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RIPE@2012 Conference Paper Workgroup 2: PSM Structure, Production and Policy

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Evolution or revolution? Public service broadcasters’ strategic and operational responses to technological development Kirsten McGregor and Fiona Martin Department of Media and Communications University of Sydney, Australia [email protected] [email protected] Draft: not for circulation or quotation.

This paper reports on the methodological development of a larger research project

that aims to analyse the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) strategic and

operational responses to the national roll-out of broadband internet services. That

study has two broad objectives. First it will map the corporation’s processes of

engaging with technological change and innovation, to understand what drives its

development priorities and investment in new services. In doing so, it will reflect on

the ABC’s imagined roles and functions in a globalising networked society – that is,

where individuals are enabled and expected to participate in work, civil society and

government using the internet and digital communications technologies (Castells and

Cardoso, 2006) and are increasingly organising their social relationships via these

networks (Van Dijk, 2012)

Like other public service broadcasters globally, in recent decades the ABC has been

under political pressure to demonstrate its continuing public relevance and value in

the face of competition from new digital services, including domestic multichannel

free to air and subscription channels, international satellite and internet protocol

services. In response, since 1995 the ABC has developed a web service, six digital

radio channels, three digital television channels, a video on demand or ‘catch up’

service and mobile apps. However this rapid expansion has thrown up important

political and economic questions about the extent of its remit, which inform the need

for this research into its operational and strategic response to technological change.


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The first concerns the legislative boundaries of the ABC’s operations. Elsewhere the

expansion of national media beyond traditional broadcasting has required significant

rethinking of regulatory definitions and justifications (Moe, 2011), including the

drafting of new charters to include online and more inclusive notions of public service

media (Betzel and Ward, 2004) and the introduction of constraining public values

tests (Donders and Moe, 2011). In Australia the federal government’s Convergence

Review of media policy recommended the ABC’s charter, and that of the Special

Broadcasting Service, be updated “to expressly reflect the range of existing

services, including online activities, currently provided” (DBCDE, 2012). However

any broadening of the ABC’s remit will lead to claims about its potential to crowd out

commercial services, and questions about how it will rationalise strategic

development.

This points to the second area of concern – the ABC’s justification for funding

specific technological changes or innovations. Former ABC managing director, Brian

Johns firmly believed that ABC should have a presence on every platform available

(Martin, 2000) but the corporation’s resources are limited by its overwhelming

dependence on government grant. There has already been significant internal and

external debate about the cost of ABC 24, the digital television news service, and its

implications for quality of other news and current affairs programming (Kalina, 2010,

Simons, 2011). Now as Australia’s federal government rolls out its high speed

internet project, the National Broadband Network (NBN), the ABC must determine

how it will prioritise content and service development for this new environment and

how to meet its growing online distribution costs.

While we know something of the political and economic pressures that will affect the

ABC’s planning for the NBN, less is clear about the social and cultural dynamics

involved in its response – the policy and operations actors, their objectives and

intentions, and the network of communicative relations that will influence their

decision-making processes. This study initially aims to find out who is preparing the

ABC for broadband content production, services and technologies and who or what

is influencing their strategic investment and development decisions. A social network


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analysis, based on Actor Network Theory (ANT), will be used to map the relevant

actors and to understand their impact on strategy and operations. Interviews with key

human actors in those workplace networks will then be used to construct the network

maps, and to illustrate how responses towards technology adoption are formed and

considered. Three workplace networks within the ABC will be examined: the

Innovation division, which undertakes the research and development of new

services; the Television division, which is looking to renovate the traditional

broadcasting model; and the Operations group, which provides the infrastructure and

technical resources that, underpin content production and delivery.

