Thanks for offering me the opportunity to blog on what is a pet subject. I hope it has been of interest to people and if anyone would like to keep abreast of the PhD research as it unfolds, feel free to email me at: Lizzie Jackson at hotmail .com
~ Lizzie Jackson
It is not possible for presenters and hosts to be everywhere, all the time, of course. It is possible to separate out what has to be done by ‘human hand’ and what can be done by a range of other possible options, which I lay out below.
When to use humans and when to use automatic methods can be decided by looking at the ‘flocking’ behaviours of the participants – where they go, when, and in what numbers. The trick is to deploy the humans to places and at times when they will reach the largest numbers of engagers and have the most impact.
Much of the facilitation necessary in participatory media spaces is what I term ‘low-level CRM’, customer relationship management. Repetitive questions on how to use the user interface or how to enter a competition are two examples. It’s a good idea to keep a list of those Qs and if you find you are answering them time and time again, then think about doing a Q and A, or even spending on getting an avatar which is powered by a database capable of pattern-matching the Qs to the As.
My great friend Phil Hall is good at building sophisticated chatterbots which drive Avatars – ask him about them. Some of his work can be found at www.ikea.co.uk Go to http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/local_home/croydon.html click on ‘Ask Anna’ and ask her to show you some chairs. Phil’s also created a bot (chatterbot) called Yhaken which will react emotionally if you insult him. Give it a go. The best way to annoy Yhaken is to keep typing in obscenities very rapidly. Phil reckons it’s possible to create a host bot who could do some of the welcoming and low-level membership jobs. He’s up for the challenge.
Mike Orwell, one of the BBC Children’s host/moderators has also just pointed out to me that moderation can be a kind of ‘passive’ hosting i.e. some benign ‘shaping’ of the shared space to encourage a more ‘on topic’ debate can change the ambience just as a lightening of control can encourage a more ‘party-like vibe’ – good point. I think this is a clear example of how the proper management of hosted space is a very sophisticated skill or technique.
It seems from research by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass (The Media Equation) and from further research from Nass and Brave that people are happy to have an emotional relationship with either a user interface or even a very polite and friendly button if the object has enough sociability. What did you think of Yhaken? Did you feel some emotional response?
People seem to want organisations providing sophisticated interactivity which has user-generated content, collaborative or immersive environments, to ‘interact back’. It’s not really fair, right, or even just, not to interact back, certainly not neighbourly. Organisations that hide away behind interactive content are missing out on a very useful relationship, on audience ideas and enthusiasm, and on merely enjoying exchanging thoughts. They are missing out on audience intelligence and feedback, from which they could improve their content in a kind of progressive beta test which continues to evolve to suit the needs of both the participants and the organisation itself.
Thanks for inviting me to blog!
~ Lizzie Jackson
The Internet is, as we know, maturing into a medium which has both media and participatory elements. Needing to put a label on what was emerging, for chapters for the PhD Thesis and to feed the research back into the Corporation (as agreed), I began to use the term ‘Participatory Media’. A paper titled ‘Overview of the implications for the BBC of Participatory Media – management, awareness, literacy and safety on interactive media platforms’ was produced for review by senior BBC managers in August, 2005.
My own definition of Participatory Media would be ‘iterative content published in hosted space, that is a shared space, facilitated by a media organisation on behalf of the public’. The title of the Thesis is ‘Hosted Space: the mediation of interactive public service content’. The term ‘Participatory Journalism’ has been widely used as described in the excellent report (later book) ‘We Media’ by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis.
Findings from my doctoral research will begin to be released from October 2006 onwards, but the main themes are:
Facilitation: The importance of having trained facilitators in participatory media environments, whether they be members of staff or members of the public seems clear.
Presenting, hosting and moderation: There are differences between the three roles, but they are highly complementary. Audiences want to be acknowledged for their contributions and to engage with the facilitators instead of merely viewing presenters from a distance.
