Communication Mixdown: Recent Episodes
Reema Rattan, Liam Armstrong, Carly Dober and Judith Peppard
This show casts a critical eye on the myriad ways in which we communicate with each other in our increasingly interconnected, multi-media platform world. Each week we mix down the who, the what, the where, and the how of particular communication events, messages, trends and technologies, and then consider: what impacts and what consequences?
Sonic Gathering Place Melbourne Jail: Creating peaceful spaces in the midst of city chaosOn this Radiothon show we explore the beginnings of the show Communication Mixdown with John Langer, and the ambience of cities with Jordan Lacey. And we encourage listeners to donate to keep community strong and keep 3CR on air for another year. Communication Mixdown? What's that?John Langer, the person who started Communication Mixdown in 2016, tells Judith about how the name came about and the themes the show has covered over the years, from terms like 'fake news' which emerged at the beginning of the Trump era, to how climate change has been communicated to the public and the increase in surveillance-the digital panopticon. While communication is a huge topic, the show comes together around the idea of communication within power relationships-asking questions like who gets to speak?, who doesn't?, the importance of community languages...and lots more! How does a city makes you feel?Jordan Lacey chats with Judith about what he means by the ambience of a city, how we experience the city "from the position of our own sensing body", and how sound artists in Australia and internationally have worked to create peaceful spaces in the middle of busy cities, not necesarily to hide city sounds, but to transform them. And what about Community Radio Stations? How do they contribute to the ambience of a city? Well, sounds coming out of car windows in Fitzroy...or sounds emerging from a boat on a river in Berlin, just for starters. You can check out Jordan's paper Cities are made from more than buildings and roads. They are made from ambiances-how a city makes you feel here
Murdoch and mushroomsThis week Communication Mixdown looks at two very different forms of communication. We begin with Dr Victoria Fielding on the Murdoch media's campaign to support Net Zero emissions by 2050 and to educate the Australian public about climate change. Victoria's anaylsis of Newscorp's coverage of the floods in Queensland in 2022 tells a different story.In the second half of the show Professor Katie Field tells us about new research which suggests that mushrooms have the ability to communicate with each other and that fungi has an electrical 'language' all its own, "far more complicated than anyone previously thought" and "might even use 'words' to form 'sentences' to communicate with neighbours".
‘Social media is full of dead people. Untold millions of dead users haunt the online world where we increasingly live our lives. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them or do they have the right to persist?’ These questions are posed in the blurb on the back of a new book called Digital Souls: A Philosophy of Online Death by Patrick Stokes, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, who talks to Reema Rattan about his excellent recent book.
Seeking Asylum: Our StoriesOn November 30th the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre here and Black Inc. Books here launched Seeking Asylum: Our Stories, a book that features the voices of people who have lived the experience of seeking asylum in Australia. Twenty-three people tell us why they had to leave their country of origin, how they came to Australia and the challenges they faced when they arrived. Each story is different; each story is remarkable. Truly, as it says on the cover, 'the voices Australia should hear'.Dr Ghofran Al-nasiri's story is featured in Seeking Asylum: Our Stories and her photo is on the cover. Ghofran tells Judith about her life in Iraq before the family was forced to flee, why education is so important to her and her commitment to social justice. Now a lecturer and researcher at Victoria University, Ghofran remembers the people who helped her to achieve her dream and the woman who was there at the right moment, She put her hand on my shoulder and said "You'll be fine". Ghofran also speaks about the volunteer work she does with students who have come from similar backgrounds to her own.
"This is a major economic risk for us": Jake Whitehead on the inadequacies of the Morrison government's new electric vehicle strategy On November 9th the Morrison government announced it's new electric vehicle strategy here, to coincide wiith the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, but it's not the strategy Australia needs to meet its COP26 emission targets and take the country into a sustainable future. Dr Jake Whitehead and his colleagues, Jessica Whitehead and Kai Le Lim from the University of Queensland, have written a paper for The Conversation entitled As the world surges ahead on electric vehicles, the Morrison government's new strategy leaves Australia idling in the garage here. Jake joins Judith on Communication Mixdown to discuss the problems with the Federal government's new electric vehicle strategy and calls for an honest conversation about what's needed. Dr Jake Whitehead holds a joint position as the Tritium E-mobility Fellow at the University of Queensland Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation here and School of Civil Engineering.
You look up at the stages and you see very few women: Women and girls at COP 26During the second week of the climate summit COP 26, a day was allocated to gender equality and the empwerment of women and girls in climate policy and action. Betty Barkha, a PhD candidate at Monash University's Centre for Gender, Peace and Security here, and Katrina Lee-Koo, Associate Professor in International Relations at Monash, spoke to Judith about their paper COP26: why education for girls is crucial in the fight against climate change here.Women and girls at COP 26; "More clean energy means more mines": The challenges of making a just transition to a renewable energy future More clean energy means more mines: the challenges of a just transition to a renewable energy futureNick Bainton is an Associate Professor in Social anthropology at the Universiy of Queensland who specialises in the social aspects of large-scale resource extraction. His work has a broad focus on the Pacific and Papua New Guinea in particular. Nick and his colleagur Deanna Kemp, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at he Universiy of Queensland here, have written an article for The Conversation entitled More clean energy means more mines-we shouldn't sacrifice communities in the name of climate action here.Nick joined Judith on Communication Mix down to discuss the concept of a just transition to renewable energy and the difficulties of achieving it.
(Image: Angie/Flickr)Books that offer readers the chance to try to change their lives or selves for the better seem to be proliferating. Given their prevalence, it’s likely you or someone you know has bought or borrowed from a library some kind of self-help book. And maybe it’s even helped solve whatever problem you or they were struggling with. But do self-help books really help? Can they do harm? And are they really increasing in number like they seem to be to me? Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Nick Haslam and philosopher Damon Young discuss whether self-help can actually help.
Peace Building in Africa and Beyond: Creating partnerships in Australia and the Democratic Republic of CongoThe Raising Peace Festival was held from September 16th to September 26th, 2021. The Festival celebrated International Peace Day, September 21st, and was organised by International Volunteers for Peace (IVP), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the The Quakers and the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). The Festival featured presentations from 37 organisations and went for eleven days with a thousand people attending.Today Comunication Mixdown features two organisations that gave presentations at the Raising Peace Festival; the Great Lakes Agency for Peace and Developmment (GLAPD) and HandUp Congo, in particular their Emergency Medicine program. Judith chats with Dr Nadine Shema, a co-founder of the Great Lakes Agency for Peace and Developmment, Lucy Hopgood-Brown, a co-founder of HandUp Congo and Dr Vera Sistenich, leader of the Emergency Medicine Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Urban foraging: Edible plants, caring for the environment and creating community Urban foraging is an idea that has been taken up by many celebrity chefs but for Alexandra Crosby and IIaria Vanni, from the University of Technology Sydney it's much more. Together they've established Mapping Edges, a transdisciplinary research studio that explores the relationship between plants, people and the urban environment. Their paper Rosemary in roundabouts, lemons over the fence: how to go urban foraging safely, respectfully and cleverly was published in The Conversation on October 5th, 2021. Alexandra and Ilaria join Judith on Communication Mixdown to talk about their research, the relationship between people and plants and their best forage experience.
Political philosopher Charles Mills died on September 20. Mills was a major figure in philosophy for bringing white supremacy to the fore in his work, changing the way we speak about race. Reema Rattan talks to race scholar Debbie Bargallie, who used Mills' work extensively in her book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service, and philosopher Helen Ngo about his work, legacy and the relevance of his ideas in Australia.
