Social Media, Participatory Design and Cultural Engagement

Jerry Watkins
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology Kelvin Grove, Australia Tel. +61 7 3105 7353

jj.watkins@qut.edu.au ABSTRACT
This paper reports on the application of Participatory Design methodology to an experiment in social media production. Staff at the Australian Museum are developing new content genres, creative tools and techniques in order to produce original cultural multimedia based on or inspired by the Museums extensive collections. The ultimate aim of the project is for the Museum to act as a social media hub for external communities of interest to co-create their own narrative-based interpretations of the Museums content, leading to an individualized cultural experience for physical and online visitors alike. A participatory content creation method has been developed for this project, which features iterative design cycles marked by social prototyping, evaluation and strategic formulation. These cycles are repeated until desired performance is achieved. specimens which in turn attract a monthly web visitation rate regularly exceeding 1.5 million. Since the quantity of web visitors more than satisfies the Museums public service commitment, management focus is being placed instead on the quality of online experience offered; especially to youth / informal learning communities. Social media are being considered as a route towards a more creative engagement between the Museum and its communities of interest, using the Museums extensive collections as a source of original digital content.

2. PD AT THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

Participatory Design (PD) was selected as a strategic methodology to guide the Australian Museum social media experiment. The origins of the methodology are to be found in the Scandinavian labor movement in the 1980s where it was used to integrate workers within the industrial design process. Bearing this history in mind, the application of PD to social media design for cultural institutions may seem rather tenuous. Yet PD methodology has been extended to both museum exhibition design [2] and library website design [3]. PD focuses upon the relationship between organization and technology, which is particularly relevant to this experiment. There is considerable current debate as to whether the contemporary museum should remain focused on the preservation of collections; or should seek to engage its audiences in a more open educative discourse [4]. By using a social media experiment to engage in this debate, the Australian Museum is presented with many open questions about the changing role of the Museum and the adoption of new information and communication technologies to support this role. PD is an appropriate methodology to use in this instance, as One goal of participatory design is to understand organizational change in computer use the effects of introducing technology on organizational structure and process and the effects of organizational restructuring on the way work is carried out [5]. A three-phase participatory content creation method applicable to the Australian Museum project was adapted from more recent work using PD for website design within the library sector [3]. Phase (1) of the new method comprises a period of due diligence, which informs phase (2) iterative design cycles. These cycles repeat until phase (3), the achievement of desired system/artifact performance.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems evaluation/methodology.

General Terms
Design, Theory.

Keywords
Social media, participatory design, participatory content creation.

1. INTRODUCTION
This research examines the potential for cultural institutions to interact with online and physical knowledge-based communities of interest using social media such as blogs, vodcasts and content shares. It describes a current experiment being conducted at the Australian Museum to investigate the potential of social mediabased communication strategies. Established in 1827, the Australian Museum specializes in natural history and indigenous studies and is the oldest institution of its kind in the country [1]. This heritage has resulted in a collection of 14.5 million
OzCHI 2007, 28-30 November 2007, Adelaide, Australia. Copyright the author(s) and CHISIG. Additional copies are available at the ACM Digital Library (http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm) or can be ordered from CHISIG(secretary@chisig.org) OzCHI 2007 Proceedings, ISBN 978-1-59593-872-5

2.1 Phase 1: due diligence

This initial phase includes three steps: organizational observation; domain review; and initial project strategy. It commenced in 2005 161

with the formation of a small working party tasked with developing the project internally. This consisted of myself as designer/researcher; the Museums Head of Audience Research; and Head of Web Services. By taking a participative role in the working party, I was able to gain first-hand experience-based knowledge of culture and working practices in order to gather data for the organizational observation step.

The final step within the due diligence stage was the formulation of an initial project strategy by the working party. It was decided that the first cycle of prototyping would use Museum staff as participants in a series of workshops that would develop skills in creative storytelling (this participant selection is explained in section 2.2.1 below). The project was now christened Australian Museum Stories.

