bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Noongar Identity and Community Media
Authors: Johnston Michelle
Published: January 2017

The Noongar Aboriginal people are the traditional owners of the southwest of Western Australia, including the land on which the city of Perth is located. Their recent history has been dominated by brutal and racist government policies that have created a diverse and complex community working to rediscover and preserve Noongar culture. Community media can be an effective and empowering tool for preserving culture, shaping a contemporary Noongar identity and creating a dialogue between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous urban community of Perth. This article discusses issues of Noongar identity in Perth, and looks at how lessons from the past are shaping new Noongar media initiatives and the establishment of Noongar radio.
Sport Media and Journalism: An Introduction
Authors: Zion Lawrie , Spaaij Ramón , Nicholson Matthew
Published: January 2017

The media have played a key role in sport's ascendancy as a social, cultural and economic institution, both in Australia and internationally. This article outlines some of the recent developments in the nexus between sport and the media, as well as the criticisms that have been levelled at the sport journalism profession. It is argued that it is now difficult to analyse sport, in its many forms, without acknowledging its relationship with the media, and vice versa. The final part of the article draws together the key issues and debates addressed in this themed issue.
Football's ‘Coming Out’: Soccer and Homophobia in England's Tabloid Press
Authors: Hughson John , Free Marcus
Published: January 2017

This article examines the current contradictory discourses on homosexuality and soccer within the British (specifically English) newspaper media. While support ostensibly is given in the press to the eradication of homophobia in relation to soccer, the continuing promotion of traditional masculine football stereotypes, such as the ‘hard man’, imagines an ongoing heterosexual normativity. Furthermore, the media fascination with professional soccer players ‘coming out’, although expressed in supportive terms, may be decoded as an attempt to publicly reveal the deviant other. Such ambivalent representation is even evident in coverage of the Kick It Out anti-homophobia campaign. News releases from the campaign have been reinterpreted within media representation to fuel a perceived public interest in wanting to know which Premier League soccer players are gay. Accordingly, by employing a psychoanalytic and post-structuralist perspective on the instability of discursive constructions of heteronormative masculinity, the article considers soccer and its related media as a site of hegemonic contestation in which the dominant discourse of male heterosexuality is at once undergoing challenge and reinforcement.
Online versus Print: A Comparative Analysis of Web-First Sports Coverage in Australia and the United Kingdom
Authors: English Peter
Published: January 2017

Sports departments are among the best suited sections of a news organisation for the publishing of web-first articles, due to the urgency of reporting regular matches and news events. The decision about which platform to use first has become a major issue for media outlets. This article reports the results of a comparative analysis of 2606 articles published on the sports websites and newspapers of three Australian ( The Australian, The Age and the Courier-Mail) and three UK titles (the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and The Sun). The study found that the UK publications published more than double the number of web-first stories than the Australian ones. In-depth interviews with staff from each of the sports departments confirmed the view that Australian news organisations would prefer to protect exclusive content by holding it back for the newspaper, while two of the three UK companies pursued web-first aims.
The Decision, a Case Study: Lebron James, Espn and Questions about us Sports Journalism Losing its Way
Authors: Banagan Robert
Published: January 2017

When reigning NBA Most Valuable Player, LeBron James announced that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat via free agency in a nationally televised special on 8 July 2010, it set off a firestorm of controversy throughout US sports journalism and popular culture. While the media criticised ESPN, the self-proclaimed ‘Worldwide Leader in Sports’, for its lack of journalistic integrity in the broadcasting of James’ announcement as a one-hour live special entitled The Decision, James himself was vilified in the press as ‘arrogant’, ‘selfish’ and ‘a traitor’. By taking LeBron James’ decision to join the Heat as a case study, this article proposes that James and ESPN are inextricably intertwined, for they operate under the same set of governing philosophies. Through analysis of their enmeshed relationship, alarming issues are raised regarding US sports journalism: the growing confusion regarding ethics, the spread of opportunism for profit and the media's imposition of nostalgic values on the modern athlete – values of which today's sportsman has little or no concept. As a result of this analysis, conclusions are drawn regarding the current inability of US sports journalism to police itself.
Madman Entertainment: A Case Study in ‘by Fans for Fans’ Media Distribution
Authors: Bainbridge Jason , Norris Craig
Published: January 2017

This article is part of a larger research project looking at the role of Australian media companies in sustaining fan and Australian investment in global popular culture. This article focuses on Madman Entertainment – one of the most successful DVD and merchandise distribution companies in Australia and the leading distributor of anime, with over 90 per cent of the market share. The article explores the ways in which Madman has become a part of the simultaneous globalisation and localisation of Japanese cultural products, and sets out to show how profiling such a company can also provide some insight into the changing role of fans in driving innovation and investment in popular culture.
Goa Hippy Tribe: Theorising Documentary Content on a Social Network Site
Authors: Nash Kate
Published: January 2017

