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Digital Narratives Research Cluster
position paper
July 2002
Adrian Miles adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au
This position paper is an introductory discussion to develop an interdisciplinary research cluster located within the School of Applied Communication, RMIT. It is intended to be a document to promote discussion and engagement.
Idea
A research cluster is a constellation of projects and activities united and informed by the umbrella terms and processes defined within the cluster. This means that the cluster is best thought of as a site for a series of affiliations and activities rather than a specific and separate corporatised or bureaucratic entity.
The cluster is to concentrate on 'digital narrative' as an existing and developing research competency within the School of Applied Communication. Digital narrative is a broad category that is and ought to be relevant to the declared research goals of the school, faculty and university. In terms of specific research activities it is located in what the university has defined as digital design.
Digital narrative is conceived of very broadly within this position paper. Narrative includes fiction, non fiction, graphic narrative, and multilinear electronic narrative. It probably also includes those forms that might not ordinarily be conceived of as narrative (of narrating a particular story) such as textual, acoustic, graphic and polymedia environments that are variations and developments of game environments. It would include interactive radio, video, sound works and writing.
The cluster is to leverage existing research practices within the School of Applied Communication to make them visible to ourselves, the faculty, university, and externally. This does not require new activities to be undertaken to begin with, but is to find what is common to the range of existing applied digital work (as theory and practice), and to contextualise it so that this work is recognised as having a consistency and a common research direction.
The cluster is also to define and develop a research agenda so that new projects can be initiated, housed, managed, and disseminated. These projects will reflect the general research aims of the cluster, and will also provide the opportunity for the cluster to develop and contextualise its practices over time.
To not do this risks our existing work to remain institutionally amorphous and will fail to capitalise on the strengths available.
Relevance
Within the School of Applied Communication there are a diverse range of teaching, research, and production activities that in fact share many common features. While there remains no specific research structure for these activities they remain isolated and appear piecemeal and unable to share outcomes or skillsets.
For the digital narrative cluster such work includes the fiction and nonfiction work that staff and students are producing that privilege the 'digital' as the primary mode of delivery of this work. This includes material written for the World Wide Web, interactive sound and video, and digital design projects. It also includes pedagogical procedures and tools that have been implemented to assist or deliver these activities and products. It also includes the research that staff have undertaken around the development and delivery of these pedagogies and products, as well as the more traditional research that is undertaken regarding the impact and relation of digital technology in or on narrative.
This suggests that a cluster is relevant to existing activities supported by teaching and research within the school.
The development of a cluster will allow the consolidation of research so that legitimate research (published work, design awards, conference and exhibition activity) is able to inform research agendas and futures. It will also assist in the identification and promotion of the activities already being undertaken as these activities will now be able to be understood to be part of a general set of common activities undertaken as research by the School. The cluster will also provide a forum within which to constructively debate research activity definitions (practices and outcomes) and an institutional identity which can participate in, and inform, university and external debates about what forms research may take.
The consolidation of research that a cluster affords would assist in attracting research funding to the School. This includes funding for individual projects as well as postdoctoral research or PhD scholarships. The cluster would also provide the opportunity for staff and students in other disciplines to identify and participate in projects (for instance, computer science, creative media, architecture, sociology, education).
Application
The cluster would emphasise collaborative project based research as its primary model. This is the procedure offered by the sciences, and the research cluster would appropriate this model and redefine it for an applied humanities research cluster (in a manner similar to the Stanford Humanities Laboratory).
Collaborative research activity encourages staff and students to develop competencies across disciplinary boundaries, as well as modelling and developing the required practices that are relevant for work in any contemporary digital field. Collaborative research also encourages multiple outcomes from any activity, so that an individual project may produce multiple research objects that are relevant for several academic, industry, or creative communities.
Project based research ensures that the cluster undertakes research with applied outcomes. Such research would utilise the School's existing strengths in the intersection of theory and practice and would allow the cluster to proactively explore the role of research in practice based activities. Projects ensure that there are multiple roles for participants, and so aids in the development of collaboration, and also offer variable entry and exit points for research. For instance there may be activities relevant to honours research, postdoctoral research, and an undergraduate subject, within a single project.
The major research model within traditional humanities research emphasises the lone scholar researching and producing published papers and monographs. The cluster is not to be understood as a criticism or rejection of this research model but an acknowledgement that to generate viable applied outcomes involving digital technology collaborative studio or laboratory based models are more efficient and relevant to real world outcomes and practices. The cluster ought to be considered an experiment and opportunity to develop an alternative form of engaged critical practice for the digital humanities.
The aim of the cluster is to provide a forum for this work so that a common pool of projects, ideas, talent, and tools is available. It will also allow larger scale projects to be developed that have multiple outcomes.
