Dr John McMullan

Traditionally, the term 'jump cut' has described film or video edits that jump forward in time and detract from a sense of continuity. In the early days of online video platforms, such as YouTube, video bloggers employed jump cuts while editing their direct-address monologues to allow them to string together the best parts of the performance. It could even be said now that jump cutting a monologue is one of the inherent conventions of vlogging. This paper argues that vlogging culture has not only adopted the jump cut as core to its productions, but also adapted and evolved it for specific vlog use. The vlogging space is rich in moving image innovation and instances of this, such as the vlogging jump cut, need to be identified, analysed, and discussed - just as occurred for cinema and television during their past periods of emergence.

For the last few decades, media theorists have been faced with the understanding that the networked digital computer is the meta-medium to end all mediums. This places researchers in the curious position where online platforms, such as YouTube, cannot legitimately and directly be contrasted with traditional analogue mediums, such as cinema and television. To address this inconsistency, I developed the theory of foundation technologies and their respective proto-affordances, which demonstrates the existence of past periods of ‘new media’. These were brought about by the introduction of key technologies that each offered, at the time, a new and unique underlying affordance to a society. Each new ‘proto-affordance’ inspired social disruption, as new specific mediums were spawned – each remediating existing mediums of similar mode. This framework shows digitality as another evolutionary step in a line of foundation technologies, which includes the artefact, the machine and electricity. The theory of foundation technologies permits software-based online platforms, such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Twitter, to be called digital mediums, and thus aids in understanding their technological substrate and unique affordances. Justifying this relation between old mediums and new, digital, ones equips us to more effectively comprehend and analyse these platforms as to their social adoption and uses, cultural practices, implications and effects. This allows us to better understand and control our present, and even guide our potential future.

Being a Noongar maaman (man and father) involved in raising koorlangka (children) brings lots of happiness and excitement, along with many challenges. Noongar maaman have always helped one another learn about the fathering role and how to be effective in the rol e. Indeed one of the key features about Noongar traditions is that our moort (family) help out so that men are not alone when it comes to looking after kids. Many changes imposed on us by Wedjela (non - Aboriginal people) have made it hard for Aboriginal men to bring up their kids with good support. Our old people had kids taken from them, were punished for speaking language and practicing culture and had their authority to be maaman as fathers, uncles, brothers and pops stripped by governments. Despite this, our history is also full of maaman who have quietly maintained their status as boordier (leaders and bosses) and who have been inspirational as maaman (fathers, uncles and pops). They have allowed the old karla mia (home fires) to continue to burn for man y moorditj maaman (strong men). Today this karl (fire) for kaarnya maaman (respectful fathering) is heating up again and many Noongar maaman (fathers) are getting together to support young men as they step into roles that involve looking after koorlangka ( children). The Aboriginal Fathering workshop series has been designed by Noongar men for Noongar men. It has been set up to provide maaman (father) with a chance to get together and try some new and old activities with their koorlangka (children). The goal is to support Noongar men as they work at katatjiny bidi (go along to become learned and do good) for their koorlangka (children). This short report describes the development of a set of workshop resources to support Noongar maaman (fathering). It desc ribes the project objectives and plan and sets out some of the themes about Aboriginal fathering identified in the literature. It also explains the process used in meeting and working with Noongar men, outlines the workshop structure, describes the Noongar cultural framework adopted, and reports on the evaluation of the work.

YouTube has fast come to support global moving-image communication for millions of people. In the current literature, however, YouTube is not considered a ‘medium’ the same way that cinema and television are. Much of this has to do with the computer’s suggested status as a ‘meta-medium’, or ‘medium that can be all mediums’, which in turn heralds the computer itself as a single digital medium. My own perspective is that the term ‘medium’ deserves to be revised to include digital platforms that support novel communication practices. In my perspective, digitisation is yet another foundation technology that facilitates the invention of new mediums from its new ‘proto-affordance’ of computability. In this regard, previous foundation technologies include that of the machine and electricity, with the respective new proto-affordances of reproducibility and instantaneity. The emergence of both of these foundation technologies instigated periods of new media at the time and, hence, spawned new mediums. In terms of moving-image mediums, cinema is mechanical, television is electrical, and YouTube is digital. New mediums of each original foundation technology remediate those of the foundation technology before it, and foundation technology proto-affordances are cumulative. This describes our current engagement with digital, electrical, machines. Bolter and Gruisin define a medium as “that which remediates” (2000, p. 65). Thus, to demonstrate that YouTube remediates cinema and television and is a medium in its own right, I created perthbands.tv. perthbands.tv consists of 28 published video episodes (plus one private) portraying local original music acts, and exists in many online forms—including a streaming web-page and a YouTube channel. Distributing content that is not unlike that of television through YouTube, perthbands.tv exhibits new aspects of moving-image communication. It demonstrates that the participatory culture of YouTube promotes on-going media conversations regarding its moving-image content, which in turn contribute to the overall text. In more ways than one, YouTube users are shaping cultural meaning and contributing to future moving-image content, something that neither traditional cinema nor television can support. This remediation of cinema and television makes YouTube a moving-image medium in its own right, with its own specific affordances and conventions of communication. Gaudreault and Marion outline the emergence of a new medium as consisting of three stages: appearance, emergence and constitution (2005, p. 12). The first indicates a medium’s initial state as a new technology for communication that adopts the existing nature and practices of existing mediums. Then, through maturation into a new communicative process a medium offers itself for social experimentation. Finally, in a form of rebirth, it becomes institutionalised as a new singular medium that supports unique communicative practices. In the case of YouTube, it appeared with its roots in existing practices, such as initially being touted as a private way to share home videos online. As its creators evolved its technological interface, YouTube users explored its potential for novel forms of communication—including the illegal viral dissemination of snippets of broadcast television. This arguably led to a boost in YouTube’s popularity, which in turn influenced its purchase by Google. With Google ownership came YouTube’s institutionalisation, in its commercialisation, legalisation, and forging of relationships with big media. This was YouTube’s rebirth, in its constitution as a singular new medium. Throughout YouTube’s emergence and evolution, the online participatory culture that was its users continued to explore its communicative affordances and develop new conventions and practices of communication. The video blog is a result of this effort, as an asynchronous, two-way, genre of the moving image that was developed from the affordances of Web 2.0 platforms. That the moving image genre of video blogs relies on the Internet as technological infrastructure implies that YouTube is its supporting medium. Once YouTube is recognised as a medium, it can be analysed in opposition to cinema and television as to its social, cultural, and psychological impact. This helps clarify the position of YouTube as an evolution of human communication via the moving-image, as well as its place within visual culture.

Our Story is an artefact of cross-cultural collaborative visual ethnography. It explores methods of Australian indigenous storytelling through the medium of the wadjela (white person). It expands on the work of Iseke and Moore (2011), who collaborate with Canadian indigenous community groups to provide them opportunities through which to control their stories and express their understandings of themselves to a broader audience.