CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Digital Material

Three decades of societal and cultural alignment of new media have yielded a host of innovations, trials, and problems, accompanied by versatile popular and academic discourse. New Media Studies crystallized internationally into an established academic discipline, and this begs the question: where do we stand now? Which new questions are emerging now that new media are being taken for granted, and which riddles are still unsolved? Is contemporary digital culture indeed all about 'you', the participating user, or do we still not really understand the digital machinery and how this constitutes us as 'you'? The contributors to the present book, all employed in teaching and researching new media and digital culture, assembled their 'digital material' into an anthology, covering issues ranging from desktop metaphors to Web 2.0 ecosystems, from touch screens to blogging and e-learning, from role-playing games and cybergothic music to wireless dreams. Together the contributions provide a showcase of current research in the field, from what may be called a 'digital-materialist' perspective

Glocalisation within the media landscape : a study of selected reality television franchises in South Africa and transnational broadcaster Multichoice.

Master of Social Sciences in the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS). University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2017.Several debates have arisen on the concept of globalisation within diverse cultural backgrounds and its consequences on various aspects of culture and social life. These propelled the need for this study. Out of the desire to examine the integrations of these perspectives, glocalisation as a subset of globalisation became the main focus of the study. Glocalisation – a hybrid of global and local ‘consequences’ – serves to bring to view how important elements of a global entity and a local entity can converge to form something inherently unique to each local context as a result of varying practices and norms of different cultures. The implication of this is that those in charge of ‘global entities’ attempt to find ways they can modify ‘global practices’ into diverse ‘local contexts’ while at the same time seek to maintain semblance with the global entity. Therefore, this study conceptualised these entities, practices and consequences within South Africa as a local context, in order to trace how the global entities (transnational corporations as Endemol Shine Africa, Fremantle Media, 19 Entertainment and transnational broadcaster MultiChoice) have adjusted global practices (global reality television franchises as Big Brother, Idols and Survivor) and their consequences (homogenisation/similarities and heterogenisation/uniqueness) within local contexts (the South African media landscape) and how these are guided by certain rules (media regulations on local programmes within South Africa). This was achieved through a desk research of media reports, social media channels, the Internet and literature from scholars on transnational media exchanges. The focus of this study was to identify those factors that made such glocal adaptations different from global formats. These were guided by the theoretical approaches of cultural proximity, the circuit of culture and the political economy of communication in the media. The study ascertained that indeed there are considerations of various local contexts through the identification of glocalised features of the shows. It highlighted the manner MultiChoice has balanced global and local needs and the regulations that guide South African media contents. However, these glocal franchises are still vehicles of the global ideologies of global formats rather than promotion of more cultural and local features.Hard copy not yet in the library

Towards a Practitioner Model of Mobile Music

This practice-based research investigates the mobile paradigm in the context of electronic music, sound and performance; it considers the idea of mobile as a lens through which a new model of electronic music performance can be interrogated. This research explores mobile media devices as tools and modes of artistic expression in everyday contexts and situations. While many of the previous studies have tended to focus upon the design and construction of new hardware and software systems, this research puts performance practice at the centre of its analysis. This research builds a methodological and practical framework that draws upon theories of mobile-mediated aurality, rhetoric on the practice of walking, relational aesthetics, and urban and natural environments as sites for musical performance. The aim is to question the spaces commonly associated with electronic music – where it is situated, listened to and experienced. This thesis concentrates on the creative use of existing systems using generic mobile devices – smartphones, tablets and HD cameras – and commercially available apps. It will describe the development, implementation and evaluation of a self-contained performance system utilising digital signal processing apps and the interconnectivity of an inter-app routing system. This is an area of investigation that other research programmes have not addressed in any depth. This research’s enquiries will be held in dynamic and often unpredictable conditions, from navigating busy streets to the fold down shelf on the back of a train seat, as a solo performer or larger groups of players, working with musicians, nonmusicians and other participants. Along the way, it examines how ubiquitous mobile technology and its total access might promote inclusivity and creativity through the cultural adhesive of mobile media. This research aims to explore how being mobile has unrealised potential to change the methods and experiences of making electronic music, to generate a new kind of performer identity and as a consequence lead towards a practitioner model of mobile music

Conflicts, integration, hybridization of subcultures: An ecological approach to the case of queercore

This paper investigates the case study of queercore, providing a socio-historical analysis of its subcultural production, in the terms of what Michel Foucault has called archaeology of knowledge (1969). In particular, we will focus on: the self-definition of the movement; the conflicts between the two merged worlds of punk and queer culture; the \u201cinternal-subcultural\u201d conflicts between both queercore and punk, and between queercore and gay\lesbian music culture; the political aspects of differentiation. In the conclusion, we will offer an innovative theoretical proposal about the interpretation of subcultures in ecological and semiotic terms, combining the contribution of the American sociologist Andrew Abbot and of the Russian semiologist Jurij Michajlovi\u10d Lotma