tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/sbs-765/articlesSBS – The Conversation2023-10-01T19:16:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2144692023-10-01T19:16:01Z2023-10-01T19:16:01ZWartime hijinks, wilderness survivors and contemporary dance: what we’re streaming this October<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550490/original/file-20230927-29-8ifm46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3988%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS/Paramount+/Binge</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve made your way through our September picks and are looking for something new, this month’s streaming picks have something for everyone. </p>
<p>There is a classic romantic comedy, some British crime drama and even some contemporary dance. The weather might be turning, and the sun might be shining – but these picks will have you wanting to spend some more time on the couch. </p>
<h2>Yellowjackets season two</h2>
<p><em>Paramount+ (Australia), Neon (New Zealand)</em></p>
<p>While the second season of Yellowjackets is not necessarily a new series, given it was released across April and May, I have only recently caught up on this excellent show, whose buzz this year seems to have been overshadowed by both Succession and White Lotus. </p>
<p>In season one, a high-school girls’ soccer team survive a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness. The narrative constantly switches between attempts at survival in the past and the survivors 25 years on as they cope with their trauma. The cast is incredibly strong, featuring Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis. Season two introduces Lauren Ambrose and Elijah Wood to the cast.</p>
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<p>Season two continues to follow the depths of how dire the situation becomes for the survivors in the early timeline, as they lean into their belief of the occult. </p>
<p>Central to this season is the power Lottie (Courtney Eaton/Simone Kessell) has over the group. In the wilderness, the survivors slowly believe in her spiritual connection to the wild, relying on her instincts for survival. In the present day, Lottie now runs a cult, loosely disguised as a wellness retreat. One by one, the survivors are drawn to Lottie, once again needing guidance.</p>
<p>Yellowjackets reminds me of Lost, with its jumping between timelines and several mysteries remaining unanswered. The show balances the heartbreak faced by the young girls (episode six Qui is a season standout) and the dark humour, particularly Ricci’s sociopathic Misty, and Lynskey’s Shauna, who is trying to get away with murder. </p>
<p>If you missed Yellowjackets earlier this year, I highly recommend catching up.</p>
<p>– <em>Stuart Richards</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannibalism-mutilation-and-murder-the-australian-calamities-that-rival-yellowjackets-for-survival-horror-174863">Cannibalism, mutilation and murder: the Australian calamities that rival Yellowjackets for survival horror</a>
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<h2>The Way Home</h2>
<p><em>Binge (Australia)</em></p>
<p>If you’ve finished the latest season of Sweet Magnolias and Virgin River and are looking for some more small-town sincerity, then check out The Way Home. </p>
<p>Starring Andie MacDowell and Chyler Leigh as mother and daughter, this new series tackles grief, friendship and growing up across generations and time, thanks to a pond-base portal to the past. </p>
<p>The Way Home tells the story of three generations of women coming to terms with their trauma and how it has shaped their past and present. The series joins Chesapeake Shores and When the Heart Calls as part of Hallmark’s stable of beloved, brightly lit family dramas about, and for, women. </p>
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<p>If you enjoy Christmas movies where a pretty, white heterosexual woman returns home to be conveniently reunited with a lost love, then The Way Home is for you. It is light on plot and heavy on feelings. However, the inclusion of non-white and queer supporting characters reflects Hallmark’s increasing attempts to appeal to a wider audience and reflect more contemporary and diverse values. </p>
<p>Ultimately, The Way Home is more enjoyable than the sum of its parts. </p>
<p>– <em>Jessica Ford</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-a-perfect-romcom-an-expert-explains-the-recipe-for-romance-212487">How to make a perfect romcom – an expert explains the recipe for romance</a>
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<h2>Am I</h2>
<p><em><a href="https://www.shaunparkercompany.com/">shaunparkercompany.com</a> (worldwide) from October 4</em></p>
<p>Shaun Parker & Company’s 2014 work Am I is part of The Sydney Opera House’s 50 days of streaming, celebrating its 50th birthday, taking us on a journey into the who-am-I of the human condition.</p>
<p>The narrator, Shantala Shivalingappa, guides us with answers from physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics and sociology as we move through scenes exploring important elements of existence such as the Big Bang, chromosomes, reproduction, the number pi and religion.</p>
<p>The dancers are all in black with only their feet, arms and faces visible, accentuating the shapes made by their upper bodies. The backdrop is a wall of golden white light bulbs, which light in different patterns: at times a pixelated digital screen, other times an exploding sun.</p>
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<p>The dancers interact geometrically like the nuts and bolts of units of matter. They move through sequences using silver rods to produce line drawings in two dimensions, then three-dimensional clusters and networks.</p>
<p>They become less mechanised and breathier and airier as they shift from depicting the microcellular to the macro-whole of the human in an investigation of ideas, such as tribe (in its broadest sense) and consumption.</p>
<p>The music and song are loud, abstract and powerful.</p>
<p>Am I is a hypnotic and visually-engaging 80-minute piece of dance theatre which works spectacularly on film. I’ll be watching it again.</p>
<p>– <em>Yvette Grant</em></p>
<h2>While the Men Are Away</h2>
<p><em>SBS OnDemand (Australia)</em></p>
<p>This eight-part dramedy is a queer reimagining of Australia’s World War Two history. </p>
<p>Set in rural New South Wales, when most men are away at war, Italian-Australian Frankie (Michela De Rossi) recruits two Women’s Land Army girls, Gwen (Max McKenna) and Esther (Jana Zvedeniuk), to work on her apple farm, alongside Indigenous domestic servant Kathleen (Phoebe Grainer) and conscientious objector Robert (Matt Testro). Well-meaning Gwen falls instantly for Frankie; the intense Esther is soon exchanging meaningful looks with Robert. </p>
<p>Overheated, melodramatic hijinks ensue.</p>
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<p>The series is full of deliberate anachronism, with contemporary dialogue and a rock soundtrack. The costumes and production design have a soft-focus, Women’s Weekly glamour – a far cry from rationing and making do.</p>
<p>While the Men Are Away is a fantasy of queer visibility and acceptance, but the uneven script, churning plot and the often-didactic tone undermine its ambitions. The casting of Asian-Australian actors as Land Army girls and internment camp guards reveals the limitations of fantasy as a mode for telling historical stories: it effectively erases Australia’s history of anti-Asian racism. </p>
<p>The series is a playful – but not entirely successful – experiment.</p>
<p>– <em>Michelle Arrow</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/discrimination-internment-camps-then-deportation-the-end-of-the-second-world-war-did-not-mean-peace-for-japanese-australians-208582">Discrimination, internment camps, then deportation: the end of the second world war did not mean peace for Japanese-Australians</a>
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<h2>Annika season two</h2>
<p><em>Neon (New Zealand); season one is available in Australia on iView and BritBox</em></p>
<p>The second season of offbeat BBC police procedural Annika stands apart in a genre that usually veers towards silliness or misanthropy. </p>
<p>Droll Detective Inspector Annika Strandhed (national treasure Nicola Walker) is a Norwegian-born homicide detective with a penchant for bad puns, a stack of sensible wet weather gear, and a tendency to break the fourth wall with literary digressions that flesh out each episode’s themes. </p>
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<p>Season one followed the establishment of Glasgow’s specialist Maritime Homicide Unit, a small and unflappable team, which spends its time fishing bodies out of Scottish waterways and solving odd coastal crimes. This is all while Annika navigated the prickly relationship with her teen daughter Morgan. </p>
<p>This season’s crimes are just as unconventional. A man is found frozen in a giant block of ice; a woman is drowned in a dog cage; a millionaire is discovered dead in his own shark tank. The season’s domestic B plot centres on Annika’s family life, particularly the newly-disclosed identity of Morgan’s father, which Annika has long kept secret. Although the narrative integration of home and work feels a little clumsier this time round. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Annika remains a worthy comfort watch full of smart scripting, lush coastal landscapes, and charmingly wry cops who rarely raise their voices.</p>
<p>– <em>Erin Harrington</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/romantic-comedies-japanese-reality-television-and-new-zealand-true-crime-the-best-of-streaming-this-september-212011">Romantic comedies, Japanese reality television and New Zealand true crime: the best of streaming this September</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Harrington, Jessica Ford, Stuart Richards, and Yvette Grant do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The weather might be turning, and the sun might be shining – but these picks will have you wanting to spend some more time on the couch.Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of CanterburyJessica Ford, Lecturer in Media, University of AdelaideMichelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie UniversityStuart Richards, Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South AustraliaYvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and Dance History Tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959312022-12-12T19:02:52Z2022-12-12T19:02:52ZSex, comedy and vulnerability: Latecomers on SBS is an important shift in disability representation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500211/original/file-20221211-90998-uu5no9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C3994%2C2982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The SBS drama Latecomers is an insightful, witty and superbly produced exploration of the fragility of human life and the fear of rejection that accompanies the human need for intimacy. </p>
<p>Starring <a href="https://www.westernadvocate.com.au/story/2896591/angus-living-life-to-the-full/">Angus Thompson</a> (as Frank) and <a href="https://hannahdiviney.com/">Hannah Diviney</a> (as Sarah), actors with cerebral palsy, the show’s most distinctive appeal is how it explores the fear of rejection which accompanies all attempts at intimacy: successful or otherwise. </p>
<p>Globally, the screen industry has struggled to employ actors with a disability. Films such as Breathe (2017), Me Before You (2016), Margarita with a Straw (2014), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and many others all employ actors without a disability in disabled roles.</p>
<p>Latecomers, however, stars actors with a disability playing characters with a disability. It is a joy to see. </p>
<p>Actors with a disability need to be included in screen media more often. Latecomers is particularly important because of the way it considers sex, pleasure and disability.</p>
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<h2>Disability, sexuality and sex in Australian cinema</h2>
<p>Perhaps the one of the most significant early Australian films about living with a disability is <a href="https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/annies-coming-out">Annie’s Coming Out</a> (1984), an adaption of a book written by Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald based on a true story exploring the life of children with a disability who are institutionalised by their parents. </p>
<p>Annie’s Coming Out was significant because of the performance given by Tina Arhondis, an actor with cerebral palsy who was cast to play the role of Annie. </p>
<p>The film follows Annie’s institutionalisation and misdiagnosis as intellectually and physically disabled, before the realisation she has no intellectual disability. </p>
<p>Her physical therapist fights to have her released and succeeds. </p>
<p>The history of institutionalising people with a disability in Australia begins with colonisation. European settlers brought their asylums with them. Intellectually disabled people together with physically disabled people were also included in these group homes. By 1841, one eighth of the population in South Australia <a href="https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2021-11/Research%20Report%20-%20Disability%20in%20Australia%20-%20Shadows%2C%20struggles%20and%20successes.pdf">relied on public relief</a>. The Adelaide Destitute Asylum was full beyond capacity.</p>
<p>Similar reliance on asylums characterised life for people with any kind of disability in Perth (Freemantle Asylum), Melbourne (the Ballarat Asylum and later the Kew Idiot’s Ward), Sydney (Parramatta, Callan Park, Gladesville Asylums). Intellectual disability was slowly extracted from psychiatric illness in the late 19th century. </p>
<p>by the year 1887 an estimated 7,722 Australians were <a href="http://chartsbin.com/view/eoo">registered</a> as “insane”“, but institutions still housed people with "incurable” disabilities and women who had post natal depression. For example, in 1898 children with intellectual disability began being moved out of the <a href="https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/sa/biogs/SE01279b.htm">Adelaide lunatic asylum</a>. </p>
<p>It was not until the 1970s that institutional living began to be critiqued. De-institutionalisation took place unevenly over the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255716547_De-institutionalisation_The_move_to_community_based_care">195,243 people</a> lived in health and welfare institutions in Australia. By 1991, this number had dropped to 168,940 and it continued to fall. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/by-naming-pennhurst-stranger-things-uses-disability-trauma-for-entertainment-dark-tourism-and-asylum-tours-do-too-185581">By naming 'Pennhurst', Stranger Things uses disability trauma for entertainment. Dark tourism and asylum tours do too</a>
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<p>The film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154378/">Dance Me to My Song</a> (1998) also looked at women with disabilities in institutional living facilities. Written by the late Heather Rose, an actor and screen writer with cerebral palsy, the film explores Julia’s sexuality and her complicated relationship with her abusive carer. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wdv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Royal-Commission-into-Violence-Abuse-Neglect-and-Exploitation-of-People-with-Disability-Group-Homes-Submission-Word-Version-1.docx">rates of sexual abuse</a> of women with disabilities in institutional living facilities in Australia were alarming. Primarily instigated by male carers working in institutions, <a href="https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2021-10/EXP.0066.0002.0035.pdf">the forced sterilisation</a> of women with disabilities in institutions became a way of “managing” – hiding – this abuse. </p>
<p>If women could not become pregnant there was no material evidence the abuse was taking place. Women were not only stripped of the right to choose to have sex, they have their reproductive rights taken away in an effort to cover up systemic sexual abuse. </p>
<p>Even today, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309728772_Disability_and_child_sexual_abuse_in_institutional_contexts_Royal_Commission_into_Institutional_Responses_to_Child_Sexual_Abuse">one in four</a> Australian women with a disability have experienced sexual violence after the age of 15, compared with 15% without disability.</p>
<p>This is the context in which Latecomers’ presents its exploration of disability and sexuality. </p>
<p>Just as Dance Me to My Song spoke to themes of power, sex and sexual control, Latecomers looks at the role of sex and sexuality in the lives of disabled people. But here, we get to join in with friendships, humour, the fear of rejection and the excitement of sex. We also get to laugh at the failure of sex at times. </p>
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<span class="caption">Hannah Diviney and Angus Thompson in Latecomers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Renata Dominik/ SBS</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-matters-is-hope-freedom-and-saying-who-you-are-what-lgbtq-people-with-intellectual-disabilities-want-everyone-to-know-184555">'What matters is hope, freedom and saying who you are.' What LGBTQ+ people with intellectual disabilities want everyone to know</a>
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<h2>Witty approaches to disability and sex</h2>
<p>Latecomers begins with a date. Angus Thompson’s Frank doesn’t care about a nice meal, or interesting conversation, Frank just wants to get drunk and get laid. </p>
<p>In trying to achieve these goals, Frank is keen to pursue the strategy made popular by generations of Australian men – tell Hannah Diviney’s Sarah she is “unfuckable”.</p>
<p>This statement has a complexity specific to Sarah and Frank’s disabilities that makes it more powerful than it might otherwise be. However, women who are both disabled and not disabled will relate.</p>
<p>These relationships are complicated by power relationships surrounding disability and these tensions play out as the show continues. </p>
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<p>Sarah ditches Frank for a nice guy, (Patrick Jhanur) who likes her for her wit and intelligence and who doesn’t want to tell his mates all about sex. In a media landscape characterised by sexual fantasies, I am personally relieved to see a sex scene that is not played out between two able-bodied white people.</p>
<p>It is a welcome change to see disabled people enjoying sex on screen. May we see much more of it. </p>
<p>Latecomers is a tonic for the pain and loneliness that is part of all our embodied lives – and an important step forward in how the stories of people with a disability are told on screen. Released in the same year that neurodivergent actor Chloé Hayden from Heartbreak High won the AACTA best actress audience choice awards, Latecomers signals a shift in consumer taste.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Hickey-Moody receives funding from funding from the Australian Research Council. She grew up in Australia with a father who was severely disabled and has been researching questions of disability, gender and representation since her late teens.</span></em></p>Latecomers looks at the role of sex and sexuality in the lives of disabled people.Anna Hickey-Moody, Professor of Media and Communication, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1888182022-08-31T03:16:02Z2022-08-31T03:16:02ZA Beginner’s Guide to Grief: joy and sadness belong together in this new Australian ‘traumedy’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481925/original/file-20220830-46102-1isx65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7951%2C5304&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: A Beginner’s Guide to Grief, directed by Renée Mao</em></p>
<p>We all experience grief in different ways. It is a powerful force that can affect our daily lives, making the simplest task feel difficult, at best, or entirely insurmountable at worst. </p>
<p>Grief is messy, surprising, revealing and honest at different times and all at once. </p>
<p>This is what lies at the heart of the SBS comedy A Beginner’s Guide to Grief. </p>
<p>Written by its star, Anna Lindner, and directed by Renée Mao, the six 12-minute episodes follow Harriet “Harry” Wylde as she navigates her way through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance also provide the first five episode titles) after losing both her parents to cancer within a week – first her mum and then her dad on the day of her mum’s funeral. </p>
<p>Aunty Barb (Georgina Naidu) is the epitome of “putting on a brave face” as she attempts to offer Harry solace in the knowledge that at least her dad is “now in the arms of our Lord and Saviour”. </p>
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<p>Harry’s very Christian Uncle Trev (Rory Walker) and creepy cousin Isaiah (Carlo Ritchie) take over her dad’s funeral preparations with the implication that men can deal with these kinds of emotional situations better. </p>
<p>The most interesting relationship in the series is between Harry and her foster-sister Daisy (Cassandra Sorrell), a pyromaniac who has spent time in prison after lighting a car on fire when she was young. </p>
<p>Their relationship is far from perfect, but Daisy is a welcome relief from the rest of the family’s suffocating presence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iggy-and-ace-a-zany-aussie-comedy-about-two-gay-best-friends-and-alcohol-abuse-165953">Iggy & Ace: a zany Aussie comedy about two gay best friends — and alcohol abuse</a>
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<h2>Contemporary traumedies</h2>
<p>A Beginner’s Guide to Grief joins recent series like Netflix’s <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/au/entry/never-have-i-ever-mindy-kaling_au_5eb54cacc5b62d0addad63a0">Never Have I Ever</a> (2020-) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8398600/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">After Life</a> (2019-2022) that centre on grieving characters who have lost loved ones and are left behind to cope in the aftermath. </p>
<p>These shows have been labelled “<a href="https://www.wellandgood.com/traumedy-trend/">traumedies</a>”: narratives that explore feelings of loss and pain presented through a comedic lens. </p>
<p>Traumedies can offer audiences an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877090656/if-youre-grieving-right-now-here-are-5-shows-that-get-it">opportunity for catharsis</a>, processing our feelings of loss and grief – particularly at a time of so much social and cultural upheaval.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An alpaca and a woman stand at a grave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481945/original/file-20220831-22-brw5j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traumedies acknowledge there is joy alongside grief.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like these international examples, A Beginner’s Guide to Grief invites us to have frank conversations about and acknowledge the impacts of death, dying and grieving openly – rather than bottling those feelings away to maintain an image of strength. </p>
<p>It is through the series’ funniest thread, a self-help audio tape on dealing with grief that Harry listens to each episode, we truly feel permission to laugh at tragedy. </p>
<p>The tape’s grief therapist, brilliantly voiced by Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, provides a bizarre distraction for Harry – and us – as each stage of grief is described in more and more ridiculous ways. Grief, the tape tells us, is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>an overwhelming emotion not unlike […] sitting down to your favourite breakfast cereal but then pouring its milky sweet contents over your lap, smashing the porcelain bowl with nothing but your forehead, and slowly swallowing shard after jagged shard of the broken remains until you realise you are indeed bleeding from your stomach.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A visceral yet poetic description. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-stages-of-grief-dont-come-in-fixed-steps-everyone-feels-differently-96111">The five stages of grief don't come in fixed steps – everyone feels differently</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Grief is a mixed bag</h2>
<p>The sixth and final episode, The Next Chapter, initially feels unnecessary. We have moved through the five stages of grief, after all. But Lindner is careful to acknowledge grief is not cured once you’ve reached “acceptance”. </p>
<p>The process of grieving is complex and can’t be miraculously solved by the end of a series. </p>
<p>Life must go on for Harry, but she still has some healing to do. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman cries; another woman comforts her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481946/original/file-20220831-22-dygfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grief doesn’t end at ‘acceptance’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout the series, flashbacks are interwoven with the present-day, depicting scenes of happier times with her parents next to ones showing the realities and ravages of cancer.</p>
<p>The show is semi-autobiographical. Lindner’s <a href="https://indaily.com.au/inreview/film/2022/08/26/death-and-anarchy-in-the-barossa/">father died</a> from cancer, and her mother was also diagnosed with the disease. She brings a deep perspective on her own grief. “I want people to know that grief and joy don’t just co-exist, but they belong together,” <a href="https://tvtonight.com.au/2022/08/airdate-a-beginners-guide-to-grief.html">she has said</a>.</p>