The is a work in progress paper that will outline the methodology of this research by

first examining the context for broadband innovation in PSB, and the ABC. It will

outline the nature of the NBN infrastructure project and contextualise the scope of

possible technological change it represents for the ABC. We will then turn to the

uses of ANT and social network analysis in researching technological change

processes, and discuss how they are being applied in this project to examine the

ABC’s internal decision-making processes. Finally the project will raise a series of

questions about the ABC’s preparations for the NBN that will be addressed as the

research moves forward. The aim is for the research to develop a methodology that

might inform comparative inquiries into public service broadcasters’ digital media

strategies.

Justifying the drive to change and innovate

Public service broadcasting (PSB) worldwide is facing difficult decisions as it

transitions to multiplatform modes of production and consumption, following its

audiences as they gravitate to new technologies of distribution and niche

communities of interest online. While Western governments, with few exceptions,

have sanctioned broadcasters’ moves to online and digital media platforms, this shift

has taken place during a neo-liberal period of communications de-regulation and

globalisation, where media policy has emphasised market competition over public

good concerns. The first question asked by the European Council, in its 2009


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discussion paper about new governance models for public service media, was how

the need to extend broadcasters’ remits could be “harmonised with the public/private

dual structure of the European electronic media landscape and the market and

competition questions?” (Council of Europe, 2009)

Widespread claims of PSM “crowding out” new commercial players and dampening

innovation in digital media markets - including James Murdoch’s scathing attack

(Murdoch, 2009) during his period as News Corporation Chairman - have made

governments more inclined to introduce constraints on PSM development, from the

funding cuts facing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the public value tests

introduced in UK and European jurisdictions. In Australia, although the ABC’s

government allocation was increased in 2010 after a decade of cuts and targeted

funding controls, the corporation’s diversification of services has occurred during a

period when real funding has not risen to match digital expansion. This is a particular

problem for the ABC online, where increased public use of its streaming radio and

iView video on demand service have seen its bandwidth costs increase dramatically.

Many scholars have documented the dilemmas PSBs have faced in responding to

digitalisation and audience fragmentation, and their need to reposition their roles and

rethink their offerings to their pluralising publics (Barnett and Docherty, 1986, Raboy,

1997, Achille and Miège, 1994, Enli, 2008). However in the multichannel societies of

the liberal West, two new questions emerge for broadcasters seeking to enter new

media markets: how far should they go in responding to constant media and

communications technology change? And what should determine their change

agenda – market innovation or perceived audience demand, policy or operational

needs?

As a contribution to answering these questions initially in a specific national context,

this study will analyse the mechanisms for change within the ABC and how its

responses to technological changes relate to its imagined purpose in a transforming

media landscape.


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The ABC and structural change

The ABC is the larger of two public service broadcasters in Australia. It began

broadcasting as the ABC in 1932 after the government nationalised radio companies

that had attempted to provide a national service. It was not, however, the first

broadcaster in Australia and was in competition with commercial broadcasters from

day one. However since it became a corporation in the 1980s the organisation has

been increasingly focused on production efficiencies, workplace productivity and

technological change as means of demonstrating public value for state funding.

All of the ABC’s funding comes directly from the Australian federal Government,

aside from a small stream of product revenue. The corporation submits triennial

funding requests and is routinely asked by the Senate to justify its spending.

Therefore, while it is legislatively and editorially independent, its policy and

technological evolution is necessarily influenced by contemporary political agendas.

Like other PSBs, its structure and strategy is also historically influenced by powerful

‘silo’ based production and programming interests, in this case of the Television,

Radio and News and Current Affairs divisions.

More distinctively the ABC’s corporate structure and the evolution of its broadcast

networks have been heavily influenced by the need to service a highly dispersed

national population, which is concentrated in a few urban areas. As of 2006, more

than two-thirds of people lived in major cities (68%) and the remainder (32%) were in

regional and remote areas (ABS, 2008). As of 2011, the ABC had 5,412 employees,

which equated to 4,599 full time positions across the length and breadth of Australia.

However the primary executive centres are in Sydney and Melbourne, with other

metropolitan areas - the so-called BAPH (Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart)

states - historically less important to strategic planning and operations coordination.

