Examining representations of women's leadership in the media and Australian universities

Examines how diverse academic women educational leaders experienced and negotiated media representations of leadership in their work. The thesis argues that feminist leadership analyses assume a commonality of women's interests, ignoring the diversity, which exists between different groups of women and the material impact of diversity upon female leaders' work.

Psychological study of consumer novelty seeking and mass media consumption

The thesis integrates theory from psychology and marketing, finding that those with an innate desire to seek out information on new products / brands are motivated to do so by aspects of regulatory focus, needs for uniqueness, and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence. In turn, these people consume more media and have higher information exposure.

Entrepreneurship and mass media : audiences' perceptions of entrepreneurship stories in mass media

Using a set ofvariables measured in the Danish population survey related to the international Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project (GEM), this study explored what influences how people perceive stories about entrepreneurship in mass media. It was found that demographics influence how people perceived entrepreneurship stores, whereas social stratifications had no influence. Further on, the findings revealed a reinforcing effect from entrepreneurship stories in mass media. People already engaged in entrepreneurship perceived media stories differently from people not engaged, and people’s existing values were also reinforced. Together, these findings provide some crucial implications for policy initiatives trying to promote entrepreneurship. First, such initiatives need to consider who the actual targets are as different people decode and perceive the same messages differently. Second, such initiatives have to be longitudinal and long termed in order to function through more influential agencies like family, peer group, school, occupational group and so forth, and not only through the mass media as secondary socialisation.

Building capacity or burning out? Supporting indigenous performing artists and filmmakers

Public support for both Indigenous filmmaking and the live performing arts has a number of common features: at a national level the present schemes were introduced in the early 1990s, and both sets of schemes aim to improve the capacity of Indigenous practitioners to tell their stories to national and international audiences. Yet, in the late 2000s, Screen Australia’s support for filmmaking has contributed to well-known successes, whereas Australia Council support for performing arts has been withdrawn from two of the three state-based Indigenous companies. This article reviews the capacity-building strategies offered by the funding agencies to Indigenous filmmaking and performing arts. While the film policies appear to have been more successful than those in the performing arts, both sectors continue to experience obstacles to capacity-building for Indigenous practitioners and organisations.

Orientalism and the Australian news media : origins and questions

The author draws on his expertise in Middle Eastern history and Western philosophical thought, presenting an ambitious chapter that traces the origins of orientalist discourse from the 18th and 19th century Europe to the beginnings of the Australian press. The chapter identifies the parallels between this discourse and the most contemporary representations of Islam and Muslims in the Australian news media. It documents that a key challenge for those working for the Australian news media is firstly to recognise the extent to which orientalist thought influences the reporting of Islam and Muslims and then to transcend the centuries-old view of this faith and its adherents as a threatening other.

Religion, faith and the empowerment process : stories of Iranian people with diabetes

Empowerment concerning people with diabetes is well researched. However, few researchers specifically focus on the barriers to and facilitators of empowerment in Iranian people with diabetes. Understanding the factors could help health professionals facilitate self-empowerment more effectively. This study aims to determine the barriers to and facilitators of empowerment in Iranian people with diabetes. A qualitative exploratory study was conducted using in-depth interviews to collect the data from 11 women and men in 2007. Themes were identified using constant comparative analysis method. Common barriers to empowerment were similar to other chronic diseases: prolonged stress, negative view about diabetes, ineffective health-care systems, poverty and illiteracy. Diabetes education, fear of diabetes’ complications, self-efficacy and hope for a better future emerged as being crucial to empowerment. Facilitators specific to Iranians were: the power of religion and faith, the concept of the doctor as holy man, accepting diabetes as God’s will, caring for the body because it was God’s gift and support from families especially daughters. Empowerment was strongly influenced by cultural and religious beliefs in Iran and the power of faith emerged as an important facilitator of diabetes empowerment. The findings will help health professionals understand how Iranian people with diabetes view life and the factors that facilitate empowerment.

I don't know anyone that has two drinks a day : young people, alcohol and the government of pleasure

Problematic alcohol consumption is a major public health, health education and health promotion issue in Australia and internationally. In an effort to better understand young people's drinking patterns and motivations we investigated the cultural drivers of drinking in 14–24 year-old Australians. We interviewed 60 young people in the state of Victoria aged 20–24 about their drinking biographies. At the time of interviewing, the draft guidelines on low-risk drinking were released by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia, and we asked our participants what they knew about them and if they thought they would affect their drinking patterns. Their responses indicate that pleasure and sociability are central to young people's drinking cultures which is supported by a range of research. However, O’Malley and Valverde claim that pleasure is silenced and/or deployed strategically in neo-liberal governance discourses about drugs and alcohol such as these guidelines which raises questions about the limits of such discourses to affect changes in drinking patterns.

