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PROGRAM
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Friday
May
2, 2008 |
MUSEUM
OF ANTHROPOLOGY, GREAT HALL, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA |
Keynote
Addresses and Conversation:
"New Media and the Future of Public Institutions"
David
Bearman (President, Archives and Museum Informatics) and
Prof
Darin Barney (Canada Research Chair in Technology &
Citizenship, McGill University)
in
a conversation moderated
by Kathryn Gretsinger, (CBC Radio and University of
British Columbia School of Journalism)
6:00
– 7:30pm: Keynote Address & Discussion (Great Hall, Museum of
Anthropology)
7:30pm:
Reception, Museum of Anthropology
Free
and open to the public.
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Saturday
May 3, 2008 |
LIU
INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL ISSUES, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
[All sessions take place in the Liu Institute's Case Room]
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| 9:00-
9:15 |
Welcome
and Introduction
Kate Hennessy and Mike Ananny |
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| 9:15-10:45 |
SESSION
#1: The Press and New Media
Chair: Mike Ananny
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Presenters:
Prof Alfred Hermida
(University of British Columbia)
Prof
Adrienne Russell (University of Denver)
Tim
Richards (CBC)
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That
journalism is in transition is nothing new. What is new is the speed
and scale of the challenges mainstream, traditional media companies
face as they respond to, engage with, and design new media in ways that
preserve their roles as economically sound, public-serving institutions.
Such pressures take economic, social and professional forms that go
beyond simple translations from "old" to "new" media. As media
companies create new revenue streams, newsroom cultures and
professional practices they reveal how they intend to reshape
journalism. It is in reflecting on processes such as these that we can
best understand the future that journalism envisions for itself as a
public, technology-supported institution.
In this panel we focus on understanding dimensions of this transition
asking: what special roles and responsibilities do publicly-owned media
organizations have in this new context? How do media companies reflect
their understandings of multiculturalism and federalism in the design
and use new media? What elements of new media policies most
significantly impact Canadian media companies as they have transitioned
into online environments? How do elite decision-makers (e.g., business
leaders and politicians) understand and respond to the press
differently in the wake of its transition to online environments? What,
if any, particularly Canadian approaches to notions of objectivity,
expertise and participation are reflected in how media companies are
responding to bloggers and other new media content creators?
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| 10:45-
11:15 |
Health
Break |
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| 11:15-12:15 |
Tour
of Museum of Anthropology Renewal Project & Digitization Studio |
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| 12:15-1:15 |
Lunch [on site, provided] |
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| 1:15-
2:45 |
SESSION
#2: New Media and the Museum
Chair: Kate Hennessy |
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Presenters:
Prof
Susan Rowley (University of British Columbia)
Prof Kimberly
Christen (Washington State University)
Dr. George MacDonald (Bill Reid Foundation)
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The
Museum as an institution is being transformed in design and practice by
the use of new media. As diverse collections are digitized and accessed
through virtual exhibitions, hand-held tour devices, and on-line
databases, museums are able to provide the public with more
contextualizing information for objects than ever thought possible in
an analogue world. New media in the museum “should be understood as a
complex interpretation of objects that forces us to rethink the
tangible and intangible imprints of our cultural history” (Müller
2003:23). It is a generating site of tensions between curatorial
expertise and public participation, as museums are challenged by an
informed public to re-think established interpretations of national
histories and cultures. In the Canadian context, tensions are amplified
by the fact that museum “publics” increasingly include the Aboriginal
communities represented in collections on display. The Museum, which
became the visible evidence of an indigenous world expected to
disappear, must now contend with the ways in which originating
communities are engaging digital technologies to challenge Eurocentric
meta-narratives of Aboriginal and national histories.
In considering the role new media in the museum, we might ask some of
the following questions: What does collaboration with originating
communities do to challenge institutional and academic power structures
that have limited indigenous participation in public representation of
their cultures with Eurocentric definitions of expertise? How do new
media change our understanding of museum collections and the nature of
their relationship to their audiences? What do new definitions of
“audience” and “public” in the museum context say about our
understanding of Canadian citizenship? How do shifting definitions of
expertise facilitate increased participation in the creation of
national histories and imaginaries? What is the future of the Museum as
a public institution? |
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| 2:45-
3:15 |
Health
Break |
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| 3:15-4:45 |
SESSION
#3: Making Connections
Chair/Provocateur: Prof Arthur Kroker
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In
her account of the early history of electronic media, Carolyn Marvin
observes that we miss the point when we focus communication history on
artifacts and technical efficiencies and should instead see media as a
“series of arenas for negotiating issues crucial to the conduct of
social life; among them, who is inside and outside, who may speak, who
may not, and who has authority and may be believed.” (Marvin, 1988: 4)
We need to take a similar tack in our conversations around new media
and public institutions, understanding them beyond their technological
forms to their role in the social construction of public communication.
We might best be able to construct and critique democracy – its
institutions and rituals – when we see new media artifacts and
practices as evidence of how our political and cultural public
communication is changing – how powerful their thoughtful combination
can be.
Seen in this light, instead of asking what “effect” new media have on
our public institutions we might better ask: how do new media support
and reflect our balances between cultural participation and
communication expertise – in essence, how are we crafting public
literacies with and in response to new media?
How have professional journalists and curators have had their
authority, expertise or objectivity challenged by new media community
interpretors? How can Museums, the Press and new media be more
reflective of the dynamic conditions of citizenship? That is, if part
of imagining “the nation” is about imagining the nations within, how
are new media impacting the abilities of “internal nations” to
represent themselves and connect with others to construct a larger,
national community? What resources (e.g., literacies, technologies,
social positions, political power) are required to support
participatory community interpretations, who does/doesn't have access
to such resources and what are the implications for the kind of
communities that can be imagined? |
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| 4:45-5:30 |
Reception |
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