2.2 Phase 2(a): prototyping

The application of prototyping to user-centered design (as part of rapid application development) has resulted in a realization within parts of the design community that the outcomes of the prototyping process should include not only artifacts, but also shared understandings: Considerations for communication take the form of social processes that are designed to promote two-way or multi-way interpersonal interactions; these interactions include not only ideas about the design, but individuals' and groups' stakes and risks in the outcome. This model of prototyping is necessarily social [9]. Since organizational buy-in had already been defined as a critical success factor during due diligence, social prototyping was adopted as an approach for the Australian Museum Stories experiment.

2.2.1 Participant selection and workshop design

A rhetoric theory of communication characterizes the audience not as a reader but as a dynamic participant in argument... The specific audiences experiences within society and its understanding of social attitudes are an essential aspect of argument and necessary to the communication goal [10]. This rhetoric model is gaining some currency within the cultural sector. Gillard suggests that One of the major shifts in understanding occurring in new audience research is the definition of audience as a dynamic relationship rather than groupings of human subjects. This dynamic relationship is an important observation and Gillard uses it to revisit the concept of the cultural audience: audiences are understood as being forms of engagement created around contents... The contents encountered or actively sought contribute to understanding, enjoyment and creativity in the lives of individuals and groups [11]. The importance of participatory content creation activities to a dynamic relationship between cultural institution and audience is increasingly recognized: The increased value attached to cultural experience has led to more systematic and determined cultural participation. For many, leisure is not a passive consumer activity, but is active and participatory. One effect of this is to bring into question the previously clear distinction between professional and amateur. Museums, libraries and archives have worked to encourage the participation of these pro-ams, enabling them to engage with culture, science, natural history and many other subject areas on their own terms [12]. Some institutions are becoming aware that engaging physical and online audiences in content creation activities is not only a means to increase site visitation, but also to engage online consumers on the basis that cultural products or activities create audiences as people engage with them [11]. Through participatory content creation programs, institutions can build a dynamic relationship with cultural audiences and consumers. In order to build such a relationship, the Australian Museum experiment examined participatory content creation and social media programs with online audiences, rather than physical 162

Figure 1. participatory content creation method As part of the domain review step, the working party reviewed then-current best practice in participatory content creation projects by cultural institutions. The Museum was attracted by the digital storytelling genre, whereby community participants are trained to write and produce their own short digital narratives in the form of an autobiographical mini-movie. This technique has been used by other cultural institutions to collaborate with communities in order to produce digital collections of usercreated social histories [6]. The working party felt that this kind of do-it-yourself digital narrative production might provide a cost-effective means of engagement with communities of interest, which could make their own podcasts or vodcasts based on or inspired by the Museums collection. The potential for a multimedia approach to historical narratives reflects wider debate as to the effectiveness of current forms of narrative cultural communication: historians should search for alternatives to their narratives in innovative experiences done in other areas, particularly literature and cinema. Those experiences challenged the notion of narrator or chronological sequence and responded to many historical narrative shortcomings [7]. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the use of social media tools by the cultural sector can facilitate individualized meaning-making, leading to nuanced interpretation of cultural content enhanced and/or encouraged by networked conversations [8].

visitors (the latter are already the focus of the majority of the Museums public programs and exhibition events). It was not deemed viable for the Australian Museum to implement a participatory content creation program with communities of interest without first achieving a significant level of organizational buy-in, both from the bottom-up and top-down. Therefore the initial phase of the experiment was designed to skill Museum staff in social media production techniques. The working party decided upon a workshop format for the initial in-house training program. Organizational requirements dictated a maximum workshop duration of two days. I prepared a condensed and accelerated agenda in order to use the abbreviated schedule as a spur to creativity: What can be considered a hindrance, for example time pressure, can be considered by others to be a facilitator (the ironically positive effects of an impending deadline) [13]. The agenda was structured around three areas considered to be essential in equipping the participants with the minimum skills and knowledge required to prototype creative artifacts and processes: Creative teamwork, including ideas generation and dispute resolution. Creative development, including concept development, writing and storyboarding. Multimedia production, including digital photography, audio recording and video editing. Table 1. Teamwork: performance gain vs. loss factors (after [14]) Performance gain factors Social facilitation (enhanced performance through presence of others) Increased knowledge, ability and effort Diversity of views Performance loss factors Social interference and loafing