Changes in time and space: Unlike linear media, participatory media offers the opportunity to both watch and engage, even at the same time. The important thing is that the participant or consumer can organise the way they want to consume, as they wish, when they wish, where they wish.
Membership culture: The relationship between the producers and the audience changes in participatory media environments. It ceases to be an ‘episodic’ one to become something which is much more ongoing.
Proximity: Participants like to feel a sense of proximity to the presenters and hosts or the organisation, and to know that someone will drop in from time to time to chat or to help organise the shared spaces.
Fear: Many presenters, producers and hosts do not feel comfortable ‘interacting back’ to the audience/members (we need a better term!). They may need to learn how to engage with the participants and it is a particular skill.
Control: Participatory media environments mean that there is more of a sharing of control between the producers and the participants. Sometimes the producers will editorialise, and it may be the participants do the editorialising at other times; there may also be a sharing of production. Without the presence of skilled facilitators, the changes in control will be difficult to manage.
Hosted Space: There is a new sense of the existence of a place which sometimes is closer to the domain of the producer and sometimes closer to the place where the participants ‘inhabit’. Mostly the space is probably somewhere in between.
Presence: I spoke to many of the Celebdaq traders and asked them whether they felt the presence of others when they were buying and selling shares and chatting to other traders online – many said yes, they definitely had a sense of others being present. They also said the other traders who they knew well had the ability to stir up much stronger emotions than their purely ‘real life’ friends.
How can presenters and hosts manage to be ‘present’ on an ongoing basis as well as being able to facilitate the episodic content of any live events or transmissions (be they televisual, textual or aural)? I have some thoughts which I will put forward tomorrow, in the last part of my guest blog.
~ Lizzie Jackson
Many BBC television and radio programmes now have web content which complements the ‘brand’. They may also have mobile content or additional material which can be accessed on interactive TV (additional channels or within an overlay). They are, therefore, semi-convergent or, more accurately, ‘multi-platform’ brands. One of the experimental production workshops tackled how to both present a linear Television programme AND how to engage with the audience/members in any social digital space provided around the TV programme.
The brand which seemed to the best pick at the time was Celebdaq, a celebrity stock exchange where shares in a celebrity could be bought and sold. ‘Traders’ would be given an imaginary sum of one million pounds to build up a portfolio of shares. The value of shares can go up as well as down (as we know), so the traders were soon being ranked within the game.
The Celebdaq stock exchange was web-based but it also had its own TV show, plus content was also produced to be included in a daily ‘entertainment news’ programme called Liquid News. As such Celebdaq existed on TV, web, mobile content, as regular email alerts, as a game and there was an online community of traders who ‘inhabited’ a message board. It required presenters, hosts and moderators to facilitate both the TV content and the online community.
One of the experimental production workshops organised for the Interactive Presenter Talent Scheme analysed the Celebdaq content across all the different platforms, working from the audience viewing and engaging behaviours over the days, weeks and months, ‘backwards’. From charting what the traders wanted to do when it was possible to find out where the BBC was succeeding and failing the Celebdaq audience/members.
We found the television programme was scheduled for every Friday evening, the wrong time for the audience demographic (mostly male, aged 25-35, professional or ‘middle class’). They were out partying when Celebdaq was on TV and, also, the online community of traders felt they had no presence in the TV programme. They wanted to see other traders and to have a greater involvement in the show; they also wanted to have more live events on the website.
The solution was to create a broadband console, using the existing BBC News Console. Because it was a televisual experience delivered by Internet Protocols it was possible to offer the whole TV programme for download, plus additional video clips, a gateway to the game and links to the message board. In addition Nick Timon, the BBC’s Broadband Producer added the ability for the video time code to fire off a slideshow in another window which had images of celebrities and URLs to the celebrities’ websites (or other relevant BBC web pages) at the exact time the presenter was referring to that celebrity.
