Jez Collins, the originator of the Birmingham Popular Music Archive chaired a panel consisting of: Dr Marion Leonard, who was the curator of Liverpool’s The Beat Goes On, and who oversees on ongoing project to examine how museums collect and preserve (or not) popular music; Alison Surtees of the Manchester District Music Archive; Eve Wood, the director of the documentary Made in Sheffield (2001) and Mike Darby of Bristol Archive Records.

Speakers offered insights into each of their projects, revealing the variety of practices in this field, the public appetite for music heritage and the innovations and connections that curation has been making. Surtees for instance outlined how the online MDMA had generated input from around 2000 individuals, half of which regularly posted material on the site. Some of these were members of the bands featured and indeed, these explorations of music past also connected with the present scene in ways that avoided the potential necrophilia of such work.

The dynamic aspects of each of these projects was evident in the way in which they plugged into and galvanised cultural memory and generated positive responses from users and contributors. Each of course was located very firmly in the character of its respective location and had a part to play in civic and community identity. Many of the core activists worked on the archives as a labour of love (there was very little financial support available here) and a belief that music and its attendant cultures and meanings transcends the demands of the industries alone. This was an important point as one of the potential problems of work in this field is presented by copyright issues, not only around recordings but the attendant artefacts – album covers, posters, photographs etc. For many projects, the involvement of so many ‘forgotten’ bands and their good will means that these challenges can be overcome. Indeed, it is interesting to note that while one would expect such projects to feature more well-known (and potentially litigious) bands, public interest has tended to focus on some genuine retrieval work in digging up lost names, venues and events.

As a filmmaker, Eve Wood had some interesting points to make however about the cost involved in repurposing archive footage in her work. This was particularly striking with regards to the BBC and she quoted a standard rate of £3000 per minute for the use of footage (and that is exclusive of any further rights complications that may arise).

In addition, Wood also outlined some of the problems filmmaker-historians have with commissioning bodies. This related to the way in which there was an expectation that narratives should revolve around famous names and faces, although it was often the case that in pursuit of interesting stories, obscure yet interesting material would demand attention and explanation. Notwithstanding the paucity of funds available for the archiving projects, Wood’s experience also raised questions around the other kinds of pressures impacting upon these projects. Where they seek alliances with city agents and established museums and so on, there were potential demands on the nature of the stories one could tell.
All of these points of course highlighted the ways in which any kind of historical work is always inflected by a politics of practice -whether between contributors and users (why is X and not Y covered), or even by greater institutional powers.

Certainly, the growth of heritage projects around popular music is part of a challenge to the more formal and conservative ways in which archives and museums are perceived to have pursued their agendas (although I think this was a little over stated at this event). While the projects discussed on this panel have sought to expand the domain of the archive, where they have also proven to be innovative is in their participatory nature and use of online sites. In this, and given their ad hoc, enthusiast-driven origins, they have something important to impart to established institutions.

Overall, there was much to take away here for further discussion and thought.
The Bristol project for instance offered an intriguing model for collecting and making available its artefacts and of course, Leonard’s academic research activities were of great interest to me.

This handful of projects is indicative of a much more widespread international practice that has a relationship with the music and leisure industries but also operates independently of them (sometimes at odds with them), demonstrating the value of what Interactive Cultures researchers label music as culture. In light of the loss of so much material in the archives of the music business, the activities of the enthusiast, and fan, in informal (sometimes semi-legal ways online in file-sharing sites), performs an important job and indeed does much to underline the importance of popular music to communities to us.

A fuller version of this report can be found on Paul Long’s blog Media, Culture, History.

Last month I spent two days in the company of South African social media academic Marlon Parker. Regular readers will remember Marlon from his guest post several months ago. The purpose of the visit was to share thoughts and ideas in the field of social media, and to discuss social media education. We were fortunate that the visit coincided with a number of social media events in Birmingham, which meant I could give Marlon a real flavour of what we do in the West Midlands and I could introduce him to as many contacts as possible in a few short days. So what does an academic and social entrepreneur from Cape Town make of the social media activity in Birmingham? And what could we learn from him? The answer is: “a lot”.

Social Media for Social Good

Marlon’s work is centred around the concept of social media for social good. He works with communities in Cape Town, using social media to tackle difficult social problems in Cape Town. Sceptics might wonder how blogging can help find away through problems such as gang violence and drug dependencies. For Marlon the answer is simple: social media works when there is a community bonded by a common set of circumstances. He works with people who are coping with or trying to escape certain circumstances. There is a tension in this society, but that tension is a bond. Where you have a bond, a set of shared circumstances, you have a community. Where you have a community, social media can be effective. In the video below Marlon outlines his work and his philosophy to Nick Booth of Podnosh / Be Vocal:

Social media used for social good is a common aim of media workers and thinkers in Birmingham, but Marlon’s projects are operating at a level of engagement that we are currently only aiming for. Marlon’s work demonstrates that we can make effective social interventions through technology, and could provide useful evidence when we make this case to policy makers and government agencies.

Social Media in Education

Another area that is something of a Birmingham specialism is social media education. From social media surgeries to my own school’s MA Social Media, we seem to be at the vanguard of this area. Marlon’s own university has aspirations to provide qualifications within this area so a lot of our discussions revolved around social media education.

To this end, I introduced Marlon to Jon Bounds, Stuart Parker and Michael Grimes. They are core members of social enterprise We Share Stuff (I am also a member of the team). A key We Share Stuff project involves using social media to engage young offenders with technology, leading to credit towards formal qualifications through the Open College Network. Marlon was very impressed with this innovation, and is considering introducing it into some of his projects in South Africa by contacting his equivalent of the Open College Network. As a group we also discussed the spectrum of training and qualifications, from Level 1 through to masters degrees, that could come under the social media subject area. We sketched out how these might be applied to real world skills and jobs. While we were not able to come up with any key action points to take this part of the conversation it is something worthy of further consideration.

The Social Media Scene

In addition to meeting with Nick Booth, and The We Share Stuff team, Marlon managed to meet a number of local bloggers and social media workers. Birmingham and the Black Country have a well developed network of regular meetings where the social media community or the wider creative industries community meet up. We were lucky that Marlon’s trip coincided with Brum Bloggers, an evening pub based meeting, and Black Country Social Media Café, a more formal daytime meeting (which happened to be the furthest North Marlon had ever been).

So what did Marlon make of us? Here’s what he has to say over on his blog:

Overall I am very impressed by the level of creative industries involvement in the space of Social Media and It also showed me that here in Birmingham there is a breed of social media people who have such a vast amount of experiences to share and could be useful for others out there to make the trip or connection with any of these amazing individuals who will add value to your social media experience.

I hope we’ll see Marlon again soon, and I’ll be sure to keep up to date with his blogs and his formal publications on social media for social good.