The inspirations: theoretical framework of the project
To a large extend, this project is based around my personal reflections about the contemporary media and the creative industry. As a final year student of journalism with media and cultural studies I begun to think about my future career, the opportunities I had and those I did not.
The project idea arose around certain issues widely discussed by scholars of contemporary media and cultural studies. Firstly, the fact that the development of new media technologies led to the transformation of mass media into ‘new media’ characterised mainly by their interactivity and digital distribution. Secondly, there is a notion of self-representation of an individual within postmodern, performative society. Finally, there is a problem of under-representation of ethnic and national minorities within mainstream media and inequality that individuals with non-English background need to face to get into media industry as professionals. The product I intend to create will be, to some extend, my response to those issues.
I am a representative of a generation that grew up surrounded by mass media technology (TV, radio), matured in digital environment (the Internet, digital imaging, etc) and is now about to enter the world of computerised and digitalised media industry as professionals.
In the last twenty-five years the media has been rapidly transformed into ‘new media’ based on digital, computerized, or networked informatin and communication technologies. New media are not only interactive and digitally distributed but also they are characterised by the extensive use of the Internet and the integration of text, pictures, sound and video. Even traditional ‘old’ media forms, for example the printing press, have been transformed through the application of technologies, such as image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop and desktop publishing tools.
In new media environment the distinctions between interpersonal and mass communication and between public and private communication have been blurred and the meaning of geographic distance has been altered allowing a huge increase in the volume of interactive and fast communication and allowing forms of communication that were previously separate to overlap and interconnect (Neuman 1991).
To a large extend, this project is based around my personal reflections about the contemporary media and the creative industry. As a final year student of journalism with media and cultural studies I begun to think about my future career, the opportunities I had and those I did not.
The project idea arose around certain issues widely discussed by scholars of contemporary media and cultural studies. Firstly, the fact that the development of new media technologies led to the transformation of mass media into ‘new media’ characterised mainly by their interactivity and digital distribution. Secondly, there is a notion of self-representation of an individual within postmodern, performative society. Finally, there is a problem of under-representation of ethnic and national minorities within mainstream media and inequality that individuals with non-English background need to face to get into media industry as professionals. The product I intend to create will be, to some extend, my response to those issues.
I am a representative of a generation that grew up surrounded by mass media technology (TV, radio), matured in digital environment (the Internet, digital imaging, etc) and is now about to enter the world of computerised and digitalised media industry as professionals.
In the last twenty-five years the media has been rapidly transformed into ‘new media’ based on digital, computerized, or networked informatin and communication technologies. New media are not only interactive and digitally distributed but also they are characterised by the extensive use of the Internet and the integration of text, pictures, sound and video. Even traditional ‘old’ media forms, for example the printing press, have been transformed through the application of technologies, such as image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop and desktop publishing tools.
In new media environment the distinctions between interpersonal and mass communication and between public and private communication have been blurred and the meaning of geographic distance has been altered allowing a huge increase in the volume of interactive and fast communication and allowing forms of communication that were previously separate to overlap and interconnect (Neuman 1991).
The new media communication technologies enable or facilitate user-to-user interactivity and interactivity between user and information. Internet, for example, replaces the “one-to-one” interpersonal communication model and "one-to-many" model of traditional mass communication with the possibility of a "many-to-many" model of communication. Any individual with the appropriate technology can now produce his or her online media and include images, text, and sound about whatever he or she chooses.
Mass media saturated, postmodern society demands from individuals to project their identities all the time. Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998), in their influential study of audiences, introduced the concept of 'diffused audiences'. They argued that we (consciously or not) consume media all the time. More importantly, media’s interactivity causes the boundaries between the audience and a performer to blur.
According to Abercrombie and Longhurst, "life is a constant performance; we are audience and performer at the same time; everybody is an audience at the same time" (p.73). We are all performers acting accordingly to social rules and conventions and projecting ourselves and our identities to the others. "Human society itself is theatre," they claimed (p. 73). Postmodern society is highly performative and the media of mass communications provide an important resource for everyday performance. Our identities are represented in the media (for example, MySpace and Facebook) and through our use of the media (movies, TV programmes and music we like).
The notion of diffused audiences arises from the interaction of two processes: the construction of the world as spectacle and the construction of individuals as narcissistic. Abercombie and Longhurst noticed: "Spectacle and narcissism feed off each other in a virtuous circle, a circle fuelled largely by the media and mediated by the critical role of performance" (p. 75).
