This is not what my internet looks like:

It’s like Einstein’s theory of space and time – everything is relative. Each person’s internet is quite small, which is the only useful image we should think about. It might be fun to think about the ‘six degrees of separation’ experiment, but for blogs, business, anything, an analysis of personal webs is more useful. If each user sees a different thing, a semantic web has no relevance for marketing. See:

Facebook tells us they want to make our experience more tailored, but I think what they are offering is the same experience you can get in the ‘blogosphere’ (sorry- had to use the word). The Internet you create for yourself usually does not comprise many sites, and you save the ones you like. If you’re a blogger, you’ll mainly read blogs. If you’re a stockbroker, you’ll check the markets. If you live in North Korea, you don’t have the internet (gasp).

This is the tailored experience that results from what Harry Jenkins  described as ‘Convergence Culture’ (2006), whereby the medium no longer determines the message. Instead, information from newspapers, songs etc. can all be found online.

Axel Bruns’ theory about produsage should explain why this blog will work. ‘Produsage’ and the ‘gate-watcher’ theory hold that media outlets are moving towards content that relies upon the collective knowledge of its audience.

Bruns says:

“Gatewatchers keep a constant watch at the gates, and point out those gates to their readers which are most likely to open onto useful sources.”

Bruns was talking about news outlets but I think we can stretch the theory into friends and networks. Not only is every citizen a reporter, everyone is becoming a gate-watcher.

Assemblage Theory is the way things are going… According to an OECD report, new media is driving communication towards P2P rather than the traditional news outlet -> consumer dichotomy. We are sorting out the web ourselves and passing on what is relevant to us. This is the relativity of the personal web I was talking about before.

It may be misguided, naive, and you may be cynical, but I see this project (or at least this ideal) as a site to keep the gate-watchers honest. The size of a media organisation corresponds to their power. As someone who works part-time watching how selective reporting and dodgy ethics can influence people, a blog seems the perfect way to lodge my (feeble) protest.

Of course, that fits perfectly with Lovink’s nihilist impulse:

“What’s declining is the Belief in the Message. That’s the nihilist moment and blogs facilitate this culture like no platform has done before.”

Well so what? He’s saying we can’t trust the gatekeepers, or the gatewatchers, and we can’t. Instead we trust our friends and networks. His theory is more like a warning: plenty of blogs have ‘zero comments’ so make yours stand out!

Bruns is right about produsers:

“In becoming active publishers, commentators, and discussants, then, bloggers turn into what we can usefully describe as produsers—a hybrid of producer and user.”

But I’m not satisfied with just describing what is happening, I want to be optimistic about blogging. I know we spoke about sensationalism in class, so I’ll refrain from being web-vangelical… Lovink argues that blogs just create niches of like-minded people who all nod and agree with themselves. True, but I this imparts enormous benefit to that group of people. It allows them to argue, share information, and prepare their arguments for when they enter another media (the real world).

That’s the transmedia storytelling model that Henry Jenkins spoke about – not only are stories getting remediated and changed by users, but ideas and concepts have entered this domain.

If I were trying to make money, I’d go for viral stories. Just after we studied viral campaigns in class I tested it out by writing about the biggest story at that time: Catherine Deveny getting sacked from The Age. It was only my blog’s third post but nearly 200 people saw it on one day. For news blogs, and news in general, this technique of keeping your finger on the pulse of society works best. Tapping into Twitter proved useful here.

Reflecting on my creative commons post, it was pleased to learn that RadioHead released their album for free where people could donate as much as they want.

It makes it a kind of charity instead of the old business model. Ideologically, it suits me and my niche so I think it would work here. Like a voluntary subscription.

Anyway, I’m gonna send ripples through another medium now!

(Thanks for the subject – it was supremely useful. And now for my ONLY 1990s style reference..)

This is me right now:

-

A good proportion of my time is spent commenting on articles. It’s the best way to thrash out an argument or continue a discussion.

Media convergence has made this possible.

