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On the 1st of August last year,

while I was in Vancouver, it was an-

nounced that media mogul Conrad

Black had sold almost all of his major

Canadian newspaper holdings and the

entire stable of his Internet enterprises

to Can West Global Communications,

one of the country’s major broadcast-

ing companies.1 The biggest takeover

in Canadian media history is the way

it was reported and Can West boasted

that the deal made it a ‘multiple-media

powerhouse’.2

The response from media

watchers was swift: combining Cana-

da’s second largest private television

network with the country’s major

newspaper chain to produce even

greater concentration of ownership,

what would happen to media diversity,

the facilitation of information in the

MEDIA DEMOCRATIZATION IN AUSTRALIA WHAT IS IT, WHO’S GOT IT, WHERE TO FIND IT, HOW IT WORKS (or doesn’t) – PART 1

creation of public opinion, the eventual

shape of the ‘public sphere’?

Australia is not unfamiliar with

this turn of events. In 1986, through

a series of moves and countermoves

choreographed with several infl uential

media proprietors, Rupert Murdoch’s

News Limited ended up owning ap-

proximately seventy percent of all

the metropolitan, regional and rural

newspapers in the country. The 1986

shake-out also positioned Kerry Packer,

the other key media mogul in Aus-

tralia, to consolidate his broadcast and

magazine holdings into a seemingly

unassailable corporate entity. Without

exception, throughout the 1990s, when

Australia’s premier business magazine,

Business Review Weekly, published its

list of the top 200 wealthiest individu-

als in the country, Murdoch and Packer

were inevitably vying for places among

the top fi ve.

Despite these rather grim scen-erios, there are media watchers who

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have detected a kind of dialectical counter-tendency at work. Canadian researchers Robert Hackett and Megan Adam, for example, have argued that there is growing recognition of the ‘limitations of the commercialized corporate media and the systematic ways the media system blocks progres-sive social change’.3 This awareness, according to Hackett and Adam, has given rise to the emergence of what for them is a nascent ‘social movement’, whose broad agenda is a transformative process of ‘media democratization’. The conceptual underpinnings of such a movement tends to hinge on notions such as ‘liberation, diversity, access, social change, inclusion, intercon-nectedness, education and empower-ment’.4 Looking especially at the Canadian and American context, these researchers have suggested that since the early 1990s, efforts to mobilize and consolidate these notions ‘in practice’ have been developed on a number of different but interlocking local and national fronts. It might be argued that Australia also has manifested various discursive and institutional sites which might be considered as part of this ‘movement for media democratiza-tion’, and in what follows, I would like to map, albeit rather truncatedly and schematically, the ‘geography’ of some of the more prominent of these sites.

CybercultureThe new communications tech-

nologies are an obvious place to start.

Let’s begin with a very concrete exam-

ple, one which was still unfolding as

this was being written – the Olympic

Games in Sydney. On the one hand,

the mainstream commercial media

juggernaut seemed unassailable in

its coverage of the Games, and this

was indeed what governments and of-

fi cials, not to mention tourist bureaus

wanted – unalloyed exposure of the

host country and the triumphs and

tribulations generated on the sports

fi eld and in the stadium, live and direct.

At the same time, the new communica-

tions technologies offered a separate

sphere from which to mount critique

and alternative views of events and

their contexts. And the sites which

came to give this sphere its shape and

momentum were constructed cheaply,

independently and offered accessibility

for voices and views not encountered

elsewhere in the media landscape.

If they wished to search it out, foreign journalists in Sydney to cover the Games were being given some in-teresting options. The Sydney Alterna-tive Media Centre (SAMC) described itself as ‘an independent information source for the international media dur-

ing the Olympics … offer[ing] strong locally sourced stories which face up to the diffi cult questions hanging over this country’. There was no conventional offi ce but instead an active web site – www.samcentre.org.au – which provided coverage of an ‘alternative

torch’ ceremony, the importation of cheap foreign labour for the Games and the government’s decision to al-low the military to police political ‘disturbances’ during the Games.5

Other cyber-interventions were

available as well. Real Games (www.

realgames.org.au) declared on its web

page: ‘There are many groups that

are forming voices of opposition

against the Games and preparing

to send a strong and clear message

to the international community

about the state of Sydney and the

state of Australia’. It then offered

links to numerous counter-Olympics

sites, including Green Games Watch

(www.greengameswatch.org.au), a

non-governmental coalition of major

national and state organizations moni-

toring the environmental costs of the

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Games; Protest 2000 (138.25.138.9/

protest2000), an initiative of the United

Githabul Tribe Nation of the University

of Sydney aiming to ‘to speak out

to the world about past and present

injustices against [Aboriginal] people’;

Rentwatchers (www.rw.apana.org.au),

a coalition of community organiza-

tions and tenants ‘calling for measures

to ensure that the adverse impact

of the Olympics on housing is mini-

mized … and [doesn’t] exacerbate the

longer-term problems of homeless-

ness and housing related poverty’;

and Pissoff (People Ingeniously Sub-

verting the Sydney Olympics Farce,

www.cat.org.au/pissoff/), which de-

scribed itself as ‘an ad hoc, dynamic

group of activists and campaigners’

planning ‘peaceful, non-violent actions’

before and during the Games.

