bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Australia's Broadband: How Big is the Problem?
Authors: Given Jock
Published: January 2017

Four conclusions are drawn from the most recent data about broadband takeup in Australia and overseas. First, performance shouldn't be judged against a single criterion or against the same criteria over time. Second, on the simplest measure of fixed broadband takeup, Australia has caught up considerably after a slow start to a position now above the OECD average, but is still well behind top-ranked countries. Third, on other factors such as the availability of higher speeds, prices, bitcaps and the relationships between them, Australia does not perform as well, particularly on bitcaps. Fourth, even if Australia's performance has improved on some measures, few suggest existing infrastructure will be adequate to maintain that improvement in the years ahead on the measures that will matter.
What Drives Broadband Takeup?
Authors: de Ridder John
Published: January 2017

This article summarises an econometric study undertaken by the author for the OECD which found several key factors explaining the level of broadband takeup in different countries. On the demand side, they are price, income, education, weather and the size of the addressable market. On the supply side, they are urbanisation, unbundling of the local loop and competition. Most of the factors that drive broadband takeup are beyond the reach of government regulation and policy.
Why FTTN is the Answer
Authors: Barbagallo David
Published: January 2017

The case for additional broadband capacity in Australia is compelling. Broadband allows and promotes the next order of magnitude change in the way we do business and live. It is no longer just about communications, if it ever was. FTTN is the only currently available working technology capable of delivering vastly greater capacity. Mobile can help with the last mile and in sparsely populated areas but cannot take the place of fibre in areas that require massively high throughput. FTTN will be seen in retrospect as the most fundamentally important piece of physical economic infrastructure built in Australia in the twenty-first century. We need a resolution of the policy, regulatory and business issues about FTTN yesterday. If the new government wants an agreement on building FTTN infrastructure before the next election, it will need to negotiate with Telstra.
Why a Single National FTTN Network is No Answer (but Competition is)
Authors: Molloy Simon
Published: January 2017

The government's conviction that there is a ‘broadband emergency’ has persuaded it to look for a single, national solution, a Broadband Big Bang. No one can provide that kind of solution more easily than Telstra. There are several problems with this. The rapid growth in broadband adoption over the past three years means it is far from clear there is a ‘broadband emergency’. Mandating a single technology is overly prescriptive and the particular characteristics of FTTN make it difficult to regulate an incumbent's technology. A single national roll-out risks a significant reduction in competition, whoever wins. This jeopardises the gains consumers have made where competition has emerged in the telecommunications industry. Ultimately, competition will probably only be embedded into the Australian industry by structural change, perhaps along the lines of the extensive facilities-based competition that exists in the United States between telcos and cable companies. Perhaps, eventually, someone will have to bite the structural separation bullet.
The Paedophile and ‘I’
Authors: Durber Dean
Published: January 2017

The year 2004 saw the release of three separate American films which had a focus on paedophilia. The dominant cultural — and legal — response to any and all adult–child sexual relationships is one of intense condemnation. Unexpectedly, however, these films addressed this highly controversial topic in a manner that avoided sensationalism, while simultaneously exposing the complexities of the relationship between the deviant paedophile and the normal sexual self. This article offers an analysis of the differing representations of the paedophile and paedophilic relationships in The Woodsman, Birth and Mysterious Skin. Using a queer theoretical approach, I consider the extent to which these contemporary representations of an otherwise abhorrent sexual form challenge the assumption of and the desire for sexual normality for the viewing subject. In viewing representations of the paedophile, I may hope to see in ‘him’ what I desire to know to be alien to the self, but such a level of sexual comfort is denied me in these films. While none of the films can be said to promote paedophilia, they nevertheless all manage to challenge the distance assumed to exist between this deviant sexual other and the normal sexual self.
Communicating Climate Change: Public Responsiveness and Matters of Concern
Authors: Potter Emily , Oster Candice
Published: January 2017

Since climate change captured global attention in the 1990s, the private individual, addressed as a member of a concerned public, has occupied a focal position in the discourse of environmental amelioration. Recently, a range of prominent books, films and television programs — for example, Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers (2005), Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and ABC TV's Carbon Cops (2007) — have promoted the role of the individual as the ‘starting point’ for effective environmental action. These texts assume that the provision and comprehension of sufficient information to the public about climate change will change individual habits and practices. This accords with the ‘information-deficit model’ in environmental communication research, a concept that asserts a direct connection between individual awareness and response, and collective action. This paper discusses the limitations of this model, pervasive in both popular and official approaches to climate change. It will interrogate the philosophical assumptions that underlie it, in which nature and culture are polarised and the human is positioned in a certain, and separate, relationship to the non-human world — an inheritance of the very logic that enables the continued exploitation of nature. Applying Bruno Latour's notion of a ‘matter of concern’ to climate change, where the gathering of a range of irreducible forces and im/materialities continually produce these phenomena, this paper proposes that, in thinking about climate change as essentially unrepresentable, a different mode of public engagement with the issue is asserted.
Aotearoa/New Zealand Print News Media Reportage of the Environment
Authors: Craig Geoffrey
Published: January 2017