My favourite shows for discussion are Q&A, Insight, Dateline, Jon Faine on 774, Neil Mitchell on 3AW, and ABC’s The Drum. And the one thing these shows have in common? Audience participation.

Blogs are not dissimilar.

They encourage debate among users by leaving the question open to interpretation. Frequently radio presenters will refer to their Facebook page or their twitter followers. Q&A has introduced on-screen tweets during the show which encourages people to interact with the topic at hand. And after shows like Dateline (SBS) there is an online discussion between users. It’s a great way to flesh out a discussion.

This kind of media convergence has been modelled from the growth of blogs. Really, it’s more like necessity.

When researching what to write about for my niche, it was important to read the comments because they often criticise, which is what I want to do as an Axel Bruns-style ‘gate keeper’ blogger (instead of gate-watcher).

This technique worked especially well with my post on Catherine Deveny, which got heaps of reads and a few comments (also because of search engine optimisation).

I’ve found the stories with the most comments are the most contentious, divisive, or interesting. Typical subjects are religion, politics and people retiring.

Reading the comments section of Catherine Deveny’s article on The Drum, it was interesting to follow the massive influx of comments. There are about 1,250 at last count, and half of them are abusive and cruel, while the other half are supportive and kind. Typical. What was most interesting is that people started arguing with each other – this happens often on the Q&A site after each show.

Of course, it depends on the site – most YouTube users do not have much in common with Q&A users.

YouTube is perhaps the venue that brings out the worst in people. But it is interesting. The users’ anonymity gives them free reign for hatred, bile, abuse and lies. But there is also an anarchy to the comment threads. Nobody is going to read 14,000 comments about some dodgy video, but they respond to other users, creating new threads and tangents. Often it will turn into a slander match between two or three people, with little relevance to the thread. Lev Manovich agrees,

“The web is, in effect, millions of such conversations taking place at the same time.”

Manovich’ position on this is a bit tentative. I don’t see it as a problem.

The point of this blog is to foster debate about the media, so some would argue that getting into personal attacks and vitriol is a bad thing because it detracts from the original point. On the contrary, I often gauge the debate by the level of bile on the comment thread. There are always a few people who stand up and go head-to-head (this is usually me).

Tim from Climate Communications blog has one of the funniest exchanges I’ve ever seen (click here for the post) which shows how an insult can turn into a proper argument. The mere fact I’ve linked it here proves Bruns’ point; users shape their own internet by democratic optimistic means.

Insults get people engaged. It makes some people shy away, but other stand up and fight. This is a boon for bloggers because it means more visitors and more interest in your blog. You start to set the agenda.

More broadly, news outlets have all adopted online comment sections because they know users will spend time on their site which, coupled with effective advertising, equals dollars. I think this is the way news and current affairs is going.

Comments from the man on the street are now getting their run in the press.

-

Just for fun: (and a warning-this message contains so much crap that I had to include it for comic value. It was written to me by some eloquent YouTube probably in response to some comment I made. But I think it perfectly captures the mood of YouTube comment culture):

THERES ONLY ONEE GODD ONEE PEACEE theres only one god the vedas upanishads its in their brahman that is the almighty god has no enemys just like how spinoiza and sikhism says theres only one god that is brahman that is allah waheguru almighty god no one can make a picture of god lord shiva lord vishnu lord brahma all the pagan dietys the moon the sun egyptian dietys some or all of them
probaly by know became the same as god i dont know if they did they were all made by that one god brahman everything was made by that one god brahman allah any one can become the same as god

