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Section: Media

  • MEDIA

    Caucusing cardinals trump greedy media

    • Ray Cassin
    • 15 March 2013
    10 Comments

    The media abhor a vacuum, and thus we got to hear about, among other things, the cabal of anonymous gay clerics who are allegedly at the heart of the Vatileaks and banking scandals. UFOs and monsters from space didn't appear in these stories, but if the Church had endured another week of sede vacante they probably would have.

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  • MEDIA

    Beware if Mr Assange goes to Canberra

    • Ray Cassin
    • 06 March 2013
    11 Comments

    It's not the Assange who aspired to strut the global stage as messiah or naughty boy who bothers me; it is the Assange of recently diminished ambition who now aspires only to strut the corridors of Parliament House. For all its faults t he democratic process is all we've got: beware those who promise to save us from it.

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  • MEDIA

    Pope sweet on tweets

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 January 2013
    10 Comments

    When the Pope speaks on social media the casual reader might expect to hear the musings of an old man out of touch and out of sympathy with modern technology. If so, Pope Benedict's recent statement for World Media Day may come as a surprise. He pays little attention to risks, focusing on possibilities.

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  • MEDIA

    Stifling media inquiries in Australia and the UK

    • Ray Cassin
    • 04 December 2012
    8 Comments

    Australian journalists' tendency to conflate the UK Leveson inquiry's recommendations with those of Australia's Finkelstein inquiry is ill-informed. This blurring in the minds of journalists, publishers and the wider public is a reminder of the anger that spawned the inquiries, and a broad hint about their likely consequences.

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  • MEDIA

    Putting the soul back in the media carnival sideshow

    • Caroline Zielinski
    • 16 November 2012
    1 Comment

    Speed was a huge factor in the BBC debacle: the story about a senior Tory 'rapist' began on Twitter and went viral. The Australian's associate editor Cameron Stewart recently argued that journalism courses focus too much on 'critical assessment of the media' rather than 'the nuts and bolts of reporting'. But the lack of deep cognitive understanding of the role of the media is precisely the problem.

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  • MEDIA

    Hating Alan Jones

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 10 October 2012
    51 Comments

    The voices shouting down Jones are almost certainly not those of his listeners; the people most offended by his actions, it seems, are those who have never tuned in to his show. This debacle is steeped unashamedly in politics, with the outcry reinforced by various Labor politicians and dripping with as much contempt for Abbott and his party as Jones' diatribes do for the left.

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  • MEDIA

    Only rationality will destroy Alan Jones' joint

    • Michael Mullins
    • 09 October 2012
    32 Comments

    Social media has outsmarted 2GB's Macquarie Radio Network management and forced them to cancel advertising on Alan Jones' program. But it is unlikely that the collective rage against Jones' behaviour will be sustained, respectable, and ultimately effective, unless the passion is accompanied by reasoned argument.

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  • MEDIA

    Free speech beyond the pale

    • Justin Glyn
    • 08 October 2012
    23 Comments

    Free speech is fundamental to democracy because it protects public discourse and freedom of religion. But while the right to free speech must to be respected even if it causes offence, we need to question what purpose is served by Alan Jones' attack on Julia Gillard, and the French cartoons.

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  • MEDIA

    Fashion mag's naked sexism

    • Melinda Tankard Reist
    • 19 September 2012
    18 Comments

    Men's magazine GQ's 'Men of the Year' are portrayed dressed respectably in suit and tie. By contrast, its 'Woman of the Year' appears naked and in sexualised poses. Unequal dress reflects unequal power. To be woman of the year apparently entails enduring sexism, submission, objectification and groping.

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  • MEDIA

    Puncturing Australia's cult of the mind

    • Zac Alstin
    • 17 September 2012
    25 Comments

    Half a million Australians have an intellectual disability and 600,000 are projected to have dementia by 2030. Yet our lives increasingly depend upon advanced cognitive activity, seen in the proliferation of online social networking, banking and shopping. Can the fullness of life really be encompassed by our immersion in the life of the mind?

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  • MEDIA

    On media and massacres

    • Lyn Bender
    • 30 July 2012
    3 Comments

    Media and lone protagonists who commit Colorado-style mass murder have common traits. They seek to enthrall, send a message and rise above the pack. Many experts agree that dramatic, hysterical publicising of the perpetrator and his crime can feed the so called copycat compulsion.

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  • MEDIA

    Vagina dialogue

    • Moira Rayner
    • 25 July 2012
    20 Comments

    Johnson & Johnson's 'Carefree' ads talked unblushingly of women's vaginas, inter-period discharge and daily smells. According to some, we shouldn't talk about such things, not on television. Until recently commercial products for absorbing menstrual blood didn't exist, with dreadful effect on women's participation in community and public life.

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