<p>A Beginner’s Guide to Grief does not offer a particularly unique perspective on grief, but it is a worthy local entry into the traumedy genre and an excellent example of contemporary Australian short form storytelling.</p>
<p><em>A Beginner’s Guide to Grief premieres on SBS On Demand on September 4.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sian Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Grief is messy, surprising, revealing and honest at different times and all at once. Here, it is also funny.Sian Mitchell, Lecturer, Film, Television and Animation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1784022022-03-09T19:03:40Z2022-03-09T19:03:40ZCanada eyes Australia’s media code to pay for news but wants more ‘transparency’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450819/original/file-20220308-13-1uw21t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Google and Meta have reportedly paid more than <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/big-tech-news-bargaining-code-a-success-not-to-be-repeated-accc-boss-20220225-p59zs9">A$200 million</a> to Australian news outlets since the Morrison government introduced the groundbreaking News Media Bargaining Code a year ago. Yet Canada boasts that its own version of the code will do better.</p>
<p>Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/canada-online-news-act-google-meta-facebook/">claims</a> the online news bill he intends to introduce in the Ottawa parliament within months will also force Google and Meta to pay media outlets for third-party news content on their sites. But he argues it will be a “more transparent” version of the Australian code.</p>
<p>His key criticism of the Australian version was that it handed power to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg through “designation”, rather than to an independent regulator. This, he says, will force big technology companies to negotiate deals with media outlets: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In our case, it’s not going to be the minister that will designate. […] there are going to be criteria set by the regulator that will clearly identify who are in an imbalanced situation and require them to sit down with news organisations and get into a deal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia’s code – which uses competition rather than the European model of copyright law to compel Google and Meta to pay for news – has attracted <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2021/07/01/denmarks-media-companies-form-copyright-collective-to-force-google-facebook-to-pay-more-sending-them-traffic/">international attention</a>. In the past fortnight, Canadian and US journalists have visited our shores to <a href="https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/australia-pressured-google-and-facebook-to-pay-for-journalism-is-america-next.php">report on it</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-news-media-bargaining-code-fit-for-purpose-172224">Is the news media bargaining code fit for purpose?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Since the code was introduced, Frydenberg has resisted using this designation power, so only voluntary deals have been done between the technology giants and news companies. This has created clear winners and losers.</p>
<p>The winners generally have been legacy and larger media outlets such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Nine Entertainment, the ABC, The Guardian and networks of regional newspapers such as Australian Community Media. The ACCC <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code/appendix">estimates</a> Google has secured 20 media deals (including with The Conversation), while Meta has made 14 deals.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450820/original/file-20220308-17665-v6h697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">So far, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has resisted using his designation powers, leaving media outlets to broker deals for themselves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Media outlets left without Meta deals include public interest journalism publications such as The Conversation and SBS. There has also been little provided for smaller media start-ups in need of funds to help diversify Australia’s highly concentrated news landscape under the code. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-checking-can-actually-harm-trust-in-media-new-research-176032">Fact-checking can actually harm trust in media: new research</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Excluding these outlets runs counter to the Australian government’s <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fems%2Fr6652_ems_2fe103c0-0f60-480b-b878-1c8e96cf51d2%22">aim</a> to address “bargaining power imbalances between the digital platforms and Australian news media”. </p>
<p>This failure to get some deals done led the outgoing chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/26/reining-in-the-digital-giants-rod-sims-on-the-trials-and-triumphs-of-a-decade-as-head-of-the-consumer-watchdog">Rod Sims</a> – a chief architect of the code – to complain it was “inexplicable” these outlets were excluded.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://newsinasia.jninstitute.org/chapter/the-grand-bargain-australias-news-media-bargaining-code/">criticisms</a> of the code have been that commercial in-confidence arrangements mean no one knows exactly how much money has flowed to media companies ($200 million is the ACCC’s estimate) and that there is actually no legal requirement for this money to be spent on journalism.</p>
<p>The Canadian minister acknowledges that media companies have legitimate commercial sensitivities, but criticises the lack of transparency in the Australian code. On this issue he has been <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/canada-online-news-act-google-meta-facebook/">explicit</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the things we want to do differently from Australia is to be more transparent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact these criticisms come from the Canadian government is notable. The Trudeau administration has been a vocal supporter of the Australian reform process, along with many other <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018822197/new-collective-bid-to-make-tech-titans-pay-for-nz-news">countries</a>. </p>
<p>Rodriguez’s comments suggest that, while other countries are keen to adopt the reform, most will work to improve on the deal that emerged from the series of high-stakes negotiations in early 2021, which prompted Facebook to briefly <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-has-pulled-the-trigger-on-news-content-and-possibly-shot-itself-in-the-foot-155547">pull</a> news off its platform. </p>
<p>Australia might even consider thinking about adopting some of these international modifications. Frydenberg marked the one-year anniversary of the Australian code last week by announcing a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018822197/new-collective-bid-to-make-tech-titans-pay-for-nz-news">review</a> of its performance, to report by September 2022.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-has-pulled-the-trigger-on-news-content-and-possibly-shot-itself-in-the-foot-155547">Facebook has pulled the trigger on news content — and possibly shot itself in the foot</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The review is a chance for industry stakeholders, policymakers and researchers to assess the impact of the code in its first year of operation. Of course, many participants who secured deals will be pleased. However, the review must consider outstanding issues such as greater transparency, rigorous criteria around designation, and expenditure.</p>
<p>As the code continues to operate, we must also consider the long-term impacts of platform payments. A yearly injection of $200 million into the Australian media market is not transformative, but it is enough to make an impact. Finding out how that money has been spent is now a critical task and more answers are needed. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>To what extent can we credit the code for the recent upsurge in recruitment in some of our larger media companies’ newsrooms? </p></li>
<li><p>What are the experiences of the smaller media outlets that have struggled to even get a reply from Google and Meta? </p></li>
<li><p>Is the code doing enough to assist regional and remote towns that no longer have access to local news? </p></li>
<li><p>And what impact, if any, do other funding schemes such as the Facebook Australian News Fund that Meta has established with the <a href="https://www.walkleys.com/the-walkley-foundation-and-meta-reveal-54-recipients-in-15m-funding-programs-first-round/">Walkley Foundation</a> have on public interest journalism? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Local and regional journalism that covers council meetings, courts and times of crises such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/03/nsw-flood-affected-towns-turn-to-facebook-and-whatsapp-after-local-news-sources-disappear">flood and bushfire emergencies</a> are fundamental to Australian democracy and our well-being. This is where the disruption in the news media has had a significant impact in the past two decades. <a href="https://piji.com.au/research-and-inquiries/our-research/anmp/">Research</a> shows parts of Australia have become “news deserts”, with no local media coverage.</p>
<p>While the review of the code is welcome, ongoing research is vital to help reveal whether it has contributed positively to the renewal of Australian journalism, or simply stabilised established players.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Meta for research. She is also a member of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's academic research advisory group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dodd is a member of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's academic research advisory group.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Meese receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Meta. He has also made single and co-authored submissions to the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johan Lidberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code has garnered global interest – but the Canadians want a model with more transparency.Andrea Carson, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe UniversityAndrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneJames Meese, Research Fellow, Technology, Communication and Policy Lab, RMIT UniversityJohan Lidberg, Associate Professor, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765322022-02-08T02:55:36Z2022-02-08T02:55:36ZThe ABC’s budget hasn’t been restored – it’s still facing $1.2 billion in accumulated losses over a decade<p>ABC Chair Ita Buttrose is “delighted” and Managing Director David Anderson says he now has “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/07/abc-welcomes-funding-certainty-as-morrison-government-responds-to-media-reform-paper">certainty</a>” for planning. However, the Morrison government’s pre-election announcement it would restore the ABC’s budget to 2018 levels doesn’t come close to making up for what has been lost in cuts to funding and staff.</p>
<p>Seven weeks ahead of the budget, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/funding-boost-will-allow-the-abc-to-be-its-best-self/news-story/e5352fbb9a18a7124cfe4467e18d885a">announced</a> the ABC will receive $3.284 billion over three years from July 2022, while SBS will receive $953.7 million over the same period. </p>
<p>Significantly, the government says it is scrapping its controversial indexation freeze on the ABC’s budget. This was imposed by then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2018 and meant the broadcaster’s funding did not keep pace with inflation. It led to <a href="https://about.abc.net.au/press-releases/abc-five-year-plan-2020-2025/">drastic cuts</a> in programming and staffing in June 2020.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-84-million-cuts-rip-the-heart-out-of-the-abc-and-our-democracy-141355">Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fletcher also announced the ABC funding would include $45.8 million for another three years for the broadcaster’s “enhanced news gathering” program, which is earmarked for local public interest journalism in regional communities.</p>
<p>However, the funding comes with strings attached. </p>
<p>The Morrison government has published what it calls a <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/publications/statements-expectations-national-broadcasters">statement of expectations</a>, a requirement for the ABC and SBS to provide a report each year detailing staff numbers in regional and remote Australia, as well as hours of programming tailored to those audiences. </p>
<p>Fletcher also said the ABC and SBS weren’t currently required to report on the number of hours of Australian drama and documentaries they show each year. Although these hours are published in the <a href="https://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ABC10150_00_v14_FILM_WEB-a11y_FINAL2-1.pdf">ABC annual report</a>, the government will now require the ABC and SBS to provide further reporting on this through a national framework. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1490420250541629440"}"></div></p>
<h2>Impressive figures but it’s doesn’t undo the damage</h2>
<p>To those who haven’t been following the ABC’s funding situation closely, the announcement may seem like impressive numbers. Certainly, the government’s line is the ABC will be “boosted” by scrapping the indexation freeze. </p>
<p>However, the end of the index freeze and the retention of the news gathering program still do not make up for the massive cuts already inflicted on the ABC. </p>
<p>As we noted in our research in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-abc-didnt-receive-a-reprieve-in-the-budget-its-still-facing-staggering-cuts-114922">2019</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-84-million-cuts-rip-the-heart-out-of-the-abc-and-our-democracy-141355">2020</a>, a total of $783 million was removed from ABC funding between 2014 and 2022. As the table below shows, these accumulated funding losses include a series of budget announcements, cancelled funding contracts, reduced or ended specific programs and implemented major cuts. </p>
<p>In fact, taking into account the government’s latest announcement, we now calculate the ABC’s accumulated lost funding from fiscal years 2014-15 to 2024-25 will reach a staggering $1.201 billion. </p>
<p><strong>Tallying the ABC’s accumulated losses over a decade</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444910/original/file-20220207-25-1r27rqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=673&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To get to this figure, we used our previous research as a baseline and factored in this week’s funding announcements. This takes account of no additional plans by the government to restore any of the earlier ABC funding cuts, and the ongoing impact of the three-year indexation pause. </p>
<p>While ending the freeze means future ABC funding will take some account of inflation, it does not address the impact of the freeze itself from 2019. </p>
<p>The ABC has said this is a problem. In answer to a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_estimates/ec/2021-22_Supplementary_budget_estimates">Senate Estimates question</a> in October 2021, the broadcaster said this would result in a funding shortfall of just over $40 million annually, which would continue to be felt in future years.</p>
<p>Our research also factors in the ABC’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-14/80-jobs-to-go-at-abc/5595674">loss of the ten-year Australia Network contract</a> in 2014. This resulted in a reduction in funding of $186 million, which is represented across the balance of the contract term in the table above.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"488564931646603264"}"></div></p>
<p>Certainly, the ABC does continue to do some international broadcasting, particularly in the Pacific, but it is <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/demise-australia-network">no longer the dominant broadcaster</a> in the region it once was. Restoring and even boosting the funding that was given to the Australia Network would go some way to improving Australia’s standing in the Indo-Pacific region.</p>
<p>We found the total lost funding continues to accumulate at well over <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_estimates/ec/2021-22_Supplementary_budget_estimates">$100 million annually</a> through 2024-25. In other words, if the government truly wanted to restore the ABC’s funding, it would need to <em>increase</em> its budget by at least 10% annually.</p>
<p>It is difficult to be definite with the numbers because the triennial funding total announced by Fletcher lacks detail. </p>
<p>It is not clear, for instance, how much will be available for the broadcasters’ operations after funds are allocated for broadcast distribution and transmission contracts that go to third-party suppliers. In the ABC’s case, these contracts are worth almost $600 million over the next three-year budget cycle. </p>
<p>It must also be noted Fletcher <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/funding-boost-will-allow-the-abc-to-be-its-best-self/news-story/e5352fbb9a18a7124cfe4467e18d885a">rejects the assertion</a> the ABC’s funding has been cut at all in the current three-year funding period from 2019–22. </p>
<p>In fairness to the minister, while the indexation freeze and other funding reductions continue to reduce the available funds to the ABC, they were not announced during the current three-year period.</p>
<h2>The ABC lacks funds for future-proofing</h2>
<p>This week’s announcement was warmly greeted as a significant change in the government’s position towards the public broadcasters. It is also certainly a positive response to the dire state of journalism in some areas, particularly in the suburbs and regional and remote communities, where the <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-news-sources-are-closing-across-australia-we-are-tracking-the-devastation-and-some-reasons-for-hope-139756">closure of commercial newsrooms</a> has left many without a local journalist or any local news service. </p>
<p>But we’d argue more needs to be done. The ABC still gets only about half the per capita government funding other <a href="https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/vision/strategy/latest-studies/Nordicity-analysis-of-government-support-for-public-service-broadcasting-april-2020.pdf">democratic countries</a> provide to their national broadcasters. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/local-news-sources-are-closing-across-australia-we-are-tracking-the-devastation-and-some-reasons-for-hope-139756">Local news sources are closing across Australia. We are tracking the devastation (and some reasons for hope)</a>
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</em>
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<p>This funding will also not future-proof the ABC or SBS with the extra resources needed to remain at the forefront of delivering digital content to Australians as they continue to change the way they access quality and trusted news and information.</p>
<p>The announcement may at least prevent the ABC from becoming an election issue.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.abcfriends.net.au/donate">Friends of the ABC</a> had been gearing up its campaigning across the nation, fundraising to target key marginal seats. And last week, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/07/abc-welcomes-funding-certainty-as-morrison-government-responds-to-media-reform-paper">Guardian Australia</a> reported the majority of Australians would support restoring funding to the ABC. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen if the announcement is sufficient to convince Australians who love and trust the national broadcasters that the Coalition has actually has done enough to support them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Wake was a senior journalist with the ABC, and did her last shift with ABC Radio Australia in 2015. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Ward is a Ph.D. candidate in media and communications at the University of Sydney. From 1999 to 2017 he worked for the ABC, including as a senior executive.</span></em></p>The end of the controversial indexation freeze and retention of the news gathering program do not make up for the massive cuts already inflicted on the national broadcasters.Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT UniversityMichael Ward, PhD candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1695272021-10-11T19:11:38Z2021-10-11T19:11:38ZNew Gold Mountain review: a compelling murder mystery shines light on early Australian multiculturalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425614/original/file-20211010-13-1j7hsxb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2048%2C1345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: New Gold Mountain, directed by Corrie Chen.</em></p>
<p>The beautifully shot and evenly paced New Gold Mountain, the new series from SBS, is an 1850s-era murder mystery set in the Ballarat goldfields during the gold rush heyday. </p>
<p>In 1851, gold was discovered in Ballarat – a little known pastoral outpost of the British empire. News of the strike quickly spread and the town rapidly developed. Initially, the first arrivals came from other parts of Victoria. Others followed from other Australian colonies. Soon after, international arrivals came from all regions of the globe and in 1852 many arrived from Southern China in search of gold.</p>
<p>New Gold Mountain focuses on this Chinese-Australian goldfields experience, primarily from the point of view of Leung Wei Shing (Yoson An), the brooding headman of the Chinese miners and his relationships with his younger, errant brother Leung Wei Sun (Sam Wang) and his loyal assistant Gok (Chris Masters Mah). </p>
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<p>The narrative is widened to include Belle Roberts (Alyssa Sutherland), the English widow turned newspaper proprietor; Hattie (Leonie Whyman), the resilient Indigenous woman trying to get by; and Patrick Thomas (Christopher James Baker), the troubled Irish miner whose wife’s disappearance drives the plot. </p>
<p>In their own ways, each character is caught between different cultures, friendships and allegiances in the rapidly forming goldfields frontier society on the far side of the world.</p>
<h2>A Chinese Australian tale</h2>
<p>Chinese migration patterns to Australia were largely based on regional associations, particularly in the localities of Toi Shan, Sze Yup and Sam Yup in Guangdong, Southern China. These regional associations and “brotherhoods”, as they are referred to in the series, were labour recruiting mechanisms similar to the one Wei Shing runs at this Chinese camp.</p>
<p>Here, Cheung Lei (Mabel Li) brings into play the connections, allegiances and complexities between Chinese gold seekers in the Australian colonies and their backers in China. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: a white woman and an Asian man talk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425586/original/file-20211010-25-7hpfvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">New Gold Mountain shows the complexity of relationships on the gold fields.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>On one hand, relations between key characters and groups (primarily between the Chinese and Europeans) are typified by racism and hostility. But there is also cooperation, as Wei Shing and Belle unite to solve the murder. Sometimes there is brutal friendship, as when Wei Shing and the Chinese protector, Standish (Dan Spielman), finally establish exactly where they stand with each other. </p>
<p>Director Corrie Chen and creator Peter Cox pull no punches while maintaining a compelling murder mystery and this lively ensemble offers a nuanced reading of the Australian goldfields experience, telling a mature and ambiguous account of the frontier. </p>
<p>The other stars of the series are the distinctive former mining landscapes and Sovereign Hill providing the visual backdrops for the 1850s goldfields society. You can imagine how startled recent arrivals from the bustling South China trading ports of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau must have been on disembarkation. The flora and fauna – literally everything – was so different to home.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Chinese man stands amid red lanterns" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425633/original/file-20211011-23-vtq501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The hot and dusty goldfields were very different from the Chinese ports – but cultural traditions lived on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Chen explores this shock in a moment of brief magical realism with Wei Shing’s encounters with a kangaroo. It seems the bush sees all. The Chinese miners and their Indigenous and European counterparts were all coming to terms with a landscape broken by mining and colonised by a disparate society coming to terms with its own experiences and opportunities. New Gold Mountain evocatively captures this moment. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-story-of-fook-shing-colonial-victorias-chinese-detective-94017">Friday essay: the story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria's Chinese detective</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>The gold rush on screen</h2>