Therefore, being a member of the performative society and an aspiring performer of mass media I seek to manifest myself, my identity, skills and interests through my online creative portfolio. I believe that self-representation in the media is a necessity and creating an online portfolio is an inevitable step on the way to digitalized creative media industry which nowadays works, communicates, exhibits and recruits online. I am aware, however, that as a representative of national minority I face constant barriers in my attempt to become a professional mass media performer: a journalist, a designer or a photographer.
Traditionally, British media institutions have been dominated by white, middle class, predominantly male individuals. This often results in minority groups being underrepresented within media, having fewer opportunities for voicing their concerns and reaching the public as well as fewer opportunities for careers in the mainstream media.
The problem of under-representation of ethnic minorities within media has been widely discussed. Ono of the most significant examples of action taken to address the problem is EMMA (Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy) founded in 1997 by Mr Bobby Syed who realised that although Britain is a multicultural nation, this diversity is not reflected in the mainstream media industry. The EMMA Awards were created to recognise and honour humanitarian media excellence.
The minorities tend to create an alternative media to represent British multiculturalism (Fraser 1991, Dahlgren 1995, rnebring and J nsson 2004, Temple 2005, Atkinson and Dougherty 2006). Thanks to the Internet, a massive diversification of media occurred. Millions of websites, forums, blogs and wikis have been created and that evolution, often labeled ‘citizen journalism’ or ‘citizen media’, makes it possible for practically everybody to be a media creator, owner and actor, instead of a passive user. Citizen media gradually take audiences out of the traditional media and weaken the role of information professionals. They cannot, however, function with the same kind of in depth reporting that brick-and-mortar organizations have, in the form of funded research and expert analysis.
Moreover, I tend to believe that ‘national minorities’ as oppose to ‘ethnic minorities’ still struggle to gain recognition within mainstream and alternative media. People like me, ethnically white migrants from other European countries, do not have equal chances for careers in media. The language is perceived to be the main reason for that inequality. It is commonly assumed that a journalist needs to be a native English speaker in order to be successful in British media. I do not agree with this opinion and wish to challenge this stereotype in my project.
The concept and the product description
I intend to create an online portfolio of my works in different areas of creative industry: mainly journalism, graphic design (for web and print) and photography. I aim to develop a website which could be used as a framework and a platform to exhibit examples of my work. It will be regularly updated with articles, photographs and designs I will create in the future. It will be dynamic (flash interface) to show creativity but simple at the same time (content over form not the other way round) to demonstrate professionalism.
The online portfolio in a form of a website remains flexible way of presenting my work and is open for further expansion. There are many types of work I could incorporate into the website, such as articles (text), designs (graphics), interviews (audio), documentaries (video), photographs (images), etc. Contact details as well as on-screen and printable versions of my CV will be displayed.
The project will be exhibited online and the link to the website will be used as an attachment to my further job applications.
My project will work on two different levels. Firstly, it will demonstrate my interests and skills, and try to sell them to potential employers. Secondly, it will take a side in a discussion about media diversity or its lack.
Project identity
As my project will take a form of a self-promotional portfolio I intended to brand it with my own name. However, taking into account that my foreign name is extremely long, difficult to pronounce and memorise I came up with an abstract name: Vistula Visions UnLimited. ‘Vistula’ is the name of the longest Polish river and refers to my national origin and background. The word ‘Visions’, together with a shape of an eye and a glob in it, refers to the certain perspective which a journalist, a photographer or a designer coming from diverse background can incorporate into his/her work. The word ‘UnLimited’ refers to an attempt to break the boundaries traditionally existing between English and non-English journalists within British media institutions.
References
Abercrombie, N. & Longhurst, N. (1998) Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage.
Atkinson, J. & Dougherty, D.S. (2006) ‘Alternative Media and Social Justice Movements: The Development of a Resistance Performance Paradigm of Audience Analysis’, Western Journal of Communication. 70(1):64-88.
Dahlgren, Peter (1995) Television and the Public Sphere. Citizenship, Democracy and the Media. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage.
Fraser, Nancy (1991) ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’. In Calhoun, C. (ed.) Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 109-142.
Neuman, R. (1991) The Future of the Mass Audience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ornebring, H. & Jonsson, A.M. (2004) ‘Tabloid journalism and the public sphere: a historical perspective on tabloid journalism’, Journalism Studies. 5(3):283-295.
Temple, M. (2005) Multi-dimensional public spheres: In praise of ‘dumbing down’. Paper presented to the Political Studies Association Annual Conference on 5-7 April 2005 at Leeds University.