The Women of Little Lon: Sex workers in 19th Century MelbourneBarbara Minchinton's book The Women of Little Lon: Sex workers in 19th Century Melbourne published by Black Inc is a meticulously researched account of sex work and sex workers in Melbourne from the mid to late 1800s. Barbara chats with Judith about urban archaeology, the situation of settler women in 19th century Melbourne and the attractions of sex work for working class women at that time. Barbara points out that while sex workers were harshly judged by the 'respectible' citizens of Melburne in the 19th Century, the industy was primarily managed by women and those who operated the 'flash' brothels, demonstrated political acumen in the links they developed with police, the legal profession and key political figures.Barbara also considers the extent to which the attitudes of the19th Century moral crusaders, who drove the move to criminalise sex work, are still with us in 21st Century Melbourne. As she says, we'll soon find out when Fiona Patten's bill to de-criminalise sex work is debated in Victoria's Parliament.To hear more from Barbara Minchinton check out 3CR's Done by Law show broadcast on August 31st, 2021.https://www.3cr.org.au/donebylaw/episode-202108311800/women-little-lon-sex-work-and-law-then-and-now-historian-barbaraAnd for a contemporary sex worker perspective, tune in to 3CR's Behind Closed Doors: a safe space to explore the world of sex work from diverse presenters.https://www.3cr.org.au/behindcloseddoors
The Australian story of Mikis Theodorakis' legendary song ZorbaMikis Theodorakis, considered by many of his country people to be the greatest Greek composer in history, died on September 2nd at his home in Athens at the age of 96. As the country mourned his passing he was remembered as a patriot and a person whose music touched generations of people in Greece and internationally. While Theodorakis is probably best known for his film scores composed for Zorba the Greek, Z, and Serpico, he also revived interest in Greek traditional music and wrote classical compositions. His musical output is estimated at over one thousand compositions.There is also an Australian story about Theodorakis' song Zorba. Andonis Piperoglou is a cultural historian and adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Cultural and Social Research. He joins Judith on Communication Mixdown to discuss his article published in The Conversation on September 7th, Politics, flashmobs, Yolngu dancers: the Australian story of Mikis Theodorakis' legendary song Zorba. Zorba the Greek Yolngu style; Chooky dancers now Djuki Malahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-MucVWo-Pw
Technological disruption of all kinds of industries is the norm rather than the exception now and the film industry is no different. As cameras on smartphones improve, more and more people are embracing the tool as an opportunity to tell their stories, and even traditional filmmakers are joining in. Max Schleser, senior lecturer in film and television at Swinburne University of Technology, and founder of the Mobile Innovation Network and Association, and Daniel Schultheis, founder of the not-for-profit organization Cinespace, which promotes cultural diversity on screen, who has been running workshops about how to make films with your smartphone around Victoria, discuss making films using smartphones. Some resources Mobile Innovation Network and Association (MINA) * Conference (October) * Twitter: @MINAmobile * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MobileInnovationNetwork * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MobileInnovationNetwork/ Cinespace * Smartphone Stories Book: Max Schleser, Smartphone Filmmaking: Theory and Practice Facebook groups * Smartphone Filmmaking & Mobile Social Media Content Producers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smartphonefilmmakers * Mobile Fillmakers: https//www.facebook.com/groups/287493301745902 Mobile Motion Film Festival (Sweden): International Smartphone Film Festival
Origins and principles of Shariah law: Which version the Taliban is likely to implement?As the Taliban consolidates its rule in Afghanistan it is endeavouring to present a more moderate face to the world. However the statement from the Taliban that it would not discriminate against women and would give them their rights “within the bounds of shariah”, means little if they don't define which version of Shariah law they plan to implement.An article by Associate Professors Zuleyha Keskin and Mehmet Osalp entitled Explainer: What is Shariah law and what version of it is the Taliban likely to implement was published in the Conversation on August 25th, 2021. It looks at the history and principles of Shariah Law, how it declined after the golden age of Islam and with the colonisation of Islamic countries, and how more recently it's been co-opted and misrepresented by ultra-conservative groups.Associate Professor Zuleyha Keskin, from the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation at Charles Sturt Unversty, joins Communication Mixdown to discuss the article and what might eventuate in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. We also find out about about Zuleyha's new book Attaining Inner Peace in Islam: Said Nursi's Perspective published just this week, and finish with a brief discussion of the Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, who was born in Balkh, present-day Afghanistan.
Making the Law work for WomenRamona Vijeyarasa is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the editor of International Women's Rights Law and Gender Equality: Making the law work for women which was launched on July 29th this year. The book is the result of a seminar, Making the Law Work for Women, held in August 2020 which drew together scholars from around the world to look at the impact of the law on women, what has been effective and what more needs to be done to achieve gender equality.As part of her work at the School of Law at UTS, Ramona has developed the Gender Legislative Index or GLI, a tool to rank and score legislation against global standards for women’s rights. The GLI facilitates a comparison of laws addressing the same issues, legislation across different areas of the law, and allows comparisons across countries.On Communication Mixdown this week Ramona Vijeyarasa chats with Judith about the book International Women's Rights Law and Gender Equality: Making the law work for women, the Gender Legislative Index she developed at UTS and the potential of the law in the work of progressing women's rights and gender equality.
The townspeople of Buenos Aries (Ecuador) met with excessive violence when protesting against mining and the incursion of the police on their land Between 2016 and 2018 a cash-strapped Ecuador sold around a third of the country's land mass to multinational mining corporationswithout consultation with traditional owners, as required by Ecuador's constitution. Around 40 per cent of those concessions were bought by Australian mining companies or their subsidiaries despite the legal uncertainty created by the Ecuadorian government's failure to consult with owners. Concerned about the damage to land and water caused by mining in neighbouring areas, the people of Buenos Aries in northwest Ecuador have tried to prevent Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining S.A. from coming into their town and onto the land designated for Hanrine mining operations. Liz Downes is a researcher and campaign organiser with the Rainforest Action Group Melbourne/Naarm which has been documenting events in Beunos Aries over the past few years. Liz describes the most recent developments in the town and the need for immediate action. For more informantion about the activities of Australian mining companies overseas see the 2015 report Fatal Extraction:Australian Mining in Africa produced by the Centre for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists https://www.icij.org/investigations/fatal-extraction/ https://www.thewire.org.au/story/australian-mining-companies-lethal-footprint-in-africa/
In the middle of April, Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison attended a national Australian Christian Churches Conference in the Gold Coast. A video of his speech was broadcast by Vineyard Church and distributed by the Rationalist Society soon afterwards, leading to public discussions about the separation of church and state in Australia.In his speech, Scott Morrison revealed, among other things, that he is often secretly praying and described social media misuse as the work of ‘the evil one’. It’s worth noting that Morrison is the first Pentecostal prime minister Australia has had.Discussing the role of religion in Australian politics with me -- in the order you will hear from them -- are Wendy Mayer, Joanne Cruickshank and Tanya Levin.Wendy Mayer is a professor of Christianity, with a specialisation in early Christianity and particularly social history but also in contemporary religious violence and radicalisation. She is at associate dean for research at the Australian Lutheran College.Dr Joanne Cruickshank is a historian of Christianity in Britain and Australia, from the 18th century onwards, at Deakin University. She now works on religion and race, particularly the role of Christianity in Australia in relation to Aboriginal missions.Tanya Levin grew up in the church known as Hillsong and the author of the 2007 book People in Glass Houses: An Insiders Story of a Life in and out of Hillsong, which was re-released in 2015. The book outlines her story growing up in the church as well as other experiences and some theory about what takes place in Hillsong and how it became what it is with its focus on money, celebrities and music.
In the middle of April, Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison attended a national Australian Christian Churches Conference in the Gold Coast. A video of his speech was broadcast by Vineyard Church and distributed by the Rationalist Society soon afterwards, leading to public discussions about the separation of church and state in Australia. In his speech, Scott Morrison revealed, among other things, that he is often secretly praying and described social media misuse as the work of ‘the evil one’. It’s worth noting that Morrison is the first Pentecostal prime minister Australia has had. Discussing the role of religion in Australian politics with me -- in the order you will hear from them -- are Joanne Cruickshank, Tanya Levin and Wendy Mayer. Dr Joanne Cruickshank is a historian of Christianity in Britain and Australia, from the 18th century onwards, at Deakin University. She now works on religion and race, particularly the role of Christianity in Australia in relation to Aboriginal missions. Tanya Levin grew up in the church known as Hillsong and the author of the 2007 book People in Glass Houses: An Insiders Story of a Life in and out of Hillsong, which was re-released in 2015. The book outlines her story growing up in the church as well as other experiences and some theory about what takes place in Hillsong and how it became what it is with its focus on money, celebrities and music. Wendy Mayer is a professor of Christianity, with a specialisation in early Christianity and particularly social history but also in contemporary religious violence and radicalisation. She is at associate dean for research at the Australian Lutheran College.
Mining or farming: What do the Nationals really stand for?Barnaby Joyce's return to the leadership and his hard pro-mining stance raise questions about the future of an increasingly divided National Party. Honorary Professor Geoff Cockfield from the Institute for Resilient Regions and the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems at the University of Southern Queensland, explores these issues against the backdrop of current international developments and the downturn in the market for coal, the relationship between Australian farmers and mining companies and the history of the National Party.https://theconversation.com/are-the-nationals-now-the-party-for-mining-not-farming-if-so-barnaby-joyce-must-tread-carefully-163988 Environmental markets can't compensate for decades of government neglectThis year's federal budget included an A$32.1 million scheme to promote a so-called "biosecurity stewardship" scheme. Dr Philippa England from Griffith Law School tells us why the scheme is a lose-lose project, failing the majority of farmers and the environment. Evaluations have shown that such schemes are expensive, time consuming and often unworkable. They don't replace investment in sustained long term government funding for projects that we know are effective in protecting the land and biodiversity.https://theconversation.com/nature-is-a-public-good-a-plan-to-save-it-using-private-markets-doesnt-pass-muster-161361
Jesus and John Wayne: A reckoning Kristin Du Mez is a professor of history at Calvin University in Grand Rapids Michigan in the United States. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, religion, and politics in recent American history. Last year she published Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, a study of white evangelical views of masculinity from the Cold War to the present, culminating in the election of Donald Trump. Kristin's book reached number four on the New York Times best sellar list last month, so it's obviously having an impact. She tells Communication Mixdown why she wrote the book, what her research revealed and how people have responded to the book in the US. For Australians, Kristin's book is a cautionary tale about what we might expect if Christian Right activists succeed in their efforts to move State Lberal Parties and the Coalition even further to the right to take up Trump-style policies. Kristin Du Mez is a keynote speaker at a Symposium organised by the Australian Catholic University and Deakin University and brings together North American and Australian researchers to look at the way Christianity has related to public life in each country over the past 50 years.Symposium details:Title: Intellectual Authority and its Changing Infrastructures in North American and Australian Christianity, 1960s-2010sDates: July 29-30Venue: Online and in-person at ACU Brisbane’s CBD Leadership CentreCost: FreeDetails and registration: https://intellectual-authority.eventbrite.com.au Also see Washington Post article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/07/16/jesus-and-john-wayne-evangelicals-surprise-bestseller/
Saving Westernport: How a determined community stopped AGL's plan for a Floating Storage and Regasification Unit in Westernport BayOn October 17th, 2017, Candy Van Rood woke to the news that energy giant AGL was planning to install a Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) at Cribb point in Westernport Bay on the Mornington Peninsula, and it seemed that the Victorian government was right behind it. Candy set up a Facebook page to inform the community about the proposed project and what it would mean for Westernport Bay. In April 2018 the Save Westernport committee was formed and the successful campaign to stop AGL's Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) began.In this episode of Communication Mixdown, people involved in the campaign will tell us why they organised, what they were up against and what the experience has taught them about environmental democracy in Australia.