Similar mobilization of Internet

communication was used extensively

in the lead up to and during the World

Economic Forum’s (WEF) ‘Asia-Pacifi c

Summit’. Held in Melbourne, just

a few days prior to the start of the

Olympics, this three day conference

was the southern hemisphere counter-

part to the main WEF annual meeting

in Davos Switzerland. Along with

corporate business leaders, academics,

politicians and trade ministers talking

through the political, economic and

business agendas for the year, the star

attraction for the Asia-Pacifi c Summit

in Melbourne was Microsoft’s Bill

Gates.

The lead up to the WEF Summit

was accompanied by the emergence

of what might be described as a ‘de-

centred’ organization made up of lo-

cal and national activist groups who

used the Internet as a crucial site of

information dissemination and grass

roots mobilization. Calling itself the

S11 Alliance (the most publicly visible

part of the campaign protest would

begin on the fi rst day of the Forum, the

11th of September), an exhortation was

issued from its web site (www.s11.org)

for ‘a three day mass action for global

justice and the environment’ to be

held in tandem with the Summit.

Receiving more than two million hits

in the three months prior to the three

day protest, the site became a catalyst

for international media headlines,

prompted the FBI to contact one of the

web site activist’s Internet service pro-

vider and perhaps most importantly

in the context of a discussion of media

democratization, provided a key focal

point for the Alliance and its support-

ers before, during and after the protest

event.

Another on-line based alterna-tive information resource emerged as a major participant in Melbourne at the time of the WEF Summit. Affi li-ated with the IndyMedia movement which started with the N30 World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Melbourne Independent Media (www.melbourne.indymedia.org.au) described itself as ‘an on-line non-corporate owned media channel … encourag[ing] and support[ing] the creation of radical, objective and passionate tellings of the truth …

provid[ing] non-corporate media cov-erage of protests and social move-ments’.

The success of these on-line affiliations might be judged in part by the co-ordinated global ‘actions’ reported during the WEF protest in Melbourne. Simultaneous rallies were staged nationally and internationally: Perth in Western Australia saw a large gathering at the stock exchange, and London, Auckland and Helsinki were also centres of ‘solidarity action’. Indy Media’s Melbourne site was considered so successful that plans were put in place to remain active after the protest in order to provide continu-ous community based news stories in a variety of media formats.6

Increasingly, in Australia, the

Internet is proving to be an important

vehicle for mobilizing what Hackett

and Adam call ‘the fl ow of counter-

information’ to a broader constituency,

the reception and use of which can be

local, national or international.7 The

activity in this area is too widespread

to chart within the limited space here,

but these are just a few examples of

the web sites making some impact in

transforming the shape of informa-

tion delivery in the Australian media

landscape.

• Active (www.active.org.au):

a Sydney based activist

group working for social

change, publicizing events

and providing its own take

on the latest news

• Greenpeace Get Active

(www.greenpeace.org.au/

getactive): encouraging en-

vironmental activism with

advice and information

• Cat@lyst (www.cat.org.au):

a community activist tech-

nology collective

• O c t a p o d

(www.octapod.org.au): an

organization set up to pro-

vide access to media tools

and facilities for the local

creative community in New-

castle, New South Wales

• Crikey (www.crikey.com

.au): an on-line magazine

S11:

‘mas

s ac

tion

for g

loba

l jus

tice’

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which ‘point[s] out theft,

corruption, deception and

collusion wherever and

whenever it can … tak[ing] a

long thin spike to the bloated

egos of political and corpo-

rate Australia …’

• c2c, Community Commu-

nications On-line (www.c2c.

org.au): a Melbourne based

group which ‘provides con-

sultancy, training and web

hosting services to com-

munity based organizations

in the Australasian region’

Community RadioIn 1974, the fi rst fully licensed

community based radio station went

to air in Sydney. By the end of 1999,

Australia had over one hundred and

seventy community stations, exceed-

ing the number in the commercial

sector. Incorporating a wide variety of

formats and approaches, historically

community radio has been located

as a type of ‘third sector’ media –

complementary and supplementary to

public service broadcasting (in this case

the Australian Broadcasting Commis-

sion) and to commercial broadcasting.