This article is based upon a month-long survey of the reportage of New Zealand environmental news in the country's metropolitan daily and Sunday newspapers. The study examines topics such as the coverage of different environmental issues, the frequency and distribution of different types of sources accessed for the news stories, the distribution of environmental news across different sections of the newspapers, and the ratio of news stories to opinion articles. The article concludes that ‘the environment’ is often interpreted through an economic and business framework in newspaper reportage. This is reflected in the prominence of particular kinds of environmental issues in the survey, such as climate change and electricity/energy production and consumption, and the dominance of bureaucratic and corporate/industry group sources in environmental news. The increasingly problematic nature of ‘the environment’, and the growing importance of the impact of environmental change on economic life, particularly in a national economy that remains heavily reliant on agriculture, is evident in a high proportion of ‘op-ed’ articles in the survey and a high proportion of environmental news stories in the business sections of the newspapers.
Sydney Tonight versus In Melbourne Tonight: Television, Taste and Identity
Authors: Bye Susan
Published: January 2017

In this discussion, I focus on the varying fortunes of Sydney Tonight and In Melbourne Tonight (IMT) in order to explore the very local nature of television in Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s. As part of this process, I document the way that the success of IMT and the perceived failure of Sydney Tonight became the basis for a sustained discussion in both the Sydney and Melbourne print media about the respective discernment of each city's viewers. Buttressed by continuing public anxieties about the sophistication of the developing Australian television culture, the rejection of inferior locally produced programs became understood as a marker of discrimination and maturity.
The Creative Industry of Singapore: Cultural Policy in the Age of Globalisation
Authors: Chung Peichi
Published: January 2017

This article examines the development of the creative industry in Singapore in the context of globalisation. In studying the application of a government-based development model that prioritises economic goals in fostering a culture-based creative industry, the article explores the effects on the complex social network when the state is involved in introducing Western globalisation into the local society of Singapore. It discusses the major government initiatives to develop the creative industry and the views of local new media artists towards this policy. The article concludes with the resilience of local culture, arguing that the public response and the ‘bottom-up’ artist movement are beginning to embrace new media art forms as part of the national culture in Singapore. New media technology has been a site of cultural practice that allows media artists to participate in the state's development of a homegrown new media industry.
The Uses of Multimedia: Three Digital Literacy Case Studies
Authors: Hartley John , McWilliam Kelly , Burgess Jean , Banks John
Published: January 2017

We identify some tensions between formal education and informal learning in the uses of popular literacy since the nineteenth century, in order to argue for a ‘demand-led’ model of education in digital literacy. We go on to analyse three case studies — digital storytelling, the Flickr photosharing site and the MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) Fury — to discuss issues arising from demand-led learning, which requires a procedural (not propositional) model of knowledge, a vernacular and informal model of creativity, and a ‘navigator’ and entrepreneurial model of consumer agency. In light of these examples, the article raises the question of how digital literacy can and should be taught.
Homer versus Homer: Digital Media, Literacy and Child Protection
Authors: Lumby Catharine , Albury Kath
Published: January 2017

Despite growing work on the educational potential of digital media, literacy debates in Australia have remained locked in a banal opposition between serious educational aims and trivial entertainment media. To reinvigorate these debates, this article overviews progressive approaches to media literacy and case studies debates around the sexualisation of girls and young women in popular media. Ultimately, the authors — drawing on their submission to the recent Senate Inquiry on the subject — identify two ways to reset the media education and literacy agenda by incorporating a more productive engagement with digital media literacy.
Inside the House of Syn: Digital Literacy and Youth Media
Authors: Rennie Ellie , Thomas Julian
Published: January 2017

