.96% share in Ten and also owns WIN Television, in two ways. The first is due to his financial stake in the network, which could expose his investment companies to liability. Secondly, WIN Television is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/television-agreement-a-win-for-network-ten-59817">regional affiliate of Ten</a>. Any changes to Ten or its programming would impact WIN and its regional stations across Australia that rely heavily on Ten’s programming.</p>
<p>Foxtel is another major shareholder that could be affected by any changes made to Ten. Any restructure or sale could impact the recent approach by both Foxel and Ten to partner in programming including GoggleBox, Common Sense, A-League and V8 Supercars. This approach could be used as part of the negotiations for the upcoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/chasing-the-audience-is-it-over-and-out-for-cricket-on-free-to-air-tv-76792">Cricket Australia media rights</a>. Ten holds the rights for the Big Bash League and, while it would not like to lose these rights, a partnership with Fox Sports could allow it still to gain access to some games.</p>
<p>What is clear is that Ten will have to attempt to break the traditional broadcast model and rethink what a television network is in the current media landscape. If it can achieve this it could potentially place the network in a strong position to compete not only with other local television broadcasters, but also with <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-battle-for-audiences-as-free-tv-viewing-continues-its-decline-58051">new media players</a> that are stealing their ad revenue and audience share.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott is a board member of C31 Melbourne (Community Television Station).</span></em></p>Ten Network has been placed in voluntary administration, after major shareholders refused to guarantee another loan.Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/767922017-05-02T06:54:23Z2017-05-02T06:54:23ZChasing the audience: is it over and out for cricket on free to air TV?<p>How Australians watch cricket on screens in the future could depend on what happens with the Nine Network’s current discussions with Cricket Australia over the 2018-23 media rights.</p>
<p>UBS media analyst Eric Choi <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/channel-nine-urged-to-step-away-from-the-cricket-contract-by-analysts-20170425-gvruzl.html">said</a> the current deal costs Nine about A$100 million a year but generates only A$60 million to A$70 million in gross revenue.</p>
<p>Choi said the network should either ask for access to more content at no additional cost, or step away from its <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-1970s-cricket-revolution-a-beginners-guide-9024">long association</a> with cricket.</p>
<p>The ramifications of Nine’s decision could be broad, impacting not only its potential revenue and viewers, but also participation rates among Aussies playing grassroots cricket. </p>
<h2>Cricket’s current standing</h2>
<p>The current <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-04/grassroots-cricket-to-benefit-from-financial-windfall/4732566">media rights deal</a> for cricket <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/apr/28/nine-ten-foxtel-or-optus-australian-cricket-tv-rights-explained">includes</a> the Nine Network and Network Ten. Nine has the rights to international tests, one-day internationals and T20 international games played in Australia, whereas Ten has the rights to the Big Bash League (BBL). </p>
<p>The BBL has become a crucial cricketing brand, continuing to <a href="http://www.bigbash.com.au/news/big-bash-league-bbl-viewers-broadcast-ratings-fixture-bbl06-tickets/2016-05-07">gain high ratings</a> and listed in <a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7204-top-20-tv-shows-of-2016-by-audience-engagement-in-australia-201704061403">Australia’s Top 20 engaging programs</a> for 2016. </p>
<p>The league also has excellent crowd attendance, having recently ranked 9th in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/big-bash-league-jumps-into-top-10-of-most-attended-sports-leagues-in-the-world-20160110-gm2w8z.html">world’s top-attended sports leagues</a>. </p>
<p>Based on the BBL’s success and the increases seen in the new media rights for the <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-08-18/afl-on-the-verge-of-signing-new-tv-deal">Australian Football League</a> (AFL) and <a href="http://www.nrl.com/nrl-broadcast-rights-deal-announced/tabid/10874/newsid/91023/default.aspx">National Rugby League</a> (NRL), Cricket Australia will want to see an increase in the bidding for its rights.</p>
<p>This is particularly relevant if Cricket Australia still relies as heavily on these rights as <a href="http://www.alrc.gov.au/sites/default/files/subs/228._org_cricketaustralia.pdf">in 2012</a>, when it said the rights accounted for 60%-80% of the total annual income.</p>
<p>But can the media rights continue to increase with the current unstable media landscape?</p>
<h2>The current media landscape</h2>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.arnhem.com.au/">Arnhem Investment Management</a>, the era of advertising-supported premium sport on Australian television is “<a href="http://www.arnhem.com.au/thats-not-cricket/">drawing to a close</a>”.</p>
