My response to this is that because cultural studies has prospered in Australia over the last ten years, it has to drop the pretence of not being part of the establishment. It has to drop the pretence that its critical disciplinary bias is also necessarily a critical political bias. They stand in a position where they are not trying to influence an establishment, they are part of an establishment, and they can exert influence themselves. Probably the ones that they have served best have been responsibilities of dealing with industries, particularly the media industries, in trying to make them more socially accountable. It means to some extent turning to applied, more case-specific studies in a way that is relatively comfortable as a direction within Australian cultural studies, but it also means taking on advocacy of fairly traditional humanities values, in a climate that is antagonistic to those.
Cultural studies is in a position to do it, because it has already shown that it can do it.
You listen to what Sue and John talk about here as their work, and it is work that is easily accessible to people from outside the academy, easily understandable, and it is saleable. That does give you access to make claims for change, claims that serve interests the humanities have always served. Some Futures for Cultural Studies. A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. Some futures for cultural studies.