Disrupting Media and Politics

Abstract

This chapter explores how, as the traditional media has become weaker due to digital disruption, falling profitability, and audience fragmentation, the political ecosystem in Australia has also eroded. Significant job losses have reduced the scale of public interest journalism, and the frantic attention-seeking of the 24-hour news cycle has contributed to a perception of chaos in politics. This is manifest in frequent changes of prime minister outside the electoral cycle, and in polarization of opinion and comment online and in traditional media designed to increase impact. Commercial media has long embraced a quasi-institutional role and been happy to use this stature, but has resisted external regulation. Self-regulation of the press and institutional oversight of broadcasting self-regulation are relatively weak; social media and online platforms are not regulated; and the implied right to freedom of political speech, the bedrock of the media’s unique political role, was only ‘found’ by the High Court in 1997. This chapter argues that effective regulation, which addresses the needs of citizens as well as consumers, and other interventions including strengthening public broadcasting and securing legislative (even constitutional) recognition of the democratic value of media freedom are required to invigorate a robust political ecosystem.