The ABC - and SBS - of social innovation

In the case of the ABC, its national network of local news and media production bureaus provides considerable scope to develop hyper-local media content that directly communicates with its communities, particularly in non-metropolitan Australia. While the ABC has user-created content initiatives such as Radio National’s “Pool” project and ABC Online’s “Unleashed” section, these continue to be add-ons to a service which still emphasises a transmission model of communication; where it is the in-house media professional who decide what their audiences should receive.

There continues to be a central role for journalists and media professionals at the ABC, but it should increasingly be one of working with audiences to better enable them to become content creators in an ongoing way, rather than periodically providing outlets where users are permitted to contribute. What New York University Professor Jay Rosen terms the “people formerly known as the audience” are increasingly finding their own means of producing and distributing content. The ABC can help to shape this activity in ways that generate greater quality, reach wider audiences, and enable more significant conversations among Australians about matters of shared local, national, and international importance.

For the SBS, user-created content has the potential to promote a new relationship to Australia’s diverse ethnic, language, and cultural communities. In news and current affairs in particular, SBS has been a leader in the provision of international news and information. However, this has largely been done off the backs of the big global news agencies. Material sourced and distributed through the Internet among different communities could provide new windows on world events, with SBS acting as a “meta-news-aggregator”, developing an informal network of specialist “reporters” around particular topic areas and international events.

The ABC and SBS have long demonstrated their capacity to be social innovators in the provision of news, information and entertainment content to Australians. As public service media organisations, they are uniquely placed to enable new user-created content opportunities in the online media space while also managing such content sourcing strategies with their policy, legal, and Charter obligations. In enabling more user-created content they would play a pivotal role in international debates about the future of media and journalism in an environment where media consumers are participants and content co-creators. Not only this but they would also enhance the awareness of Australians of what is possible in the new media environment by drawing upon, and renewing, their sources of credibility and reputation in the community.