This document discusses Jonathon Hutchinson's PhD research on the ABC Pool online community and the role of its Community Manager within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The research aims to understand how the Community Manager coordinates ABC Pool's activities with the ABC's public service values, and the role the ABC plays in developing social capital. It presents models of the Community Manager's core activities, communication approaches, and stakeholders. The research argues this role can be better understood as a "cultural intermediary" who builds social capital through collaborative creative works. The research has potential to distinguish this emerging professional role and provide first-hand insight into how public media organizations are engaging audiences.

1. Institutional Online Communities – ABC Pool as a
Collaborative, Creative Community within the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Jonathon Hutchinson, PhD Candidate ARC Centre of Excellence
for Creative Industries and Innovation

2. My Background
• @dhutchman
• PhD (Creative Industries) researcher
• Thesis title: “Connections, Collaborations &
Consequences: A study on the effects of Pool and its
community within the ABC”
• Ethnographic action methodology
• Part time employment as Community Manager of ABC
• Research informs practice informs research

3. Research Questions
How does the ABC Community Manager coordinate the
activities of an online community with the core values of
the public service broadcaster?
What is the role the national broadcaster might play in
developing social capital within community cultural
development?

4. Institutional Online Community…
An online community operating within a public, commercial
or non-commercial institution and not an open,
independently facilitated online community

5. ABC Pool – abc.net.au/pool

6. ABC Pool Community Manager Core Activity
Breakdown

7. ABC Pool Communication Model,
Stakeholders, Core Activities

8. It might not be the “Community Manager”?
The cultural intermediary:
“… comes into its own in all the occupations involving
presentation and representation … in all the institutions
providing symbolic goods and services” (Bourdieu 1984: 359)
“… this new class faction tends to blur a number of conventional
distinctions. Most notably here is the division between high
art/pop culture and the divide between personal taste and
professional judgement (or leisure and work)” (Negus 2002:
503).

9. ABC Cultural Intermediary

10. The Expertise of Cultural Intermediaries
• Interactional: “a translation role that facilitates and
supports communication, dialogue and exchange across
expertise domains” (Banks, 2008)
• Contributory: “tacit knowledge, practical or craft skill”
(Evans 2008)
• Referred: Collins and Sanders (2007) suggest what can
be learned in one area can be applied to another

11. ABC Cultural Intermediary and Expertise Model

12. The Emerging Cultural Intermediary
• Cultural intermediaries are positioned to build social
capital through collaborative symbol production
• Cultural intermediaries have close access to national
cultural conversation with Australian communities
• These new players impact on the public sphere and also
the emergence of a transforming cultural sphere

13. Research Potential
• Distinguishing the “Community Manager” role – unique
research of emerging role within broad industries
• Unique research from inside of the ABC (ethnographic action
research) – first hand perspective
• This knowledge can be operationalised for this role as it
develops
• Context of media industry, particularly PSM, identifying how
audience engagement is shifting

14. Jonathon Hutchinson
jp.hutchinson@student.qut.edu.au
hutchinson.jonathon@abc.net.au
@dhutchman
http://jonathonhutchinson.com