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The issue of sexual assault brought women into the streets across Australia to demand change and over forty thousand people have signed a petition calling for consent education to be included in sex education programs in Australian schools earlier. The teaching resources have been devloped, so why is it so difficult?In February this year Chanel Contos launched a petition calling for consent to be included in Australian Schools' sex education earlier. As of May 17th over 40,000 people had signed the petition and over 6000 provided testimonies. And a number of politicians and school principals have contacted Chanel Contos to discuss what needs to be done. The attention to the issue is welcome, and people who have advocated for comprehensive sexualities and relationships education in schools are hoping that at last we will see real change. One of those people is Deb Ollis. Deb Ollis is an Associate Professor in Education at Deakin University, specialising in sexuality and relationships education. During her career that spans over 30 years, she's worked as a secondary school teacher, policy officer, curriculum consultant, curriculum writer, teacher educator and researcher. Deb has co-authored two national frameworks in health and sexuality education and written curriculum resources for state and federal governments. Most recently she's written a respectful relationships curriculum for Victorian secondary schools. Deb speaks with Communication Mixdown about her work in sexuality and relationships education, the barriers to putting curriculum into practice and her hopes for the future. Music Artist Song Oetha Cruisin' Further listeninghttps://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/nsw-transgender-bill/13336648
Communication Mixdown looks into how local news in rural and regional areas is faring. Local newspapers are a dying breed and the coronavirus pandemic has not helped their fortunes. But does that matter and why? Reema Rattan talks to Lisa Millar, professor of digital communication at RMIT who specialises in journalism.
Award-winning philosopher and author Damon Young discusses his latest book, On Getting Off: Sex and Philosophy, with Reema Rattan.
British film director Ken Loach often features stories about people from the working class in his films.The author of "Class on Screen: The Global Working Class in Contemporary Cinema" Dr Sarah Attfield talks to Reema Rattan about her new book which evaluates depictions of the working class in films from around the world.
When the pandemic subsides, we're facing another global crisis - climate change. Warming Up is a recently launched project that aims to link the unique position of Australia's community radio sector with communication about climate change. Kerrie Foxwell Norton and Bridget Backhaus, two of the project's key organizers, both from Griffith University's Centre for Social and Cultural Research, talk about the innovative role local community radio takes in generating conversations and guiding communities through the perils and challenges of climate change.
Image: Esther Vargas/Flickr Among the many underlying problematic social issues the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified is how journalism is done in Australia. Journalists’ conduct during the press conferences held daily by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during Victoria’s second lockdown, in particular, attracted much criticism on social media channels such as Twitter. Ingrid Matthews, who teaches law and philosophy and researches law, its philosophy and the creation of criminality, and Tim Dunlop,a writer based in Melbourne who writes on Australian and US politics and the media, as well as writing books about the future of work, discuss who it is that journalists are accountable to and why it matters.
This week, psychologist Wayne Gillespie, specialist in counselling for musicians and entertainers, explains how covid 19 restrictions and the personality traits of rock musicians make for a particulalry stressful mix. Then Clive Miller from Support Act talks about some of the ways his organization has helped working muscians negotiate their way through the lockdown.
Tanya Notley from the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Institute of Culture and Society at Western Sydney University talks about Media Literacy Week 2020, the newly formed Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA), young people deciphering fake news and why media literacy is an evolving and life-long skill needed to engage critically with our vast contemporary mediascape and for social justice.
This year marks 50 years since Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s most influential work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published in English. A foundational work of critical pedagogy, Freire’s book argues against the traditional model of education which treats students as if they are empty vessels and call for teachers and learners to be co-creators of knowledge. Fifty years later, what Freire calls the banking model of education persists, so does Pedagogy of the Oppressed still have something to teach us? Reema Rattan discusses the enduring legacy of Freire's work with Andrés Donoso Romo, a Chilean researcher whose work focuses on Latin American education history, student movements and educational thought, and Robert Austin, honorary associate of the department of history at the University of Sydney, with Robert translating for Andrés.
Since the arrival of the global pandemic, the flow of conspiracy theories online and in social media has turned into a deluge. Kaz Ross from the School of Humanities (Asian Studies) at the University of Tasmania explains how, in particular, QAnon has become globally popular, and increasingly attactive to people in Australia.Recommended listening: QAnon Anonymous
The global pandemic has raised pressing questions about trustworthy health information, and journalism is postioned to play a significant role. Citing the results of research done in Australia and the Unitied States, Andrea Carson from the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University explains how the covid crisis provides a critical moment from which to examine trust in professional journalism.
Dr Debbie Bargallie discusses her new book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous Voices on Racism in the Australian Public Service. Based on the PhD Bargallie completed at Queensland University of Technology after taking a voluntary redundancy from the APS in 2013, the book uses interviews with 21 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who work in the APS or have previously done so, to highlight the exclusion of First Nations employees from its upper echelons. Now based at Griffith University, Dr Bargallie explains what the racial contract is and how we all need more racial literacy if we are to tackle structural racism.
Early in the year the World Health Organization warned that we were battling not just a pandemic but an "infodemic". Robin Canniford from the Department of Management and Marketing at Melbourne University talks with Zac Shapiro about how this infodemic has manifested itself in the proliferation of digitally driven conspiracy theories.
Mask wearing has become a normalized part of the covid crisis. Fashion historian Lydia Edwards from Edith Cowan University talks about various manifestations of facial covering and mask wearing in western culture, and how these have plugged into circuits of fashion and communication.
One of Australia’s national myths is that we are an egalitarian country where class is of marginal, if any, importance. Yet during election campaigns, policies that attempt to redistribute wealth are shot down as being part of a class war. And more significantly, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted that maybe we aren’t as equal a society as we would like to imagine. So, what does class mean in contemporary Australia? Demographer and social researcher Dr Liz Allen from ANU, Emma Dawson, executive director of Per Capita and Dr Elizabeth Humphrys, a political economist at UTS discuss different aspects of class and inequality in Australia today.
"I'll just Google it". How many times a day has this refrain been uttered by someone struggling to find the answer to a question? Timothy Eric Strom, researcher and writer on global political economy, looks at the power of Google to enter our everyday lives and translate that power into profit-making and personal surveillance.
What do we mean when we say race? Why is it that it seems like calling someone racist is worse than the racism they display? Who gets to decide what's racism anyway?Alana Lentin, Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University, talks to Reema Rattan about her new book 'Why Race Still Matters', which argues that we need to pay attention to both when and how race matters but also when, how and why it is said to not matter.
Image: Tim Waters/FlickrColonial monuments have been in the spotlight since the Rhodes Must Fall movement started in South Africa in March 2015, and have faced renewed focus in 2020 because of the Black Lives Matter protests. Starting with the removal of slaver Edward Colston's statue in Bristol, a number of statues have been pulled down around the world -- but not in Australia.Reema Rattan facilitates a discussion between ANU Professor of History Bruce Scates and Shanti Sumartojo, Associate Professor of Design Research at Monash University, about what monuments and memorials communicate to try to uncover their role in the public and historical imagination.
Facial recogniton technology is being rolled out across Australia with what some, including the Human Rights Commission, consider to be unseemly haste. Is mass societal face surveillance the next step, and will the current Covid crisis be an additional push factor? Rick Sarre, adjunct professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Australia, and Seth Lazar, professor of philosophy at the Australian National University take up the legal, ethical and privacy issues.
Discrimination, hidden and not so hidden, appears to be pervasive in communication and culture insdurties across Australia. The ABC, SBS, Network Seven and the National Institute of Dramatic Art have all been in the spotlight in recent years. Black Lives Matter organizer, screen writer, Sydney Theatre Company emerging playwright and graduate of NIDA, Enoch Mailangi reflects on his own experiences in the culture industry and offers his prognosis for reform and change.
Deliberative democracy - utopian pipe dream or attainable vision for the future, and how does it intersect with specific modes of communication and counter the global rise of populist rhetoric? Nicole Curato from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Governance at the University of Canberra surveys some of the issues.
Image: Natalie Macguire/FlickrEvery year during NAIDOC Week, 3CR broadcasts the voices of Indigenous men and women from the inside Victorian prisons. In 2020, Beyond the Bars by disrupted by COVID-19 restrictions, making live broadcasts impossible at a time when prison abolition was in the news agenda for a change and the weeklong broadcast was pre-recorded. This programme mines the 2019 Beyond the Bars special to show why we need prison abolition, in the words of Indigenous prison inmates.
First, the disasterous bushfire summer, then the covid19 pandemic. Add in the years of punishing drought, and there it is - Australia's crisis trifecta. Through these challenging weeks, months and years, despite the hardship and struggle, community radio has been there, offering support and a broad range of locally based services. Holly Friedlander Liddicoat, project co-ordinator with the CBAA, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, talks about the important role of community radio in these unprecedented times.
Image Binuri Ranasinghe/FlickrReema Rattan talks to senior editor at NITV Jack Latimore and Heidi Norman, Professor of Australian Aboriginal Political History at UTS and one of the editors of 'Does the Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations? 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments' (2019) about how the Australian media ignores the voices of First Nations peoples in news coverage. Using Norman's book as a launching point, this programs examines the reasons and justifications for this historical absence and whether we can expect change in the near future.
