Classification, Convergence,
Citizenship: Cultural Researchers
in Media Policy Environments
Presentation to Cultural Economy and Globalisation Theme
Group, Institute for Culture and Society,
University of Western Sydney, Parramatta campus,
12 June, 2012
Professor Terry Flew
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
2
Incremental change or fundamental reform?
"Australia's media content regulation system is like a bowl of spaghetti that's been put
to the back of the fridge and gets dragged out every five years, reheated with additional
sauce, partly eaten and then put back in the fridge for later. It's complex, tangled and
from a media user point of view its impossible to tell which bit of media content
connects to which regulatory framework“ (Catharine Lumby).
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Net Libertarianism
4
Ten take-aways for researchers
1. There is a mix of accident and design in how
policy issues are foregrounded
2. The Internet does not in itself eliminate
questions of media regulation
3. In public policy, process can be as important as
outcome
4. Policy-making has a mix of principles-based and
pragmatic elements
5. The challenges of media convergence are many
and varied
Ten take-aways for researchers
6. There is a progressive uncoupling of media
content from delivery platforms
7. Who is a “media company” is becoming more
complicated
8. Global platforms challenge national regulations
9. Policy is hard to explain with one-dimensional
theoretical models
10.Cultural economy researchers have to engage
with economics
Accident and design in setting media
policy priorities
• Design
– National Broadband Network
– Convergence Review
• Accident
– Rebuff on mandatory Internet filter – need to review
scope of Refused Classification (RC)
– 58,000 support campaign for R18+ for games
– Various Parliamentary committees (cyber-safety,
outdoor advertising, classification scheme (?))
– Unexpected events e.g. Kevin Rudd on Bill Henson
photographs, “promotion of terrorism”
“Community standards” as an ongoing
policy issue
• Policy trajectory has been away from
censorship and towards classification
• Classification as community information
• Question of adult/child boundaries
accentuated in online context
• Changing nature of problematic content in
online context (e.g. child sexual abuse
material)
• Recurring debates about media influence e.g.
expectations about news/journalism
Process and outcomes
Why an ALRC Review?
• Options
– Departmental
review
– Parliamentary
committee
– Independent expert
committee
– Standing Law
Reform Commission
• ALRC Approach to Reviews
1. Building an evidence
base
2. Community consultation
a. Public submissions
b. Stakeholder consultations
c. Online consultations
3. Role of Advisory
Committee
4. Other expert advice
Rationalism and incrementalism
• Expertise-based policy design
–
–
–
–
–
Rationalism
Economic rationalism
New public management
Evidence-based policy
Principles-based policy
• “Realist” influences on policy design
– Incrementalism
– Stakeholder influences
– Political feasibility
Challenges of media convergence
Separation of platforms and content
Who is the subject of media
regulation?
National rules and global platforms
• “Nation state governments clearly have a remit to enforce the laws
of their country and to protect public policy priorities when it
comes to cultural and social parameters. Their ability to enforce this
remit is restricted due to the sheer volume of media content as well
as the decentralisation and vast number of media producers.” Kate
Crawford and Catharine Lumby, The Adaptive Moment: A Fresh
Approach to Convergent Media in Australia (2011), 40.
• Qualifiers:
– Global media are not a new phenomenon
(Hollywood?)
– Local audiences demonstrate preferences for local
content
– Not “death of the nation state”
National rules and global platforms
•
“New developments do not imply
that existing regulations need to
extend their coverage over other
platforms and services ... [I]t is
important that instruments used do
not hinder the positive developments
and aspects of convergence while
also being effective, robust and
flexible.” Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development,
Policy Considerations for Audio-Visual
Content Distribution in a
Multiplatform Environment (2007),
17
1.
2.
3.
4.
media policy needs to be premised
upon content abundance and
increased media competition,
technological changes generate new
challenges for maintaining
technology-neutral media
regulations;
media regulations can have
unintended consequences in
advantaging or disadvantaging some
platforms, services and providers;
media markets have become more
international, and national
regulations may not be compatible
with these international media and
communications markets.
Australia’s National Classification System is unsustainable in
the medium to long term. Technological developments have
already undermined the basis of classification in Australia,
and that the trends which we are already seeing will
increase exponentially.
As a consequence, we recommend a radical rethink of the
principles and justification for classification. Australians
increasingly have to rely on private forms of classification.
Private classification and content assessment will dominate
the future media landscape.
Failure to face the inevitable demise of classification – a
process which has already begun – will lead to
inconsistencies within the law.
• Chris Berg and Tim Wilson, Institute of Public Affairs,
Submission 1737a to National Classification Scheme
Review, July 2011
In many ways, the Convergence Review is suffering
from the same problems as the ALRC's Classification
Review, in that it's searching for local provincial
regulatory responses to a global phenomenon.
By casting "convergence" as an Australian media
issue which requires an Australian regulatory
response, it's easy to predict that the results of the
review will be obsolete by the time they're published,
overtaken by global developments which pay scant
attention to Australian regulators.
• Mark Newton, Submission to Convergence Review,
28 October 2011
It is one of the primary, fundamental responsibilities of
government to maintain a community standard of public
decency. This responsibility applies to every aspect of
society. For example, members of the community are not
permitted by law to behave in public in any manner that
they can. A system of classification and censorship of
content should maintain a community standard of public
decency in content and communications in Australia …
[As] a community we have a right to assert that there
are some materials which are so far contrary to
fundamental human rights, or which are such an attack
on basic human dignity, or which are so depraved,
obscene, destructive or criminal that we do not admit
them into our community even for adults.
• Professor Michael Frazer, Communications Law
Centre, Submission to the National classification
Scheme Review CI 1230, 15 July, 2011.
Neither neoliberaism nor the nanny
state
Neither neo-liberalism nor the nanny
state
Government spending as % of GDP in 13 OECD nations
Cultural economy researchers have to
engage with economics
“The apparent inability or unwillingness to criticize economics
as useful knowledge from anything but a radically external
position produces an extreme disconnection between sociocultural criticism and the world of economics. Too often, the
criticism of academic economics is founded on an imaginary
summation, which is really a relative ignorance, of economics;
in addition, the point from which such criticisms are offered is
often not a theorized analysis of real economic complexities,
but an imagined position of radical opposition, in which the
only possible politics is defined by the moral project of
overthrowing capitalism.”
• Lawrence Grossberg, Cultural Studies in the Future Tense
(2010), p. 107.
New Institutional Economics
Embedded socio-cultural
forms/structures
Institutions
Governance
Markets