bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Knowledge Relationships and Transactions in a Cultural Economy: Analysing the Creative Industries Ecosystem
Authors: Jeffcutt Paul
Published: March 2018

This paper addresses creativity in a broad organisational field of knowledge relationships and transactions in a cultural economy. In considering key issues and debates across this complex field, the paper concentrates on the generic problems of investigating, understanding and influencing this cultural economy. The paper locates its consideration of these knowledge relationships and transactions in a discussion of a pioneering in-depth study of the creative industries in a region of the United Kingdom. Significantly, this study found these creative industries to be inhabiting an ecosystem of creative space and also found that the development strategy for these industries needed to be ecological. The paper concludes with several key challenges for research and policy in the building of situated and strategic knowledge on cultural economies.
National Cinema or Creative Industries? Film Policy in Transition
Authors: Ward Susan
Published: March 2018

In 2002, ‘film’ consolidated a position within municipal governance as part of the Brisbane City Council's economic development program based on the ‘new economy’ understanding of the role of the city as the physical location of commercial and cultural activity. This positioning of film within the notion of industry clustering, and the acknowledgment that production technologies of film and television share a common ground with games development, and other forms of leisure software, represent a fundamental departure from the precepts of the traditional national cinema model. Are creative industries discourse and cluster logic opening up a new field of governance for film policy? How does this translate to the state and federal levels if policy is to become more accommodating to the structures and dynamics of specific regional locations? This paper examines two Queensland approaches to creative industries discourse and cluster logic as a way of understanding the impact this move to a ‘global knowledge-based economy’ will have on the traditional policy framework.
Accounting for Independent Creativity in the New Cultural Economy
Authors: Shorthose Jim
Published: March 2018

What is the best way to capture and account for the independent sector of the cultural economy, given that it operates in significantly different ways from the formal economy? While economic impact studies have provided one answer to this question, this article proposes in their stead an ethnographic study of the cultural economy which would uncover the often hidden, temporary and spontaneous features of the sector. Such an ethnographic approach to economic issues is identified as one way in which research designs and strategies can be made appropriate to the specificities of the cultural sector. Such an approach can help illuminate the dynamics of creativity and highlight the practical, everyday nature of work and employment in the cultural sector. It can also help to focus attention on the importance of informal economic and cultural processes which tend to be hidden from view when there is an economic outcomes-based focus.
The Concrete Corridor: Strategising Impermanence in a Frontier City
Authors: Wise Patricia , Breen Sally
Published: March 2018

The Gold Coast can be understood as a ‘new frontier city’, a site which does not meet usual expectations of urban formations and cultural practices. This article explores novel potentials for creative industries and cultural development in the city by focusing on emergent intersections between large-scale real estate development and the creative sector. Drawing on ways of thinking developed by Deleuze and Guattari, we utilise notions of rhizomes and assemblages as a methodological strategy. The article aims to demonstrate that, for the Gold Coast's urban and cultural trajectories, which are marked more by impermanence than continuities, such thinking is likely to prove very useful alongside, supplementary to, or instead of a range of established approaches to urban analysis and policy development.
Everyday Editorial Practices and the Public Sphere: Analysing the Letters to the Editor Page of a Regional Newspaper
Authors: Gregory Luke , Hutchins Brett
Published: March 2018

This paper investigates the social construction of a site of public discourse: the letters to the editor page of an Australian regional daily newspaper, The Daily News.1 Of key concern are the processes through which public discourse is constructed and mediated by those who select and edit letters for publication. Drawing on a content analysis of the letters page and in-depth interviews with the editorial staff, it is demonstrated how routine practices and the social knowledge of media workers play a specific and discernible role in shaping public dialogue. In light of the findings presented, the concluding section discusses the relationship between editorial practices and the public sphere.
American Empire: Media and International Insecurity
Authors: Jacka Liz , Wilson Helen
Published: March 2018

This issue of MIA was conceived at about the time that the November 2003 issue on ‘The New “Others”: Media and Society Post-September 1’ was published. That issue, due to the normal journal lead times, was largely assembled before both the Bali bombing and the war in Iraq, and thus the editors, Liz Jacka and Lelia Green, were not able to give the kind of coverage to those events that they, and we, would have liked. So this issue, in which we include several articles which analyse aspects of the (continuing) Iraq war, is to some extent a sequel to the earlier one. However, editing that issue and observing the unfolding events surrounding the war and its aftermath also led us to begin to ruminate upon the intensification of US world hegemony, and to reflect on the apparent erosion of any counterforce to its continuing economic, military and cultural domination. This posed the question of whether the ‘9/11 thing’ had led to a change in the United States’ role in the world and whether, in fact, what we were confronting was an American empire, with the same kind of total power in the world of the twenty-first century that the Roman Empire wielded in the ancient world. This issue, then, seeks to illuminate the extension of the ‘American empire’ and the resulting deployment internationally of discourses of insecurity, which drive a greater and greater wedge between the ‘free world’ — as George W. Bush likes to call it — and the forces of darkness and barbarism.
Dealing with World Domination: Lessons from The Powerpuff Girls and Friends
Authors: Stockwell Steve
Published: March 2018