What's the connection between a video chat and the celebrity autobiography? This week, we find out when lecturer and researcher in communication and media studies at the University of Western Australia, Katja Lee talks about persona studies, the memoir boom and her own pivotal encounter with video conferencing during the pandemic lockdown.
The start of the pandemic was marked by a disturbing rise of online videos of people fighting over toilet paper and racist attacks. But rarely, if ever, did they feature an intervention by a bystander. Reema Rattan asks Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University Patrick Stokes whether it's enough to record such events rather than intervening and what, if anything, that says about how the online world has affected behaviour?
This week, a discussion of the shift to digital campaigning within the student movement during the coronavirus pandemic with long term activists and SCR Education Officers Jack Mansell from University of Sydney and Shovan Bhattarai at the University of NSW.
We may have been in lockdown due to the coronavirus for the past two months, but social media has been in overdrive. It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s never been a time when so many people around the world are actively posting to various digital platforms. This week Professor Axel Bruns from the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology explains the ways that social media links with "panic spirals", conspiracy theories, and creates the conditions for another global contagion: what's been called "the info-demic".
If you regularly listen to this show live, you may be aware that the program that follows us is Eritrean Voices, one of the longer-running radio programs on 3CR. Programmed by volunteers from the Eritrean community, the show is presented in Arabic, Tigrinya, a language spoken by the Tigrinya people of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and English. The programmers of Eritrean Voices recently celebrated their show, which is widely recognised as an essential service in the community, by launching a book about the program at an event in Flemington. I spoke to a number of people about the show there and today present a celebration of Eritrean Voices, which covers political, social, cultural and health issues for the Eritrean community.
The roll out of the coronavirus contact tracing app, we are told by government, is necessary to prevent the spread of the virus and a prerequisite for the lifting of lockdown restrictions. But the deployment of such a digital technology stands along side a whole suite of laws and powers in Australia - put in place since the 9/11 attacks - that encroach on human rights and the workings of democracy. Tim Singleton Norton from Digital Rights Watch explains.
Even from this distance, young progressives in Australia have been putting their energies into the Bernie Sanders campaign for the American presidency. Much of this energy has been directed to mobilizing the Sanders policy platform through online communication. This week we find out how it's being done and why.
The Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub conducts social research and leads impact focused projects to build media and policy infrastructure that adequately addresses climate change in Australia. The Hub has just released a report that examines the media coverage the unprecedented Australian summer 2019/20 bushfires. David Holmes, the Hub's director, talks about the report's findings and the connection between these findings and public discourse about the climate emergency.
Last Steptember, this show focussed on a research paper titled 'The Paradoxical Extinction of the Most Charismatic Animals', which noted that the population of virtual animals in our world was giving people a mistaken impression about the real number of those animals in the wild. One of the paper's concluding suggestions was that advertisers using animal images should contribute funds towards their conservation. A Sydney-based production company has now helped create exactly such an initiative. Executive producer and founder of FINCH Rob Galluzo, who, along with filmmaker Christopher Nelius, co-founded The Lion's Share Fund speaks to Reema Rattan and a guest from the previous show on the topic, Stephen Downes, about how idea evolved and how the initiative works.
Pictured: Artist Jonas Staal inside the New World Embassy: Rojava (2016) at the Oslo City Hall, Oslo Architecture Triennale: After Belonging/ORO-KURO, Norway. Photo Istvan ViragJonas Staal is a visual artist and activist whose work deals with the relationship between art, propaganda and democracy. Discussing his most recent book Propaganda Art in the 21st Century, he explains how all art is, in a sense, propaganda and touches on the importance of applying lessons from activism to his work.
“Humans are more connected to each other than ever, thanks to smartphones, the web and social media. At the same time, loneliness is a huge and growing social problem. Why is this so?” That’s Roger Patulny from the University of Wollongong who researches social inclusion, connection and trust and has a special interest in the sociology of emotions. Recently he’s been investigating what’s been described as Australia’s loneliness epidemic and its relationship to the now all-pervasive use of social media.
As news broke around the world about the outbreak of the coronavirus now known as COVID-19 in China, the Australia government announced that it would quarantine citizens evacuated from Wuhan, the city where the first infections were identified, to the immigration detention facilities on Christmas Island. Medical historian Dr Peter Hobbins explains the history of quarantine in Australia and addresses questions about whether the practice can just be dismissed as racist.
Belief in conspiracy theories helps fuel climate change denial, anti-vaccination stances, racism, and distrust of the media and science. Colin Klein from the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University talks about his research into the world and the world views of online conspiracy theorists.
The Pride of Our Footscray Community Bar holds a fortnightly poetry night that is unique for its emphasis on international poets and for encouraging people to read work that is not their own. Started by venue manager Matt O'Keefe and hosted by Lish Skec, the night features a local poet reading their work as well as a featured poet whose work is read by someone else. Matt and Lish joined former featured poet (and playwright) Emilie Collyer to talk poetry, community and the winners of the annual PoetrySlam.
‘Students Against Unpaid Placements’ is a grassroots campaign that aims to see the end of the exploitation of interns and students on placements required as part of their course. Over the years, there has been some mainstream media coverage of the situation but this reporting often doesn't dig deep enough into the complexity of the issues, and the true nature and consequences of the exploitation, This week Georgia Mantle who launched the campaign explains.
Heard of a company called Kinder Morgan? What about the Trans Mountain pipeline? Think of the controversy around the Adani mine here in Australia and the context for this massive Canadian extractivist fossil fuel project will begin to emerge. This week on Communication Mixdown, researcher, writer, blogger and environmental protector Bob Hackett talks about the way mainstream and alterntive media in Canada have been covering these developments, and draws some conclusions about why we should be paying attention.
In late October 2019, Women's Health Victoria launched two reports on progressing gender equity in advertising as part of an ongoing project, with the disappointing news that people recognise that they often encouter sexist advertising but don't know what to do about it. Reema Rattan speaks to two women involved in the work and representations of women in advertising more broadly. Mandy MacKenzie is a project officer from the health promotion and support service who worked with Dr Lauren Gurrieri, senior lecturer in marketing at RMIT, on researching and writing Community Responses to Gender Portrayals in Advertising: A Research Paper and Addressing and Preventing Sexist Advertising: An Analysis of Local and Global Promising Practice. To make a complaint about advertising you've encountered, visit the Ad Standards website.
Reporting on money in politics, corporate influence and the intersection between government and big business has become increasingly difficult and obstacle prone in Australia over the years. Sandi Keane, editor-in chief at michaelwest.com, the business and finance focused online publication, talks about how to dodge and weave in and around the obstacles and road blocks in order to produce the important work that is public interest journalism.
In September, the federal government passed a law aimed at what was charactersied as "farm invasions" by activists targetting abattoirs and farms. Meanwhile, the Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, Victorian and Tasmanian state governments are all considering legislation aimed at curbing protest activity – by animal and climate change activists. Reema Rattan talks to Professor of Criminal Law Jeremy Gans about whether protests, which are protected under the Constitution as the freedom of political communication, are under threat in Australia.
Andrea Waling from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society at La Trobe University unpacks the historically and culturally specific versions of Australian masculinity constructed by the iconic Paul Hogan persona and in the long-running television show "Blokesworld". Andrea's recently published book is entitled "White Masculinity in Contemporary Australia: The Good Ol’ Aussie Bloke".
Campaigners and activists are still congratulating themselves for the massive success of the global Strike 4 Climate. Despite the adulation, a poll taken in Australia mere days before the protest found that 65% of respondents were unaware that the climate strike was taking place. And only 6% of respondents said that they would take part. So how do you get more people to care about the climate emergency? Media watcher and Crikey correspondent, Christopher Warren talks about the professional responsibility of journalists in climate coverage, and David Holmes, Director of the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University explains how weather presenters are being mobilized to convey scientific climate information to television audiences.
With the Immigration Museum in Melbourne hosting a suite of three exhibitions covering traditional Japanese and Polynesian as well as modern tattoos, this week we turn our attention to the meanings and functions of this artform. With guests Fareed Kaviani, a doctoral candidate and freelance writer who has published extensively on tattoos and tattooing, and whose website the4thwall features, among other things, photos of tattoos and Stanislava Pinchuk, who curated the Documenting the Body exhibition at the Immigration Museum, we discuss why people get tattooed as well as what, if anything, people are saying with their tattoos.
Complex, critically important, but also erroneous issues are being raised by the coverage of the on-going Hong Kong protests. And added to the mix is the Australian media's ramping up of China paranoia with incessant reports of alleged foreign interference in some of the nation's major institutions. Yang Chen is a writer and policy analyst at China Matters and this week he unpacks the multiple layers of history, culture and politics framing the ways in which the Hong Kong crisis is being discussed and communicated.
Consumer reviews online have become hugely influential on our decisions when it comes making all kinds of purchases. So, it’s not surprising to find a whole industry pumping out fake reviews. Marketing and consumer psychology researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, Adrian Camilleri talks about how to negotiate this minefield of misinformation. And the use of online information has extended to health advice. Rachael Dunlop from in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Macquarie University and the Institute for Ethnomedicine, Jackson Hole, Wyoming explains.
Following a two-day symposium titled 'Let's go outside: making art public' by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and Monash Art Projects, Reema Rattan talks to MUMA director Charlotte Day and artist Professor Callum Morton about what public art is and whether we need more of it.