Several features seem to typify com-

munity radio in Australia: responsive-

ness to particular and general needs

of the community, especially in terms

of those not adequately served by

other media; a voluntary and unpaid

labour force; democratic management

structures; an audience defi ned by its

potential to become station contribu-

tors as well as listeners; programming

policies promoting access and partici-

pation above standardized broadcaster

professionalism; and a chronic lack

of capital as a result of a funding

model based primarily on listener

subscriptions and occasional grants

from governing or civic instrumentali-

ties.8

Right from its inception, com-

munity radio fostered a broadcasting

tradition based in what Albert Moran

describes as the ‘politically progres-

sive’ station.9 With historical and

social links to the anti-Vietnam and

women’s movements, and input from

left-leaning trade unions, the rationale

of these types of stations was, and

still is, the provision of a media based

oppositional and/or ‘alternative’ kind

of politics and culture. For these sta-

tions, the airwaves can act to provide

a democratic space from which to

circulate information, views and music

given almost no attention in the main-

stream media. Canberra’s progressive

station summarizes the position this

way in its current literature: ‘2XX is

a community access radio station.

Community broadcasters cater to the

needs of those denied effective access

to, and those not served by, the existing

media. As a community broadcaster,

2XX’s programme policies oppose

and aim to break down prejudice ...’

This, of course, is precisely the kind

of approach that would be completely

familiar in the growing attempts to

democratize the media through the

new cyber-activism.

To be accurate, and avoid giving

a false impression, the number of these

progressive stations, taking account

of the total domain of community

radio, is very small indeed, although

some have had considerable success

in particular radio markets. 3RRR-

FM (www.rrr.org.au) in Melbourne

is frequently cited as a good example.

However, it is their place in the Austral-

ian media landscape as a whole, with

its extremely high concentration of

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ownership across media, which needs

to be considered. By returning to the

WEF protest for a moment, this point

might be demonstrated succinctly.

While the mainstream media coverage

was calling it ‘the mellee of Melbourne’

in order to garner a negative associa-

tion with the ‘battle of Seattle’ the year

before, and the television news images

each night predictably focused on

scenes of confrontation and ‘violence’,

3CR (home.vicnet.net.au/~threecr/

new.htm), the city’s progressive com-

munity station, had reporters on the

scene continuously providing up-

dates, backgrounders, interviews with

participants and diverse commentary

throughout the entire three days of the

WEF action. To follow an event like this

at close range from a position of par-

tisanship, to do so over a considerable

length of time without the constraints

of conventional media news cycle

deadlines, and to avoid the shrinking

of issues into the inevitable sound-bite

and photo-op may be the real power

of this type of community radio in the

enhancement of the process of media

democratization.

Monitoring, Lobbying and ‘Keeping the Bastards Honest’

As governments have embraced

media policies designed to achieve

deregulation, as new technologies have

altered the way media is produced and

distributed, as globalization increas-

ingly defi es national boundaries and as

the concentration of media ownership

deepens, a growing number of indi-

viduals in Australia are expressing the

view that ‘public voices will continue

to be silenced by private interests in the

pursuit of profi t, power and popular-

ity’.10 One response to this succession

of new circumstances has been the

expansion of non-governmental and

non-corporate agencies and organiza-

tions prepared to refl ect on, debate,

research and challenge the structure

and governance of the transforming

media world. With rather pre-emptive

and schematic brevity, a list, in no

particular order, of some of these

efforts is provided below.

1. Friends of the ABC (www.fabc.org.au)

A television network, four spe-

cialist radio networks, metropolitan

and regional radio stations, Radio Aus-

tralia, an international service and an

on-line network together make up the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation,

the national public service broadcaster.

Funded by the public purse, ABC policy

has been underwritten by a commit-

ment to ensure all Australians ‘have

access to information, entertainment,

education and cultural enrichment’

through quality and diverse program-

ming in the context of national cul-

ture.11 However, as the encroachment

of the ‘rule of economic calculation’

and a dubious ideology of ‘consumer

choice’ has increasingly shaped govern-

ment thinking, these ideals, founded

on a notion of ‘public interest’, have

been, according to some, substantially

eroded.

Friends of the ABC (FABC) was

formed to monitor and publicize the

economic and political machinations

surrounding the ABC. Their major

concern is the steady erosion of ABC

autonomy, especially in the areas of

news and current affairs, where, it is ar-

gued, the ABC has consistently proved

itself to be a ‘valued, independent,

comprehensive, innovative’ broadcaster

acting as an essential counter-weight

to the dominance of the commercial

media. In this context FABC activities

include ‘background briefi ngs’, national

newsletters, ‘digital discussions’ on-

line, state based organizing groups and

policy submissions.

Last year’s controversial appoint-

ment of Jonathan Shier as the ABC’s

Managing Director, and the subsequent

changes initiated and foreshadowed

by him, have been the latest focus

of FABC campaigning. Disquiet over

this appointment has run deep.12 In

the Spring 2000 issue of its publi-

cation Vic News, FABC’s Victorian

branch was issuing unsettling warn-

ings to its membership about the risks

to the future of the ABC if the new

Managing Director’s plans were fully

implemented – a push towards com-

mercialisation, downgrading news and

current affairs, doing the bidding of

a hostile government – and urging an

active public campaign to defend ‘a

treasured national institution’.