<p>The free-to-air (FTA) broadcasters are also currently requesting that the government <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/commercial-tv-licence-writedown-puts-ten-in-the-red/news-story/5497cf9333b1fc6f518265fa42343b3c">reduce license fees</a> and reconsider plans to further restrict <a href="https://theconversation.com/wide-ranging-ban-on-gambling-ads-during-sport-broadcasts-is-needed-to-tackle-problem-gambling-74687">gambling ads</a> during the broadcast of sports.</p>
<p>Ten has said it expects its revenue to be “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/commercial-tv-licence-writedown-puts-ten-in-the-red/news-story/5497cf9333b1fc6f518265fa42343b3c">above</a> the 1.2% increase” it outlined in February this year. Yet it will still need to undertake a “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/ten-posts-2322-million-loss-following-writedown/news-story/6589bdc494968269db5a4758d7b568ea">significant focus</a>” on a corporate cost-cutting program and profitability as a priority.</p>
<h2>New stakeholders</h2>
<p>With FTA broadcasters under financial pressures, any increase in new rights will require new stakeholders. </p>
<p>Foxtel currently shows international cricket matches played overseas, but does not have local coverage rights. If it could gain local cricket rights, this would further strengthen Foxtel’s sports offering of AFL, NRL, A-league, V8 Supercars, and many international sports.</p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Broadcast/Television/TV-content-regulation/sport-anti-siphoning-tv-content-regulation-acma">anti-siphoning regulation</a> could prevent Foxtel completely dominating the cricket media rights. But this list is expected to be <a href="http://www.afr.com/business/media-and-marketing/tv/nick-xenophon-argues-for-abolition-of-tv-licence-fees-and-toughening-up-on-google-and-facebook-taxes-20170424-gvroyd">trimmed</a> further by the government this year, furthering opening up the sports media battleground for pay television in future rights deals.</p>
<h2>The future for digital rights</h2>
<p>Digital rights will also be a major consideration with the new cricket media rights. While most would be looking at Telstra and Optus, there have been new players in this area who may also wish to place a bid.</p>
<p>Currently Cricket Australia has the <a href="http://www.cricket.com.au/promotions/cricket-australia-live/">Cricket Australia Live app</a> which allows users to pay a subscription (A$30 per year or A$5.99 a day) to gain access to live streaming of games, but the new rights could also see this change.</p>
<p>Optus may continue its affiliation with cricket. It recently become the <a href="http://www.optus.com.au/shop/entertainment/sport/cricket">official</a> mobile media partner of Cricket Australia, and principal sponsor of the Melbourne Stars Big Bash League team. Customers can access cricket content via the <a href="https://sport.optus.com.au/">Optus Sports app</a>, which also includes Optus’ recently acquired <a href="https://theconversation.com/optus-the-new-player-in-australias-sports-media-rights-battle-50069">English Premier League</a>. </p>
<p>Twitter has had success with broadcasting the US National Football League (NFL) and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/twitters-live-stream-of-the-melbourne-cup-could-change-how-we-broadcast-sport-67291">Melbourne cup</a> last year. This year it <a href="http://www.sporttechie.com/2017/04/28/technology/digitalmedia/major-league-lacrosse-twitter-to-live-stream-mll-game-of-the-week-for-2017-season/">signed</a> a two-year deal with the US National Lacrosse League. Twitter may consider its interest in a global sport like cricket. </p>
<p>Amazon, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazons-new-grand-tour-series-could-be-the-next-illegal-download-victim-68141">recently launched</a> its Prime Video service in Australia, could also be a contender. This year Amazon won the rights for NFL Thursday night matches. It <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/5/1/15386694/nfl-live-stream-amazon-prime-thursday-night-football-ratings">paid</a> US$50 million for ten games, five times the price paid by Twitter last year. Amazon may look at the cricket as another potential global sport to add to its catalogue.</p>
<p>Another consideration is if Nine or Ten were to obtain the digital rights and use the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rio-olympics-are-a-test-case-for-the-future-of-sports-broadcasting-63589">free and subscription approach</a> that the Seven Network used as part of their Rio Games coverage <a href="https://theconversation.com/sevens-olympic-coverage-could-change-the-way-we-watch-sport-on-our-screens-60563">last year</a>.</p>
<h2>The impact on the viewing experience</h2>
<p>Can you “slice and dice” too much? This is a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/5/1/15386694/nfl-live-stream-amazon-prime-thursday-night-football-ratings">question</a> being asked in the US by CBS chief executive Les Moonves with regard to the NFL.</p>
<p>Adding another stakeholder to cricket will impact the viewers’ experience. This year the new <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-afl-gets-richer-who-gets-richer-with-it-46321">AFL media rights</a> created some frustration linked with the way the rights had been negotiated, particularly the digital rights.</p>
<p>Telstra, the digital rights holder, is restricted by its agreement to limit live match videos to a 7-inch screen size. Highlights and replays are available in full-screen size 12 hours after the match ends. (Foxtel, meanwhile, can stream the games full-screen.)</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"832163675657998337"}"></div></p>
