Bob sweat and tears: you won't be disappointed

Review of Bob Downe (Mark Trevorrow) show at the Atheneum for the 2014 Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Credible, likeable

Review of Briony Kimmings Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model at Theatreworks.

Adam Richards: diverse comedy with some mishits

Review of Adam Richard's Gayapocalypse for the 2014 Maelbourne Comedy Festival.

Shappi Khorsandi

Review of commedian Shappi Khorsandi for the 2014 Melbourne Comedy Festival.

The legend of King O’Malley

Review of The Legend of King O'Malley at La Mama's Carlton Courthouse

The big tease

Review of the Australian Burlesque Festival's Gala Event, The Big Tease.

Unsex me

Review of Mark Wilson's UnSex Me at La Mama's Carlton Courthouse.

Power to the virtuous? Civic culture in the changing digital terrain

Much scholarship laments a decline in civic participation and community social capital in a changing media world. But the concept of “civicness” remains important to functioning societies across the globe. This research borrows from the cultural turn in studies of media, communication and citizenship to examine civic as culture, anchored in the practices and symbolic milieu of everyday life. As its theoretical entry point, this research paper positions civic as virtue. Drawing on scholars from Aristotle to Pierre Bourdieu, civic virtue may be understood as a perceived moral obligation to serve the common good, especially the interests of a “community” in which individuals and/or groups are connected. In particular, the research extends Bourdieu's ideas to consider news media as a powerful institution alongside the state that may claim monopoly over the manipulation of civic virtue under certain social conditions. Civic virtue offers much in discussions about media power in the digital age and its relationship to the future viability and legitimacy of news media. The research draws on exemplars from a study into digitally mediated civic participation in a rural/regional Australian context to position certain local media as “keepers” and “conferrers” of civic virtue in the social settings they serve.

Adoption of social media in Victorian local governments

The use of the Internet and social media tools by Australians has increased significantly over the last five years. Social media tools provide local governments with the opportunity to inform, serve and interact with their constituents on a level not previously possible. This paper uses a mixed method approach to firstly review current use of social media tools by Victorian local governments and secondly interview elected officials and administrators of four Victorian local councils about barriers to the adoption of social media tools. The results show that while 59 Victorian local governments (74%) are utilizing at least one social media tool, there are 20 councils (25%) that still do not utilize social media tools. The interviews indicate that the main barriers hindering social media implementations are: uncertainty, fear of risk, lack of knowledge and experience, lack of resources, lack of trust and, the culture of government. The main contribution of this study is a review of the current level of adoption of social media tools by Victorian local governments and identifies a number of barriers that prevent local government from fully utilizing the advantages of social media tools. Currently most Victorian local governments use social media to disseminate information.

Applications of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) for local characterization of AZ31 surface during corrosion in a buffered media

Different modes of scanning electrochemical mapping (SECM) such as surface generation/tip collection (SG/TC), amperometry, AC-SECM and potentiometry were employed to characterize the active/passive domains, hydrogen gas (H2) evolution and local pH on a corroding surface of AZ31 in simulated biological fluid (SBF). It was found that the main domains of H2 evolution are associated with lower insulating properties of the surface as well as higher local pH. The near surface pH was found to be highly alkaline indicating that, even in a buffered solution such as SBF, the local pH on a corroding AZ31 surface can be significantly different to the bulk pH. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Rethinking news media and local government: journalism, politics and symbolic power

This essay explores why the relationship between news media and local government has been of little interest in journalism studies, especially in the Australian context. We argue that the reasons are complex but can be traced to issues of symbolic recognition and legitimacy. An overview of local government and news media in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand grounds the discussion in journalism and democratic theory. We draw on Bourdieu’s tradition of field-based research and theories of media power to highlight the important role 19th-century newspapers played in the establishment of municipalities. We then argue that local government’s omission from the Australian Constitution relates to issues of legitimacy and recognition that are reflected in the wider field of power and perpetuated within journalism practice and scholarship. Finally, practitioner perspectives and contemporary research underline the need for critical engagement and inquiry that recognise the fundamental importance of news and politics closest to the people.