Communications Commons Seminar Series
- March 16
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Dr Simone Murray
‘Remix My Lit’: Towards an Open-Access Literary Culture
The publishing buzzword of recent times has undoubtedly been ‘open access’. But typically this has referred to scientific journal publishing, only recently expanding to include humanities research. This paper goes further in asking what might an open-access literary culture look like? Developments around online publishing, electronic-books, print-on-demand and digital libraries see publishers facing challenges on every side. How might publishers’ traditional role as gatekeepers of literary culture be similarly usurped in an environment characterised by networked books, wiki-novels and fictional ‘rip and burn’ practices? Outlining three exciting recent experiments in open-access literature, Simone Murray’s illustrated talk investigates what the digital future of literature might look like, and what its impact will be on writers, publishers and readers.
Dr Simone Murray is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University. Her research examines the interface of the book with other communications media, particularly via digital multiformatting of content. Her current research project focuses on the industrial substructures of book-to-screen adaptations of literary prize-winners, and how such research can combine book history, print culture and media studies perspectives. She is currently engaged in a three-year Australian Research Council Discovery project on the adaptation industry, titled ‘Books as Media: The Cultural Economy of Literary Adaptation’. The monograph arising from this research, The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Literary Adaptation, is forthcoming from Routledge US in 2011.
Monday 16 March 2009, 2:00pm
Conference Room 3, Monash Staff Club
Building 50, Union Road
Monash University
Clayton, VIC - April 20
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Dr Eduardo de la Fuente, John Budarick and Michael Walsh
Altered states: Communication and mobility
We propose in this paper that the study of communication and the growing social science field of ‘mobility studies’ can profitably benefit from a deep theoretical (and empirical!) engagement with each other. We take inspiration from John Urry’s influential book, Mobilities, which recommends inserting ‘communications into the study of travel and transport’ and examining some of the ‘ways in which they [communication and mobility] are always intertwined’. However, we propose that communication and mobility converge not only through particular technologies (e.g., the use of mobile phones and iPods while being ‘on the move’); rather communication and movement are linked at a very fundamental level. Communication has its own rhythms, tempo and dynamics; and, at its most basic level, involves perception of an altered state: you make a gesture and someone responds; you flick a switch and the television is on; you enter a shopping mall and notice music is playing. We also argue that communication is linked to movement in the sense that communication denotes connection and mediates ‘presence’ and ‘absence’. In explaining the role of communication in making us feel connected, we will draw on Urry’s concept of ‘dwelling-in-motion’; and add our own concept to describe the experience of movement during sedentary communication practices: that of ‘motion-in-dwelling’. Our aim is to show that without movement there is no communication; and that communication is entangled with both physical and imaginative movement.
Eduardo de la Fuente has an interdisciplinary background in the fields of communication studies, sociology and social theory. He has held positions at the University of Tasmania (1998-2001) and Macquarie University (2002-7) prior to coming to Monash University, and is currently a Faculty Fellow of the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology (2005- ). With Brad West of Flinders University, he co-convenes the TASA Cultural Sociology Thematic Group. He has published in journals such as Sociological Theory, Cultural Sociology, Journal of Classical Sociology, Journal of Sociology, European Journal of Social Theory, Thesis Eleven and Distinktion: The Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory. He is currently completing a scholarly monograph for Routledge on twentieth century music and the question of cultural modernity.
John Budarick is a PhD candidate in the school of English, Communications and Performance Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include media, space and belonging and he is currently undertaking research into the use of media by diasporas in Australia. He has been published in the Journal of Sociology.
Michael Walsh is a PhD candidate in Communications and Media Studies program in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has presented papers at the International Association of the Study Popular Music, the Australian Sociological Association Conference and has published in the Australian Journal of Communications. His research interests coalesce around Communications, Sociology of Music and Sound Studies. His PhD dissertation empirically investigates practices of musical listening in a variety of everyday situations and how such practices are linked to the public and private dimensions of social life.
Room 488, Building H
Caulfield Campus
2.00 – 3.30pm - May 18
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Dr Shane Homan
Dancing without Music: Copyright and Australian Nightclubs
This paper examines the two-year legal dispute between a major royalty collection body for Australian popular music composers, the PPCA (Phonographic Performance Company of Australia) and Australian music venue organisations concerning the license fees paid by venues for the use of sound recordings in nightclubs and dance party venues. I examine the court ruling delivered in July 2007, drawing on my work as an expert witness and consultant for the PPCA throughout the case. As a court action that attracted considerable debate among DJs, musicians, and the music press, it raises important questions not just about the rates and methods of collecting performance royalties, but also the contribution of contemporary music to the health of night-time economies, and the difficulties in achieving a proper balance between composers’ rights and maintaining a diversity of venue experiences and revenues. The case highlights a national example of an ongoing, international focus upon “secondary” rights as an increasingly important source of artist and recording company revenues.
Shane Homan is a Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies in ECPS. He has published three books on popular music: The Mayor’s A Square: Live Music and Law and Order in Sydney (Local Consumption Publications, 2003); Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop (Open University Press, 2006); and (with co-editor Tony Mitchell) Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Popular Music in Australia (ACYS Publishing, 2008). He is the Chief Investigator (with Partner Investigators Martin Cloonan, Glasgow and Roy Shuker, Wellington) of the ARC project Policy Notes: Local Popular Music in Global Creative Economies and Chair of Research with the Music Council of Australia.
Building 901, Room 235
Berwick Campus
2.00 – 3.30pm