In the 1970s, a wave of young Western hippies descended on the beaches of Goa in India. Forty years later, some of them reconnected on the social network site Facebook and planned a reunion. This event, and the Goan hippy community then and now, are the subjects of a documentary called Goa Hippy Tribe, produced by Australian documentary maker Darius Devas. Funded by Screen Australia, SBS and Screen New South Wales, Goa Hippy Tribe is the first Australian documentary to be produced for the social network site Facebook. In this article, I consider how documentary in a social network context might be theorised. While the concept of the database narrative is most often invoked to explain user interactivity in online documentary, social networks such as Facebook invite different forms of interaction, and therefore raise distinct theoretical questions. In particular, Goa Hippy Tribe demonstrates the potential for the audience to engage creatively and communally with documentary.
Local Talkback Radio and Political Engagement
Authors: Gunders Lisa
Published: January 2017

This article investigates the way in which one particular talk radio program, Mornings with Madonna King, deploys strategies that seem to address some of the criticisms levelled at conventional news formats in their ability to engage people as citizens. The program does this by providing background information, linking news content to listeners' experience and creating an impression of efficacy. Finally, the article examines how the institutional practices of radio production and consumption constrain this democratic potential.
The Media's Role in Social Inclusion and Exclusion
Authors: Ewart Jacqui , Snowden Collette
Published: January 2017

Definitions of social inclusion and exclusion are fluid, and researchers and policy-makers have not agreed upon an all-encompassing definition. For wider society, social inclusion requires the transformation of these emerging definitions into ‘lived experience’ and actions. For the media, reporting on social inclusion is complicated by the confusion about what social inclusion is and to whom it is intended to apply, and by the gap between the ideal and the slower pace of societal change. Until recently, media studies researchers have focused largely on the issue of social exclusion and the media. The goal of this themed issue of MIA is to address some of the gaps in scholarly knowledge about the media's role in social inclusion and exclusion, and the context of that role within the wider social and political discourses. Our aim is to move beyond existing understandings of the media's role in social exclusion to look at spaces and places where there have been attempts to provide inclusion and whether they have worked, but also what issues and problems might have beset them.
Dimensions of Digital Media Literacy and the Relationship with Social Exclusion
Authors: Park Sora
Published: January 2017

This article has two objectives. The first is to conceptualise digital media literacy as a multi-dimensional concept by differentiating media content from media device. A broad range of skills is required to use digital media, and each dimension can be clarified by separating the device from the content. The second goal is to relate social exclusion to digital media literacy. How people use digital technology has long-term outcomes that could be either beneficial or disadvantageous. In the first part of the article, the multi-dimensional aspect of digital media literacy is discussed. Dimensions include the abilities to access, understand and create both in the area of device and content. The second part of the article discusses how social exclusion is related mostly to the third dimension of digital media literacy: the ability to create and participate.
Host/Host Conversations: Analysing Moral and Social Order in Talk on Commercial Radio
Authors: Ames Kate
Published: January 2017

Talk between dual (or triple) host combinations dominates breakfast and drive programs. These programs are chat based, and incorporate talk on a range of topics conducted for an overhearing audience, including talkback segments that involve callers. This article considers the features of chat-based programming, and proposes a framework for analysis into talk-in-interaction on this format. Using ethnomethodological approaches – conversation and membership category analysis – as the basis for analysis, this article argues that in addition to the influence of the ‘radio program’, there are three membership category devices that influence host/host talk. These are ‘telling stories’, ‘members of a team’ and ‘members of a community’. The ways in which hosts and callers orient to these have consequences that may lead to the overt or subtle exclusion, or otherwise, of members of the overhearing audience, and this approach encourages a systematic analysis of the type of community to which participants orient within particular program.
Truth-Telling at the Border: An Audience Appraisal of Border Security
Authors: Price Emma , Nethery Amy
Published: January 2017