2. Communications Law Centre (www.comslaw.org.au)

On the occasion of its tenth

anniversary in 1998, the then head

of the Communications Law Centre

(CLC), Jock Given, noted, ‘Australia’s

media dynasties were once again set-

tling a deal to carve up one of the

most important new media opportuni-

ties, the introduction of pay-TV ...

blunt[ing] the optimism ... about the

potential for those new services to

provide openings for big new voices

in Australia media’.13 For Given the

original reasons for setting up the CLC

were more relevant than ever.

While communications technolo-

gies and services are developed

outside the scope of existing law

and as long as the community

trails behind the corporate sector

in the development of its technical

and legal skills, the opportunities

for ensuring broader and more

effective community or consumer

input will remain minimal. A Cen-

tre specialising in communica-

tions and information technologies

could begin to redress the current

imbalances in this area.14

Currently the broad aims of

the CLC are ‘to be an innovative, pro-

fessional and influential source of

research, ideas and actions in the public

interest on media and communications

issues’ and to that end work by way of

applied research, policy submissions,

academic and professional training

in media law, publications, seminars,

the provision of legal advice and the

representation and participation in

consultative and regulatory forums.

Broadcasting legislation, free

speech and defamation, media owner-

ship, content and audiovisual produc-

tion, spectrum management, informa-

tion equity, privacy, universal service

and regional communications, Internet

and on-line services, telecommuni-

cations and journalism ethics have

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all been topics of investigation and

reflection by the CLC. Communica-

tions Update is the Centre’s monthly

magazine, providing news, analysis and

opinion about media and communica-

tions in Australia and overseas. In

1995, the CLC published Media Rights

Consumer Action, a type of advocacy

handbook addressing questions about

‘the responsibilities of media providers

and ... public rights’ and offering basic

information about the structure of

Australian media, the rules governing

media output and what to do most

effectively ‘to have your voice heard’.

3. National Women’s Media Centre (www.nwmc@ozemail.com.au)

In its offi cial introductory pro-

fi le, the National Women’s Media Cen-

tre (NWMC) explains that it ‘was es-

tablished in 1994 to provide a national

focus for the issue of portrayal of

women in the media’ as this issue was

dropped from the federal government’s

priority agenda with the refocusing of

the Offi ce of the Status of Women and

the ending of the National Working

Party for the Portrayal of Women. The

NWMC has branches in all Australian

states, and has ‘the support of senior

women with expertise in areas across

the range of media’.

The NWMC describes itself as

‘the only national women’s organiza-

tion dedicated to developing a media

ethic in Australia which assumes equal-

ity of women and men’. Two of its

special objectives relate to being a

‘clearing house for information and

research’ and ‘to ensure women are

involved in decision-making and crea-

tive positions in media organizations’.

4. Watch on Censorship (www.watchoncensorship.asn.au)

Dr. Sharon Beder is a profes-

sional civil engineer and associate

professor in Science and Technology

Studies at the University of Wool-

longong. In 1993 she wrote an article

for New Scientist, the international

science magazine, on inadequate pro-

cedures for ‘pollution remediation’

and toxic waste. Unfortunately for her,

the research was based on a site at

Homebush Bay, the proposed loca-

tion for the 2000 Olympics and the

Sydney bid for the Games was well

underway. Just before publication, the

article was pulled. Nothing, it seems,

was allowed to undermine the bid.

This included the Australian media,

which effectively closed itself down

with regard to any critical scrutiny

of the bid for fear of being labelled

‘unpatriotic’ or ‘negative’. Dr. Beder’s

story is posted on the Watch on Cen-

sorship web site.15

In its own words ‘Watch on

Censorship is a group of individuals

concerned about all forms of censor-

ship, across all media forms’. As such,

it monitors and comments on changes

and trends in the ‘cultural and censor-

ship climate with the aim of counter-

ing reactive and conservative forces’

through education, lobbying, running

campaigns, publishing, and holding

lectures and public forums. It is also

active in liaising with the media, gov-

ernment, administrative and industry

organizations on censorship issues.

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More recently it has been involved

in policy debates about ‘community

standards’ and violent and sexually

explicit material available through the

Internet.

5. Public Interest Advocacy Centre (www.nwjc.org.au/piacemailbulletin)

In the 1990s Australia, along

with other countries in the developed

world, experienced tremendous social,

cultural and economic change. Increas-

ingly, there were reports of rising levels

of disillusionment, frustration and

anger with the political process and an

intense feeling that decision-making

related to policy, economic well-being

and law was the preserve of an elite few

in public bureaucracies and corporate

boardrooms. For many people elected

politicians, rather than providing solu-

tions, were seen as actually playing

an integral part in the emergence of

these trends.

During this period there was

also a growing interest in and reliance

on the notion of ‘advocacy’ – the view

that ‘new times’ required new modes

of engagement to represent the disad-

vantaged, the disenfranchised and the

interests of ‘ordinary’ citizens. Based in

Sydney, the fi rst of its kind in Australia,

the Public Interest Advocacy Centre

(PIAC) was set up as an ‘independent,

non-profit legal and policy centre

striv[ing] to foster a fair, just and

democratic society by empowering

disadvantaged citizens, consumers and

communities ... through strategic test

case litigation, policy intervention and

community education’. The Centre’s

work has emphasized effective public

access to information, participation in

society’s governance and accountability

in the public, private and community

sectors.