become one with brahman by doing medatation doing rightousness we are so dirty and nasty inside god is a 100 percent clean when we get clean when we start seeing god in every human being creature animal thats why eating meats bad vegetables were given by GOD for us to eat god gave us vegetables when we stop talkin trash about people when we stop hearing trash about people when ever someones talkin trash about someoneelse we dont hear it when a person reaches at that point and more stuff the person just changes when the person reaches the highest stage which is becoming the same as god that stage cant be described the person becomes THE SAME AS god no difference in the person and god theres only one one god for evey relgion theres only one god for every body animals human beings everything everyone no one can make a picture of god no one can make a image of god god never comes in human form god god is limitless brahman in the vedas upanishads is god alone who is un describle guru nanak the first guru of sikhism says the universe keeps on expanding that universe everything exists because of allah waheguru god that one who is the creator of everything is limitless is un describle
when someone is talkin trash about someone that person never hears it about someone that happens when a person gets clean he or she dosent hear it when the person gets clean gods name makes our mind clean doing rightousness makes it clean and when we do more stuff we just change then a person reaches that stage were he or she becomes the same as god no difference anyone can become like god doesnt matter whats your relgion god bless amen and amen peace some people mis read holy books god bless amen and amen some people say islam is the only way i dont believe it some say christanity is the only way i dont believe it i believe in that one god who has no relgion all guru nanak the first GURU OF sikhism he teached that in every human being god lives in every creature
if there was only one relgion that was the way this world wouldnt be that interesting there all connected so is science god bless peace

PREACH THIS YOU WILL TRULY BE BLESSED second hand smoke look how many people walk outside you can be killing someone without knowing it second hand smoke the government needs to stop this look at the innocent people walking on the streets i understand if a person wants to harm there self but harming others is a mega mega sin SECOND HAND SMOKE MURDER SECOND HAND SMOKE people need to start thinking peace please preach this to people this is what god wants god will be so happy and you will be blessed not even one person should be effected god lives in every human being creature animal helping one person is helping all of hummanity hurting one person is doing evil to all of hummanity just think my brothers and sisters about second hand smoke you can be killing someone without knowing it remember not even 1 person should be effected THINK? god bless peace amen and amen amen and amen a woman and man are equal its just that people have made the man bigger than woman a person should only marry one woman and man should only marry one who love each other so much and thats marriage so both should only be married with one WOMAN AND MAN there both equal THEY ARE BOTH EQUAL SOME PEOPLE MIGHT THINK ONE GENDER IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER BUT THERE EQUAL PEOPLE MAKE THEIR OWN RULES god bless peace amen and amen we are nasty drty sexual desire and WE HAVE TO see god in everyone every creature animal gods every were thats why eating meat is bad next anger BEING ANGRY ANGER we have to get rid of that loving material stuff have to get rid off greedyness have to get rid off we have to become clean god bless peace amen and amen
SEXUAL DESIRE iS good only if its two people husband and wife that is love that is god other than that sexual desire is sin thinking about other woman IS A SIN proud thinking no one can mess with mei can do bad stuff to people if i want but really a person shouldnt be scared of anyone or anything but god and thats only if thinking about doing something evil other than that no gods kindness is limitless and just be peaceful i by mistakely scrambled all of this up god bless amen and amen peace SEE IF WE WERE THE MASTERS OF THIS UNIVERSE WE WOULD NEVER WANT ANYONE TO BECOME LIKE US BECAUSE WE ARE SELFISH BUT GOD IS A 100 PERCENT CLEAN AND WANTS EVERYONE TO BECOME LIKE SELF SO YEA A PERSON CAN BECOME LIKE GOD BY GODS GRACE GOD BLESS PEACE AMEN AND AMEN AND WE SHOULDNT WASTE ELCETRICITY AND WATER WE EVERYONE NEEDS WATER AND ELCETRICITY SOME PEOPLE GET DIRTY WATER WE HAVE TO STOP WASTING THIS ELEVATORS TAKE A LOT OF ELECTRICITY ALOT WHEN IM DOWNSTAIRS AT NIGHT I TURN THE LIGHTS OFF I TRY MY BEST NOT TO WASTE WATER AND ELECTRICITY EVEN WHEN YOU TAKE A BATH OR SHOWER MAKE IT REALLY LESS AND YOU WILL BE BLESSED PREACH THIS AND YOU WILL BE BLESSED GOD BLESS PEACE AMEN AND AMEN WE SHOULD TRY OUR BEST TO REDUCE THIS GREEN HOUSE GASES THIS PEOPLE THAT ARE USING THEM IN FACTORIES ETC AND TRY NOT USING THE CAR THAT MUCH GOD BLESS AMEN AND AMEN PEACE N everyone has there own belifs and they have the freedom to think what they want to belif think but dont talk nastyness trash about others relgion GOD BLESS PEACE AMEN AND AMEN GOD HAS SHOWN ME THE TRUTH GOD IS ONE GOD HAS SHOWN ME THE TRUTH GOD IS ONE TRULY I SAY TO YOU MY MESSEAGE IS THE TRUTH BELIEVE ME OR NOT PEACE MOSIEEEE read this read this read this truly i say to you this is the truth believe me or not i am i am telling the truth peaceeee MOSIEEEEE GOD BLESS GOD BLESS YOU MY FRIENDDD REMEMBER MY FRIEND REMEMBER WHAT I SAIDDDDD REMEMBERR PEACEE MOSIEEFOOL