This is a key reason that this study will initially focus on ‘top level’ workgroup

activities and social networks in the major centres, before investigating change

processes on the margins, in key regional and local centres.


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The current top-level organisational structure of the ABC is shown in figure 1. This

study is primarily concerned with only three of the groups shown here: the Innovation

Division, the Television Division and the operational areas that come under the office

of the Chief Operating Officer, or the Operations Group.

Figure 1 – ABC Organisational Chart Source: ABC 2011. Annual Report

These three workgroups represent a cross-section of broadband policy-making

activities that will be analysed to understand how tech change agendas are formed,

driven and prioritised.

When discussing technological change and the introduction of new digital services it

makes sense to firstly examine activities in the work group specifically constructed to

consider the ABC’s future – it’s Innovation Division. When Innovation was created in

2007 then managing director Mark Scott indicated it would act as an ‘incubator of

digital development’ (Scott, 2007).The strategic planning work being done in

Innovation will be considered alongside the multi-platform initiatives of the Television

Division, a more traditional broadcasting area looking at developing its scheduled

content for new digital delivery approaches. The third area for analysis is the


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Operations Group, which is primarily tasked with the support and daily running of the

corporation’s technical services.

Each workplace group faces different challenges in researching, planning for and

implementing technological change. In 2011, Innovation employed only 1.4% of ABC

staff. The division is currently undergoing internal upheavals with a significant

changeover in senior staff and a new director appointed. Communicative

relationships with other workplace groups are in a state of flux, and preliminary

inquiries suggest that historic social networks have been disrupted. Innovation then

is poised to take a new direction in its strategic policy development; one informed by

the external relationships of its new director, Angela Clark, who comes to the ABC

from commercial media and software initiatives.

The Television division in contrast is recognisable as a more stable, if project based

traditional broadcasting workgroup. It directly employs only 7.7% of staff compared

to 22.1% in Radio and 20.9% in News. However its content services provided

directly involve more Operations Group members than other divisions. Television is

also likely to be more directly affected by broadband developments than the other

divisions, given the significant developments in internet protocol television services

including video on demand, peer-to-peer file sharing, mobile and social television

and locative services.

The Operations Group is the largest sector of the organisation, employing 35% of

ABC staff in 2011. It is tasked with the infrastructure and technical or ‘back-end’

support for the projects and ambitions of the content groups. The group is made is

made up of four sub-divisions - Technology, Resources, Communications Networks,

and Business services - and the departments of Group Audit and Capital Works (the

project management team).

In terms of the ABC’s broad strategic goals, as defined in its charter, the broadband

development priorities of all these workgroups have some similarities.


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One of the key concerns for the ABC in investing new media platforms like the NBN

is the potential to achieve the goal of universal service. In 2011 the ABC reported

that 99.38% of the population of Australia could access its Local Radio services and

97.93% could receive digital television. However in the last four years digital

television service coverage has increased less than one percent (Australian

Broadcasting Corporation, 2011). Trying to reach increasingly smaller pockets of

inhabitants in inaccessible areas will inevitably raise the cost of broadcast

distribution significantly. This pressure to provide universal service is still a uniquely

public service dilemma, as commercial networks would not consider it cost effective

to broadcast to remote or specialist audiences (and indeed have periodically

withdrawn news services from regional areas in response to industry rationalisation)

and community broadcasters are not usually expected to provide generalist services

to multiple, dispersed communities.

The NBN, in contrast, represents the chance to reach some of Australia’s most

remote communities via state-funded fibre optic telecommunications infrastructure,

including satellite or wireless links. It also represents the possibility for delivering

more comprehensive services – for example to people with disabilities, via digital

captioning and audio description technologies (Australian Broadcasting Corporation,

2010). It also comes with increased costs that are not explicitly funded by

government, unlike its transmission costs, and instead have been met by the ABC’s

operational budget, thus reducing funds available for content creation (Australian

Broadcasting Corporation, 2012) As the ABC notes, its online networks currently

handle one petabyte of data per month, “making it probably the single largest

Australian user of content delivery networks (CDN) for media content” (ibid: 7) with

costs rising relative to any increase in user numbers. The ABC online is in this sense

a victim of its own success, paying more for expanded online audience. With more

Australians likely to download more ABC programming in a post NBN world,

broadband developments clearly represent a budgetary threat.

