Youth and New Media – Content is king

Technology can play a vital role in increasing access to the arts. However, the message is as important as the medium. Here Harriet Williams profiles the work of the government-sponsored Culture Online and looks at some specific projects that have sought to involve young people with the arts.

Culture Online was established in 2002 by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to help increase access to the arts through the innovative use of technology. Partners have included the BBC, Channel 4, five, the V&A, and the National Theatre, to name but a few, and commissioned projects have involved CDs, DVDs, websites, art installations and mobile technology.

In the light of this, it will probably come as a surprise to most people to hear that we don?t think technology is the be all and end all. In fact, we think technology without relevance is a wasted opportunity. By putting specific audience groups at the heart of everything we do, we?re working with partners to create compelling interactive resources and often this means allowing the technology to sink right into the background. Designing an engaging user experience provides us with a demanding focus. We work with partner organisations to create experiences that will delight specific audience groups, so they can engage in different ways with organisations and be encouraged to participate in creating a rich cultural environment. All this sounds good, but what does it mean?

It might help to look at some of our projects aimed at school children. Approximately half of our projects are designed for this age group, one that?s bombarded with online and new media messages virtually every second of the day. To cut through this mass of competition for the attention of school children, we have to work with partners to come up with something new. Although every project is different, there are a few running themes that many of our projects share. All are designed as experiences; all in some way support the notion of creating virtuous circles of content; and all have been informed (throughout the development process) by a thorough and ongoing user-testing schedule.

Control

Stagework, ?Every Object Tells A Story? and Artisancam are all examples of projects that are success stories in terms of getting young people to engage with the arts online. Their strength of appeal lies in something common to them all: the balance of strong editorial content, fun and, in most cases, the provision of a range of online authoring tools. User-generated content is an ideal way of putting the user in the driving seat, and, in this case, enabling children to develop their talents as they create a much more exciting online proposition.

Aimed at 11 to 18 year-olds, Stagework was created by the National Theatre and Illumina Digital. The BAFTA award-winning website provides a backstage pass to key productions at the National Theatre, London, Bristol Old Vic and Birmingham Rep. It offers a rich and colourful resource, giving access to previously hidden, behind-the-scenes content and the use of interactive video footage. Users can create their own versions of scenes, from plays such as Phillip Pullman?s ?His Dark Materials?, allowing the user not only to watch but also to interact with a production. Strong editorial content is available in the form of photos, designs and diaries, as well as interviews with leading actors, and members of the creative and technical teams. This free online resource is attracting young people to engage with a medium they might have previously found inaccessible due to location, finances and perceived exclusivity. The Stagework project takes a fresh approach to demystifying theatre.

User-friendly

?Every Object Tells A Story? is a project focused on the art of storytelling, led by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in partnership with Channel 4, Ultralab and three regional museums. The site uses the personal meanings and histories behind objects to get people to look at them in new ways, inspiring them to create their own stories and share their interpretations and objects of personal significance with a growing online community.

Each partner brings particular expertise: the collection of the V&A, Ultralab?s experience of creating interactive media, and Channel 4?s ability to reach a wide and diverse audience. Users can choose to browse the hundreds of objects featured, or search for a particular theme or person. They are encouraged to add their own interpretation or object to the collection, by uploading text, images, video or audio onto the site or by sending text and images from a mobile phone. The choice of technology and level of involvement is left in the hands of the user.

By providing a selection of feedback and authoring mechanisms, the site is allowing the user to define their own experience and set their own level of engagement. Realising the importance of weaving new technology into the mix, ?Every Object Tells A Story? inspired the launch of the first podcast service by a museum. This groundbreaking initiative by the V&A is the first of its kind in the UK and means that you don?t even have to visit the museum to access curators, researchers and conservators telling stories about art in the Paintings Gallery at the V&A. Naturally, we hope that this virtual interaction will lead to a genuine opportunity to see the collection in real life. Audiences can listen to six different illustrated stories from anywhere they choose. There are plans to extend the tours in other galleries and it is highly likely that this will become a common way to access our cultural assets.

Interactive

Encouraging young people to explore the arts and get creative is the aim of Artisancam. Using webcams, virtual workshops and video clips, the site enables children to watch an artist at work so they can learn new skills. Again, the key to the site?s success is the balance of editorial content with online authoring tools. Evaluation of children using the site shows that the majority go straight to the ?Have a Go? area. Fully interactive, young people can get involved in the creative process by doing what you never thought possible online: decorating and firing a plate; virtual screen printing; and drawing on a large scale. Participants are able to ask the artists about their influences and techniques in real time through the use of video-conferencing.

In all of the cases mentioned here, the key ingredient is giving young people the opportunity to create something for themselves. The innovative use of technology enables this to happen, but we should never forget that content, particularly user-generated content, is what we should all be aiming for.

Harriet Williams is Communications and Events Producer at Culture Online. t: 020 7487 7214.
w: http://www.cultureonline.gov.uk;
w: http://www.stagework.org.uk;
w: http://www.everyobject.net;
w: http://www.artisancam.org.uk