Since its initial broadcast in October 2004, Border Security: Australia's Front Line has enjoyed sustained high ratings on Australian television. This article examines the key theme of ‘truth-telling’ in Border Security. Drawing on interviews with audiences and the program's executive producer, the article argues that the way truth-telling shapes the storytelling in Border Security taps into contemporary social and political ideas about how and why Australian borders should be managed. As a diagnostic tool for identifying authenticity, truth-telling is the key condition, or ‘rule’, that newcomers must follow if they want to enter the country. But audiences also apply the rule of truth-telling to the program itself, and disengage when they feel like they are being manipulated. Truth-telling at the border – by people wanting to enter the country and by the program production itself – contributes to the continued popularity of the program with Australian audiences, and also explains when and why audiences disengage with the program.
‘The Girl in Cell 4’: Securing Social Inclusion through a Journalist-Source Collaboration
Authors: Mason Bonita
Published: January 2017

Aboriginal people who die in custody face two forms of exclusion: one evident in their disproportionately high imprisonment rates; the other in their traditional lack of voice in the media. This latter exclusion comes about through journalistic practices that privilege authoritative sources and emphasise distance. Janet Beetson was one of fourteen Aboriginal people to die in custody in 1994, a record year for Aboriginal prison deaths. At the time, her death went largely unremarked in the mainstream media. ‘The Girl in Cell 4’ was published in 1997 about these 1994 events. It was not breaking news: its aim was to tell in detail the story of the last week of Janet Beetson's life through an investigation of what led to her avoidable death. This article charts the critical importance of Janet Beetson's family members in bringing the story to public attention in a way that honoured their loved one and called to account the systems that allowed her to die. This journalist–source collaboration challenges orthodox ideas about arm's length reporting, and indicates that such collaboration can provide for social inclusion.
Media Classification: Content Regulation in an Age of Convergent Media
Authors: Flew Terry
Published: January 2017

This article outlines the key recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission's review of the National Classification Scheme, as outlined in its report Classification – Content Regulation and Convergent Media (ALRC, 2012). It identifies key contextual factors that underpin the need for reform of media classification laws and policies, including the fragmentation of regulatory responsibilities and the convergence of media platforms, content and services, as well as discussing the ALRC's approach to law reform.
News Media Consumption among Young Australians: Patterns of Use and Attitudes towards Media Reporting
Authors: Lancaster Kari , Hughes Caitlin Elizabeth , Spicer Bridget
Published: January 2017

Research suggests youth make active choices about how they use and respond to media. Yet publicly available information outlining patterns of youth media consumption and how content is perceived – especially in relation to reporting of issues of pertinence to youth – is limited. Using an online survey of 2296 Australians aged 16–24, we measured news media consumption and perceptions of reporting on illicit drugs. The study concluded that Australian youth are not ‘deserting’ news media; indeed, they have regular contact with news media. However, youth regard mainstream news as lacking credibility.
Australian Internet Histories: It's Time
Authors: Given Jock , Goggin Gerard
Published: January 2017

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, the internet has grown steadily, metamorphosised in many surprising ways, and now is central to Australian society and media. As a relatively new medium, we still know little about its histories. This article discusses the emerging field of internet histories, which as yet has surprisingly few connections with the relatively well-established enterprise of media histories. We review the development of the internet in Australia, discuss international scholarly work on internet histories and, in the context of this special issue, consider the research agenda that lies ahead.
The Australian Finance Sector and Social Media: Towards a History of the New Banking
Authors: Balnaves Mark
Published: January 2017

The names iGrin and Lending Hub might not raise eyebrows, but they are the first peer-to-peer lending companies in Australia's internet history. Peer-to-peer lending is a new category of lending organisation – a part of the new banking distribution layer – that provides alternative ways of organising the relationship between borrower and lender, alternative ways of distributing money and alternatives ways of making decisions about finance using social networks. Its ethos is mutual aid, crowd funding, collaborative consumption, social lending and social sharing, moving away from traditional banks as ‘trusted agents’. New currency platforms are also emerging that take advantage of peer-to-peer networks. Google as a hyper-giant – an aggregator – has taken out a banking licence in the Netherlands and bought a currency platform. These new players are called ‘disruptors’ because they are perceived simultaneously as creators of new opportunity and a threat to the traditional banking value chain. There is a change of ‘game’, in a Bourdieuian sense, underway in the finance sector. Peer-to-peer lending, mutual aid, signifies a move towards remutualisation, something not missed in the international policy domains. This article covers the history of peer-to-peer lending and the differences that are emerging between social media as ‘mutual aid’ (new lending organisations deploying social media in mutual support) and social media as ‘customer intimacy’ (traditional banking deploying social media to gain sophisticated engagement).
The Predictive Power of Political Pundits: Prescient or Pitiful?
Authors: Metaxas Phillip , Leigh Andrew
Published: January 2017

