{"title":"Sino-futurism and alternative imaginaries of Digital China","authors":"Xinyang Zhao, Michael Keane","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231215108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231215108","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the role of digital technologies in transforming China's self-image. It focuses on the use of extended reality (XR) in ceremonial events and art exhibitions. The paper offers two case studies. The first study, Beijing 8-Minute Show (2018), a multimedia performance at the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, set the scene for what was called the Science and Technology Winter Olympics in 2022. The second study, Blueprints (2020), was a multimedia exhibition in the UK by the artist Cao Fei, which drew attention to a future of increased alienation, loss of privacy and digital surveillance. In the paper, the framework of a ‘techno-cultural imaginary’ shows how China's self-image is increasingly tied to modernisation. The paper demonstrates how the ‘two cultures’, science and the arts, have converged in policy thinking. In this reset, China's so-called cultural confidence is re-energised by digital platforms, echoing the description of Digital China. Sino-futurism, originally used in relation to Chinese sci-fi literature, provides a stepping-off point to imagine the future, which is alternatively characterised as techno-utopian (within China) and dystopian (in the West). Drawing on the qualitative analysis of publicly available interviews, media reports, online comments and close reading of the art content, the paper argues that XR allows the government to present Digital China as a positive blueprint for human progress. Meanwhile, XR is capable of generating critical stories about China, which contradict the message the government seeks to cultivate with its public diplomacy and propaganda campaigns.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"29 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139272780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The effect of trust in media and information sources on coronavirus disease 2019 prevention behaviors in Lebanon","authors":"Jad Melki","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231214351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231214351","url":null,"abstract":"The study examines the effect of trust in media and information sources about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on adopting prevention measures, and whether fear and perceived knowledge mediate this relationship. It focuses on Lebanon during a period of political and economic crises and prevalent public distrust in government and the media. Through a cross-sectional survey and a nationally representative probability sample, data collection from 1536 participants took place between March 27 and April 23, 2020. The findings establish a direct relationship between trust and adopting prevention measures, but only partial mediation of fear and perceived knowledge. This suggests that media trust has a strong independent effect on prevention measures and is only partially mediated by fear and to a lesser extent by perceived knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of trust in media, government, and public health information sources, even during chaotic economic and political circumstances common in the Global South.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136281752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agile producers and consumer-saviours: Discourses of resilience and responsibility in Australian media coverage of artisanal food and craft","authors":"Michelle Phillipov, Susan Luckman, Jessica Loyer","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231213448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231213448","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19's supply chain disruptions saw small-scale, artisanal food and craft producers experience surges in demand from consumers seeking locally made goods. This article analyses Australian news coverage promoting this ‘turn to the local’, with a focus on mainstream news outlets from March 2020 to February 2023. We identify two dominant narratives: the ‘producer pivot’ and the ‘consumer-saviour’. Using Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad’s (2018) work on resilience as a regulatory ideal of neoliberalism, we argue that both narratives focus on individual responsibility in ways that make invisible structural and economic impediments to change. The consistent ways in which buying and producing local small-scale goods were presented and understood in the news coverage – across different products, places and stages of the pandemic – highlights the persistent ways in which neoliberal values perform particular kinds of work for capitalism by asserting the necessity of local ‘resilience’ and ‘positivity’ in times of crisis.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":" 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135292264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: <i>The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel</i> by David Carter","authors":"Mark Piccini","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231212944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231212944","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"67 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135684828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Downright dangerous’: Citizen reactions to media diversity issues in public submissions","authors":"Timothy Koskie","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231212945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231212945","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its prominence in societal and scholarly discourse, a consistent definition and scope for media diversity remains elusive. This leaves ambiguous its characteristics, concerns, and impacts and complicates efforts to achieve its benefits. This study sought a new approach to identifying its role that leverages lived experiences of the public interacting with their media ecosystem. Public submissions to the Media diversity in Australia inquiry presented a unique opportunity to pursue this goal. The 5068 texts were dominated by citizens perspectives that went beyond reframing and redefining media diversity to explain how they saw it affecting their daily lives, families, and communities. Using multi-stage thematic analysis, this study worked to consolidate these diverse and grounded views into the shared themes that confronted citizens, finding concerns about the diminishing reliability of media functions, with losses in media diversity leading to unsatisfactory media performance, media avoidance, and harms for communities and individuals.