<p>Australian goldfields life has been shown on television before, notably <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071046/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_7">Rush</a>, the Victorian gold rush era drama from the 1970s.</p>
<p>But the obvious cultural point of reference is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348914/">Deadwood</a> (2004-06), David Milch’s multi-layered historical narrative based on the 1850s gold-rush town in the Black Hills Indian Cession, a region that subsequently became South Dakota.</p>
<p>Much of Deadwood centres on the business dealings between the Chinese headman, Mr Wu, and the corrupt saloon owner and town powerbroker, Al Swearengen. The inherent racism of frontier life is apparent, as is the mutual respect the two men have for each other as they seek to benefit from nefarious business dealings. </p>
<p>Similar complex, intertwined plots of shifting alliances and a mutual desire to win money run through New Gold Mountain. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: a Chinese man looks for gold in his hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425627/original/file-20211011-21-1dkjedm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Like Deadwood, New Gold Mountain explores shifting alliances in the search for gold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>On closer viewing, the series also shares a watermark with the New Zealand made <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195822/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Illustrious Energy</a> (1988), directed by Leon Narbey, which also explored the goldfields experience from a Chinese perspective. Other Australian colonial stories have been told in John Hillcoat’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421238/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">The Proposition</a> (2005) and Jennifer Kent’s recent <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4068576">The Nightingale</a> (2018).</p>
<p>Yoson An’s smouldering portrayal of Wei Shing resembles Jay Swan’s character in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7298596/">Mystery Road</a> (2018–). Both are extremely resourceful, conflicted and move between different worlds while confronting the ghosts of their own respective pasts in remote Australia. </p>
<h2>Historical voices together</h2>
<p>New Gold Mountain emphasises the little told history of the Chinese on the diggings. The paradoxical nature of the colonial gold seeking era is best understood when all the historical voices are heard together. If one story dominates, much of the historical themes which help to explain Australian society in the present day are missed.</p>
<p>The show also reminds us of the complex enduring relationship between China and Australia, which has often been driven by the mining industry. </p>
<p>But, ultimately, it’s a cracking murder mystery that reminds viewers the first Australian multicultural moment happened in the mid-19th century – not the 20th.</p>
<p><em>New Gold Mountain premieres on SBS Wednesday 13 October.</em></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-lurid-orange-sauces-to-refined-regional-flavours-how-politics-helped-shape-chinese-food-in-australia-150283">From lurid orange sauces to refined, regional flavours: how politics helped shape Chinese food in Australia</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keir Reeves does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>SBS’s new four part murder mystery examines Chinese experience on the Australian goldfields during the 1850s.Keir Reeves, Professor of History & Director Future Regions Research Centre, Federation University AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1659532021-09-07T04:52:09Z2021-09-07T04:52:09ZIggy & Ace: a zany Aussie comedy about two gay best friends — and alcohol abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416290/original/file-20210816-6629-iw77hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C2%2C1905%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Iggy & Ace, directed by Monica Zanetti and AB Morrison.</em></p>
<p>Iggy & Ace is the story of two gay best friends — and their drinking habits. Their favourite hobbies are happy hour pub crawls and getting wasted on wine while watching Bondi Rescue. As far as they’re concerned, life is sweet. But a panic attack while hungover at work makes Ace (Josh Virgona) wonder if this is healthy. </p>
<p>Delirious and trying to change, he signs up for a sobriety support program — much to the horror of Iggy (Sara West).</p>
<p>In many ways, Iggy & Ace is a zany drama-comedy blend about recovery and friendship. But this series is also committed to portraying the rough ups and downs of addiction, toxic friendships, grief, trauma and love.</p>
<p>It’s a wild ride, but one certainly worth taking, even if your brain might start screaming it wants to get off at the most emotional and visceral low points. </p>
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<h2>Real people; real heart</h2>
<p>There’s something satisfying about how grimy, disastrous and flawed Ace and Iggy are allowed to be. It is validating to see the viscera of messy queer experience. </p>
<p>The series feels wonderfully like a queer story for a queer audience: authentically depicting the human problems of its gay protagonists without playing into familiar media stereotypes, and without being afraid to colour outside the lines.</p>
<p>All the queer characters in this series are heightened for comedy, yet also feel very real. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and a woman in brightly-coloured windcheaters, staring in silent awe into a party scene" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416288/original/file-20210816-17-1azn5e3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The characters are all very heightened, but also all very real.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
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<p>Iggy is a rude, self-destructive disaster of a woman in deep denial about her own traumas. Ace is insecure and impressionable, prone to impulse decisions and easily distracted by instant gratification. </p>
<p>There’s also Iggy and Ace’s mentor, self-described “dying queen” Otto (Dalip Sondhi), who is constantly snorting cocaine (with the help of an elegant and irritable non-binary carer, played by Aiden Hawke) and reminiscing about the old days. </p>
<p>There’s Justine (Joanna Tu), Iggy’s long-suffering girlfriend, who’s just trying to make it as an artist and stick to her vegan diet. There’s Gwen (Roz Hammond), the frazzled older lesbian doing her best to hold the sober support group together while everyone’s personal drama piles up at her door. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and a woman pose for a selfie in a bottle shop, both wearing pointy sunglasses" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416287/original/file-20210816-19-ydpx3t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Platonic friendship is at the core of Iggy & Ace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The centrality of platonic friendship to Iggy & Ace is also refreshing. </p>
<p>The friendship between the titular characters is nothing idyllic: in fact, its toxicity is portrayed in loving detail. They’re a terrible twosome; and they’re rarely apart. They’re housemates, workmates and drinking buddies joined at the hip flask. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-than-10-standard-drinks-a-week-or-4-on-any-day-new-guidelines-urge-aussies-to-go-easy-on-the-booze-151595">No more than 10 standard drinks a week, or 4 on any day: new guidelines urge Aussies to go easy on the booze</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Their friendship begins to fracture when Ace attempts to get healthy. Iggy resents Ace for his transgressions, particularly because they reveal her own problems. </p>
<p>“You can’t be an alcoholic,” she assures Ace when she finds out he’s been secretly attending the sober program. “Because you don’t drink any more than I do.”</p>
<h2>Comedy through tragedy</h2>
<p>Through the conflict between its characters, the series paints a harrowing picture — though, again, peppered with comedy — of how alcohol dependency can take hold. </p>
<p>Social drinking is a huge part of Australian culture and alcohol consumption has become a crutch for Iggy as she avoids her pressing emotional issues. </p>
<p>Iggy and Ace have fun when they drink, yet it also makes them miserable. It’s a vicious cycle that the writing captures with almost flinch-worthy authenticity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sits on the edge of a bed looking ahead with a serious expression. Behind him, a woman sits in the shadows" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416289/original/file-20210816-27-qsiqu5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While it is a comedy, Iggy & Ace also looks at addiction with unflinching honesty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Iggy, for all her early awfulness, is never portrayed as a wholly or inherently bad person. She and her coping mechanisms are treated with the weight they deserve, and she’s allowed to be — in Ace’s words — a “complete arsehole” without being reduced to the villain of the piece. She is hardly a role model, but she is a gloriously complicated fictional lesbian. We need more stories about women like her.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/queer-young-adult-fiction-isnt-all-gloomy-realism-here-are-5-uplifting-books-to-get-you-started-141125">Queer young adult fiction isn't all gloomy realism. Here are 5 uplifting books to get you started</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Iggy & Ace is equally funny and painful. Released as six ten-minute episodes, the hour takes you on a rollercoaster journey with the characters and their personal and interpersonal disasters, and the ending is an effective gut punch of tragicomedy. </p>
<p>It is absolutely worth diving into this show, though consume responsibly. Alternatively, binge the whole thing then lie on your living room floor letting it all soak in.</p>
<p><em>Iggy & Ace is streaming on SBS OnDemand from Thursday.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Henderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s something satisfying about how grimy, disastrous and flawed Ace and Iggy are allowed to be in this new SBS web series.Alex Henderson, PhD Candidate in Literary Studies and Creative Writing, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1431912020-08-23T20:05:40Z2020-08-23T20:05:40ZHungry Ghosts review: a culturally rich supernatural drama<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353288/original/file-20200818-22-1s37w0x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C5000%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>We all have our own ghosts, my grandmother would say. But sometimes the pain of past trauma can seep from one generation to the next, haunting an entire family. – May Le </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the 15th night of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is the traditional Buddhist and Taoist <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-16/hungry-ghost-festival-and-the-death-of-an-ancient-tradition/11413618">Hungry Ghost Festival</a>, when the gates to hell open and spirits wander the earth. </p>
<p>Families honour and appease their ancestors through remembrance, prayer and offerings. But it is also a time of caution lest aggrieved ghosts seek retribution.</p>
<p>In the new supernatural drama <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2020/07/27/whos-who-new-sbs-supernatural-thriller-hungry-ghosts">Hungry Ghosts</a>, directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0781673/">Shawn Seet</a> for SBS, a tomb is discovered during a mine-clearing operation in Vietnam. From this tomb, an evil spirit named Quang (Vico Thai) is released, bringing the dead back with him. </p>
<p>The return of these spirits forces four families in contemporary Melbourne to confront ghosts of the past buried deep in their secrets, sins and personal struggles. </p>
<p>Protagonist May Le (Catherine Văn-Davies) is tasked with preventing Quang from keeping the gates to hell open for eternity; her journey is one of self-discovery and embracing her heritage after the death of her grandmother Phuong (Linda Hsai). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uo1CzqSA1D4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The Nguyen, Tran and Stockton families each bear the heavy burdens of the Vietnam War. Survivor guilt, painful memories and regrettable past actions threaten to tear their families apart. </p>
<h2>Inherited traumas</h2>
<p>Unresolved trauma impacts the present through intergenerational hauntings, both literal and metaphorical.</p>
<p>The spirit of a drowned man whom Diane Tran (Oakley Kwon) once wronged possesses her daughter Sophie (Jillian Nguyen). The ordeal of war leads to the fracturing of relationships between Anh Nguyen (Ferdinand Hoang) and his son Paul (Gareth Yuen) and wife Lien (Gabrielle Chan).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie still of two Asian women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353292/original/file-20200818-22-nymg4p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sophie becomes possessed by the ghost of a man wronged by her mother, Diane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the first episode is heavy with exposition in the great unveiling of the dead and the explanation of Quang’s mission, the series maintains a tension that makes for gripping viewing. </p>
<p>The musical score (composition by Roger Mason) thrums throughout the series and gets under your skin. Just as the eerie soundtrack is occasionally interrupted with romantic serenades of a bygone era, the narrative tension gives way to moments of humour and tenderness. </p>
<p>When grandmother Lien is visited by the ghost of her first husband Khoa (Hoa Xuande), she is transported back to her earlier life and an uncomplicated love. The visual interplay between Lien in old age and in youth is a poignant reminder of human mortality, and the longing and loss that comes with the passing of time. </p>
<p>These interludes of contemplation and nostalgia are reminiscent of the aching melancholy of the films of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/wong-kar-wai-interview-the-revered-film-director-on-returning-to-his-first-love-kung-fu-9905855.html">Wong Kar Wai</a>, offering brief reprieves before the serious business of stopping a psychopathic spirit starts again.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie still of a seance table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353293/original/file-20200818-20-yo1mir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungry Ghosts sometimes looks towards romance – but the real story is of the ghosts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For some viewers, Hungry Ghosts will have some uncanny resemblances to plot devices used in the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000630791/">Harry Potter saga</a> and a certain landmark film of the supernatural thriller genre (you’ll know when you see it). </p>
<p>Despite these inevitable comparisons, the series avoids the trappings of an Australian miniseries trying to be Hollywood. Hungry Ghosts retains a distinctive Australian-ness. It proudly locates itself in Melbourne, and puts front and centre in the story the Vietnam War and the ensuing humanitarian crisis (“the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-vietnamese-refugees-who-changed-white-australia">boat people</a>”) that has been so central to contemporary Australian history and national identity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-asylum-seekers-our-history-keeps-repeating-itself-59473">On asylum seekers, our history keeps repeating itself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the four-part series, a romance is rushed and predictable, and it is disappointing that among such a rich Asian-Australian cast several of the Anglo-Australian cast members are headlined to promote the series (the Stockton family cast are also the first to appear in the end credits). </p>
<p>But these criticisms aside, Hungry Ghosts is an achievement on many levels, and a valuable contribution to Australian storytelling. </p>
<h2>An Australian story</h2>
<p>The series casts over 30 Asian-Australian actors in leading and ensemble roles, including transgender woman <a href="https://www.if.com.au/suzy-wrong-lands-a-breakthrough-role-in-sbss-hungry-ghosts/">Suzy Wrong</a> (who plays the wonderfully eccentric clairvoyant Roxy Ling), alongside 325 Asian-Australian extras. </p>
<p>Joining director Seet is executive producer Debbie Lee, and writers Michele Lee and brothers Jeremy and Alan Nguyen. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whitewash-on-the-box-how-a-lack-of-diversity-on-australian-television-damages-us-all-143434">Whitewash on the box: how a lack of diversity on Australian television damages us all</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The investment in bringing together this accomplished cast and crew signals an exciting future for national television. While Hungry Ghosts focuses on the Vietnamese-Australian community, the intertwining stories across generations and cultural groups will have broad resonances.</p>
<p>As an Asian-Australian, it was affirming to see faces like mine on screen, as well as representations of familiar beliefs, rituals and practices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie still, people gathered around a bonfire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353294/original/file-20200818-18-18fmnsc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungry Ghosts speaks to the demand for diversity and minority representation in popular culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These depictions were not tokenistic, marginalised or exotic window-dressing. The Vietnam War and Hungry Ghost Festival are the story’s bedrock. A cultural richness permeates throughout the series.</p>
<p>Smoking <a href="https://www.unreservedmedia.com/vietnam-incense-village/">joss sticks</a>, shrines adorned with photos of departed family members, the bright chime of a wooden mallet struck against a prayer bowl, the mix of languages spoken within the same conversation by family members of different generations – in interweaving these details, Hungry Ghosts is a textured depiction of the lives and spiritual connections of a diasporic community that now calls Australia home. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hungry Ghosts premieres 9:30pm Monday 24 August – Thursday 27 August on SBS and SBS On Demand</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this new SBS series, four Melbourne families must deal with the ghosts of their past – both literal and metaphorical.Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1394642020-05-27T06:03:08Z2020-05-27T06:03:08ZReview: Warwick Thornton’s The Beach is a delicate conversation with Country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337794/original/file-20200527-106832-mh1jg5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C5000%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS/NITV</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Beach, created and directed by Warwick Thornton</em></p>
<p>Watching Warwick Thornton’s <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/04/28/prepare-be-totally-captivated-warwick-thorntons-new-documentary-beach">The Beach</a> is a journey into place and self. It made me want to breathe deeper and smell the salty air. It made me want to walk barefoot among the mangrove trees. And it made me want to eat. </p>
<p>Thornton cooks food from the place he dwells in, the shack on the beach at Jilirr, on the <a href="https://www.australiasnorthwest.com/explore/broome-dampier-peninsula/dampier-peninsula">Dampier Peninsula</a> in far north Western Australia, on the land of the Baard people. You want to touch, smell and taste – and feel gratitude for how Country can provide.</p>
<p>Dressed in a flash black jacket and cowboy hat, Thornton arrives in his old Toyota jeep. From the start, the energetic elements of Country are apparent. Fire, water, earth and air are his constant companions – along with his three chooks (the Ladies and Man) and the spices and seeds he tenderly chops, grinds and nurtures with his hands. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CAWgOa6hsm1","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Thornton’s combination of saltwater sustenance with oils and spices makes meal preparation ceremonial. As he hunts, catches and prepares the food, he transforms it – from liquid to solid to gas to artwork on (at times) extremely fancy plates. He gives us a sense of what that Country might taste like, how it might nourish your spirit.</p>
<p>The colours, sounds and smells of this patch of beach are alive and moving. </p>
<h2>Energy of Country</h2>
<p>The Beach was filmed by Thornton’s son Dylan River. And it’s beautiful. Every shot is a living, breathing piece of artwork. Country itself – this little piece of liminal space between land and sea with a one-room wood and tin shack – is as much the protagonist as Thornton himself. And the chooks. And Hermit Crabs - who pay no attention to Thornton’s requests, but carry on with their own business.</p>
<p>Near and far, with intimate close ups, wide panoramic views and aerial shots, River captures the colours of the land, sea and sky: their movements; the patterns they create.</p>
<p>Thornton’s interactions with Country are soundtracked by the sounds of the beach and its tin shack. Tin, wood, wire, glass, steel and cloth all contribute to the dialogue. Thornton’s skill at using the sound of silence – nowhere more evident than in his breathtaking and heartbreaking film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340123/">Samson and Delihah</a> – creates layered dialogues swirling in conversation with Thornton, much like the swirling tides that, at times, turn the shack into an island. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337796/original/file-20200527-106815-1a67dph.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Beach captures the dialogue between Thornton and his shack on the edge of the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS/NITV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sounds of Thornton chopping food, sharpening knives, whirling the handle of the cooker, sizzling in frypans and washing utensils are embedded in the sounds of water, wind and fire. These join with the musical notes of his guitar, sometimes played by him, sometimes played by the wind. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/warwick-thorntons-sweet-country-a-tragic-investigation-of-race-on-australias-frontier-84512">Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country: a tragic investigation of race on Australia's frontier</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The kinetic energy created by Thornton’s use of tools and utensils feels like an extension of the potential energy manifesting from Country itself. It’s as if he taps into the energeticness of the place, harnessing this energy and then extending it from his own body back into place again as he holds his spear, his guitar or his pen. </p>
<h2>Tracing patterns</h2>
<p>Thornton’s presence and stories, River’s camera, and the beach each give glimpses into memory, time, scale and the aliveness of place. </p>
<p>The beach is ever shifting and changing with its tides and winds and the movement of Moon and Sun. The cloud formations are undeniable story tellers. </p>
<p>Amid the stories of and from Country that Thornton lives and River’s camera lens sees are the stories Thornton tells. Storytelling time with the Ladies and Man; the moments between him, his guitar and its musical notes; his long shadow stretched above him and his track of footprints behind him across the sand continually speak of the journey he is on. </p>
<p>With the stories come the patterns and the scars. Patterns in the sand and tides, patterns in the wood that abounds, patterns in the string of the fishing net, patterns he burns into his guitar. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337795/original/file-20200527-106836-qh4ulo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Beach captures the colours of the land, the sea and the sky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS/NITV</span></span>
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<p>Thornton seems very aware of the patterns that surround him. The patterns in his life and himself he recognises and owns. The scars he carved into his arm; the Fibonacci-like spiral fractal tracks he carves in the sand with his car. </p>
<p>As he strips away the outer layers of a coconut he strips away layers of himself to find his centre, to regain his balance. </p>
<p>With his last feed of oysters, provided by Country and cooked among the mangrove trees, you see the transformation Thornton experiences. By the time he’s ready to leave, you can feel Thornton’s calm: his energy has moved through the extreme heat, from the dream to reality, with the big full Moon rising. </p>
<p>Watching Thornton pack up and leave, I remember something he said in one of his stories: “You gonna follow, or are you gonna create your own path?”</p>
<p>These words stay with me long after I watch him drive away. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Beach premieres on NITV, SBS and SBS On Demand on Friday May 29 at 7.30pm.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brooke Collins-Gearing lectures in Literature at the University of Newcastle. She has Murri heritage and grew up on Gamilaroi Country. Her research and teaching interests are in Australian Aboriginal children's literature, children's literature, Young Adult literature and decolonising pedagogies. She is on the board of studies for NAISDA, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance College.