In terms of the media’s effective-

ness to report on issues, the Centre

has had an on-going concern with

the poor performance of Freedom

of Information (FOI) legislation to

facilitate the accessing of ‘contentious’

information.16 Recognizing the need

for resources ‘to strengthen people’s

capacity to be active citizens and con-

sumers’, in 1996 the PIAC published

Working the System: A Guide for Citizens,

Consumers and Communities, a book

which aimed ‘to enhance the responsive-

ness as well as the representativeness of

our democracy’.

6. Whistleblowers Australia (www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bm artin/dissent/contacts/au_wba)

According to its web based litera-

ture, Whistleblowers Australia (WBA)

exists ‘to help promote a society in

which it is possible to speak out without

reprisal about corruption, dangers

to the public and other vital social

issues’. Running for nine years and with

branches in each state and a national

committee, WBA does not normally

act as an advocate, but provides advice

and support for what it calls ‘individual

whistleblowers’ as well as access to

research and appropriate networks

nationally and internationally. Cur-

rently, the organization has three initia-

tives underway: promoting the right

of employees to speak out or make

disclosures of social importance; re-

forming Australia’s defamation laws;

and developing stronger and more

comprehensive legislation concerned

with whistleblowing.

The WBA’s newsletter, The Whis-

tle, is published at least twice a year both

in hard copy and in an electronic version

and includes up-dates on ‘whistleblow-

ing around Australia’. Issue no.2, June

2000 had items on ‘police problems’

and Royal Commissions, ‘battles with

... ineffi ciencies and pockets of corrup-

tion’, and the ‘misuse of psychiatry’. The

organization has also been involved in

publishing a ‘book of defi nitive advice’,

The Whistleblower’s Handbook: How

to Be an Effective Resister (WBA, PO Box

U 129, Wollongong, NSW 2500). WBA

has close links with another national

organization concerned with issues of

free speech and ‘unaccountable power’,

Dissent Network Australia, which main-

tains a web site dealing with ‘attacks on

dissenting views and individuals’ with

a specifi c focus on ‘whistleblowing, free

speech, systems of social control and

related topics’ (www.uow.edu.au/arts/

sts/bmartin/dissent).

7. Freedom of Information Legislation

Introduced in 1982, and now

established in all states and the Aus-

tralian Capital Territory, Freedom

of Information (FOI) legislation, in

principle, provides the public with

avenues to access information about

or documents pertaining to the opera-

tions and policies of government.

The emergence of FOI legislation was

a response to increasing dissatisfac-

tion with the secrecy surrounding

government policy development and

decision-making. According to the

web site:

The underlying rationale for Free-

dom of Information legislation is

that it protects individual rights, it

makes government more open and

accountable and thereby improves

government decision-making and

it promotes public participation in

policy development. Freedom of

Information is thus an important

tool for the realization of demo-

cratic goals.17

Townley argues that the media

has a crucial role to play in the success

of FOI by ensuring awareness of the

legislation and using FOI to enhance

its role as ‘democratic watchdog’.18 And

indeed, there have been some impor-

tant, even spectacular, successes. The

Age newspaper’s ‘outing’ of the Victo-

rian Police Force secret undercover

unit which, between 1985 and 1992,

infi ltrated and kept a mass of dossiers

on individuals and community groups,

including Melbourne’s progressive

community radio station 3CR, comes

to mind.19

More recently, however, the ac-

tual ‘practice’ surrounding FOI has

been the source of some considerable

criticism, especially around the notion

of the ‘exemption’ and ‘commercial-

in-confidentiality’ rulings. In 1999,

the Communications Law Centre held

a conference entitled ‘Freedom of

Information and the Right to Know’,

where broad issues of FOI and the

public interest were discussed. The

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overall diagnosis emerging from this

gathering suggested that FOI legis-

lation was afflicted with what Rick

Snell, editor of Freedom of Informa-

tion Review (www.comlaw.utas.edu.au/

law/foi/foi_rev) and head of the

Freedom of Information Research

Unit at the University of Tasmania

(www.comlaw.utas.edu.au/law/foi/

resunit/res_unit), called a ‘general

malaise’, resulting from such factors as

a history of evasion and non-compli-

ance, lack of standardized procedures

and ‘performance indicators’, restric-

tions under arbitrary commercial

confidentiality provisions and more

broadly, a bias towards ‘the imperatives

of the market’ rather than the facilita-

tion of participatory democracy.20 Ac-

cording to Roger Clarke, this state of af-

fairs will become even more entrenched

as new technologies are mobilized in

ever more strategic ways to ‘protect

data-objects’.21

8. Electronic Frontiers Australia (www.efa.org.au)

From its web site, Electronic

Frontiers Australia (EFA) explains that

it is:

a non-profi t organization formed

to protect and promote the civil

liberties of users and operators of

computer based communications

systems … to advocate the amend-

ment of laws and regulations in

Australia and elsewhere (both cur-

rent and proposed) which restrict

free speech and unfettered access

to information and to educate

the community at large about

the social, political and civil liber-

ties issues involved in the use of

computer based communications

systems.