There are also unique strategic implications of NBN developments for each of the

workgroups discussed. Innovation recognises the NBN as a potential infrastructure


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for research and development - the exploration of new interactive audio-visual

services, as well as potential external collaborations and partnerships. For the

Television division the NBN represents an additional and possibly improved platform

for content delivery as well as a destructive influence, possibly fragmenting their

audience as it seeks out time-shifted, customised content. The Operations Group is

a potential NBN end user, taking advantage of the broadband capability for internal

production and distribution processes.

Thus the NBN, represents what Bruno Latour would recognise as a powerful non-

human actor, exerting, in its potentiality, an influence over the direction and focus of

the ABC’s policy-making and technical processes. It is this conceptual agency of the

NBN in the ABC’s change processes that needs to be considered as part of its

evolving technological system.

The NBN as change agent

The NBN is an estimated $43 billion government infrastructure project which aims to

provide high speed internet access of between one and 12 gigabits per second via

fibre optic, fixed wireless or satellite connection to every home, school and

workplace in the country (NBN Co Limited, 2011). The project is the central feature

in the federal government’s economic growth strategy, with Communication Minister

Stephen Conroy optimistically suggesting “ubiquitous, high-speed, affordable

broadband” will enable Australia to become one of the world’s leading digital

economies by 2020 (Conroy, 2012).

The NBN represents the potential for the ABC to extend its programming reach, to

allow it to deliver more rich media content online and to enable it to explore internal

production efficiencies, thereby improving its service value to citizens. However with

the full capacity of the network yet to emerge, and with the roll-out due to take place

over the next eight years, it is unclear how the different possibilities of broadband

internet should be pursued and prioritised.


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The length of the roll out is seen to be one of the biggest problems with the network

since the full influence and potential of the scheme will not be known until the

connections are complete. In preliminary interviews conducted for this research,

ABC staff members have expressed concern that the results may be less than

revolutionary and that the ABC’s own broadcast reach may be equal to, or better

than, the eventual service that the NBN can provide. However the ABC is

economically and politically tied to the federal government’s policy agenda, both in

terms of its dependence on commercial internet service provision and its need to

respond to intensified user demands.

Even though the NBN is in its infancy, it is necessary to analyse and debate the

scope of the ABC’s engagement with broadband production, programming and

distribution now, rather than after the fact. Raymond Williams may have been

discussing video technology when his thoughts on policy making were first published

back in 1974, but his observations about media policy making are equally valid

today:

“the history of broadcasting institutions shows very clearly that the institutions

and social policies which get established in a formative, innovative stage –

often ad hoc and piecemeal in a confused and seemingly marginal area –

have extraordinary persistence into later periods” (2003:152)

Studying PSB and change

In order to analyse the complex factors which drive transformation of complex

institutions like PSBs researchers have drawn on a variety of different theoretical

traditions – for example, political history (Tracey, 1998) web history (Burns and

Brugger, 2012), organisational culture (Kung-Shankleman, 2000) and ethnography

(Born, 2004). This study will use a social shaping of technology (SST) framework to

examine the motivations and mechanisms for technological change within the ABC

and how its response to such change relates to the conception of its purpose in a

transforming media landscape.


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This approach rejects the stronger, or more technologically determinist school of

SST characteristic of Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory. In this it aligns

itself with Langdon Winner and Judy Wajcman’s substantial critiques of early social

construction of technology studies.

Winner’s problems with these forms of enquiry were extensive: that they did not

account for the social consequences of technological change, neglected those who

were ultimately impacted, did not look deeply enough at the influences on individual

decision-making and that they were not evaluative, providing no judgement of the

technologies they investigated.

