bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Reconfiguration of Culture Post-Project Blue Sky: Culture as a ‘Service’ in Broadcasting Law
Authors: Leiboff Marett
Published: March 2018

International agreements or treaties can have profound impacts on the interpretation of domestic law. The effect that such agreements can have in the cultural context was made apparent in the 1998 High Court decision in the Project Blue Sky case. The issue of Australia's involvement in the audiovisual sector's current renegotiation of the GATS, as well as the desire for the present government to limit the impact of Project Blue Sky to New Zealand only, indicates the wider policy issues concerning this decision. However, what is not explicated is the way that the meaning of ‘services' in law in the cultural sector will tend to negate any specifically cultural target adopted within policy questions. The question must then be asked whether or not the law must always view the cultural as ‘just another service industry’ because of the particularly ‘service’ basis of the sector.
Regulation — What Regulation? Cultural Diversity and Local Content in New Zealand Television
Authors: Lealand Geoff
Published: March 2018

The radical restructuring of New Zealand broadcasting (television in particular), beginning in the late 1980s and accelerating during the 1990s, is probably without peer in the rest of the world. This article backgrounds the origins of such changes, and traces the consequences (both positive and negative) which shaped, and continue to shape, the role and imperatives of television in New Zealand. But the discussion also takes account of more looming changes, with the 1999 election win of the Labour-Alliance and its declared intentions to reorient television towards more public-service objectives.
Public Journalism and Ethics
Authors: Richards Ian
Published: March 2018

Although it has been hailed as the salvation of American journalism, public journalism poses many dilemmas. While the most immediate of these arise from its definitional imprecision, some of the most significant are in the area of journalism ethics. Some of the problems emerge from public journalism's disregard of traditional notions of journalistic objectivity, others from the inherent conflict between serving the public and serving the market. At the same time, the public journalism movement has yet to confront the fact that ethical debates in journalism have generally been constructed around the individual, thereby ignoring the reality that most ethical problems originate at the level of ownership and management. While it is too soon to determine just how well public journalism will adapt to Australian conditions, it is clear that it has a long way to go before it justifies the extravagant claims that have been made in its name.
The Elusive Mirage: Competition Regulation and Telecommunications, 1997–2000
Authors: Leonard Peter
Published: March 2018

This paper looks at the operation of telecommunications-specific competition regulation pursuant to the 1997 legislation, on the eve of a review of the 1997 legislation by the Productivity Commission. The central thesis is that the ‘brave new world’ created by the 1997 legislation, of industry self-regulation of terms and conditions of access to declared telecommunications services, has been an inhospitable land for new entrants. Neither the access nor the competitive conduct provisions have operated in the way intended by the policy-makers and anticipated by new entrants at the time of introduction of the 1997 legislation. The tools of competitive conduct regulation at the retail level have proven cumbersome and susceptible to challenge. Instead of a rapid withering away of market power under threatened or actual market entry, the emergence of the Internet and commercial deployment of digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies has meant that Telstra's ability to cross-market leverage may actually have increased and extended beyond the telephony sphere. Finally, the paper identifies key issues for the Productivity Commission's review.
Service and Access: The Role of the National Library of Australia
Authors: Galligan Anne
Published: March 2018

The cultural politics associated with the National Library of Australia (NLA) as a storehouse of the national textual capital is today infused with a symbolism and rhetoric that exert considerable power in any discourse concerning the cultural state of the nation. The role of the National Library is of particular interest in that it is a service institution, but also a major cultural institution, a strategic element in the Commonwealth government's cultural policy. According to policy documents, the National Library exists to record the Australian cultural heritage, to provide a ‘crucial resource in the formation of our culture and national identity and provide a foundation for further advancement of the nation’. Within the National Library there have been a series of philosophic shifts and changes to future planning and development strategies in response to various government policy imperatives and economic contingencies. This paper will investigate the external and internal pressures and philosophies that work to change or reinforce the position of the National Library of Australia as a major cultural institution.
Hosting the Olympic Broadcast
Authors: Wilson Helen
Published: March 2018

The host broadcaster is a peculiar, temporary but complex media institution which takes its most developed form in the case of the Olympic Games. The Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation (SOBO) was the host broadcaster for the Sydney Olympics, providing vision for world television networks. Its political economy is examined from the point of view of the changing dynamics of television technologies and the Olympic Movement's assignment of intellectual property, including broadcast rights. The concept of a host broadcaster is shown to be a product of a particular moment in television history and in this respect it is compared to other hosting functions that the media provide for such an event.
More Than an Old Flame: National Symbolism and the Media in the Torch Ceremony of the Olympics
Authors: Sinclair John
Published: March 2018