How did the world change on September 11, 2001? While the events of that day may be more the product of shifting geopolitical formations than the cause, September 11 brings into focus the political functions of global media networks and their potential as conduits of world domination. In this context, Cartoon Network provides some insights and challenges for both media theory and the politics of the twenty-first century. World domination is a recurring theme on Cartoon Network in anime products such as Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing, in post-feminist products such as The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory, and in cross-over work such as Samurai Jack and, most intriguingly, Pinky and the Brain, where a super-smart lab rat and his stupid friend are constantly plotting to take over the world. The failure — on Cartoon Network at least — of all plans for world domination invites us to consider means of resistance to aspirational politics on a global scale.
Shining on in the Gloom: 9/11 and the Creation of an Appearance of Consensus
Authors: Davies Susanne
Published: March 2018

The ‘tyranny of distance’ that once marked Australia's standing as an outpost of the British Empire may have dissipated, yet there is much to suggest that the insecurities that characterised its colonial status now find renewed expression in Australia's alignment with American political, cultural and military interests and policies. Assisting in fostering public allegiance to a new American Empire, are some segments of the media that, far from reporting the news, now engage in propagandist style campaigning that collapses time, space, and difference. The ‘Shine On’ Memorial initiated by Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 bombings exemplifies this approach. Imploring citizens to join in ‘a community memorial’ as ‘a mark of respect to the victims’ and ‘a symbol of hope’, this campaign dug deep into Australian insecurities to manufacture an appearance of consent, and thus operated to mask and delegitimate difference and dissent.
Conflict Communication Management: Why Australians Didn't See Their Troops in Iraq
Authors: Hibbert Zoe , Starr Amanda
Published: March 2018

As the first conflict to be viewed ‘in real time’, the Iraq war of 2003 was dominated by almost continuous footage delivered by technological and journalistic innovations. In contrast with the unprecedented coverage provided by British and American embedded journalists, little was reported of the role of Australian troops. The Australian media have been highly critical of the way the Australian Defence Force (ADF) restricted media access to Australian troops, claiming that the ADF obstructed the community's right to know with excessive secrecy and ‘strategic unhelpfulness’. The ADF says it was unable to provide media access because of operational and national security issues specific to this conflict. Research conducted amongst members of both the Australian media and the ADF's Military Public Affairs section suggests that the debate around access and secrecy is symptomatic of a much larger clash of cultures. The difficulties faced at the media/military interface are partially explained by the fact that current communication theory does little to enhance understanding of what is really happening in conflict situations.
‘Look at Moiye, Kimmie, Look at Moiye!’: Kath and Kim and the Australian Comedy of Taste
Authors: Turnbull Sue
Published: March 2018

This paper traces the genealogy of the ABC comedy series, Kath and Kim, in terms of its production history, the origins of its characters and themes, and its relationship to new hybrid comedy forms such as the mock-documentary (Roscoe and Hight, 2001). Issues such as the gender, class and taste politics of the comedy are explored in an attempt to rationalise the author's own ambivalent reactions to the show. Particular attention is paid to a number of shopping scenes in which Kath and Kim's failed suburban aesthetic becomes the source of what McCallum has described as a ‘comedy of recognition’ (McCallum, 1998). It is argued that the question of whether Kath and Kim is judged to be self-celebratory or self-critical has been rendered irrelevant by an extra-diagetic narrative which constructs the series as a little Aussie battler succeeding against the odds.
Digital Addiction: The Cultural Production of Online and Video Game Junkies
Authors: Cover Rob
Published: March 2018

This paper examines the ways in which a concept of ‘digital addiction’ is produced in academic discourse, news media and contemporary popular culture. Digital addiction is used here as a collective term for the phenomena of internet/online addiction and addiction to electronic games. By showing how these are produced individually and together in the popular imaginary, the paper explores several of the ways in which the digital is likened to chemical, illicit or hallucinogenic drugs. It is shown that this association is made through normative discourses which work through a reductive and over-simplified representation of a real/virtual dichotomy that favours the real as physical and local over the virtual, which is represented as dangerous, false and addictive.
A Comparative Analysis of Australian Film Assistance, 1997–2001
Authors: Crowley Ben , Dollery Brian , Crase Lin
Published: March 2018