The key concern for Wajcman was that gender plays a part in technology adoption

and change that has not been fully acknowledged (2002). Certainly while there have

been many SST studies of gender and technology they have most often examined

women’s role as end users (Cockburn and Ormrod, 1993) rather than innovators,

early adopters or influencers of change. Wajcman and others claim that studies such

as this one, which intend to concentrate on networks of influence surrounding

technological change, are biased towards the masculine and focus on male

technoculture whereas feminist studies are more interested in social relations and

impacts (Star, 1991, Wajcman, 2002).

Hofstede (2012) is not alone in recognising Australia as a masculine society, so

Wajcman’s decade old concerns are still highly pertinent in this country – and in the

ABC. Its 2011 Annual Report stated that there were a third more male executives

than females and that female technologists were outnumbered more than seven to

one by their male counterparts. In light of this imbalance this research intends to

consider the influence of gender relations in technological change planning and

operations. Considering actor gender and gender as a factor in workgroup network

relations will add a valuable cultural dimension to our understanding of influence in

the social shaping of digital media services.


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Lagesen also believes that constructivist research can benefit gender studies of

technological change and further calls for philosophical work to be done specifically

using Actor Network Theory (ANT) in relation to gender (2012), as the normative

heterogeneous nature of the ANT network does not distinguish gender any more

than it does objects.

Using ANT to analyse the ABC

ANT approaches seek to illustrate aspects of the organisational culture that affect

communication and to plot the exchange and translation of ideas, noting which

actors are able to get their ideas heard. As actions are born through the acceptance

and implementation of ideas, those actors whose strategies and proposals are heard

have the most influence in change processes. Those who have influence drive the

technological change agenda and that agenda dictates how an organisation

responds to shifts in its marketplace and society at large.

Although using ANT in media studies is not common, the mapping of heterogeneous

networks of human actors and actants – those individuals or groups who gain

agency through a spokesperson or champion –as well as non-human actors, is

exactly what makes it so suitable in this type of research. Turner’s use of ANT in the

modern newsroom (2005) gives an excellent example of how digital media

production is now a hybrid of people and machines which cannot be adequately

examined without the considering the equivalent significance of different types of

actors Couldry (2004) agrees that ANT is underused in the field of media theory and

believes that it has potential to be,

“a materialist approach to understanding what media are and their

consequences for the social world and social space.” (2004:11)

Actor Network researchers have also been criticised for not taking time and space

into consideration as they look at a snapshot of a social network (Couldry, 2004) and

failing to concern themselves with how that network might develop and evolve.


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This study is examining one technological shift and the influence it is having, and will

have in the future, on one organisation or media system. Using ANT to analyse the

ABC’s policy and operations processes is entirely appropriate as it will treat the

individuals, policies and operations within the ABC with the same significance as it

will the newer actor, which is the NBN. This research does not seek to articulate

ANT with any other methods or to use it explain why technology should produce

change. It will be used in the context in which it is most effective - to describe a

network of relationships and to allow that description to stand for itself. Although

most of the ABC’s internal influences on change will be treated as individual actors

within the network, external influences are too complex to be included in their raw

state.

Identifying the key actors in the digital media policy process requires talking to

people within the ABC, as most of this information is tacit knowledge only. As the key

respondents are generally working at executive level, and are busy people with

limited time, an ethnographic approach to their daily communications would be

ethically and practically difficult to organise and questionnaires would be unlikely to

elicit a wide response or to obtain the richness of information that arises in interview.

A semi structured interview is a useful, if flawed, way of extracting information while

keeping the interaction casual enough to maintain a flow of conversation

(Weerakkody, 2009, Bertrand and Hughes, 2005, Berger, 2011).

