The private problem with public service: Rural teachers in educational markets

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children’s educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.

Oncology service initiatives and research in regional Australia

Objective: This paper reflects on the recent growth of cancer research being conducted through some of Australia’s rural centres. It encompasses work being done across the fields of clinical, translational and health services research. Design: This is a collaborative piece with contributions from rural health researchers, clinical and cancer services staff from several different regions. Conclusion: The past decade has seen an expansion in cancer research in rural and regional Australia driven in part by the recognition that cancer patients in remote areas experience poorer outcomes than their metropolitan counterparts. This work has led to the development of more effective cancer networks and new models of care designed to meet the particular needs of the rural cancer patient. It is hoped that the growth of cancer research in regional centres will, in time, reduce the disparity between rural and urban communities and improve outcomes for cancer patients across both populations.

WIL-power: Developing journalism students' intercultural communications and international reporting skills on field trips to Vietnam

This article examines journalism students' learning experience that is intercultural, immersive and intensive. Accounts of 'intercultural' experience date back to Herodotus of Halicarnassus; 'immersion' is integral to contemporary practice in language learning; and 'intensive' delivery has been refined to an art by postgraduate business education. Together they can be grouped under the broader pedagogical concept of work-integrated learning (WIL). This article examines two WIL projects that involved field trips by journalism students to Vietnam in 2012 and 2014, and their implications for future WIL initiatives.

Global journalism investigations in the digital age: Connections and collaborations

Investigative journalists who join what theorist Manuel Castells describes as the ‘network society’ can locate potential news sources using various social media platforms and interview them using Web-based communication technologies. The potential for journalistic investigations involving multi-directional conversations with news sources across the globe is beginning to be explored. Potential news sources who are part of the network society have unprecedented access to specialist investigative reporters irrespective of their location and can speak to them more cost effectively than in the past. This paper explores how new journalism technologies are allowing journalists to call powerful individuals and institutions to account, irrespective of national borders; and how previously silenced individuals are being given a voice. To read an example of international investigative journalism facilitated by a combination of social media, Web-based communications, reporter collaboration and news outlet collaborations see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/churchs-wall-of-silence-on-sexual-abuse/story-e6frg6z6-1226639077238.

Translating training in the NYU Caregiver Intervention in Australia: Maintaining fidelity and meeting graduate standards in an online continuing professional education setting

The aim of this study was to develop an Internet-based self-directed training program for Australian healthcare workers to facilitate learning and competence in delivery of a proven intervention for caregivers of people with dementia: The New York University Caregiver Intervention (NYUCI). The NYUCI is a nonpharmacological, multicomponent intervention for spousal caregivers. It is aimed at maintaining well-being by increasing social support and decreasing family discord, thereby delaying or avoiding nursing home placement of the person with dementia. Training in the NYUCI in the United States has, until now, been conducted in person to trainee practitioners. The Internet-based intervention was developed simultaneously for trainees in the U.S. and Australia. In Australia, due to population geography, community healthcare workers, who provide support to older adult caregivers of people with dementia, live and work in many regional and rural areas. Therefore, it was especially important to have online training available to make it possible to realize the health and economic benefits of using an existing evidence-based intervention. This study aimed to transfer knowledge of training in, and delivery of, the NYUCI for an Australian context and consumers. This article details the considerations given to contextual differences and to learners’ skillset differences in translating the NYUCI for Australia.

Provisioning a 3.3 MW PhotoVoltaic generation system onto a distribution authority’s 11 kV rural feeder

This paper describes part of an engineering study that was undertaken to demonstrate that a multi-megawatt Photovoltaic (PV) generation system could be connected to a rural 11 kV feeder without creating power quality issues for other consumers. The paper concentrates solely on the voltage regulation aspect of the study as this was the most innovative part of the study. The study was carried out using the time-domain software package, PSCAD/EMTDC. The software model included real time data input of actual measured load and scaled PV generation data, along with real-time substation voltage regulator and PV inverter reactive power control. The outputs from the model plot real-time voltage, current and power variations throughout the daily load and PV generation variations. Other aspects of the study not described in the paper include the analysis of harmonics, voltage flicker, power factor, voltage unbalance and system losses.