Considerable time has elapsed since the last comprehensive review of Australian film assistance policy. Despite the fact the no universal agreement exists on the aims of national film assistance policies, it is nonetheless timely to consider the overall effectiveness of present film assistance programs in Australia. Accordingly, the limited objective of this paper is to examine some aggregative outcomes of the Australian film assistance program in comparison to similar programs in Canada and the United Kingdom in the areas of film development, film production, film distribution, film exhibition and film performance.
Alternative Intellectual Property Systems for the Digital Age
Authors: Leisten Susanna , Flew Terry , Hearn Greg
Published: March 2018

This paper investigates the current turbulent state of copyright in the digital age, and explores the viability of alternative compensation systems. The paper critically appraises the increased recourse to digital rights management (DRM) technologies, which are designed to restrict access to and usage of digital content. Considerable technical challenges associated with DRM systems have necessitated increasingly aggressive recourse to the law. A number of controversial aspects of copyright enforcement are discussed and contrasted with those arising from alternative levy-based compensation systems. This paper undertakes consideration of alternative models for managing the copyright bargain in the digital era.
Skin Deep, Race Shallow: The Imprint of Racism in the Print Media
Authors: Sweeney Diana
Published: March 2018

This article explores racism within Australian women's magazines. By centring the analysis around a selection of mainstream magazines during a single calendar month, I endeavour to illustrate the extent to which racism is embedded within both the advertising and the editorial content. Of particular interest is the practice of skin-whitening, whereby a combination of makeup, studio lighting and airbrushing techniques render the model's skin a lighter shade. As I demonstrate, it is a practice commonly employed in the marketing of magazines and beauty products, presumably because white skin is a more acceptable (and therefore more saleable) commodity. Using white skin as its theme, the paper is couched within a discussion centring around the languages of whiteness and racism, and their intersection with the modern portrayal of beauty.
No Longer ‘The Best in the World’: The Challenge of Exporting British Television Drama
Authors: Steemers Jeanette
Published: March 2018

Within the broader context of globalisation and the transformation of world television markets, this article sets out to address the extent of British drama's international presence, and the factors which either promote or inhibit that presence in Britain's major television export markets in the United States, Western Europe and Australasia. Alongside an examination of recent policy debates, which raised concerns about the exportability of British drama series, this article pinpoints and assesses the culturally specific factors that affect overseas acceptance of British drama. These include the continuing decline of traditional public service channels, the different needs of distinctive nationally based television ecologies, and the growing demand for more locally originated programming. Sales of British drama are stagnant or declining, but alternative export strategies, including coproduction and the export of scripted formats, have had only limited success. Increasingly, Britain's export successes are dominated by programming genres (children's, factual) and entertainment formats, which can be indigenised and adapted by the receiving culture, and in their more ‘universal’ appeal are quite different from the identifiably British detective series, historical and literary-based drama on which Britain's international success was judged in the past.
The Popularisation of Dutch TV Drama and the Rise of Multicultural Police Series
Authors: de Bruin Joost , Hermes Joke
Published: March 2018

The Dutch police series is a new TV drama genre in the Netherlands. During the last five years, several broadcasters have aired new domestic police series, leading the sub-genre to gain a stable position in the prime-time television schedules. This paper analyses the major transitions that have led to the prevalence of Dutch police series: the shift from a public to a dual system of broadcasting in the Netherlands; the transition from broadcasters each producing their own drama to participation of independent producers; the change from the single play as the main genre of Dutch TV drama to the expansion of popular drama genres such as soaps, police series and sitcoms; and, most importantly, an alteration in the identities that are represented in the storylines of Dutch TV drama. A close look at these transitions shows how the Dutch police series became a remarkably ‘multicultural’ drama form.
Endangered Genre: English-Language Television Drama in Singapore
Authors: Aquilia Pieter
Published: March 2018

For 40 years, the Singapore government has successfully promoted the English language for its citizens to operate in an international Western economy. However, English-language television drama, with no cultural-linguistic roots in Singapore's multi-Asian society, has been heavily criticised for its lack of quality in comparison to its successful Chinese-language counterpart. A case study of the prime-time drama @Moulmein High demonstrates how state involvement in English-language television has an impact on drama's content, popularity and commercial aims. This paper explores whether a television network endowed with the responsibility of maintaining a national value system can produce a TV drama series able to win favour with an increasingly English-educated local audience, and whether the drama can translate to television markets outside Singapore.
Television Drama in China: Remaking the Market
Authors: Keane Michael
Published: March 2018