Information gathered in this way is prone to being opinion based and sample biased,

but these tendencies will be mitigated by ensuring that a wide enough sample of

interviewees is chosen to be fully representative of every area involved. The aim of

the research is to find trends and areas of agreement between subjects and so even

if details are misremembered, hidden or simply forgotten, the sample size will be

large enough to compare and contrast interview data within and across workgroups.

For this paper preliminary interviews have been conducted with several ABC staff

members in positions of policy or operational authority i.e. those primarily

responsible for the discussion, drafting and implementation of policy documents, in


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order to model a social network analysis (SNA) as a tool for understand the different

levels of interaction between policy actors. The snowballing technique will be used to

identify the extent of these individual actors’ workgroup networks, and to enable the

organic and systemic recruitment of interviewees based on workplace relations

rather than job titles or functions. Generally, senior staff members have indicated

interest in this topic and have opinions on how the ABC should position itself in the

marketplace, which they have indicated they are happy to share, although so far

there has been reluctance amongst participants to be directly quoted.

SNA shows the relationships between actors visually in the form of a node diagram,

which links them via social association (Freeman). The node diagram depicts each

person or thing as one point, or node, and the relationships or ties between them are

shown as connecting lines, each given a mathematical value based on three main

measures - degree centrality, betweenness and closeness - although there are more

than a dozen other attributes that can be measured through an SNA analysis

(Speck, 2007).

Degree centrality considers the number of connections an actor has within a social

network. The more connections, the higher the value of an actor’s degree of

influence or significance (Krebs and Krackhardt, 2003). Quantity does not always

mean quality though, and an actor may have fewer but more valuable social

connections where s/he plays an important part in linking areas which have no other

ties. In this case the actor would have a higher ‘betweenness’ value. Closeness then

refers to the length of the pathways in a network. An actor, who is connected to all

parts of the network with only a couple of separating nodes, has a higher influence

value than one who is several steps further away.

The quantitative data from these values can be used to interpret or translate an

actor’s network value against their functions and roles. This research has begun by

modelling “ego networks”, a simple network based on a few individuals and the

people they interact with on a daily basis within the context of their job (Everett and

Borgatti, 2005). This allows us to examine the significance of actors in relation to


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spreading ideas and giving advice about broadband technologies and innovation

within their workgroup networks, and across workgroups.

We can then move from a simple social network model into building a more complex

actor network analysis, which will allow us to consider the influence of non-human

factors in the strategic policy making and tech change processes. In this phase

additional nodes will have to be created to represent influential non-human actors

such as infrastructure and location, along with ‘black boxed’ nodes such as

government and the NBN itself. It is possible at this stage that the quantitative

relationship values derived from interview data will be less important than the

interpretation of social interaction derived from the network visualisation created

(Kalamaras, 2010).

At this point our research will not explore the social networks of staff beyond the

bounds of the corporation. The NBN and other broadband service or content

partners will be considered as single actors who contribute to or influence ABC

actors, and who appear as modes in the network mapping. However it is not within

the scope of this research to map a national, or even sectoral, digital media policy

network. Further not all data used in this project will be collected through interviews or SNA.

The ABC publishes annual reports, strategic plans and senior executive speeches.

Information on the structure, purpose and deliverables of the NBN will be drawn from

government submissions, NBN Co. literature and press releases. Neither the value

of the broadband project nor the performance of its services will be considered here.

The nature of the broadband network and its potential impact on ABC activities are

the only relevant factors for examination.

Responding to media and communications technology change – How far to go?

In exploring how far a PSB should go in developing new media services, it must first

be acknowledged that there is only so far they can go. The financial constraints of

PSBs are widely recognised. There are also social and legacy issues to deal with


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that in many cases overwhelm the simple argument of funding constraint.

Broadcasters inherently experience a cultural clash between programme makers and

operational staff perspectives. Creative cultures’ push for the new and early adopter

program-makers' desire for their content to be omnipresent in the mediascape will

inevitably clash with the pressure of organisational culture and resource allocations.

