What strategies are available to publishers in the cultural and research domains to conceive, produce, and position their contents in an urgent way? In the two-year research project Making Public (2018-2020) conducted by the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and partners, which has come to a close, methods and prototypes are developed to counter the contemporary speedy information sphere in new and different ways.
Starting out from the observation that small-scale publishers often experience a trade-off between publishing under time pressure and upholding quality standards, we looked into other ways to conceive of timely publishing. Experiments with modular publishing, algorithmic recommendations, and digital remediation, have led to the development of hybrid content formats and new options for positioning publications with reading audiences. All of those are available in open access in the Urgent Publishing Toolkit.
Central to the project is the concept of urgent publishing. Urgent publishing pertains both to timeliness and relevance. The final publication of the project, Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing offers an inquiry into urgency in publishing, next to presenting desk research and the experiments conducted by the three research groups. It develops a situated account of hybrid publishing, where authors, editors, publishers, designers, and readers operate together. The publication is available in open access, in both digital and print formats.
The urgent publishing strategies that the prototypes and methods embody and that are described in detail in Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing focus on the following key notions:
- Relations between different content modules, that allow for multi-linear narratives and other (rhetorical) forms of presenting information.
- Trust in the network, both of publishers who can benefit from each other’s platforms and reach, and of readers who are interested in in-depth content.
- Remediation which allows publications to extend their afterlife and find readers by offering them ways to engage directly with materials.
All information can be found on the website of the Institute of Network Cultures:
Here and Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing
Collaborating partners: 1001 Publishers, Amateur Cities, Amsterdam University Press, ArtEZ University of the Arts, Hackers & Designers, Mind Design, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Open!, Open Set, Puntpixel, Studio BLT, Valiz, and Willem de Kooning Academy.
We would love for you to share these links. Don’t hesitate to contact Miriam Rasch for more information on the project via miriam@networkcultures.org.
The research was supported by Regieorgaan SIA (Taskforce for Applied Research), which is part of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).