This paper examines the role of community media organisations in the diffusion of digital literacy. In Australia, a number of media organisations, established by the so-called ‘digital generation’, are experimenting with new training methods and content forms. Such groups aim to provide their constituents with deep and immersive media opportunities. We examine the methods and outcomes of SYN Media (a youth-run media organisation in Melbourne) and discuss the implications for digital literacy. Our research suggests that, although the systems and forms that make up digital literacy are in still under development, organisations like SYN are allowing that development to occur. Both audience and the particular habitus of the media workplace are important factors in SYN's success.
60SOX: An Experiment in Building Digital Literacies for Emerging Professionals in the Digital Content Industries
Authors: Hearn Greg , Brow Justin
Published: January 2017

What are the education-to-work transition experiences of graduate creative professionals in a time when user-generated content is radically changing the organisations in which they will work? 60Sox is an online creative ecology for these emerging professionals that attempts to answer this question, in the process of showcasing and developing their creative and generic career capacities. We report here on the development and operation of 60Sox.org.au , and argue for its significance in terms of: (1) the centrality of human capital arguments in the operation of the creative economy; (2) the importance of ‘creative ecologies’ as an emerging business concept, particularly in the digital industries; (3) the arrival of online and peer-to-peer (p2p) architecture as a changing distribution mode within the digital content industries; (4) the related importance of pro-am creativity; and (5) the recognition of skill shortages and training requirements in Australia's digital content industries.
Digital Literacy and Cultural Institutions
Authors: Watkins Jerry
Published: January 2017

This paper argues that a focus on digital literacy could be critical to the further development of a content-rich interaction between cultural institutions and communities of interest. Passive cultural audiences and active cultural participants will continue to expect higher levels of interactivity with institutionally located content. Social media could redefine the exchange of information and meaning between content-rich cultural institutions and content-hungry, digitally literate communities of interest. The digitally literate community not only consumes digital culture, it can produce and distribute its own artefacts in collaboration with the institution.
Message Me: Temporality, Location and Everyday Technologies
Authors: Gregg Melissa , Driscoll Catherine
Published: January 2017

In this article, we investigate the impact of online platforms on the everyday lives of users, including how the interests of those users affect the forms of emerging digital culture. In doing this, we stress temporality and location as crucial to digital literacies of various kinds and thus undo some of the clichés about freedom, constraint and opportunity associated with various web platforms. We also pay heed to the complex cultural literacies at work in online life at a time when their benefits seem dangerously poised to be instrumentalised for business and management ends. Finally, we stress the significance of the forms of support and solace offered in online venues that exceed, when they don't actually resist, efforts to translate them into the more commercially recognised languages of profit and productivity.
The Art of Education: New Competencies for the Creative Workforce
Authors: Oakley Kate
Published: January 2017

This article is a summary of a longer study entitled Educating for the Creative Workforce: Rethinking Arts and Education, commissioned by the Australia Council as part of its research partnership with the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation. That study analyses the claims for the role of the arts in education, concentrating on empirical research studies that looked at arts education programs and sought to explore whether, and how, they can contribute to contemporary approaches to education for the ‘creative workforce’. In line with the focus of this special issue, this paper seeks to draw parallels between this debate and that on digital literacy. In both cases, we look at how these areas are said to contribute to the skills and competencies required for the contemporary workforce, the differences between formal and informal approaches to skill acquisition, and the degree to which both areas are often surrounded by notions of empowerment.
Economics of Non-Market Innovation and Digital Literacy
Authors: Quiggin John , Potts Jason
Published: January 2017

This article is an abbreviated version of a debate between two economists holding somewhat different perspectives on the nature of non-market production in the space of new digital media. While the ostensible focus here is on the role of markets in the innovation of new technologies to create new economic value, this context also serves to highlight the private and public value of digital literacy.
Internet Media and the Public Sphere: The 2007 Australian E-Electioneering Experience
Authors: Macnamara Jim
Published: January 2017

Internet media have come under increasing examination since the early 1990s within a number of theoretical frameworks, including their use and potential influence in the public sphere of political discourse. Increasing use of internet media was identified in the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections, with the latter being described as ‘a critical turning point’. However, the development of what some call ‘new media’ or ‘social media’ based on Web 2.0 internet technology has overtaken many findings of previous research. Some of the most popular Web 2.0-based media currently in use were developed after 2004. These technological changes, coinciding with declining television viewing and newspaper readership, suggest that new forms of internet media need ongoing critical review. This paper analyses findings from a study of internet media use in the 2007 Australian federal election and explores their implications in relation to the public sphere.
A Quiet Revolution: Australian Community Broadcasting Audiences Speak Out
Authors: Meadows Michael , Forde Susan , Ewart Jacqui , Foxwell Kerrie
Published: January 2017