</span></em></p>This new NITV documentary captures the power of Country.Brooke Collins-Gearing, Senior Lecturer, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1363942020-04-15T09:48:17Z2020-04-15T09:48:17ZRegional media get COVID lifeline but ABC, SBS remain in peril<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328006/original/file-20200415-153318-naszau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After weeks of devastating reports of local newspaper closures and regional broadcast stations turning off local news services, media supporters and observers were united in joy as the Australian government announced a <a href="https://theconversation.com/media-receives-some-government-relief-after-coronavirus-hit-136401">coronavirus relief package</a> for local journalism.</p>
<p>The four-part initiative has been designed to assist local newspapers and commercial free-to-air radio and television and subscription television, following calls for a lifeline from the industry and the communities they serve.</p>
<p>Although coronavirus might have hastened their financial woes, it’s clear that many of these news outlets have been in trouble for a while, with falling advertising and subscription revenue reductions. </p>
<p>Last year <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/streaming-ad-spend-surges-but-tv-market-does-it-tough-in-2019-20200205-p53xyp">was described as</a> “the worst advertising market since the global financial crisis for the television industry”. </p>
<p>Australian metropolitan radio revenues <a href="http://www.commercialradio.com.au/content/mediareleases/2020/2020-01-20-commercial-radio-metro-ad-revenue-for-2#.XpbIE1MzZQI">fell by 6% in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>Regional newspapers have been buoyed by local advertising, but even that has its limits.</p>
<p>Two components of the government’s COVID package, a $41m waiver on the tax imposed on radio and television services for spectrum use, and suspension of key parts of the commercial television Australian content rules, will save commercial broadcasters millions in 2020. </p>
<p>Both major industry organisations, <a href="https://www.freetv.com.au/free-tv-welcomes-immediate-covid-19-relief-package/">Free TV</a> and <a href="http://www.commercialradio.com.au/content/mediareleases/2020/radio-welcomes-govt-relief-measures-but-more-actio#.XpbIx1MzZQI">Commercial Radio Australia</a>, cautiously welcomed the announcement, but sought more action from the government.</p>
<p>The third component, a $50 million Public Interest News Gathering program, will fund journalism for regional broadcasters and print services. </p>
<p>The most heartening line in the government’s press release was the acknowledgement by the minister that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the government recognises that public interest journalism is essential in informing and strengthening local communities.</p>
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<h2>ABC and SBS left out</h2>
<p>In the absence of other government action, there remain two big losers from the COVID-19 announcement for journalism.</p>
<p>First, it excluded the trusted national public broadcasters, even though SBS must also be experiencing a reduction in advertising revenue. </p>
<p>Further, there was no indication the ABC would be given any reprieve from the combined budget cuts/freezes that will total almost $800 million by 2022. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-abc-didnt-receive-a-reprieve-in-the-budget-its-still-facing-staggering-cuts-114922">The ABC didn't receive a reprieve in the budget. It's still facing staggering cuts</a>
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<p>In the midst of the COVID emergency, which has brought a record number of people to the broadcaster, the ABC is continuing to manage an annual budget reduction of over $100 million while delivering its range of services. </p>
<p>As has been widely acknowledged, it has also increased emergency broadcasting firstly for the devastating summer bushfires, and now for the coronavirus emergency, without any specific funds.</p>
<h2>Local drama in jeopardy</h2>
<p>Independent producers of Australian programs, including Australian drama, documentary and children’s drama, are also losers in the COVID announcement. </p>
<p>The decision to suspend commercial television Australian content rules for 2020 is couched in terms of production “disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic”. </p>
<p>However, there are long lead times for much drama and documentary production, and commercial free-to-air broadcasters are allowed to average drama content over three years. </p>
<p>This means a more nuanced and flexible approach to developing and commissioning projects could have helped broadcasters and kept the production sector alive. </p>
<p>In an already hard hit creative sector, TV producers look like losing at least a year of commercial commissions. That’s worth $250 million to the sector. </p>
<p>The government statement also implies the reduction in the Australian content rule may extend into 2021. If that happens, it’ll bring to an end Australian content policy settings that have been in place for almost 60 years. </p>
<p>Originally introduced by the Menzies government, the policy was put in place to ensure there was a strong Australian identity on local television.</p>
<h2>Chilling notes in the details</h2>
<p>Finally, the government has included as part of its announcement, a fast-tracked consultation process on “Harmonising Regulation to Support Australian Content”. </p>
<p>Media observers will be pleased the process has finally started, but all will be concerned about the timing.</p>
<p>It seems more than a little odd for some of the most significant reforms to the way Australian content is delivered via screens are included in an emergency funding announcement.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-abc-and-the-public-that-trusts-it-must-stand-firm-against-threats-to-its-editorial-independence-99784">Why the ABC, and the public that trusts it, must stand firm against threats to its editorial independence</a>
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<p>Buried on page 41 of the document, for example, is an option which would require the ABC and SBS to spend their funding to make up for commercial shortcomings in children’s programming.</p>
<p>Or to put it another way, if that option were accepted, the ABC and SBS would be told by the government of the day to do what the government wants, without any extra funding. That’s completely opposite to the idea of an independent public broadcaster. Perhaps it’s a case for the <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/inbestigators?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwYu8hf3p6AIVzRErCh2RXASdEAAYASAAEgJ1T_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">Inbestigators</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The federal government has announced a package to help regional media through the coronavirus crisis. But our national broadcasters have not been so lucky.Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT UniversityMichael Ward, PhD candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1162802019-06-20T19:59:55Z2019-06-20T19:59:55ZFriday essay: diversity in the media is vital - but Australia has a long way to go<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280122/original/file-20190619-118535-kibqmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michelle Guthrie in 2018: the former ABC managing director made greater staff diversity a top priority. But her final Equity and Diversity annual report failed to meet several long-held targets.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Walkley Foundation’s inaugural <a href="https://www.walkleys.com/awards/media-diversity-australia-award/">Media Diversity Australia award</a> will be announced on June 26, and has had an impressive number of entries for what was once regarded as a niche area.</p>
<p>Diversity in the media is no longer just about minorities; it is well and truly a mainstream issue. Streaming company <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-netflix-inclusion-20180829-story.html">Netflix </a> has appointed an executive to oversee its diversity and inclusion strategy. British media companies like The Financial Times, The Telegraph and Sky <a href="https://digiday.com/media/think-silver-bullet-uk-publishers-hiring-diversity-execs/">are following suit</a>. </p>
<p>As we face a growing tide of unregulated hate speech, the role of the media is crucial in normalising diversity and demolishing the “othering” of difference that divides us. So how is the Australian media faring in the diversity stakes?</p>
<p>Last year, the <a href="https://www.sdin.com.au/diversity/">Screen Diversity Inclusion Network</a> (SDIN) introduced an inaugural award for producers and projects delivering diverse storytelling. It went to Ned Lander Media for the first Australian Indigenous animated children’s series “<a href="https://www.if.com.au/little-j-and-big-cuz-wins-sdin-award/">Little J and Big Cuz</a>”, broadcast on NITV and ABC.</p>
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<p>The screen diversity network represents the peak commercial network body FreeTV as well as the public broadcasters and national and state screen funding bodies; all 22 members have signed a <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2017/08-01-media-organisations-sign-diversity-charter">charter</a> to promote diversity. </p>
<p>SDIN spokeswoman Georgie McClean says things are changing. Network Ten and Screen Australia’s <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2019/03-25-network-10-screen-australia-out-here">“Out Here” initiative</a>, for instance, supports filmmakers with funds to make documentaries on LGBTQI+ communities in regional and rural Australia. </p>
<p>The Nine Network’s Today Show is fronted by two women; its entertainment reporter is Indigenous journalist Brooke Boney, and Syrian-born Sara Abo is a journalist on 60 Minutes. Channel Seven was recently given an <a href="https://pressroom.mipcom.com/press-release-en-2019/mipcom-diversify-tv-excellence-awards-2018and-the-winners-are-1017-680">international TV Excellence award </a>for its portrayal of LGBTQ issues on Home and Away. It has also promoted female directors. </p>
<p>But there is still much work to be done in the journalistic sphere. <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-how-australias-newsrooms-are-failing-minority-communities-104569">Recent research </a> by Deakin University academics, for instance, found that more than a third of media articles reflected negative views of minority communities. </p>
<p>The Media Diversity award will honour reporting that is nuanced enough to alter perceptions and attitudes, challenge stereotypes and fight misinformation. (The <a href="https://www.walkleys.com/2019-walkley-mid-year-celebration-finalists-announced/">finalists</a> are all ABC journalists). The Walkley Foundation created the award with the assistance of a non-profit organisation called <a href="https://www.mediadiversityaustralia.org/">Media Diversity Australia</a>, set up by two ex-ABC employees, Isabel Lo and Antoinette Lattouf. </p>
<p>“It’s not a ‘brown award for brown people’ because all journalists irrespective of background have a responsibility to be fair and balanced in the often complex area of culture and disability reporting,” said Lattouf, director of the organisation and a senior reporter with Channel 10.</p>
<p>Media Diversity Australia has begun a diversity audit of free to air journalism across all Australian networks. From morning television to late night current affairs, it will interview content makers and senior editorial staff. The research will be carried out by several academics, including former Race Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane. As Latouff explains: “The academics will then draw on international comparisons and evaluate strategies that have worked abroad in places like Canada and the United Kingdom and America and make suggestions for local media outlets.”</p>
<p>So how much catching up has Australia got to do? Deborah Williams is the executive director of the UK’s Creative Diversity Network, which works to improve representation in the United Kingdom. Recently, she was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/speakingout/deborah-williams/10975694">asked this question </a> by Professor Larissa Behrendt on ABC Radio. </p>
<p>Australia, she replied, “is where the UK was 20 years ago”. Both women then erupted into embarrassed giggles, agreeing there was still work to be done.</p>
<h2>The importance of empathy</h2>
<p>That diversity is <a href="https://www.pwc.com.au/press-room/2016/media-outlook-jun16.html">good for business</a> is well documented. Advertising campaigns now regularly feature diverse faces and blended families. But the media has an important role in reflecting difference and eliciting empathy for those from diverse backgrounds. </p>
<p>When the Easter Sri Lankan suicide bombings devastated a country that had only just emerged from a 30-year civil war, the world was shocked. But incredibly, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/sri-lanka-why-do-we-care-more-about-notre-dame/11039992">according to Google Trends,</a> there was up to nine times more search interest in the Paris Notre Dame fire than there was for the Christian dead in Sri Lanka within 24 hours of each event. </p>
<p>ABC journalist Avani Dias <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/sri-lanka-why-do-we-care-more-about-notre-dame/11039992">wrote a moving oped</a> challenging our deficit of empathy for the victims of this bombing. “You may have also been at an Easter service or celebrating the holiday with your family,” she wrote. “This is relatable. … Maybe you haven’t travelled to Sri Lanka - it’s true that fewer Australians travel there than France - but all of this is relatable. All of this should be close to home.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279961/original/file-20190618-118535-1c8duus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Relatives and friends bury the victims of a series of bomb blasts at cemetery Don David Katuwapitiya in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 23 April 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">M.A. Pushpa Kumara/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Relatability and empathy is <a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalism_and_the_power_of_emotions.php">what makes storytelling powerful</a>.
<a href="https://9now.nine.com.au/today/brooke-boney/0bc4bd16-8a55-4285-8339-22385df54abf">Brooke Boney</a> is a young Gamilaroi Gomeroi woman who moved from morning radio on ABC Triple J’s Hack to Channel Nine’s Today Show. Within days of starting work there, she had made an impact. </p>
<p>For a moment, last January, I thought I was watching SBS when presenter Deborah Knight declared “we are a country with a diversity of cultures” and then threw to Boney for her thoughts on the significance of Australia Day. </p>
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<p>“I can’t separate the 26th of January with the fact that my brothers are more likely to go to jail than they are to school,” said Boney. “Or that my little sister or my mum are more likely to be beaten and raped than anyone else’s sisters or mum. And that started from that day. So, for me it’s a difficult day and I don’t want to celebrate it … That is the day that it changed for us. What some people would say is the end. That’s the turning point. </p>
<p>The audience got a measured, normalised discussion and a dose of empathy. Co-host Georgie Gardner finished with, "Thank you for the insight Brooke”. And at breakfast tables across the country, a conversation was started.</p>
<h2>Pigeonholing</h2>
<p>The ABC should be commended for its work in hiring and training journalists like Boney and Dias, but it has a problem retaining them. </p>
<p>Media Diversity Australia has been conducting workshops in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and surveying former ABC staff of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Chair Isabel Lo says there is dissatisfaction in how some are treated at the national broadcaster. </p>
<p>One experienced reporter, she says, was often mistaken for a cadet or work experience junior. “They often feel pigeon-holed when it comes to stories they are enlisted to cover or when their opinion is sought.”</p>
<p>The ABC has had various programs in place aimed at achieving diversity in staff and content. Several years ago, there was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whose-australian-stories-cultural-diversity-at-the-abc-29481">Diversity Action Group</a>. That was disbanded and there is now a Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee. It has series of interconnecting groups containing heads of departments at the top, who work across and down to diversity “champions”. </p>
<p>These are people representing women, Indigenous, disabled and LGBTIQ employees and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The champions are often consulted on broadcasting content issues relating to diversity.</p>
<p>But Isabel Lo says this can inadvertently lead to pigeonholing. “One reporter was continually referred to as Chinese and asked about Chinese New Year and for Mandarin translations, despite repeatedly telling them that is not where the individual’s family hails from, they are in fact Vietnamese.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280131/original/file-20190619-118514-177r6e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrants from Vietnam wait for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to arrive at a multicultural event at Koondoola, north of Perth, in April.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Done badly, diversity policies can backfire. According to <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/ex-broadcaster-trevor-phillips-claims-uk-media-diversity-efforts-have-been-tokenistic/">former UK broadcaster Trevor Phillips</a>, some efforts at diversity are “tokenistic” with many television stations “self-congratulating their efforts”. </p>
<p>Quoted in the Press Gazette, he said a lack of diversity at the top of the industry had led to “big mistakes”. </p>
<p>“Our efforts, I would be generous to describe them as tokenistic. The gap between the self-estimation in this field and its actual reality is probably wider than in any other sector I know.” </p>
<p>He said policy is driven by fear of being seen to be racist rather than actually facilitating equality of opportunity.</p>
<h2>Is the ABC meeting its own diversity targets?</h2>
<p>When Michelle Guthrie <a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-guthrie-should-look-to-uk-and-reality-tv-to-achieve-a-more-diverse-abc-58931">took over</a> from Mark Scott as ABC managing director, she made a commitment to diversity a top priority. Speaking in <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/speeches/abc-news-dexterity-diversity-and-collaboration/">October 2016</a>, she stressed that diversity is key to relevance.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have driven this issue hard in my first six months at the ABC. Not because as a daughter of Chinese Australian parents I can claim some sort of moral superiority on the issue. But it is because the ABC Board and I fervently believe that the national broadcaster can only truly reflect cultural diversity if it lives it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But at the time of her departure three years later, her final <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ABC-ED-Annual-Report-2017-2018.pdf">Equity and Diversity Annual Report</a> had failed to meet several long-held targets.</p>
<p>While targets for a required percentage of employees across the board to be women and Indigenous employees were met, the percentage of senior executive roles occupied by those from non-English speaking backgrounds fell to 10.2% (despite a target of 15%). Meanwhile, the percentage of content makers from a non-English speaking background rose marginally from 8.7% to 9% - well short of the 12% target. </p>
<p>The percentage of employees with disabilities - across the board - actually fell from 7% to 5.7%. </p>
<p>While the ABC publishes its diversity figures online, all other free to air television stations were also contacted for information on their diverse hires. Either none was available or emails were not returned.</p>
<p>After three email requests, SBS sent a response that was too late to be analysed properly for this publication. An SBS spokesman said 51% of employees speak a language other than English at home and 44% were born overseas. However, these figures also include the specialist language radio programs. The overall figure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees is 4%, but this includes NITV.
14% of employees identify as being members of the LGBTIQ community and SBS took home brand of the year for the third year in a row at the LGBTI Awards. </p>
<p>I sent a list of questions to the ABC seeking a response to its diversity figures and to Media Diversity Australia’s claims about the pigeonholing of employees from culturally diverse backgrounds. An ABC spokesperson said having a diverse workforce is a strategic priority and a standing agenda item at every leadership team and board meeting. Said the spokeswoman:</p>
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<p>There is clearly more work to do to achieve our goals and targets – particularly in relation to cultural diversity. Its disappointing the diversity measures we have in place haven’t yet had more of an impact on the representation of cultural diversity in our content making teams and that we fell short in our targets for the representation of NESB employees in our workforce.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280132/original/file-20190619-118514-d2nquj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The ABC: more work to be done in representing cultural diversity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The ABC endured debilitating funding cuts during Guthrie’s tenure, with an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-abc-didnt-receive-a-reprieve-in-the-budget-its-still-facing-staggering-cuts-114922">estimated accumulated reduction of $393 million</a> over five years. The spokesperson says external pressures such as a climate of budget cuts and hiring freezes have affected the ABC’s ability to meet its diversity targets.</p>
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<p>Following the most recent headcount freeze, initiated in early July 2018, the number of jobs advertised externally dropped from 64% (in the second quarter) to 28% (in the third quarter) reducing the opportunity to pursue our diversity targets through external recruitment.</p>
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<p>Research worldwide <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/26/success/layoffs-women-minorities/index.html">shows that</a> when budgets are cut, so are diverse hires. </p>
<p>Isabel Lo agrees. Working under the spectre of austerity is “stressful at the best of times,” she says, but tends to penalise those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. “They are arguably the newer and more junior hires on short-term contracts, easily expendable when making budget cuts.”</p>
<p>The ABC is facing more cuts, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-warns-tough-decisions-will-need-to-be-made-on-staffing-and-services-in-wake-of-budget/news-story/940d5ab717d2b38c09c582a23f7e4170">according to</a> managing Director David Anderson, and this does not bode well for diversity. This week he flagged <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/abc-boss-to-push-for-more-diversity-of-views-among-panel-show-guests-20190616-p51y7k.html">prioritising a diversity of political views</a> among panel show guests. </p>
<p>ABC Chair Ita Buttrose has already highlighted the need for an ABC board with relevant media experience. But what has never been achieved, and arguably is needed more than ever, is a board that reflects the diversity of Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Vatsikopoulos is affiliated with ABC Alumni</span></em></p>As we face a growing tide of unregulated hate speech, the media is crucial in normalising diversity. Yet progress here has been slow. Even the ABC has failed to meet some of its own targets for hiring a diversity of employees.Helen Vatsikopoulos, Lecturer in Journalism, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106952019-01-30T03:47:26Z2019-01-30T03:47:26ZWhy slow TV deserves our (divided) attention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256252/original/file-20190130-108370-86h2al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SBS is continuing to tap into the slow TV trend, with its suite of 'Slow Summer' programming, including one exploring the Kimberley.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>SBS’s suite of slow TV programs, “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2018/11/26/its-back-get-set-long-hot-sbs-slow-summer">Slow Summer</a>”, arrived at a fortuitous time in our annual media trajectory, when we were briefly relieved of the busyness plaguing our lives.</p>
<p>On the back of last year’s successful trip on <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1139404867815/the-ghan-the-full-journey%20%22%22">The Ghan</a>, SBS commissioned Sydney-based Mint Pictures to produce two more journeys, The Indian Pacific: Australia’s Longest Train, and The Kimberley Cruise: Australia’s Last Great Wilderness. The programs were each three hours long on SBS. Longer versions (17 and 14 hours respectively) screened on SBS’s Viceland channel.</p>
<p>Others airing are BBC Four’s All Aboard! The Canal Trip (a mere two hours), and North to South, a three-hour, Tolkien inspired, multiple vehicle journey through New Zealand’s Middle-earth.</p>
<p>Ratings have <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/mixed-results-from-audiences-over-sbss-slow-tv-experiment/news-story/1d3a7249afc9c58b1042fbb0ea603584">fallen somewhat</a> compared to last year’s efforts. (The three-hour versions of the Indian Pacific and Kimberley Cruise programs had reached around 1-1.3 million viewers a week after the broadcast, compared with last year’s 1.7 million for The Ghan.) Still, slow TV is actually the perfect genre for today’s viewing habits.</p>
<h2>What is slow TV?</h2>
<p>In its purest, Norwegian-inspired form, slow TV is characterised by minute-by-minute footage of a culturally significant journey, event, or activity, edited together chronologically from numerous camera angles, resulting in an unconventionally long viewing experience.</p>
<p>While The Ghan: The Full Journey might sound long (16 and a half hours), this pales in comparison to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK’s 134-hour live broadcast aboard the cruise ship <a href="https://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten-eng/">Hurtigruten</a> in 2011. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">SBS first screened The Ghan in 2018.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Multiple cameras are often fixed onto the moving subject, notably the classic “phantom ride” perspective from the front of a train, but aerial shots, drones, and subtle tripod movements are also used. The editing pace is slow: most shots last at least 30 seconds, but a single perspective can linger for over an hour. </p>
<p>Apart from a few notable exceptions, such as an isolated cow or the Queen of Norway as she sails by, the journey tends not to single out particular characters. Noticeably absent is the voice of a narrator, nor is there a host, nor even music. Instead, sound emanates from the environments we see (that’s “diegetic sound” in cinema speak).</p>