Because the broadband console could be a permanent updateable fixture both the episodic AND the ongoing game/community elements (which made up the ‘heart’ of the Celebdaq brand) could be accessed, at any time. If the trader wanted to sit back and just enjoy the show that was provided via the console, if they wanted to play the game, they could do so and if they wanted to play the game AND chat to other traders, they could do that as well. The iPresenters both presented and hosted the content, using a conversational tone.
It seemed to be a good idea for the existing Celebdaq presenters and hosts to also become traders. Paddy O’Connell, the Celebdaq Anchor presenter, was already a trader and he regularly visited the message boards to chat to the traders, even attending pub events organised by the traders themselves.
The console was given to the Celebdaq production team and it launched in March 2003 but, at that time, was not given much promotion, in fact many traders failed to realise it was there at all. Those who found the console loved it.
~ Lizzie Jackson
In 2002 BBC New Media and BBC Talent ran a scheme to recruit five ‘Interactive Presenters’ and I asked if I could oversee the project. It would run for six months and the presenters would work in a new studio which was capable of running a live chat (real-time text) with video. They would receive training and be put on placements with production departments.
It seemed the ideal opportunity to find out more on what kind of new presentation, mediation, hosting, could be brainstormed over the six months the ‘iPresenters’ were with the BBC on the training contracts. Richard Berry, one of the producers within the live chat team agreed to facilitate fifteen experimental production workshops, and to video the brainstorming, role play and other exercises. Various BBC production teams also volunteered to try experiments in different types of presentation and hosting including Video Nation,the BBC’s first foray into video User-Generated Content, Top of the Pops the weekly round-up of the music charts, Celebdaq, a celebrity stock exchange, and the Interactive Television Division (who oversee the ‘red button’ services such as TV informational overlays, menus and electronic programme guides).
I decided to try and use the opportunity to do doctoral research on presenters and hosts, using the experimental production workshops as the research data. The BBC agreed to support the study and the University of Westminster thought the research was a good subject. There seems to have been no detailed research on the role of the broadcast presenter from an academic point of view, which is surprising.
The research questions I have been asking over the last four years are:
The experimental production workshops generated over 50 hours of video, which is being transcribed and analysed using the first analysis programme which enables academics to code video (and audio) data, Transana.
~ Lizzie Jackson
Amy Jo Kim’s book Community Building on the Web made me realise the host role I had developed at the BBC to facilitate the message boards was going to be a useful one. It seemed it had similarities to a radio presenter, someone who was not seen (text only) yet who was highly visible (engaging with the members on a daily basis). The difference between the radio or television presenter and the community host was the relationship was ongoing, rather than something episodic; it was not tied to a broadcast.
As I have said already, the better hosted groups seemed happier and they posted better quality posts. I asked the members why they thought the hosts were important. They told me they were ‘vital’, crucial to their ongoing enjoyment of the shared space, that these people ‘held the culture of the group’, and organised it both geographically and across time. The hosts were the social glue. As the well-hosted communities matured some of the members began to do some of the hosting themselves.
A host, I believe, is very different from a moderator – why? Moderators are the (rather more cerebral) street cleaners of the virtual world. It is possible to moderate an online community or digital social space of whatever kind, using a set of rules. The hosts become important when there is a borderline situation over a member, post, piece of content or activity. Only someone who has a deep understanding of the culture of a group, and of the behaviours of the members within that group, would be able to make a judgement on what to do, how to deal with that content.
I believe we need to move from a position of control, censorship and moderation to one of facilitation, hosting, and education towards self-organisation. The editing of content by a producer is the stuff of old media, showcasing good stuff and encouraging good standards i.e. facilitating and mediating is the new editorialising. There may always need to be some moderation (children’s content for example) but the less there is of it, the better.
The BBC operates an ‘escalation chain’ - if there is a need moderators ‘refer upwards’ to hosts, hosts can refer upwards to the community manager, who can refer upwards again, if the situation requires, to BBC Editorial Policy advisors or to lawyers. This raising of problems upwards, coupled with some previous thought about what actions to take under a range of possible circumstances gives a good framework for facilitation.