For instance a research symposium may offer a public research event and staff development activity, students could also document it and edit a collection of material for publication, and postgraduate students could present material at the symposium.
Alternatively a research project could develop around an online journalism project that might require some undergraduate involvement from journalism, media, and communication design, with research conducted by journalism staff, as well as collaboration with computer science. Such a project may have multiple outcomes, for instance a conference paper for the journalism staff member, a project based learning activity for students, a collaboration outcome, a conference paper for the computer science person, an online project, and an electronic tool.
Participation
The model offered by the Stanford Humanities Lab for project evaluation provides an excellent point from which to begin a discussion of what sorts of projects ought to be considered for the cluster. This model requires all projects to have a humanities focus, to involve students in meaningful ways, and to require interdisciplinary collaboration.
The digital narrative cluster would require considerably more focus than just the humanities, though what constitutes digital narrative is intended to be broad, inclusive and suggestive rather than narrow and proscriptive. It might include such things as the effect of digital technologies on existing narrative forms, whether fiction, nonfiction, or graphic, as well as projects that build digital artefacts that express research outcomes.
The involvement of students from undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts should be encouraged or even required. This may take the form of specific projects that are available to students, or even subjects that have content and processes that are 'housed' within the cluster.
As a beginning point the cluster may only have a limited form of interdisciplinarity, for instance between Communication Design and Media Studies, or Media Studies and Journalism. This would be a consequence of the small nature of the cluster as it is established, though if the model proves successful it would be reasonable to anticipate more extensive models developing, for instance having participants from Computer Science, Creative Media, Communication Design, Journalism and Media Studies.
Responsibility for projects would vary with individual projects. Some may have a single academic responsible for its completion, others may have a small team who are responsible. I'd argue that all projects should probably have shared responsibility for completion and outcomes to encourage and support collaborative outcomes. Project teams should be made up of a small core of managing academics and should be drawn from different disciplinary fields.
Several staff are undertaking research, digital design, teaching, and tool development in fields that are either directly related or of some relevance to the cluster and would be invited to participate in the development of the cluster.
Outcomes
By collating existing research within the research cluster it would be possible to identify and promote the applied research that the School is undertaking. This would include academic research, relevant pedagogy, design work, and creative projects.
The cluster would allow the school to identify a major research direction for its activities, assisting in defining its research role within the faculty and university. This would allow the cluster and the school to be proactive in the determination of its research resources, including internal and external resources.
The cluster would allow the school to 'brand' many of its existing activities and to provide a context or rationale for these activities. For instance some parts of the recent 'Sights Minds Matters' public lecture series could be activities related to the cluster, as would Mark Amerika's recent Visiting Fellowship. This branding provides an identity for the research that the school already undertakes.
The cluster provides a meaningful set of criteria by which to determine research proposals within the school. This would allow the school to nurture specific projects and establish a research track record and profile around the specific research criteria established by the cluster.
The cluster could host and promote specific research activities, including staff development, teaching, fellowships, lectures, conferences, publications, prototypes and tools. It may also provide a forum in which to explore and develop appropriate pedagogies for digital multiliteracy.
Processes
A preliminary meeting of staff interested in establishing the cluster to determine whether to proceed with the cluster.
If this is positive then this is to be formalised to the School Executive for endorsement (or not).
The cluster ought to be resourced in the short term so that:
- relevant current practices can be identified
- a directory of projects can be developed
- resource, skill sharing and mentoring can be implemented where appropriate
- a cluster Web site can be developed to present and document existing relevant work
A working party or committee ought to be formed to determine how the cluster is to be managed and developed in the short and medium term. This body should define the terms of the cluster - its research aims, mission statement, immediate membership and priorities. In addition this body should define the form the cluster should take in the short to medium term, Whether the cluster should provide an umbrella for existing activities and operate as a research 'brokerage', or whether it ought to be a physical office or lab. There are obvious resource and management issues that this group would need to address.
To ensure the viability of the cluster and its success a clear development and management process ought to be in place. This should include basic strategic planning that identifies outcomes and milestones so that the performance and relevance of the cluster can be measured and evaluated. A significant issue would appear to be its relation to the school - whether it provides support for activities undertaken elsewhere within the school or whether it becomes the location for these activities.
Membership in the Australian e-Humanities Network should be explored.
References
Australian e-Humanities Network
http://www.ehum.edu.au/
Stanford Humanities Lab: introduction
http://www.stanford.edu/group/shl/
Stanford Humanities Lab: project design
http://www.stanford.edu/group/shl/applying/project_design.html
Research Center on Information Technologies and Participatory Democracy (CITIDEP)
http://www.citidep.pt/eindex.html
Research Clusters at CITIDEP
http://www.citidep.pt/org/rcintro.html
Simpson Center for the Humanities
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/proposals/cluster.htm
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