<p>In short, slow TV is “slow” because it lacks the rollercoaster of emotional cues, narrative guides, and breathless editing pace we have come to expect from television.</p>
<h2>Our multitasking age</h2>
<p>The long duration is the first obvious challenge slow TV has when attracting viewers. But if you consider our fondness for sport, we’re experts at that. A single day of test cricket usually runs longer than six hours. The <a href="https://tvtonight.com.au/2019/01/sunday-27-january-2019.html">1.5 million</a> of us who tuned in to the men’s Australian Open final on Sunday were disappointed Nadal and Djokovic couldn’t reignite their five hour and 53-minute battle of 2012. </p>
<p>Apart from sport, and whatever happened to Big Brother, most of us are now binge-watching our favorite shows. According to <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/media-consumer-survey.html">Deloitte’s most recent media consumer surveys</a>, around two thirds of us are bingeing, defined as watching three or more consecutive TV episodes in one go, with almost half of us paying for a subscription video on demand service such as Netflix or Stan. Deloitte’s 2017 survey of over 2000 consumers suggests we are spending around 17 hours per week watching movies or TV across our devices.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The promotional video for SBS’s Slow Summer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Despite our appetite for prolonged screen exposure, slow TV is so unconventional that SBS has pitched it as a dare for us to watch. Embracing divided responses from last year’s foray with The Ghan, this year’s Slow Summer <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1380214339996/slow-summer">promo video</a> features a series of rival tweets: “Literally as exciting as watching paint dry”; “This is f-ing ART!”; “Yawn… I’m Ghan to bed” ; “#TheGhan a goddam masterpiece”. </p>
<p>This promo captures one of the secrets to the genre’s success: online participation and interaction through social media makes it a collective viewing experience. Travelling across the Nullarbor on The Indian Pacific by yourself would be as lonely as midnight infomercials, but #SlowSummer fills the carriages with discussion, commentary, and comraderie. </p>
<p>While reality television and talk shows have been capitalising on social media interaction for some time, slow TV opens up an entirely new approach to producing content for audiences to provide their own commentary. </p>
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<span class="caption">The Indian Pacific: Australia’s Longest Train aired as part of SBS’s Slow Summer programming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
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<p>Perhaps the most striking finding from <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/media-consumer-survey.html">Deloitte’s 2018 survey</a> is that 91% of us are now multi-tasking while watching TV (up from 79% in 2014): in other words, we might be “passively” consuming what we’re watching.</p>
<p>So the real brilliance of slow TV is its ability to meet the needs of both passive and active consumption. It works on two levels: as a beautiful view in the living room, kitchen, and wherever else your flat-screens might be, and on the other hand if you give it the attention it deserves, you might find yourself embarking on an intellectually stimulating and imaginative journey. </p>
<p>It is precisely the lack of narration and character driven narrative that opens up the space for interpretation and opinion.</p>
<p>While the Slow Summer programs are only available online <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1425041475931/north-to-south-nzs-wildest-journey">temporarily</a>, as with as regular programs, their unique capacity to inspire audiences means they should remain of interest for decades to come. </p>
<p>Our politicians and media consistently chase short-term achievements. As we all rush back to work, perhaps revising our KPIs and considering the value of “slow ratings” might make our collective journey more enjoyable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Burton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Slow TV is perfect viewing for our binge-watching, multi-tasking population.Aaron Burton, Lecturer in Media Arts, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1087432018-12-13T07:01:55Z2018-12-13T07:01:55ZA tale of two media reports: one poses challenges for digital media; the other gives ABC and SBS a clean bill of health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250413/original/file-20181213-178579-1im07g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The competitive neutrality report has given the ABC, and SBS, a clean bill of health.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two reports out this week – one into the operations of Facebook and Google, the other into the competitive neutrality of the ABC and SBS – present the federal government with significant policy and political challenges.</p>
<p>The first is by far the more important of the two.</p>
<p>It is the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/inquiries/digital-platforms-inquiry/preliminary-report">interim report</a> by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission of its Digital Platforms Inquiry, and in a set of 11 preliminary recommendations it proposes far-reaching changes to media regulation.</p>
<p>Of particular interest are its preliminary recommendations for sustaining journalism and news content.</p>
<p>These are based on the premise that there is a symbiotic relationship between news organisations and the big digital platforms. Put simply, the news organisations depend heavily on these platforms to get their news out to their audiences.</p>
<p>The problem, the ACCC says, is that the way news stories are ranked and displayed on the platforms is opaque. All we know – or think we know – is that these decisions are made by algorithms.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/constant-attacks-on-the-abc-will-come-back-to-haunt-the-coalition-government-98456">Constant attacks on the ABC will come back to haunt the Coalition government</a>
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<p>The ACCC says this lack of transparency causes concerns that the algorithms and other policies of the platform giants may be operating in a way that affects the production of news and journalistic content.</p>
<p>To respond to this concern, the preliminary recommendation is for a new regulatory authority to be established. It would have the power to peer into these algorithms and monitor, investigate and report on how content – including news content – is ranked and displayed.</p>
<p>The purpose would be to identify the effects of the algorithms and other policies on the production of news and journalistic content.</p>
<p>It would also allow the authority to assess the impact on the incentives for news and journalistic content creation, particularly where news organisations have invested a lot of time and money in producing original content.</p>
<p>In this way, the ACCC is clearly trying to protect and promote the production of public-interest journalism, which is expensive but vital to democratic life. It is how the powerful are held to account, how wrongdoing is uncovered, and how the public finds out what is going on inside forums such as the courts and local councils.</p>
<p>So far, the big news media organisations have concentrated on these aspects of the ACCC interim report and have expressed support for them.</p>
<p>However, there are two other aspects of the report on which their response has been muted.</p>
<p>The first of these is the preliminary recommendation that proposes a media regulatory framework that would cover all media content, including news content, on all systems of distribution – print, broadcast and online.</p>
<p>The ACCC recommends that the government commission a separate independent review to design such a framework. The framework would establish underlying principles of accountability, set boundaries around what should be regulated and how, set rules for classifying different types of content, and devise appropriate enforcement mechanisms.</p>
<p>Much of this work has already been attempted by earlier federal government inquiries – the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1205_finkelstein.pdf">Finkelstein inquiry</a> and the <a href="https://www.imda.gov.sg/-/media/imda/files/regulation-licensing-and-consultations/consultations/media-convergence-review/1-media-convergence-review-final-report.pdf?la=en">Convergence Review</a> – both of which produced reports for the Gillard Labor government in 2012.</p>
<p>Their proposals for an overarching regulatory regime for all types of media generated a hysterical backlash from the commercial media companies, who accused the authors of acting like Stalin, Mao, or the Kim clan in North Korea.</p>
<p>So if the government adopts this recommendation from the ACCC, the people doing the design work can expect some heavy flak from big commercial media.</p>
<p>The other aspect of the ACCC report that is likely to provoke a backlash from the media is a preliminary recommendation concerning personal privacy.</p>
<p>Here the ACCC proposes that the government adopt a <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/sites/default/files/pdfs/publications/final_report_123_whole_report.pdf">2014 recommendation</a> of the Australian Law Reform Commission that people be given the right to sue for serious invasions of privacy.</p>
<p>The media have been on notice over privacy invasion for many years. As far back as 2001, the High Court developed a test of privacy in <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2001/HCA/63">a case</a> involving the ABC and an abattoir company called Lenah Game Meats.</p>
<p>Now, given the impact on privacy of Facebook and Google, the ACCC has come to the view that the time has arrived to revisit this issue.</p>
<p>The ACCC’s interim report is one of the most consequential documents affecting media policy in Australia for many decades.</p>
<p>The same cannot be said of the other media-related report published this week: that of the inquiry into the competitive neutrality of the public-sector broadcasters, the ABC and SBS.</p>
<p>This inquiry was established in May this year to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-behind-the-competitive-neutrality-inquiry-into-abc-and-sbs-95925">make good on a promise</a> made by Malcolm Turnbull to Pauline Hanson in 2017.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-behind-the-competitive-neutrality-inquiry-into-abc-and-sbs-95925">The politics behind the competitive neutrality inquiry into ABC and SBS</a>
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<p>He needed One Nation’s support for the government’s changes to media ownership laws, without which they would not have passed the Senate.</p>
<p>Hanson was not promised any particular focus for the inquiry, so the government dressed it up in the dull raiment of competitive neutrality.</p>
<p>While it had the potential to do real mischief – in particular to the ABC – <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/documents/inquiry-competitive-neutrality-national-broadcasters-report-expert-panel">the report</a> actually gives both public broadcasters a clean bill of health.</p>
<p>There are a couple of minor caveats concerning transparency about how they approach the issue of fair competition, but overall the inquiry finds that the ABC and SBS are operating properly within their charters. Therefore, by definition, they are acting in the public interest.</p>
<p>This has caused pursed lips at News Corp which, along with the rest of the commercial media, took this opportunity to have a free kick at the national broadcasters. But in the present political climate, the issue is likely to vanish without trace.</p>
<p>While the government still has an efficiency review of the ABC to release, it also confronts a political timetable and a set of the opinion polls calculated to discourage it from opening up another row over the ABC.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller worked as a consultant to the Finkelstein inquiry.</span></em></p>An ACCC interim report is one of the most consequential documents for media policy in decades, while a government report finds both public broadcasters are acting in the public interest.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959252018-05-02T20:21:34Z2018-05-02T20:21:34ZThe politics behind the competitive neutrality inquiry into ABC and SBS<p>Last September, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made a deal with Malcolm Turnbull’s government: You give me an inquiry into the ABC and I’ll support the <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-set-to-win-senate-support-for-media-deregulation-84017">changes you want to make to media ownership laws</a>.</p>
<p>The government agreed to do this in the form of an inquiry into the ABC’s competitive neutrality – and broadened it to include SBS.</p>
<p>It was clear at the time this had the potential to do real damage to the national broadcaster.</p>
<p>Competitive neutrality principles say an organisation should not enjoy an undue competitive advantage by virtue of it being government-funded. It is suitably arcane camouflage for an inquiry whose real purpose is to put pressure on the ABC over its news service, which Hanson had alleged was biased against her. </p>
<p>It was Hanson’s way of getting revenge on the ABC for its pursuit of her over the issue of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/please-explain/8401358">funding for her senate re-election campaign in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>And now we know the shape of this competitive neutrality inquiry. We know who is conducting it, and last week we got to see <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/have-your-say/inquiry-competitive-neutrality-national-broadcasters">the issues paper</a> that the inquiry put out, which tells us what it is going to cover.</p>
<h2>Scope of the inquiry</h2>
<p>The chair is Robert Kerr, who has a Productivity Commission background and impeccable credentials as a free-market economist. Joining him in the inquiry are Julie Flynn, a one-time ABC reporter who used to be CEO of the commercial TV lobby group Free TV Australia, and Sandra Levy, the former head of television at ABC.</p>
<p>This all seems perfectly reasonable, until you remember this is mainly about online media. In that case, why have two people with television backgrounds on the panel? </p>
<p>Online is where the real action is now. Data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority included in the issues paper show just how dramatic the shift has been from traditional television viewing to digital online platforms for media consumption. In 2017, Australians aged 18-34 spent an average of 9.2 hours per week watching video content online compared to just 3.8 hours watching free-to-air television.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-debate-about-australian-content-on-tv-we-need-to-look-further-than-the-abc-95296">In the debate about Australian content on TV, we need to look further than the ABC</a>
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<p>Mark Scott foresaw this when he was <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-conversation-mark-scott-on-his-decade-in-charge-of-the-abc-58288">managing director of the ABC</a> and drove the broadcaster hard into the digital sphere. He realised that if the ABC was not a relevant provider of digital content online, it would soon cease to be relevant.</p>
<p>That’s why the other big media players, especially Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, have lobbied relentlessly to have the ABC’s wings clipped in this arena. Hanson, wittingly or not, played right into News Corp’s strategy.</p>
<p>As for the issues paper, the giveaway is on page 11. </p>
<p>There, it refers to the requirement in the ABC Act that the ABC “take account of the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community broadcasting sectors of the Australian Broadcasting system.” In other words, the ABC is discouraged from just replicating what the commercial broadcasters do.</p>
<p>In that context, the paper then addresses this question to the ABC: How does it apply this requirement <em>specifically</em> to its on-air, iView and online news services? Nothing else. Not its drama or documentaries or narrative comedy or children’s programs. Just its news services.</p>
<p>The reason? That’s the part of the ABC that Hanson detests. So there’s the pay-off.</p>
<p>There are some broader competition questions, as well, but the only part of its vast portfolio the ABC is specifically asked about is its news output. Yet, if there is one category of program content that most obviously and unmistakably distinguishes the ABC from commercial broadcasters, it’s news.</p>
<h2>Time for responses</h2>
<p>Then the issues paper asks “other stakeholders” – basically the ABC and SBS’s commercial broadcasting rivals - a range of questions about ways in which they think they may have been harmed by any undue competitive advantage enjoyed by the public broadcasters.</p>
<p>There is no indication the answers to these questions are going to be subjected to any cross-examination by the ABC or SBS. Not that there would be time for that anyway, with just three months between the deadline for submissions in response to the issues paper on June 22 and the completion of the report in September.</p>
<p>So, the inquiry is a quickie. And by its own admission, it’s trampling over ground already covered 18 years ago by the Productivity Commission. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-abc-is-not-siphoning-audiences-from-fairfax-78329">The ABC is not siphoning audiences from Fairfax</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It also acknowledges in the issues paper that it has to dance its way between a number of other current inquiries, including the <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/australian-childrens-screen-content-review">Australian and Children’s Content Review</a>, the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/inquiries/digital-platforms-inquiry">Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s digital platforms inquiry</a> and the broader <a href="https://consult.treasury.gov.au/market-and-competition-policy-division/competitive-neutrality-review/supporting_documents/CN%20Review%20Consultation%20Paper.pdf">Treasury review</a> of the country’s overall competitive neutrality policy.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the inquiry is likely to provide the Turnbull Government with ammunition should it wish to mount an attack on the ABC’s scope of operations (especially online) and give Hanson what she really wants: a rolled-up piece of paper with which to smack the ABC around the head.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The focus raises questions about the motives behind the inquiry and how it might benefit anti-ABC crusaders, including Pauline Hanson.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818272017-07-31T06:13:30Z2017-07-31T06:13:30ZLes Murray’s death deprives football in Australia of its most passionate and inspiring voice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180299/original/file-20170731-23754-1rkpa10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Broadcaster Les Murray, who has passed away aged 71, was the archetypal team member.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Penny Bradfield</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-31/les-murray-australias-voice-of-football-dies-aged-71/8759810">The death</a> of broadcaster Les Murray at the untimely age of 71 deprives Australia – not just football in this country – of one its greatest supporters.</p>
<p>As the game nurtured him, so he helped football transform itself from a predominantly migrant activity in this country into what he loved to call <a href="http://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/the-world-game-by-les-murray/9781740668897">“the world game”</a>. He opened the eyes of his new compatriots to what they would otherwise have ignored.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/collections/highlights/johnny_warren_collection">Through his partnership</a> with the former captain of the Socceroos, Johnny Warren, Les became football’s public face in Australia. Alan Crisp called them Mr and Mrs Soccer, but never told us which was which.</p>
<p>Together, Murray and Warren enabled SBS to establish itself as something more than a niche broadcaster. Their enthusiasm carried them through some very low spots as Australia’s football teams reached the last qualifying stages for successive World Cups, but always just managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.</p>
<p>Though Warren did not live to see it, Les was there when Australia returned to the World Cup, in Germany in 2006.</p>
<p>The coverage of successive World Cup finals every four years, which used the matches as windows into the host countries, was real education and pioneering broadcasting. The Tour de France has followed and extended the pattern they set.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just the Socceroos or the National Soccer League that benefited from the efforts of Murray and SBS. They were always on the lookout for the next generation of talent here and overseas. So, if you followed them, you would soon learn about emerging players, new schemes for coaching and training, and ideas about how the game was developing.</p>
<p>Not all their ugly ducklings turned into swans, and sometimes their enthusiasm went too far. But you could never fault the commitment of their defence of the code against unjustified criticism from those whose only interest in the game was to do it down.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/80f2jtxUzEk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Les Murray pays tribute to on-air partner Johnny Warren.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Les was the archetypal team member – whether it was playing with his fellow musicians in their Rubber Band, taking part in veterans’ football, attending grassroots football clubs to promote their anniversaries and celebrations, or joining me to try to explain why the <a href="http://hungarytoday.hu/news/hungarian-golden-team-best-ever-bbc-88006">Golden Team</a> of his native Hungary – of Puskas, Hidegkuti and Kocsis – did not appear in Melbourne in 1956 to defend the Olympic gold they won in Helsinki four years earlier. </p>
<p>After his interview with Jeno Buzanszky, at the time one of the only two survivors of that team, we had reassurance that our argument that the Soviet authorities had put pressure on the Hungarians to withdraw did indeed have legs.</p>
<p>All this was done by Les without infringing his amateur status as far as the game and its history was concerned.</p>
<p>Only a couple of years ago I tried to get him to contribute to a book I was putting together, but this time he said he could not do so. Then, he reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes when I think about the hours I put into the game, I guess I only get about ten cents an hour for my efforts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>My immediate response was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Les, you get ten cents. How do you get so much!?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The unspoken answer was always that he gave so much more. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YJGRvvb-kjE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An SBS tribute to Les Murray from 2014.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of his last public occasions was probably as close to his heart as anything he did in his career, when he unveiled a <a href="http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2017/02/04/ferenc-puskas-statue-unveiled-melbourne">golden statue of Ferenc Puskas</a> in the corner of Gosch’s Paddock, just outside football’s Melbourne home.</p>
<p>A proud Hungarian, born László Ürge in a small town outside Budapest, Les was an equally proud Australian. He was an inspiring example of the ability to hold more than two allegiances: he was a citizen of the world, and he never tired of explaining the wider ramifications of what that meant. </p>
<p>He tried to put that into practice as a member of FIFA’s Ethics Committee as the governing body went through <a href="https://theconversation.com/scandals-are-forever-for-fifa-as-world-cup-hosting-saga-drags-on-34240">scandal after scandal</a>. He did not get everything right, but he looked into that cesspool and tried to tackle it as best he could.</p>
<p>Les wrote several books about the game from his unique perspective. Sometimes you got the feeling that he believed it only began in this country around the time he and his migrant colleagues arrived in the 1950s. Bill Murray and I tried very hard to persuade him otherwise, but when he launched <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Football-Australia-Roy-Hay/dp/1742707645">our history of the game</a> in 2014 it was clear that he still clung to his own ideas. </p>
<p>I will miss one of the most generous and inspiring human beings I have come across since we migrated to this country. Les was a great Australian.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"891899443049574400"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roy Hay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Les Murray helped football transform itself from a predominantly migrant activity in Australia into what he loved to call ‘the world game’.Roy Hay, Honorary Fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647352016-10-05T19:15:57Z2016-10-05T19:15:57ZTaking Indigenous languages online: can they be seen, heard and saved?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140450/original/image-20161005-15903-12ku8s5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A billabong on SBS website My Grandmother's Lingo, which takes viewers on an interactive journey through the Marra language.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">My Grandmother's Lingo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With our digital world dominated by English, minority and endangered languages struggle to be seen and heard. A new interactive documentary launched online today by SBS, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/mygrandmotherslingo/">My Grandmother’s Lingo</a>, attempts to add one more language to the mix and raise awareness of the plight of small languages.</p>
<p>In a beautiful, poignant digital installation, Angelina Joshua of Ngukurr guides participants through a sensory-rich tour of her heritage language, Marra, now spoken fully fluently by only three very elderly people. </p>
<p>Angelina explains that she didn’t have the opportunity to learn her own language but is now realising that long-held desire. Her story is enmeshed with her ancestry, and learning Marra as an adult clearly brings Angelina a sense of joy and pride:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was pretty cool when I first learned my first sentence… My dad if he would’ve been alive and my grandmother, they would have been over the clouds. ‘Gosh, my baby girl can speak Marra’. It’s an amazing feeling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A strength of My Grandmother’s Lingo is its interactivity, inviting viewers to learn and say a selection of Marra words, evoking the act of breathing life into this imperilled language. Watching a crow soar, we learn its name in Marra: <em>wanggarnanggin</em>. As we repeat the word for house – <em>radburr</em> – we build a community. A new community of Marra speakers, perhaps. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140390/original/image-20161004-27269-17f40lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angelina Joshua, who tells the story of her family and language in My Grandmother’s Lingo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Angelina Joshua’s grandmother was one of the last people to learn Marra as a first language. She grew up on her traditional country in the Limmen Bight River district of the Gulf of Carpentaria with little contact with Europeans. At around twelve years of age, in the 1940s, she was brought to the Roper River Mission knowing no English but went on to have a long career as a community health worker. She never forgot her mother tongue. </p>