The context for technological change in a public service broadcaster is not created

by one author and planning is not carried out in a vacuum. It is influenced both by

contemporary actors and organisational history. Policy historian Jock Given’s writing

agrees that it is not possible for public organisations, particularly broadcasters, to

consider policy development without considering the orgainsation’s history as,

“These organisations have legislation, charters, staff, buildings and program

schedules that are products of history.” (Given, 2008)

He goes on to say that almost all technological change occurs in an environment of

existing technology that must be made compatible with the new, and that there are

always negotiations required between old and new (2008). Technological change

through workplace operations comes in various ways. It may be a response to a

policy directive, a more immediate practical problem that needs solving or a

‘guerrilla’ style action by employees with the ability and motivation to do so, as

Maureen Burns notes in her history of ABC Online (Burns, 2008).

The information gathered in this study will be used to determine whether the

knowledge of strategic policy is consistent with actions throughout the organisation.

Whether the policy formation has been sufficient and communicated thoroughly

enough will have a significant impact on its success. Evaluating the influences on

policy creation shows how the policy is shaped and how potential changes in the

influences could create a different response. Policy documents are the final

outcome, or in this case the potential outcome.

Determining the change agenda – who calls the shots?


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Strategic policy is not necessarily the starting point for technological change. The

ABC has experienced significant operational movement through the action of

employees working at odds with official channels but with the ideology of

guardianship of the corporation in mind. Martin (2000, 2008) explores in depth the

creation of online services at the ABC through the perseverance and enthusiasm of

staff members without the seniority to do otherwise. In this instance those employees

could not be said to be acting against policy as policy documentation did not exist to

deal with the innovative processes they were enacting (Martin, 2008; Burns 2008).

Even if such documentation is in existence, one disconnect between operations and

policy is that some texts are never even read first-hand by those who might

implement the strategy (Ball, 1993:12). Policy can only guide when it’s

acknowledged. Picard (2012) describes the world of technical operations as dealing

with the two headed monster of scarcity and idealism, whereas the policy function is

concentrated on reporting to, and building the relationships with, those in power.

This contrast in objectives and motivations demonstrates how easily the two areas

can diverge even though their aims are the same. Another issue that can pull

operations and policy apart is the concept of strategic drift (Johnson et al., 2008)

where policy is created in one set of circumstances but the environment is changing

and the policy becomes irrelevant. For operational areas this drift away from their

realities feeds the organisational paradigm that there is a significant disconnect

between themselves and upper management levels (Johnson, 1987, Johnson et al.,

2008, Grundy, 2005, Picard, 2012). Getting the cultures of operations and policy to

follow the same path and work in reference to each other may not be easy but

successful technological change, that is one in which all actors achieve a positive

outcome, relies on it.

If policy does not always drive change, what does? Audiences are the ideal drivers

of any change agenda. This is not necessarily a contentious point as the attraction of

an audience is what all broadcasters, public or commercial, strive for, but it is often


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not the most significant part of the decision-making process in transforming

industries.

Interviewees within the ABC’s Operations Group have been unequivocal and

unapologetic that operational needs are much more likely than strategy to control the

everyday change agenda as they replace legacy equipment and deal with technical

life cycle constraints. These activities are carried out with an eye on both policy and

the market availability. The introduction of tapeless video cameras, for example,

came about through a need to replace old equipment and the obsolescence of

previous technology. Staff were left without a choice of technologies and had to

transfer all workflows to file based systems. There was not thought to be any need to

consider the audience in this decision as there was no discernible impact on them.

Even for tech changes that may affect the audience experience at the ABC,

audience research may well not be a consideration. Drivers for change in

presentation elements, for example, are just as likely to come from what staff

members consider to be inherent knowledge or the actions of a competitor.

Interviews with Television workgroup staff have confirmed, for example, that they do

not commission the ABC’s Research group to poll the audience when they consider

changing the colours, text fonts or voices on promotions or break fillers.