This article explores the symbolism of the ceremonial torch relay and ceremony in the Olympics, and offers an analysis of its conduct in the Sydney Olympics, and its reporting in the media. The torch ceremony provides a striking example of what has been called ‘the invention of tradition’, which has undergone much adaptation from one Olympiad to another, in line with the cultural and sometimes political expression of the national identity of the host city. This article considers the symbols and values of national belonging built into the planning of the torch ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and by closely following the media coverage it was given, principally in the national press, shows how news stories were generated in the tension between these symbols and values, and the social issues of the day.
Crippling Paralympics? Media, Disability and Olympism
Authors: Goggin Gerard , Newell Christopher
Published: March 2018

While clearly not intended to do so, the Paralympics and the notion of disability associated with them provides significant opportunity for ethical reflection on how far society has not come regarding disability. Yet, this opportunity to explore disability has rarely been taken up. Instead, the overwhelming representation of people with disability within mainstream media is found in portrayals of brave, elite athletes who overcome their disability. As has been suggested by earlier studies of media and disability, such media representations fit well within the established power relations which oppress people with disability in society. While there have been some changes and improvements, we contend that, overwhelmingly, the separation between the Paralympics and Olympics is not questioned, and that if the Paralympics are reported at all, disabling media representations still very much persist.
‘It was a Serious Kitchen Knife’: Witnessing and Reporting Horror Crime
Authors: Griffin Grahame
Published: March 2018

News reports of major crime can be linked to popular fiction genres. This linkage extends to the role of the crime witness and to the reporter as witness of crime and its aftermaths. It is argued that audience identification with witnesses and witnessing creates a ‘breathing space’ for reconsideration and reassessment of the crime. To illustrate how this might work in the reporting of horror and atrocity crimes, some newspaper ‘horror’ stories, and their relationship with horror fiction conventions, are discussed along with the television ‘eyewitness' reporting of international atrocity stories.
Desiring the Interface: Introducing Technoculture
Authors: Allen Matthew
Published: March 2018

In introducing the eight papers that constitute the theme of technoculture for this issue, I suggest that the diversity in responses to and understandings of the term ‘technoculture’ is not a weakness but a strength. The diffuse results of technocultural studies reflect the desires for relevance, generality and creation with intellectual discourse which, in technocultural times, enable or require diverse subject matter to be labelled ‘technoculture’.
Surfing the Green Web: Communication and ‘the Environment’ in Online Australia
Authors: Smith Scott
Published: March 2018

Environmental organisations have often adapted quickly to the workings of existing media institutions. Prominent organisations like Greenpeace feature regularly in mainstream news, demonstrating their deep understanding of mainstream media processes. Now the emerging sphere of the new media has opened up further space for environmental organisations to utilise. The Web promises new and more effective ways of communicating with Australians interested in, and concerned with, ‘the environment’. This paper explores the emerging sphere of communication via textual analysis of a number of Websites that contribute significantly to the environmental debate. Here we find a playing field which is only just beginning to take shape, where audiences are only just beginning to understand the game, and although many of the players are familiar, when this combines with complex environmental issues, we find a playing field characterised by heterogeneity and diversity. What follows is a survey of this entangled technocultural phenomenon.
Magazine History
Authors: Carter David
Published: March 2018

This article reflects on the methodological and theoretical issues raised in the process of conceiving a history of mid-twentieth century periodical publication in Australia (1920–1970). It argues for an ‘institutional history’ of magazines and defines such an approach through a number of overlapping themes and questions: an examination of the cultural significance of the periodical's ‘periodicity’; its shifting location in the print culture between the newspaper and the book; the relation of magazines to the marketplace and to professional journalism; the role of magazines in the formation of a modern intelligentsia; and magazines as belonging to a history of modernity in Australia, a ‘history of writing’ and a history of audiences.
Facts versus Stories: From Objective to Interpretive Reporting
Authors: McKnight David
Published: March 2018

This article discusses journalism as a form of ‘vernacular literature’ and explores two traditions of reporting: the objective and the interpretive. In the first, emphasis is placed on the fact; in the second, on the story. In these terms, the article examines the transformation of the reporting style of the Sydney Morning Herald from objective reporting to interpretive reporting in the early 1980s. It examines the Herald's journalism from the 1950s to the 1970s as an exemplar of the objective style. It also comments on the linkage between these styles and differing rationales about the purpose of journalism in terms of market values and non-market values.
Shrouds of Secrecy: The Operation of the Online Services Act
Authors: Graham Irene
Published: March 2018

