It usually begins mid-way through their university career. My office begins to fill with panicked journalism students who have seen the dismal job vacancies in their field and are starting to think their…
Mitt Romney is struggling to gain traction with the base of the Republican party. Can the media be to blame?
AAP/Jim Lo Scalzo
Despite his solid performances in the early Republican primaries, Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the Republican nomination is still facing a crisis of legitimacy. Social conservatives have questioned his…
‘Concerned scientists’ say, relax, climate change not so bad after all.
Yukon White Light/Flickr
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a letter from “16 concerned scientists”, telling the world we don’t need to worry so much about climate change. Unsurprisingly, the opinion piece has been picked…
Journalist or blogger? It’s a thin line.
See-ming Lee æŽæ€æ˜Ž SML
Citizen journalists everywhere should be checking the fine print of media shield laws, after a US District Court judge in Oregon ruled that self-styled investigative blogger Crystal Cox was not a journalist…
Australia’s media landscape may face another shakeup with the release of the Federal Government’s convergence review.
AAP
The Federal Government’s Convergence Review has released its interim report, recommending the scrapping of existing cross-media ownership rules and that commercial operators be given “certainty” around…
Tap, tap, tapping at the public consciousness: News Ltd has been accused of slanted coverage of carbon price policy. Fickr/Monochrome.
News Ltd’s coverage of the Government’s carbon price policy has been so negative and one-dimensional that some papers in the stable are misleading the public by doing partisan campaigning rather than balanced…
Australian newspapers took a largely negative view of carbon pricing.
avlxyz/Flickr
While corporate media often criticise the poor communication of others, they are reluctant to critique their own power to influence public opinion and debate. Today the Australian Centre for Independent…
Should the changing face of media be a source of despair or optimism?
Truthout.org
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of newspapers are somewhat exaggerated. But traditional media is experiencing the “perfect storm” of declining circulations, collapsing advertising revenues…
The “reasonable person” would agree that disaster risk is best avoided. Under a changing climate, how exposed people are to risk and how socially and physically vulnerable they are affects how often disasters…
Murdoch is taking more control of his Australian interests now John Hartigan is gone.
AAP/Rob Hutchison
Was John Hartigan pushed or did he leave his position as CEO of News Limited just in time? It’s likely that only a handful of people know the real answer to this question; among them will be “Harto” and…
The media can’t get enough of the controversy whipped up by climate sceptics.
Mat McDermott
When announcing the media enquiry in September this year, Senator Conroy committed to regulatory processes that support “a healthy and independent media that is able to fulfill its essential democratic…
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announces the media inquiry in September.
AAP/Lucas Coch
As journalists and academics got ready to outline a new media order at the Finkelstein inquiry yesterday, anti-regulationists lined up to dismiss the process with bipartisan relish. On day one of the inquiry…
Media ownership is much more concentrated in Australia than in the UK, where it is under scrutiny.
AAP/Dean Lewins
A profound shift is underway in the global news media industries. As the extensive police investigation and judicial inquiry into the News of the World phone hacking scandal continue in the UK, News Corporation…
Chinese students may have a different take on the media, but universities in Australia can learn from them.
Flickr/badbrother
There is a vast difference between how China is reported inside and outside the country. And that extends to how media and communication is taught in China and Australia. One of my new PhD students, who…
Australia would do better to shed light on Indian affairs. Media coverage of the country is dominated by corruption scandals, terrorism or cultural festivals like Diwali.
EPA/Sanjeev Gupta
CHOGM As Julia Gillard chairs the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Perth, she would do well to pay special attention to her Indian colleague at the table, Vice-President Hamid Ansari. Brian Stoddart…
Symbolic minefield: the Australian Navy escorts intercepted asylum seekers to land. AAP/Josh Jerga.
The public’s openness to asylum seekers depends largely on the perceived threat that would-be immigrants pose to traditional Australian values, new research has found. Academics from Monash University…
Technology reinforces traditional power structures.
Jared Rodriguez/Truthout
Last night, SBS screened the first instalment of a three-part documentary by Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. The program attracted intense debate when broadcast in the UK earlier…
The planet is struggling to survive democracy, but the only alternative is to improve it.
Truthout.org/Flickr
The carbon tax bills passed by the Australian House of Representatives on October 12 were a small vindication of climate science. But we should be concerned about the corpses of science, reason and expertise…
ABC’s The Slap investigates the complex and very personal views of those at the heart of a smacking case.
ABC
In last night’s ABC program, The Slap, an impulsive slap changed everything. A man struck someone else’s child at a barbecue provoking a legal challenge. In real life, that would be an assault, though…