Dr Stephen Harrington
Lecturer, Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology
Written by Elyse Rea on 2009-10-14
Dr Stephen Harrington is a lecturer in Media and Communication at Queensland University of Technology. He is also the Project Leader of the Brisbane Media Map (BMM) and has been involved in its development since he contributed to the Brisbane Media Map as a student.
Why did you decide to pursue a career in the media and communications industry?
I have always been fascinated by the media since I was very young. I never had any real intentions of being an academic but I basically ended up in the position I am because I happened to have done well at a post graduate level in terms of doing media research, and I have enjoyed teaching far more than I had originally expected.
Some people say there are those who work in the media and those who teach – I don’t see that as a distinction. To be a media thinker/academic is something people tend to disparage, but I see my own role teaching future media professionals as, hopefully, an important part of informing future practice. My goal is to be more of a public intellectual, engaging with industry and society more broadly, rather than just someone who sits around and tells no-one about their work.
What has been your most memorable achievement or experience working as a part of Brisbane’s media landscape?
Probably the most memorable thing I have done as a media scholar was to interview in the space of about two hours three of my all-time media heroes. I interviewed Rob Sitch and Tom Gleisner from The Panel and various other things, after which Harry Shearer (The Simpsons) walked in the door. It’s probably the most memorable thing, not necessarily a highlight, but it was a totally strange out-of-body experience that was quite fascinating. I still tell people to this day, and Harry Shearer even did his Mr Burns voice for me.
In your opinion, what is the most prominent trend in media and communications research at the moment?
It’s such an obvious answer that it is almost ridiculous, but it’s participation. Once upon a time the media was effectively dominated by only a handful of people, the power was very concentrated, but now it’s opening up to a lot more people than it was before. A great media law scholar by the name of Lawrence Lessig points out that throughout most of the 20th Century there was what he calls ‘read-only culture’. People were not encouraged to be media producers, they were just media consumers. But now we are returning to an early form of media participation, a ‘read-write culture’, where we can produce it ourselves; to reproduce, remix and rework the culture that is already out there.
What do you think about the relationship between traditional media and new media?
In a one word answer: complimentary. There is still a place and there will always be a place for old media such as television. Everyone is saying that television is dying because everything can be found on the internet. And, yes, there are online media services like YouTube, Hulu, iPlayer and iView, but at the end of the day there is a lot of pleasure in being able to sit back and relax on the couch and watching television, whereas online you have to be actively seeking that content. So as I said, it’s a complimentary relationship as the two fit together in interesting ways and you see that now with news websites and professional media organisations including ordinary people through media and new technology.
What changes do you see happening over the next five years in the new media industry?
There are a few trends working here, one is participation, as media is now being produced by lots of different people. This presents a challenge to big media companies.
There are many who ask why anyone would need a degree to be in the media or write about the media. But I think it makes it a really interesting time to be studying the media because there are so many big changes happening. It gives you even more reason to study the media to understand where the changes are going. Hopefully you can be at the forefront of those changes instead of standing back and watching them.
As project leader of the BMM redevelopment, how does the experience help students when they enter the real world?
There are lots of ways in which it helps. I think the first is it provides a really good opportunity for the students to realise that they have done lots of learning and absorbing knowledge, but now is the time for them to prove that they can actually do something with that.
It also gives students something to take ownership of. And of course the other fantastic thing is it gives them a chance to go out and have contact with people in the industry and get their name out there and have their names attached to a resource that the industry actually does use. It is not just a student project; it is a real world project.
With people moving online for their information, do you think the BMM could be become more popular and could potentially become the leading media service search tool for Brisbane and its surrounding areas?
It has the potential, but I think that one of the constraints is there is only a certain amount of work that can be put into it, but it has definitely got lots of potential. If you see the growth the BMM has had, particularly in the last five years, it has gotten bigger and bigger and its growth along the way has been just exponential. I want it to continue for as long as possible.