This paper discusses the evolution of television serial drama in China. It argues that Chinese television drama production has progressed through three periods: industrial (1958–89), market (1990–2002), and most recently interpersonal (2003 onwards). These three stages of development are in turn associated with standardised production according to state-directed formulae, outbreaks of producer autonomy, and celebration of modern lifestyles and consumer culture. The paper provides an overview of the development of drama production during these three periods, and notes a shift from ‘socialist reality’ towards contemporary popular reality.
Ethnography Bytes Back: Digitalising Visual Anthropology
Authors: Murdock Graham , Pink Sarah
Published: March 2018

The last decade has seen a sustained debate about the limits and biases of traditional fieldwork practice. The same period has also seen the launch and adoption of a range of new digital information and communications technologies (ICTs), including CD-ROMs, the internet, digital photography and film, and multi-function mobile phones. Investigating how these emerging media are encountered and worked with in a range of everyday settings has opened up a range of new areas and questions for anthropological research, while underlining the central challenges currently facing ethnographic practice. Visual anthropologists are particularly well placed to explore the possibilities opened up by innovations in multimedia technologies since their investigative and presentational practices have, from the outset, sought to use photography and film alongside written text and recorded speech. Their patchy, but nonetheless important, efforts to encourage subjects to take their own photographs and make their own films have also introduced more participatory modes of investigation. Drawing on a range of recent work, this paper explores how visual anthropologists are currently using both the multimedia and interactive properties of emerging media to develop new forms of practice across the three key moments of research: ethnographic investigation, analysis and interpretation, and presentation. In particular, it looks at how varying combinations of digital media are being employed to assemble ‘thicker’ accounts of everyday practices and beliefs that incorporate participant as well as researcher productions, develop modes of analysis that are more self-reflexive, collaborative and participatory, and construct hypermedia archives and research presentations that are open ended and interactive.
The Visual Mediation of a Complex Narrative: T.G.H. Strehlow's Journey to Horseshoe Bend
Authors: Cohen Hart
Published: March 2018

This paper refers to a research project that has been launched to compile a range of related resources into a digital repository with the intention of (hyper)linking this material to relevant points in the text. Those elements of the text of potential and particular relevance to the Arrernte (Aranda) community and Aboriginal sense of place (such as specific totems, sacred ceremonies, kinship connections, etc.) will explicitly be mapped into a range of visual representations (including geographic maps and genealogy charts), and then supplemented with (hyper)links to relevant images, documents, media resources and other online collections. Finally, feedback from the Arrernte (Aranda) community on this visually mediated text will be recorded as oral histories, digitised and (hyper)linked to further supplement the specific cultural content of the Journey to Horseshoe Bend text. The project is in its early stages of execution, and this paper is intended to introduce the project and its background, and to place its knowledge interests within a contemporary framework of similar projects. This paper utilises a complex memoire authored by T.G.H. Strehlow, titled Journey to Horseshoe Bend, as a means of indicating the full range of strategies and techniques for the exploration of its narrative elements. These explorations will traverse the geographic locations of sites and specific totems, the conceptual relationships between narrative elements of place, the historical connectedness and physical migration of the Arrernte (Aranda) community over time, cultural ceremonies and myths specific to place, and links between a sense of place and other important motifs in the text. The engagement with the Horseshoe Bend story, itself referenced to the death journey of Lutheran Pastor Carl Strehlow in 1922, continues to have resonances for contemporary Arrernte (Aranda) social practices. Indeed, the cultural work of articulating a modern social existence in a white-dominated civilisation, along with an abiding interest in the continuities of tradition, makes cultural practice active, fluid and dynamic. While the paper is only able to sketch these relationships, it also suggests how the formulation of these interests is related to the full range of remediation strategies available.
Regions and Runaways: Film Assistance in New Zealand and British Columbia, 1999–2005
Authors: Newman David
Published: March 2018

The film and television production industry is significant in both New Zealand and British Columbia. Governments in both localities provide substantial support for the industry through government agencies and tax incentives. This study reviews the effectiveness and success of the New Zealand Film Commission and BC Film in meeting their respective mandates and strategic goals over the last five years. The scope and success of government tax incentives in attracting and encouraging production in both localities are reviewed, with an analysis undertaken of the results. The paper concludes that the greater cultural focus by the New Zealand government compared with that of British Columbia has resulted in a stronger track record of critically acclaimed and commercially successful films from New Zealand, with a more mixed record from the service-oriented film economy of British Columbia.
Public Broadcasting in the Digital Age: Issues for Television in New Zealand
Authors: Norris Paul
Published: March 2018