<p>This change has outraged some fans who paid the A$89 subscription fee for the <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/mobile">AFL Live app</a>. Because of the screen size restrictions, Telstra users with a large phone or tablet have a large amount of black space on their screen.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"832194025855741952"}"></div></p>
<p>Some Australians are being creative in working around the restrictions.</p>
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<h2>Media coverage and participation</h2>
<p>The media rights for sport can be looked at far more broadly than solely the coverage of the game itself.</p>
<p>In the United Kingdom there has been ongoing debate associated with cricket’s coverage. Since the sport moved to pay-TV, there has <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/801645.html">been a decline</a> in participation levels, which many argued is <a href="http://www.espn.com.au/cricket/story/_/id/19064584/elizabeth-ammon-state-english-county-cricket">primarily due</a> to the game no longer being broadcast free to air. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/jul/12/ashes-sky-england-australia-ecb-tv">Reports of a Sport England Active People survey</a> show a 32% drop in participation levels in people aged over 16 since coverage of cricket moved to satellite and cable TV.</p>
<p>There are now steps being taken to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9220b274-0a38-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b">introduce</a> a new Twenty20 tournament in the UK, built around the success of the Indian Premier League and Australia’s BBL, which had some games <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/12/20/channel-5-brings-back-live-cricket-free-air-tv-after-decade-long-absence">live broadcast</a> in the UK during the last season.</p>
<p>This is an interesting case study for Cricket Australia, which only last year <a href="http://www.cricket.com.au/news/cricket-australia-census-participation-numbers-women-men-children-james-sutherland/2016-08-23">announced</a> cricket as “No 1 as the current top participation sport in Australia”.</p>
<p>Any changes to the rights that impact the percentage of Australians with access to the coverage, could also see a decline in participation based on the UK experience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott is a board member of C31 Melbourne (Community Television Station)</span></em></p>Negotiations for the new media rights for cricket in Australia could see a change in how we watch games, and even be linked to a drop in people actually playing the game.Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637532016-08-10T04:31:11Z2016-08-10T04:31:11ZPutting audiences, as well as actors, in the hot seat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133590/original/image-20160809-18053-1px04uh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Arthur Bolkas and David Woods in The Chat, in which the fate of a prisoner who has breached parole is decided.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>As the ethics of punishment are debated in mainstream media, statistics, images and unanswerable questions circulate. <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-post-sentence-detention-of-convicted-terrorists-make-australia-any-safer-62980">Post sentence detention</a> of terrorists and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-so-many-indigenous-kids-in-detention-in-the-nt-in-the-first-place-63257">the fate of Indigenous children in detention</a> are just two of the issues Australia is currently grappling with.</p>
<p>When these discussions play out in a theatre, different questions are raised. The Chat, which recently completed its Melbourne season, shows the ways theatre can enrich the discourse around issues relating to the criminal justice system. It focuses on the liminal space of parole, at the edge of freedom and prison, where a prisoner’s connections to society – so brutally damaged during incarceration – can begin to repair.</p>
<p>It also exposes participatory theatre as an unruly process, fraught with confusion and contradiction. </p>
<p>In a courageous act of co-creation, The Chat was devised by artists and former prisoners. The premise of the play is a parole interview in a future system, in 2051. Over the course of the play, the fate of a former prisoner who has breached parole is decided. Each performance features a different cast member in the “hot seat”, drawing from their own trauma of prison and experience of parole.</p>
<p>Their story unravels through an invented process of “transpersonalisation”, in which the roles of parole officer and former prisoner are reversed. The guiding principle of this process, audience members are assured, is “dialogue as the embodiment of love”.</p>
<p>The improvisation of the actors in this dialogue is so practised that it does seem to embody love, even as the incredible David Woods, playing the former prisoner, drools on the table as a drug addled, father-to-be who can’t stay in rehab.</p>