<p>After her retirement, I, along with a number of her own family members, had the privilege of working with her to document and learn some of her language Marra before she passed away in 2013. </p>
<p>Despite there now being only three people in the world who can tell a story in Marra in expressive detail, Marra and other endangered languages in the area are not disappearing out of sight. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ngukurr-Language-Centre-170332173098441/">Ngukurr Language Centre</a> – where Angelina works – is a local Aboriginal organisation doing what it can to support the community’s seven or more threatened Aboriginal languages. </p>
<p>As someone who is already attached to the language and the language group, I’m not ashamed to say that I was so emotional on my first viewing of My Grandmother’s Lingo that I could not speak back to my computer until my tears were under control. How will those less attached receive My Grandmother’s Lingo? I’m interested to know.</p>
<h2>Can technology really save a language?</h2>
<p>With so much of the planet’s linguistic diversity under threat, what role do technology-based projects like My Grandmother’s Lingo have in mitigating the loss of Indigenous languages? It’s a difficult question to answer. </p>
<p>One parameter is resource distribution. When funding to support Indigenous and minority languages is <a href="https://theconversation.com/muting-indigenous-language-support-only-widens-the-gap-27105">scarce</a>, allocating resources to one project or language means another misses out. How do you prioritise? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140395/original/image-20161004-20235-1noq3x7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A campfire in My Grandmother’s Lingo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Is paying a linguist to spend a year compiling a basic dictionary more useful than a year of oral language lessons in a local school? Is a carefully designed commercial publication that took a year to make more useful than a stapled black and white reader run off an office computer that took a week to produce? </p>
<p>Likewise, evaluating project outcomes is tricky. Is quantifying the number of new words and sentences learned the key outcome? Or the skills developed via the process? How can the intangible be assessed, such as the sense of pride and strength a community gains via a great grassroots project? </p>
<p>The glossy end-product of a language project may not reveal much about how community stakeholders benefited from the process. If you come across an article with claims that a language will be “saved” by a new app or website, keep in mind that “<a href="https://blogs.crikey.com.au/fullysic/2012/09/21/our-land-our-languages-and-preserving-our-heritage/">apps don’t save languages. People do.</a>” </p>
<p>(Note: headlines like those are likely to be examples of journalists inflating the value of the story, not overstated claims made by project participants.)</p>
<h2>Finding a place in the digital domain</h2>
<p>There is no disputing that Indigenous and minority languages need a place in digital domains if they are to remain vital. The proliferation of social media – including in remote communities – may not be as detrimental to small languages as you may immediately think. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140398/original/image-20161004-12464-3vvywq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portal in My Grandmother’s Lingo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How we communicate on Facebook and messaging apps is similar to how we talk face-to-face, more so than traditional writing genres of letter-writing and emailing. So Tweeters and Facebookers naturally produce writing that is like spoken language and, hey presto, many people instinctively use their first language on social media. <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201815356/a-vanuatu-language-adapts-to-social-change">Recent research</a> found, for example, that Nkep speakers in Vanuatu are using technology to extend the use of their language, rather than limit it. </p>
<p>Twitter users can voyeuristically follow global social media activity in small thanks to the ingenious <a href="http://indigenoustweets.com/">Indigenous Tweets</a> site. Its catalogue of languages and those who tweet in them lets you see who is tweeting in <a href="http://indigenoustweets.com/mi/">Māori</a>, <a href="http://indigenoustweets.com/tet/">Tetun</a> or <a href="http://indigenoustweets.com/iu-Latn/">Inuktitut</a> to name just a few. </p>
<p>Technology-based developments for minority languages are not always reliant on well-meaning outsiders. In Nigeria, for example, millions of Yorùbá speakers are faced with their language being <a href="https://medium.com/@baroka/my-indigenous-language-interest-is-abiding-95c417802faf#.c7fpl0ekn">dropped from formal education</a> in favour of English. </p>
<p>Technology is a crucial issue for the ongoing health of Yorùbá because computers and devices cannot create the tone markings above and below Yorùbá letters to allow the language to be written properly. Yorùbá writer and linguist <a href="https://twitter.com/baroka">Kọlá Túbọsún</a>, is leading the <a href="http://www.yorubaname.com/about-us">YorubaName.com</a> project, which has, among other things, <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2016/09/23/a-specially-designed-keyboard-allows-yoruba-and-igbo-speakers-to-type-their-languages/">created keyboards</a> allowing Yorùbá speakers to easily type their language. </p>
<p>But what does a project like My Grandmother’s Lingo mean for the Marra language? It can’t replace the community-embedded work that Angelina does at her local language centre, nor can it claim to be an community-led project like YorubaName.com. It features only five Marra words, so the language learning aspect is largely symbolic. Its main function is to raise awareness of the plight of Marra and other endangered languages, and it does so marvellously. </p>
<p>As a linguist and academic, my preoccupations are with clinically representing and analysing knowledge. My Grandmother’s Lingo’s approach is different. It focuses on making users <em>feel</em> something. By the end, visitors to the site will likely share Angelina’s desire to see the Marra language exist long into the future, in any medium.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can see My Grandmother’s Lingo <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/mygrandmotherslingo/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Dickson receives funding from the ARC via a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. He provided in-kind advice to the My Grandmother's Lingo project and intermittently contributes to the work of the Ngukurr Language Centre.</span></em></p>A beautiful interactive SBS online documentary puts the spotlight on Marra, an Indigenous language spoken fluently by just three people.Greg Dickson, Postdoctoral Fellow (Linguistics), The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/598772016-05-25T04:21:37Z2016-05-25T04:21:37ZDNA Nation raises tough questions for Indigenous Australians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123859/original/image-20160525-25213-rlqt7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DNA Nation raises questions of genetics, identity and race. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DNA Nation/SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first episode of the long awaited SBS series <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/article/dna-nation-about-show">DNA Nation</a> screened on Sunday night. In between ads enticing the viewer to part with cash for the chance to be told they descend from a Viking or a Polynesian princess (free shipping if you order now!), we watched Ian Thorpe, Julia Zemiro and Ernie Dingo have their DNA sampled by a geneticist in a white coat and embark on an epic journey across the globe in the steps of their distant ancestors.</p>
<p>The premise is fantastic, and judging by the first episode, production company Blackfella Films has struck the right balance between sweeping landscapes, laboratory shots, Colin Friels’ authoritative narration of the science and Julia Zemiro’s facial expressions. </p>
<p>Tanzania is the backdrop of much of the episode, with the three stars mingling with the Hadza people who, we are told, are the direct descendants of the first Homo sapiens to evolve.</p>
<p>As the first episode closed we watched our intrepid travellers walk out of Africa, just like their ancestors some 50 000-100 000 years ago. From there, we are told, the three will part ways, each on their individual genetic journey. The suspense will entice many viewers back to see episode two, but others will be left with unanswered and uneasy questions.</p>
<h2>How African is Ernie?</h2>
<p>First things first. The focus on the Hadza as living-ancient-people that can reveal our inner nature was low-hanging fruit for critics of popular science, or for that matter, anyone with an Arts degree. </p>
<p>The whole point of flying three famous Australians to Tanzania is that we are all descended from Africans, not just the Hadza. Over the last 200,000 years, the humans that became the Hadza have changed and evolved, just as much as people who now identify as Slovenian, Japanese or Indigenous Australian. </p>
<p>I’m sure the Tanzanian tourism board and the Hadza appreciate the attention, but it is not good anthropology or good science.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123860/original/image-20160525-25213-1yejbb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ernie Dingo with a Tanzanian boy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DNA Nation/SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We glimpsed the even bigger questions that DNA Nation glosses over when our man-in-a-white-coat skyped into Africa to reveal how much African DNA each of our three protagonists carried in their cells.</p>
<p>Ernie, Julia and Ian are all descendants of the humans that left Africa between 50 000 and 100 000 years ago to populate the rest of the world. So, unsurprisingly, each of them is the same amount of African – not very much.</p>
<p>Julia was visibly shocked that Ernie was not more African than she or Ian, since he has brown skin and effortlessly bonded with Hadza children, telling them the names of body parts in his Aboriginal language.</p>
<p>It is great to see Julia, and hopefully many viewers, replace their assumptions that “all brown people must be genetically similar” with a better understanding of science. </p>
<p>In fact, because all humans with recent ancestry outside Africa descend from a relatively small number of pioneers who left the continent, non-Africans have much less genetic diversity than Africans. </p>
<p>Julia and Ernie are likely to share more genetic code than two Africans would. But beyond correcting misconceptions, a-ha moments like these raise tougher questions about potential conflicts between western and Indigenous approaches to knowledge. </p>
<h2>Genetics and Indigenous identity</h2>
<p>Viewers had to switch channels to Stan Grant’s NITV talk show <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/the-point-with-stan-grant/article/2016/02/25/how-watch-point-stan-grant">The Point</a> directly after DNA Nation for an airing of the tricky issues.</p>
<p>For instance, does the idea that everyone comes from Africa undermine the land rights of Indigenous Australians? The panel didn’t provide a clear answer, but we can: it doesn’t.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123891/original/image-20160525-25205-155ekfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stan Grant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DNA Nation/SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no sign that evolutionary science is eroding Indigenous rights in this country. In fact, genetic research into human origins is pushing the date of Indigenous occupation of Australia back <a href="http://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-november-2011/aboriginal-genome-reveals-new-insights-early-humans.html">further and further</a>. </p>
<p>Could genetic ancestry testing ever be used by Aboriginal organisations, governments or courts to prove or disprove Aboriginality? </p>
<p>Indigenous ancestry is part of Indigenous identity, but other aspects – far beyond the reach of genetics – are just as crucial to Indigenous people, including cultural knowledge, community acceptance and connection to country. </p>
<p>The role of genetics in identity will now be a hot topic of debate, with a diversity of views among Indigenous people. Palawa elder Rodney Dillon, for example, argues that genetics could potentially resolve long running and damaging <a href="http://www.tasmaniantimes.com.au/index.php/article/brawl-over-wannabe-and-tick-a-box-aborigines">disputes about Aboriginality</a> within his own Tasmanian community.</p>
<p>In working through the issue, we should keep in mind that Australia has so far avoided the divisive politics of inclusion and exclusion that mar so many Indigenous groups in the United States (and more recently, in Canada), and we shouldn’t let anything change that. </p>
<p>Forget the can – genetics is a barrelful of worms. Indigenous people have known this for a long time, at least since the 1990s. </p>
<p>It was then that the Human Genome Diversity Project, widely known as the “Vampire Project”, sought to sample genetic diversity from Indigenous people around the world. It was a public relations disaster, with little or no consultation with Indigenous groups before it started. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/7328">Central Australian Aboriginal Congress</a> called the project “legalised theft” of Indigenous genetic material. The reputation of genetic research among Indigenous groups went from bad to worse for the coming generation.</p>
<h2>Genomics is everywhere</h2>
<p>Fast forward two decades, and genomics seems to be everywhere. The massive acceleration in sequencing technology means that your genome will soon be an indispensable part of diagnosing and treating a wide range of diseases (and is <a href="https://www.genome.gov/27527652/genomic-medicine-and-health-care/">already used for some conditions</a>).</p>
<p>We are moving to an era of personalised medicine which may have real health benefits for Indigenous peoples. Getting “your DNA done” through a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company is increasingly common, and Indigenous Australians are among those paying up to learn about their genetic ancestry and possible health risks. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123874/original/image-20160525-25231-104dj9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julia Zemiro and Ian Thorpe on DNA Nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DNA Nation/SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aside from the political and ethical problems we have touched on here, there are also technical concerns with the genetic testing industry for Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>For Indigenous viewers of DNA Nation who are inspired to trace their own genetic ancestry, the single company that offers Australian Aboriginal testing is the US based DNA Tribes.</p>
<p>Rather than the conventional method of maternal (mitochondrial DNA) and paternal (Y chromosome) testing used on DNA Nation, they use sections of DNA called single tandem repeats (STRs) that vary in the number of copies each person has. </p>
<p>DNA Tribes compare customers’ 23 pairs of chromosomes with databases from around the world, including Australia. The problem is that these are forensic databases appropriate for forensic casework and paternity testing, but not genetic genealogy.</p>
<p>We don’t know what “reference samples” DNA Tribes are using for Indigenous Australians or whether informed consent was given for the use of this data for commercial purposes. </p>
<p>While it is clear that there is not, and never will be, a genetic test for Aboriginality, advances in genomics will have flow on effects for identity and culture that need wide discussion.</p>
<h2>Flow on effects for identity</h2>
<p>Indigenous Australians should be able to access the potential benefits of ancestry testing, such as it helping with <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/05/10/thousands-dna-samples-may-reconnect-families-torn-apart-assimilation-policies">family reconnection</a>, and shouldn’t miss out on the potential health benefits of genomics. That’s why we need to face the tough questions raised by genetics for Indigenous people, however thorny they may be. </p>
<p>The only certainty here is the importance of full Indigenous engagement in every aspect of genomic science, from the start to the finish. </p>
<p>That’s the approach we take at the <a href="http://ncig.anu.edu.au/">National Centre for Indigenous Genomics</a>. The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/05/17/will-indigenous-australia-lead-way-ethical-genetic-research">first Indigenous-governed genome facility in the world</a>, NCIG began when the Australian National University developed a management strategy for 7,000 blood samples collected from Indigenous communities, mostly in the 1960s and 70s. </p>
<p>At our centre, we will be listening carefully to the difficult conversations that DNA Nation will stimulate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Kowal is Deputy Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Lowitja Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Misty Jenkins is affiliated with The National Centre for Indigenous Genomics.</span></em></p>The SBS documentary DNA Nation tracks three people on their ‘individual genetic journey’. But for Indigenous Australians in particular, genetic testing is a can of worms - politically, ethically and technically.Emma Kowal, Professor of Anthropology, Deakin UniversityMisty Jenkins, Laboratory Head, Immunology, Walter and Eliza Hall InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569882016-04-10T20:01:09Z2016-04-10T20:01:09ZHow ‘Asiavision’ could be a boon for cultural diplomacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117932/original/image-20160408-23932-1fd0e62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's 2016 Eurovision contestant Dami Im performing with Conchita and Guy Sebastian in Sydney earlier this year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>SBS’s deal with the European Broadcasting Union to <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/eurovision/article/2016/03/21/sbs-secures-exclusive-option-develop-eurovision-song-contest-concept-asia">develop a Eurovision Song Contest equivalent in Asia</a> is a welcome chance for Australia to develop stronger ties with the Asia-Pacific region. </p>
<p>The development of an Asian Eurovision - an “Asiavision”, we might call it - is an exciting project for regional unity. In particular, it’s a chance for Australia to forge a stronger sense of belonging within the region through finding some common pop cultural ground.</p>
<p>The idealistic aim of the original Eurovision, was a “song to unite Europe” after the ravages of the Second World War. (Its more prosaic intention was to promote the European Broadcasting Union as a pan-European distribution network.) </p>
<p>Still, the political, cultural, and economic impact of the contest should not be underestimated. Despite Eurovision’s rule prohibiting overtly political statements and gestures, it has been an important stage for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/eurovision/entries/18aa5cc2-0f94-3882-9c57-07fdec46dc5b">expressing both intercultural tensions and friendships</a>.</p>
<p>Several former contestants have even gone on to political careers. Ireland’s winner in 1970, Dana, became a member of European parliament in the late 1990s. The 2004 winner, Ukraine’s Ruslana, secured a seat in the Ukrainian parliament after backing the Orange Revolution.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117937/original/image-20160408-23938-1qad1i4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ruslana addressing a protest rally in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francois Lenoir/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tensions in Asia – stemming from the legacy of Japanese imperialism and the muscularity of China’s regional reassertion – will certainly add a political undercurrent to an Asian version of Eurovision. Still, “Asiavision”, which will start in 2017, appears to be an opportunity more for harmony than discord.</p>
<p>Historically, Australia’s relationship with Asia has been ambiguous at best. It has forged economic ties, but struggles with deeper acceptance. Former Singaporean Prime Minister <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/world/asia/lee-kuan-yew-was-australias-sharptongued-friend-in-asia-20150304-13upqq">Lee Kwan Yew</a> once famously said that Asian countries would continue to build useful links with Australia but, “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Continental_Drift.html?id=tujY4nUQdtkC">we could never regard you as family</a>”. </p>
<p>Lee was not alone in this sentiment. Australia’s “outsider” status in Asia is also visible in its relationship with the Asian Football Confederation.</p>
<p>Despite emerging as a strong side, acceptance of Australia within the confederation has been tenuous. When asked in 2010 if he would support <a href="http://www.espnfc.com/story/849628/world-cup-2022-australia-bid-set-it-apart-from-asia">Australia’s bid for the 2018 FIFA World Cup</a>, former AFC president Mohammad Bin Hammam said, “You are considering Australia as an Asian country?” </p>
<p>Australia’s hosting of the 2015 Asian Football Cup may have gone some way to addressing this. Analysis suggests the Asian Cup resulted in a significant increase in <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-year-on-the-asian-cup-demonstrates-the-potential-for-sports-diplomacy-53487">Asian media coverage from Australia</a>. The stories foregrounded team performances but the backdrop was Australia as a safe, welcoming host for thousands of engaged Asian fans. As one Seoul editor replied when asked what topics he thought were associated with Australia: “Soccer – I had no idea there were so many Koreans there”.</p>
<p>It’s easy to imagine something similar arising out of Australia hosting a celebration of Asian pop music. </p>
<p>In fact, outside of football through the Asian Champions League, and perhaps other sporting events, it’s hard to imagine a better opportunity to increase attention from Asian populations and participation with Asian cultural industries.</p>
<p>With “Asiavision”, Australia is taking the initiative. This could work either for or against us. But SBS has laid the groundwork with its recent embrace of Asian pop culture programming, such as <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/">PopAsia</a> and <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/if-you-are-the-one-australia">If You Are The One</a>. </p>
<p>Asian Australian personalities have also been central to SBS’s Eurovision branding in recent years. Sam Pang, Lee Lin Chin, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUsJi8nKsj0">Jessica Mauboy</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0EhhZWXTng">Guy Sebastian</a>, and now 2016 Eurovision contestant <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/eurovision/article/2016/03/11/presenting-australias-2016-eurovision-song-sound-silence-dami-im?cid=cxenseab_a">Dami Im</a> have all helped SBS to represent Australia as multicultural, but also as part of the Asian region.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117936/original/image-20160408-23901-57kou1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee Lee Chin: a multicultural trailblazer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has already demonstrated a keen eye for exploiting pop cultural trends through “<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/emoji-plomacy#.vrPMYx1Ky1">emoji diplomacy</a>”.</p>
<p>The potential benefits of Asiavision for Australian public diplomacy are such that she should perhaps consider throwing support behind SBS’s efforts. </p>
<p>The budgetary requirements for staging the event should be negligible, as it aims to be be profitable. But the government could provide support (DFAT and Austrade have some experience in this) and leverage the event into other areas of cooperative engagement and relationship building. It’s a low risk and minimal investment, with considerable conceivable benefits.</p>
<p>The key might be to get the big Asian acts, like Korea’s popular boy-band [BIGBANG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(South_Korean_band), and their massive pan-Asian fan communities, involved as supporters and on-air talent. This would mean reaching out to the agencies that tightly control them. A second tactic could be to create opportunities for showcasing developing cultural industries from smaller countries. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117935/original/image-20160408-23932-es9kca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BIGBANG’s G-dragon performing in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Hee-Chul/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia could also gather multicultural talent from around the region to host, judge, and generally promote the show. We’d suggest they could do worse than including Dami Im and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hammington">Sam Hammington</a> (an Australian superstar celebrity in Korean television) in that roster.</p>
<p>Eurovision is not always just wind machines, costume reveals, and bearded drag queens (not to diminish the significant cultural and political impact of Conchita). </p>
<p>It has been an important stage for European nations to perform their national identities, and to debate issues about human rights and regional belonging.</p>
<p>“Asiavision” will be a similar opportunity for Australia and the Asian region to negotiate these questions. Failing that, we will at least be united by song.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia has struggled to forge cultural ties with the Asia-Pacific region. But SBS’s deal to develop an Asian Eurovision could change this - there is more to the event than music, costume reveals and wind machines.Jess Carniel, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Southern QueenslandDamien Spry, Honorary Associate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552192016-02-23T04:04:24Z2016-02-23T04:04:24ZExplainer: what is the placebo effect and are doctors allowed to prescribe them?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112457/original/image-20160223-16459-1q7uhhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The placebo effect is real and powerful, despite it having a bad rap.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Suppose you discovered that some past prescription a GP gave you was actually a placebo. The treatment made you feel better, but now you know that the perceived benefit was really a placebo effect. Would you be upset at the deception, or pleased the doctor had found a way to help you?</p>
