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Labelling, shadow bans and community resistance: did meta's strategy to suppress rather than remove COVID misinformation and conspiracy theory on Facebook slow the spread? Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Amelia Johns, Francesco Bailo, Emily Booth, Marian-Andrei Rizoiu
In this paper, we ask how effective Meta's content moderation strategy was on its flagship platform, Facebook, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the performance of 18 Australian right-wing/anti-vaccination pages, posts and commenting sections collected between January 2019 and July 2021, and use engagement metrics and time series analysis to analyse the data, mapping key policy announcements
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Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary representation on Australian scripted television in the 2000s and 2010s Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Damien John O’Meara, Whitney Monaghan
Over the past few decades, there has been significant industry and scholarly interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion in television. Alongside this, attention has been paid to the politics of queer representation in screen and media contexts. Providing much-needed data on these issues, this article catalogues the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary characters in
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Popular Environmental Media in Australia: Reflections on Audience Engagement and Impact Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Aneta Podkalicka, Danie Nilsson, Simon Troon
Proliferating media content is key to public understanding and discussions about the environment and climate change. While scholarly interest in mediated environmental communication has been ample and multi-directional, the questions around media's impacts remain pressing and largely under-theorised. This paper uses an example of popular environmental media in Australia – i.e. media aimed at attracting
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Book Review: Journalism, Technology and Cultural Practice: A History by Martin Conboy Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Jane B Singer
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‘Everyone keeps telling us it's going to die’: A close examination of ‘myths’ clouding local newspaper futures in Australia Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Kristy Hess, Alison McAdam
Digital adaptation is often considered the panacea to the local journalism crisis in Australia. As a result, this digital first agenda has perpetuated ‘death and doom’ narratives about some traditional strategies and practices, especially in regards to the future of printed local newspapers. This paper draws on interviews and focus groups with local news owners, journalists, editors, advertising staff
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Thinking about the ‘silent readers’: a regional digital ethnographic case study exploring motivations and barriers to participation in public debate on Facebook Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Angela Ross
There is increasing evidence fewer people are willing to discuss and debate issues of common concern on social media with their feeds becoming more conflict-laden and toxic. A more nuanced understanding is needed of the motivations and deterrents for individual participation, in different contexts. This article provides a unique perspective from regional Australia by considering the conditions under
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Infrastructural insecurity: Geopolitics in the standardization of telecommunications networks Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Niels ten Oever, Christoph Becker
This article argues that the production and maintenance of “infrastructural insecurity” is an inherent part of the process of the standardization of telecommunication networks. Infrastructural insecurity is the outcome of intentional practices during the production, standardization, and maintenance of communication infrastructures that leave end-users vulnerable to attacks that benefit particular actors
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Protecting Public Figures Online: How Do Platforms and Regulators Define Public Figures? Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Rob Cover, Nicola Henry, Joscelyn Gleave, Sharon Greenfield, Viktor Grechyn, Thuc Bao Huynh
Public figures are subject to higher rates of online abuse than other users in part because many digital platforms have significantly higher thresholds for intervening in cases of public figure abuse. Internationally, this higher rate of abuse has led to substantial impacts on public figures’ wellbeing and withdrawal from public life. This article presents findings from a study of platform policies
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Secondary, security threat, and sage: Eulogy effect and the framing of female politicians as political martyrs in the Elite press of South Asia Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-03-22 Azmat Rasul, Mcdowell D Stephen, Muhammad E Rasul
How do newspapers frame female politicians, and does this framing change after a female politician's death during an election campaign? Benazir Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister of Pak...
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Social media: Connecting and sharing in a bushfire crisis Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-03-14 Susan Atkinson, Jee Young Lee
Social media has become an integral channel for official agencies to communicate with citizens in a natural disaster crisis and increasingly time, effort and money are being spent on improving soci...
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Studying the datafication of Australian childhoods: learning from a survey of digital technologies in homes with young children Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Luci Pangrazio, Jane Mavoa
The home is a crucial site of young children's early encounters with digitally connected technologies. It is here that their emerging digital footprints are being formed and where digital data abou...