It is possible to have flexibility in the amount of moderation and control which needs to happen, However I believe facilitation (hosting) – on the other hand - should always be provided.
Without someone doing some facilitation, the social systems seem to break down or simply fizzle out in the virtual world. The same is true of the real world, of course. How many people know someone who is the social aggregator of a group or community living in your town or village? There seems to be people who are born aggregators, other who are good contributors and some who just like to ‘lurk’.
The first virtual communities were obviously ‘housed’ in newsgroups, highly textual environments. When the new message board interfaces came along it was suddenly possible to easily attach an image of yourself, so the personalities of the Internet, hosts, mods or engagers, began to come out of the woodwork. I encouraged the BBC hosts to write a page about themselves and to include an image too. It seemed only fair that those who were facilitating the space should be accountable, visible, to have a kind of ‘proximity’ to the community themselves.
The community responded well to the increased visibility of the hosts, and an added bonus was that it seemed to enable a relaxing of the rules. If the hosts posted, then lurkers would also be encouraged to post. If new members were welcomed, they responded by returning sooner and by being more inclined to interact with others, to leave comments or content. If there was a problem a host could remind all of the shared ‘House Rules’, then the digital social space (of whatever kind) seemed to work better for all.
Each community seemed to vary in the amount of hosting and the style of hosting they wanted, therefore it was important to make sure there was stability in the staffing. With a non-staff host that continuity of relationship would be broken.
We began to run live chats, and the community hosts would take the interviewer role on behalf of the online community, putting the questions to the celebrity or expert that were sent in by the members. The live chat team bought a ‘Stream Genie’ and began to run a video stream alongside the text side of the live event. The text and the stream were never in sync, that wasn’t possible, but at least the hosts were in vision at last, and moving! Pretty soon I began to wonder what the difference was between a presenter and an online community host…(more tomorrow)
~ Lizzie Jackson
The early BBC presenters (1924 onwards) were recruited from the ranks of the (male) producers and researchers who were grappling with the new BBC Radio Services which were launched from studio LP0 in Marconi House in London. They were anonymous and expected to embody the tone of the network, they were not supposed to have any personality, and they were part-time amateurs. Instructions were given out that the announcer was to think of himself as the mediator between the listener and the BBC, they were also to represent the BBC and give the impression of being a ‘friendly guide’. They were also told to be anonymous and to put the emphasis on clarity rather than personality.
The formal tone and clipped 'Queen's English" of the early BBC ‘announcers’ caused problems when the first radio documentaries began to be made as it was almost impossible to make the stiff, formal style work when interviewing the factory workers of Britain’s industrial heartland, for example.
In 1944 Britain was under threat of invasion. The BBC’s hourly news bulletins were a lifeline but the presence on the airwaves of Lord Haw-Haw and his faux propaganda bulletins put the thought into the minds of those in power that it would be very easy to put out fake news bulletins and emergency instructions.
The suggestion was made by the BBC that the most senior figures of the army, navy and air force could read the 6pm news bulletins as listeners would then know, for sure, that the news they were getting was the real thing. Memos went between the Director General of the BBC (Lord Reith) and the Government for several weeks until it was decided that it would be better to give the job to a small number of the better announcers (those who kept to time and who did not deviate from the script). It was also decided the names of these announcers would always be given in the form “This is the BBC from London. Here is the news, read by John Snagg.
In the 1950’s American presenters broke the mould by extemporising and by not even using a script, at times, preferring to use a running order instead. The Yanks brought the British nylons, jazz and personality presenters.