Although Australian political pundits frequently make predictions about the future, little systematic evidence exists about the accuracy of these predictions. To assess the predictive power of experts, we survey the transcripts of two well-known political programs – Insiders and Meet the Press – and record all falsifiable forecasts. Looking at the three months prior to both the 2007 and 2010 federal elections, we are struck by the paucity of falsifiable predictions, with most pundits heavily qualifying their predictions (so that they can never be said to be wrong). In 32 hours of television, we identify 20 falsifiable forecasts in our sample, of which we judge thirteen to be correct. We conclude with some suggestions for political talk shows, and for political scientists seeking to better analyse expert predictions.
Gender Mores on Indian Tv: The ‘Respectable’ Middle Class and Ndtv's The Big Fight
Authors: Khorana Sukhmani
Published: January 2017

While India's booming entertainment channels are often examined for their lifestyle content, the nation's equally vibrant English-language news networks can also be read as offering lifestyle-oriented content and advice. Talk shows of both the controlled panel debate and the more interactive studio audience discussion variety often veer into social commentary, particularly on issues pertaining to the transitioning social values of the middle classes, including normative gender. In light of this, this article examines a recent love, sex and marriage-themed episode of leading news channel NDTV 24×7's debate-style talk show, The Big Fight. Such discussions are often cast among ‘respectable’ middle-class Indian households as being ‘too forward’ to watch with the family. Do the panelists on these shows simply articulate ‘respectable’ middle-class sentiments, or are they drawn from a wider social pool? What is the role of the host in re-mediating the material under discussion? How do studio audience questions impact on form and content? Most importantly, what role does such programming play in the ongoing transformation of gendered social norms among the middle classes in India today? These questions are considered within the broader framework of the transnational talk show genre and its appropriation in a specific instance in the contemporary Indian context.
A World of Flavour: Taste and Text in Taiwanese Tea Culture
Authors: Writer Scott
Published: January 2017

The accounts of tea growing, manufacture and connoisseurship encountered in Taiwanese lifestyle media offer not only an introduction to one of the island's most iconic agricultural products but also instruction in particular ways of thinking about the world. As they recount tasteful encounters with tea in its various manifestations from field to factory to cup, these texts delineate a shared discursive space traversed by tea farmers, tea manufacturers, tea drinkers, writers and readers. In this article, I consider how, in tracing each tea's path through this imagined space, these texts question the relationship between the human and the non-human, and evoke ways of living and feeling that are thought to reconnect humanity with its others. Here, cultivating a taste for tea is conceived as a way of inducting tea drinkers and readers into a way of living by which anxieties born of the industrial food system might be overcome. This way of living is one in which cultivating a form of felt engagement with the taste and materiality of each tea is believed to offer a means of directly apprehending the larger constellation of human and non-human agencies from which both taste and life are thought to emerge.
The Cultural Politics of Metropolitan and Vernacular Lifestyles in India
Authors: Harindranath Ramaswami
Published: January 2017

Using English-language and Tamil cookery shows on Indian television as examples, this article examines the complex cultural terrain traversed by contemporary Indian lifestyle TV, and argues that the gastro-politics inherent in such programming is indicative of the ways in which such shows appeal to and develop diverse social imaginaries in a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multicultural society such as India. The article argues that these shows both enact the creative tensions intrinsic to contemporary neo-liberal forms of cultural nationalism and demonstrate the constitutive co-presence of the global, the national and the vernacular in contemporary Indian culture.
Henry Mayer Lecture 2013: Quis Custodiet …? Reflections of a Media Watcher
Authors: Holmes Jonathan
Published: January 2017

During hearings for the inquiry into press regulation, one newspaper proprietor suggested to Ray Finkelstein QC that his journalists were ‘more afraid of Media Watch than of the Press Council’. To counter what he saw as the Australian Press Council's ineffectiveness, Mr Finkelstein recommended a statutory News Media Council to enforce ethical and editorial standards on the print and online media. Although – judging by online comments – such a move might well have proved popular with consumers of news, the mainstream media rancorously opposed it on the grounds that it would threaten freedom of speech. The more cogent objection, however, was that would be unnecessary, and ineffective. Cases of individuals badly maligned, bullied or otherwise damaged by the media are comparatively few in Australia: those cited by Ray Finkelstein, on closer examination, were neither clear-cut nor amenable to regulation. And, while regulating accuracy is possible, regulating ‘fairness' (especially if that means attempting to root out political bias) is well-nigh impossible. The opportunity for the most desirable reform to media regulation – a self-regulatory regime that would cover all media on all platforms – has been lost. But this article argues that the digital revolution might well provide solutions. Over time, it will dilute the dominance of the major news outlets in Australia – especially News Ltd. And for the first time, it affords injured or affronted consumers a means to band together and hit back at Big Media in ways that are both swift and effective. We are all Media Watchers now.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt? What the Australian Defence Force Thinks of its Coverage in the Australian Media, and Why
Authors: Foster Kevin , Pallant Jason
Published: January 2017