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The production and consumption of news podcasts Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Yoonmo Sang, Jee Young Lee, Sora Park
This special issue, which focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, brings together five articles addressing the use of podcasting in a journalistic context. Drawing on articles that cover diverse topics...
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Entertaining information: Third-party influencers’ role in COVID-safety health communication Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Rob Cover, Lukas Parker, Charlotte Young, Katia Ostapets
This paper discusses findings from a commissioned evaluation of an Australian government COVID-19 health campaign that utilised third-party influencers to increase the reach of health communication...
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Motives for using news podcasts and political participation intention in South Korea: The mediating effect of political discussion Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-02-20 Yoon Y. Cho, Ahran Park, Jinho Choi
The purpose of this study is to examine Korean listeners’ motivations for listening to political news podcasts drawing on uses and gratifications. This study revealed five motivations: social suppo...
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Connections, Community, Coconuts: Exploring the History of Regional Community Radio Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-02-08 Bridget Backhaus
Regional community radio enriches and diversifies local media landscapes in Australia. It is also a space where communities isolated from mainstream processes of media production can actively parti...
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Podcasting and constructive journalism in health stories about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Mia Lindgren, Britta Jorgensen
COVID-19 showed the importance of trustworthy and accessible health information. News organisations increasingly introduced podcasting to keep their audiences informed. Podcasting's documented capa...
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A distressing and peculiar disease: endometriosis in the Australian Press 1949–2011 Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Erin Bradshaw
This study explores how endometriosis has been represented and framed historically in the Australian press. Analysis of 80 articles published between 1949 and 2011 was conducted. Articles were exam...
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Trolling of female journalists on Twitter in Pakistan: an analysis Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-20 Shabir Hussain, Hajra Bostan, Irfan Qaisarani
In this study, we examined the trolling of female journalists on Twitter in Pakistan. Through quantitative and qualitative content analysis, we found the female journalists received offensive comme...
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‘African kids can’: Challenging the African gangs narrative on social media Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Claire Moran
In 2016, following the ‘Moomba riots’ in Melbourne, the powerful and damaging narrative of ‘African gangs’ reemerged in Australian media and political discourse. The hyper-criminalisation and probl...
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Academic explanatory journalism and emerging COVID-19 science: how social media accounts amplify The Conversation’s preprint coverage Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-14 Alice Fleerackers, Michelle Riedlinger, Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess
This article examines the public communication of COVID-19-related ‘preprints’ (unreviewed research studies) in a digital media environment. To understand how preprint research flows from preprint ...
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Publics of interest and the death of the critic on Australian TV Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 Robert Boucaut, Peter C Pugsley
This article charts a turning point in recent Australian broadcast television history, where enduring institutions of media criticism in popular formats rapidly disappeared from screens. We firstly...
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Remedying the fractured domain through slow journalism: A case of journalistic podcasting in India Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-12-09 Sneha Gore Mehendale, Ruchi Kher Jaggi
This study contributes significantly by adding to the limited existing knowledge of news podcasting practices as well as building an empirical understanding of a specific type of slow journalism. I...
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Who is a journalist now? Recognising atypical journalism work in the digital media economy Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Lawrie Zion, Timothy Marjoribanks, Penny O’Donnell
For the past two decades, understandings of the scale of digital disruption in journalism work in post-industrialised countries have relied on data about newspaper closures, newsroom job losses and...
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The Final Word on sports podcasts: audience perceptions of media engagement and news consumption Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-11-15 Peter English, Jacqueline Burgess, Christian Jones
Sports podcasting has spread rapidly over the past decade and reflects how sports media have been quick to embrace new technologies. Despite being a relatively recent medium, podcasts have expanded...
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Media literacy education through an online space: Co-designing of a participative website in media literacy for teachers Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-11-13 Mania Alehpour, Margareta Melin, Ebrahim Talaee
This study applies a participatory design approach including the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a participative website in media literacy for Iranian teachers. In the design...
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How Do South Korean Podcasts Reflect Changes in Journalistic Norms and Practices? Comparing Podcasts of Professional Journalists with Podcasts of Non-Journalists Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-11-11 Na Yeon Lee, Jeehyun Kim, Changsook Kim
The purpose of this study is to examine whether journalistic norms of objectivity and practices of gatekeeping are observed in news and current-affairs podcasts. By analyzing 101 episodes from thre...