People and environment : the outdoor education community : curriculum ideas

This session is based on the concept of people as part of a broad ecological community. It focuses on relationships between people and between people and their environment. We look at outdoor education curriculum and teaching ideas aimed at developing the concepts of community, interdependence and responsibility for people and other living and non-living things. The concepts will be discussed in relation to developing outdoor education programs for students in years Prep-10.
Examples of teaching and assessment ideas will be provided from the Outdoor Education Course Advice Materials which have been developed for the Victorian Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF). Resources will also be discussed and displayed. The session will be part presentation and part interactive group work. It is relevant to teachers, curriculum developers and other outdoor educators working with children in the years Prep-10 age range.

Interrogating the ethics of literacy intervention in Indigenous schools

Recognising that literacy is fundamental to the educational success of Indigenous students, this essay reviews current literacy intervention programs from a social justice perspective. It reveals the tension between policies and initiatives that have addressed the two key rights of Indigenous people – the right to access mainstream knowledge and language through the provision of empowering education and the right to sustain their own languages and cultures through culturally responsive education. In particular, the essay focuses on the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP) – a large-scale initiative supported by the former Liberal and the current Labour government in 2004-2008. A spin-off from NALP has been the formation of the Accelerated Literacy Consultants’ Network that provides professional development sessions in Accelerated Literacy and literacy education more broadly to teachers from Aboriginal Independent Community Schools across Australia. The essay questions the view of justice in the NALP’s theoretical and pedagogical design and its effects on teaching and learning in Aboriginal schools. The paper, then, discusses the primacy of ethics in literacy education in order to make it more hospitable and responsive to cultural-linguistic differences.

Tomorrow’s car – for today’s people : can tilting three wheeled vehicles be a solution for the problems of today and the future?

The current automotive industry and todays car drivers are faced with every increasing challenges, not previously experienced. Climate Change, financial issues, rising fuel prices, increased traffic congestion and reduced parking space in cities are all leading to changes in consumer preferences and the requirements of modern passenger vehicles. However, despite the shift in the industry dynamics, the principal layout of a car hasn’t changed since its invention. The design of a ’conventional’ vehicle is still principally a matchbox with four wheels, one at each corner. The concept has served its purpose well for over 100 years, but such a layout is not suited to solving today’s problems. To address the range of problems faced by the industry, a number of alternative commuting vehicles have been developed. Yet the commercialization of these ‘alternative’ vehicles has yet to be successful. This is largely due failure of these vehicles to meet the changing demands of the industry and the limited understanding of consumer behaviour, motivation and attitudes. Deakin University’s Tomorrow’s Car concept tackles all of these problems. The vehicle is a novel three-wheeler cross over concept between a car and a motorbike that combines the best of both worlds. The vehicle combines the low cost, small size and ‘fun’ factor of a motorbike together with the safety, comfort and easy to drive features of a car produce a vehicle with a fuel efficiency better than either car or scooter. Intensive market research has been conducted for various major potential markets of alternative vehicles including India, China and Australia. The research analysed consumer attitudes in relation to narrow tilting vehicles, and in particular towards Deakin’s Tomorrow’s Car (TC). The study revealed that a relatively large percentage of consumers find such a concept very appealing. For the other consumers, the overall appearance and perception of safety and not the actual safety performance were found to be the most impeding factors of such vehicles. By addressing these issues and marketing the vehicle accordingly the successful commercialization of Tomorrow’s Car can be ensured.

Blogs bother me : social media, journalism and the curriculum

This paper grew out of the authors’ interest in updating the journalism curriculum at AUT (Aukland University of Technology) to better reflect the impact of online media, including social media, on the work of journalists. The challenge for journalism educators is to remain relevant in rapidly changing news and education environments. Our study suggests that while the vast majority of students have some engagement with social media, particularly social networking, and are aware that it can be a powerful tool for journalists, they are still not entirely comfortable with its techniques and they are not experimenting with social media as a production platform as much as we first thought. In short, it appears that they do not have command of professional fluency with social media tools. In response to these findings we have begun to introduce some social media tools and processes directly into the units we teach, in particular: digital story-telling techniques; the use of Twitter and location-based applications; encouraging the ethical use of Facebook etc. for sourcing stories and talent for interviews; podcasting, soundslides and video for the Web, Dreamweaver, InDesign and PHP-based content management systems. We do not see the work to date as the end-point of the changes that we know are necessary, but we are acutely aware of the limitations (structural, institutional and financial) that suggest we should continue with this small-steps approach for the foreseeable future.