An analysis of the Report on the Co-Regulatory Scheme for Internet Content Regulation covering the period July to December 2000, released by the ABA on 19 April 2001, demonstrates that the scheme has had a minimal impact on internet content hosted in Australia. The ABA's refusal to release any further information about the content that has been removed, under freedom of information legislation, suggests the government believes that secrecy is necessary to foster the perception that the scheme is actually effective. However, its limited effectiveness does not justify its cost. This paper maintains that taxpayers' money would be better spent in funding the police to track down and prosecute the producers and distributors of child pornography.
Global Media Generation Memories: Australia and Mexico
Authors: Slade Christina
Published: March 2018

This paper compares Australian and Mexican focus groups discussing the media memories of their youth. It forms part of the Global Media Generations 2000 project, in which cohorts of three generations have been interviewed in 12 countries. The first radio, television and internet generations were asked about the media environment of their youth, about the major local and international events they recalled, and finally about a number of significant international events. This paper uses the results of two countries to argue for a version of media relativism: that the way events are remembered is in part determined by the media available.
From Cultural to Creative Industries: Theory, Industry and Policy Implications
Authors: Cunningham Stuart
Published: March 2018

This paper presents a rationale for distinguishing between notions of cultural and creative industries which has implications for theory, industry and policy analysis. I do this from the standpoint of a researcher and analyst and also from a position of a corporate involvement in a substantial project to grow and diversify a regional economy through the development of its creative industries.

This project is a ‘creative industries precinct’ in inner suburban Brisbane involving my university, Queensland University of Technology, the Queensland state government through its Department of State Development, a variety of industry players, and retail and property developers.

There is theoretical purchase in distinguishing the two terms, in part to put further flesh on the bones of claims about the nature of the knowledge-based economy and its relation to culture and creativity. Shifts in the nature of the industries usually described by the terms also need to be captured effectively, as do different policy regimes that come into play as regulation of and support for cultural and creative industries.
Space Power and Information Superiority: A New Medium for Cultural Policy
Authors: Giblett Rod
Published: March 2018

Space is again a hot topic, with the resurrection of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative or ‘Star Wars' missile shield, albeit under a new name. Integral to this drive and vital to its success are the deployment and use of communication technologies, and the control of flows of information. Both of these take place in orbital, extraterrestrial space, a new front for warfare and a new medium for the new media of cyberspace and the internet. This paper traces this recent development and gives a critical account of the nationalist and militarist rhetoric in which it is couched. I argue that ‘weaponisation’ of space is in contravention of a number of international treaties. I conclude that ‘astroenvironmentalism’ should be a broadly based popular movement of resistance to these moves, and of action for the global commons of space owned by none and shared by all.
Global Constructions of ‘Korupsi’ in a Local Public Sphere: A Cross-Cultural Malaysian Reception Study
Authors: Wilson Tony
Published: March 2018

Audience responses to television are at the heart of sense-making in the public sphere. Research on viewers' readings of economic, political and social events in news programs, invariably constructed around the activities of ‘significant’ individuals, is of particular consequence for understanding the functioning of a democracy. This paper is a cross-cultural reception study of how audiences come to interpret the program genre of television news. In a process of comprehension characterised by fusing/feuding horizons of understanding the world, viewers playfully accommodate the meaning of programs in their everyday lives. Analysis of television's reception should be tested against audience activity. Theory must be corroborated. Drawing from a significant literature discussing the phenomenology of ludic experience, the article theorises trans-cultural reception of Western (British) television by Asian (Malaysian) viewers as seriously ‘playful’. Academic assertions are assessed as illuminating audience response.
I Don't Want to Be a Citizen (if it Means I Have to Watch the ABC)
Authors: McKee Alan
Published: March 2018

This paper argues that much writing about media and citizenship tends to rely on a set of realist or structuralist assumptions about what constitutes a state, a citizen and politics. Because of these assumptions, other forms of social organisation that could reasonably be described as nations, and other forms of social engagement that could be called citizenship are excluded from consideration. One effect of this blindness is that certain identities, and the cultural formations associated with them, continue to be overvalued as more real and important than others. Areas of culture that are traditionally while, masculine, middle-class and heterosexual remain central in debates, while the political processes of citizens of, for example, a Queer nation, continue to be either ignored or devalued as being somehow trivial, unimportant or less real. The paper demonstrates that this need not be the case — that the language of nation and citizenship can reasonably be expanded to include these other forms of social organisation, and that when such a conceptual move is made, we can find ways of describing contemporary culture that attempt to understand the public-sphere functions of the media without falling back into traditional prejudices against feminised, Queer, working class or non-white forms of culture.
New Mediations
Authors: Cordell Marni , de Silva Sam
Published: March 2018