Eleven participants were assigned to four teams by the working party some weeks prior to the first workshop, held in June 2006. The lack of creative teamwork experience held by the participants coupled with the extremely tight schedule of the workshop informed the addition of a fourth team role, an executive producer. This team member would act as a chairperson, project manager and arbitrator, with creative input as required. The executive producer was tasked with encouraging performance gain factors and minimizing performance loss factors (see table 1). For the first workshop, the executive producers were multimedia practitioners drawn from outside the Museum.

2.2.3 Creative development

Like its full-length forebear, the microdocumentary genre encompasses creative non-fiction. The short duration of a microdocumentary piece (audio or video) can encourage an informal tone, which was precisely the kind of narrative or reportage genre that the Museum was looking for to supplement the formal authoritative tone of its traditional exhibition communication. The four Museum teams started the first day of the workshop with a tentative story idea, genre definition and required resources checklist (e.g. audio, video and/or text source materials). The teams were assigned an executive producer; I then facilitated an intensive series of creative development exercises which approximated a simple multimedia preproduction process. Following the creative development exercises, team members were left to work either together or separately to collect existing content, generate original content and write final scripts and storyboards by the end of the day.

2.2.4 Multimedia production

The second and final workshop day was devoted to editing and postproduction at the Powerhouse Museums Soundhouse Vectorlab facility [15]. The participants were given a short introduction to Sonys Vegas video editing suite before reassembling into their teams to record voiceovers and edit the final microdocumentary according to the storyboard prepared during creative development. The end artifact had to be finished by close of play, including time required to encode the microdocumentaries in full-screen and web-ready codecs. The workshop concluded with a presentation of the final results.

Failure to use available knowledge and abilities Conflict of views

2.2.2 Creative teamwork

The enhanced task performance achievable by a team over an individual can be attributed to various factors. These same factors can also be detrimental to performance if misapplied, as listed in table 1. However, the sheer complexity of creative communication using multiple media usually requires a collaboration effort. For example, in the feature film sector, the core collaborative team features the director, director of photography and editor. For the Museum experiment, team formation was based on a similar creative triad, constructed as follows: The writer originates the story idea and generates scripts and other narrative materials. The creative producer prepares media content to support the script, and is responsible for maintaining audience focus throughout the creative process. The editor generates a storyboard and creates the final media artifact using suitable applications. 163

2.2.5 Second workshop

Evaluation of the first workshop was sufficiently positive to run a second workshop in November 2006. Fourteen participants attended (two teams of three, two teams of four) drawn again from varied Museum departments. The workshop format remained unaltered except that the four executive producers were now sourced from Museum staff that had completed the first workshop.

2.3 Phase 2(b): evaluation

According to the participatory content creation method, the purpose of the evaluation step within the iterative design cycle is to analyze the results of prototyping in order to inform the formulation of strategy, prior to the next iterative cycle. A qualitative inductive research design was selected, rather than a quantitative hypothesis-testing framework. Hypothesis testing is

an appropriate research strategy when much is known about the phenomenon of interest [16] but in this experiment, the prototyping exercise conducted via workshop training had produced a participant-generated dataset upon which the imposition of a designer/research-generated hypothesis might be inappropriate. Although qualitative datasets can be difficult to codify, this was not felt to be an issue in this instance due to the small number of participants (25). Based on this research design strategy, four separate evaluations were conducted to gather data on the social prototyping process as well as the microdocumentary artifacts: Internal analysis of workshop output. In-workshop survey. Post-workshop survey. External focus groups.

some variance between this measurement and my own participant observation, which recorded that three participants (12% of total) displayed a lack of satisfaction during the workshop; although two of these then indicated high satisfaction levels in the selfadministered questionnaire. Reasons for this variance may include organizational pressure (i.e. not wishing to express dissatisfaction in a written document); or behavioral dysfunction caused by a pressurized team environment.