Around four million listeners in an average week tune into community radio stations around Australia, primarily to hear local news and information — evidence of a failure by mainstream media to meet their diverse needs. This discussion draws from the first qualitative study of the Australian community broadcasting sector to explore the role being played by community radio and television from the perspectives of their audiences. The authors argue that community broadcasting at the level of the local is playing a crucial role in the democratic process by fostering citizen participation in public life. This suggests a critique of mainstream media approaches and the central place of audience research in understanding the nature of the empowering relationships and processes involved. The authors argue that the nature of community broadcasting aligns it more closely with the complex ‘local talk’ narratives at the community level, which play a crucial role in creating public consciousness. They suggest that this quiet revolution has highlighted the nature of the audience–producer relationship as a defining characteristic of community media.
Jack Bauer: The Smart Warrior's Faustian Gift
Authors: O'Donnell Marcus
Published: January 2017

Jack Bauer of the television series 24 is a highly charged contemporary mythic character who exists in powerful relationship to past and present real-world and fictional figures. If Rambo was a classic Reagan era cinematic ‘hard body’ (Jeffords, 1994), Jack is the archetypal Bush ‘smart warrior’ in a post -Patriot Act era. Like Rambo, Reagan's displays of bravado were decisive and successfully staged; however, George Bush has faced a multiplying set of uncertainties. This sets up a more complex set of relations between Jack, George W. Bush and contemporary masculinities than those presented by the Reagan era. Jack is both an emblem of unimpeded presidential will and a parable of its Faustian consequences.
Special Broadcasting: Cultural Diversity, Policy Evolutions and the International ‘Crisis’ in Public Service Broadcasting
Authors: McClean Georgie
Published: January 2017

Public broadcasters internationally are facing challenges from technology, competition in multi-channel environments and criticisms of being out of touch with audiences. Some public broadcasters, such as the United Kingdom's BBC and the ‘pillarised’ public broadcasting system in The Netherlands, were founded almost a century ago. Their models, based on particular views of the public interest and audiences, now struggle to maintain relevance in rapidly changing, culturally diverse societies. Pure market models do not cater well for the complexities of cultural diversity. Public broadcasters with specific remits to represent diversity, such as Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, Nederlandse Programma Stichting (NPS) in The Netherlands and Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), although themselves products of specific historical moments and policy contexts, allow for more responsive relationships to multicultural societies. Although traditionally seen as more marginal, these newer models may find themselves central to arguments for ongoing funding of public broadcasting.
Making the Australian Mobile in the 1990s: Creating Markets, Choosing Technologies
Authors: Goggin Gerard
Published: January 2017

In thinking about convergent media and new digital technologies, the place of mobile services and technologies in the broader media policy field has not been addressed satisfactorily. This article reviews the beginnings of cellular mobiles in Australia to see what this piece of history can tell us about today's policy challenges. My case study revolves around the technology choices made by the federal government in the 1980s, especially the decision to essentially mandate the second-generation Global Standard for Mobiles (GSM) digital standard. I examine the structuring of the mobiles market with three initial licence-holders, and look at the implications of this as mobiles developed through the 1990s. The article offers a brief comparison with the New Zealand mobiles market, and also the promising yet ultimately ‘failed’ technology of the public-access cordless telephone. I conclude with some observations about how such critical examination of history can help to open up policy vistas about mobile media.
A 50/50 Proposition: Public-Private Partnerships in Australian Communications
Authors: Given Jock
Published: January 2017

The Australian government's proposed public–private broadband partnership is the latest dramatisation of the constantly shifting roles of the private and public sectors in communications. Over the last century and a half, the sector has been a steady source of new institutional models around the world. This article examines the experience of Australia's main wireless company, AWA, as a private–public partnership for nearly 30 years. Reconstructed as a joint enterprise in 1922 to establish direct wireless telegraph services between Australia and Britain and North America, AWA remained co-owned by the Commonwealth and private shareholders until 1951. Several features of this experience seem relevant to the proposed national broadband partnership: the level of political support for the structure; the implications of changes in the use of wireless technology over the life of the investment; the management of market power; financial performance; and the duration of the arrangement.
Debating Australian Documentary Production Policy: Some Practitioner Perspectives
Authors: Laughren Pat
Published: January 2017