Dynamic pattern of suicide in Australia, 1986-2005: A descriptive-analytic study

Objective This study explores the spatiotemporal variations of suicide across Australia from 1986 to 2005, discusses the reasons for dynamic changes, and considers future suicide research and prevention strategies. Design Suicide (1986–2005) and population data were obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. A series of analyses were conducted to examine the suicide pattern by sex, method and age group over time and geography. Results Differences in suicide rates across sex, age groups and suicide methods were found across geographical areas. Male suicides were mainly completed by hanging, firearms, gases and self-poisoning. Female suicides were primarily completed by hanging and self-poisoning. Suicide rates were higher in rural areas than in urban areas (capital cities and regional centres). Suicide rates by firearms were higher in rural areas than in urban areas, while the pattern for self-poisoning showed the reverse trend. Suicide rates had relatively stable trend for the total population and those aged between 15 and 54, while suicide decreased among 55 years and over during the study period. There was a decrease in suicides by firearms during the study period especially after 1996 when a new firearm control law was implemented, while suicide by hanging continued to increase. Areas with a high proportion of indigenous population (eg, northwest of Queensland and top north of the Northern Territory) had shown a substantial increase in suicide incidence after 1995. Conclusions Suicide rates varied over time and space and across sexes, age groups and suicide methods. This study provides detailed patterns of suicide to inform suicide control and prevention strategies for specific subgroups and areas of high and increased risk.

Theorising the impacts of digitally mediated social interaction on diasporic identity formation: A case of Chinese diaspora in Australia

With the scope of Chinese diaspora in Australia, this paper theorises the impacts of digitally mediated social interaction on diasporic identity formation in the new media landscape. People’s identity is the outcome of their social interactions with other individuals. In the new media landscape, digital media technologies are changing the way in which people communicate with others. On one hand, space and time are unprecedentedly compressed by media technologies so people can maintain more frequent and instant connections with others than before. On the other hand, the digital media technologies have constructed a virtual social space that might withdraw people from their physical social interactions. As we witness today, our social interactions are increasing digitally mediated, in the forms of posts and comments in social network sites, as well as the messages in social apps. As to the diasporic groups, this new media landscape is presenting a challenge to their identity formation. They physically live in the host countries but still keep close social and cultural connections with their homelands. Facilitated by digital media technologies, they are facing two platforms in which they can practice different identity performances: one is the digitally mediated social network; the other is the physical social network. In the case of Chinese diaspora, the situation is more complex due to the language factor and media censorship in Mainland China, which will be articulated in the main text. This paper aims to fill a gap between media studies and diaspora research. Most of existing research on the relationship between diasporic identity and media primarily focuses on the development of ethnic media institutions, and the production and consumption of ethnic media in the pre-digital media context. However, the process of globalisation and digital media technologies are increasing the homogeneity and hybridity of media content worldwide. In this new context, attributing the formation of different identities to the consumption of media content is arguable to some extent. Therefore, the overlapped area of new media studies and diaspora research still has space deserves further investigation.

Pacific Journalism Review : Twenty years on the front line of regional identity and freedom

Pacific Journalism Review has consistently, at a good standard, honoured its 1994 founding goal: to be a credible peer-reviewed journal in the Asia-Pacific region, probing developments in journalism and media, and supporting journalism education. Global, it considers new media and social movements; ‘regional’, it promotes vernacular media, human freedoms and sustainable development. Asking how it developed, the method for this article was to research the archive, noting authors, subject matter, themes. The article concludes that one answer is the journal’s collegiate approach; hundreds of academics, journalists and others, have been invited to contribute. Second has been the dedication of its one principal editor, Professor David Robie, always somehow providing resources—at Port Moresby, Suva, and now Auckland—with a consistent editorial stance. Eclectic, not partisan, it has nevertheless been vigilant over rights, such as monitoring the Fiji coups d’etat. Watching through a media lens, it follows a ‘Pacific way’, handling hard information through understanding and consensus. It has 237 subscriptions indexed to seven databases. Open source, it receives more than 1000 site visits weekly. With ‘clientele’ mostly in Australia, New Zealand and ‘Oceania’, it extends much further afield. From 1994 to 2014, 701 articles and reviews were published, now more than 24 scholarly articles each year.

Australian journalism students’ professional views and news consumption: Results from a representative study

Journalism education’s role in shaping students’ professional views has been a topic of interest among scholars for the past decade in particular. Increasing numbers of studies are concerned with examining students’ backgrounds and views in order to identify what role exposure to the tertiary environment may play in socializing them into the industry. This study reports on the results of the largest survey of Australian journalism students undertaken to date, with a sample size of 1884 students. The study finds that time spent studying journalism appears to be related to changes in role perceptions and news consumption. Final-year students are significantly more likely to support journalism’s watchdog role and to reject consumer-oriented and ‘loyal’ roles. They also consume more news than first-year students. On the other hand, journalism education appears to have little impact on views of controversial practices, with only marginal differences between final- and first-year students.