New Zealand has a unique model of public broadcasting for television. The state broadcaster is almost totally commercial, although since 2003 it has been given a charter and some limited public funding. A state agency, NZ On Air, administers funding contestable between national broadcasters for public broadcasting, meaning in essence local (national) content in the threatened genres of drama, documentary, children's and minority programs. But this system is under challenge from the rise of multi-channel and the transition to digital. Audiences are fragmenting and the combined impact of broadband, the PVR and VOD threaten the notion of the broadcast schedule and the viability of commercial free-to-air television itself. The concluding section of this paper examines issues for the New Zealand model in adapting to the digital challenge, and looks at the criteria on which the model's success or failure may be judged.
Starting Aboriginal Broadcasting: Whitefella Business
Authors: Westerway Peter
Published: March 2018

Officials in the Australian Public Service often wield substantial influence on policy-making, yet their work is normally hidden from public view. This case study of the process involved in developing an Aboriginal broadcasting policy after the 1967 referendum reveals conflict between two incompatible paradigms: assimilation (Aboriginal affairs) and diversity of choice (broadcasting). This conflict, together with official reluctance to truly consult with relevant Aboriginal communities and misunderstandings over historically and culturally specific concepts such as country, tribe, clan, community and resident, eventually led to policy failure. Since community control was not considered as an option, Aboriginal broadcasting obstinately remained whitefella business.
Participatory Cultural Production and the Diy Internet: From Theory to Practice and Back Again
Authors: Sharp Darren
Published: March 2018

The free and open source software movements have inspired a new mode of participatory cultural production. The early hacker communities elaborated a sophisticated socio-technical system of network-enabled collaboration culminating in the GNU-Linux operating system. More recently, a range of do-it-yourself (DIY) media technologies have given any user with internet access the ability to become a producer in a variety of social fields. This has spawned an entirely new understanding of authorship and content production in film (machinima), games (player-producers), journalism (blogs), radio (podcasting) and knowledge production (Wikipedia). A number of social science epistemologies embrace ‘practice’ as a representational category to explain the relationship between structure and agency, such as Giddens' (1984) and Bourdieu's (1977) theories of structuration. Missing from most of these accounts is any engagement in practice-based research to construct knowledge about their domains. It will be shown that action research provides an important empirical method capable of extending the field of knowledge about user-led innovation. Action research provides a practice-based method to explore how social shaping occurs in the development of participatory cultural production systems.
Visual Art Doctorates: Practice-Led Research or Research Per Se?
Authors: Petelin George
Published: March 2018

As part of a benchmarking project commissioned in 2002 by ACUADS, the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools, I conducted a series of focus groups with candidates for higher degrees in Visual Art in Australia in order to gain some insight into how the terminology of research was understood and used by visual art higher degree students. The present paper makes use of that data and examines to what extent practice-led research can engage in a general research debate.
Listening to the Mind Listening
Authors: Barrass Stephen , Whitelaw Mitchell , Potard Guillaume
Published: March 2018

The Listening to the Mind Listening concert was a practice-led research project to explore the idea that we might hear information patterns in the sonified recordings of brain activity, and to investigate the aesthetics of sonifications of the same data set by different composers. This world-first concert of data sonifications was staged at the Sydney Opera House Studio on the evening of 6 July 2004 to a capacity audience of more than 350 neuroscientists, composers, sonification researchers, new media artists and a general public curious to hear what the human brain could sound like. The concert generated 30 sonifications of the same data set, explicit descriptions of the techniques each composer used to map the data into sound, and 90 reviews of these sonifications. This paper presents the motivations for the project, overviews related work, describes the sonification criteria and the review process, and presents and discusses outcomes from the concert.
Understanding ‘Community’ in ICTs and Community Broadcasting: Some Similarities and Differences
Authors: van Vuuren Kitty
Published: March 2018

This paper examines community projects funded under the federal government's Networking the Nation program, and compares these with community broadcasting. Since the early 1990s, rural community ICT projects have enjoyed considerable government support, but now face closure as government funding dries up. A comparison with the community broadcasting sector offers some insights into the relationship between community and not-for-profit organisations and the problems associated with adopting government and business strategies in the delivery of community services.
Australian Press, Radio and Television Historiography: An Update
Authors: Griffen-Foley Bridget
Published: March 2018

