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Section: Media

  • MEDIA

    There is no such thing as capitalism

    • David James
    • 27 October 2017
    14 Comments

    In literary studies, one of the most important requirements is the need to define one's terms accurately. It has always come as a shock to me that economics is almost completely devoid of such precision. Much of the terminology of the 'discipline' of economics is either nonsense, or thinly disguised tautologies.

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  • MEDIA

    My #MeToo dilemma

    • Kate Moriarty
    • 26 October 2017
    5 Comments

    In real life, 'me too' happens in whispered conversations between close friends. I carry these women's secrets inside me like dark polished stones. I marvel that such strong, capable, ordinary people, from loving and functional families, could be survivors of child sexual abuse. None of them has written 'me too' on their status. I checked.

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  • MEDIA

    Hollywood's Weinstein complicity

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 19 October 2017
    4 Comments

    Hollywood houses and produces its own hypocrisies. Issues are literally reduced to screen-like dimensions. Complexity vanishes. But more to the point, abuses behind the screen become apologias, the justifiable vicissitudes of having a dream industry. It entails a pact between the dream maker and participants, where all are soiled.

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  • MEDIA

    Is Google and Facebook's imitation game doomed?

    • David James
    • 26 September 2017
    3 Comments

    There are very few examples of companies that have been able to genuinely change when confronted with new circumstances. It looks increasingly that Facebook and Google are approaching this situation. The challenge is likely to come from some quarter that is new and surprising, just as the demolition of conventional media came from companies that could have barely been imagined 20 years ago.

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  • MEDIA

    'Both sides' journalism betrays the public interest

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 21 September 2017
    15 Comments

    In a liberal democracy, the media's most essential function is to serve the public interest. This includes providing information so that the public can make informed decisions. In order to do so, journalists must decide what is in the public interest and why. 'Balanced' coverage of, for example, damaging aspects of the marriage equality No campaign does not fit these criteria.

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  • MEDIA

    The sad history of Australian media reform

    • Andrew Dodd
    • 19 September 2017
    5 Comments

    The big media players eventually get what they want by wearing down the government of the day and latching on to whatever opportunity comes their way. This month the government handed them the reform they've long craved while Xenophon attempted to win some concessions. We can assume Australia's media market will now become more concentrated. What we don't know is whether Xenophon's trade offs will do enough to protect public interest journalism and media diversity.

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  • MEDIA

    Storming the pixels: New frontiers of race activism

    • Tseen Khoo
    • 05 September 2017
    5 Comments

    There's storming the barricades, and there's storming the pixels. Critical race activism in the 21st century can take on fascinating forms. A great recent example of this is the destruction of Confederate monuments in the United States, and the debates and actions surrounding these events. They generated larger conversations about culture wars and re-ignited the cycle of argument around historical authenticity, heroism and - dare anyone say it these days? - truth.

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  • MEDIA

    How political correctness kills language freedoms

    • David James
    • 25 August 2017
    21 Comments

    The push for politically correct language may be well intentioned enough, but its consequences are often appalling. It can rob us of one of the most important of all human freedoms: the right to use words to mean what we want them to mean.

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  • MEDIA

    We treat dogs better than the asylum seekers

    • 23 August 2017
    10 Comments

    Last week I was rung to say my dog was missing. I finished at work as soon as I could, ringing the local council and neighbourhood vet on the way home. Neither had seen anything of him but suggested we post on social media. As my husband and I drove and walked the streets, the messages came in. People were concerned. He was missing from an enclosed yard. Some offered to look, others from further away, shared hope and the Facebook post. The post went everywhere, the last I saw was in Western Australia.  

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  • MEDIA

    Why having a female Dr Who matters

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 27 July 2017
    12 Comments

    It was recently announced that the thirteenth iteration of the main character in Doctor Who will be played by Jodie Whittaker. A woman. In 2017, the casting of a white woman in a major TV role is hardly revolutionary, except that the role is the Doctor, a regenerative alien who can take on the appearance of anyone, but has for 12 iterations tended towards the persona of a quirky British white man.

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  • MEDIA

    Stock images strengthen chronic fatigue stigma

    • Evan Young
    • 14 July 2017
    4 Comments

    If used without thought, stock images can misrepresent and trivialise serious issues. I have the displeasure of living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a hugely misunderstood and devastating condition. When I see an article on CFS, it is almost always beneath a stock photo of somebody yawning or with head in hands. These images contribute to society's misapprehension that CFS is exclusively related to sleep, making it even tougher for patients to live in a world already hard enough to live in.

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  • MEDIA

    Encryption and liberties on the 'ungovernable' internet

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 14 July 2017
    6 Comments

    Turnbull's attitude echoes the fear all autocracies have: that control is slipping away, and that citizens cannot be trusted to behave in a modern communications environment without government intrusions. Arguments are repeatedly made that such enlarged powers are never abused - a charmingly naive assumption - and that law enforcement authorities merely need the 'capacity' to have them. These can either abate, or be extended, after a review. The reality tends to be different.

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