Is ©opyright dead?

Will free culture kill creativity?

The story goes like this:

1. People are not paying for Art any more.

2. Artists will not produce new Art if they don’t get paid.

3. Art will die.

Well, this logic is a load of bulltish, since a lot of Art is done as a hobby anyway. But it points to a broader discussion of copyright.

Before you begin, watch this ad by one of my heroes, Jack Black:

Sorry Jack, I’m about to disagree, but you still ROCK!!!

The history of copyright is ironic.

Way back in the 16th Century in Europe they created this law (the Statute of Anne 1710), which meant people were not allowed to copy material like the Bible, the first book to go to print.

In England, the Catholic Church actually burned people alive for making copies of the Bible. Of course now they churn them out to slip into every hospital and hotel drawer possible. Go figure.

So the little copyright symbol © (ok they didn’t have the symbol back then) was used to protect knowledge from spreading to the peasant class.

But soon it became futile. People were printing Bibles in other countries and selling them for cheap.

Copyright was becoming obsolete…

Skip forward a couple of hundred years and we hear the same cries from those with the most to lose.

New technologies have always been opposed. The cassette was going to ‘kill’ the record industry. The VCR was going to ‘ruin’ Hollywood (funnily, it did wonders for the porn industry).

It all comes down to copying. In this age of intellectual property, it would be hard to make any money from your ideas if people could copy them willy nilly. If I wrote a book which people sold without giving me any of the profits, I’d be a tad cheesed-off. After a while, you’d stop writing books. And on the Internet, things get even more difficult…

Dmytri Kleiner, a far-left Canadian/Russian hacker, has a different view on the music industry:

“So long as the owning class wants to have music, they must allow musicians to make a living. They do not require intellectual property for this purpose.”

He also says that:

“Intellectual property is no friend of the intellectual, or creative, worker.”

What does he mean by this? As an anarchist, Kleiner does not like the idea of the erosion of ‘use value’ of art. While Copyright is an attempt to commodify something which is already useful (art),

“It is no surprise that the idea of copyleft grew to prominence in software development, in the rise of the free software community.”

This movement is built upon the idea that content should be produced only if it is useful, not just because it can be sold. Equally, Kleiner would argue that selling music by means of copyright is against artistic principles.

On a related ‘economical’ note, this phenomenon could build ‘parasitic economies’ that feed off this massive increase in data sharing. People will need an Mp3 player to listen to all their new songs, computers to store them on, TVs to watch them on. Creating closed-source software has worked for Apple, maybe it could work for the music industry?

The ‘creative industries’ includes non-physical entities, like music, ideas, novels. To protect them, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was adopted into law by Bill Clinton in 1998, but it is international in scope. It functions as a copyright law for all ‘digital media.’ But as it will not stop file sharing. As our good friend Kleiner would point out, the Internet is anarchic. There is nobody controlling it.