On 1 July 2008, Screen Australia commenced operation as the main Australian government agency supporting the screen production industry. This article considers some of the policy issues and challenges identified by the ‘community of practitioners’ as facing Australian documentary production at the time of the formation of that ‘super-agency’ from the merger of its three predecessor organisations — the Australian Film Commission, the Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia. The article proceeds by sketching the history of documentary production in Australia and identifying the bases of its financial and regulatory supports. It also surveys recent debate in the documentary sector and attempts to contextualise the themes of those discussions within the history of the Australian documentary.
The Early Years of International Telegraphy in Australia: A Critical Assessment
Authors: Putnis Peter
Published: January 2017

This article examines the political and economic circumstances surrounding the introduction of international telegraphy to Australia in 1872, and analyses the local and international factors that helped shape institutional arrangements for the provision of this service. Its particular, it focuses on the tension between private and public interests in the provision of communication infrastructure, and related issues of public policy, competition (or lack thereof) and pricing.
Future Audiences for Australian Stories: Industry Responses in a Post-Web 2.0 World
Authors: de Roeper Julia , Luckman Susan
Published: January 2017

The development of global social networking sites using Web 2.0 technologies (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, etc.) is signalling a shift in media usage towards an environment in which the distinction between producer and consumer is less clearly defined. While audiences still demand and enjoy a quality professional product, their active personal experience of media production means that they are no longer content to remain outside the production process. This paper outlines the first part of a multi-stage research project that is monitoring responses on both sides of the divide. Through analysis of media coverage, policy reports, submissions to government and interviews with a number of senior executives in leading Australian screen agencies and industry organisations, we have identified four distinct categories of Australian film industry response to technological change and shifts in media consumption, provisionally referred to as ‘Denial’, ‘Panic’, ‘Embrace’ and ‘Co-create’. In this paper, we offer a critical examination of these responses.
‘The Australian We All Aspire to Be’: Commemorative Journalism and the Death of the Crocodile Hunter
Authors: Hanusch Folker
Published: January 2017

This article examines the news coverage generated in Australia by the death of Steve Irwin, widely known as the Crocodile Hunter. In line with past research on commemorative journalism, the study demonstrates the dominant discourses employed in the reporting of Irwin's death. It is argued that Australia's newspapers invoked a number of national myths, such as mateship, larrikinism and anti-elitism, in order to reassert notions of Australian identity and social values and to deal with the widespread grief over his loss. Most importantly, the study sheds new light on how news media deal with challenges to the dominant memorialising discourse. Past studies had not been able to investigate alternative discourses in much detail, but in examining Irwin's death we are able to see how the media deal with such an unwanted interruption. It is argued that newspapers appropriated the alternative perspective within the mythical terms of their memorialising discourse, thereby not allowing it to disrupt the memorialisation itself and in fact further strengthening the process of mythologising the Crocodile Hunter.
Computer Games: Co-Creation and Regulation
Authors: Humphreys Sal
Published: January 2017

This introduction to the special issue on games, co-creation and regulation introduces some key concepts arising from the phenomenon of user-generated content in interactive media environments such as online computer games. It canvasses the work of the seven authors who have contributed to the special issue, covering a range of areas such as advertising and surveillance, participatory design, end user licence agreements, user-generated classification and participant rights.
Discursive Constructions of MMOGs and Some Implications for Policy and Regulation
Authors: Humphreys Sal
Published: January 2017

This paper examines how the production of interactive, co-creative software such as multiplayer online games differs from conventional media production, and how stakeholders employ different discursive constructions to understand those environments. The convergence of forms and functions, and the emergence of new structures that cross pre-existent regulatory and policy boundaries, mean that the discourses adopted to describe these environments and enact regulation and control need to be examined for the particular interests they represent. The paper canvasses six different discourses about online social software such as games, and briefly discusses the implications of each for areas such as intellectual property, classification, governance, data privacy, creative industries and global crossjurisdictional infrastructures.
Productive Play 2.0: The Logic of In-Game Advertising
Authors: Andrejevic Mark
Published: January 2017

Online video games are helping to pioneer the use of interactive advertising that targets consumers based on information about their behaviour, consumption patterns, and other demographic and psychographic information. This article draws on the example of in-game ads to explore some of the ways in which advertisers harness virtual worlds to marketing imperatives, and equate realism and authenticity with the proliferation of commercial messages. Since video games have the potential to serve as a model for other forms of marketing both online and off, the way in which they are being used to exploit interactivity as a form of commercial monitoring has broader implications for the digital economy.
Co-Creative Expertise: Auran Games and Fury — A Case Study
Authors: Banks John
Published: January 2017

