精东传媒

As a child, Dr Brian Yecies sat in his sandbox in the United States and wondered if he could dig his way to China. He finally made it there several years later - albeit in a more conventional manner - as a backpacker. As he immersed himself in this different and at times challenging cultural divide, he developed a thirst for discovering what was 鈥榖ehind the red bamboo curtain鈥�: the metaphorical and literal red curtain found in almost all cities in China. This fascination commonly led to a cinema screening room. A fascination with Asian transnational film and associated media followed him home.

Flash forward to today. Yecies is now working at the 精东传媒 of 精东传媒 as a senior lecturer in the , working on several research projects and publishing several papers. The source of much of his data and technical assistance comes from a Chinese national, working within the , whom Yecies met in 2013 at a  grant research workshop. 

Dr Jie (Jack) Yang has long-standing experience in the areas of big data analysis, machine learning, and their applications in the social media and digital culture domains. His role at UOW involves coordinating the harvesting and coding of data with the digital research tools that underpin SMART鈥檚 cutting-edge research projects and publications.

Despite occupying offices at opposite ends of the campus, the pair from vastly different worlds decided there was some level of commonality between them. Dr Yang explains that after a chat over coffee, a new research partnership was established.

鈥淏rian and I are a good combination because we complement each other鈥檚 strengths. Brian鈥檚 experiences come from humanities, culture and media. Mine are more from the technical side, with computer science. So from different domains, you get different ideas. It鈥檚 a good combination.鈥�

The pair has recently won a 2018-2020 grant from the Australian Research Council for a research project titled 鈥楳obile Webtoons: Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy鈥�.

The project鈥檚 intent is to investigate how mobile webtoons are transforming media ecosystems in Australia, South Korea and the United States. It aims to generate new knowledge about cross-media storytelling, aesthetics and technologies by applying big data methods to analyse the production and reception of innovative mobile content. With this new knowledge, Yecies and Yang plan to analyse the impact this will have on the traditional media landscape.

鈥淭he project responds to a call from the Australian government in terms of making the nation and its people more innovative, more creative, and not just internally, but to take those creative ideas and innovations and connect them to global trends,鈥� Yecies says.

They hope their findings encourage Australian enterprises and creative practitioners to join the digital economy and capitalise on future opportunities in the new global media environment - a new mobile media space that some traditional artists are anxious about - with concerns over intellectual property, ownership and cultural differences among audiences.

鈥淲e are now part of a 鈥榮hared economy鈥�. Contributing to the digital economy absolutely involves an aspect of sharing that鈥檚 unprecedented,鈥� says Yecies, who believes a change of thinking and culture is required to take full advantage of new opportunities and to keep up with our global creative competitors.

Economic and geopolitical powerhouses in Asia have invested heavily in mobile communication technologies. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets being used by the vast majority of their population, the design process has experience a required shift, which hasn鈥檛 permeated completely out to the West.

鈥淔irms in Asia are starting with mobile applications first. They鈥檙e leapfrogging over older information communication technology and infrastructure. They build up their presence and if successful, then they go online to reach others in the world. Whereas in Australia, and many parts of the world, it鈥檚 the opposite. In short, this means that Australian firms and practitioners still have some catching up to do.鈥�

The South Korean termed 'Webtoons' (also known as webcomics, digital comics, online comics, and Internet comics) are a prime example of this creative shift.

鈥淲hile they borrow some existing conventions, webtoons contain narrative techniques, aesthetics, and technological elements, as well as a monetisation environment that differentiate their production, distribution and consumption conditions from their print predecessors and digital competitors.鈥�

Similar to Youtube and other video and image sharing sites, webtoons can be uploaded by anyone on open platforms for free. Profits are generated from user clicks and some advertising, as well as both online and offline sales of merchandise.

鈥淭he hope is to attract positive reviews and an enlarging readership that can be monetised by the platforms via a micropayment system, involving pay-per-view, as well as the sale of remake rights and merch. In turn, platforms offer contracts to popular artists in order to secure their loyalty and process their royalties. Second, webtoons are open to immediate feedback from registered readers. Due to a quick production turnaround of episodes and series, artists and agencies can transform original stories and aesthetics to suit local and global tastes,鈥� says Yecies.

Much of the data Yang will be collecting and analysing will be coming from this user-generated content (UGC), which will help to identify user preferences, cultural differences and opinion leaders (aka digital media influencers). The finding could enhance the producer鈥檚 knowledge and help understand what people prefer, as well as what happens when producers apply changes after user feedback, which has potential to change the entire creative process.

鈥淲e hypothesise that one of the effective approaches to analysing the dataset generated by webtoon platforms, practitioners and readers lies in the scholarly concepts of 鈥榲alue co-creation鈥� and 鈥榩latformization鈥�, which emphasise the importance of adding value to digital content and mobile environments through the collaborative participation of producers and consumers, which in turn expands new mobile platforms such as webtoons.鈥�

Yet, the research does more than look at the industry from a big data perspective. It also examines textural, genre-based perspectives with a focus on the institutional and economic models stemming from developments - such as outreach programs - animation schools, mentoring programs and universities implementing animation majors to the cultural shift in communities.

While the project is still in its infancy, and there are miles of data to collect and insights to collate, the pair believe multidisciplinary and cross cultural research is critical to staying ahead of the game. 鈥淚t allows us to look at the same problem, but from different perspectives. As researcher, you explore and expand your own research and personality skills as you experience working amongst different types of people and methodologies,鈥� says Yang.

Yecies believes that programs such as UOW鈥檚 Global Challenges can really open one鈥檚 eyes to what is possible, thereby igniting the flame of collaboration. But, even more can be done to bring researchers from the humanities, arts and sciences together.

鈥淎s researchers we must be willing to take risks and share our passions with others. As supervisors, we have to allow students the space to experiment, discover, succeed and fail. And organisations governments and funding bodies need to provide platforms and opportunities to bring these like-minded people and projects together with a little more ease.鈥�

Their project is due to be completed at the end of 2020.

For more from Dr Brian Yecies you can visit his , which links to his papers and publications.

For more from Dr Jack Yang you can visit his , which links to his papers and publications.