The late 1990s saw the global rebirth of an independent media movement of a magnitude and strength not seen since the 1970s. Both the escalation of anti-corporate-globalisation sentiment and the establishment of the IndyMedia online network can be seen as strong catalysts for a media activism that is characterised by the desire to encourage widespread participation in the media-making process. ‘Participatory media’ is based in the democratic philosophy that anybody has the right to tell their own story, and aims to encourage media diversity by breaking down the information stronghold held by a small number of large and powerful media corporations. This essay examines the way in which the internet has contributed to the facilitation of a greater diversity of views, news, opinions and voices into the public domain.
Rethinking the Documentary Audience: Reimagining the New Zealand Wars
Authors: Perrott Lisa
Published: March 2018

Narratives of war and history are central to the development of nationhood. Within the distinctive context of New Zealand decolonisation, The New Zealand Wars documentary series offers a revised version of a formative moment in New Zealand history. This paper draws upon textual analysis and audience research to explore the potential of this series to function as a catalyst within the process of decolonisation. The television broadcast of this five-part series has arguably played a role in evoking a reimagining of the New Zealand ‘nation’, and in opening a space for public debate. This recently invigorated debate can be characterised by the negotiation of a number of discourses of ‘race’, ‘culture’ and ‘nationhood’. While examples of this public negotiation illustrate the social and intellectual activity involved in the process of making sense of a documentary text, a closer examination of audience response to this series reveals an especially emotional, even ‘mimetic’, dimension of engagement. The few available examples of documentary audience research have tended to focus on intellectual and social processes of negotiating meaning. Through a discussion of passionate responses to The New Zealand Wars series, this paper posits an argument for extending the traditional conceptualisation of documentary audience engagement beyond the intellectual, to include a visceral dimension. Rather than viewing these different types of activity as diametrically opposed, they are considered here to be interconnected elements within a dialogical and experiential encounter between the viewer and the documentary text.
The Powers of the Pokémon: Histories of Television, Histories of the Concept of Power
Authors: Gibson Mark
Published: March 2018

Television studies has always been haunted by the concept of power, caught in a dilemma between Frankfurtian pessimism and a vulnerability to charges of a cheerful ‘banality’. The paper suggests a new perspective on this problem by introducing a distinction between theories of power (in the singular) and a more differentiated attention to plural powers. The latter approach can be traced as an emerging possibility in ‘post-Cold War’ formations in popular culture — the example discussed here being Pokémon. The paper further suggests that television studies might learn something from this development. The way is opened, specifically, for questions of power to be considered in a historical, rather than theoretical, mode. Such an approach offers an alternative to remaining caught in what have become increasingly repetitive debates about power.
The Future of Ratings Measurement
Authors: Danaher Peter , Balnaves Mark
Published: March 2018

The new media environment is changing the ways in which television services are delivered and accessed, putting increasing strains on the long-standing conventional audience tracking methodology. Not only are people watching television in different ways, through the proliferation of services via internet and pay TV, but new recording technology is also giving them the power to select what they watch and when they watch it, even bypassing the ad breaks along the way. Peter Danaher, Professor of Marketing at the University of Auckland, looks at how the ratings industry is trying to address these challenges. Professor Danaher was interviewed by Mark Balnaves.
Look before You Leap: Commercial Radio's View of the Road Ahead
Authors: Warner Joan , Phillips Gail
Published: March 2018

While the broadcast industry as a whole may be abuzz with the potential for new survey methodologies, the Australian commercial radio sector retains a more pragmatic perspective. Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer for the commercial radio industry body Commercial Radio Australia, talks about radio's place in the multimedia environment and the hurdles new survey technologies will have to overcome to deliver the sort of data the industry will be prepared to trust. Joan was interviewed by Gail Phillips.
A Soap of Our Own: New Zealand's Shortland Street
Authors: Dunleavy Trish
Published: March 2018

Shortland Street is a prime-time soap opera that launched on New Zealand television in 1992 and was created to meet a combination of commercial and ‘public service’ objectives. Shortland Street is institutionally and culturally significant as New Zealand's first attempt at daily drama production and one of the first major productions to follow New Zealand television's 1989 deregulation. Placing Shortland Street in the context of national television culture and within the genre of locally produced TV drama, this paper explores several key facets of the program, including: its creation as a co-production between public and private broadcasting institutions; its domestic role in a small television market; its relationships with New Zealand ‘identity and culture’; its application of genre conventions and foreign influences; and its progress — as a production that was co-developed by Grundy Television — in a range of export markets.
Understanding Telenovelas as a Cultural Front: A Complex Analysis of a Complex Reality
Authors: González Jorge
Published: March 2018

