Ponderance

Network Media: Code, Culture and Convention

Institute of Advanced Studies

Network Media: Code, Culture and Convention
A cross-disciplinary symposium at the University of Western Australia
9-10-11 September 2004

How can we make sense of the rapid development of such intersecting and yet diverse technological features as digital and satellite television; the Internet; mobile telephony; computer games; global media empires; the database; instant communication; and digital creativity? We propose that the array of information and communications technologies, practices and concepts can be approached under the broad heading of Network Media because, in doing so, we become aware of the tensions and possibilities inherent in juxtaposing the established realm of ?the media?; and the emerging world of ?the network?.

Network Media is convergence for the twenty-first century. It recognizes that the old and the new are coming together, but suggests a more subtle, more nuanced appreciation of the changes and continuities that attend the dramatic interpellation into everyday life of computing and communication technologies, and the discourses which make them meaningful. Not only does ?the network? (pragmatically, the Internet but, in a more analytical frame, decentred interactivity and virtual-world mediation) now come to operate with, and through, and as if it was ?the media?; but ?the media? (paradigmatically centralized and institutionalized) now exhibits many signs that it is, itself, an interactive network. But Network Media does not imply any necessary ?coming together? ? each term stands in partial opposition to the other, even as they are joined in the title of this symposium.

Network Media poses new questions about the interrelationship of explicit governing codes (both legal and "software codes"); implicit regulatory conventions through which people operate collectively; and the expressive practices through which cultural meanings emerge. Code, Culture and Convention provide just three openings through which we might begin to explore Network Media. We invite you, in this symposium, to introduce new ways of thinking about the conflict and intersection of the paradigms of ?network? and ?media?.

The symposium will commence on Thursday 9 September at 7.00pm with a public lecture by Professor Mark Poster.

Abstracts of Participants:
Professor Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine;
Associate Professor Matthew Allen, Curtin University;
Dr Terry Flew, Queensland University of Technology;
Professor Ross Gibson, University of Technology, Sydney;
Dr Marjorie Kibby, University of Newcastle;
Ms Carolyn Penfold, Law, University of NSW;
Professor Trevor Barr, Swinburne University of Technology.