This article offers the first empirical study of the origins, nature and effects of Australian Defence Force (ADF) opinions about the Australian media's coverage of Defence issues and ADF operations. It summarises the history of fractious military–media relations in Australia, and looks at the principal contributors to the current antipathy between the parties. It argues that while the media routinely denounce the military's motivations in its dealings with the fourth estate, they have no means of understanding its rationale, as until now there has been no empirical analysis of what the military thinks of the media's treatment of it and how these opinions have been shaped. The article then presents and examines the results of its survey of the 2011 intake at the Australian Command and Staff College. From an analysis of these results, it proposes why the ADF has such a low opinion of Australian media coverage of the armed forces, and examines the consequences of these opinions for current and future military–media relations.
Still Not There: The Continued Invisibility of Female Athletes and Sports in the New Zealand Print Media
Authors: French Simone
Published: January 2017

This research examined parity for female athletes compared with male athletes in the level of coverage received in the New Zealand print media in a year that did not contain either the Commonwealth or Olympic Games. Using content analysis, 562 sport news articles from the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post were analysed. The findings revealed that female athletes received 6.1 per cent of coverage compared with male athletes, who received 73.6 per cent; articles related to female athletes/sports had an average length of 432 words compared with 461 words for articles related to male athletes/sports. These data are a stark illustration that, even in a country where women led the world in achieving suffrage, continuing cultural change is not guaranteed.
Introduction: Sound Media, Sound Cultures
Authors: Aveyard Karina , Moran Albert
Published: January 2017

Sound is an ever-present, ever-changing component of communication and media. It has been a central part of the dramatic developments that have occurred in recording, screen exhibition, radio and television broadcasting and telecommunications technologies since the 1800s. Yet, in relation to audio-visual media forms in particular, sound is often seen as a secondary element – something that is subordinate to the visual immediacy and the assigned textual primacy of the image. The aim of this issue of MIA is to help redress this imbalance and reassert the place of sound within wider conceptualisations of media and culture. The articles engage with the significance of the aural from a wide range of perspectives, taking in its experiential and immersive characteristics in relation to screen media as well as the commercial contexts of sound and music and its role in identity-making and social organisation.
Phil Spector and the New Movie Soundtrack
Authors: May Anthony
Published: January 2017

This article looks at the changes that occurred in pop music during the 1960s, which established the foundation for the reconfiguration of its relationship with film. The focus is on the work of producer Phil Spector and the radical changes that he brought to the medium of pop music in the early part of that decade. While the article stops short of suggesting that Spector was directly responsible for the transformation in cinema soundtracks heard in New Hollywood films from 1968 onwards, it does contend that his influence rendered pop music more accessible for movie soundtracks. Spector's innovative studio manipulations, which were designed to remove the sonic dominance of the vocal, were at the centre of these transformations.
Facebook in the University Workplace
Authors: Francois Aurora , Hebbani Aparna , Rintel Sean
Published: January 2017

Access to social network sites (SNS) in the workplace has been much debated. While some consider SNS a distraction, others consider them a tool for professional socialisation and that recreational access positively impacts satisfaction. This exploratory study reports results from an online survey of employees from one faculty of an Australian university, exploring how they used Facebook at work and how they would react to a hypothetical Facebook ban. Three-quarters of respondents used Facebook at work, primarily for personal socialisation during breaks. Many self-imposed a strict personal/professional separation, but opposed a hypothetical SNS ban, perceiving it as an infringement on their workplace autonomy. It is argued that university employees – academic and professional – can be trusted to self-regulate access.
Contemporary Dynamics of Sámi Media in the Nordic States
Authors: Markelin Lia , Husband Charles
Published: January 2017

Although one people, the Sámi live in four different countries with different laws and regulations. The Sámi media landscape is thus shaped by four different political and economic frameworks, creating unique nationally defined environments. Simultaneously, the Sámi people are internally diverse, both in terms of language and identity. The media professionals within Sámi media need to navigate in an environment where there are several indigenous and majority languages, which raises questions about the fragmentation of potential audiences, and also about the role of the Sámi media in sustaining or undermining particular Sámi languages. Drawing upon recent interviews (2012) with Sámi media professionals, this article seeks to provide insight into the development of an expanding indigenous media infrastructure within the Nordic states and the homelands of Sápmi. It points particularly to the centrality of the national public service broadcast system in providing the political and infrastructural context for this development. The different political settlements between national governments and their Sámi populations significantly shape the wider political will that has framed this process. At the same time, while seeking to shed some light on the diverse Sámi media environment, this article also provides some insight into the professional and personal identities of the individuals working within the Sámi media world. The synergy between the wider media environment and the personal and professional endeavours of Sámi media professionals is central to the future development of the Sámi media environment of Sápmi.
The Intervention of Media Power in Indigenous Policy-Making
Authors: McCallum Kerry , Waller Lisa
Published: January 2017

