Submission to House Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications : inquiry into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network

Just as telecommunications has played a key role in the global economy,1 high-speed broadband will have a significant role to play in the future of the digital economy. In particular high-speed broadband will have a role to play in the delivery of applications and services necessary for acquiring, and maintaining into the future Australia and Australians’ appropriate education level; community; health services, information provision and support; government services and engagement and participation by the public in the political process.

In search of the Korean digital wave

This article sets the context for this special themed issue on the 'Korean digital wave' by considering the symbiotic relationship between digital technologies, their techniques and practices, their uses and the affordances they provide, and Korea's 'compressed modernity' and swift industrialisation. It underscores the importance of interrogating a range of groundbreaking developments and innovations within Korea's digital mediascapes, and its creative and cultural industries, in order to gain a complex understanding of one of Australia's most significant export markets and trading partners. Given the financial and political commitment in Australia to a high-speed broadband network that aims to stimulate economic and cultural activity, recent technological developments in Korea, and the double-edged role played by government policy in shaping the 'Korean digital wave', merit close attention from media and communications scholars.

The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This paper deals with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I argue that they havebeen the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. This argument is developed in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It also draws upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Submission to House Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications inquiry into IT Pricing

The strategies of price discrimination engaged in by a number of international publishers, coupled with a lack of competition and restrictions on the ability of consumers to engage in arbitrage, is likely to undermine the legitimacy of copyright law in Australia. By increasing prices beyond a reasonable and fair level, these strategies also undermine the goal of copyright law to enhance access to cultural goods. Enhancing access – and therefore lowering prices – is crucial to enhancing Australia's innovative capacity and the ability of Australians to experience, learn, act, and grow through cultural works. We recommend that the committee investigates the following options: 1. Repeal parallel importation restrictions; 2. Fundamentally reconsider the operation of anti-circumvention law in the context of digital distribution models; 3. Prohibit and render unenforceable contractual restrictions on parallel importation; 4. Introduce a right of digital resale in Australia.

Developing media production skills for literacy in a primary school classroom : digital materials, embodied knowledge and material contexts

This chapter investigates the relationship between technical and operational skills and the development of conceptual knowledge and literacy in Media Arts learning. It argues that there is a relationship between the stories, expressions and ideas that students aim to produce with communications media, and their ability to realise these in material form through technical processes in specific material contexts. Our claim is that there is a relationship between the technical and the operational, along with material relations and the development of conceptual knowledge and literacy in media arts learning. We place more emphasis on the material aspects of literacy than is usually the case in socio-cultural accounts of media literacy. We provide examples from a current project to demonstrate that it is just as important to address the material as it is the discursive and conceptual when considering how students develop media literacy in classroom spaces.

Designing for participation in local suburban communications

People have difficulty accessing means to easily publicise and discuss their ideas and concerns with their local community. The aim of this research has been to design and evaluate capacity for Internet technologies coupled with public displays to engage a diverse range of community members in the making of a shared local suburban communications network. The research problem relates to the challenges of community building, in particular discovering mechanisms that work to engage a target community and motivate participation. In an effort to understand genuine participation and barriers to use, the study was embedded in a local community and purposely longitudinal. This research contributes knowledge about the limitations of public displays to increase visibility of local communications, the need for long-term and networked visibility of community-building communications, the integral role of community facilitators, and the challenges of sustaining shared communications.

The local library across the digital and physical city : opportunities for economic development

This paper considers the role of the public library as a community hub, engagement space, and entrepreneurial incubator in the context of the city, city governance, and local government planning. It considers this role from the perspective of library experts and their future visions for libraries in a networked knowledge economy. Public libraries (often operated by or on behalf of local governments) potentially play a pivotal role for local governments in positioning communities within the global digital network. Fourteen qualitative interviews with library experts informed the study which investigates how the relationship between digital technology and the physical library space can potentially support the community to develop innovative, collaborative environments for transitioning to a digital future. The study found that libraries can capitalise on their position as community hubs for two purposes: first, to build vibrant community networks and forge economic links across urban localities; and second, to cross the digital divide and act as places of innovation and lifelong learning. Libraries provide a specific combination of community and technology spaces and have significant tangible connection points in the digital age. The paper further discusses the potential benefits for libraries in using ICT networks and infrastructure, such as the National Broadband Network in Australia. These networks could facilitate greater use of library assets and community knowledge, which, in turn, could assist knowledge economies and regional prosperity.

