Experiencing turbulence: Asia in the Australian imaginary

Over the last century and a half the competing merits of withdrawal from and connection to Asia-and the related vocabularies of separation and engagement-have been defining themes in Australian history. Experiencing Turbulence brings together a selection of publications on Australian representation of Asia, published in various journals and books in the last ten years that follow the publication of Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850 to 1939. Collectively they address key themes in the Australian response to Asia: survivalist anxieties, climate and race, population and immigration, empty Australia, gender and bush mythologies, and regional Identities. These essays reveal the central, often constitutive role that Asia has played in the formation of ideas of nation and identity in Australia from the late nineteenth century to the present. The collection underlines the often unpredictable character of engagement and the fluid nature of fear and fascination, proximity and distance in the Australia-Asia relationship. With the recent publication of a government White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century there is a new determination to persuade Australians that "rising Asia," turbulent though it may be, is an opportunity for Australia more than it is a threat.

Lessons in aiding journalism and democracy: a study of Australian educators working in the Asia Pacific region

 This paper examines assumptions about democracy and the role of media held by journalism educators working outside Australia, and the extent to which those assumptions influence teaching styles, regardless of the maturity of the political systems in the nations in question. This paper looks at the work emerging from academics Beate Josephi, Barbie Zelizer, John Nerone, Cherian George and Silvio Waisbord, who argue in Journalism (2012) that there needs to be a change to the understanding by journalism scholars of the central place of journalism in democracy because that view is not global in its perspective. This paper specifically considers Zelizer’s point that “much of the scholarly world in the West – and specifically in the United States – depends directly or indirectly on the presumption of democracy and its accoutrements”. The researcher asks, “what can we learn about our Australian perspective on teaching journalism in the developing world where there may not, yet, be an operating democracy or a form of democracy that replicates the Western liberal model?”

American defence policy and the challenge of austerity : some implications for Southeast Asia

This article examines the Obama administration’s attempt to rebalance U.S. strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region with special emphasis on Southeast Asia. It argues that America’s regional pivot is occurring at a time of unprecedented domestic fiscal austerity caused by a staggering level of national debt.

The U.S. domestic budget crisis, the current “declinist” debate, concern over the rise of China, and the impact of sequestration on American defence spending are analysed and their implications for Southeast Asia are assessed. The article suggests that the most serious aspect of the U.S. debt crisis may be its impact upon American strategic resilience and geopolitical confidence.

Thus, while many ASEAN nations have welcomed the U.S. strategic pivot as a valuable reinforcement of their security, they remain unsure that it is a sustainable policy. In the future, it is likely that reassuring ASEAN of the longevity of the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific will require of Washington a skilled blend of budgetary reform, military presence, and sustained diplomatic effort.

Quantitative experimental comparison of single-beam, sidescan, and multibeam benthic habitat maps

Map comparison is a relatively uncommon practice in acoustic seabed classification to date, contrary to the field of land remote sensing, where it has been developed extensively over recent decades. The aim here is to illustrate the benefits of map comparison in the underwater realm with a case study of three maps independently describing the seabed habitats of the Te Matuku Marine Reserve (Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand). The maps are obtained from a QTC View classification of a single-beam echosounder (SBES) dataset, manual segmentation of a sidescan sonar (SSS) mosaic, and automatic classification of a backscatter dataset from a multibeam echosounder (MBES). The maps are compared using pixel-to-pixel similarity measures derived from the literature in land remote sensing. All measures agree in presenting the MBES and SSS maps as the most similar, and the SBES and SSS maps as the least similar. The results are discussed with reference to the potential of MBES backscatter as an alternative to SSS mosaic for imagery segmentation and to the potential of joint SBES–SSS survey for improved habitat mapping. Other applications of map-similarity measures in acoustic classification of the seabed are suggested.