<p>There is little research on how often Australian doctors prescribe placebos. But, if they are at all like doctors in other countries, it is a <a href="http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-8-15">common practice</a>. Doctors break no law in using a placebo, but may cross an ethical boundary in choosing to deceive a patient, or to facilitate a patient’s self-deception.</p>
<h2>What are placebos?</h2>
<p>It’s important to distinguish between pure and impure placebos. A pure placebo is a straightforwardly fake treatment – a saline injection or a sugar pill, for instance, that is represented as a drug. </p>
<p>An impure placebo is a substance or treatment that does have clinical value, but not for the condition for which it is being prescribed.</p>
<p>Impure placebos can be vitamins, nutritional supplements, antibiotics for viral infections, sub-clinical doses of drugs, unproven complementary and alternative medicines, or unnecessary blood tests to calm an anxious patient.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058247">2012 survey in the United Kingdom</a> found 1% of GPs use pure placebos and 77% use impure placebos at least once a week. </p>
<p>Pure placebos involve an outright lie. Whether impure placebos should be characterised as deceptive is less obvious. With an impure placebo, the patient knows what he or she is actually taking, but may not realise the doctor does not expect the treatment to work.</p>
<p>The placebo effect is unquestionably real but not yet fully understood. It is now believed there are <a href="http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v36/n1/full/npp201081a.html">different types of placebo effect</a> involving <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24754688">different mechanisms</a>. These include response conditioning based on prior experience, expectation and reward effects mediated through the dopamine system and natural analgesia through the production of endorphins, the body’s own painkillers.</p>
<p>What triggers the placebo effect, though, is belief: the belief that you are receiving a treatment and that it will be effective. The placebo itself is simply a prop to sustain the illusion. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-power-of-drug-color/381156/coloured">Studies suggest</a> coloured pills
are more effective than white pills, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-sense/201201/the-placebo-effect-how-it-works">two pills</a> are more effective than one, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hNY7P1z6qBoC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=placebo+coloured+pills+are+more+effective+than+white+pills,+two+pills+are+more+effective+than+one,+injections+are+more+effective+than+pills+for+some+population&source=bl&ots=q5l_d9jqOw&sig=MFLGEuqbO5shH5KG5ZNfxYZDdgU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinmYvb74zLAhWCnZQKHTfwDhwQ6AEILTAE#v=onepage&q=placebo%20coloured%20pills%20are%20more%20effective%20than%20white%20pills%2C%20two%20pills%20are%20more%20effective%20than%20one%2C%20injections%20are%20more%20effective%20than%20pills%20for%20some%20population&f=false">injections</a> are more effective than pills, placebos <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wk-OxcTKyi4C&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=placebo+injections+more+effective+than+drugs&source=bl&ots=AWvQF3vlzh&sig=7gUcBhjSZ-WfQowr9M8iVxXpA94&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv7oCg8YzLAhVIqJQKHby7DRMQ6AEINTAF#v=onepage&q=placebo%20injections%20more%20effective%20than%20drugs&f=false">administered in hospital</a> are more effective, treatments perceived to be expensive are more effective than cheaper ones and brand-name drugs are <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24754688">more effective than generics</a>.</p>
<p>The placebo effect has an evil twin, the nocebo effect, where a patient experiences adverse side effects from a harmless placebo, or where the expectation of negative symptoms precipitates those symptoms. The placebo effect is ubiquitous, which is why placebo-controlled trials are important in drug evaluation.</p>
<p>A drug’s effectiveness is measured in terms of the extent to which it is better than a placebo. Not all of the benefits of drugs derive from the pharmaceutical compound itself. For many drugs, some part of the benefit depends on the patient’s beliefs.</p>
<h2>Are placebos ethical?</h2>
<p>The placebo phenomenon raises some difficult questions about truth and consent in medicine. The two primary ethical duties of doctors are to act in the patient’s best interests and to respect the patient’s autonomy.</p>
<p>The doctrine of informed consent dictates that patients have an absolute right to make treatment decisions based on full information about the risks and benefits of proposed treatments.</p>
<p>Yet the placebo effect suggests that complete information and unvarnished honesty are not always in the patient’s best interests. Sometimes it may be beneficial for patients to have expectations their doctors do not share.</p>
<p>Similarly, there is an emerging concern in the literature that telling patients about all the possible side effects of a treatment can trigger a nocebo effect, causing some patients to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15265161.2015.1074302?journalCode=uajb20#.VsumMYx96X0">experience adverse side effects</a>.</p>
<p>It is obviously important to know about the side effects of treatments, both for deciding whether to take a drug and to be alert to possible problems. But this kind of information is not therapeutically neutral. It can condition expectations or focus anxieties in harmful ways.</p>
<p>A cognitive intervention that can produce significant pain relief and measurable improvement for a variety of other symptoms is, unquestionably, medically important. It’s questionable, however, whether we should incorporate such an intervention into standard practice, given it requires deception.</p>
<p>Essentially, the issue is the placebo effect has a serious image problem. Discovering that an apparently helpful medicine was merely a placebo can be embarrassing, even shameful. It is often seen as implying gullibility or delusion, or perhaps that the illness was exaggerated.</p>
<p>The emphasis on deception frames the placebo effect as a kind of illusion that is “all in the mind”. But the placebo effect is not a weird anomaly. It shows us something about how the body’s <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2391024/">responses to injury and disease</a> function.</p>
<p>If beliefs, expectations and dispositions are involved in the neuro-physical mechanisms governing pain response, then it may matter a great deal how we understand, imagine and anticipate our own pain.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>David Neil is a guest on tonight’s episode of Insight on placebos, at 8.30pm on SBS.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Neil does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Doctors break no law in using a placebo, but may cross an ethical boundary in choosing not deceive a patient, or to facilitate a patient’s self-deception.David Neil, Lecturer, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/431462015-09-02T16:20:54Z2015-09-02T16:20:54ZWhy the Murdoch press wants to exterminate public broadcasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92287/original/image-20150818-12433-1ozo65t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Like most people with even a passing interest in the part played by News Corporation in British politics, I remember exactly what I was doing when scandal broke in 2011 and the sense of a seemingly indestructible media behemoth crumbling into chaos and ruin before our eyes. Now, Rebekah Brooks <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/02/rebekah-brooks-return-tony-gallagher-sun-editor-rupert-murdoch">is to return as chief executive of News UK</a>, publisher of the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. In 2014 she was cleared of all charges relating to the phone-hacking scandal. </p>
<p>I had been researching and teaching about the News empire for more than two decades by 2011. While I always took care to acknowledge Murdoch’s positive contribution to sustaining the idea that journalism is important and must be invested in if it is to survive the digital age, looking further back the deeply unethical behaviour of The Sun in relation to such events as the <a href="http://hillsboroughinquests.independent.gov.uk/">Hillsborough stadium disaster</a> and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/falklands-war-a-look-back-in-50-photographs-7581454.html?action=gallery&ino=25">sinking of the Belgrano</a> during the Falklands war were and remain classic examples of the excesses of British tabloid journalism.</p>
<p>Murdoch’s use of his media to influence and shape the democratic political process in all the markets where he operates was illustrated by me by reference to Fox News, The Sun and other News Corp outlets which operate as what the late newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell called a “megaphone” for the Murdochian world view and political agenda.</p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>So the impact of the phone hacking scandal of 2011 was a genuinely shocking thing to behold. Robert Peston’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b049ffld">BBC Panorama documentary</a> was a reminder of that moment, which at the time was generally regarded as pivotal in British political history. Where senior politicians of both Labour and Conservative parties had for decades “queued up to kiss the shoes” of Rupert Murdoch and his tabloid editors (as investigative journalist Nick Davies put it to Peston), suddenly no one wanted to be his friend anymore. </p>
<p>The hitherto unspoken truth (unspoken among politicians who were its beneficiaries, that is) that the relationship between the Murdoch media and the political elite in Britain had become undemocratic and incestuous – became the new common sense overnight.</p>
<p>Among the many adverse impacts of the scandal on News Corporation was the collapse of its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14112465">bid to buy the remaining 61% of the shares for BSkyB</a> that it didn’t own, a deal that was by now attracting heat for both the Murdochs and a government that had seemed eager to wave the multi-billion deal through despite massive public opposition. </p>
<p>Few doubted that the reputation of Rupert Murdoch and the corporate culture which he had presided over for more than 40 years had been seriously, perhaps terminally, wounded.</p>
<h2>Rupert resurgent</h2>
<p>That view has turned out to be well wide of the mark. Once again News Corporation is <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1580368.ece">on the offensive against its old enemy</a>, the BBC, lobbying a Cameron government – armed now with a majority in the House of Commons and thus empowered to act with greater freedom than was possible in the five years of Coalition – to shrink the corporation.</p>
<p>Once again there are reports of Murdoch’s privileged access to the corridors of power, as in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-under-pressure-to-reveal-if-meeting-with-rupert-murdoch-preceded-announcement-of-bbc-cuts-10428769.html">The Independent in July</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>George Osborne is under pressure to reveal if he held a private meeting with Rupert Murdoch days before the Treasury imposed a £650m budget cut on the BBC. Whitehall speculation about the alleged meeting – which would raise fresh questions about the closeness of the relationship between the Conservatives and the Murdoch empire – has prompted Labour to write to Mr Osborne demanding he release full details of his contact with the News Corp boss. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And now Brooks is back. It looks like business as usual, then, for a global media baron used to commanding the attention of political leaders and wielding his power to influence policy making.</p>
<h2>Whose side are you on?</h2>
<p>In Australia where I live and work – and where the phone hacking scandal had little impact on News Corporation’s activities – a similar offensive is <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/piers-akerman-grubby-excuses-cannot-erase-the-abcs-shame/story-fni0cwl5-1227417790359">underway against the ABC</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, as in the UK, News Corporation is allied to a right-of-centre government which regards the public sector in general, and public service media in particular, as hostile to its goals and ripe for “reform”. The Australian, News Corp’s flagship title down under (like The Times and Sunday Times in the UK) maintains a steady flow of anti-public service media reportage and commentary, criticising with boring predictability executive salaries, or the alleged bias of its news department, or indeed anything that can be made to appear excessive and un-Australian.</p>
<p>Prime minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/23/abbott-asks-the-abc-whose-side-are-you-on-over-zaky-mallahs-qa-appearance">recently asked of the ABC</a>: “Whose side are you on?” In a similar way, News Corporation likes to present the ABC as a cultural fifth column, its commentators regularly demanding that it be reduced to a “market failure” broadcaster (and in the process, coincidentally enough, allowing News the opportunity to become even more dominant in the Australian media landscape <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/media-ownership">than it already is</a>). On this issue, as on many others, Murdoch’s media act as cheerleaders for the Abbott government.</p>
<p>I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the ferocity of the campaigns against public service media in Australia and the UK could easily be read as more than coincidence. In both countries News Corp press seek to undermine the funding models of public service media, and their right to produce popular entertainment programming such as The Voice. This has been a decades long campaign for News Corp in the UK, and after the Jimmy Savile scandal and other dents to its reputation, the BBC is more vulnerable than it has ever been. </p>
<p>The ABC, one might argue, is in a stronger defensive position than the BBC. While the latter now faces five years of majority Conservative government, Abbott must go to the polls in September 2016 at the latest – and repeated opinion polls show a deep affection among Australians for the ABC. Tampering with Auntie would be politically risky. The real danger will come if the Coalition is re-elected with a comfortable majority, giving Abbott the freedom of manoeuvre now enjoyed by Cameron in the UK.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the BBC and ABC must hold their nerve, and trust in the capacity of the publics they serve to continue recognising the importance of the role they play and the excellent value for money which they deliver. Both the BBC and ABC cost the individual license fee or taxpayer much less than a subscription to Foxtel or BSkyB. Even the purchase of one daily newspaper in either country for a year exceeds the cost per person of funding pubic service media and the wealth of content they deliver on TV, radio and online.</p>
<p>Supporters of public service media are familiar with these arguments, but in both Australia and the UK they must be made and made again, forcefully and with confidence. To lose the BBC and the ABC, or to see them reduced to a pale shadow of public service media – <a href="http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/stn-legacy/public-media-and-political-independence.pdf">think PBS and NPR in the United States</a> – would be a cultural disaster from which there would be no recovery that was not directed by News Corporation and other private media interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>We thought the phone hacking scandal would chasten News Corp. We were wrong.Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453002015-08-24T05:32:20Z2015-08-24T05:32:20ZYou’ll miss it when it’s gone: why public broadcasting is worth saving<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92080/original/image-20150817-5083-etgf7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Public broadcasting is a lot more than a safety net for commercial market failure.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an age of global media abundance, the notion that public broadcasting is a mechanism to address “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/bbc_funding_review/annex8.pdf">market failure</a>” is beguiling. It is also fundamentally wrong.</p>
<p>Public broadcasters have a unique national responsibility to provide a public good to citizens, rather than the more narrowly defined and easily measured mission of commercial broadcasters, to engage consumers and maximise the return to shareholders.</p>
<p>Public broadcasters provide a return that is more complex to measure, but with the increasing sophistication of “impact measurement”, not impossible. The exact nature of the outputs and outcomes varies from one country to another, but includes providing platforms for news, entertainment and education that foster a shared sense of national coherence. </p>
<p>Public broadcasters including the BBC, ABC, SBS, CBC among others, do this by providing a non-partisan information base, which in turn creates opportunities for political, cultural and local engagement. By committing resources to producing news, drama and entertainment, they not only foster professional skills and output, but the scope and sustainability of the production industry. The BBC and ABC have also often been important sources of technological innovation in both platforms and content, and talent development, which over time benefits both the sector and enriches the lives of citizens.</p>
<p>Commercial broadcasters also contribute to this mix, of course. In every country local content makes sense, and in most, licensing regulation requires it. But the primary responsibility is to profit, to make money by maximising audiences. Inevitably some content will overlap, for instance, both the public and commercial broadcasters have invested heavily in news and drama. Depending on the funding model that underpins the sector, some public broadcasters mirror the commercial industry more closely than others.</p>
<h2>Public good</h2>
<p>The fundamental “public good” rationale, which has implicitly defined public broadcasting for nearly a century, grew out of scarcity – of spectrum, capital and content. Domestic regulation addressed this with codes of practice, quotas and licence fees.</p>
<p>This model has been thrown into sharp relief in a globalised media world characterised by <a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-future-or-race-to-the-bottom-what-journalists-really-think-8692">abundance, audience fragmentation and life-threatening challenges</a> to the business models of companies that grew rich in the era of mass media. The declining numbers of journalists and newspapers is comparable in countries with and without strong public broadcasters – the business model is not threatened by public broadcasting, but by its own dynamic.</p>
<p>Rather than making public broadcasting irrelevant, this context makes it arguably more important than ever. Without the public broadcasters continuing to employ large numbers of journalists, local coverage would be even weaker. No other media organisation has a primary responsibility to citizens, as a nationally defined group.</p>
<p>Addressing this need is not just a matter of compensating for any market failure, which will inevitably occur at a time of rapid technological and economic change, but goes further.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92073/original/image-20150817-5088-1c2mmzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IPSOS Mori</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Public broadcasting is not just “another business”. Indeed it must operate with greater efficiency and effectiveness, with more transparency, and address the cultural and political needs of a society that expects world’s best entertainment and news services, because it is provided by public funds.</p>
<p>As BBC strategist <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/14/battle-for-the-bbc">James Purnell said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can squeeze a very ambitious version of the BBC into the argument that it is an organisation that exists to correct market failure. Arguably, it might be more persuasive. But it’s not true. This is clearly a life-enhancing service that meets public goals we have as a society.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What is the market?</h2>
<p>Market failure is a technical economic term which, like many phrases from that lexicon, seems to have a commonsense meaning – that when a market fails to operate efficiently or deliver the expected goods and services, steps can be taken to address the shortcoming.</p>
<p>This raises the question: what is the market? In the media industry, assessments of market inevitably revolve around advertising. Attempts to define markets for content, or national culture, are much more problematic and have done little to prevent monopolies.</p>
<p>Commercial broadcasters engage with an audience of consumers, seeking to maximise their numbers and the profits that can be derived by successfully entertaining and informing them. Public broadcasters are required to provide a universal service to fulfil their responsibility to citizens.</p>
<p>There are areas that do not make commercial sense – but this is a rapidly changing field. Once, for instance, it was public broadcasters who covered sport, until the money chased them out. Simply filling the gaps before they become profitable is not a firm institutional basis.</p>
<p>As the cultural deficits become clear public broadcasters have evolved to address them – in Australia this included the <a href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/sbs_3.pdf">creation of SBS</a> as a multicultural broadcaster and <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/indigenous-broadcasting">National Indigenous TV</a> to address the limited representation of the First Australians. Other areas of national cultural deficit are emerging in response to the globalisation.</p>
<p>Public broadcasters therefore provide a service that is both universal and particular, according to the framing of national charters, but which also implicitly or explicitly also address other public purposes. As a result the standards of public accountability, are also higher and the contest over ideas is more robust. Independence and trust are essential – hard won and cherished.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92077/original/image-20150817-5121-1sexztw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC Annual Report 2013</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not surprisingly at a time when audiences are fragmenting as choice proliferates, there are commercial operators ready to <a href="http://www.thetvfestival.com/website/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GEITF_MacTaggart_2009_James_Murdoch.pdf">argue that public broadcasters should retreat to the niches and specialist gaps</a> and leave the mass to them, there are also emerging areas of cultural deficit as fragmentation and globalisation take their toll.</p>
<h2>Cultural bedrock</h2>
<p>Public broadcasters need to have a universal reach to provide a shared resource funded by all citizens and available to them all. This goes to the heart of the bedrock of a national culture – identity, meaning, shared experience – which requires investment in both platforms and content. In these times public broadcasters uniquely have both the capacity and authority to act as an institution when the commercial media is less able and willing to fulfil this role. As a result they retain a much higher level of public trust than the commercial media. In a fragmenting environment they are able to continue to exercise an institutional role that profitability alone cannot guarantee.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/communications-committee/news-parliament-2015/bbc_enders_hewlett_freedman_tambini_20150707/">House of Lords inquiry into the BBC’s licence fee</a> is focusing on the public purposes of the national broadcaster: its capacity to sustain citizenship and civil society, promote education and learning, stimulate creativity and cultural excellence, represent the full range of regions, bring the UK to the world and back and help deliver the benefit for emerging technologies. Defining these purposes is a useful adjunct to the charter – addressing outcomes as well as outputs – and help explain why public broadcasting continues to be more than a mechanism to address market failure.</p>
<p>Charlotte Higgins has argued that the UK without the BBC would “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/14/battle-for-the-bbc">no longer be Britain as we know it</a>” – the same applies for the ABC in Australia. Public broadcasters continue to have a unique role of challenging, informing and entertaining a citizenry that is defined by national boundaries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julianne Schultz is a member of The Conversation's editorial board. She was a member of the Board of the ABC from 2009-2014, and currently chairs the Australian Film TV and Radio School.</span></em></p>Repeated surveys show that people value public broadcasters highly. But the political class isn’t listening.Julianne Schultz, Founding Editor of Griffith REVIEW; Professor, Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414912015-06-08T20:09:32Z2015-06-08T20:09:32ZSBS Radio should look to its past to nurture its future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84074/original/image-20150605-14141-vzsw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SBS Radio – now 40 years old – should draw on deep connections to its disparate language communities in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brandon Warren</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For some 40 years, <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/">SBS Radio</a> broadcasters have delivered homeland news to migrants, mediated Australian politics and culture, and provided a platform for Australia’s 200 or so ethnic communities. The most multicultural broadcaster in the world, going to air in <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/yourlanguage">74 languages</a>, its promulgation of social cohesion in an era of heightened ethnic and religious tensions provides lessons not just for Australia, but for any multicultural society.</p>
<p>Not that it started out with such lofty notions.</p>
<p>Its precursor, Radio Ethnic Australia, was <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/article/2015/02/20/40-years-history-broadcast-you-sbs-radio">launched</a> as 2EA in Sydney on June 9, 1975 – 40 years ago today, in fact – and on 3EA in Melbourne shortly after, as a way to provide information to migrant groups on government initiatives <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-on-for-sbs-in-the-fight-for-public-broadcastings-future-25762">such as Medicare</a>. </p>
<p>In a pre-internet era, it was a thrill for migrants to hear their own language on Australian airwaves. As <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/the-sbs-story_the-challenge-of-cultural-diversity/">The SBS Story</a>, a 2008 book on the broadcaster, recounts, a Turkish truckdriver driving down Parramatta Road, Sydney, was so elated on hearing the first Turkish broadcast, he got out and danced, causing a traffic jam.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/40-years">Starting</a> with eight, mostly European, languages, SBS Radio’s evolving language groups reflect the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/censusexplorer/">changing demographics</a> of Australian society. </p>
