My digital artefact will feature content posted to TikTok, with supporting content on Spotify. I will be making TikToks that feature Australian indie bands and artists and my music recommendations. I’ve found lots of new indie music on Tiktok recently but it is predominantly American and British. This means there is already a demand for music content on the app, and an opportunity to introduce more Australian artists. I will then accompany my TikToks with Spotify playlists including the featured artists and additional music.
I chose these two platforms as I believe they are two of the most accessible platforms right now to discover new music, and have both been ways I’ve recently found lots of new music. I also think creating content through these platforms will help me immerse myself even deeper into the community and inspire me to find unconventional ways of discovering new music to feature in my content.
Questions:
There are a few particular questions I’m looking to answer through my auto-ethnographic study. These include:
Where and how do listeners of Australian indie music discover new music within the genre?
What are the most unique ways people have discovered some of their favourite bands and artists?
What kind of stories come with discovering different artists? Are there similarities between fans of the same artists?
Does the way you discover an artist impact on the engagement you have with them? (eg. are you more likely to become a big fan of a band by listening to them on Spotify or in a live setting first?)
In the second week (currently), there has been less growth as we have not posted. This has been a lesson in regular posting and its link to growth which has been particularly highlighted in recent readings and lectures in BCM114.
The account on 28th August
Interaction with the page was really great and we received positive feedback that stated our followers resonated with our posts, which was really encouraging. However, we are yet to receive any constructive feedback on ways to grow our DA.
We also noticed, through using the ‘Insights’ tool on Instagram, that our followers reflected the initial demographic we believed would engage the most with our content (13-30 year old women).
The Insights tool has been very useful as we are able to see how well posts are going in terms of how many people visited our page through that particular post, how many people saw it, how many times it was direct messaged to someone and how many people have saved it for future viewing.
Our two ‘best performing’ posts
We posted the first blog post to our WordPress account. We asked a question through Instagram Stories and tailored the post to answer topics that came up. It isn’t expected to gain much response as it is just in the beginning stages. We will continue to build on this and discover if it is worthwhile to continue.
We are in the process of creating the Spotify playlists as accompanying content to our Instagram content, and these will be published within the next week.
“You ideate by combining your conscious and unconscious mind, and rational thoughts with imagination”.
Hasso Plattner, An Introduction to Process Thinking
With the words of Hasso Plattner, Ted and our tutors on our minds, we have continued to ideate through the process of creating our digital artefact and have come up with further ideas to test in the future.
Please feel free to comment any feedback below and follow us! x
I’m a massive consumer of global television thanks to streaming platforms, Stan and Netflix. Some of my favourites include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The 100, Mindhunter, Downton Abbey, Jane The Virgin, The Office (USA), Community, and Parks and Rec, just to name a few.
As I’ve grown up, sitting down and actually watching television has become less and less common for me. You’ll only find me in front of the TV if there’s an NBA or NBL game or if Google Box or Survivor happen to be on.
However, there is one very special annual occasion that will always have me hooked to the TV for a solid few days….
Eurovision Week has been held in May annually since 1956. It is, in my opinion, up there with any special occasions like Christmas, Easter, New Year’s and my birthday. My whole family looks forward to the nights we spend watching Eurovision, the days avoiding spoilers due to timezones, and the weeks after of rewatching all our favourites and guilty pleasures. According to my dad, my parents started watching it in 1995, and my family have followed it ever since.
The Eurovision Song Contest was introduced by the European Broadcasting Union in the mid 1950’s as a way for a war-torn Europe to come together in the aftermath of war. In the first “Eurovision Grand Prix” held in 1956, only 7 countries performed: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland. Since this humble beginning, Eurovision has grown majorly.
Switzerland won the first Eurovision Grand Prix with the song Refrain by Lys Assia.
As of 2019, 50 countries are eligible to perform in the song contest. This number is not limited to just European countries, making the competition global. Western Asian countries Israel, Cyprus and Armenia have been annual contestants since 1973, 1981 and 2006 respectively. Morocco also competed in 1980. The transcontinental countries of Turkey, Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan also all annually compete.
One of the most surprising and recent inductees to the Eurovision Song Contest was Australia in 2015.
Eurovision’s Australian Success
Eurovision has been shown by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) in Australia since 1986, by broadcasting the BBC’s coverage which was accompanied by Terry Wogan’s ironic commentary (Highfield, Harrington and Bruns, 2013). Wogan retired in 2009 and since then, SBS have sent their own commentators to create their own broadcast of the show.
“Ironic engagement with Eurovision forms an important, if not as central, part of the commentary for SBS’s broadcasts – not just on air but also among the audience sharing their Eurovision-related thoughts on Twitter”.
Highfield, Harrington and Bruns – TWITTER AS A TECHNOLOGY FOR AUDIENCING AND FANDOM (2013)
In the Week 2 BCM111 lecture, we were asked to think about what we think is the reason for the global success (or failure) of our chosen topic. I believe that Eurovision’s cult following and success in Australia can be put down to the comedic approach of SBS’s commentary, as well as the social media commentary of those watching at home.
Whilst European viewers may view the competition with a more serious, competitive eye, Australian’s love the “kitsch spectacle” of the show and many watch with a “detached, ironic posture” (Skey, Kyriakidou, McCurdy, Uldam, 2016). This is highlighted through the #SBSEurovision hashtag used across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Here’s a collection of some of the tweets from this year’s Eurovision:
Further Global Influence
Eurovision has inspired people around the world to establish their own adaptions of the contest. The Caribbean Song Contest began in 1984 and the Asia Song Festival first aired in 2004. The Eurovision Asia Song Contest is set to be held on the Gold Coast later this year and will be produced by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and SBS. There has been some controversy around the contest however, as it was originally meant to occur in 2017.
A performance from the 2018 Asia Song Festival
Political Undertones
Eurovision wouldn’t be Eurovision without its slight undertones of European politics. You can count on the juries of Greece and Cyprus to give each other 12 points, Germany to receive very little votes (except in the case of Lena and ‘Satellite‘ in 2010), and for Russia and Israel to receive some boos from the crowd.
Political protests are usually stopped by Eurovision officials prior to Eurovision week, however the use of live television broadcasts can impact on this control. This year, Eurovision was hosted by Israel in Tel Aviv. During the counting of votes, the cameras panned to the Icelandic group, Hatari, who were waving Palestinian flags that read “Free Palestine”.
Thanks to the concept of global media and television, Eurovision is a way for countries around the world to come together through their love of music, good and bad, outrageous staging, stunts and costumes and a little friendly competition. I’m already counting down the days until next year!
For those of you who are new to Eurovision, here is a playlist of some of my favourites, and favourites to laugh at. Check out the Eurovision Youtube channel for some great content too. If you’re a fellow Eurovision fan, tweet me some of your favourite Eurovision moments!!
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