The document discusses the impact of algorithms on culture and public service media (PSM), emphasizing how technology affects public discourse and the societal role of media. It highlights the pressures facing PSM, including funding cuts and political attacks, and underscores the need for increased civic engagement and innovative media practices. The presentation suggests that cultural intermediaries and social media influencers play a crucial role in shaping public issues and content distribution within the realm of PSM.

1. The University of Sydney Page 1
Cultural
Intermediation,
Algorithmic Culture
and Public Service
Media:
Social media, co-
creation and influence
Presented by
Dr Jonathon Hutchinson
Department of Media and Communication
jonathon.hutchinson@sydney.edu.au

2. The University of Sydney Page 2
Today…
– Think through how we (audiences/users) consume
media – and the impact of algorithms
– How are algorithms impacting on culture?
– What is public service media (PSM)?
– How should PSM be engaging in algorithmic culture?
– Explore one program that demonstrates PSM algorithmic
culture, #7DaysLater

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YouTube

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Interactive time…
https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/1a401610-0050-
4e85-96c7-9e87bf1c077c

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How are algorithms shaping our culture?
– Think of this through a media studies lens
– Raymond Williams notes culture is specific to each
society, where “the making of a society is the finding of
common meanings and directions” (1989)
– How does technology impact on that definition?
– Newspapers during the late 90s limiting the ‘publicness’
due to technological advances in printing and distribution
– Algorithms in contemporary space – also limiting the
publicness?

7. The University of Sydney Page 7
Public Service Media (PSM)

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Public Service Media (PSM)
– “has been tasked to serve the societal and cultural
needs of each member nation and to promote
democracy and participation within the national
geographical boundaries” (Głowacki, 2015, p. 26)
– Built on PSB, which “was to inform, educate and
entertain with total independence from political power
and commercial pressure” (Tremblay, 2016, p. 194)
– The thematic shift from PSB and towards PSM is taken
as “common parlance as services are extended across
‘new’ media platforms and experiments undertaken into
new interactive content forms” (Debrett, 2015, p. 557).

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PSM under pressure
– Barnett (2015) remind us that PSM is increasingly under
attack because of conservative governments,
introspective and disorganised left political parties,
hostile media environments, and substantially reduced
funding arrangements
– Tremblay (2016) also observes the mounting pressure
by governments on PSM in its “systematic reduction” in
the field of media and communication, which he notes as
a “gradual and calculated suffocation of public service
media” (p. 192).
– PSM value tests

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The Checkout…
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/clips
/

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PSM from the research perspective
– Supported through arguments that note it should provide
new multiplatform services beyond television and radio
(Steemers, 2016)
– It is a tool for online citizenship and civic engagement
(Debrett, 2015)
– A locale for ‘distinctive’ media system innovation
(Cunningham, 2015)

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PSM: tokenistic participation?
– Głowacki and Jackson (2014) highlight that websites are
often ‘bolt-on’ extras for marketing purposes
– Jakubowicz (2014): “seems to remain in most cases [as]
marginal forms, either designed to obtain input … that
professional journalists use in producing their
programmes, under their exclusive control, or web pages
… serving as a display case for UGC” (p. 229)
– No one is looking at algorithmic cultures, particularly
through social media

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Participation is dead?
– While it has gone out of style, participation is crucial for
cultural production
– Monitoring user behaviour is certainly how media is
distributed, if not produced – e.g. Buzzfeed and Vice
Magazine
– But what about public issues and the impact of social
media?
– “Social media play a prominent role in mediating issues
of public concern, not only providing the stage on which
public debates play out, but also shaping their topics and
dynamics” (Burgess & Matamoros-Fernández, 2016)

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What’s an algorithm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hfOv
s8pY1k

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Who cares about algorithms?
– Netflix: bad programming
– YouTube: bad videos
– PSM: Incorrect public issues
– “offloading of cultural work onto computers, databases
and other types of digital technologies has prompted a
reshuffling of some of the words most closely associated
with culture, giving rise to new senses of the term that
may be experientially available but have yet to be well
named, documented or recorded” (Striphas, 2015: 395)

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Cultural Intermediaries
– Taste agents (Bourdieu,1984)
– Market agents (Negus, 2002)
– Institutional taste and cultural agents (Hutchinson, 2016)
– Multi Channel Networks who facilitate social media
cultural intermediaries
– Essena O’Neill, Fun For Louis, MoreZoella

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Social Media and Influence

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Cultural intermediaries and PSM
– Can be termed microinfluencers (Abidin, 2015)
– Essential for distributing content
– Generate crucial public issues through social media
– Feed issues back into PSM
– Think of Triple J Hack, for example

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#7DaysLater

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Social Network Analysis

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So what?
– Algorithms are here to stay for content production
– They need to be closely monitored to ensure information
is correct
– This is crucial for PSM, and other media orgs too
– Cultural intermediaries are the key agents here
– These are the future media work roles

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Dr Jonathon
Hutchinson
@dhutchman
jonathon.hutchinson@sydney.edu.au