Should companies and advertisers using images and other likenesses of what are sometimes referred to as 'charismatic animals' pay for efforts towards their conservation? To explore this proposal, Communication Mixdown talks with David Watson, professor of ecology in the School of Environmental Sciences at Charles Sturt University and Stephen Downes, specialist in marketing and brand strategy at RMIT University, aka Parrot of the Day.
As the digital era inexorably expands its influence, doom and gloom stories about traditional media are a recurrent cultural theme, and this includes apocryphal tales about the decline and fall of investigative reporting. Andrea Carson is a former journalist and now works in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University. And she has a very different story to tell based on her extensive study of investigative journalism practices around the world. In this edition of Communication Mixdown, she takes us through her findings, just published as a book entitled 'Investigative Journalism, Democracy and the Digital Age'.
The influence and spread of the far right's thinking and ideologies in Australia, and elsewhere, are the result of what lecturer in philosophy at Deakin University, Joshua Badge calls its "savvy" approach to political communication.
In a time of increased xenophobia, stopping the boats, and more overt and vocal racism, what’s the role of community based multicultural broadcasting in Australia? Susan Forde is professor of journalism at Griffith University and the director of that university’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research. In the middle of doing in-depth research into the ways that ethnic community radio plays a key part in meeting and servicing the needs of diverse migrant and refugee communities all across the country, in this edition of Communication Mixdown, she takes up some of the answers to that question.
Is Australian media racist? How and, more importantly, why? And what can be done about it? We discuss these questions with Yin Paradies, an Aboriginal-Asian-Anglo Australian who is Chair in Race Relations and Indigenous Knowledges and Culture Coordinator at Deakin University, and Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University, Alana Lentin. The discussion is ultimately about what we can do about creating a less racist society since, media is, after all, made up of people just like us.
Two recently published books - "Wilam: A Birrarung Story" and "Nganga: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Words and Phrases" - aim to engage readers in recognizing and undertanding first nation's languages as an important part of Australia's everyday culture and communication. This week, we hear from the authors, Yarra Riverkeeper Andrew Kelly, senior linguist at the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, Aunty Fay Muir, and award winning children's writer Sue Lawson.
The seemingly endless flow of misreporting, fake news, and partisan content being communicated as fact is hard to keep up with. This week, psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky from the University of Bristol talks about why people continue to hold beliefs at odds with overwhelming scientific evidence and some of the strategies used to counter science deniers.
Deep learning artificial intelligence techniques (the “deep” in deepfakes) is leading to the creation of increasingly credible digital simulations -- doctored videos so realistic that they’re almost impossible to tell from the real thing. Professor Mark Andrejevic from the School of Media, Film, and Journalism at Monash University talks about the proliferation of this technology and what he describes as the "degraded version of civic life" upon which it can thrive.
Microtargeting is a marketing strategy that uses digital data — connections, tastes, demographics, purchases, locations and more — to segment people into smaller and smaller groups for very tailored content targeting in order to influence perception and behavior. Marketing and communications specialist and host of 'Backchat' on Sydney’s FBI radio, Swetha Das talks about the rise of microtargeting and her recent research on the political microtargeting of Australia's migrant communities.
Lecturer in journalism at Deakin Univesity Usha Manchanda Rodrigues speaks about her role as convenor of a unique forum bringing togetherlocal and international community media practitioners and researchers to engage and discuss the emerging intersections of community and citizen based media and new communication technologies.Jon Bisset who heads up the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, the CBAA, provides an overview of some of the key findings and recommendations coming out of the Association's most recent 2019 nation-wide report "State of the Community Broadcasting Sector".
The theme of the 3CR radiothon this year is – Power Radical Radio. And as this is a show all about communication, we see 3CR community radio as a very special communication powerhouse right here in Melbourne. With the ever expanding commodification of the media, at 3CR the power of communication is placed back into the hands of the community providing a platform for strong and diverse voices.In this radiothon edition we feature three of those voices, programmers who have been communicating over the airwaves for years, in some cases decades, and now digitally streaming and podcasting - the 'unsung heroes' powering radical radio.
The weaving of the internet into everyday life has created platforms for and communities that encourage extreme misogyny. Dr. Emma Jane from the School of the Arts and Media at the Univesity of New South Wales and author of the groundbreaking publication "Misogyny Online, A Short (and Brutish) History" traces the rise of, and push back against, gendered hate speech, stalking and harassment online.
In the first 3 months of 2019, hate speech postings globally on Facebook increased 30% with nearly ten and a half million of these posts removed. By Facebook’s own reckoning the past six months has seen a steep rise in the creation of abusive and fake accounts.Mark Davis from the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne researches the impacts of networked digital media ondemocratic culture. This week he talks about the on-line presence, messaging tactics and influence of the far right in Australia, and explains the ways the US alt-right globalizes its communicational strategies.
This year’s federal election in Australia marks a milestone. It's the first where political parties are advertising more on social and digital platforms than in traditional media – like TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Andrew Hughes from the Research School of Management at the Australian National University in Canberra researches and writes on marketing and branding strategies, and in this edition of Communication Mixdown he casts a critical eye over the realigned landscape of poliitcal campaigning.
This week, we investigate how museums use different forms of communication to educate and mobilize the public around the twin existential crises of climate change and global environmental degradation with Miranda Massie, founder of the unique Climate Museum in New York City, and environmental activist Beka Economopoulos, executive director of the US based Natural History Museum. Both guests were in Australia as keynote speakers at the ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019 festival.
Followers of media trends will have noticed a distinct spike in well timed takedowns of candidates across the political spectrum during state and federal elections. The use of dirt files in political campaigning has become a regular, even anticipated occcurrance over the past few years. This week, Michael Koziol, political correspondent for The Age, and Tom Raue, Greens candidate in the recent NSW state election offer some explanations.
With Australia's 2019 federal election taking place in a matter of weeks, Communication Mixdown continues its investigation into the sometimes murky world of political communication. In this edition of the show a look at lobby groups.We see their spokespeople quoted in newspapers and their ads on TV, but beyond that we tend to know very little about how Australia’s lobby groups get what they want. Lecturer in politics at the University of Melbourne, and specialist in contemparary campaigning strategies and advocacy advertising, George Rennie casts a crtical eye over the vast and still expanding lobbyist landscape.
With a federal election in Australia expected in May this year, political opinion polls that provide a snapshot of voter views and preferences tend to become increasingly central to the unfolding of political discourse, especially as the results of these polls get concentrated media attention when published. This week, Communication Mixdown explores political polling with expert in electoral matters Peter Brent, adjunct research fellow at Swinburne University of Technology and political commentator with the online publication Inside Story.
The number of small languages in the world is being steadily reduced by many factors - urbanization, colonial policies, the dominace of big languages like English, population displacement through conflict and climate change. The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures especially in the Asia Pacific region and in Australia. The collection currently contains over 7,800 hours of audio materials representing more than 1,100 languages. Nick Thieberger, PARADISEC's current Director talks about the archiving and digitization of disappearing languages and the connection between the work being done at PARADISEC and the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.
After numerous unsuccessful discussions with universities around the country, the controversial Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation recently signed an agreement with the University of Wollongong to begin offering a new Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation. Current president of the UOW student union Chloe Rafferty talks about the campaign opposing the establishment of the Centre at the university and how this played out in the media. Then Imogen Grant, 2018 president of the student union at the University of Sydney, provides an overview of the very public campaign to stop the Ramsay Centre being set up at that university.
Media Diversity Australia is a nation-wide not-for-profit organisation run by journalists and communications professionals working to make the media landscape more representative of all Australians. Senior reporter at Network 10, Antoinette Lattouf, director and co-founder of Media Diversity Australia, talks about how her recently formed organization provides support and opportunities for media professionals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and collaborates with mainstream media outlets on inclusivenss strategies and policies.
Jordan Peterson, Canadian psychologist, Youtuber, public speaker and best selling author of the self help book ‘12 Rules to Life’, has cultivated a passionate - albeit mostly male - global fanbase. Peterson recently visited Australia for a tour of sold out shows and a high profile appearance on the ABC's Q&A program. However, his gender essentialism, views on morality and ethics and his individualistic wordview and advice have attracted substantial amounts of criticism. So how have his ideas circulated and been communicated in the media and in the public arena more broadly? Long time activist, writer and the media spokesperson for the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) Chris Di Pasquale explains.
True crime podcasting has turned out to be a hugely popular type of media long-form content. But there are recurring questions about this particular strand of popular culture. Ostensibly based on a miscarriage of justice, are these podcasts merely voyeuristic, exploiting tragedy for the sake of entertainment and missing the voice of victims?These ethical tensions are explored in the edition of Communication Mixdown with Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, Patrick Stokes, and Dr. Gregory Stratton from the Justice and Legal Department at RMIT who manages the Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative.
Radio produced and broadcast by prisoners for prisoners has emerged as something of a media social movement with initiatives and developments happening in many parts of the world. Charlotte Bedford played a founding role in the establishment of the UK National Prison Radio service and her book, “Making Waves Behind Bars”, just published, presents a history of the Prison Radio Association in the UK. Currently she’s investigating ways that radio can be used - both inside and outside of prisons in South Australia - to improve the wellbeing of prisoners and better prepare them for reintegration into society.