<p>The performance I saw featured John Tjepkema, whose stunning tattoos and contagious positivity have made him something of a poster boy for the show. Before it, on the steps of Arts House, John told us that he had been clean 15 years that day and that the trauma of prison still haunts him.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133591/original/image-20160809-11853-34ln4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Woods, Ty Luke and Nick Maltzahn in The Chat.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But The Chat isn’t just about the stories of these men and their participation in theatre. It is about us, and our participation in the justice system.</p>
<p>At one end of the stage, raised on a platform and obscured by a screen, three men chatter in a style only possible in a desk job where not all of one’s self is present. These three symbolise authority, laying bare the banalities of office life as they discuss toasties, muffins and sushi rolls amid their critique of Foucault and evaluations of each others’ performances. </p>
<p>In a disturbing fat suit that literally adds weight to his character, the actor and director JR Brennan is pulling the strings here, defending the experiment of transpersonalisation. </p>
<p>These three employees are working on our behalf, to conceive, test, and implement a better justice system. And it is no accident that they appear at some moments as vile, power hungry operators, at others as well-meaning, pathetic bureaucrats.</p>
<p>Their eccentric commitment compels us to consider our role in this system, and to focus on the differences between those who invent it and those who are bound by it.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the prisoners awkwardly throw their bodies around the stage; dance, destroy their criminal records in a shredder, and reenact their crimes in a kind of trauma treatment. Guided by an earnest Ashley Dyer, armed with white pearls, a soothing voice and a clipboard, they stumble through the step-by-step process of transpersonalisation under the watchful eyes of their two-tiered audience.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the show, audience members are chosen to join the parole board. I sit with strangers, watched by other strangers, and discuss the merits of the performance we have just seen. </p>
<p>This scene exposes all the complexities of participation, as consensus unravels onstage. There is no question that John deserves another chance, but when the conditions on his parole emerge from the group, it becomes clear that there is also no “appropriate” response or “correct answer”. </p>
<p>Warm baths and incense; spending time outdoors; a group of women to support him; cooking classes; urine tests – all are suggested by the audience as ways to help John on parole. In their keenness to be kind, people seem to almost forget that John is in the room, that he might not like incense.</p>
<p>Those without expertise are making the decisions here about crime and punishment, and about theatre. This is messy and uncomfortable, but it is truly worthwhile.</p>
<p>Because as much as we all want a reliable, fair and consistent justice system, there is nothing easy about judging each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Crosby is personally affiliated with Alex Davies, who worked on the media art for The Chat during development stages.</span></em></p>When former prisoners – and audience members – come together in a play examining our justice system, the result is unruly, uncomfortable and worthwhile.Alexandra Crosby, Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Design Studies, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/582252016-06-08T01:00:37Z2016-06-08T01:00:37ZComputing changed the ‘flow’ of watching television<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122815/original/image-20160517-9464-q2r2fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Viewers can now select what they want to watch and when they want to watch it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Rasulov</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The latest in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/computing-turns-60">Computing turns 60</a> series, to mark the 60th anniversary of the first computer in an Australian university, looks at how audiences can now use the technology to change the way they watch television.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Celebrations of 60 years since Australia’s first university computer was switched on coincide with the anniversary of another significant technology – television.</p>
<p>Australia’s first television <a href="http://televisionau.com/timeline/1950-1959">transmission also started in 1956</a>, first in Sydney and days later in Melbourne.</p>
<p>These two technologies developed along largely separate paths. One was hidden away in government and research institutions, the other was more prominent as a domesticated and commercial media platform within family life.</p>
<p>That is until the switch from analogue to digital signal, finally completed in 2013. This digital transition brought them together in ways that have forever changed the way audiences consume television content.</p>
<h2>From mass media to ‘new media’</h2>
<p>Historically, we used to think of television as part of the mass media, along with radio, newspapers and so on. But with the turn to computational media, sometimes known as “new media”, we began redefining established questions around audiences and ownership of media.</p>
<p>This computational shift is particularly evident if we contrast the experience of television from an early broadcast in 1956 with today.</p>