This article explores how media power impacts on policy-making in Indigenous affairs in Australia through an examination of the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER). The article draws on interviews with a range of actors in the policy constellation to discuss three intersecting factors contributing to this media-driven announcement: the Howard government's political and policy aims for Indigenous affairs; policy bureaucrats' increasingly mediatised practices; and the rise of conservative Indigenous spokespeople as key players in debates about Indigenous affairs policy. The article concludes that these factors have made a significant contribution to the manifestation of media power in the Indigenous policy-making process.
Discourse, Deficit and Identity: Aboriginality, the Race Paradigm and the Language of Representation in Contemporary Australia
Authors: Fforde Cressida , Bamblett Lawrence , Lovett Ray , Gorringe Scott , Fogarty Bill
Published: January 2017

Deficit discourse is expressed in a mode of language that consistently frames Aboriginal identity in a narrative of deficiency. It is interwoven with notions of ‘authenticity’, which in turn adhere to models of identity still embedded within the race paradigm, suffering from all of its constraints but perniciously benefiting from all of its tenacity. Recent work shows that deficit discourse surrounding Aboriginality is intricately entwined within and across different sites of representation, policy and expression, and is active both within and outside Indigenous Australia. It thus appears to exhibit all the characteristics of what Foucault has termed a discursive formation, and its analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Developing research overseas on the prevalence and social impact of deficit discourse indicates a significant link between discourse surrounding indigeneity and outcomes for indigenous peoples. However, while there is emerging work in this field in Aboriginal education, as well as a growing understanding of the social impact of related behaviours such as lateral violence, the influence of deficit discourse is significantly under-theorised and little understood in the Indigenous Australian context. This article will problematise the issues and explore theory and methods for change.
The ABC, the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the Emergence of Digital Children's Television in Australia
Authors: Rutherford Leonie
Published: January 2017

This article analyses the campaign to establish terrestrial digital children's public service broadcasting in Australia. It finds that the development of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's digital children's channel (ABC3), an initiative initially embraced somewhat opportunistically, enabled an expansion strategy for the public service broadcaster that ultimately helped determine the shape of its current digital channel portfolio. Contrasting the collective and divergent interpretations of future audience behaviours and needs developed by the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) and the ABC, it argues that both organisations developed strategies and made policy decisions that were influential in conditioning the current digital television ecology.
Open or Closed? An Assessment of How Blogs Can Contribute to Policy-Making
Authors: Bamford Vicki
Published: January 2017

This article analyses the processes and outcomes of communication by two Australian government departments – the Departments of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) and Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR – that used blogs to consult with citizens on a policy that was under development. The researcher also interviewed managers of the blog processes of both departments to secure their feedback. The findings indicate that closed community blogs create excellent conditions for rich policy input, while open blogs (available to all citizens) provide less specific and less useable policy input. This is partially because public blogs are easily skewed off topic by participants who wish to dictate a particular view or as a result of ‘the vibe’ in the public sphere, affected by media and other people's commentary that can set the agenda for discussion. Nevertheless, open blogs can provide government with a litmus test of the immediate concerns of active members of the public.
‘You Posted What on Facebook?’ Sport, Sex and the ‘St Kilda Schoolgirl’
Authors: Waterhouse-Watson Deb
Published: January 2017

Throughout 2010–11, a series of sex scandals involving a young woman, AFL players and staff occurred, largely enabled through both social and traditional media. Through this case study, this article questions the power of social media to facilitate an individual's challenge to traditional power hierarchies, exploring the interactions between social media and the news media in gaining public attention. I also uncover the patriarchal ideologies that shaped the way the scandals played out, highlighting the narrative and discursive strategies employed to dismiss Duthie's actions. She was portrayed as a child, a ‘woman scorned’ and/or mentally ill, ultimately disempowering her. The case is a powerful illustration of the continued influence of patriarchal ideologies in curtailing women's power, which is only amplified by the interactivity of social media.
The Press and Public Service Broadcasting: Neville Petersen's News Not Views and the Case for Australian Exceptionalism
Authors: Cryle Denis
Published: January 2017

