Book Reviews: "Fashion Media: Past and Present"

The book Fashion Media: Past and Present is a timely insight into the historical relationship between fashion and media. Edited by Djurdja Bartlett (Senior Research Fellow at the London College of Fashion), Shaun Cole (Course Leader for the MA in the History and Culture of Fashion and MA Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion) and Agnès Rocamora (Reader in Social and Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion), Fashion Media offers a wide historical perspective on how painting, photography, film, television and the Internet have intersected with fashion. The book also provides a useful understanding of social and cultural key issues related to this synergy...

Fostering interpersonal trust on social media: Physicians' perspectives and experiences

Background The problem of developing and sustaining mutual trust is one of the main barriers to knowledge sharing on social media platforms such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs and social networking websites. While many studies argue that mutual trust is necessary for online communication and knowledge sharing, few have actually explored and demonstrated how physicians can establish and sustain trusted relationships on social media. Objectives To identify approaches through which physicians establish interpersonal trust on social media. Methods Twenty-four physicians, who were active users of social media, were interviewed using a semi-structured approach between 2013 and 2014. Snowball sampling was employed for participant recruitment. The data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Results Physicians trust their peers on social media in a slightly different way than in face-to-face communication. The study found that the majority of participants established trust on social media mainly through previous personal interaction, authenticity and relevancy of voice, professional standing, consistency of communication, peer recommendation, and non-anonymous and moderated sites. Conclusions Healthcare professionals need to approach social media carefully when using it for knowledge sharing, networking and developing trusted relations with like-minded peers.

Empowering PNG Women through Building Media Arts Production Capacity as Cultural Drivers: Showreel

The creative work comprises six short digital screen stories and emerges from a collaboration between the Discipline of Film Screen and Animation at Queensland University of Technology and the Centre for Social and Creative Media at University of Goroka, funded via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Australia Awards Fellowship. Six fellows traveled from Papua New Guinea to Brisbane for a two-week intensive course to learn the advanced skills necessary in order to create media that will empower women and girls to make more of their own economies in Papua New Guinea, and increase the representation of women and their well-being through leadership and decision-making. The resulting creative work is evidence of innovative media teaching-making methods designed to build human and cultural assets in PNG and address the increasing demand for media materials driven by the influx of mobile phones and internet services. The creative work provides a platform to directly address and positively impact gender issues in PNG and builds on the success of the Pawa Meri project, which trained six female directors to tell stories of women in leadership roles in PNG. One of the directors was a producer of this creative work. The creative work frames but problematises the complex issues influencing gender equity through the selection of content and narrative structures in ways which address the dynamics of male/female relationships and power in PNG society and will include strategies to illustrate transformed male and female behaviours. The creative work adopts a scaffolded approach, incorporating the findings of the Train the Trainer approach developed by UoG and QUT for the Life Drama research project. The creative work takes into account current developmental themes and approaches in the production of rich media products, and skills the key participants so that they are able to in turn train others in the wider community. The creative work was presented to partners and key stakeholders on 3 July 2015 at the Glasshouse, QUT Creative Industries Precinct and at the Dean’s Research Seminar Poster Exhibition 15 July 2015 at Room 212-213, Level 2, J Block, Gardens Point QUT and subsequent eBook. It has since returned to PNG to be showcased and distributed, and the skills and strategies disseminated.

"Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal": Cultural practices of repetition in visual social media

Looping media are recurring components of online content, from gifs to Vine videos, in addition to the conceptual repetition of memes and related practices. This paper analyses practices around looping visual media as examples of vernacular creativity, social media literacies, and internet culture, especially for irreverent and playful purposes. Focusing on the LGBTQ digital cultural context as a pilot study, this research examines multi-platform uses of looping media, including personal narratives through Vine videos and animated gifs on Tumblr. In addition to textual analysis of LGBTQ looping visual social media content, the study will further explore the platform context as part of the experience of looped media. The research will address how these factors may also contribute to practices of irreverence and play, both within the specific case of LGBTQ culture and internet culture more generally.

Social Media and Everyday Politics

From selfies and memes to hashtags and parodies, social media are used for mundane and personal expressions of political commentary, engagement, and participation. The coverage of politics reflects the social mediation of everyday life, where individual experiences and thoughts are documented and shared online. In Social Media and Everyday Politics, Tim Highfield examines political talk as everyday occurrences on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Tumblr, Instagram, and more. He considers the personal and the political, the serious and the silly, and the everyday within the extraordinary, as politics arises from seemingly banal and irreverent topics. The analysis features international examples and evolving practices, from French blogs to Vines from Australia, via the Arab Spring, Occupy, #jesuischarlie, Eurovision, #blacklivesmatter, Everyday Sexism, and #illridewithyou. This timely book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in media and communications, internet studies, and political science, as well as general readers keen to understand our contemporary media and political contexts.