"The curtains have come down on that Muppet Show". That's Scott Morrison who thought it was a good idea to use this metaphor when he dismissed the power plays bringing down Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Since then, there's been a number of attempts by the Liberal- National Coalition to communicate with voters that have gone distinctly pear shaped. This week on Communication Mixdown, new co-host Reema Rattan talks with Dr. Norman Abjorensen, former national editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and now political historian at the Australian National University, about the Morrison government’s style of political communication.
A recently released feature documentary film comes with the unusual title "Stare into the Lights My Pretties", a reference to that all time classic film, "The Wizard of Oz". This documentary, as it turns out, is also a film about wizardry: the wizardry – and power - of new media and digital technology. Communication Mixdown's new co-host Zac Shapiro talks to the writer and director Jordan Brown about the social and cultural trends that prompted him to make the film.
What happens in the communication exchange when refugees confront government officials face to face as they apply for asylum in Australia? With a extensive background in the area of refugee law, barrister Douglas McDonald-Norman explains the complex and multi-layered communication environment that operates during 'refugee status determination' interviews.The world of photography can empower women refugees to find resilience and develop a sense of social agency and self-worth in the process of resettlement. Professor of International Health at Curtin University in Western Australia, Jaya Dantas explains the photovoice project.
What's the relationship between communication and behaviour change - in particular, changing our behaviour around environmental waste? Kim Borg from the Sustainable Development Institute at Monash University talks about the positives and negatives of using humour in socal marketing campaigns. Then Louise Kolff, specialist in visual communication and information graphics, explains how shock and shaming campaign strategies aren't the best way to get people on board to make positive changes to littering behavior, and the habituated use of plastic bags.
‘To a degree citizens have naturalized the idea that it’s acceptable to be monitored’. That's Mark Furlong, independent researcher and cultural commentator. This week on Communication Mixdown he explains, and makes connections between everyday taken-for-granted surveillance and what's been called the reputational economy.
Technology journalist and commentator Stilgherrian covers the politics of the internet and digital culture with a special focus on security, privacy, and cybercrime. This week on Communication Mixdown, he talks about the vast global ecosystem of data collectors, data brokers, and advertising platforms that now make up the “surveillance economy”.
In the era of alternative facts and fake news, scientists of all stripes are stepping out of their labs and off the pages of their specialist journals to communicate their ideas and their methodologies to a broader public.The Royal Society of Victoria's CEO Mike Flattley talks about some of ways the Society facilitates communication between scientists and the wider community. Then Jack Nunn, researcher in the Department of Public Health at La Trobe University, explains how communicating about science is best accomplished, not by talking about it, or reading about it, or seeing it played out in documentaries on television, but by actually doing it.
So, you’re a television journalist working in Australia, and finally your big break arrives - a posting as the main correspondent in another country, say in Asia, maybe the Middle East. But you don’t speak the language, and and you don't know the intricacies of culture or georgraphy. And you want to dig out those really important stories, the ones that could be critical but aren’t in obvious places. So, to use the refrain from that 80’s pop song – “who ya gonna call?”Colleen Murrell, associate professor of journalism at Swinburne University, with a background in television journalism in many countries around the world, and a book entitled ‘Foreign Correspondents and International Newsgathering: The Role of Fixers’ is well placed to answer that question in this week's edition of Communication Mixdown.
Men are notoriously resistant to taking care of their own health or seeking out information about their health. That's the common assumption. The reality is a little different. But men, on lots of health criteria, don’t do as well as women. Could this have anything to do with communication, the way that health related information is communicated and used by men?To help negotiate and offer a few answers to that question Communication Mixdown talked with Simon von Saldern from Andrology Australia and Nicki Hodyl from Vertex Health about a survey they've just launched dealing with how men access and use health communication.
Communication about the reality of climate change is slowly being mainstreamed. Recently, the head of the Australian Security and Investment Commission advised company directors that they had to start telling investors much more about the risks of climate change in relation to their investments, otherwise a company director could personally be sued over breaching their duty of care in the future.In this interview from the Communication Mixdown back catalogue, David Holmes director of the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, explains how television weather presenters can work as facilitators for the mainstreaming of climate change information.
American vaudeville performer and film comedy actor W. C. Fields is reputed to have once said ‘never work with animals or children’. This week Communication Mixdown speaks with two guests who do just that.Artist Ben Landau, specialist in creating interactive experiences and performances that deconstruct closely held social, political and cultural assumptions talks about his current project, The Children’s Party: Think Tank Sessions, and how kids can communicate complex ideas like power and co-operation.Melissa Starling calls herself the creature teacher. Co-author of a just published book entitled "Making Dogs Happy", she explains some of the ways that dogs, through a system of subtle signals, communicate with other dogs, and with humans.
“Fight For Your Mic” is 3CR's radiothon theme this year. It encapsulates the station’s ongoing commitment to social justice, equity, sustainability and progressive community involvement - fighting for a better world. In this special radiothon edition of the show, we ask the question – if 3CR is fighting for your mic, who’s making the mic work in the first place? What happens if the mic, or any other bit of equipment at the station needs fine-tuning, fixing or replacing, so that 3CR can keep the fight going for a better world?So much goes on in the background, behind the mic used to present the voices that you hear during your favourite program. And we at Communication Mixdown think that the people who do all this are the unsung heroes of 3CR. This week we hear from three of them, talking about their work and some of the changes they've encountered in radio broadcasting technology over the years.
What's a 'music city'? And how do you qualify to become one? This week, music and culture specialists Shane Homan from the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, and Catherine Strong from the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University explain. And, it turns out, Melbourne, with more live music venues per capita than anywhere else in the world, does indeed qualify.
A very auspicious time for Indigenous communities all around Australia - National Sorry Day on May 26, followed by National Reconciliation Week, and ending with Mabo Day on June 3, the commemoration of Eddie Mabo and the campaign leading to the 1992 landmark decision of the High Court overturning the legal fiction of terra nullius. Making sense of any idea of commemoration, or indeed, any idea of community leads inevitably to the tangible and intangible domain of language – how it’s used, how it embodies special cultural knowledge, and how it survives.Project officer with First Languages Australia, Annalee Pope, outlines her involvement with the Priority Languages Documentation initiative, and explains some of the ways that renewed interest in Indigenous languages is taking shape all across the country. And, Indigenous writer and researcher Bruce Pascoe talks about first languages in we now know as the state of Victoria, and explains the intersections of Indigenous language, forms of governance and sustainability.
In Febrary this year a senate inquiry into the current state of public interest journalism noted that an massive 2,500 editorial jobs had been cut from media organizations in Australia since 2011. This month, in the latest round of job losses the ABC announced a further twenty journalists would be dropped from newsgathering teams.So what happens when journalists are made redundant? Researching this question through a project called New Beats, Lawrie Zion from the Department of Media and Communication at La Trobe University explains. (This interview was first broadcast in May 2017)
This week on Communication Mixdown we explore the connection between mobile digital technologies and intercultural communication. Natalie Denmeade is an educational games and mobile apps developer with Cultural Infusion, an organization in Melbourne that specializes in intercultural communication. Now living on Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania, Natalie explains how mobile phone based games for children are used to promote intercultual understanding, and she describes the ins and out of working as a globally connected games developer in a remote village dependent on solar panels for power.
First up, Zoe Doubleday from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide explains some of the constaints confronting scientists when they want to write accessibly in order to communicate about their research work, and she offers a few solutions.Then, Melbourne University's earthquake research specialist, Mark Quigley describes the ways that scientists can improve communicating their research, particularly when trying to inform and influence key decision-makers.
The nexus between Blockchain and the world of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has been broken. Actually working as adecentralizing recordkeeping system, Blockchain has the potential to radically change the way information is stored and controlled. Blockchain is now being rolled out across a variety of social and cultural sectors.This week, we talk with Sharon Orbell, head of communications at ArtChain Global, a newly launched blockchain based initiative located in the world of art.
A replay the 2017 post-Anzac Day edition of Communication Mixdown, but the issues covered still resonating one year later.
Revelations around the Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal generated bucket loads of commentary, much of it focused on Facebook users as customers, or consumers. We're warned - read the fine print, look out for the contractual arrangement in the last paragraph. Sarah Joseph, the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, has different take - she says that if we’re going to put Facebook under the microscope let’s do it, not just from the point of view of the consumer, but in reference to human rights.Current and future directions of social media and human rights get explored and workshopped by participants at two day forum called Internet Community Hack: Defending Truth. Software developer and digital rights advocate, Andrew Jones explains the event and the thinking behind it.
This week, investigative journalist Greg Foyster leads us over the highways and byways of social media to show that almost every aspect of what's come to be known as the Cambridge Analytica - Facebook data harvesting scandal could have been predicted from the recent history of various digital media platforms and tech companies.
That's the question Joanna Mendelssohn, former art critic and curator, asks as she contemplates Ai Weiwei's installation 'The Law of the Journey', a work that echoes and underscores the on-going global plight of refugees. This week on Communication Mixdown we follow Joanna as she traces the history of how some art forms and practices communicate with and about times of crisis and upheaval.
First up, researcher in the Centre for Emotional Health at Macquarie University, Jasmine Fardouly unpacks some of the negative effects of what have been called 'social media comparisons' on young women's self-perception and personal worth.Then, Teresa Davis, a specialist in consumer behavior and social marketing from the University of Sydney, talks about the ways that junk food brands try to cuddle up to kids on-line.
Journalist, editor and co-founder of Women in Media, Alana Schetzer talks about their 2015 national survey 'Mates Over Merit?', a study of gender differences in Australian media, and whether dominant trends detected then have changed. Popular music and culture specialist, Catherine Strong from RMIT University in Melbourne explains why the annual Australian Recording Industry Association, the ARIA awards, are still 'off-key' when it comes to gender.