This article discusses the ways in which the relations among professional and non-professional participants in co-creative relations are being reconfigured as part of the shift from a closed industrial paradigm of expertise towards open and distributed expertise networks. This article draws on ethnographic consultancy research undertaken throughout 2007 with Auran Games, a Brisbane, Australia-based games developer, to explore the co-creative relationships between professional developers and gamers. This research followed and informed Auran's online community management and social networking strategies for Fury ( http://unleashthefury.com ), a massively multiplayer online game released in October 2007. This paper argues that these co-creative forms of expertise involve coordinating expertise through social-network markets.
On the (Partially) Inalienable Rights of Participants in Virtual Communities
Authors: Suzor Nicolas
Published: January 2017

As virtual communities become more central to the everyday activities of connected individuals, we face increasingly pressing questions about the proper allocation of power, rights and responsibilities. This paper argues that our current legal discourse is ill-equipped to provide answers that will safeguard the legitimate interests of participants and simultaneously refrain from limiting the future innovative development of these spaces. From social networking sites like Facebook to virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life, participants who are banned from these communities stand to lose their virtual property, their connections to their friends and family, and their personal expression. Because our legal system views the proprietor's interests as absolute private property rights, however, participants who are arbitrarily, capriciously or maliciously ejected have little recourse under law. This paper argues that, rather than assuming that a private property and freedom of contract model will provide the most desirable outcomes, a more critical approach is warranted. By rejecting the false dichotomy between ‘public’ and ‘private’ spaces, and recognising some of the absolutist and necessitarian trends in the current property debate, we may be able to craft legal rules that respect the social bonds between participants while simultaneously protecting the interests of developers.
Diversity Reportage in Metropolitan Oceania: The Mantra and the Reality
Authors: Robie David
Published: January 2017

Aotearoa/New Zealand has the largest Polynesian population in Oceania. Three Pacific microstates now have more than 70 per cent of their population living in New Zealand. Projected demographics by Statistics New Zealand indicate that the Pacific and indigenous Māori populations could grow by 59 and 29 per cent respectively by 2026. The Asian population will increase even more dramatically over that period, by almost doubling. Māori, Pasifika and ethnic media in New Zealand are also steadily expanding, with major implications for the ‘mainstream’ media industry and journalism educators. For more than two decades, diversity has been a growing mantra for the Aotearoa/New Zealand media. Initially, the concept of biculturalism — partnership with the indigenous tangata whenua— was pre-eminent in the debate but, as the nation's Māori, Pasifika and ethnic media have flourished and matured, and demographics have rapidly changed, multiculturalism and multicultural media strategies have become increasingly important. This paper examines the regional trends in Oceania, the growth of the indigenous and ethnic media, and their impact on the mainstream in New Zealand as an outpost of globalised media. It also looks at the evolving initiatives to address the challenges.
Beyond Media ‘Platforms’? Talkback, Radio, Technolgy and Audience
Authors: Gould Liz
Published: January 2017

Technology has had an important influence on the constitution and participation of the commercial metropolitan radio audience. The introduction of ‘open-line’ radio from the 1960s was heralded as a novelty for audience participation in radio programming, but was hindered by technical impediments to the quality of telephone and radio recording technologies. In the 1990s, the advent of mobile telephony liberated talkback listeners from their anchoring in the domestic sphere. This article examines how successive media technologies have influenced the experience of commercial radio audiences from the 1960s through to the present. Acknowledging the increasing convergence between traditional media platforms and content, it considers whether newer technologies such as the internet are fundamentally altering the shape and function of listener participation in commercial metropolitan radio programs.
Desiring the (Popular Feminist) Reader: Letters to CLEO during the Second Wave
Authors: Le Masurier Megan
Published: January 2017

The second wave of feminism in Australia became a popular reality for ordinary women through many forms of media, and especially through the new women's magazine Cleo. The reader letters published in Cleo throughout the 1970s provide rich, if productively problematic, evidence for the media historian's desire to interpret the meanings readers can make from magazines. In this case, the desire is to understand how younger, ordinary (non-activist) Australian women made sense of the immense challenge of feminism. Through letters written in response to Cleo's feminist journalism (and journalism about feminism), it is clear that a popular feminism was being experienced in the period of the second wave.
Arts and Business: The Impact of Business Models on the Activities of Major Performing Arts Organisations in Australia
Authors: Caust Jo
Published: January 2017

