The rocket in your pocket: How mobile phones became The Media by stealth
David Cameron

Refereed paper presented to the 2nd annual JEA/JEANZ conference
Auckland, New Zealand, 2006

Abstract
Where is your mobile telephone? Is it turned on? For most of us the mobile telephone has quietly become the technology that is always with us, and is always on. The mobile telephone is suddenly no longer simply about voice or text communication; the latest models are a portable digital media production and delivery system in their own right. This paper describes the diffusion of mobile phones around the world, and focuses on their use by younger people as a media and social management tool. The paper also describes some of the new media content forms developing around mobile phones, and considers the features of mobile media in terms of their capacity to deliver, produce and share content.

Keywords: mobile, cell, phone, journalism, digital, media, grassroots, participatory, education

Real Players? drama, technology and education
John Carroll, Michael Anderson, David Cameron
2006
Trentham Books
ISBN: 1858563658

Educational drama is being transformed by the technology of our screen-mediated world. The everyday use of computers, mobile phones, videogames and television is changing young people’s perceptions of what drama is and how it works.

Real Players? brings together the performance world of educational drama and the real world digital environment inhabited by many young people. It illustrates the dramatic conventions drama teachers can bring to using interactive and online performance in their classrooms. Role-based performance spaces are developed to critique these technologies and develop electronic literacy through dramatic action.

Teachers and others working in drama will find this exploration of a new dimension of drama compelling and professionally enriching. It will also be of interest to teachers of ICT.

Look for it at Trentham Books or Amazon.com

Keywords: process drama, digital performance, serious games, videogames

Homepage

Homepage is the weekly radio program I started in 1999 to track developments in new media and digital networked technology, and which can still be heard on community radio around Australia. It now has a blog at homepageradio.blogspot.com

The Net Generation goes to university?
David Cameron

Refereed paper presented to the Journalism Education Association Conference, Griffith University, 29 November - 2 December 2005

Abstract
This paper describes an attempt to take a snapshot of the latest generation of students entering tertiary education.

The higher education sector is one of the largest consumers of information technology in Australia. Universities invest massive amounts of money in technology based on what they believe students need, want, and already have. Coupled with a perception that emerging technology is the domain of the next generation, it becomes attractive to assume (or hope) that each intake of undergraduate students is more self-sufficient than its predecessors when it comes to digital media.

In 2005, Charles Sturt University surveyed its 1st year cohort of undergraduate Communication students in their first week on campus. The primary aim was to test perceptions that the new generation of students can be categorised as Digital Natives, Marc Prensky's term (2002) to describe what has variously been called the Games Generation, the Net Generation or the Millennial Generation.

Keywords: journalism, education, digital natives, generation, millenial, survey, youth, Prensky

Newspaper Theatre: Applying performance-based learning to journalism education
Jerry Boland and David Cameron

Refereed paper presented to the Journalism Education Association Conference, Griffith University, 29 November - 2 December 2005

Abstract
Bob Carr - The Musical? George W Bush visits the Big Brother diary room?

These are some of the scenarios devised by first-year communication students at Charles Sturt University as part of a "Newspaper Theatre" exercise. This paper describes the application of Augusto Boal's theatre techniques, and Paulo Freire's cultural action perspectives, to critically engage communication students with media coverage of contemporary issues.

Newspaper Theatre requires students to research news and advertising copy. They analyse the voice of the writer, the sources of information, the messages and the content. Working collaboratively in small groups, they then reframe the information using conventions from popular culture to reveal counterpoints, countervoices and alternative information.

This paper outlines the principles and techniques of the Newspaper Theatre exercise in a way that educators from a non-drama background can apply to their classrooms.

Keywords: journalism, education, theatre, performance, Boal, Freire, cultural action, theatre, newspaper theatre

Playing the game: Role distance and digital performance
John Carroll & David Cameron

Applied Theatre Researcher. Number 6. Article 11. 2005

Abstract
This paper explores the connection between the conventions of the live role-based performance of process drama and the mediated performance of online role-playing video games. Both activities allow participants to ‘become somebody else'. Both deal with the identity shifts possible within imagined environments. This mutability of identity provides a metaphor for considering the episodic nature of in-role performance and out-of-role reflection in both drama and video games. Using the massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORP) game EverQuest as a case study, this paper examines digital performance and its relationship to the dramatic conventions of role distance and role protection. It also examines the common learning outcomes that could usefully be explored between process drama and video games.

Keywords: drama, process, role-play, mmog, mmorp, everquest, role, distance, protection, video, computer, game

Machinima: Digital performance and emergent authorship
John Carroll and David Cameron

Workshop presented at DiGRA conference
Vancouver, Canada, June 16th - 20th 2005

Abstract
This workshop investigates the emergent online dramatic form of "machinima", the co-option of video game engines or off-the-shelf software for dramatic production in a rapidly developing digital performance form.
Workshop participants will engage with short examples of popular machinima productions. There will be discussion and demonstration of the machinima production process. The nexus between dramatic conventions, gameplay and traditional video production techniques will be explored. Participants will work with a short piece of a machinima, in the form of a scene created using the Sims 2 game. Participants will improvise, script and perform dialogue to provide meaning for the action.
This workshop applies the insights of process drama, a field well developed in educational settings, to the development of machinima. It includes demonstration and participation in dramatic role, focusing on how the conventions of Role Distance and Role Protection apply to this developing field of digital game-based performance.

Keywords: machinima, process drama, digital performance

Sky News Active: Notes from a digital TV newsroom
David Cameron

Paper presented at Journalism Education Association conference
Suva, Fiji, December 5th - 9th 2004

Abstract
Pay-TV news channel Sky News Australia is a joint venture of the Seven Network Australia, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (owner of the Nine television network), and the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) network. It is available in more than 1.8 million homes across Australia and New Zealand.
Sky News Australia launched its digital interactive service on 5 January 2004. Sky News Active is one of the more than 120 channels and interactive services being offered as part of the rollout of digital subscriber services in Australia.
This paper describes the desktop technology now employed in the Sky newsroom to provide eight mini-channels of digital TV news content to subscribers. It outlines the developing workflow that has emerged as Sky News pioneers this form of television news content production in Australia. Many of the staff employed specifically to work on the digital service are recent graduates from journalism courses. Based on observation of the newsroom production narrative and interviews with key staff, this paper examines the entry-level skills required to produce the digital content.

Keywords: interactive TV, Sky News Australia, digital TV, journalism

Small Screen, big picture: Students explore TV journalism with streaming media
David Cameron

Proceedings of the Apple University Consortium conference
Adelaide, Australia, 2003

Abstract
This paper describes the use of Apple’s QuickTime technology to webcast student-produced TV news and current affairs shows. Journalism educators prize opportunities to expose their students to the vocational demands of the media industry. The 2002 CSU News project gave journalism and online media production students at Charles Sturt University an opportunity to explore and hone production techniques, while experiencing some of the pressures of live presentation. The use of streaming media allowed the students to complete a learning journey through the television production process, from story conception to live broadcast of the finished product.

Keywords: QuickTime, streaming, media, journalism, education, Internet, Web, webcast, news

Playing serious games in journalism classes
David Cameron

Asia Pacific Media Educator , 11, July - Dec 2001, pp 141 - 149

Abstract
This article outlines early research into the application videogame principles and technques to the development of media-rich journalism training scenarios. The author describes development of a Web-based training scenario, including artifical intelligence software known as a "chatterbot".

Keywords: journalism, media, education, serious games, games, video games, videogames, Web, chatterbot