After the war radio presentation was streets ahead of television, with a wide range of tones of voice and of ways of interacting with listeners both in the studio and at home. Television announcing was coloured by the theatre and by the ‘Variety’ performances which were so popular at the time. Little by little it’s changed until the range of different types of televisual and aural presentation is wide. There are continuity announcers, anchor presenters, reporters, shock jocks, game show hosts, broadcast journalists and so on. They all have several things in common; presenters help us consume the content, but they also help to set the scene at the start of the narrative, they arbitrate during debates, they acknowledge the presence of the guests and the audiences both in the studio and at home.
There is more to it still. When presenters move close to the screen we instinctively know we should be paying attention that something important is going to happen. We are drawn to the face which is presented to us, filling the screen, just as we learned to do when we were a baby lying in our cot. This early learning is so persistent that new research (Willis and Toderov) is showing we make judgements about people in milliseconds from the data we get from faces. We also sometimes feel we have a kind of emotional bond with the presenters of our favourite programmes. The news announcer can give the elderly a sociable moment of the day. A child is provided with a role model and a teenager is given help formulating their own identity through a ‘para-social’ relationship, but it’s an episodic one, it happens over one moment in time.
New kinds of television or televisual forms are starting to be launched such as the BBC’s iPlayer. New versions of YouTube are certain to launch. It is highly likely that new kinds of presentation and hosting will come along, done by either professionals or the public.
Social digital spaces, of whatever kinds, without facilitation or with mere moderation, lack that link between the ‘users’ and those people behind the scenes who are producing the service. It would be an opportunity lost not to have a Craig who can come forward and be the link, on an ongoing basis, between a company running a participatory media service and the participants themselves.
~ Lizzie Jackson
My guest blog is all about the facilitation of ‘old media’ and new media. For the last four years I have been doing PhD research on the broadcast presenter and whether there should be an equivalent job in new media, or what I am terming ‘participatory media’.
Broadcasters pay large sums of money to hire presenters, they often hang their programme strategies around presenters. Films have been made about people who strive to become an ‘Anchor’ or a newscaster. But few books, apart from ‘how to’s’ have been written and there are also few academic studies. As the Internet becomes able to ‘carry’ more rich media and the ability to place content across different platforms increases, there may be a need for a new kind of facilitator, a new kind of more interactive presenter.
The early online communities like The Well made sure they had someone who could make the party go with a swing, the online community host. When I started the BBC’s first message boards in 1997 I made sure there were two hosts for every small community. These people welcomed newcomers, kept the history of the community and generally acted as a kind of convener, promoter, negotiator, arbitrator and good human being. They were highly visible and took it in turns to leave messages and pep up debates as required.
It was noticed that the communities with the best hosts became the best communities, just like the best parties are often thrown by people who know which guests to introduce, when to dim the lights, when to bring out the cocktails and so on. I was extending tried and tested methods taught by people like Cliff Figallo , Howard Rheingold and, particularly, Amy Jo Kim . But as an ex-radio producer and presenter, and someone who has thrown a lot of parties, their methods made sense.
The recent phenomenon of social networking of services such as MySpace, Bebo following on from FriendsReunited and Friendster do not offer hosts, although there may be a token personality (such as ‘Tom’ for MySpace). Many are having to consider moderating areas where children might go – which in practice is anywhere. There seems to be a creeping trend towards more policing, even prohibition, of social networks and other digital social spaces.
Experience has shown, time and time again, that shared online spaces are more likely to be self-organising and self-sustaining if there is someone who provides some facilitation.
Howard Rheingold (in a talk to the BBC on Friday 22nd September) offered the example of Craig from Craig's List who will jump in and sort things out, if needs be, otherwise Craigs list is pretty self-sustaining. This is surely because the community/network has someone who is able to facilitate the shared space. The buck stops with Craig and he is highly visible.
For the next six days I’d like to talk about some of the things which I have picked up since 1997 from my professional life as an online community manager, from academic studies on the subject of the facilitation of media and interactive content, and give some general thoughts and ideas. I invite you to comment on those thoughts in a thoroughly collaborative way.
~ Lizzie Jackson
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