Brave New World

Thoughts on the changing media and storytelling ecosystem

Disrupt.

It’s been the operative word of the new technology ecosystem. As soon as a model becomes a trend or an evidence, it has to be revised, altered, upended, in other words: disrupted. Stasis must be avoided at all cost, lest you become irrelevant.

Now, after years of disruption, where are we? What has changed, if anything at all, in how we tell stories and create art?

To get the conversation started, we reached out to a few media experts who told us what transformation they’ve seen in their field.

Broadcasting: Radio is Dead

by Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe, Broadcaster CBC RADIO, Allan Slaight Distinguished Broadcaster In Residence, Ryerson University

I stopped short on my walk to work. There on the sidewalk, smashed and flat like a pancake was a tiny little radio. Its antennae mangled, its circuit board insides flung from its body. It was Dead. I took a picture of it, thinking it was some profound metaphor for the medium I loved. Radio. Its heyday was long gone, the small fish were gobbled up by the bigger fish and treated like the unwanted stepchild at the bottom of a big Telecommunication totem pole. The bloom was off the rose. Radio had been disrupted. No longer a staple in your home, relegated to the short amount of time you spend in a car.

I think it was Satellite radio, the first big disrupter…. It came along as this big game changer. But it overestimated the desire people had to pay for their radio.

Then it was online music services, online radio… all have made huge dents. But you still pay for this through your internet or your data plan.

At the same time there are “podcasts” popping up like wildflowers. They come in a rainbow of forms and styles, but to me, it’s all still Radio. It’s disrupting traditional radio and you are still paying for it.

Traditional Radio has done a lot of self harm as well. It was getting more and more repetitive across the board: people flipping stations only to hear the same songs in rotation, and the same over enthusiastic announcer. A shrinking pool of listeners and every frequency battling it out for the same demographics. But Radio…Sweet old school radio is still scot-free.

Radio. The friend you would want in your life. Not a bully or attention hog. A companion. One that will hang out with you throughout your day, while you perform your duties, while you travel from place to place… making you smile, boosting your mood, making you think. It is a form of connection. If it all comes tumbling down, if the electricity goes out, if the cell towers fail, if the satellites falter, you will still have a connection to the world because you have a radio. Those of us behind the frequencies have an obligation to keep going when the world is at its most vulnerable. To be a light in the chaos, to get you to safety, to be there with you so you don’t feel alone. Radio is not dead: The lowly radio, that simple little box with its ability to grasp something from thin air and transform it into sound has been disrupted. But it’s not dead.

Children’s Media: Beware of Technology Overload

Dr. Colleen Russo Johnson and Kim Wilson, Directors of the Children’s Media Lab at the Transmedia Zone, Ryerson University

Whenever a new technology surfaces, it is inevitable that it will quickly find a way to permeate children’s media. While the thoughtful integration of technology in this space (which is full of digital natives) can result in beneficial enhancements to the user experience, it can also become a disruption to the story and learning goals.

A classic example of this are eBooks. Eager developers were quick to make stars dance and chime upon touch, and embed fun animations within hotspots, irrelevant to the story. Research studies have since demonstrated that these extraneous elements are often distracting, resulting in more off-task parent-child dialogue and less learning.

However, thoughtfully embedded interactive features (particularly those based on science of learning principles) can indeed enhance child engagement and learning. As newer technologies emerge (e.g. Virtual/Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence), it is imperative that children’s media professionals take a moment to consider whether these methods of storytelling are more likely to enhance or disrupt the intended user experience. There is immense potential for innovative technology in the children’s media space, including vast educational benefits, but the technology must be thoughtfully integrated with a mind towards research and the science of learning.

Digital Media: Non-Exhaustive Viewing

Richard Lachman, Director of Zone Learning, Ryerson University

If a 90 minute film had most people leaving after 5 minutes, it would be considered a failure (and we would assume most people had had a negative experience of the film). However, many digital projects are about a sensation, an overall experience, as much as a narrative that emerges through aggregate story-beats; it’s possible to create content with no assumption that a user will experience all of it.

The combination of unique interface, media design, and experience-design can result in a gestalt impression the way a static or digital work of art might. Digital narratives echo interactive art projects, in which a coherent impression may be what users take away. This impression doesn’t require an exhaustive review of all elements; sometimes, merely the knowledge that these elements exist can influence how we feel about the work or the subject-matter.

Archive- or map-based projects don’t require a visitor to click on every link to be successful in their mission. It’s a sense of complexity, or a sense of depth, that can convey an impression about the overall project. Database or data-driven doc projects -such as Diamond Road Online, Jonathan Harris’ The Whale Hunt, any of the K-films built with Florian Thalhoffer’s Korsakow System, or the influential MIT Media Lab experiments with Elastic Boston and JBW- all house large collections of content designed for non-linear and non-exhaustive user viewing.