2.3.3 Post-workshop survey

Participants were invited to a discussion group approximately three months after the completion of the workshops. These sessions were loosely based on the idea of a Futures Workshop, organized to generate ideas for future activities and to initiate actions for implementing those ideas [17]. I presented an analysis of the in-workshop evaluation to participants in order to initiate discussion on the prototyping process. Participants then completed a second self-administered survey which invited further input on how the stories created during the workshop could be used by the Museum, as well as reflections on any perceived organizational barriers.

Using multiple evaluation tools permitted evaluation of both internal participants and external audiences, as well as allowing measurement of participants over a period of six months (rather than taking a single snapshot). These formal evaluation tools were supported throughout by the designer/researchers participant observation.

2.3.4 Focus groups

In order to bring an external audience perspective to the evaluation, a series of focus groups were conducted by the working party in order to gauge reaction to the microdocumentaries from potential target audiences. The segments defined were parents of under-5s; parents of under-16s; science teachers; and culturally active seniors. This segmentation reflected common bases used by the Museum [18]. The four focus groups held in February 2007 reacted positively to the microdocumentary format and were responsive to a more informal style of museum communication. Conversely, they expected a higher level of production quality than was achieved by the pilot microdocumentaries. Criticism of production quality is made regularly about various styles of user-generated video content, since many audiences have come to expect high standards through consumption of broadcast TV and film-on-DVD.

2.3.1 Output analysis

In total, the first cycle of iterative design produced nine artifacts from eight groups over two workshops. Table 2 below summarizes this output and indicates the diversity of the Museums current audiences. Table 2. Combined workshop outputs Subject Repatriation of Indigenous objects Deep-sea species collection Amateur fossil identification Creating a new Museum exhibition Rare bird species identification New Museum attractions for kids Museum exhibit stories Biosystematics research reporting Format Digital stills + voiceover Digital stills + voiceover Digital stills + voiceover Video 1) Digital stills + voiceover 2) Audio Digital stills + voiceover Digital stills + voiceover Digital stills + voiceover Kindergarten parents K>12 museum visitors Researchers Audience Indigenous K>12 Enthusiasts Museum visitors, potential sponsors Bushwalkers, enthusiasts

2.4 Phase 2(c): strategy

The first iterative design cycle concluded with a strategic meeting in March 2007 of Museum staff who might be involved in the evolution of the Australian Museum Stories project including workshop participants and senior management in order to generate input into a short- to medium-term strategy for project development. According to the participatory content creation method used in this research, this strategy meeting also informs the second cycle of iterative design (figure 1). With regard to its function in the PD methodology, this strategy meeting is reminiscent of an Implementation Workshop designed to initiate actions that bridge the gap between vision and reality [19]. The strategy meeting was chaired by the Museums Audience Research Unit and its agenda was informed by data generated during evaluation. I did not attend, in order to allow meeting participants to criticize the design and/or conduct of the creative workshops and evaluation protocols for which I was responsible. The key outcomes of the strategy meeting are listed below in sections 2.4.1 to 2.4.3.

2.3.2 In-workshop survey

This was conducted at both workshops using an identical selfadministered questionnaire. 24 out of 25 workshop participants completed the questionnaire, and indicated a high level of satisfaction with the social prototyping experience. There was 164

2.4.1 Production quality

From the 25 workshop participants, ten people were selected from across departments by the working party to form a core team within the Museum. This team would undertake to drive forward the Australian Museum Stories project. Selection was based upon interest and aptitude demonstrated during the workshop, as well as availability. The prototype microdocumentaries had been criticized for lack of production quality by both internal and external audiences. Since most participants had indicated via the in-workshop survey that they would like to undertake further training in creative multimedia production, additional skills training was planned for the core creative squad. One potential response to negative criticism of production quality would be to focus the project on creation of audio stories for download / podcast / broadcast, rather than image- and audio-based artifacts. However, participants felt that image and video media are more appropriate for creating stories based upon objects within the collection.

redevelopment, which will feature Web 2.0 functionality such as blogs and wikis as part of a wider strategy of increased interaction with communities of interest. Appropriate Stories will also be shown within the Museum on screens, integrated within its new physical exhibitions. Other organizational issues revealed by the first participatory design cycle include: Making time for social media projects in already tight work schedules; particularly time-consuming editing tasks. Additional demands placed upon AV and IT resources. Updating communication strategies and participant feedback systems.