Mega Nerds (Stalman on the right)

Following this trend, FLOSS  (free/libre/open source software) was created by a dude called Richard Stalman. His idea spawned things like ‘CopyLeft’ by the GNU project, which aimed at preventing people from taking your work and ripping it off as their own.

The last person I want to talk about is Lawrence Lessig.

His book ‘Free Culture’ is appropriately available for free here. But in the spirit of creative commons, feel free to send him a donation. Unless you’re on iTunes, that’s the way it works these days!

While on the subject of the music industry, he sums up users into four categories:

A. There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing CDs.

B. There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to purchasing CDs.

C. There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been too cumbersome to buy off the Net.

D. There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly endorses.

The point of any copyright or creative commons licence is to eliminate A but encourage moving towards C and D. This will encourage musicians to create more music.

I’ve also put a CC licence because I realise trying to stop people sharing things is futile. Peter Sundle from Pirate Bay (the enemy of content producers) told us in ‘Steal This Film’ (see bottom) that

“people don’t care what copyright is.”

And I have to agree. Artists should focus on ways they can sustain themselves instead of whinging when people find a way to undermine traditional means of controlling culture.

For my niche, I cited New Matilda as a model for this blog in my earlier post (‘You Call That a Niche?’). It has since gone under because their business model wasn’t working. If I were to start charging subscriptions or putting up ads, this is something I’d have to consider. Similarly musicians/artists/newspapers have to decide how they licence their work in order to make a profit.

‘Use value’ only gets you so far in this world! But for now, I’m happy to let people share stuff. It satisfies my inner-net hippie.

Resources and links:

• The Creative Commons website has great animations explaining the meaning of each licence.
• Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/
• Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.
• Dymtri Kleiner, ‘Copyfarleft and Copyjustright’, Mute Magazine (2007) (for his wider views on the right to copy)
• Digital Millennium Copyright Legislation

Steal This Film II is polemic and funny, but leaves open a lot of questions about how to sustain an industry where everything is free. It’s very long too, so be careful.

Discussion:

If you are a musician, how do you make money when people can share your songs for free?

If you run a newspaper, how do you balance content with advertising/subscription cost?

I intend to be cool

  Although, I think being cool is like being a celebrity:
  If you have to say it, it probably ain't true.
  Being cool, though, does not just mean being popular:
  it can  mean cold, awesome, interesting, quirky,
  inspiring, exhilarating, disinterested, bad, calm, wonderful.

So what is information cool?

It comes from The Laws of Cool
(2004) by Alan Lui. He was writing
about something that had been going
on for a while in the media industry.

People were starting to realise
that format really affects how
people take on information.

 This affects all mediums (media),
    especially the Internet.

When I first used the internet in the mid 90s
I thought it was really tacky and 'uncool' so I avoided it.
I preferred books and magazines because they were
printed, tangible, and more beautiful.

Neopets ↑ just didn't reach the high standards set by
video games and presentation of sites was often
dreary, hard to access and plain.

A reaction against this kind of over-animated, fluorescent,
Hello Kitty-style design is evident in closed source devices
like Apple products. I think open source is great for bloggers
and techies, but confusing and off-putting for the average
user. The success of Apple (I promise I don't work for them!)
is due to the fact they've made simple products which any
person can use intuitively. 

I suppose in a really abstract sense this blog should be
similar because it is trying to condense the clutter of the media.

I think as the simple aesthetic of the internet improves
people have been drawn to it. Kind of like why the iPod
was more popular than other Mp3 players.

Compare the pair:

1) Normal Mp3 Player

Asymmetrical design does not
fit well with the minimalist
trend in today's technology

2) iPod

Epitomises anti-design
and intuitive technology

This is what Lui means by information cool.

There is a 'struggle' between the music and the device,
highlighting that the listener's experience is
influenced by the the aesthetics of the music player.

                                         This means that presenting information in an unordinary
                                         way might mean the reader keeps reading even if they
                                         would turn away from the same information presented in
                                         a different format.