If the breadth of material found

on its web site is any sort of indicator,

since its inception in 1994, EFA has

been an active player in lobbying and

educating politicians and bureaucrats

about the brave new world of the

Internet.

Several core areas seem to shape

the agenda of EFA activities:

• Censorship: campaigning against laws which restrict ‘the ability of a service pro-vider to provide an uncen-sored service, which assign liability to ISPs for mate-rial accessed through their service, or which deny users access to information or the freedom to communicate’.

• Cryptography: promoting

the use of encryption (‘scrambling’ information transmitted and stored in computer networks).

• Privacy issues: monitoring the laws of privacy as they

pertain to electronic net-working.

• Intellectual property: track-ing proposals to overhaul Australia’s Copyright legis-lation in the light of new challenges posed by ‘the on-line revolution’.

Writing regular submissions

to government inquiries related to

on-line development, providing ‘law-

based guidelines’ for on-line businesses

and users, producing newsletters for

the ‘digital community’, conducting

research, making FOI requests, distrib-

uting media releases and organizing

speakers are all part of the methodol-

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ogy EFA employs in what it sees as its

Internet ‘watchdog’ role.

9. Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) (www.actu.asn.au)

A peak organization and na-

tional centre representing a substantial

section of the Australian workforce,

the ACTU is made up of fifty-two

affiliated unions. With branches in

each state, called Labor Councils, the

ACTU claims to be ‘able to speak on

behalf of all workers including those in

manufacturing, fi nance, government

and the service sector’. In addition to

four full time ‘offi cers’, a number of

industrial relations, research, adminis-

trative, occupational health and safety,

international trade and union educa-

tion specialists are employed.

Housed within this organiza-

tional structure is the central ‘media

offi ce’, which functions to disseminate

information relevant to the two million

plus members of the ACTU. Frequently

in the form of newsletters, media

releases and web site postings, this

information appears to be responsive

to or attempting to frame develop-

ments in currently running industrial

campaigns (for example, the impact of

‘individual contracts’) or union related

developments (the GST package). A

range of regular bulletins, research

reports and speeches is also published.

If it can be argued that the prospects

for hearing the voices ‘from below’

are increasingly diminishing in the

corporate media system, it might also

be argued that ACTU media output,

with its worker-oriented focus, is one

way to counter this tendency.

10. Australian Press Council (www.presscouncil.org.au)

Media commentators have tend-

ed to view the Australian Press Council

(APC) as a good idea which never

quite worked. The most commonly

voiced criticism is that it has been and

remains a ‘toothless tiger’. According

to one senior state politician sitting on

a Senate Select Committee in 1999 on

information technologies and media

codes of practice, the Council is one

of the least effective of the regulatory

bodies dealing with the communica-

tions industries.22 Yet its launch in 1976

came out of some highly principled

notions about the role of the print

media in democracies. A statement of

objectives explains that the APC was

set up ‘to help preserve the traditional

freedom of the press within Australia

and to ensure that the free press acts

responsibly and ethically’. To this latter

end, the Council serves as ‘a forum to

which anyone may take a complaint

concerning the press’. The complaint

process goes through a number of

specifi ed stages, including an ‘adjudica-

tion’ between the complainant and

the newspaper or magazine, an ap-

peals review and the publication of

adjudications in the quarterly newslet-

ter, Australian Press Council News.

It is also expected that an adjudica-

tion in favour of the complainant be

printed by the offending newspaper

or magazine.23

According to its own web litera-

ture, ‘The Council’s history has not

always been smooth’. Membership is

voluntary, and newspapers have been

known to simply boycott the Council

when there are issues of disagree-

ment.24 There is no power to penalize a

publication or order it to do anything,

and the printing of an adjudication

seems to be optional. Other troubling

concerns have surfaced over the years:

• funding comes from the

newspaper and magazine indus-

tries themselves, so criticism can

be very muted

• a voluntary code of ethics

has no genuine sanctioning pow-

ers

• APC representatives having

excessively long periods of tenure

(one occupying a seat twenty-three

years)

• conflicts of interest com-

promising members’ capacity to

be impartial

• complaints of a ‘trivial and

vexatious’ nature (from marginal

organizations like the gun lobby,

anti-immunization groups, pit

bull terrier owners) not vetted

carefully 25

• failure to incorporate a

younger generation of print media

personnel

• male gender imbalance

These problems have not been

lost on the current government and

there has been some discussion about

the possibility of establishing a new

statutory body to regulate newspapers

in Australia.