<p>At 7pm on Monday November 19, 1956, the ABC launched its Melbourne TV station (ABV2). The programming schedule for that evening began with an official opening from the Minister for Labour Harold Holt and ABC executives. This was followed by interviews with Olympic athletes (Melbourne was hosting the Olympics that year).</p>
<p>The rest of the evening’s programming went as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>7.30pm: the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0885826/">Frankie Laine show</a></p>
<p>8pm: the crime drama, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240262/">Fabian of Scotland Yard</a></p>
<p>8.30pm: a special <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1813713/">This Is The ABC</a> featuring interviews with popular radio presenters and behind the scenes look at production</p>
</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
<p>8.50pm: a live variety show, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501812/">Seeing Stars</a></p>
<p>9.15pm: a wartime documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051180/">War in the Air</a></p>
<p>9.45pm: transmission ceased.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Let it flow</h2>
<p>This brief summary of an evening’s broadcast signals very clearly the concept of flow that influential British cultural historian <a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/williamsray.htm">Raymond Williams</a> famously described as the defining characteristic of broadcast television. </p>
<p>Flow, Williams notes, was the planned organisation of discrete programs into a sequence that determined a coherent experience of “watching TV”. He says this planned flow was initially borrowed from older forms of media entertainment, such as radio, before television developed its own generic forms. </p>
<p>Flow speaks to the experience of watching TV, that is continuous and, paradoxically, fragmented. Programs bleed into each other, without definitive intervals between, while trailers promote other programs during ad breaks. </p>
<p>Flow, then, is the pre-computational experience of analogue television that we were once familiar with, in which the broadcaster determined the schedule. It included transmission technology continuously broadcasting on television screens into private homes. </p>
<p>Then, there was the financing of commercial television by advertising with planned flow to capture and retain audiences. And finally, there were the all important programs produced to fit these contexts, such as the sitcom or later lifestyle and reality programming. </p>
<p>The viewer was positioned as a passive receiver while also part of an imagined public audience.</p>
<h2>The viewer decides what to watch</h2>
<p>The nightly experience of viewing enabled by computing technology is in some senses radically different to the concept of flow described by Williams. Yet at the same time it can be seen as just a re-arrangement.</p>
<p>Computational television is understood through the metaphor of a file rather than a flow. The file is a discrete unit of audiovisual content that can be viewed, stored, aggregated or shared across multiple devices. </p>
<p>As a file, digital television is not transmitted into homes, but accessed from different screens at any time or place via the internet (providing the internet connection doesn’t fail).</p>
<p>While we can identify a range of technologies shaping these developments (from video software formats to personal video recorders and file-sharing sites), a clear example is through subscription streaming websites, such as Netflix.</p>
<p>Launched only a year ago in Australia, Netflix exemplifies the experience of file viewing. Each person’s sequence of viewing is not planned by the broadcaster, but assembled through individual preferences from the available catalogue of shows. </p>
<h2>But it still flows</h2>
<p>Yet, the sequential arrangement of files can still be understood as a flow – though an idiosyncratic one – determined by the viewer rather than the broadcaster. </p>
<p>Digital TV, like other kinds of digital media, tends to be framed within a democratising or participatory media discourse. The formerly hierarchical models of mass media are replaced by the personalised productive dynamics of digital media.</p>
<p>At the same time, we need to consider how computing has not simply reorganised the ways media are produced, distributed and consumed in terms of empowering people, but also how notions such as flow have become re-articulated. This is made visible in the operations of computer algorithms on sites such as Netflix that recommend programs based on past patterns of viewing. </p>
<p>Recommender algorithms and features such as autoplay, can be viewed as creating a more individually curated experience of what ostensibly remains television flow – a series of units assembled into a period of viewing. </p>
<p>What computation does is remove files from mass planned flow, and allow them to be re-assembled into individualised flows in our viewing lives. Freed from scheduled transmission, yet fragmented by taste and technology, it raises new questions about the status of the audience as a public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bjorn Nansen receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>The switch from analogue to digital television transmission transformed the way audiences consume content.Bjorn Nansen, Lecturer, Media and Communications program, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.