The social phenomenon of televised melodramas called telenovelas in Spanish can be taken as a perfect example of a complex symbolic form in contemporary societies. There are a number of differences and nuances between Latin telenovelas and their electronic ‘cousin’, the soap opera. Nevertheless, the two genres are closely related. In this brief paper, I will stress some traits of a major theoretical and methodological framework of cultural fronts to analyse and bring into partial scientific visibility this global and local phenomenon. My aim is to set up a general framework to facilitate a necessary deeper reflection, and hopefully initiate some international comparative research, given the ‘intriguing’ global appeal of this symbolic form.
‘Popularising Politics’: This Day Tonight and Australian Television Current Affairs
Authors: Turner Graeme
Published: March 2018

This paper presents a history of the pioneering ABC TV current affairs program, This Day Tonight (TDT). This Day Tonight has mythic status in the history of Australian television news and current affairs, and is often used as a reference point for the kind of political Journalism that is now generally held to have disappeared from Australian television. The research for this paper does endorse this myth to some extent, but it also reminds us of the importance of the broader cultural contexts within which television programming must find its audience. There are significant differences to be noted, and important lessons to be learnt, from the comparison between TDT and its audience, and the kinds of current affairs programming and audiences we have today. Further, the history of TDT's demise challenges the basis for the industry nostrum that audiences find politics boring and that therefore political journalism is no longer a commercial option for contemporary current affairs television.
Internet Use in Singapore: Politics and Policy Implications
Authors: Lee Terence
Published: March 2018

As one of the most networked societies in the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore commands a high degree of attention in the information and communication (infocomm) sector. However, internet use, along with the politics of internet regulation, in the high-tech city-state has not been sufficiently critiqued. This paper aims to address this ‘lack’ by examining the politics and policy implications of internet regulatory practices in Singapore. It begins by looking at some development in Singapore's infocomm sector, highlighting political responses to key occurrences over the past decade. Taking on board the discourse of auto-regulation — that regulating the internet and new media in Singapore is mostly about ensuring an automatic functioning of power for political expedience and longevity — advanced by this author (Lee, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c; Lee and Birch, 2000), this paper offers updates and new insights into the normalisation of internet auto-regulation in Singapore. The final section of the paper looks at the fast-developing application of electronic government (e-government) services in Singapore via the national ‘e-citizen’ website. I argue how online extensions of government are really about providing internet users with degrees of structured freedom, while tightening the more permanent and potent strictures of political control.
Breaking Democracy: Venezuela's Media Coup
Authors: Castillo Antonio
Published: March 2018

This article endeavours to describe and analyse the media's role in the 11–13 April 2002 attempt to oust Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. The short-lived and unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government exposed the politicised and undemocratic nature of Venezuela's private commercial media. At an international news level, the events of April 2002 demonstrated that foreign news coverage tends to reproduce the version of the dominant elite and over-simplify the causes and outcomes of complex historical events. In this case, most of the foreign news not only reproduced the local private media coverage, but also amplified the strength of the coup. Essentially, this media coup revealed the centrality of the commercial, privately owned media in bringing together some of the key players behind this political operation: businesses, right-wing politicians and some sectors of the military. The key component of the current social and political crisis in Venezuela is the bitter struggle between the government and the commercial media.
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later: Ethnographic Research in an Online Computer Gaming Community
Authors: Morris Sue
Published: March 2018

For researchers investigating online communities, the existence of the internet has made the activities and opinions of community members visible in a public domain. FPS gaming culture is a highly literate culture — members communicate and represent themselves in textual forms online, and the culture makes use of a wide variety of communication and publishing technologies. While a significant amount of insider knowledge is required to understand and interpret such online content, a large body of material is available to researchers online, and sometimes provides more reliable and enlightening information than that generated by more traditional research methods. While the abundance of data available online in some ways makes research far easier, it also creates new dilemmas and challenges for researchers. What extra knowledge is required of the researcher? How can one ensure that one's interpretations of member statements are made with an understanding of meaning within that culture? What responsibilities does the researcher have in their representation of the culture under examination? What ethical issues must be considered?
Slow Train Coming? The Transition to Digital Distribution and Exhibition in Cinema
Authors: McQuire Scott
Published: March 2018