<p>It remains hugely important in connecting new communities rendered fragile by war: for instance the Afghani community, whose Pashto broadcaster, Abdullah Alikhil, <a href="http://www.maribyrnong.starweekly.com.au/story/1812166/williamstown-s-un-worker-jillian-hocking-leaves-fear-behind/">fled to Australia</a> in 2012, following threats from the Taliban. </p>
<p>Besides providing vital information on homeland politics for recent migrants whose English is still poor, SBS Radio’s national footprint allows Alikhil to build community identity. In an interview for this article he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I attend a lot of community gatherings and broadcast them back, giving a voice to the community firstly, but also unifying the Pashto community from around Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Broadcasters or journalists?</h2>
<p>Early SBS “broadcaster/journalists” (BJs) were often popular community figures rather than professional journalists. The current author’s (McHugh’s) Sydney trainee group in the mid-‘90s included a Danish plumber, a Gujurati vet, a Croatian air stewardess and a Rwandan refugee. </p>
<p>As Training Manager in Melbourne, this article’s contributor (Hocking) conducted a skills audit of staff. She found “highly qualified actors, theatre directors, musicians, writers, film makers, translators, cross cultural mediators, artists”.</p>
<p>Their cultural backgrounds did not always conform to Australian journalistic norms. McHugh recalls a baffled Russian emigrant in the 1990s who expostulated: “But we haven’t told the listeners what to think!” Others openly intruded their politics: one BJ solicited donations for a military campaign in his homeland for months before being detected.</p>
<p>From the 1990s, SBS Radio ramped up its <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=apme">BJ training</a>. Programs were translated and audited at random, to ensure they complied with <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/corporate/view/id/109/h/Codes-of-Practice">SBS codes</a>. </p>
<p>Broadcasters reporting on such critical events as the Balkan War had to tread a delicate path. A BJ from one side of a conflict could be stationed at a desk metres from one reporting the opposite perspective; listeners also had strong and diverse opinions; yet BJs were supposed to maintain editorial balance. </p>
<p>Some groups did not always toe the line. Vietnamese, for instance, was openly pro-South Vietnam. But collaborations also developed. Hocking guided Turkish broadcaster Bulent Ibrahim and Greek broadcaster Yugenia Moraitis in their first, award-winning attempt at radio documentary-making – on the sensitive topic of how Australian Greek and Turkish migrants viewed the Greco-Turkish war.</p>
<h2>Shifting demographics and digital innovation</h2>
<p>Italian, Greek, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Mandarin remain the dominant communities, but the Arabic language program now serves 22 ethnicities. One of its producers, Ghassan Nakhoul, won SBS Radio’s first Walkley Award, for a documentary, in Arabic, <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/content/walkley-award-five-mysteries-siev-x">The Five Mysteries of Siev X</a>. </p>
<p>Other broadcasters have delved into topics such as the <a href="http://www.unaavictoria.org.au/files/bye_bye_italy_complete.pdf">Italian migrant experience</a>, the history of Fiji’s <a href="http://www.indianlink.com.au/the-story-untold/">indentured Indian</a> labourers and the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/radio/content/walkley-award-echoes-srebrenica">Srebenica massacre</a>.</p>
<p>Audience demographics are continually monitored. In 2006, four languages (Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Welsh and Byelorussian) were dropped to make way for newer communities: Amharic (Ethiopian), Nepalese, Malay and Somali. In 2013, a restructure increased airtime for Punjabi and Hindi, and introduced six new languages: Malayalam, Hmong, Pashto from Asia, and Dinka, Swahili and Tigrinya from Ethiopia/Eritrea. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/04/10/australias-first-dinka-language-radio-broadcaster">Dinka</a> program provides reliable information for the war-torn Sudanese community. Its broadcaster, David Chiengkou, does not relay second-hand stories. Talking to us for this article, he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am very persistent. So when we want to talk to the government of South Sudan we have a direct telephone to the office of the Minister of Information. When we want to talk to the army we have the direct telephone of the army spokesperson. […] We have access also to the top leadership of […] the rebels.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Technology has wrought other changes. Apps, online delivery and smartphones have attracted a new CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) youth audience. Online music shows showcase popular trends from Bhangra, Bollywood, Desi, the Middle East and Asia; Pop Asia is the number-one digital-only radio station based on Facebook in Australia.</p>
<p>SBS Radio is now a less separate entity. Radio and social media are integrated with SBS TV, to support breakthrough programs such as <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/goback/">Go Back to Where you Came From</a> (2011), giving enormous penetration of non-English-speaking communities. </p>
<p>This pan-approach has been applied to topics such as Anzac Day, eliciting war stories from Sikh, Italian and Polish listeners, to give a more nuanced view of national milestones. </p>
<p>But this challenge to a monolithic “Australian” history <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/26/sbs-sports-reporter-scott-mcintyre-sacked-over-direspectful-anzac-tweets">suffered a setback</a> with the recent sacking of SBS reporter Scott McIntyre for <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2015/05/06/getting-scott-mcintyre-lest-we-forget-role-pundits-politicians-and-social-media-mob">posting on social media</a> comments that <a href="https://theconversation.com/anzacs-behaving-badly-scott-mcintyre-and-contested-history-40955">rejected the glorification</a> of Anzac Day.</p>
<h2>Social cohesion in the 'terror’ era</h2>
<p>In an online age, when citizens of a democracy such as Australia can freely search out cultural communities and track the news in their homeland, it could be argued that the funding of SBS Radio is a waste of public money. </p>
<p>But with extremists such as IS cleverly using social media to promulgate propaganda and recruit followers, the need for a public broadcasting sphere that adheres to principles designed to uphold a civil society is clearer than ever. </p>
<p>Its aim should be to elevate rather than to degrade the public, to echo sentiments extolling freedom of the press expressed in the aftermath of the second world war (<a href="https://archive.org/details/freeandresponsib029216mbp">Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press</a>, 1947). </p>
<p>If the government is serious about tackling homegrown jihadism, as its recent budget allocation of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/federal-budget-2015-abbott-government-commits-450m-more-to-fight-local-jihadis-20150511-ggz828.html">A$450 million</a> to national security operations suggests, it should be channelling more, not less, resources to SBS: the budget saw a <a href="https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/2015-budget-reductions-acma-and-national-broadcasters">cut of A$2million</a>, from A$285 to A$283 million annually.</p>
<p>SBS should also look to its own history to nurture its strengths. Its increasingly corporate model aligns with mainstream media organisations, but SBS Radio needs to retain its community advocacy role. </p>
<p>It is the plurality of cultures at SBS Radio, and broadcasters’ deep connections to their communities in Australia and overseas, that will enable it to continue to make a remarkable and valuable contribution to Australian society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh taught broadcasting skills to SBS Radio broadcasters as a consultant from 1994 to 2005. She was Acting Training Manager at SBS Radio Sydney 2004/5 and co-produced, with SBS Hindi broadcaster Kumud Merani, the documentary Sweet Sorry: Indentured Indian Labour in Fiji, winner of an Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union award.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Hocking was Training Manager at SBS Radio, Melbourne, from 1995 -2006.</span></em></p>Its increasingly corporate model aligns with mainstream media organisations, but SBS Radio needs to retain its community advocacy role – in the current climate more than ever.Siobhan McHugh, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/418242015-05-22T02:36:03Z2015-05-22T02:36:03ZSocial media sackings risk stifling journalistic expression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82534/original/image-20150521-5957-1cedaa9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Journalists are often expected to engage with social media.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/esthervargasc/10948923353/in/photolist-hFw6sz-kYMtE5-VsA5F-9zN58x-5fxik-HSiTj-dHvtNv-dzvx9c-8GLCbk-gonbt-eh2ssw-5PyVR9-74Z3Sh-vAGm-9u5uTv-dkvgSP-dkviAw-dkvg3p-nERfQJ-cW27gw-dkvgCt-5vkqTv-ay7n1M-bkA1Lm-pQBrZW-ku59L3-akrDb2-dkviwA-bQBXJB-akwtPd-9u5uyM-dkvj7h-9HshFP-pQxf7Z-jzQ7gH-bkA1WE-bkA1UQ-byuUnB-byuUFD-avcohG-fE8jta-bkA1PW-oCeewL-oEcHiD-byuUrp-byuUAr-5eogJk-9ZHtq7-bN9PFX-4k18mX">Esther Vargas/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The one defining ideal of journalism is the belief that journalists should “speak the truth” even when the truth may be contested, unpopular or damaging. </p>
<p>The ideal of freedom of expression is the bedrock of journalism, hard won since “<a href="http://journalismethics.info/media_law/history_of_free_press.htm">freedom of the press</a>” meant being able to own and operate a printing press, free of government control and without a licence.</p>
<p>For nearly 500 years journalists have maintained a significant degree of autonomy despite the constant tension with the editorial, financial, managerial and regulatory structures around which they have to work. </p>
<p>The freedom that journalism claims has always been conditional. Yet, even as media organisations struggle to manage the changes associated with online technology, journalists have continued to maintain the importance of autonomy and freedom of expression. </p>
<p>Remember <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/charlie-hebdo-attack">Charlie Hebdo</a> and the global debate about media freedom? World leaders marching arm in arm in Paris in defence of this ideal? </p>
<p>Journalism has managed to work through the rise of the internet, mobile technologies, bloggers, citizen journalism and digital cameras. But social media is perhaps its biggest threat so far, not because of the content that pours from it, but rather the restrictions imposed by employers and by self-appointed guardians of public sensibilities. </p>
<p>With the expectation that they meet corporate and institutional guidelines 24 hours a day, the threat to journalism is of even greater self-censorship, and a complete loss of autonomy. </p>
<h2>Spiral of silence</h2>
<p>Recent situations where journalists, such as Scott McIntyre, have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/scott-mcintyre-vs-sbs-will-test-employees-right-to-be-opinionated-42042">dismissed</a> after posting what have been perceived as controversial, inappropriate or inflammatory statements on social media sites highlight the potential for increased self-censorship by journalists. </p>
<p>This is particularly so in light of the perceived need to conform to organisational codes rather than simply obeying the law, producing a spiral of silence and creating new norms of obedience and conformity. </p>
<p>The “<a href="http://www.afirstlook.com/docs/spiral.pdf">spiral of silence</a>” effect is the tendency for people to remain silent when they believe they are in a minority. It’s dangerous because it restricts the free flow of opinion, ideas and criticism. </p>
<p>The presence of a spiral of silence is powerful enough for people to censor themselves, without the need for rules or codes. Once silenced, people refrain from expressing contrary or non-conformist views, from questioning or challenging orthodoxy, or speaking up about corruption, malpractice or incompetency. </p>
<p>The creation or development of a spiral of silence works because people silence themselves when they fear isolation from the majority, as in the practice of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-time-cure/201302/shunning-the-ultimate-rejection">shunning</a> or being “<a href="http://www.grammar-monster.com/sayings_proverbs/sent_to_Coventry.htm">sent to Coventry</a>”. </p>
<p>Or they fear more tangible reprisals, such as loss of status, public humiliation, the application of restrictions (i.e. “black listing”), loss of opportunity and loss of employment. </p>
<p>Authoritarian regimes are very good at creating the environment for a spiral of silence to occur, but the conditions in which it develops can also be more subtle. </p>
<p>The evidence from the current hearings of the <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ballarat</a> and the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru">Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru</a> show how a spiral of silence can develop in a system. </p>
<p>The compelling evidence of how people suppress information out of fear also demonstrates the dire consequences of silence and self-censorship. </p>
<h2>Suppression of radical potential</h2>
<p>Until recently, most people were able to comment in online forums or on social media without it being related to their employment, or being subjected to public humiliation. </p>
<p>Now social media is becoming just another channel of controlled communication, through which organisations publicly represent their brand and seek to control what they say about themselves and what is said about them. </p>
<p>Controversy in social media, unless it’s carefully managed and strategic, is considered damaging and, therefore, something to be constrained. But not all brands need the same protection. And a media organisation that cannot sustain the occasional controversy looks pretty fragile. </p>
<p>As for the public’s capacity for robust debate, if it cannot handle debate then we are in serious trouble. Outrage will not break the public. Concern that it will may be indicative of more serious motives, related to ensuring that social media becomes another controlled form of media.</p>
<p>This desire to control the content of communication is nothing new. Communication scholar and journalist, <a href="http://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/bwinston">Brian Winston</a>, argues that this pattern occurs with every new communication technology. </p>
<p>Beginning with an initial flurry of excitement, innovation in communication technology is embraced enthusiastically for its capacity to transform and expand communication. But as the transformative effects begin to be felt, the “<a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jahc/3310410.0002.217/--brian-winstons-media-technology-and-society-a-history?rgn=main;view=fulltext">law of the suppression of radical potential</a>” kicks in. </p>
<p>At this point the transformative power of a medium is constrained by existing interests, which tend to want to defend the status quo or seek control of the new medium. </p>
<p>For journalists, the control of social media content is especially concerning. They are now expected to be active on social media, building presence and brand as individuals and for their media organisations. </p>
<p>Yet they are also constrained by social media codes – such as <a href="http://media.sbs.com.au/home/upload_media/site_20_rand_628860615_sbs_social_media_protocol_2011.pdf">the one</a> that precipitated Scott McIntyre’s dismissal – then the irreconcilable contradiction encourages self-censorship. </p>
<p>Based on all the evidence we have about the effects of spirals of silence, self-imposed constraint is likely to spill into all aspects of a journalist’s work. </p>
<p>And that’s where the real damage will occur, for without even the limited autonomy they have now to speak and write freely the capacity of journalists to report news and information will be further diminished.</p>
<p>There is also the bigger question: if the profession that has fought to defend its freedom of expression for five centuries is forced into a self-imposed silence, what about the rest of us?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41824/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Collette Snowden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent sacking of an SBS journalist for controversial statements made on social media could inspire self-censorship amongst journalists.Collette Snowden, Program Director in Communication and Media , University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/420422015-05-19T05:27:46Z2015-05-19T05:27:46ZScott McIntyre vs SBS will test employees’ right to be opinionated<p>When Scott McIntyre <a href="https://theconversation.com/anzacs-behaving-badly-scott-mcintyre-and-contested-history-40955">tweeted his own opinions</a> about the horrors of war on Anzac Day, he probably didn’t expect to be sacked from his job at SBS. </p>
<p>After all, we have plenty of examples in this country of journalists and commentators – Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and Kyle Sandilands, to name just three – who make a living from expressing controversial views that often offend at least some section of our community.</p>
<p>McIntyre is now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-18/scott-mcintyre-sues-sbs-over-sacking-for-anzac-day-tweets/6478816">appealing his dismissal</a>, on the grounds that his employer has breached the “general protections” for workplace rights in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).</p>
<p>The particular provision McIntyre is relying upon is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s351.html">section 351</a>, which provides that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An employer must not take adverse action against a person who is an employee, or prospective employee, of the employer because of the person’s race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer’s responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Adverse action includes dismissal, as well as other forms of workplace discipline (such as demotion), and the Fair Work Act places the onus on the employer to prove that they were not motivated by an impermissible reason (covered under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s361.html">section 361</a>).</p>
<p>So it will be for SBS to demonstrate that it sacked McIntyre for a legitimate reason, not including his political opinions.</p>
<h2>Proving discrimination isn’t easy</h2>
<p>On its face, the Fair Work Act protections against discriminatory treatment at work seem clear – but it has not always been easy to establish a successful claim.</p>
<p>Two notorious High Court cases stand in McIntyre’s path. One is the 2012 <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/32.html">Board of Bendigo Regional Institute of Technical and Further Education v Barclay</a> case. The other is the more recent 2014 decision on <a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2014/hca-41-2014-10-16.rtf">CFMEU v BHP Australia</a>.</p>
<p>In both these cases, employees were seeking to use related “adverse action” provisions protecting employees’ rights to exercise their internationally recognised right to freedom of association by engaging in union activities (under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s347.html">section 347</a> of the Fair Work Act).</p>
<p>In both cases, the employees were punished for some activity related to their union membership. </p>
<p>CFMEU v BHP was the <a href="http://www.corrs.com.au/publications/corrs-in-brief/high-court-majority-applies-barclay-decision-to-find-scab-sign-dismissal-was-lawful/">infamous “scab” case</a>, where employees were dismissed for holding up placards naming others as “scabs” during industrial action.</p>
<p>In both the Barclay and BHP cases, the employers were successful in demonstrating that they had other, legitimate reasons for taking action against the employees.</p>
<p>In the BHP case, the court accepted the employer’s assertion that the disciplinary action was taken for the sole reason of enforcing a workplace civility policy.</p>
<h2>McIntyre’s challenge</h2>
<p>So for McIntyre to succeed in his section 351 case against SBS, his counsel will have to demolish any assertion by SBS that it was motivated by a legitimate reason (such as enforcing a workplace civility, or a “don’t offend the viewers” policy).</p>
<p>This case will be an interesting test of whether the general protections in the Fair Work Act do offer any safe haven for employees to maintain a personal and political identity, unrestrained by any obligation to defer to their employer’s interests.</p>
<p>Once upon a time, long, long ago, and before social media all but obliterated any boundary between public and private lives, a judge in Australia said (in Australian Tramways’ Employees Association v Brisbane Tramways Co Ltd (1912) 6 CAR 35) that a person may wear, worship or believe whatever one chooses, in matters not affecting work.</p>
<p>Finding the balance between the employee’s rights and the employer’s interests is an old problem. It will be interesting to see how McIntyre’s case is resolved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joellen Riley Munton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scott McIntyre’s legal challenge against being sacked by SBS will be an interesting test of whether the Fair Work Act offers any safe haven for employees to maintain a personal and political identity.Joellen Riley Munton, Dean and Professor of Labour Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414272015-05-07T00:57:07Z2015-05-07T00:57:07ZReview: Struggle Street proves to be powerful, often poignant TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80745/original/image-20150507-10950-1rbujse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Struggle Street was no more voyeuristic than any reality TV show of the last two decades.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS TV</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Contrary to the lurid previews and loud protests from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/06/struggle-street-protest-brings-garbage-truck-blockade-to-sbs-sydney-offices">Blacktown and environs</a> before the show went out, Struggle Street, the first episode of which aired on SBS last night, turned out to be a powerful, often poignant piece. </p>
<p>It was upsetting to see the young kid wandering around the backyard, amusing himself with petrol-driven lawnmowers and the like as dysfunction reigned around him. It made you fear for the wee lad’s future. We saw the resilience of some of the women, young and old, who do indeed struggle to survive in an urban jungle, but are always there to lend support and care for those around them.</p>
<p>We saw the endless tolerance from father Ashley for meth-head Corey’s self-pitying drug abuse and parasitism on his family. The long-suffering clan loyally troop down to Penrith court as he faces yet another drugs bust, and leave with him as he gets off with an A$800 fine. </p>
<p>Predictably, and despite the pledge he has made to the judge to get his act together, Corey immediately goes on a major drug binge, while his long-suffering family (including partner and child, the same one seen earlier poking his fingers in the lawnmower) declare their love for him.</p>
<p>Struggle Street was not racist, nor was it anymore voyeuristic than any reality TV show of the last two decades, from Big Brother to the Kardashians. Many of these shows are made for entertainment purposes, and very successful at it they are. This is the age of striptease culture, of letting it all hang out, of making the private public. </p>
<p>But Struggle Street was a different kind of show altogether. This was socially realist fly-on-the-wall documentary, with all the flaws of that genre, in a tradition going back to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059020/fullcredits/">Cathy Come Home</a> (1966) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426684/">The Family</a> (1974). Similar documentaries were produced in the UK last year (and produced <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/benefits-street-poverty-porn-british-fury">similar criticisms</a>).</p>
<p>By flaws I mean that, like all journalism, no matter how “real” it claims to be, the fly-on-the-wall genre is an inevitably mediated, edited, dramatised account of reality. We should expect the producers, and SBS who commissioned it, to treat their subjects with respect and ethical propriety, enabling them to offer informed, dignified consent to the use of their private lives in the cause of documentary journalism.</p>
<p>With that proviso, the producers of this series are doing what public service media are tasked to do – making the marginal visible, including the excluded, putting poverty on the public agenda. </p>
<p>To do that they must cut and trim, select and discard with a view to making television that people will watch. Hopefully, if they do their job well, it will also be television that educates and advocates.</p>
<p>Struggle Street is uncomfortable viewing, but important stuff to know about Australia in 2015. We live in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, accessing historically unprecedented levels of material and lifestyle affluence – and not just the “rich”, as hinted at in the introduction to the program, but the vast majority of working people.</p>
<p>But a large underclass is excluded from this affluence, or excludes itself, or suffers from a combination of both. One oft-heard criticism of mainstream popular culture is the invisibility of socio-economically marginalised groups, or the fact that they are often stereotyped and caricatured. </p>
<p>Struggle Street is an attempt to redress that absence, and it did so with reasonable respect to its subjects.</p>
<p>Just as there is no case for making Australia’s marginal communities invisible, neither is there one for presenting a falsely positive image (though the trailer for next week’s episode indicated a more positive take on efforts within the community to make beneficial changes).</p>
<p>They exist, these families, on the margins of every city in Australia (and Europe – my home town of Glasgow has some of the worst social deprivation in the advanced capitalist world). </p>
<p>The issue which the program asks us to consider is important, and urgent: what can be done by policymakers and the public as a whole to break the vicious cycles of dysfunction and deprivation Struggle Street displays?</p>
<p><br>
<em>The first episode of Struggle Street screened on SBS TV last night. The second episode airs next week. Details <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/438878275625/Struggle-Street-Meet-Tristan">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>See also:</strong><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/struggle-street-is-poverty-porn-with-an-extra-dose-of-class-racism-41346">Struggle Street is poverty porn with an extra dose of class racism </a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The producers of this series are doing what public service media are tasked to do – making the marginal visible, including the excluded, putting poverty on the public agenda.Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.