A recent study of TV weather presenters found strong interest from free-to-air presenters to include climate change information in their bulletins. David Holmes, specialist in environmental communication and Director of the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University talks about the ways that television weather segments can not only raise the level of concern about climate change, but develop public understanding of it.
Misty Adoniou, language and literacy specialist from the University of Canberra, talks about the relationship between multiculturalism and the everyday use of the 250 community languages across the country, and wonders why Australia still suffers from what she calls linguistic paranoia.Then, language revivalist and postgraduate at the University of New England, Callum Clayton-Dixon, a member of the Ambeyan Indigenous clan of northern New South Wales, explains his research work with the Anaiwan Language Revival Program.
This week we unpack the summer media coverage of so-called African gang crisis in Melbourne. Benjamin Millar, senior journalist with Star Weekly and The Age, also a resident of Melbourne’s western suburbs, talks about hot-button issues, racism and the ethics of reporting. Then lawyer Maker Mayek, a member of the south Sudanese community, explains the reasons behind his #AfricanGangs social media campaign.
This week Communication Mixdown takes a walk around our city streets to explore the everyday urban visual field and the world of what have come to be know as 'ghost signs'. As our guests Stefan Schutt and Lisa Cianci explain, ghost sign spotting has become a global preoccupation, driven in part by social media.
“Noise is everywhere. We live with it, inside and outside our homes. It defines contemporary urban life, the world over”. That's research fellow in Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Jordan Lacey. He's a specialist in the ways that city soundscapes function as communication and can be used to promote community health and wellbeing. This week on CMD, Jordan talks about his work on 'sonic identities' and what's been called the urban 'soundmark' (like a landmark but related to sound).
The same sex marriage postal survey declared a clear 'yes'. Truckloads of commentary followed, trying to explain and unpick the results and what they meant for on-the-ground politics, and for understanding the social and cultural fabric of contemporary Australia. This week, we talk to Adam Noble, director of digital communication for the national Marriage Equality campaign, and look at the role that different types of communication played in securing support - the way that campaigners on the yes side were mobilizing, through a variety of communication platforms, particularly social media, to take their case to the public.
This week, Emily Watkins, Crickeys' reporter covering media, talks about her investigative series on the Australian newspaper. And it's a sobering snapshot. The picture that emerges is what Watkins describes as a type of journalistic holy war waged against public profile targets. Then, Andrea Carson, former Age and ABC journalist, now in Media and Politics at Melbourne University, explains the background and importance of the current Australian Senate inquiry into public interest journalism.
At the end of November 2017 the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council held its annual conference. The Executive Officer of the NEMBC, Russell Anderson, explains the purpose of the Council and outlines the significance of this year's theme ‘your voice, your action, our change’. The conference began with a special day focused young people, exploring their potential as broadcasters in the multicultural space. Youth committee convenor for the NEMBC, Aguer Athian explains why a youth focused day is important for the future vitality of the sector. i
In the second of our special series on making music in divided cities, we travel with Lesley Pruitt from the Gender, Peace and Security Centre at Monash University, first to Belfast in Northern Ireland, and then back to Brisbane. Lesley talks about her investigations into the way music can, to use her words, create 'dialogue across difference', and enhance young people's participation in collaboration, conflict resolution and advancing gender equity.
Think of an urban environment, divided along ethnic and religious lines, the result of prolonged conflict. That's Mostar, a city in the Bosnia Herzogovina region in the former Yugoslavia just after the war in mid 1990s. And then think about a young muscian taking on the job of using music to open up a space for peacemaking and reconciliation. That's Gillian Howell, clarinet player and educator. And in this edition of CMD we hear about her efforts to engage young people in making music in this post-war divided city.
The growth of online racism marks a dark and destructive historical moment in the global evolution of social media. This week, Nasya Bahfen from the Department of Communication and Media at La Trobe University talks about the ways that racism manifests itself online and how targeted communities organize to build resilience and fight back.A recently published book based on research done in Australia - 'Cyber Racism and Community Resilience: Strategies for Combating Online Race Hate' - throws the spotlight squarely on these issues. Nasya Bahfen is one of the contributors.
This week, with Denis Muller from the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University, a wide ranging discussion about recent changes to media ownership laws, the role of the ABC, contemporary media and hate speech, and journalism's difficult to shift culture of misogyny.
Charles Livingstone from the Department of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University researches the impacts of poker machines on community health and wellbeing. Most recently, he’s been examining the communicational and attention-grabbing features of one pokie machine in particular, the benignly named Dolphin Treasure, that turns out to be not so benign after all.And Julie Shiels, visual artist and lecturer in Art at RMIT University, decided that her smartphone was taking up way too much of her attention, and decided to do something about it. She's talks about what and why.
Debates about hate speech, free speech, politcal correctness and the growing tendency to the knee-jerk cross-fire response are running hot. Some say in the eye of this storm swirls social media – immediate, ubiquitous, user friendly and now very much part of everyday life.Politics and policy studies lecturer at Deakin University, and former journalist, Marie Rae researches speech law reforms and the way journalists negotiate the delicate balance between freedom of expression and hate speech in liberal democracies. She joins Communication Mixdown this week to explore some of the issues.
First up, Director of the research unit for Indigenous language at Melbourne University, Rachel Nordlinger provides an overview of Indigenous languages in Australia, and explains a project to recover virtually lost languages using new communications technology.Then, Mandy Nicholson, former project officer with the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, a not-for-profit organization working to revitalize Indigenous culture, especially through language, talks about her work at VCAL and her new arts based Indigenous culture revitalization project.
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." That's Oscar Wilde on fashion, and this week Communication Mixdown, with Sean Ryan from the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University, unpacks some of the ways that fashion can be thought about as a multilayed, historically located mode of communication.
Simon Torok, part of the team of science communicators at Scientell talks about ways to distill and summarize technical information about extreme weather events and climate change for non-scientific audiences.Over the past decade Al Gore’s become something of a warrior for action on climate change. Kim Borg from the Sustainable Development Institute at Monash University is not so sure. In the second part of the show this week, she explains why.
On the Green Music Australia website you can read that they're committed to “Harnessing the cultural power of music and musicians to practically lead the way to a greener world”. First up. Tim Hollo, professional musician, long time environment campaigner, and head of Green Music Australia tells us how this works. Then Livia Cullen, Mobilization Co-ordinator at the Australian Conservation Foundation, talks about her work on the Art for Activism Collective.
Manager of community radio station Radio Adelaide - formerly 5UV, the first community radio station in Australia - Deb Welch reflects on her work over the years 1999 to 2016, and talks about some of the challenges facing the community radio sector in the digtal era of media.
'While the arts and entertainment sector brings an enormous amount of joy to Australians, recent research has identified that performers, technicians and other support workers experience an unusually high incidence of depression, anxiety and other aspects of mental distress that are also leading to high rates of suicide.' That's a statement on the website for Entertainment Assist, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about mental health in the Australian entertainment industry.First up, Entertainment Assist general manager Susan Cooper talks about their recently commissioned study that highlighs the fragile mental health of many of those working all across the entertainment business. Then, Ben Steel, director and producer of a documentary on this topic, aptly titled ‘The Show Must Go On’, joins the discussion.
This week Communication Mixdown investigates the way young Chinese women studying at univerities in Melbourne have been using social media - to communicate, of course - but also as a way of shaping identity and formulating new kinds of subjective experience.Specialist in the transnational flows of communication, Dr. Fran Martin from Melbourne University, talks about her research and unpacks some of the issues discussed in her recent presentation ‘WeChat therefore we are: Everyday multicultures, translocality and Chinese social media in inner Melbourne’.
For better or worse our lives are becoming increasingly gamified, and today’s show is going to examine how and why. Screen and design lecturer, Adam Brown from Deakin University offers an overview of gamification and explains some of its applications in the fields of education and health.
The history of communication technologies is littered with visions of negative effects - television, comic books, movies, radio, even novels have all been regarded as potentially unmanageable and ultimately damaging to the social fabric and individual well-being. New digital media are now the focus of concern.This week, Greg Wadley from School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne talks about how the notion of addiction gets misapplied in discussions about the use of social media and computer games.Then Sue Walker from the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology unpacks some of her research findings on children’s engagement with electronic gaming.
Australia’s justice system and effective communication - not a connection we make too often.This week, Paul Conroy, Strategic Communications Manager at the County Court of Victoria talks about his work, and the sometimes uneasy relations between the court and the media.
When was the last time you had a serious talk about death and dying? Maybe never.August 8th is Dying To Know Day, an initiative which aims to encourage communication about the way we think about, and plan for the end of life. Individuals and communities will be hosting events across the country. Molly Carlile calls herself 'the deathtalker' - that's because she thinks communicating about death in our culture has been either truncated or entirely silenced. On Communication Mixdown this week, she explains why, providing a useful context for the significance of Dying To Know Day.
Remember those racks of free postcards you used to find in cool cafés and inner city cinemas. That was a local company called Avant Card. And after 25 years, they're just about to shut up shop with their very last print run.This week on Communication Mixdown, Pat Mackle, co-founder of Avant Card, talks about how it all started, her view across a quarter of a century of cultural change, and the finality heralded by what's been called the digital disruption.