Voice, deliberation, resistance and persuasion through participatory journalism business models

The pervasive use of the World Wide Web by the general population has created a cultural shift throughout the world. It has enabled more people to share more information about more events and issues than was possible before its general use. As a consequence, it has transformed traditional news media’s approach to almost every aspect of journalism, with many organisations restructuring their philosophy and practice to include a variety of participatory spaces/forums where people are free to engage in deliberative dialogue about matters of public importance. This paper draws from an international collective case study that showcases various approaches to participatory online news journalism during the period 1997–2011 (Adams, 2013). The research finds differences in the ways in which public service, commercial, and independent news media give voice to the public, and ultimately in their approach to journalism’s role as the Fourth Estate––one of the key institutions of democracy. The work is framed by the notion that journalism in democratic societies has a crucial role in ensuring citizens are informed and engaged with public affairs. An examination of four media models, OhmyNews International, News Corp Australia (formerly News Limited), the Guardian and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), showcases the various approaches to participatory online news journalism and how each provides different avenues for citizen engagement. Semistructured in-depth interviews with some of the key senior journalists and editors provide specific information on comparisons between the distinctive practices in each of their employer organisations.

Poisoning for production: how effective is fox baiting in south-eastern Australia?

1. The European red fox Vulpes vulpes represents a continuing threat to both livestock and native vertebrates in Australia, and is commonly managed by setting ground-level baits impregnated with 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) poison. However, the long-term effectiveness of such control campaigns is likely to be limited due to the ability of foxes to disperse over considerable distances and to swiftly recolonize areas from where they had been removed. 2. To investigate the effectiveness of fox baiting in a production landscape, we assessed the potential for foxes to reinvade baited farm property areas within the jurisdiction of the Molong Rural Lands Protection Board (RLPB), an area of 815 000 ha on the central tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. The spatial distribution and timing of fox baiting campaigns between 1998 and 2002 was estimated from RLPB records and mapped using Geographical Information System software. The effectiveness of the control campaign was assessed on the basis of the likely immigration of foxes from non-baited farms using immigration distances calculated from published relationships between dispersal distance and home range size. 3. Few landholders undertook baiting campaigns in any given year, and the area baited was always so small that no baited property would have been sufficiently far from an unbaited property to have been immune from immigrating individuals. It is likely, therefore, that immigration onto farms negated any long-term effects of baiting operations. This study highlights some of the key deficiencies in current baiting practices in south-eastern Australia and suggests that pest management programmes should be monitored using such methods to ensure they achieve their goals.

Food security in welfare capitalism: Comparing social entitlements to food in Australia and Norway

The concept of food security is often anchored in popular understandings of the challenge to produce and supply enough food. However, decades of policies for intensive agriculture have not alleviated hunger and malnutrition, with an absence of food security featuring in both economically developing and developed nations. Despite perceptions that the economic growth in advanced, capitalist societies will ensure freedom from hunger, this is not universal across so-called ‘wealthy nations’. To explore the dynamics of food security in economically developed countries, this paper considers institutional approaches to domestic food security primarily through responses to poverty and welfare entitlements, and, secondarily, through food relief. Through the lens of social entitlements to food and their formation under various expressions of welfare capitalism, we highlight how the specific institutional settings of two economically developed nations, Australia and Norway, respond to uncertain or insufficient access to food. Whilst Norway's political agenda on agricultural support, food pricing regulation and universal social security support offers a robust, although indirect, safety net in ensuring entitlements to food, Australia's neoliberal trajectory means that approaches to food security are ad hoc and rely on a combination of self-help, charitable and market responses. Despite its extensive food production Australia appears less capable of ensuring food security for all its inhabitants compared to the highly import-dependent Norway.

Tools to manage climate risk in cropping (Australia).

Because of the variable and changing environment, advisors and farmers are seeking systems that provide risk management support at a number of time scales. The Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit, Toowoomba, Australia has developed a suite of tools to assist advisors and farmers to better manage risk in cropping. These tools range from simple rainfall analysis tools (Rainman, HowWet, HowOften) through crop simulation tools (WhopperCropper and YieldProphet) to the most complex, APSFarm, a whole-farm analysis tool. Most are derivatives of the APSIM crop model. These tools encompass a range of complexity and potential benefit to both the farming community and for government policy. This paper describes, the development and usage of two specific products; WhopperCropper and APSFarm. WhopperCropper facilitates simulation-aided discussion of growers' exposure to risk when comparing alternative crop input options. The user can readily generate 'what-if' scenarios that separate the major influences whilst holding other factors constant. Interactions of the major inputs can also be tested. A manager can examine the effects of input levels (and Southern Oscillation Index phase) to broadly determine input levels that match their attitude to risk. APSFarm has been used to demonstrate that management changes can have different effects in short and long time periods. It can be used to test local advisors and farmers' knowledge and experience of their desired rotation system. This study has shown that crop type has a larger influence than more conservative minimum soil water triggers in the long term. However, in short term dry periods, minimum soil water triggers and maximum area of the various crops can give significant financial gains.