Managerial business models were first introduced to Australian subsidised performing arts organisations by the then Howard Coalition government in 2000. Until the early 1990s, Australian arts organisations were contextualised as ‘not for profit’ entities, with an overall objective of producing good art. Over the past decade, however, major Australian performing arts organisations have been viewed more frequently as part of an ‘industry’ and, within this industry construct, framed as ‘business entities’, with a need to prove positive financial outcomes as a first priority. This article explores what is meant by business models in the context of Australian major performing arts organisations and looks at the impact of this approach.
Introduction: Children, Young People, Sexuality and the Media
Authors: Albury Kath , Lumby Catharine
Published: January 2017

Since the 2008 Australian Senate Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media Environment, both the British and Scottish governments have conducted their own inquiries into the role that mediated representations of sex and/or sexuality play in the lives of children and young people. At the same time, scholars, commentators, activists and educators have continued to debate the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘pornography’ in representations of children and young people; and the boundaries between ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ content in popular and educational material for children and young people. This article introduces the multidisciplinary approach taken in this special issue of Media International Australia, which the editors hope will promote positive strategic approaches to promoting safety, agency and well-being for children and young people.
When Subject Becomes Object: Nakedness, Art and the Public Sphere
Authors: MacNeill Kate
Published: January 2017

In May 2008, a photograph of a naked twelve-year-old girl by the Australian artist Bill Henson came to the attention of the Australian public when it was featured on an invitation to the opening of an exhibition at a commercial art gallery in Sydney. Within hours, a debate had commenced about the appropriateness of the image and the intentions of the artist. It rapidly descended into the familiar argument of art versus pornography, with protagonists lining up on one side or the other. There seemed no shared space in which to discuss this particular image and instance. Drawing on contributions to this very public debate, I demonstrate the way in which the closed nature of the art system leaves many of its practitioners unable to engage in the wider conversations that occur when artworks travel beyond the credentialling context of the art gallery and enter the public space.
Feminism, Sexualisation and Social Status
Authors: Duschinsky Robbie
Published: January 2017

New formulations and responses to classic questions have emerged in recent feminist thinking on the relationship between gender and consumption. One instance of this is the work of Abigail Bray on the damage caused by the media sexualisation of girls. She offers important insights into some problems with the discourse of media and sexual empowerment, and also critically considers the social distinction that such an discourse tends to confer. This article offers a sympathetic account of her argument, but also moves beyond Bray to express concerns regarding the class and race codings of the discourse of childhood innocence.
Revisiting Moral Panics in Sexuality Education
Authors: Rasmussen Mary Lou
Published: January 2017

There is a common impulse within academic research on sexuality education to draw on the notion of moral panic in order to better understand ‘unreasonable’ and emotional opposition to the implementation of sexuality education programs. The aim of this article is to interrogate this tendency to classify religious opposition to the sexuality education curriculum as suggestive of a ‘moral panic’. I begin with a brief discussion of how the notion of ‘moral panic’ is commonly used in academic and popular discourse, and proceed to a discussion of ‘moral panic’ in the field of sexuality education, specifically focusing on the work of US researcher Janice Irvine. I also consider some research on recent South Australian controversies related to sexuality education in schools. Finally, I consider the attribution of ‘moral panic’ in accounting for religious opposition to sexuality education as a secular formation.
Everything is Child Abuse
Authors: McKee Alan
Published: January 2017

In 2008, the Australian federal Senate held an Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media Environment. I made a submission to this Inquiry, noting that in public debate about this topic a number of quite distinct issues, with distinct aetiologies, were collapsed together. These included: child pornography; children being targeted by any form of marketing; young people becoming sexually active; sexual abuse of children; raunch culture; protecting children from any sexualised material in the media; and body image disorders. I suggested that commentators had collapsed these issues together because the image of the helpless child is a powerful one for critics to challenge undesirable aspects of contemporary culture. The result of many different ideological viewpoints all using the same argument — that the forms of culture they didn't like were damaging children — gives the impression that there is no element of culture today that isn't (somebody claims) causing harm to children: everything is child abuse. The danger of such discourses is that they draw attention away from the real harm that is being caused to children by sexual and other forms of maltreatment — which overwhelmingly occur within families, and for reasons ignored in these debates.
Too Much? Too Young? The Sexualisation of Children Debate in Australia
Authors: Lumby Catharine , Albury Kath
Published: January 2017

This article considers the origins and focus of current Australian debates around the alleged ‘sexualisation’ of children and young people. It explores the popular discourses around youth and sexuality and unpacks the assumptions and contradictions that underwrite them, by addressing the terms of reference of the Australian Senate's 2008 Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media Inquiry. The article concludes by outlining some proposed public policy solutions to addressing current community concerns that children and teenagers are being inappropriately sexualised.
Mapping ‘Chinese Media Studies’: A Diagnostic Survey
Authors: Hong Jeesoon
Published: January 2017