3. SUMMARY
The application of Participatory Design methodology to this experiment was meant to ensure that a core creative team of Museum staff should take part in the decisions that affect the system and the way it is designed and used [19]. So far, the use of a participatory content creation method to support the overall PD methodology within the context of social media production has gone somewhat further than incorporating users within the decision-making process. By emphasizing social prototyping within an iterative design cycle, Australian Museum teams have designed new tools, techniques and genres to produce original and distinctive microdocumentaries with which to enhance existing communication strategies. Furthermore, the extensive evaluation has helped to establish a sustainable foundation for the project: Producing an artifact should not be regarded as a one-shot affair, but rather as formulating a growing experience for engaging in the development of creating generations of artifacts [20]. Much of the projects success to date in generating both concrete results in the Museum as well as applied research outcomes can be attributed to PDs insistence on a dialogue between the designer/researcher and participants: To design effective systems, we need to understand users experience of work and systems. This information is invisible; we cannot access it by standing on the outside of a process, watching peoples behavior and writing down what happens. We need to talk with users to understand their experience. To have an effective dialogue, we form partnerships with our users [21]. This dialogue was firmly established by the use of intensive creative workshops as the basis of the prototyping stage of the PD method used for this project. It is possible to criticize this experiment for the amount of interventions by the working party during the due diligence and strategic formulation phases of the project, which could be seen as being excessively top-down for a Participatory Design methodology. It is anticipated that as the experiment continues into its second cycle of iterative design, less intervention will be required in order to evolve the creative tools and techniques prototyped during the workshops into a stable system delivering desired performance. This evolution will be the subject of ongoing research and publication.

2.4.2 Genre and format

The working partys initial strategy was to consider social media as a form of creative engagement between the Museum and its communities of interest, using the Museums extensive collections as a source of original digital content. However, it had become clear throughout the experiment that this was just one of a number of routes that participants wished to explore using the microdocumentary format. Other genres included linear microdocumentary, and online interactives destined for the Museums forthcoming Web 2.0 website upgrade.

2.4.3 Second iterative design cycle

The March strategic meeting informed the formulation of the second iterative cycle of participatory content creation, as described in figure 1 (above). Referring back to the initial project strategy defined in stage 1(c), it was clear that both the philosophy and practice of cultural engagement via social media was supported by the workshop participants. Sufficient creative skills, enthusiasm and impetus had been generated by the workshop process to establish a core in-house team to continue and sustain creative social media production within the institution. During the second iterative content creation cycle, members from this team would conduct pilot projects with external communities already associated with the Museum. In effect, the workshop participants were now taking their new skills and knowledge into the field. A number of innovative external collaborations have already taken place. Curatorial staff worked with an external biodiversity organization to produce two scientific microdocumentary vodcasts on species identification. These will be uploaded to the Museums website, as well as YouTube. The Museums Audience Research Unit has also used the microdocumentary format as a new and powerful way of summarizing the results of its studies, for dissemination to a wider audience. The next major collaborative project will bring students from a number of secondary schools in the New South Wales region into the Museum, in order to produce a number of microdocumentary vodcasts and podcasts in collaboration with the Museum. Any successful creative social media system must address not only the co-creative process itself, but also the distribution of cocreated content. In terms of online distribution, the Australian Museum Stories will be a feature of the Museums current website 165

4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the Australian Museum for its support of the Australian Museum Stories experiment; in particular Lynda Kelly, Head of Audience Research; and Brooke Carson-Ewart, Web Manager. This research is part of the project New Literacy, New Audiences

at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation [22].

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