By Dr Gerard Reed
The last couple of decades have seen significant technological change through disruption that has impacted us both socially and economically. The screen market has experienced a contraction of traditional free-to-air distribution in favour of pay on-demand or subscription services (The Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook, 2022). The screen market has also begun to cross-over into gaming, and gamification content towards incentivised engagement of consumption, or game play to attract and maintain its audience (GCAP, 2022). Such change has also produced a requirement to equip screen business students with a discrete ethical foundation (Silverstone, 2007) to prepare them for producing screen and audio outputs for the national and international marketplace.
Ethical considerations are being increasingly refined in the screen sector (Australian Screen Industry Code of Practice, 2022) with a refocussing on content creation, the challenges of funding models and attracting investment. The screen market fragmentation (The Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook, 2022) of recent times has increased the pressure of production windows and expectations placed upon producers, and the competitive nature of the industry in terms of advancing screen programs, as well as screen careers. There is a line to be observed, and potentially crossed, in determining the ethics, teaching and training required for screen business students towards the expression of values and awareness of relationality (McIntyre-Mills, 2021) as a connectedness to others and the world.
The challenge to be met by educators is the degree to which we can equip students with ethics preparedness for existing and emerging challenges. One way to do this is through introducing screen production students to a range of ethical dilemmas that might prepare them to deal with the challenges they may face. For instance, how should a producer responsibly engage with Intellectual Property (IP) that may be owned by a community? Or follow an ethical course of action when it may mean ceasing production, and affecting careers?
To do this, it is proposed that the educator establish a range of scenarios whereby students can engage with live-projects, or representations, that require an investment of self with immediacy, to build ethical robustness experientially. Utilising collaborative media, such as Real-time 3D (Three Dimensional) pre-visualisation tools, screen business students will be guided by teachers in a workshop setting to construct the format of ethical dilemma that has resonance for the student. The collaborative tool will also be informed using strategic management or other frameworks (De Bono, 1992; 2016; Kim and Mauborgne, 2005), as this is a point of familiarity, or one to be built upon across their future studies, with an ethical basis firmly embedded in their creative and professional practice.
The choosing of the ethical dilemma to be presented by the screen business student is done with a preparatory set of educational instructions to assist with the later collaboration, as well as to prevent the impact of reliving a past trauma in the workshop.
A substantial ethical foundation is essential to the health of entrepreneurial endeavour (Laine and Kibler, 2018), the individual practitioner, the entrepreneurial ecosystem (O’Connor and Reed, 2015, 2017) and the growth of the entrepreneurial enterprise (Penrose and Pitelis, 2009; Sarasvathy, 2001; Sarasvathy and Venkataraman, 2011). The benefit of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial endeavour to economic health is well established for the modern economy. To enable cohorts of successive screen and audio business students the opportunity to embed ethical foundations in the enterprise, new venture, or organisations that they form is to be true to the tenets of the philosophy of entrepreneurship and its dissemination and education.
References
Australian Screen Industry Code of Practice. (2022). Screen Producers Australia, viewed 7 November 2022 https://www.screenproducers.org.au/assets/PR/1.-Screen-Industry-Code-of-Practice.pdf
De Bono, E. (1992). Serious creativity: Using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas. London: Harper Collins.
De Bono, E. (2016). Parallel Thinking, London: Penguin.
GCAP (2022). Games Connect Asia-Pacific, Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne, 3-5 October.
Laine, L. Kibler, E. (2018). Towards a mythic process philosophy of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 9, 81-86.
McIntyre-Mills, J. J., (2021). The importance of relationality: A note on co-determinism, multispecies relationships, and implications of COVID-19. Systems Research and Behavioural Science, 39(2):339-353.
O’Connor, A. Reed, G. A. (2017). South Australia’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Case Studies, South Australia Department of State Development, Government of South Australia, Adelaide.
O’Connor, A Reed, G. A. (2015). South Australia’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Voice of the Customer Research Report, South Australia Department of State Development, Government of South Australia, Adelaide.
Penrose, E. Pitelis, C. (2009). The theory of the growth of the firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). ‘Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency’, Academy of Management, The Academy of Management Review. 26(2), 243-263.
Sarasvathy, S. D. Venkataraman, S. (2011). ‘Entrepreneurship as method: Open questions for an entrepreneurial future’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 113-135.
Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
The Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook. (2022). Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), retrieved 19 October 2022, https://www.pwc.com.au/industry/entertainment-and-media-trends-analysis/outlook.html
Dr. Gerard Reed is a Senior Lecturer in Screen Business at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has experience in economic development with an emphasis on entrepreneurial and innovative screen business practices developed through post-graduate studies at The University of Adelaide’s Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC). Gerard has written, directed and produced factual programming, with a specialisation in documentary formats. Gerard holds a PhD in Entrepreneurship and a Master of Entrepreneurship degree from ECIC, a Master of Arts degree from The University of the Arts, London, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the UNSW, Australia.