Considering the results

Even at this early stage in the research there are some patterns emerging in the

relationships between ABC workgroups. Firstly, the Innovation division appears to

have a significant disconnect from the other groups. Information from interviewees

suggest that this is not a recent development caused by the reorganisation of key

staff, but that there has never been a strong relationship between the daily

production of broadcasts and the group tasked with developing the ABC’s digital

content creation and distribution directions. When asked to name anyone in the

Innovation group they were aware of, the Television staff member questioned was

unable to come up with any names. Operations group staff on the other hand


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referred to the same three people, one of whom has left the company, a second who

has left the division and a third who had relocated to a different state but is now

pending redundancy.

From a social network perspective, the change in circumstances of three individuals

in Innovation has caused a significant break in communication. No current member

of the Innovation division who has been approached to participate in this study has

responded at this point. This could be a problem for this research but it is hoped that

when the organisational structure has time to settle there will be an opportunity to

speak with several key employees within the work group.

A second emergent issue is the potential reappearance of a silo mentality in strategic

planning. Members of the ABC leadership group had spoken in meetings and

workshops of issues in the past that were caused by the divisions of the corporation

not communicating with each other. Interviewees have noted that where there had

been a shift several years ago to a more collaborative culture, this had been

rescinded. There was a distinct concern, voiced by the Operations Group staff, that

divisions and work groups were distancing themselves from each other once again -

particularly, as one interviewee phrased it, the content divisions of Television, Radio

and News and the ‘back office’ of the Operations Group.

Another issue to be explored in the research is interviewees’ varied knowledge of,

and influence on the strategic, change oriented policy development process, as

contrasted with administrative policy-making. The creation of policy at the ABC

normally comes out of the discussions of the Policy Review Group. This group meets

to discuss issues that have arisen during the regular operation of the organisation

and policy is formed directly from a need identified at a lower level. These

administrative, day-to-day organisational issues are in areas such as travel,

expenses, health and safety etc. In ABC terms ‘policy’ is a document that provides

clear and practical instructions on how to act in certain circumstances. It became

clear as the interviews for this research proceeded that the interviewer’s questioning

had to be changed to use the term ‘strategy’ instead, in order to get information


20 Version 4.0

about broader, more future oriented technological change planning. Such a simple

word change brought about very different responses and of course necessitates

some interviews being repeated to get an accurate data set.

As the social network analysis and qualitative data-collecting proceeds, this research

will be able to state with some authority what the ABC is doing across key

workgroups in response to the NBN and what areas of strategy have not been

addressed. It is hoped that this case study will gives an appreciation of the questions

that arise for public service broadcasters when they are faced with responding to

new technologies, and particularly those advancements aimed at influencing and

serving society, just as they are. A network society relies on just such projects as

Australia’s NBN and the ABC’s digital transformation to allow for the dissemination of

knowledge between individuals, towns, nations and across the globe, just as earlier

twentieth century ‘social networks’ learnt to appreciate the value of public service

broadcasting.

Conclusion

This research will draw on quantitative and qualitative social shaping of technology

approaches to analyse how staff and workgroups within the Australian Broadcasting

Corporation are responding differently to Australia’s entry to the networked society -

the roll-out of the National Broadband Network. It asks how the operational and

policy–making processes these actors are developing around the NBN’s introduction

will impact on the ABC’s conceptions of its place in national media markets and its

social roles and functions.

One aim of this study is to investigate whether the introduction of the NBN will

change the way that the ABC makes decisions about its future in such a networked

world, and another is what these actors and their actions can tell us about the

relationship between public service broadcasters and technological change.


21 Version 4.0

While the ABC is monitoring the roll out of the NBN closely and considering its own

position and the potential impact of this new networking of Australia, this study is

taking critical stock of how the organisation reacts to technological change and

where the forces for those changes come from.

In the larger field of public service broadcasting across the world, it is envisioned that

this case study research will provide other organisations with a framework with which

to examine their own policy making processes for technological adoption, and to

understand how they might most effective structure their organisations and

technological change programs for effective, valuable social outcomes.


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