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Digital arts and culture in Australia: Promissory discourses and uncertain realities in pandemic times Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-11-07 Indigo Holcombe-James, Jacinthe Flore, Natalie Ann Hendry
This article critically interrogates the promissory discourse underpinning the cultural sectors’ ‘digital pivot’ in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021; namely, that artistic and cre...
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Introduction to the Media International Australia special issue on “TikTok cultures in the Asia Pacific” Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Crystal Abidin, Jin Lee, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
The editors of this Feature Topic are founding members of the TikTok Cultures Research Network that focuses on culturally-situated and qualitatively-grounded scholarship on TikTok in the Asia Pacif...
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Scott Morrison’s Political Discourse During Crisis: A Narrative-Semiotic Analysis Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-10-09 Mohammed Akhib, Sky Marsen
This study explores communication strategies and techniques in the political discourse of the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, during crisis. Twelve public speeches and statements made du...
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Exploring children’s TikTok cultures in India: Negotiating access, uses, and experiences under restrictive parental mediation Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Devina Sarwatay, Jin Lee, D Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
TikTok is a popular platform allowing users to view and make short videos. The platform's embeddedness among youth cultures is key to TikTok’s commercial success, to attract and sustain a diverse a...
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Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) original production in Australia: Evolution or revolution? Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-09-21 Alexa Scarlata, James Douglas, Ramon Lobato
Original production by subscription-video-on-demand services (SVOD) is often associated with a U.S. model of premium drama, characterized by high production values, edgy storytelling, and narrative...
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Erratum Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-09-09
Erratum to Studying WeChat Official Accounts with novel ‘backend-in’ and ‘traceback’ methods: Walking through platforms back-to-front and past-to-present. Media International Australia. Epub ahead of print 16 March 2022. DOI: 10.1177/1329878X221088052
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Erratum Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-08-28
Erratum to the cultural customization of TikTok: Subaltern migrant workers and their digital cultures. Media International Australia. Epub ahead of print 28 June 2022. DOI: 10.1177/1329878X221110279
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Warwick Blood (1947–2022): a journey in communication research Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-08-29 Kerry McCallum, Peter Putnis
Warwick Blood (1947–2022) was a leading Australian researcher in the field of Communication and Media Studies whose research focused on the role of the news media in framing public understanding of...
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Development journalism and revitalisation of familism in Malaysia Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-08-28 Muhammad Asim Imran
This paper explores the role of Malaysian media in the revitalisation of familism, which seems to descend in most Asian societies. The examination of news articles published in English-language Mal...
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The value of news: A gender gap in paying for news Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Emma John, Jee Young Lee, Sora Park
The factors that impact audiences’ willingness to pay for news have received much attention over the last decade given a steady decline in advertising revenues and online news outlets attempting to...
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(Dis)assembling mental health through apps: The sociomaterialities of young adults’ experiences Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-07-25 Jacinthe Flore
Typically free, accessible on-demand and easy to use, smartphone-based applications (apps) targeting mental health have expanded in recent years. This article discusses a qualitative research study with 14 young adults aged 18 to 25 years old who use apps to understand, track, and monitor their mental health. I present four vignettes drawn from a screenshot elicitation and a qualitative interview that
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Where are they now? Career sustainability and Australian web-series producers Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-07-22 Mark David Ryan, Guy Healy, Stuart Cunningham
Over the last decade, several professionalising amateur Australian content creators making web series, distributed on multiple open platforms, broke into the television industry and developed promising careers. The limited scholarly research into the career trajectories and sustainability of web series creators has typically been conducted as normative critique of the value of web series labour. In
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Erratum Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-07-18
Erratum to Studying Visibility and invisibility in the aged care sector: Visual representation in Australian news from 2018–2021. Media International Australia. Epub ahead of print 21 April 2022. DOI: 10.1177/1329878X221094374
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Media Representation and the Paralympics: A Step Too Far or Not Far Enough? Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Angela Page, Kerry Daly, Joanna Anderson, Genevieve Thraves