This bibliography updates previous work by Henry Mayer and John Henningham. It is organised according to their categories and is annotated to provide an overview of developments in Australian research in media history.
The Privatisation of Consumption: Marketing Media through Sensory Modalities
Authors: Malefyt Timothy deWaal
Published: March 2018

Marketers have heralded a major shift in the way products and brands are currently marketed to consumers. Rather than marketing a product or brand on its rational or functional attributes, such as touting a car's horsepower, agility or smooth ride, marketers now sell brands on their experiential or emotional dimensions, such as the sensations offered from driving the car brand. This shift towards ‘experiential marketing’ has not only affected the advertising end-product of executions, the advertising research process, but has also spurred new modes and models for advertising media planning. To wit, the linear and sequential model of media persuasion is being replaced by more open-ended, experiential models. Have marketers tapped into a new personalised way to approximate the consumer, or are these merely revised means of objectifying the consumer? This paper explores these dimensions and looks at what the changes in media models and consumer representations mean to marketers.
The Convergence of Political and Government Advertising: Theory versus Practice
Authors: Young Sally
Published: March 2018

Although they are sometimes confused, in theory government and political advertising are separate and quite distinct. By convention, government advertising — paid for directly by taxpayers — is to be used only for necessary government information campaigns which are neutral in nature and not liable to be perceived as creating a partisan benefit for the ruling party. By contrast, political advertising occurs predominantly during elections, is paid for by political parties or candidates, and is necessarily partisan, persuasive and usually highly emotive in nature. However, in the past two decades these distinctions have broken down. This paper explores the growing links between the two types of advertising at the federal level and concludes that there is a vast gap between the theory and reality of government advertising.
Globalisation Trends in Australia's Advertising Industry
Authors: Sinclair John
Published: March 2018

This year's takeover of Australia's largest advertising agency, George Patterson Partners, by the British-based global group WPP is just the most recent and dramatic event in a longer-term trend towards globalisation and a complex concentration of ownership in the advertising business. Global advertising groups like WPP, along with their global advertiser clients, are seeking strategically to align the same advertiser with the same agency in each major national market: the phenomenon of ‘global alignment’. Australian agencies are necessarily drawn into the resulting process of consolidation, so much so that it becomes not merely difficult to distinguish between national and international ownership, but almost meaningless. At the same time, there is emerging a greater differentiation of functions amongst agencies, although often coordinated under the one corporate umbrella. Certain agencies are specialising in media buying — that is, the tactical purchase of advertising time and space on behalf of clients — while ‘creative’ agencies provide the content to fill them. Others again are positioning themselves as experts in the burgeoning field of internet advertising. Other current trends include the breakdown of the once-strict boundaries between clients, agencies and media. Advertisers are setting up their own in-house agencies, agencies have acquired their own media outlets, and media are carrying ‘news’ and ‘entertainment’ content which has been prepared by agencies for their clients. Thus even the boundary between advertising and editorial or program content is also breaking down. This paper provides an overview of all these trends, as advertising scrambles to secure its place in the contemporary era of globalisation in a deregulated, post-mass media world.
Net Neutrality: No Easy Answers
Authors: Butt Danny
Published: March 2018

This article considers the debate on ‘network neutrality’, and the idea that the internet should carry all internet traffic equally without prioritising different kinds of traffic or discriminating among types of content. It considers contemporary developments in the internet and its business models, and urges caution about adopting simplistic solutions in the name of saving the public internet. Instead, the author suggests that there is a need to clarify the public benefits of network access, and to develop mechanisms to support these.
Travelling with James W. Carey
Authors: Maras Steven
Published: March 2018

James W. Carey's recent death provides an occasion to trace the reception and reworking of some of his ideas in Australia. A significant scholar, Carey made contributions to communication, cultural, media and journalism studies. Carey's work can be tackled in a number of ways, and this essay reflects upon his contribution to these fields, with a special focus on the Australian context. The essay approaches Carey's work thematically, through notions of ‘culture and communication’ and ‘journalism’, and purposefully tries to draw links between the two.
Who is Singing the B-Party Blues? National Security and the Communications Industry
Authors: Lloyd-Jones Susanne
Published: March 2018

With the national security agenda here to stay, this article looks at the central yet contradictory role played in it by the communications industry. As well as the legislative framework, it canvasses issues and responses of telecommunications and internet providers, service engines, as well as those involved in journalism, broadcasting and content provision. The article argues that the communications industry is far from a neutral actor in the national security regime.
After Image: Deadly Earnest and the Ghosts of Television's Past
Authors: Atkinson Stephen
Published: March 2018