Opening digital learning to deeper inquiry

This chapter presents an historical narrative on the recent evolution of information and communications technology (ICT) that has been, and is, utilized for purposes of learning. In other words, it presents an account of the development of e-learning supported through the Web and other similar virtual environments. It does not attempt to present a definitive account; as such an exercise is fraught with assumptions, contextual bias, and probable conjecture. The concern here is more with contextualizing the role of inquiry in learning and the evolving digital tools that enable interfaces that promote and support it. In tracking this evolution, both multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research has been pursued. Key historical developments are identified as well as interpretations of the key drivers of e-learning over time and into what might be better described as digital learning. Innovations in the development of digital tools are described as dynamic and emergent, evolving as a consequence of multiple, sometimes hidden drivers of change. But conflating advancements in learning technologies with e-learning seems to be pervasive. As is the push for the “open” agenda – a growing number of initiatives and movements dominated by themes associated with access, intellectual property, public benefit, sharing and technical interoperability. Openness is also explored in this chapter, however, more in terms of what it means when associated with inquiry. By investigating opportunities for the stimulation and support of questioning online – in particular, why-questioning – this chapter is focused on “opening” content – not just for access but for inquiry and deeper learning.

The Media and Communications in Australia, [4th Edition]

The most widely used introduction to the Australian media, fully updated to reflect the increasing prominence of the internet in the communication and entertainment industries. Description Traditional media are being reshaped by digital technologies. The funding model for quality journalism has been undermined by the drift of advertising online, demarcations between different forms of media are rapidly fading, and audiences have fragmented. We can catch up with our favourite TV show on a tablet, social media can be more important than mainstream radio in a crisis, and organisations large and small have become publishers in their own right on apps. Nevertheless mainstream media remain powerful. The Media and Communications in Australia offers a systematic introduction to this dynamic field. Fully updated and revised to take account of recent developments, this fourth edition outlines the key media industries and explains how communications technologies are impacting on them. It provides a thorough overview of the main approaches taken in studying the media, and includes an expanded 'issues' section with new chapters on social media, gaming, apps, the environment, media regulation, ethics and privacy. With contributions from some of Australia's best researchers and teachers in the field, The Media and Communications in Australia remains the most comprehensive and reliable introduction to media and communications available. It is an ideal student text, and a reference for teachers of media and anyone interested in this influential industry.

Time, space, and text in the elementary school digital writing classroom

Theorists of multiliteracies, social semiotics, and the New Literacy Studies have drawn attention to the potential changing nature of writing and literacy in the context of networked communications. This article reports findings from a design-based research project in Year 4 classrooms (students aged 8.5-10 years) in a low socioeconomic status school. A new writing program taught students how to design multimodal and digital texts across a range of genres and text types, such as web pages, online comics, video documentaries, and blogs. The authors use Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device to theorize the pedagogic struggles and resolutions in remaking English through the specialization of time, space, and text. The changes created an ideological struggle as new writing practices were adapted from broader societal fields to meet the instructional and regulative discourses of a conventional writing curriculum.

Digital culture : blurred boundaries and ethical considerations

The Weberian sense of work and life suggests that working is something around which the rest of life flows. Moreover, work life and domestic life have been defined as separate for most people based on physical structures. That is, being physically in a building at work limited your ability to interact with those who are not nearby – not part of work. As such, social conventions regarding the uses of media at work have become part of our cultural sensibilities – we “know” it is not proper to have romantic discourse over the office phone, much less romance during work! Doing so becomes news. Yet, despite the construction of such distinctions, these workspaces and places have always been difficult to render as such. For example, one might consider the relatively recent development of teleworking from the 1980s or the “putting out system”[1] which dates back to the 1400s – both requiring work in the home. The papers in this special issue draw our attention to some of the ethical issues raised by the growing pervasiveness of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in our everyday lives and the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make distinctions between being somewhere (like work) and being away from some things (like one’s friends, social interests and other parts of life that are not integrated into this space or place [2] )...