This is the era of fake news and alternative facts. But what about fake science? This week, Communication Mixdown talks with Brisbane environment journalist Graham Readfearn about what's called predatory publishing and the way it's used to communicate climate change denialism which pretends to have scientific legitimacy and 'speak the truth' about global warming.Then, cultural historian and writer, Maria Tumarkin explains how the current fixation for 'truth-seeking' through public forms of story-telling may be one of our culture's most misguided acts of contemporary communication.
This week, music – the best album of all time, and one of the worst national anthems ever. According to some.Sociologist Christine Feldman-Barrett, specialist in the history of youth cultures, talks about the 50th anniversary of the 1967 release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album that music critics claim is not only the Beatles best, but the best rock music album of all time.Then on another type of music - what some say should take first prize for the least inspiring contemporary national anthem: Advance Australia Fair. Journalist with Fairfax Media, Judith Ireland explains why.
Shapelle Corby arrived back in Australia earlier this week. One news source reports that “celebrity agent Max Markson believes public demand for Corby stories is undimmed”, while a letter to the editor in a major morning daily makes this point: “She is a convicted drug offender, being treated like a celebrity. I am dismayed at the level to which we stoop in the name of news. I couldn’t care less about Ms Corby”. Cultural studies lecturer, Anthony Lambert from Macquarie University looks at the bigger picture and political and cultural implications of the Shappelle saga for national identity.Cassandra Sainsbury, locked up in a Columbian jail, accused of attempting to smuggle cocaine - a Shapelle re-boot or something else? Journalist, and editor Alana Schetzer has been following the case as it unfolds across various media platforms.
Two years ago it was estimated that 2,500 journalism jobs had disappeared in Australia since 2012. At current count, that number is conservatively estimated to be as high as 3,000.Lawrie Zion from the Department of Media and Communication at La Trobe University is involved in a five year study exploring the aftermath of journalism redundancies. This week he talks about some of the findings.
Journalism is going through an existential crisis, of identity and possibly even of survival. Public interest journalism - investigative reporting that needs time, determination and most of all money to shine light especially into the dark corners of the corporate world and the political class.Johan Lidberg teaches in the journalism program at Monash University. He’s worked in print and broadcast journalism as reporter, producer, presenter, foreign correspondent and news editor, and he's been watching the crisis unfold. This week, he provides his perspective.
Bet you didn't know May 8-12, 2017 was Privacy Awareness Week (PAW).Research fellow in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at Melbourne University, Suelette Dreyfus, talks about digital media, surveillance, citizenship, and whether Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right when he says 'privacy is dead', and we should 'just get over it'.For more disturbing news, check out the ABC Four Corners program 'Cracking the Code'.Domestic use of digital media, mobile devices and games includes the surprisingly widespread adoption of what are called pet wearables. Ingrid Richardson, digital culture researcher from Murdoch University, offers another perspective on surveillance and privacy.
Who’s watching you? And what are they doing with what they’re seeing… and hearing?Last month the Abbott/Turnbull government metadata retention laws kicked in. The implications for us as citizens, in what we like to think of, as a democracy, are massive, and disturbing. Tom Sulston from Digital Rights Watch explains exactly what’s at stake when we go online or use our mobile phones.
Another Anzac Day, just passed, and Communication Mixdown this week talks with Tom Sear, digital media researcher at the University of New South Wales about how military commemoration and war history have been lodged, expanded and accessed on the internet.Then, Brisbane based composer, media artist and curator Lawrence English explains the ways that memories of military conflict can be conceptualized around the often neglected but powerful medium of sound.
This week, the mechanics and aesthetics of comedy as communication. Melbourne cabaret and musical duo Clare Bartholomew and Daniel Tobias talk about the delicate and challenging role of the clown doctor and how medical trauma can be turned into comedic material. And Fiona Scott-Norman, writer, performer and broadcaster, unpacks her approach to comedy as she prepares for a return engagement of her show 'The needle and the damage done' happening at the 3CR fund raiser Thursday April 27 at the Bella Union Bar.
This week a look at music as communication - music that enters our private emotional spaces and music that some say invades our very public spaces, those palaces of consumption - the shopping mall and the department store.Specialist in the connection between emotion and musical experience Sandra Garrido from Western Sydney University talks about depression and the way people make use of sad music . Her recently published book is entitled ‘Why Are We Attracted to Sad Music?’Michael Walsh, a sociologist at University of Canberra speaks about the sonic dimensions of public spaces, a fancy way of saying: the impact of loud uncontrollable music in your local supermarket.
March 18 to 26 March 2017 was Cultural Diversity Week in the state of Victoria. Chrissie Warren, Education Volunteer Co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, talks about teaching English for refugees and communication across cultures. Education for international students is a Australia's second biggest export earner. Sophie Arkoudis, Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at Melbourne University explains how univesities need work harder to address diverse cultural codes of communication in teaching and learning settings.
As far back as 2009, the Australian Human Rights Commission reported that the media’s coverage of African-Australians was often negative, critical, and frequently misleading. The situation since then has not markedly improved, especially when the mainstream commercial media are involved.This week we hear about the AuSud media project which worked with members of the Sudanese community in Melbourne to find practical ways to counter these negative portrayals. Media and communications scholar David Nolan from the University of Melbourne talks about the background and development of the project, and Sudanese-Australian musician and storyteller Ajak Kwai explains how negative media reporting affects community self-confidence and self-worth.
Is Australia Racist? That's the title of a recently screened current affairs documentay, part of the SBS week long special, Facing Up to Racism. This week, we hear Liz Giuffre, communications lecturer at University of Technology Sydney discuss the show's televisual format as well as its underlying assumptions.“What do the recent mini-series Hoges, about the life of Paul Hogan, and the Fair Work Commission ruling regarding reduced Sunday penalty rates for workers have in common?” That's UTS media studies specialist Sarah Attfield's question, and she talks about the social and political implications of television programming that ignores the working class.
A discussion of fake news, alternative facts and the precarious position of contemporary journalism at the start of the Trump presidency with Margaret Simons, Director for the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University.
Former advertising industry creative Jackie Dickenson, now a social historian working at Melbourne University has co-authored a book on the history of the advertising industry in Australia that’s just been published - "Behind Glass Doors: the world of Australian advertising agencies, 1959-1989". This week, we hear Jackie talk about doing her research and discuss some of the book's major findings.
Mark Wood, researcher in criminology at Monash University talks about the ways in which youth crime and social media intersect to create a particular version of on-line celebrity culture.Collette Snowden says social media as a form of communication is the equivalent of being at a football match compared to a dinner party. She researches the impact of new media on politics at University of South Australia, and in the second part of the show she explains what she means for political discourse
It's celebrated as Australia Day. But if you're from the aboriginal community, the day has a much different meaning.Celeste is Arrernte woman, unionist, writer, activist and she blogs at Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist. One of the key organizers of the Invasion Day March in Melbourne this year, Communication Mixdown talks with Celeste about her unanticipated enthusiasm for utilizing social media, and the importance of social media for indigenous community activism.Then, Indigenous writer and researcher with the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University, Jack Latimore explains his current project for improving the quality of Indigenous representation and participation in the mainstream media-sphere, and talks about his work at IndigenousX.
This week, criminology lecturer and researcher Bianca Fileborn talks about how women have been using social media to call out sexual harrassment and sexual assault. She also explains the reaction that women encounter when they mobilize and speak out on-line.Harassing behaviours online like trolling are shown to have psychological consequences similar to those of harassment offline. But who are the trolls, and why do they do it? Evita March, researcher and psychologist, takes a look at the dark side of social media.
Superheroes are pervasive in popular culture. As one of our core folkloric traditions, these costume-clad characters have become a means to negotiate and articulate collective and individual identities, past and present. Amongst a multiplicity of cultural and communicational functions, superhero identities can symbolise a nation, sustain on-line communities that use cosplay to challenge gender roles, and bring people together for special events under the banner of a specific caped crusader.In early December, 2016, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, in conjunction with the Superheroes and Me research project, held a two day symposium to explore "Superhero Identities". This week, Communication Mixdown spoke to Liam Burke (Swinburne University of Technology) and Angela Ndalianis (University of Melbourne), two of the symposium's key organizers.
All teachers are teachers of language. This week, University of Canberra researcher and education specialist Misty Adoniou explains why.And, when can you use the F-word in public? If you're at a protest rally and the NSW police are on hand, there could be legal consequences. Elyse Methven studies the social and legal aspects of swearing, and she talks about using the F-word in the public domain.
Watching the rise and rise of Donald Trump with both fascination and horror, Communication Mixdown this week examines the role of America's mainstream media. First up, Denis Muller from the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University talks about the significance of the 'industry of outrage' perpetuated by the American media throughout the presidential campaign. Then, journalism researcher Brian McNair at Queensland University of Technology argues that the electoral success of Trump has disturbing echoes of the 'descent into nomalization' of fascism in 1930s Germany, and contemporary journalism has been complicit in this process.
This week, a discussion about how climate change - some are describing it as a climate crisis - needs to be more effectively communicated, so serious and sustained global mobilization can begin before projected climate degradation is irreversibly in place.Science communicaion specialist Simon Torok talks about the connection between extreme weather events and climate, and better ways to make the public aware of how and why these connections help us comprehend the impacts of global warming on the ordinary affairs of daily life.In the Australian context, Mik Aidt, journalist and climate campaigner, thinks that the ABC and SBS, both publically funded national broadcasters, should be at the forefront in raising awareness about what he calls our 'climate emergency'. In the second part of the show, he talks about an on-line petition aimed at getting the ABC and SBS not just to present weather news, but to explain its relation to climate change.