This article revisits historical rivalries between established and emerging media, namely the press and broadcasting, during the first half of the twentieth century. To this end, the author constructs a dialogue between Neville Petersen's broadcasting research and his own press research over a similar period. In his major work, News Not Views: The ABC, Press and Politics (1932–1947), Petersen (1993) elaborates in detail the ongoing constraints imposed by Australian newspaper proprietors on the fledgling Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in their ultimately unsuccessful struggle to restrict its news supply and influence. Drawing on subsequent press research based on international forums, the author revisits this rivalry, particularly Petersen's thesis that Australian press proprietors exercised disproportionate influence over the national broadcaster when compared with other English-speaking countries, such as Britain and Canada.
Contested Publics: Racist Rants, Bystander Action and Social Media Acts of Citizenship
Authors: McCosker Anthony , Johns Amelia
Published: January 2017

While social media tools enable new kinds of creativity, cultural expression and forms of public, civic and political participation, we often hear more about the harms that arise from instances of trolling and ‘aberrant’ online participation, including racist provocation. In media and communications research, these issues have been framed in a number of ways, usually focusing on new tools for civic engagement, political participation and digital inclusion. Government policy has been shifting steadily towards potential regulation of social media ‘misuse’ in relation to appropriate forms of ‘digital citizenship’. It is in this evolving context that we consider several instances of cultural or nationalistic provocation and conflict in which social media platforms (YouTube and Facebook in particular) have been central to the social dynamic that has unfolded. We examine the recording and uploading of racist rants and associated bystander actions on public transport in Australia and elsewhere around the world. In this article, we contend that while racism remains an issue in uses of social media platforms such as YouTube, this focus often overshadows these platforms' productive potential, including their capacity to support agonistic publics from which productive expressions of cultural citizenship and solidarity might emerge.
Beyond Graphic Novels: Illustrated Scholarly Discourse and the History of Educational Comics
Authors: Humphrey Aaron
Published: January 2017

Comics are increasingly being used in higher education for teaching and research, as demonstrated by the recent publication of comics in The Annals of Internal Medicine and other academic journals. This article examines how the ascendance of graphic novels to the realm of ‘proper’ literature has simultaneously paved the way for this acceptance of comics as scholarly discourse while obscuring the much longer tradition of pedagogical comics dating to before World War II. In the process, it will highlight some of the ways comics can be used in education, and suggest the benefits of using comics as multimodal scholarship.
‘Honey, They Stole My Flickr!’ Social Network Typologies, Online Trust and Dissent, and the Monetisation of Immaterial Labour
Authors: Bagust Philip
Published: January 2017

In May 2013, Flickr – one of the first great social media platforms and a pioneer in the use of the digital image as ‘social glue’ – launched a new platform design, unannounced, to its 80 million-plus user community. The changes brought Flickr more into line with newer mobile-focused Web 2.0 competitors, and were arguably inevitable if Flickr's owner, Yahoo, was to persist with the platform. However, the changes elicited a storm of protest from existing Flickr users. The author followed the progress of this ‘revolt’ for a month on Flickr's own user forums, and uses the insights gained to ask questions about current theorising of Web 2.0 platform typologies, their corporate governance and business models, and the apparent quietism of their massive immaterial labour ‘workforces’. The article concludes by asking whether we need to think beyond current Web 2.0 governance models that seem so welded to dichotomies of public and private ownership.
The Role of Local Intermediaries in the Process of Digitally Engaging Non-Users of the Internet
Authors: Park Sora
Published: January 2017

This article aims to provide a better understanding of the process of becoming digitally engaged. Those who cannot utilise digital networks are systematically disadvantaged, particularly in a hyper-connected world in which services are provided online by default. By interviewing and observing clients and trainers at a telecentre, the ACT Digital Hub, this study investigated the process that non-internet users undergo – from digital readiness to digital engagement – in order to become adept users. Intermediaries such as telecentres play a crucial role in equipping non-users with digital readiness, which is a precursor to digital media literacy. Social environment also plays a significant role in non-users' digital readiness. Rather than focusing merely on the provision of access to bridge the digital divide, we need a longer-term investment in adequate environments, such as sustainable community training centres, that nurture digital readiness.
The Race between the Dragon and the Elephant: Comparing China and India's National Broadband Plans
Authors: Jayakar Krishna , Liu Chun
Published: January 2017