This article views Chinese media as a complex web of diverse academic disciplines and political perspectives, and provides a diagnostic survey of the various disciplines that deal with Chinese media. By clarifying and comparing the methodological characteristics of these academic disciplines, it attempts to prepare for interdisciplinary dialogue. It will pose questions such as what kinds of disciplines have become involved in the studies of Chinese media; what are the main focuses and the methodological characteristics; and what kinds of regional and historical characteristics exist in scholarship on Chinese media. The article maps ‘Chinese media studies' from four angles: the academic traditions of journalism and communication studies; politics and sociology; Chinese studies; and cinema and cultural studies. It views the main focus of each field respectively as: democracy and political economy of the media industry; civil society and network society; history and language; and culture and power. The disciplinary division cannot be so clearcut, as most works attempt to converse with other disciplines or are by nature interdisciplinary. Using disciplinary mapping allows one to identify the shaping power and distinctions of academic disciplines.
New Media, New Research Methods: Current Approaches to Research in the Virtual World
Authors: Arnason Lara
Published: January 2017

Growing use of online games in China means that virtual worlds are becoming an important aspect of Chinese media studies. This transformation of the nature of Chinese media presents new challenges to academic research that traditional methodological approaches do not address. As the first step toward developing academically sound standards for the gathering of both qualitative and quantitative data within the virtual realm, this article explores new methodological challenges presented by the use of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) as subjects of, or platforms for, research. The article begins with an exploration of general challenges and moves specifically to the context of China.
The Chinese-Language Press in Australia: A Preliminary Scoping Study
Authors: Sun Wanning , Gao Jia , Yue Audrey , Sinclair John
Published: January 2017

Despite clear evidence pointing to the centrality of the Chinese press in the historical formation of the Chinese community, and despite the continued importance of the Chinese-language press in the current political, cultural, social and economic life of the Chinese community, there is little understanding of its history and recent growth in mainstream English-language media scholarship. Worse still, the shift in recent scholarship to the power of cyberspace and other forms of new media in assisting the formations of diasporic subjectivities runs the risk of giving the impression that the print media are no longer relevant. Our article aims to address this blind spot by mapping out the contours of change and continuity within the Chinese-language press in Australia. In the first part, we provide a brief historical account of the Chinese migrant communities in Australia, and the role of the press in their formation. We argue that this symbiotic relationship is crucial to understanding the development of the early Chinese-language print media in Australia, which was a less than hospitable society for the Chinese migrants. We then trace the development and evolution of the Chinese-language print media in a range of areas, including the Chinese-language media's current modus operandi, business strategies, cultural practices and ideological positioning, within the context of China's rise and the widening impact of China's promotion of soft power. We conclude by identifying some future directions in the research on the Chinese-language media in Australia, thus contributing to our understanding of some of the opportunities and challenges present in the (re)shaping of Australia's multicultural policies and politics.
Australian Content and Convergence
Authors: Goldsmith Ben
Published: January 2017

This article is a response to Kim Dalton's 2011 Henry Mayer Lecture. It focuses on Dalton's discussion of Australian content in the context of the government's ongoing Convergence Review.
Broadband, the NBN and Screen Futures
Authors: Cunningham Stuart
Published: January 2017

It is important to try to come to grips with what content and applications are likely to be feasible, popular and beneficial on the National Broadband Network, which is being rolled out now. This short article looks at the three main types of content (‘unmanaged’, ‘managed’ and ‘publicly supported’ services), shows how creative content is being, or could be, deployed across all three, and discusses the policy opportunities and challenges for content industries in connecting with what Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for the Arts Simon Crean calls ‘the largest cultural infrastructure project Australia has ever seen’.
From the Media Moguls to the Money Men? Media Concentration in Australia
Authors: Pusey Michael , McCutcheon Marion
Published: January 2017

This article examines how the Howard government's 2006 media ownership rules affected the concentration of ownership of Australian commercial television and radio services and newspapers. It reviews the historical context of these changes and presents new data on ownership in the light of attitude surveys showing that a large majority of Australians believe media owners have too much power. It shows that the new ownership regime has led to more rather than less concentration of ownership, and explains how the 2006 rules both give primacy to economic market considerations and further sideline other priorities of quality and democratic governance of the media.