11. Australian Broadcasting Authority (www.aba.gov.au)

Unlike the print based media, the

broadcasting industry has developed,

from its earliest days, a history of state

regulation. Australian commercial

broadcasting operates under a licens-

ing system, a policy mechanism which

acknowledges, at least implicitly, that

broadcasters ‘have some form of social

responsibility for use of the airwaves’.26

The administrative body with a legisla-

tive charter to oversee some of this

arena of social responsibility is the

Australian Broadcasting Authority

(ABA), which as part of its mandate

assists the different sectors of the

television, radio and Internet industries

to develop codes of practice relating

to content and complaints handling

and investigates complaints about

inappropriate content on broadcast-

ing services and the Internet. It also

develops and administers programme

standards on Australian content and

children’s programmes on commercial

television and conducts research into

community attitudes on program-

ming matters.27 The ABA also gathers

information to assess whether levels

of foreign ownership of Australian

broadcasting industries comply with

regulatory limitations and monitors

national ownership trends ‘to ensure

that diversity of control of the more

influential broadcasting services is

being maintained’.

The success or otherwise of the

ABA in its role as broadcast industry

watchdog has been an issue of some

vigorous debate.28 Some have argued

that the ABA, with the assistance of

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government policy making, has capitu-

lated to a rhetoric which celebrates ‘de-

regulation’ and ‘market forces’ so that

the broader social and cultural goals of

citizenship, public participation and

institutional forms of accountability

have been virtually removed from

the ABA’s regulatory focus.29 Others

have suggested that some of the ABA’s

founding assumptions are fl awed and,

in an era of global media and technol-

ogy ‘convergence’, increasing diffi cult to

sustain – for example, when television

drama is commonly stitched together

in multi-nation co-production deals,

what can be defi ned now as ‘genuinely’

Australian content?30

The past few years have seen

two further developments which some

commentators interpret as conclusive

evidence of the erosion of ABA regu-

latory capacity and independence.

The fi rst involved the introduction of

legislation that would give the ABA

the power to investigate and help set

up codes of practice regarding on-line

content – a seemingly responsible

policy initiative, given the increasing

centrality of the Internet as an everyday

medium of communication. But the

view from some quarters is that this

initiative fi ts too neatly with a more

generalized move toward a new era

of moral rectitude, which the current

conservative government has played a

part in framing by way of encouraging

a climate of stricter censorship.31

What came to be known as the

‘cash for comment scandal’ provided

another instance of the ABA’s com-

promised position as a regulatory

body. It was revealed in mid-1999,

by the ABC’s TV programme Media

Watch, that the country’s highest pro-

fi le radio presenter with a seventy sta-

tion syndicated morning programme

and two million listeners was secretly

being paid substantial amounts of

money by the Australian Bankers As-

sociation to endorse banks or refrain

from broadcasting criticism of them.

The ABA launched an inquiry which

was charged with investigating the

issue of ‘the disclosure of commercial

sponsorship deals’.32 During the course

of the investigation, it became increas-

ingly evident that although the ABA

had the regulatory power to conduct

an investigation, there was no facility

to follow through with any kind of

genuine sanctions. The offending radio

station was required to disclose the

commercial interests of its announcers,

but this was to be monitored by the

station itself. There were no recom-

mendations to change the legislative

framework for the radio industry or to

produce ‘sharper codes of practice’,33

and no penalty fines were imposed,

as would be the case in the United

States.34 Perhaps most disheartening of

all, for those concerned with questions

of democracy and media power, there

was no appreciable long term drop in

audience numbers as a result of ‘the

scandal’.

12. Young Media Australia (www.youngmedia.org.au)

According to its mission state-

ment, Young Media Australia (YMA)

was established to ‘promote a quality

media environment for Australian chil-

dren and to raise community aware-

ness of the needs of children and young

people in relation to the media’. As

a national, non-profit, community

based organization providing informa-

tion, advocacy and research on the

‘impact of media’, YMA has its major

‘resource centre’ in Adelaide, where

it publishes a range of media related

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materials, makes available information

from regulatory agencies connected to

media, hires Media Studies teaching

aids, and arranges for guest speakers.

With a strong background in lobbying

regulators and industry representatives,

YMA has contributed to the establish-

ment of quotas for children’s television

programming, the classification of

home videos and computer games, a

review of advertising to children, and

most recently, monitoring Internet

content and advocating the concept of

‘cybersafety’.

Part 2 of ‘Media Democratization

in Australia’ will be published in the next

issue of Australian Screen Education,

#26. Comments on and /or omissions

in Part 1 can be sent to the author at:

john.langer@vu.edu.au �

Endnotes1. In Australia we remember Conrad Black

from a few years ago when he bought

into the Fairfax newspaper chain and

resident journalists started to worry

openly about editorial meddling

from this reputedly interventionist

investment partner. As it turned out,

Black eventually pulled up stakes

to concentrate on his newspaper

holdings in other parts of the world.

Since 1992 Australia also has a con-

nection with Can West as a major

player in the ownership of the Ten

Network.