Social media for social good: Value creation in social media based cause brand communities

This thesis presents a case study of value creation in the social media based brand communities of two Australian cause organisations. It improves understanding of how value is created in this increasingly important environment by examining participants' posts and practices, organisational strategies and supporters' perceptions of value creation. The thesis shows that while value creation is complex, value is generated for supporters and organisations alike, and positively influences the outcomes for recipients of the vital services provided by the cause organisations. Value creation in this context thus manifests social good for supporters, service recipients and society at large.

Porn, censorship, classification and free speech: Global paradoxes in the governance of media content

In this presentation, I reflect upon the global landscape surrounding the governance and classification of media content, at a time of rapid change in media platforms and services for content production and distribution, and contested cultural and social norms. I discuss the tensions and contradictions arising in the relationship between national, regional and global dimensions of media content distribution, as well as the changing relationships between state and non-state actors. These issues will be explored through consideration of issues such as: recent debates over film censorship; the review of the National Classification Scheme conducted by the Australian Law Reform Commission; online controversies such as the future of the Reddit social media site; and videos posted online by the militant group ISIS.

Regulation beyond government: Weber, Foucault and the liberal governance of media content

This paper steps back from the question of how regulation of digital media content occurs, and whether it can be effective, to consider the rationales that inform regulation, and the ethics and practices associated with content regulation. It will be argued that Max Weber's account of bureaucratic expertise remains relevant to such discussions, particularly insofar as it intersects with Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality, and contemporary applications of the notion of 'governing at a distance'. The nature of the challenges to media regulators presented by online environments, and by digital and social media, are considered in depth, but it is argued that the significance of regulatory innovations that respond to such challenges should not be underestimated, nor should the continuing national foundations of media regulation. It will also discuss the relevance of the concept of 'soft law' to contemporary regulatory practice.

Is Habermas on Twitter? Social Media and the Public Sphere

Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere remains a major building block for our understanding of public communication and deliberation. Yet ‘the’ public sphere is a construct of its time, and the mass media-dominated environment which it describes has given way to a considerably more fragmented and complex system of distinct and diverse, yet interconnected and overlapping publics that represent different themes, topics, and approaches to mediated communication. This chapter argues that moving beyond the orthodox model of the public sphere to a more dynamic and complex conceptual framework provides the opportunity to more clearly recognise the varying forms that public communication can take, especially online. Unpacking the traditional public sphere into a series of public sphericules and micro-publics, none of which are mutually exclusive but which co-exist, intersecting and overlapping in multiple forms, is crucial for understanding the ongoing structural transformation of ‘the’ public sphere.

Agenda-Setting Revisited: Social Media and Sourcing in Mainstream Journalism

In political journalism, the battle over agenda-setting between journalists and their sources has been described using many metaphors and concepts. Herbert Gans saw it as a dance where the two parties competed for leadership, arguing that sources usually got the lead. We address the question of how social media, in particular Twitter, contribute to media agenda-building and agenda-setting by looking at how tweets are sourced in election campaign coverage in Australia, Norway and Sweden. Our findings show that the popularity of elite political sources is a common characteristic across all countries and media. Sourcing from Twitter reinforces the power of the political elites to set the agenda of the news media – they are indeed “still leading the dance”. Twitter content travels to the news media as opinions, comments, announcements, factual statements, and photos. Still, there are variations that must be explained both by reference to different political and cultural characteristics of the three countries, as well as by the available resources and journalistic profiles of each media outlet.

Compulsory Voting, Encouraged Tweeting? Australian Elections and Social Media

This chapter examines patterns in social media activity around Australian elections, focusing primarily on the 2013 federal election and supplemented by extended research into social media and Australian politics between 2007 and 2015. The coverage of Australian elections on social media is analysed from three perspectives: the evolution of the use of online platforms during elections; politician and party social media strategies during the 2013 election, focusing on Twitter; and citizen engagement with elections as demonstrated through election day tweeting practices. The specific context of Australian politics, where voting is compulsory, and the popularity of social media platforms like Twitter makes this case notably different from other Western democracies. It also demonstrates the extended mediation of politics through social media, for politicians and citizens alike.