Some 134 national broadband plans are now in place around the world. Opinions are divided regarding the role of government in broadband markets: should the government act as an ‘enabler’ or as the ‘rule-maker’? In this context, this article analyses the ambitious national broadband plans recently announced by China and India, two rising economic powerhouses. Traditionally, China's telecommunications development has been driven by investments from government-allied entities and a strong industrial policy, while India's approach has relied on government policy to create the framework for private investment with a limited range of subsidies on the supply side. We trace the antecedents of the different policy approaches adopted by the two countries towards their respective broadband sectors, compare and contrast the motivations that have driven them to draft the national broadband plans and evaluate the effectiveness of government policies and regulations.
Social Games as Partial Platforms for Identity Co-Creation
Authors: Willson Michele
Published: January 2017

While social games such as Zynga's FarmVille are often positioned as poor gaming experiences or as disguised financial and data-extraction processes (Bogost, 2010; Rossi, 2009), this article considers social games as part of a wider regime of social interaction and creative identity work. By definition, social games are located within extensive online social networks. Gameplay is thus situated within a number of overlapping contexts: the game, the broader social network and the material conditions of access, including different devices (mobile or desktop) and different locations. Moreover, given widely discussed differences between social game players and console- and PC-based game players (Wohn, 2011: 199), and game-play mechanics, these broader contexts further a reading of social gameplay as part of the diverse millieux of everyday life. The article argues that social games are spaces of creative expression, social dynamics and identity co-creation that cannot be understood without considering their broader contexts.
Are Australian Teachers Making the Grade? A Study of News Coverage of Naplan Testing
Authors: Shine Kathryn
Published: January 2017

The standardised testing of school children has been the subject of significant news media attention in recent years in many developed countries around the world. This article examines the reporting of annual National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests in three major Australian newspapers, with a particular focus on the portrayal of school teachers in the coverage. Overall, teachers were presented as strongly opposed to NAPLAN and the publication of test results, yet the newspapers themselves supported the tests as an important accountability measure. Teachers were depicted as trying to influence the testing system through teaching to the test and cheating. They were presented as generally inadequate as teachers, and were blamed for perceived failings in the educational system. These findings point to implications for teacher recruitment and retention, and for journalism education and training.
Listening to Learn: Children's Experiences of Participatory Video for Global Education in Australia and Timor-Leste
Authors: Royds Kelly
Published: January 2017

The process of creating participatory videos can enable children and young people to tell their own stories, reflect on cultural identities and build new social connections. Yet, while much research on participatory video focuses on voice and empowerment, little research has explored it as a tool for listening. This study compares children's experiences of a global education program in Australia and Timor-Leste, to examine the role of critical literacy and listening in participatory video exchanges. Drawing on recent studies concerned with global citizenship education and the role of ‘listening’ in participatory media theory, this study identifies three challenges for the use of participatory video for global education: the need to provide spaces for critical literacy and listening; to consider the impact of meta-narratives of development on children; and to allow for intercultural difference and difficult conversations.
Producing Participatory Media: (Crowd)Sourcing Content in Britain/Life in a Day
Authors: Ashton Daniel
Published: January 2017

Created from footage contributed by members of the public to YouTube, the 2011 Life in a Day and 2012 Britain in a Day crowdsourced documentaries show participatory media-making projects on a global and national scale. Drawing comparisons with digital storytelling projects, this article examines efforts to structure and shape the contributions to the … in a Day crowdsourcing projects as set out in guidance and tutorial materials from the producers. Such guidance and advice are critically analysed to consider the different openings and opportunities made available by the production team as they (crowd)source content. Setting out the practices and possibilities for self-representation is a point of tension that this article explores through the comments thread to one of the production team's guidance videos. This video presents a number of submission requirements, notably that contributors do not edit, and analysis of the responding comments shows how potential contributors critically challenge participation that they regard as the requesting and curating of content.
Participatory Media and ‘Co-Creative’ Storytelling
Authors: Spurgeon Christina
Published: January 2017

Distinguishing critical participatory media from other participatory media forms (for example user-generated content and social media) may be increasingly difficult to do, but it nonetheless remains an important task if media studies is to remain relevant to the continuing development of inclusive social political and media cultures. This was one of a number of the premises for a national Australian Research Council-funded study that set out to improve the visibility of critical participatory media, and to understand its use for facilitating media participation on a population-wide basis. The term ‘co-creative’ media was adopted to make this distinction and to describe an informal system of critical participatory media practice that is situated between major public, Indigenous and community arts, culture and media sectors. Although the co-creative media system is found to be a site of innovation and engine for social change, its value is still not fully understood. For this reason, this system continues to provide media and cultural studies scholars with valuable sites for researching the socio-cultural transformations afforded by new media and communication technologies, as well as their limitations.