Contact lens prescribing : USA vs the world

Along with other facets of commericialization, the contact lens market has become globalized during the past 30 years. The major international companies have worldwide distribution networks and supply lenses of the same product names and replacement frequencies to all nations, with a few minor adjustments for marketing and regulatory reasons. Small and medium-sized companies, often producing more specialized lenses, are also active in markets across the world.

Trade in 'Dirty Air' : carbon crime and the politics of pollution

‘Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90% of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing billions, mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol and the European law enforcement agency.’ (Mason, 2009). ‘Carbon offset projects often result in land grabs, local environmental and social conflicts, as well as the repression of local communities and movements. The CDM approval process for projects allows little space for the voices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities – in fact, no project has ever been rejected on the grounds of rights violations, despite these being widespread’. (Carbon Trade Watch, 2013)

Sentencing policy : the politics of law and order

Against the advice of their own parliamentary committees, and despite the experience of other jurisdictions, both the Government and Opposition parties seem to be intent on outbidding each other on mandatory sentencing regimes in the lead-up to the 2003 NSW election, says DAVID BROWN.

Arm’s length pricing and multinational banks : an old fashioned approach in a modern world

In “Arm’s Length Pricing and Multinational Banks: An Old Fashioned Approach in a Modern World”, Kerrie Sadiq, describes the high level of integration of multinational financial institutions and argues that treating each element within a given operation as a separate entity for transfer pricing purposes is not economically or legally realistic. She proposes instead formulary apportionment as a device for managing this complexity.

Mediating orientation and self-expression in the world of consumption : Australian and German lifestyle journalists' professional views

Despite having experienced rapid popularity over the past two decades, lifestyle journalism is still somewhat neglected by academic researchers. So far mostly explored as either part of wider lifestyle programming, particularly on television, or in terms of individual sub-fields, such as travel, fashion or food journalism, lifestyle journalism is in need of scholarly analysis particularly in the area of production, based on the increasing importance which the field has in influencing audiences’ ways of life. This study explores the professional views of 89 Australian and German lifestyle journalists through in-depth interviews in order to explore the ways in which they engage in processes of influencing audiences’ self-expression, identities and consumption behaviors. The article argues that through its work, lifestyle journalism is a significant shaper of identities in today’s consumer societies.

Journalism Across Cultures : An Introduction

In today's global digital world, journalists are required to be cognizant of ethical and cultural issues beyond usual national boundaries. Drawing on global examples, this text examines international journalism through the authors' wide variety of cultural, educational, teaching and learning backgrounds, including their professional and practical experiences. While existing books tend to be more focused on specific regions or specific aspects of journalism, this book addresses in a comprehensive way journalism across cultures from a truly global (and holistic) perspective. It analyzes media systems in Africa, Latin America, the Arab world and the Middle East, China, as well as North America and Western Europe. This text is truly interdisciplinary in theoretical and practical approaches because it draws on other fields such as media and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, as well as politics and international relations. It will provide an introduction to cross-cultural journalism and equip students with the skills and understanding they need today.

The Politics and Legality of Prisoner Disenfranchisement in Australian Federal Elections

To remove the right of prisoners to vote does many things. … It signals that whatever the prisoner says is not of interest to those at the top, that you are not interested in talking to them or even listening to them, that you want to exclude them and that you have no interest in knowing about them. INTRODUCTION In June 2006, Australia passed legislation disenfranchising all prisoners serving full-time custodial sentences from voting in federal elections. This followed a succession of changes dating from 1983 that alternately extended and restricted the prisoner franchise. In 1989 and 1995, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) federal government prepared draft legislation removing any restrictions on prisoner voting rights in federal elections; the measures were defeated and withdrawn. With the 2006 legislation, the Howard Coalition government (composed of the Liberal and National parties) successfully achieved the total disenfranchisement it first sought in 1998. This chapter examines the politics and legality of the 2006 disenfranchisement. This will be approached, first, by briefly outlining the key provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, offering a short legislative history of prisoner franchise, and examining some of the key constitutional issues. Second, the 2006 disenfranchisement introduced in the Electoral and Referendum (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 will be examined in greater detail, particularly in terms of the manner in which it was achieved and the arguments that were mobilized both in support of and against the change.

Global story-telling in a socially-networked world

Journalists work in an intensively time-pressured environment, researching and writing to daily, often 24 hour, deadlines and always aware of the competition with other news outlets to be first with the news. This results, as Karen Sanders has observed, in journalists having very little time for reflection. “If they do reflect, it’s usually after a decision has been made” (Sanders 2003, 168). Yet time for reflection upon professional practice is important, especially in an era of extremely rapid and seismic technological change in the global media. This paper will reflect upon how freelance journalists can use advances in social media and web-based connectedness to tell global stories via mainstream media outlets. In exploring this question, I will examine the techniques and communications technologies used by three reporters working in the UK and Australia to find, investigate and break a series of articles, published simultaneously on the front pages of The Australian and The Times (London) newspapers, was a result of a six month investigation. The series exposed a 50-year cover-up of the serial abuse of children by one of the Church of England's most senior clergy, Robert Waddington, in Australia and the UK. It unearthed the existence of a culture of physical and sexual abuse at St Barnabas boarding school in Queensland, the sudden closure of the school and disappearance of student files - as well as Waddington's subsequent offences against children while Dean of Manchester Cathedral. We produced more than 20 articles. The coverage sparked church-ordered investigations in both countries, and also prompted the Archbishop of Canterbury to order a commission of inquiry – headed by a sitting UK judge - as well as a nationwide child safety audit of dioceses in Britain. In Australia, the church referred the case and handed its files to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse. The coverage marked the first publishing collaboration between The Australian and The Times to break an exclusive story in Australia and Britain simultaneously, on May 10, 2013.