Throughout the 1990s, digital technology entered film production and rapidly altered both the production process and the audience's experience, as complex soundscapes and special effects became the hallmark of cinematic blockbusters. By 1999, the prospect of an end-to-end digital cinema, or cinema without celluloid, seemed to be in sight. Digital distribution and exhibition were extolled as particularly attractive prospects, and a number of test sites were established in the United States. However, the last four years have demonstrated that significant issues need to be resolved before there will be broader implementation of digital cinema. Working from a series of interviews with key industry practitioners in Australia and the United States, this article examines the struggles currently affecting the rollout of digital cinema, and assesses the likely impact on Australian exhibition practices.
Keeping the Conversation Going: Voluntary Associations in the Public Sphere(S)
Authors: Prince John
Published: March 2018

While Jürgen Habermas claims the public sphere — and therefore democracy — is in a state of atrophy, other theorists claim that in recent decades there has been an overwhelming democratisation of our media. For many theorists who support Habermas's arguments, voluntary associations are best suited to reinvigorating a public sphere in decay. Indeed, Habermas himself claims voluntary associations are essential to a properly functioning, democratic public sphere. This paper presents some of the findings of recent research, which considered the facts on the ground and examined at close quarters the operations, activities and communicative structures of voluntary associations. As such, the paper argues against Habermas, contending first that, while less than perfect, the public sphere is essentially not in a state of atrophy, and second, this is due in part to the organisations Habermas valorises — voluntary associations — using the very media he so reviles — mass media.
Creative Choices: Changes to the Creative Commons
Authors: Fitzgerald Brian
Published: March 2018

This commentary on the Creative Commons provides an overview of the background to its development and an account of the philosophy and objectives that underpin the project. It also provides an update on Australian developments in this area.
‘The Democracy of Conversation’: The Panel and the Public Sphere
Authors: Harrington Stephen
Published: March 2018

If news is a fundamental part of the public sphere and ideals of democracy, then continuing assertions about the public's lack of engagement with its topics is a worrying trend. However, much of this worry may be conflated by a lack of understanding about both the lived experiences of audiences (particularly youth audiences) and the news media environment more generally. This paper examines The Panel, a Ten Network ‘new’ news program which appears to have a significant deal of power in the mediatised postmodern public sphere. Through its discursive format, and by making news more comprehensible and interesting, the program is able to increase the potential for everyday ‘rational-critical’ debate at the heart of the public sphere (Habermas, 1989: 117). This theory is examined here through the use of interviews with members of The Panel's production team and focus groups conducted with youth audiences.
(RE)Presenting Local Content: Program Adaptation in Asia and the Pacific
Authors: Keane Michael , Moran Albert
Published: March 2018

This article looks at the increasing incidence of television format flows in the Asia-Pacific, and draws upon findings from a three-year, 11-country study. It argues that format activity is both a consequence of demand for low-cost content and a catalyst for change in local content. Fashioning formats has become a means of financial and cultural insurance. Media producers in Asia have joined the international television format trade circuit. This paper looks at a number of international formats that have staked out a presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Need to Localise in New Zealand? Nickelodeon and the Institutional Logics of ‘Media Superpowers’
Authors: Lustyik Katalin
Published: March 2018

Following the call for studies that ‘turn away from speculative theory and argument-by-anecdote towards a more empirical consideration of media institutions as one of the contested interfaces between national and global forces’ (Curtin, 2005: 159), this paper investigates the institutional logics of Nickelodeon in the Asia-Pacific region. Focusing on Nickelodeon's operations in New Zealand can provide a particularly revealing case study in the dynamics of media globalisation and the ‘globalisation/fragmentation dialectic’ that defines the existence of media conglomerations today. The paper concludes that — especially when compared to Australia — Nickelodeon in New Zealand represents a revealing case which underscores the domination of the ‘global’ in the globalisation/fragmentation dialectic. It is particularly ironic that Nickelodeon, among global media companies, distinguishes itself as a promoter of customisation, and that the future of pay and digital television in New Zealand is primarily shaped by politicians who have the tendency to ‘believe that only the market has the necessary understanding’ (Horrocks, 2004: 66).
Extreme Makeover: The Recurring Motif of New Zealand Broadcasting Policy
Authors: Debrett Mary
Published: March 2018