The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics

Social media are now widely used for political protests, campaigns, and communication in developed and developing nations, but available research has not yet paid sufficient attention to experiences beyond the US and UK. This collection tackles this imbalance head-on, compiling cutting-edge research across six continents to provide a comprehensive, global, up-to-date review of recent political uses of social media. Drawing together empirical analyses of the use of social media by political movements and in national and regional elections and referenda, The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics presents studies ranging from Anonymous and the Arab Spring to the Greek Aganaktismenoi, and from South Korean presidential elections to the Scottish independence referendum. The book is framed by a selection of keystone theoretical contributions, evaluating and updating existing frameworks for the social media age. "Comprehensive and definitive, this is an outstanding book that provides a panoramic view of politics in an era of social media. From the Mediterranean to East Asia to Oceania, from Scandinavia to sub-Sahara Africa to Latin America, the volume as a whole is truly global, yet with nuanced regional and national analyses in each chapter. Theoretically informed, the research presented here breaks new empirical grounds using latest digital methods. The result is a milestone for our collective understanding of new media technology and comparative politics in the twenty-first century." ―Jack Linchuan Qiu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong "This book brings together top scholars from across disciplines and across the globe to examine social media use in a variety of political systems and for distinct purposes. It is required reading for anyone interested in understanding the many ways that digital communication technologies now are used in political life." ―Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Syracuse University

Harbouring dissent: Greek independent and social media and the antifascist movement

This article examines Greek activists’ use of a range of communication technologies, including social media, blogs, citizen journalism sites, Web radio, and anonymous networks. Drawing on Anna Tsing’s theoretical model, the article examines key frictions around digital technologies that emerged within a case study of the antifascist movement in Athens, focusing on the period around the 2013 shutdown of Athens Indymedia. Drawing on interviews with activists and analysis of online communications, including issue networks and social media activity, we find that the antifascist movement itself is created and recreated through a process of productive friction, as different groups and individuals with varying ideologies and experiences work together.

Defining the density debate in Brisbane: how urban consolidation is represented in the media

Rapid population growth, changing demographic profiles and increased focus on sustainable urban form has led to significant changes in settlement patterns in Australian cities. Growth management strategies are increasingly employed to help cities manage strain on infrastructure, housing and ecosystems. Urban consolidation is one such strategy and has been adopted by all Australian capital cities. Despite strong governmental support, urban consolidation has triggered much academic debate and has often been accompanied by staunch community opposition and complaints from the development industry about barriers to the provision of higher density housing. Greater understanding of stakeholder representations of higher density housing is important for planning, given the strong policy focus on urban consolidation nationally. This paper contributes to existing urban consolidation literature by empirically demonstrating how urban consolidation is represented in Brisbane’s newspaper media through the use of metaphors. Its conceptual departure point is Social Representations Theory, drawing on the theory’s notion of objectification to illustrate how the media translates the abstract notion of urban consolidation into a tangible and understandable object. The objectification of urban consolidation is identified and discussed relative to four themes: land use conflict; growth; neighbourhood change and apartment living. This paper argues that understanding stakeholder representations is important for planners seeking to promote and negotiate delivery of higher density development. It concludes that stakeholder representations can highlight key areas of contention to be addressed by planners, provide indications on the likelihood of public acceptance of increased housing densities and delineate the boundaries of urban consolidation debates.

Shaping urban consolidation debates: Social representations in Brisbane newspaper media

Recent international trends towards urban consolidation, intended to reduce outward urban sprawl by concentrating growth within existing neighbourhoods, can cause contention in cities. Understanding how the mass media represents urban consolidation can lead to more informed and democratic planning practices. This paper employs Social Representations Theory to identify and understand representations of urban consolidation in newspaper media. The theory recognises that the media is a key purveyor of public discourse and can reflect, shape or suppress ideas circulating in society. This novel approach has not previously been applied to understanding social representations of urban consolidation strategies in the mass media. The rapidly growing and changing city of Brisbane, Australia, is utilised as a case study. Brisbane is situated in South East Queensland, the fastest growing region in Australia, and is governed by regional and local planning policies that strongly support increased densities in existing urban areas. Findings from a quantitative textual analysis of 449 articles published in Brisbane newspapers between 2007 and 2014 reveal key clusters and classes of co-occurring words that represent dominant social representations apparent in the newspaper corpus. The paper provides two key conclusions. The first is that social representations occurring in mass media represent an important source of information about ‘common sense’ understandings and evaluations of urban consolidation debates. The second is that urban consolidation is represented as a ultifaceted issue, including interrelated themes of housing,sustainable population growth, investment strategies and the interplay between politics and planning