Investigative journalism in a socially networked world

This article explores how investigative journalists can join the network society by moving online, collaborating with other reporters and media outlets across regions and across national borders, yet publishing in newspapers which arguably remain the central stage of the public sphere (Carson, 2013). A better understanding of the potential of social media and web-based communications for undertaking journalistic investigations can lead to the adoption of a global perspective, enriching local, regional and national stories (Berglez, 2013). The research and collaboration for a transnational story published simultaneously in The Australian and collaboration in London in 2013 may provide insights into the potential for the use of social media platforms and web-based communications for finding stories, collaborating and following stories into the social media to find leads to follow-up stories. This article questions whether the synergies between mainstream media and social media platforms may yield potentially high impact stories for major masthead newspapers and thus contribute to their sustainability. Connectivity with news sources has always been an important resource for journalists. Online networks may have the potential to expand the range of voices that can be heard and the issues that can be covered.

Why not the best schools? What we have learned from outstanding schools around the world

Why not the Best Schools? offers a ten-point, ten-year plan for an education revolution that will result in the transformation of Australia’s schools. Expectations have been raised in Australia and comparable countries for an ‘education revolution’ that will secure success for all students in all settings. Such a revolution must ensure the alignment of educational outcomes, the skills required for a strong economy, and the needs of a harmonious society. Why not the Best Schools? goes beyond system characteristics to provide an in-depth account of how transformation occurs in schools. Fifty indicators are provided to help shape strategies for policy makers and practitioners in schools and school systems. Guidelines for leadership and governance ensure a future-focus for those who are determined to ensure that all students will succeed in the twentieth-first century. This book draws on a five-year study culminating in the International Project to Frame the Transformation of Schools conducted in Australia, China, England, Finland, the United States and Wales. The findings are consistent with the McKinsey & Company report on the world’s best performing school systems and those arising from OECD’s PISA.

The politics of open-access publishing : M/C Journal, Public Intellectualism, and Academic Discourses of Legitimacy

This article investigates the discourses of academic legitimacy that surround the production, consumption, and accreditation of online scholarship. Using the web-based media and cultural studies journal (http://journal.media-culture.org.au) as a case study, it examines how online scholarly journals often position themselves as occupying a space between the academic and the popular and as having a functional advantage over print-based media in promoting a spirit of public intellectualism. The current research agenda of both government and academe prioritises academic research that is efficient, self-promoting, and relevant to the public. Yet, although the cost-effectiveness and public-intellectual focus of online scholarship speak to these research priorities, online journals such as M/C Journal have occupied, and continue to occupy, an unstable position in relation to the perceived academic legitimacy of their content. Although some online scholarly journals have achieved a limited form of recognition within a system of accreditation that still privileges print-based scholarship, I argue that this, nevertheless, points to the fact that traditional textual notions of legitimate academic work continue to pervade the research agenda of an academe that increasingly promotes flexible delivery of teaching and online research initiatives.

Cungellela by William ‘Dura Danje’ Leisha and Shem ‘Curan Danje’ Leisha

Research background: Cungelela is an intercultural music project undertaken in collaboration with William ‘Dura Danje’ Leisha and Shem ‘Curan Danje’ Leisha. The project contributes to cultural maintenance for Australian First Nations peoples, and is informed by prior work in this area by scholars including Peter Dunbar-Hall, Chris Gibson and Karl Neuenfeldt. These existing studies have discussed the complexities of intercultural collaboration, and the types of cultural politics that are involved when Indigenous and non-Indigenous musicians and scholars work together on projects of cultural significance. Critical race theory has also informed the creative work, as a means of interpreting the implicit and explicit discourses of race that arise through intercultural creative practice. The project asked the research question, in what ways can collaborative music making contribute to intercultural understanding and support cultural maintenance for Australian First Nations people affected by the Stolen Generations? Research contribution: This project has identified that collaborative production of recorded popular music can produce shared affective, embodied and transformative forms of knowledge about the impact of the Stolen Generations on Australian First Nations peoples. Research significance: The compact disc was presented by Aunty Anne Leisha as part of an invited presentation at the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium in New Mexico, 2013. The work also formed part of a refereed conference presentation at the 2013 conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music held at the University of Oviedo, Gijon, Spain.

Settling the Pop Score : Pop Texts and Identity Politics [Book Review]

Review(s) of: Settling the Pop Score: Pop Texts and Identity Politics, Stan Hawkins, Aldershot, Hants. : Ashgate, 2002, ISBN 0 7546 0352 0; pb, 234pp, ill, music exx, bibl. , discog. , index. The scholarly study of popular music has its origins in sociology and cultural studies, disciplinary areas in which musical meaning is often attributed to aspects of economical and sociological function. Against this tradition, recent writers have offered what is now referred to as ‘popular musicology’: a method or approach that tends towards a specific engagement with ‘pop texts’ on aesthetic, and perhaps even ‘musical’ terms. Stan Hawkins uses the term popular musicology ‘at his own peril,’ clearly recognising the implicit scholarly danger in his approach, whereby ‘formalist questions of musical analysis’ are dealt with ‘alongside the more intertextual discursive theorisations of musical expression’ (p. xii). In other words, popular musicologists dare to tread that fine line between text and context. As editor of the journal Popular Musicology Online, Hawkins is a leading advocate of this practice, specifically in the application of music-analytical techniques to popular music. His methodology attests to the influence of other leading figures in the area, notably Richard Middleton, Allan F. Moore and Derek Scott (general editor of the Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series in which this book is published).