In the 1960s and 1970s, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide each had their own Deadly Earnest, ghoulish presenter of Aweful Movies with Deadly Earnest, a weekly offering of schlock and B-grade horror. In Adelaide, on SAS 10, the persona of Deadly was assumed by local actor and photographer Hedley Cullen, whose maniacal laugh and pop-out eyes have remained indelibly etched in the memories of those who watched as children. Although the show was never intended for them, it was children who became his most ardent fans, inundating him with letters, drawings and miscellany, and mobbing him for autographs at suburban shopping centres and drive-ins. This paper discusses Deadly Earnest under Hedley Cullen's stewardship as a feature of the lost world of pre-network regional television and local celebrity.
Australian TV 50 Years on
Authors: Thomas Ted
Published: March 2018

This article reviews the 50 years of television in Australia from the point of view of a leading industry player. It describes the many challenges faced by the industry from its formative years to current media upheavals. Issues covered include regional television, the introduction of colour and satellite technology, the role of regulation, Australian content, children's TV and the relation of Australian television to the rest of the world. It also looks at some of the programming highlights of the period.
Media Ownership Changes 1987 and 2006: From Alan Bond to CVC
Authors: Tiffen Rodney
Published: March 2018

The changes to media ownership policy in 1987 led to unprecedented instability in Australia's media with many deleterious consequences over the next few years. The changes in October 2006 are the most far-reaching since then, and it is still impossible to know what their ramifications will be. The most significant move so far has been James Packer's sale of half of PBL to the international private equity group CVC for $4.5 billion. Analysts have so far neglected to examine what this might portend for the future of Australian media.
The Digital Action Plan
Authors: Given Jock
Published: March 2018

This article discusses the Australian government's late 2006 ‘Digital Action Plan’, which details policy changes for the transition to digital television. It suggests that the plan does open up greater possibilities for new services, and so encourages consumers to purchase digital receivers; however, it also suggests that Australia's approach is characterised by a desire to follow international trends rather than any inventive use of the technology, or policy leadership.
Talkback Radio and Australian Politics since the Summer of 1967
Authors: Griffen-Foley Bridget
Published: March 2018

This article explores the intersections between Australian party politics and commercial talkback radio from 1967 to 1983. It considers the eagerness of individual politicians such as John Gorton and R.W. Askin to exploit the possibilities of ‘dial-in’ radio, addresses how political parties came to view the usefulness (and the dangers) of talkback radio, and assesses the political interventions of Brian White, Ormsby Wilkins and John Laws. In doing so, the article traces the radio industry's campaign against the ban on pre-election comment, the evolution of the Fairness Code for Broadcasters, and the relationship between media monitoring and talkback radio.
‘Stay on the Line …’: An Analysis of Callers to Talkback Radio in Australia
Authors: Gillman Sarah
Published: March 2018

This paper considers the question: who is calling talkback radio in Australia and why? It suggests that callers should not be regarded as one large homogenous group. Instead, it argues that talkback callers pick up their phones for a number of reasons, from genuinely seeking information to seeking company and, since September 11, to make sense of their world. In doing so, this paper looks at the ways in which callers are integrated into programs and the ways in which they contribute to the creation of radio content and public debate. Finally, this paper analyses the small group of repeat callers who, like ‘Sylvia of Turner’, become, as Todd Gitlin calls them, familiar strangers, and analyses the role of producers and announcers in the construction of the celebrity talkback caller.
Music Festivals: Transformations in Non-Metropolitan Places, and in Creative Work
Authors: Gibson Chris
Published: March 2018

This paper addresses the theme of this special issue of MIA in the context of music festivals. It discusses the continuing growth of music festivals as avenues for musical performance, and for regional economic development, and considers what festivals mean for musicians in terms of changing audience demographics and the conditions of work. Festivals are increasingly important for musicians in building audiences and incomes. They have proliferated particularly in rural, coastal and ex-urban parts of Australia, linked to day-tripper and short-stay tourism and the wider socioeconomic transition of those places. Festivals both reflect and contribute to social and cultural changes, such as the diffusion of musical genres with specialist audiences, inward migration of particular demographic groups and shifting place identities. They also offer new opportunities for places seeking to develop tourism, and local music and performance-based industries. This paper explains these trends, and draws on results from a recent large research exercise that sought to document the extent and impact of festivals. Although they are not new, festivals continue to reconfigure musical touring networks, audiences and performance opportunities. Such reconfigurations have occurred with less public fanfare than developments surrounding digital technology and downloading cultures, but their influence on the working lives of musicians is no less profound.
Towards Information Policy?
Authors: Thomas Julian
Published: March 2018

