Convergent media and community

• About Us
• Key People

About Us

The Convergent Media and Community (CMC) Research Node represents a number of research strands currently underway in the School of Communication Arts. These research directions form a significant foundation for the group's strategic community engagement, framed by new modes of digital content delivery and interactive forms.

The recent phase of ongoing change in communications is marked by a dramatic shift in the role of users - from consumers to active producers. The processes of consumption and democratic expression as well as concepts of individualism, citizenship, and creativity have all been challenged.

The significance of the CMC's research lies in both the promise and threat posed by these changes to media institutions. The ability to assess these changes is conditioned and constrained by the communicative forms through which these changes are driven. Because we inhabit these forms, it is important that research be undertaken that can not only assess new communication technologies but also experiment with and use those same technologies.

In this regard, we see a distinctive significance and added value of the research undertaken by the CMC group orchestrated around the institutions of media themselves and the communities that use them. Our knowledge interests are not divorced from the consequences of how this research can be used by the constituencies that emerge from our projects. We welcome the challenge posed by this model of pragmatic and engaged research - one necessitated by the methods, problems and practices associated with the media and cultural forms under investigation.

We summarise our research goals as follows:

• To consolidate and advance research in the School of Communication Arts through the development of common interests in the new territories of media engagement. New models of digital content development and distribution, multi-platform content delivery and interactive media have opened up these territories.
• To investigate and mobilise new strategies of community engagement that are consonant with a strengthened relationship with TVS (Television Sydney).
• To foster relationships with creative communities that develop innovative forms of media production and distribution in which online netwoks and new media environments enable new opportunities for participation in a range of community settings.
• To develop innovations of 'Extensible Media' - on line applications of video, and in particular the metadata and meta-structures which underpin these innovations. Our research team will both engage with and assess the advent of XML and related computing developments that have fuelled the 3rd generation Web as in weblogs, vblogs, jblogs (journalist blogs).

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Key People

Associate Professor Hart Cohen (Leader)
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Ms Rachel Bentley
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Dr Roumen Dimitrov
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Dr Tim Dwyer
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Associate Professor Virginia Nightingale
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Dr Garth Paine
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Dr Juan Salazar
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Ms Sarah Waterson
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Ms Robyn Mercer (Administrative Assistant)
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Ms Rachel Morley (Research Officer)
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