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Research project: New Literacy, New Audiences

Start date:

2005

End date:

2008

Museum investigators

• Lynda Kelly, Head of Audience Research

External investigators

• Dr Angelina Russo, Associate Professor, Swinburne University of Technology
• Jerry Watkins, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology
• Sebastian Chan, Powerhouse Museum

Funded by

• Australian Research Council

Description

The New Literacy, New Audiences project was managed by the Queensland University of Technology through the ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. This major research project is examining how the evolution in digital content creation and multiplatform distribution can create a new audience of active cultural participants. User-created media content has traditionally been regarded as amateur and unsuitable for broad appeal. A gulf persists between this and professional broadcast media. New technologies and the social uptake of interactive multimedia offer new possibilities for low-cost but professional quality user-created content. Through an active research program we piloted new ways to engage our users and consumers, and share their content-rich sites with other institutions and the public at large. The project connected institutions like universities, museums and libraries with individuals trained in digital storytelling and social media to develop a new multiplatform network for Australian programming.

As well as the Museum, other partners on the project were Queensland University of Technology (QUT); State Library of Queensland; Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI); Powerhouse Museum and National Museum of Australia.

The Australian Museum component was jointly managed by Lynda Kelly, Head of Audience Research and Brooke Carson-Ewart, Web Manager. We also worked closely with Jerry Watkins and Dr Angelina Russo from Swinburne University (formerly QUT), and Seb Chan, Web Manager at the Powerhouse Museum, and appreciated their input enormously!

For the Museum, the following outcomes were achieved:

• Two workshops with total of 24 staff across all areas of the Museum in June and November 2006
• 8 pilot digital stories from workshops
• All workshops evaluated by QUT, June workshop also re-evaluated in November
• 2 extra digital stories made about audience research projects – Kids’ College and Imagine
• 1 digital story (Biodiversity Mapping) evaluated with users/potential users
• 8 stories evaluated with range of audiences in February 2007

Some of these stories can be found on the right-hand side of this page or by clicking here.

Last Updated: 26 January 2010

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Related items

• Engaging with Social Media in Museums
• Australian Museum Stories
• Australian Museum Stories Evaluation
• Audience Research Unit

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