Julian Thomas considers developments in national information policy since the change of government. He considers some long-standing problems such as the fragmentation of information policy across numerous agencies, paying particular attention to the objectives of the new National Office of the Information Economy. The article argues that information policy lacks focus, and has not yet moved beyond the boosterism of the mid-1990s.
Telecommunications: Bringing the Regional ‘Mite’ to Bear
Authors: Wilkerson Samantha
Published: March 2018

This article focuses on the Modular Interactive Telecommunications Environment (MITE), which is being developed by Imago Multimedia Centre, Perth, with RTIF funding. It highlights the MITE's key features and design methodology and looks at how the MITE approach differs from most other rural communications.
Island Watch: The New Front Line in Torres Strait Island Telecommunications
Authors: Arley Brian
Published: March 2018

This article explores a unique Networking the Nation Remote Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund $8 million funding application made by the Torres Strait Islanders Media Association Inc (TISMA). The purpose is to install and operate state-of-the-art telecommunication infrastructure on each inhabited Torres Strait Island to enhance the services and operations of the 27 Commonwealth and state government agencies operating in this region and to better meet the education, employment, training, socio-economic, cultural and linguistic needs of the region's inhabitants and to increase production, promotion and revenue-generation of their local cultural industries.
Into the New Millennium: The Role of Indigenous Media in Australia
Authors: Meadows Michael , Morris Christine
Published: March 2018

This article explores the nature of Indigenous media production in Australia in relation to a two-year study — the Millennium Project — which has begun to explore the implications and possibilities offered by new media technologies in Indigenous communities across the continent. Within a framework of the continuing misrepresentation of Indigenous people and issues, many communities have begun to develop alternative media systems with alternative approaches to information management by applying particular cultural frameworks to media production. This project explores the current and preferred future role of Indigenous media within the context of the impact of past, present and future media technologies and policies. The research will help to explain ways in which community-based media are being used and how they might be used as resources in the processes of cultural and linguistic maintenance.
Moccasins and ‘Respect’: Writing Practices during Media Coverage of the Moe Story
Authors: Griffiths Mary
Published: March 2018

Metropolitan media coverage moved beyond reporting the alleged abduction of Moe toddler Jaidyn Leskie to describe the social ‘tragedy’ of Victoria's La Trobe Valley, attributing the collapse of country-town innocence and a perceived growth of anti-social behaviour to state-driven ‘dirty’ industry restructuring, unemployment and the collapse of the local small business economy. The representation of Moe as ‘rotten’ offended local readers, sparking a series of mainstream and tactical ‘rewritings’ of Moe's social, moral and physical landscapes. The most effective and noteworthy local response was a special edition of the regional non-daily community paper, The La Trobe Valley Express. In ‘Moe under the microscope’, ‘ordinary citizens’ were given a platform for their views on the ‘hostile’ mainstream media reports, the region and the civic ‘truths’ of Moe. The incident provides a site for the consideration of some of the issues involved in compliance with the new code of ethics for journalists.
Beyond the Mausoleum: Museums and the Media
Authors: Witcomb Andrea
Published: March 2018

Much of the discussion of the impact of electronic technologies on museums suggests that electronic technologies have been important in displacing the traditional metaphor of museums as mausoleums. This paper supports the move away from this metaphor, but suggests that this is not a recent phenomenon or entirely attributable to the impact of electronic technologies. The rhetorics currently associated with electronic technologies in museums can be better understood as part of a longer history of the relation between museums and the media. This is a history which points to the role of the media in producing a public sphere in which more democratic social relations are possible.
The Changing Face and Function of Museums
Authors: Trotter Robin
Published: March 2018

Museums are currently undergoing a number of changes as a repercussion of their histories and professional developments, and of new social and cultural contexts, not to mention as a result of pressure from competition and economic forces.

This article explores the current ‘reinvention’ of museums — in particular, national museums — by examining some of the factors of change — some of the major internal pressures that have been the result of museological initiatives and also various exogenous influences. New museology and postcolonialism represent not only separate forces, but also a synthesis of pressures that are not only changing the face, but also the role, of museums, whilst also transforming relationships between museums and their users.

A concern of this study is to look at those museums which have a ‘nationalising’ function, and to determine whether changing policies and practices are inhibiting or advance a renegotiation of the relationships between museums and their constituencies.

In the last two decades, we have seen some trends confirmed. There has been a move from material culture studies to concern with the ideas contained in objects, whilst the older notion of the museum as a treasure house has given way to a stronger educative role and, more recently, an information centre and also a site of leisure, entertainment and identity-formation. These ‘reinventive’ processes, it is suggested, are closely allied to a postcolonial imperative.