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"63 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135684694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Redefining older Australians: moving beyond stereotypes and consumer narratives in print media representations","authors":"Muhammad Asim Imran","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231208788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231208788","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates how Australian print media shape the identities of older individuals through their use of language and reporting techniques. By examining newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2021 through the lens of critical discourse analysis, the study highlights the societal, economic, and journalistic factors that influence the media's portrayal of older persons. The findings reveal that economic discourses dominate the construction of identities, with the financial reliance of older individuals on the government being a significant factor in their representation. The study demonstrates how newspapers create and disseminate narratives that appear to exonerate the government of accountability for providing aged care. Through the application of Fairclough's three-dimensional approach, this study shows how media constructs older individuals as either consumers or a burden in Australia. This study emphasises the need for print media to reflect critically on their representations of older people, avoiding harmful stereotypes and promoting positive and diverse images of ageing.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"56 8","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135370960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deplatforming sex education on Meta: sex, power, and content moderation","authors":"Joanna Williams","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231210612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231210612","url":null,"abstract":"Public health research has heralded social media as a space where sex education can be delivered to young people. However, sexual health organisations are increasingly concerned that restrictive content moderation practices impede their ability to distribute sex education content on social media platforms. To better understand these experiences, this article uses an autoethnographic case study of my experience navigating Meta's content moderation policies and practices when I promoted the Bits and Bods sex education web series. Using conjunctural analysis, I contextualise Bits and Bods's two experiences of content moderation (when our account was deleted from Instagram and advertising was rejected by Facebook) through policy analysis of Meta's content moderation policies. I then conclude by questioning whether public health practitioners should still be conceiving Meta's platforms as a space where they can deliver sex education to young people.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"44 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136067394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Archie Thomas, David Nolan, Kerry McCallum, Lisa Jane Waller, Magali McDuffie
{"title":"First Nations media in the Closing the Gap era: Navigating the new self-determination","authors":"Archie Thomas, David Nolan, Kerry McCallum, Lisa Jane Waller, Magali McDuffie","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231209599","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231209599","url":null,"abstract":"In 2020, a new Closing the Gap Agreement and an associated Joint Communications Strategy committed the Australian Government and state and territory governments to working with First Nations media to advance Closing the Gap aims, after lobbying by First Nations Media Australia. The new attention to First Nations media occurs after two decades of government disregard. We observe how First Nations media organisations have consistently advocated for a form of self-determination through First Nations-controlled communications, laying the groundwork for this shift. In doing so, they strategically adopt a political discourse to critique and promote reform of policy frameworks in their interests, highlighting tensions around the conceptualisation and practice of self-determination. We consider what may be required for a revised (re)adoption of self-determination as a policy to shift state-led governance, and to overcome the significant failures and limitations of policy processes.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"163 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134907475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"News portals as a gateway to civic engagement: the case of South Korea","authors":"Dam Hee Kim, Joshua von Herrmann, Seungahn Nah","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231206643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231206643","url":null,"abstract":"Applying the communication mediation model and the communication infrastructure theory in the Korean news media environment, the current study investigates the potential of news portals as a gateway to civic engagement through online discussion. Specifically, this study distinguishes the active use of news portals for information about community issues and public affairs (e.g. commenting, passing along and searching for information) from the passive use of news portals (i.e. simple reception of information). An analysis of a national survey of 1294 Korean adults shows that active, not passive, use of news portals positively predicts online community discussion to subsequently increase cognitive, psychological, and behavioral dimensions of civic engagement: neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation. Importantly, active portal use's indirect positive relationship with civic engagement through online community discussion is stronger among people with higher news portal credibility. Implications are further discussed in the context of Korean news portals.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135016605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: <i>Curating the Moving Image</i> by Nash Mark","authors":"Phoebe Hart","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231210022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231210022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"20 12","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135413609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}