2. See April Lindgren, ‘$3.5 Billion Buys

Media Empire’, Vancouver Sun, 2000,

p.1.

3. Robert Hackett and Megan Adam, ‘Is

Media Democratization A Social

Movement?’, Peace Review, vol.11,

no.1, 1999, p.125.

4. ibid. p.126.

5. For this article, whenever a web site is

referenced in the text, the http//

‘prefi x’ will be omitted in order to

have a less cluttered page.

6. The latest development to come out

of this branch of media activism

is The Paper, an ‘independent fort-

nightly news and opinion’ publica-

tion available at no charge around

Melbourne’s inner city suburbs.

With a focus on ‘topical issues and

current happenings’, The Paper’s

editorial policy encourages the de-

velopment of ‘constructive argu-

ment’ as a ‘powerful tool … against

corporate agendas’. Issue number

3 offers a list of useful on-line me-

dia sites with similar policy objec-

tives, including www.freespeech.org,

www.oneworld.org. www.active.org.

au,www.blueear. com, www.ips.org,

and their own address, thepaper

@disinfo.net.

7. Hackett and Adam, op. cit. p.128.

8. See Albert Moran, ‘Multiplying Minori-

ties: The Case of Community Ra-

dio’, in Jennifer Craik, Julie James

Bailey and Albert Moran (eds), Pub-

lic Voices, Private Interests: Australia’s

Media Policy, Allen & Unwin, St.

Leonards, 1995.

9. ibid. p.153.

10. Jennifer Craik, Julie James Bailey and

Albert Moran, ‘Introduction: public

voices, private interests’, ibid. p.xxv.

11. Jennifer Craik and Glyn Davis, ‘The

ABC Goes To Market: Transforma-

tions of the Australian Broadcasting

Corporation’, ibid. p.117.

12. See for example Caroline Overington

and Peter Wilmoth, ‘Auntie’s Black

Christmas’, The Age, ‘News Extra’,

2000, pp.1-2.

13. Jock Given, ‘The CLC Turns Ten

Years Old’, Communications Update,

vol.149, November, 1998, p.3.

14. ibid. p3.

15. See www.prwatch.org/prw_issues/1999-

Q2/olympic2

16. See Jenny Mullaly, ‘An Invitation to

Open Government’, Communica-

tions Update, vol.152, March, 1999,

p.19.

17. FOI (Commentary) – 5.1 Introduction,

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/

media.OLD/460.html. p.2.

18. H. Townley, ‘Keeping the Bastards

Honest: The Tasmanian Media

and FOI’, FOI Research Projects

– 1993-’95 Abstracts, http://www.

comlaw.utas.edu.au/law/foi/resunit/

res_unit.html. p.1.

19. See www.theage.comm.au/special/

police/index for details.

20. Rick Snell, ‘Where To From Here? Build-

ing An FOI Constituency’, Freedom

of Information and the Right to Know,

unpublished proceedings, Commu-

nications Law Centre, Melbourne,

1999.

21. Roger Clarke, ‘Freedom of Infor-

mation? The Internet as the Har-

binger of the New Dark Ages’, http/

/ w w w . a n u . e d u . a u / p e o p l e /

Roger.Clarke/II/DarkAges.html.

1999.

22. See Andrew Dodd, ‘Muted Bark of the

Watchdog’, The Australian, Media,

19thAugust, 1999.

23. See www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/

complaints/process.

24. See Dodd, op. cit.

25. See ibid.

26. Jo Hawke, ‘Privatizing the Public Inter-

est: The Public and the Broadcasting

Services Act’, in Craik, Bailey and

Moran, op. cit. p.34.

27. See www.aba.gov.au and ABA Update:

Newsletter of the Australian Broad-

casting Authority.

28. See for example Terry Flew, ‘Images of

Nation: Economic and Cultural As-

pects of Australian Content Regula-

tions for Commercial Television’,

in Craik, Bailey and Moran, op.

cit; Stuart Cunningham, Framing

Culture: Criticism and Policy in Aus-

tralia, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards,

1992.

29. See Hawkes, op. cit. pp.34-35.

30. See Terry Flew, op. cit.

31. See www.anu.edu/people/RogerClarke/

11/Regn; www.efa.org.au/campaigns

/99.

32. See Jock Given, ‘Commentary’, Commu-

nications Update, no.60, November,

1999, pp.3-4.

33. See Richard Acland, ‘A New Era of

Propriety for 2UE? Hmm …’, Sydney

Morning Herald, 8th February, 2000,

http://www.smh.com.au/news/specials/

local/laws/cash88.html.

34. See David Marr, ‘Taken Out the Back and

Shot: The Old Style Spruiker’, Sydney

Morning Herald, 8th February, 2000,

http://www.smh.com.au/news/specials/

local/laws/cash85.html.

This project would not have even-

tuated without encouragement and sup-

port from Bob Hackett, School of Com-

munication, Simon Fraser University,

British Columbia