This type of experimentation means that the creator may not know precisely what the user experienced, instead yielding some aspects of control to the system. Not embracing this relationship brings the project back to the linear (raising the question “why didn’t you just make a film?”). If, instead of needing to convey details, the focus is on the impression and the feeling, a wider range of user-behaviours can be incorporated into the experience.

Performance Art: New Magic

Michael F. Bergmann, Assistant Professor (LTF) in the School of Performance, Ryerson University, and Projection Designer

Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law states that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The theatre is the medium of magic, and Clarke’s words speak true here.

While the theatre may not be the first place to think of for cutting edge technologies, the goal of creating magic and telling stories leads us to using whatever tools are at our disposal to do so; to innovate and improvise, to make the impossible seem possible.

As in many other fields, the fact that more advanced technologies are becoming affordable and easy to use has allowed even the smallest of theatres to explore effects and visual splendor that was unthinkable a decade ago. This is only accelerating, and there is the beginning of a shift in the skills needed by the practitioners of these arts.

We find ourselves training a new generation of designers who must master programming and computer systems as well as their visual arts. I spent time in San Francisco working at a Research and Development lab focusing on the creative possibilities that technology can bring to the live entertainment industry. As I write new curriculum for the School of Performance to incorporate this, I am finding students to be incredibly excited and motivated to be the vanguards of a new direction in the performing arts. This is exciting, as I believe that the theatre is the best place to explore the intersection of technology and humanity: It shows us ourselves, and as we are evolving ever faster, so too are our tools to make our magic.

Media Education: Renewed Commitment to Social Justice

Laurie Petrou, Associate Professor and Director Masters of Media Production, RTA School of Media, Ryerson University.

More and more students and others are actively working on projects that tackle issues surrounding gender, race, socioeconomics, and more in a myriad of ways: from experiential theatre to apps to interactive documentaries, I’m seeing a rise in activism intersecting with technology.

Examples that I’ve seen, even in the past week:

• the explosive and brave journalism from the New York Times writers and the women who contributed stories about sexual assault and harassment, and the follow-up movement of #metoo on social media;
• an escape game that teaches about homelessness;
• an anti-bullying commercial;
• a VR piece that teaches about the refugee experience.

In the past two days alone, one student contacted me to comment on a documentary on sex workers and another asking about social justice classes they could take. People are engaging with social media and technology in a way that prioritises people other than themselves, or in ways that help them rise up in the face of injustice.

Much of this focuses on empathy. In the last number of years, we’ve heard that we are in an empathy deficit, that because of our focus on tech and social media, we care less about people, about individuals. We hear a lot about anonymous trolls, and how children don’t get together the way they used to. I think what we’re beginning to see now, and will for the foreseeable future, is the pendulum swinging back: We are using the very tools that have taken us away from one another to connect back again, and to unite us.

This year, the majority of our grad students are doing projects that help tell stories of those who are often ignored. They are using their skills in production to shine lights (and bring sounds and interactivity!) to social justice issues in an effort to make change and contribute to ongoing dialogues. We’re seeing a lot of podcasts, interactive web projects, and planned large-scale events to bring people together. The past few years have shown a number of projects that bring together hi and lo tech: installations that have real-world and online components to reach different audiences. There is a recognition that many people seek both lean back and lean in experiences, and that to disrupt the norm, you might have to get them in both places, or in many ways.

Music: The PC as Instrument

Cormac McGee, Coordinator Music Den, Transmedia Zone, Ryerson University

The world’s most popular instrument today is the personal computer. Its widespread adoption upended the music industry. It changed our perception of what the “industry” is, and gave artists more power than ever before.

For the past century, the music industry has been the business of recording and distributing music. This often meant recording songs in a large studio with high-tech equipment, transferring the music into a physical form like vinyl or a CD, and stocking it in stores. This process is very expensive, and is where record labels come in to finance it in exchange for a cut (often a major one) of the artists’ earnings.

Jazz legend Charlie Parker literally couldn’t afford to record by himself in the 1940s. Today, he could do it with a computer and $100 microphone.

Few independent artists have enough money to produce and ship physical CDs. Now they pay a small subscription fee to have their music placed on all major streaming services.

Thanks to the personal computer — and the software and platforms built for it — artists don’t rely on labels in the same way, giving them more creative freedom. These artists can also directly build their fan bases online. The days of no-name singers inking massive deals and being owned by the labels are disappearing. Artists with strong independent track records have more leverage, and are negotiating fairer deals. Universal Canada president Jeffrey Remedios recently said, “Prove you don’t need us and we’ll want to work with you.”

However, these aren’t always with “traditional” labels like Universal or Sony. Just look at Drake and Apple Music. As tech companies like Apple change what it means to be a record label, companies that haven’t moved past the traditional 360 deal are dying.

Personal computing has been a cause, problem and solution, depending on what side of the industry you’re on. This wasn’t music’s first major upheaval (Recorded music destroyed the massive sheet music industry), and it won’t be the last. The most successful people in the industry are ones who can learn from these changes and lean into the next ones.