The Paralympics is globally the largest and most significant sporting event that takes place for athletes with a disability. The 2020 Tokyo Games was heralded as significant in its extensive media coverage that served to promote the disability athletic movement, breaking all broadcasting viewing records from the number of broadcasters, viewers, and a number of events provided live. In the past, however
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The cultural customization of TikTok: subaltern migrant workers and their digital cultures Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Satveer Kaur-Gill
Migrant construction workers in Singapore produced TikTok videos sharing their structural, social, and health conditions during the pandemic. The platform's user-centered design presents opportunities for marginalized communities to participate in content production and distribution. The TikTok videos created by MCWs richly detailed the precarities they faced during the pandemic. Through the production
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From karaoke to lip-syncing: performance communities and TikTok use in Japan Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Sonja Petrovic
This paper discusses the versatile use of TikTok among Japanese media users in the context of the platform's increased appeal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Japanese users have adopted global trends of sharing creative content under prominent hashtags to spread a sense of togetherness in a time of social isolation. As social forms of entertainment are disrupted and paused, the practice of singing and
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Outdated or innovative? Examining news practices that have stood the test of time at one of Australia's longest-serving local newspapers Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Alison McAdam, Kristy Hess
Researchers studying media innovation and local news tend to emphasise the ‘here and now’, focusing on digital advances as the pathway towards more efficient journalism and viable businesses. This paper argues for the importance of examining media practices that have been preserved and valued over time. It advocates for a temporal reflexivity lens to help inform media innovation strategies and policies
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Writing themselves in: Indigenous gender and sexuality diverse Australians online Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Georgia Coe
There has been limited exploration into the online engagements of people who are Indigenous and gender and sexuality diverse. There are, however, two separate bodies of literature that provide substantial insights into the digital involvement of Indigenous Australians, and gender and sexuality diverse people. Each has identified a myriad of complex negotiations, interactions and resistances that take
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‘Abba Kyari did not die of Coronavirus’: Social media and fake news during a global pandemic in Nigeria Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 Temple Uwalaka
This study examined the influence of fake news online on how social media users viewed and reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Analyses of an online survey (N = 254) and contents from Twitter users in Nigeria from the hashtags: ‘#coronavirusNigeria’ and ‘#covid19Nigeria’ (N = 10,408), reveal that social media users in Nigeria used Twitter to inform and educate Twitter users as well as debunking
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“Must know Photoshop”: proprietary skills and media jobs in Australia Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-05-04 Sarah Keith, Stephen Collins
Over the last two decades, media and associated creative disciplines have moved increasingly towards digital and online production. This shift has seen proprietary software companies clamouring for market share by proclaiming their product as ‘industry standard’ ( Keith et al., 2021). These discourses of professionalism implicitly suggest that proficiency in particular software leads to improved employment
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“Epistemic justice” (a memoir) Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 John Hartley
This is a review essay, focussing on Emma A. Jane's (2022) memoir, Diagnosis Normal: Living with Abuse, Undiagnosed Autism, and coronavirus disease grade Crazy (2022).
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‘Without technology we’d be very stuck’: Ageing migrants’ differential (im)mobile practices during a lockdown Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-04-24 Earvin Cabalquinto
Ubiquitous mobile communication technologies have played an integral role in the way people navigated forced physical immobilities produced through restrictive measures during a pandemic. This paper critically investigates how 15 ageing people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia used a range of digital communication technologies and online platforms
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Visibility and invisibility in the aged care sector: Visual representation in Australian news from 2018–2021 Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 TJ Thomson, Evonne Miller, Sarah Holland-Batt, Jen Seevinck, Sam Regi
The skyrocketing number and severity of issues in Australian aged care led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in 2018. Yet, compared to other Royal Commissions, media coverage has been relatively muted, and public awareness and engagement with aged care issues has been uneven. Journalists bear a significant responsibility for shaping the national conversation
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‘Our old pastor thinks the mobile phone is a source of evil.’ Capturing contested and conflicting insights on digital wellbeing and digital detoxing in an age of rapid mobile connectivity Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-04-11 Bruce Mutsvairo, Massimo Ragnedda, Kames Mabvundwi
