The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s multiplatform projects : industrial logics of children’s content provision in the digital television era

This paper traces the development of children’s multiplatform commissioning at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the context of the digitalisation of Australian television. Whilst recent scholarship has focussed on ‘post-broadcast’ or ‘second-shift’ industrial practices, designed to engage view(s)ers with proprietary media brands, less attention has been focussed on children’s and young adults’ television in a public service context. Further, although multiplatform projects in the United States and Britain have been the subject of considerable analysis, less work has attempted to contextualise cultural production in smaller media markets. The paper explores two recent multiplatform projects through textual analysis, empirical research (consisting of interviews with key industry personnel) and an investigation of recent policy documents. The authors argue that the ABC’s mixed diet of children’s programming, featuring an educative or social developmental agenda, is complemented by its appeals to audience ‘participation’, with the Corporation maintaining public service values alongside the need to expand audience reach and the legitimacy of its brand. It finds that the ABC’s historical platform infrastructure, across radio, television and online, have allowed it to move beyond a market failure model to exploit multiplatform synergies competitively in the distribution of Australian children’s content to audiences on-demand.

What to do when you can’t (afford to) collect your own data? : a test case using the longitudinal study of Australian children to investigate the influence of parental context on media use and obesity

The dramatic rise in childhood obesity prevalence in the last two decades has prompted concern about the risk factors that may precipitate or maintain weight gain, or both, in early childhood. Media use has long been implicated in policy debates in Australia, particularly around limits to advertising. However the Australian research funding ecology and dominant paradigms in Australian communication and media studies have resulted in a lack of independent, nationally representative studies upon which to base advice. Australian researchers often can’t afford to collect the kind of data they would like in order to intervene productively as policy actors. As a test case for innovative ways round this dilemma, this paper mobilises secondary data analysis methodologies to explore potential influences of parenting on children’s media use and their weight status.

The research reported here uses data from the first three waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Results from a path model suggest that children of mothers who were less consistent in the way in which they enforce their rules were more likely to adopt unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, such as sedentary behaviour and consuming unhealthy snacks. Of the lifestyle behaviours considered, time spent watching television or DVDs was the only predictor of child weight status in late childhood. These results suggest a clear pathway linking consistent parenting and other parental practices, children’s lifestyle behaviours and weight status.

Disgusting television

Television readily and regularly produces moments of disgust, where revulsion and the fear of contamination rises up and takes one’s body over.

Globalisation, television and developmental agenda

Theorising the impact of foreign and private television in India since 1991, does not neatly fit into the old debates about one way flow of news and information as reflected in the demand for the New World Information and Communication Order in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1990s, Indian society was invaded from the skies by a number of satellite television signals. However, did this advent of satellite television, vis à vis foreign and private television channels, lead to one way flow of information and entertainment programs from the Western world? Or, did it lead to rapid growth of Indian television industry, resulting in exponential increase in quality and quantity of television programs available to audience?

This paper argues that the de facto de-regulation of the television media since 1991 has led to an enviable growth in local production of programs for more than 450 channels, estimated to be worth Rs30 billion (AS$1 billion), thereby providing an increased level of opportunity for articulation of Indian local stories and culture. This way, the Indian television industry seems to have come full circle – where television, which was launched in the country as a means of development and education but became complacent and the government’s mouth-piece, finally in the past decade-and-a-half has grown sufficiently to potentially provide an outlet for diverse local expressions thereby revitalising democracy in India.

Competition and television news in India : a content analysis

In India, not unlike some other developing countries, ruling parties have used public service broadcasters to propagate their virtues, adversely affecting the broadcasters' image as a credible news media. The Indian public service broadcaster. Doordarshan,
which has been besieged by increased competition and government-imposed demandfor selfsufficiency in recent years, continues to struggle to shed its image as a government mouthpiece despite being run by an independent corporation. This article
presents a content analysis of news programs broadcast by Doordarshan and a foreign television network. Star News. The study examines the differences and similarities between Doordarshan and Star TV's prime time news programs broadcast at the turn ofthe century, almost a decade after the advent ofcommercial television in India broke the public service broadcaster's monopoly in the country.

Life during wartime : sexuality, recruitment and reality television

In 2010, Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) Navy Marketing entered into a media sponsorship package with the Australian version of the reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD): Footage of the day aired on national television on SYTYCD and weekly ‘dancer bootcamp’ sessions training the dancers in Navy values featured on a dedicated and branded Navy section of the official SYTYCD website. This article analyses the Navy’s SYTYCD ‘integration opportunities’ to consider the role of reality television in the redefinition of the defence forces as a training and vocational pathway for young people. Underpinning such considerations is the conceptualization of the work of reality television through the prism of public and popular pedagogies. Taking sexuality as a focal point, the article will reflect on efforts to lift recruitment through an emphasis on the incorporation of diversity. Reading the work of Jasbir Puar against the Australian ‘archive’ of integration opportunities, this article contributes to queer critiques of homonormative and homonationalist tendencies in contemporary politics.

Towards an understanding of the impact of advertising on data leaks

Recent investigations have determined that many Android applications in both official and non-official online markets expose details of the user's mobile phone without user consent. In this paper, for the first time in the research literature, we provide a full investigation of why such applications leak, how they leak and where the data is leaked to. In order to achieve this, we employ a combination of static and dynamic analysis based on examination of Java classes and application behaviour for a data set of 123 samples, all pre-determined as being free from malicious software. Despite the fact that anti-virus vendor software did not flag any of these samples as malware, approximately 10% of them are shown to leak data about the mobile phone to a third-party; applications from the official market appear to be just as susceptible to such leaks as applications from the non-official markets.

"Lose 30lbs in 30 days" : assigning responsibility for deceptive advertising of weight-loss products

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to outline key social marketing issues apparent in deceptive weight-loss advertising, from the perspective of government policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers. The purpose is to examine the complexity of one aspect of the obesity battle and provide a framework for coordinated and integrated social marketing initiatives from a multiple stakeholder perspective.

Design/methodology/approach – The results of deceptive weight-loss advertising are framed using the harm chain model, and the paper offers recommended solutions based on a framework of marketing, education and policy changes across the network of stakeholders.

Findings – This paper concludes that a resolution to the harm created by deceptive weight-loss advertising can be achieved by the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution to this important health and policy issue. This networked approach must involve all aspects of harm in a multi-stakeholder solution, including both upstream and downstream integration. Specific recommendations are made for policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers to achieve this goal.

Social implications – From a marketing perspective, analyzing the issue of deceptive weight-loss advertising using the harm chain allows for the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution involving stakeholders in all aspects of harm for this important health and policy issue.

Originality/value – This research examines the problem of obesity and weight-loss advertising from the unique perspective of the harm chain framework. The authors make unified recommendations for various stakeholders including industry, media, government and consumers, in order to direct integrated social marketing and consumer-oriented strategies within this industry.

Need for a cohesive television policy in India

The Indian television industry has been dramatically transformed since 1991 when foreign television channels such as STAR TV and others began beaming their programs into Indian households from foreign soil. The impact of the exponential growth in television channelsi, television viewers and the television software industry in India between 1991 and 2006 has been well documented (Rodrigues, 1998, 2005). This paper analyses whether the Indian government’s television policy during the past decade and a half adequately met the challenge of the entry of private and foreign channels into Indian homes. The paper also makes a set of recommendations to the Government of India with regards to its television policy so that this popular medium can achieve its potential as a catalyst for social change in India (NAMEDIA, 1986).