Broadcasting policy in New Zealand has been described as ‘political football’ (Gregory, 1985: 98). Predating the Lange Labour government's radical deregulation of 1989, this metaphor reflects routine restructuring and political disregard for the potential cultural and social merits of state-owned broadcasting. Pragmatic change, masquerading as reform, has left the public increasingly underserved: from the ‘Clayton's’ solution of the monopoly era, non-commercial days, to the radical transformation into a ‘cash cow’ in the 1990s, to the Clark Labour government's CROC — a chartered public service broadcaster with a continuing remit to be profitable. This article explores, for an international audience, the combination of factors — historical predisposition, economics and political ideology — that has denied the New Zealand public a mainstream, non-commercial television service and, with reference to the changing nature of broadcasting, discusses the continuing importance of such a model.
‘I Use Online so the Counsellors can't Hear Me Crying’: Creating Design Solutions for Online Counselling
Authors: Beattie Debra , Cunningham Stuart , Jones Richard , Zelenko Oksana
Published: March 2018

This article reviews a project which has produced creative design solutions for the development of online counselling in collaboration with Australia's largest youth telephone counselling service, Kids Helpline (KHL). Our discussion focuses on the shape of interaction design research conducted against the dual background of young people's multi-literacies and professional counselling practice. Existing text-based communication tools already available for Kids Helpline's clients were integrated with graphical image-based tools, while engaging young people in problem-solving and empowerment during online counselling sessions. The paper considers the fashioning of a conducive design and interactive communication environment for distressed young people and the independent evaluation of the new site design. Preliminary results are that young people report a greater sense of control and comfort in their net-based interaction with a counsellor.
Pamela Anderson, Herrenvolk and Durer: Trajectories, Intersections and Practice-Based Research
Authors: Lichtman Loy
Published: March 2018

My practice-based research in the visual arts is focused on the intersection between three moments: the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white-skinned, straight-nosed, and symmetrical face as a look of choice evidenced in Western media which can be described as a type of personal eugenics; the antecedents to this look of choice informed by the racist ideology of Herrenvolk; and a trajectory from Herrenvolk to the informing template of Albrecht Durer's Draughtsman Drawing a Reclining Nude as well as the drawings he produced of the body in Theory of Proportions (1528). The paper illustrates how practice-based research can lead a researcher in unexpected ways and towards surprising discoveries.
A Manifesto for Performative Research
Authors: Haseman Brad
Published: March 2018

Researchers in the arts, media and design often struggle to find serviceable methodologies within the orthodox research paradigms of quantitative and qualitative research. In response to this and over the past decade, practice-led research has emerged as a potent strategy for those researchers who wish to initiate and then pursue their research through practice. This paper examines the dynamics and significance of practice-led research, and argues for it to be understood as a research strategy within an entirely new research paradigm: performative research. Taking its name from J.L. Austin's speech act theory, performative research stands as an alternative to the qualitative and quantitative paradigms by insisting on different approaches to designing, conducting and reporting research. The paper concludes by observing that, once understood and fully theorised, the performative research paradigm will have applications beyond the arts and across the creative and cultural industries generally.
The Trojan Horse: Commercial Sponsorship as Advertising in the UK Context
Authors: Philips Deborah , Whannel Garry
Published: March 2018

This paper discusses the growth of commercial sponsorship in the United Kingdom and the way in which it served to legitimate the routine presence of commercial involvement in the public sector, paving the way for the development of PPP (Public Private Partnerships) and PFI (Private Finance Initiative). The establishment of the welfare state ethos during the 1940s included the principle of public support for cultural activity, although the actual degree of funding grew only slowly. Commercial sponsorship of sport grew dramatically from the mid-1960s and, during the 1970s, arts organisations — short of state funding — were encouraged to seek commercial sponsorship. Gradually, sponsorship became a routine source of funding, seen as an essential form of support for a whole range of cultural activities. Once the Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, came to power, the utilisation of sponsorship funding became a more integral part of public policy. Sponsorship began to colonise new areas such as education and health, moving from peripheral to central elements of the public sector. Benefiting from the image of corporate benevolence that sponsorship provided, the 1997 Labour government initiated a widespread expansion of private investment in the public sector, through PPP and PFI. The paper argues that sponsorship served to legitimate this colonisation of the public sector by private capital.
Locating Editorials and Advertising in Wedding Magazines
Authors: Wilding Raelene
Published: March 2018