While Africa has largely been considered a digitally-disconnected country, recent studies have shown that connectivity figures are on a rise. In this paper, we theorize digital wellbeing in a context characterized by a fast-growing number of mobile data users despite a historically low Internet penetration. It is focused on an ongoing ethnographic research on mobile users and digital inequalities in
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‘This is ridiculous – I need to start a paper…’: An exploration of aims and intentions of regional print proprietors of post-COVID start-up newspapers Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Renee Barnes, Harry Dugmore, Peter English, Rosanna Natoli, Elizabeth J Stephens
In May 2020 at the height of Australia's first national COVID lockdown, NewsCorp Australia announced that more than 125 regional newspapers would either be closed or become available online-only. Queensland was hit hard with 22 regional and 20 community newspapers shifting to online formats, and 15 community newspapers closing. Yet within months of the NewsCorp changes, a significant number of new
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Algorithmic resistance as political disengagement Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 João C. Magalhães
This article suggests that algorithmic resistance might involve a particular and rarely considered kind of evasion—political disengagement. Based on interviews with ordinary Brazilian users of Facebook, it argues that some people may stop acting politically on social media platforms as a way of avoiding an algorithmic visibility regime that is felt as demeaning their civic voices. Three reasons given
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Between culture and industry: Re-evaluating the development of the Australian New Eligible Drama Expenditure (NEDE) requirement on Australian pay-TV Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Oliver Eklund
In Australia, policies that mandate levels of production and distribution of local television content are shaping factors of the sector. Many of these policies are under review due to the impact of new streaming services. At a time of major overhaul of policies, it is illustrative to return to the development of earlier local content policies in Australia. The development of the 1992 New Eligible Drama
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From Bondi to Fairfield: NSW COVID-19 press conferences, health messaging, and social inequality Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-18 Duc Dau, Katie Ellis
The use of media sources increases exponentially during a health crisis or disaster. Similarly, digital health information and misinformation can spread quickly through social media. From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press conference has been one of the federal, state, and territory governments’ key outlets for providing updates, containing misinformation, reassuring constituents, and articulating
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Performing islamophobia in the Australian parliament: The role of populism and performance in Pauline Hanson’s “burqa stunt” Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-18 Kurt Adam Sengul
Drawing on a multimodal approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this research critically examines the 2017 “burqa stunt” of Australian far-right populist politician, Pauline Hanson. Adapting Scalmer's (2002) conceptualisation of the “political gimmick”, this paper makes the following arguments: Firstly, that Hanson's “burqa stunt” must be understood as an articulation of Islamophobia and political
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Ceding ground as a strategic concession in fact-checking: Shifting practice to shift power Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-18 Lisa Waller, Stephanie Brookes
This article looks beyond functionalist accounts to consider how fact-checking organisations and practitioners interact with traditional and alternative sites of media power: holding and negotiating that power in their own right while interfacing collaboratively and strategically with those working in adjacent fields. Interpreted through this theoretical prism, interviews and a content analysis reveal
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#Aboriginallivesmatter: Mapping Black Lives Matter discourse in Australia Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-18 Tisha Dejmanee, Jeffrey Millar, Marni Lorenz, Kirsten Weber, Zulfia Zaher
This paper explores the hashtag #AboriginalLivesMatter on Instagram which was widely used in Australia as part of a global Black Lives Matter (BLM) response in 2020. We map the participants and themes of #AboriginalLivesMatter through the quantitative coding and qualitative thematic analysis of 603 Instagram posts published with this hashtag in June 2020. We find that this conversation is largely driven
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Introduction to algorithmic antagonisms: Resistance, reconfiguration, and renaissance for computational life Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Luke Heemsbergen,Emiliano Treré,Gabriel Pereira
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Book Review: Film Noir and Los Angeles: Urban History and the Dark Imaginary by Sean Maher Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Terry Flew
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Studying weChat official accounts with novel ‘backend-in’ and ‘traceback’ methods: Walking through platforms back-to-front and past-to-present Media International Australia (IF 2.441) Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Fan Yang, Luke Heemsbergen, P. David Marshall
The paper presents a methodology to understand WeChat Official Accounts (WOAs) from their backend to their frontend, and from tracing the platform's history to its present. Our ‘Backend-in method’ proposes to study platform governance in the meso – between macro political economic concerns and the micro (and usually mobile) user-interface mediation. It shows how including backend platform media practices