Digital technology and public apology : responses by Indigenous Australians to a government saying sorry

Australia has had two recent public apologies, one to the ‘ Stolen Generation’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and the second to the ‘Forgotten Australians' – people who had been removed from their parents as children and institutionalized. Both acts occurred in time when there was no Internet and peoples’ stories took years to collect and decades for their weight to carry the public momentum required to gain a public apology. Now, in a digital age, the reports and the testimonies held within them are available for all to read on the Internet. We all now know what happened and formal public apologies ensued. Both public apologies also draw attention to an emerging intersection between digital technologies, personal historical stories and public apology. Research has identified the potential of digital narrative, such as digital storytelling3 and videoed oral histories to assist in the production of digital narratives that can help to present the multiple voices and viewpoints of those affected by these subjects co-creatively (Burgess et al, pp.152-153). Not all Australians however have access or the skills to use digital tools so as to benefit from these technologies ⎯ especially Indigenous Australians. While the Federal Government is committed to helping Australians enjoy digital confidence and digital media literacy skills, experience inclusive digital participation and benefit through online engagement (Department of Broadband, communications and the Digital Economy, 2009) there are many initiatives that can also be undertaken locally by State funded institutions, such as libraries to assist. This paper highlights the outcomes of recent empirical projects undertaken at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) in particular focusing on digital initiatives in Family History practices by Indigenous users, and a digital story project in response to the public apology to the Stolen Generation instigated by SLQ.

Integrated marketing communications

Organisations continually use integrated marketing communications to achieve a competitive advantage and meet their marketing objectives. This 4th edition of Integrated Marketing Communications emphasises digital and interactive marketing, the most dynamic and crucial components to a successful IMC campaign today. Incorporating the most up to date theories and practice, the text clearly explains and demonstrates how to best select and co-ordinate all of a brand’s marketing communications elements to effectively engage the target market. Chapters adopt an integrative approach to examine marketing communications from both a consumer’s and marketer’s perspective. A wide range of local and global examples include: Spotify, Pandora, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Woolworths, Nike, KFC, Victoria Bitter, Tigerair and Air New Zealand. Each new copy of the text also offers 12 month access to wealth of student on-line revision and learning tools: CourseMate Express + Search me! marketing. Unique to the text is a series of end of chapter local videos showing students how key objectives in IMC theory are applied by real businesses.

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.

Theorizing why in digital learning: Opening frontiers for inquiry and innovation with technology

Asking why is an important foundation of inquiry and fundamental to the development of reasoning skills and learning. Despite this, and despite the relentless and often disruptive nature of innovations in information and communications technology (ICT), sophisticated tools that directly support this basic act of learning appear to be undeveloped, not yet recognized, or in the very early stages of development. Why is this so? To this question, there is no single factual answer. In response, however, plausible explanations and further questions arise, and such responses are shown to be typical consequences of why-questioning. A range of contemporary scenarios are presented to highlight the problem. Consideration of the various inputs into the evolution of digital learning is introduced to provide historical context and this serves to situate further discussion regarding innovation that supports inquiry-based learning. This theme is further contextualized by narratives on openness in education, in which openness is also shown to be an evolving construct. Explanatory and descriptive contents are differentiated in order to scope out the kinds of digital tools that might support inquiry instigated by why-questioning and which move beyond the search paradigm. Probing why from a linguistic perspective reveals versatile and ambiguous semantics. The why dimension—asking, learning, knowing, understanding, and explaining why—is introduced as a construct that highlights challenges and opportunities for ICT innovation. By linking reflective practice and dialogue with cognitive engagement, this chapter points to specific frontiers for the design and development of digital learning tools, frontiers in which inquiry may find new openings for support.