Unlike other magazines, few people subscribe to wedding magazines and, as most are annual publications, their presence on the publishing landscape is relatively intermittent and unobtrusive. Nevertheless, these publications provide a rich context for examining intersections between advertisements and editorials. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic and textual analysis of wedding magazines produced in Australia. I argue that the distinction between advertisement and editorial is not a useful analytical tool in this context. This is because the vast majority of advertisements and editorial pages in a wedding magazine appear almost identical: page after page of glossy photographs of wedding dresses. Rather, what is striking is the manner in which the magazine editors and advertising clients, in their discussions as each magazine issue is produced, negotiate the fine distinctions they perceive between advertising and editorial content. At stake in these negotiations is not just the economic success of both editor and client, but also their reputations as expert manipulators of symbolic representations.
(RE)Constructing Port Arthur and Thredbo: Tourist Site Tragedies and Myths of National Character
Authors: Pearse Annona
Published: March 2018

This paper examines the role of the media in disseminating and perpetuating the mythology of shared national characteristics with particular reference to the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 and the Thredbo landslide in 1997. Attention is given in my research to the ways in which public grief and mourning are conducted through the media following such events, and how the shock of significant loss of life is ameliorated by the reinforcement of national characteristics. The positive actions of victims, survivors and rescuers are projected through the media as being representative of ‘Australianness’, thereby further entrenching the mythology of national characteristics within wider discourse.
Gentrification, Cultural Policy and Live Music in Melbourne
Authors: Lobato Ramon
Published: March 2018

This paper examines the regulation of nightlife in Melbourne, with a special focus on live music venues. Widespread gentrification of the city centre and inner suburbs has recently created considerable tension between residents and venues. Under pressure from both sides, the state government established the Live Music Taskforce in 2003, and its findings resulted in a semi-formal — albeit largely symbolic — policy reorientation towards the protection of existing music venues. Through a case study of the Live Music Taskforce policy development process, the author argues that the Bracks government's creative cities development strategy and its overriding economic motivations have, in this instance, intersected with the broader cultural needs of Melbourne. However, such productive intersections can in no way be assured by creative industries planning models, whose interest in cultural activity is conditional upon its economic value.
‘Like Shakespeare it's a Good Thing’: Cultural Value in the Classroom
Authors: Bragg Sara
Published: March 2018

Questions of cultural value, aesthetics and evaluative judgments have vexed media education since its inception. Whilst they continue to count heavily both in teachers' conceptions of the work they do, and in students' responses to it, they have become increasingly problematic in contemporary society. The diverse environments of contemporary schools and the capacity of new media technologies to foster different taste communities have contributed to the dispersal of cultural authority and undermined traditional judgments. This article addresses how we might approach cultural value through a case study approach, exploring multiple value judgments deployed by teachers and students in post-16 classroom practice. It shows how current pedagogical thinking about cultural value does not take into account the complexity of classroom life, particularly its social relations and young people's awareness of the valorised identities and ‘supervisory discourses’ that circulate there. It explores specific educational practices that might make it possible for students to enter into debates about value, taste and preference.
Prince Charming Has Perfect White Teeth: Performativity and Media Education
Authors: Dezuanni Michael
Published: March 2018

This paper argues that Judith Butler's post-structuralist theory of performativity provides a valuable tool for understanding how students might contest prevailing hegemonic gender discourses in media education classrooms. It suggests an alternative to structuralist ‘empowerment’ and ‘critical pedagogy’ approaches, which continue to motivate many media educators, despite serious questions being asked about their effectiveness. The paper draws on data collected from a unit of work about video games, completed by Year 10 students at an all-boys secondary school in Brisbane. It argues that many media-related activities fail to elicit genuinely ‘critical’ responses because they are complicit in the regulation of hegemonic discourses. It suggests that teachers are more likely to create the potential for variation in their students' gender performances if activities are dialogic and open-ended, and avoid placing emphasis on discourses of excellence and competition.
Class in the Classroom: Media Students, Pedagogy and Legally Blonde
Authors: Devas Angela
Published: March 2018

This paper argues that widening participation, which is now part of the agenda of higher education, has been insufficiently acknowledged by the media and cultural studies community, particularly in regard to pedagogic practices. The author examines the teaching of Legally Blonde, a film about an unconventional entrant to Harvard University, to first-year students on a Media Arts course, nearly all of whom came from non-traditional backgrounds. Interviews with a small cohort of students reveal that some experienced a degree of alienation at university. The students were asked to write essays on Legally Blonde that drew on theoretical understandings of widening participation, class, gender and race. The students' readings of the film are examined to highlight issues of identity and belonging in the academy, and to demonstrate the students' own understandings of structural inequalities.
Content Delivered over Convergence Devices
Authors: Dwyer Tim
Published: March 2018

In April 2006, the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts released an important report on its Review of the Regulation of Content Delivered Over Convergent Devices. This article discusses the report and its findings, noting a number of critical questions it raises for the development of convergent audiences, content and distribution.