         Like McLuhan said, the medium is the message.
         And in this case, it is not just the blog, or
         its content, but the way it presents itself
         and the content that will distinguish it.

                      The Guardian newspaper in London has hired Michael Robinson to do their graphic design.
                      He is responsible for presenting the information in a way that grabs people's attention
                      while not distracting them from the facts. I think this is an important part of cool. While
                      cool competes with knowledge, it does not defeat it, but makes it more interesting, more
                      cool.

                                            Robinson turns information like carbon dioxide output per country
                                            into a striking graph that you want to cut out and keep for art's sake:

               You have to be able to follow the story but at
               the same time be interested by the form it takes.

               Similarly, news and blogging today is not just about opinion.
               Presentation of information is integral.

In an interview with Grafik Magazine, Robinson said that
design should be comfortable, un-intimidating, and easy to understand.


Design is a "visual language" -  that is, more than just regurgitating facts.

I think this technique is worth more than complementing
   your story/blog with with pictures and YouTube videos,
      because it helps people to understand the message without
         being confronted by it. It is 'cool' because the design
            makes it easier to digest, more interesting, and more engaging.

Geert Lovink spoke to Alan Lui about exactly what he
meant by his definition of cool. Lui says it is being


slightly rebellious, kooky, a little subversive, but not
to the extreme where you are downright anarchic.

It is the subtle challenge to the system.

Lui says:

              "There is no “producer” today in any realm (scholarship,
               the film industry, the technology industry, journalism,
               you name it) who is not first of all a prolific and
               creative “reader.”

                              With my niche topic I don't want to just be another news source
                              or opinion writer. The blog should present the same information in a new way.

                                                            Like looking at a painting from a different angle, listening to a song when
                                                            you are drunk, dancing late at night, perspective in a story can alter how
                                                            people make up their minds. 

                                                                                                                ---The Header--- is just an experiment to see what I
                                                                                                                could make. It's kind of obvious what it means: all the clutter implies
                                                                                                               that there is so much media out there, even just in Melbourne, so there is
                                                                                                               always a second opinion. 

                                                            This blog, as much as possible, will try to distil the noise into something
                                                            meaningful, something...dare I say...cool?

                              I've tried to avoid too many widgets because they can often be annoying
                              or confusing. 

                              That said, I will always annoy readers with freaky paragraph spacing because
                              it makes you move your eyes while staring at a computer screen!



This art is from infosthetics.com. It is cool.

Can you guess what it is?
Answer: A map of mouse movements from a single computer over a long time.
I drew inspiration from some wicked sites and magazines:
http://infosthetics.com/        turns boring information into art
http://www.grafikmag.com/       is the mag of choice for graphic designers

The coverage of homosexuality in the Australian media recently has rivalled that of countries like Uganda and Iran, where same sex love is punishable by death by stoning.

Too harsh?

The Herald Sun and Channel Seven have been the main offenders, while Channel Ten’s The 7 PM Project deserves a fabulous round of applause.

Jason Akermanis’s comments were of course the worst. But worse for the Herald Sun newspaper to publish them.

Sure, free speech is great, but we don’t give pro-rape advocates a voice, we don’t give racists a voice (most of the time), and we should not give dangerous comments like his to get the chance to gain support.

Thankfully, the Triple M and 3AW football commentators have called Aker out for what he is: wrong.

And Tim Duggan wrote a beautiful article in The Age.

But Aker’s comments should have never left the cave.

The same fag-bashing is happening with a NSW politician. The now former roads minister David Campbell resigned after he was ‘caught’ coming out of a gay bar in Sydney by Channel Seven cameras.

The reporter? Adam Walters:

Can someone tell me how being gay affects one’s ability to manage roads in NSW? Maybe Channel Seven could run a segment about the pitfalls of homosexuality in politics.

A ‘gay witch hunt’ is how Brendan Bolger describes it in SX. And he has had almost unanimous support.

I’ve never found Aker’s comments very insightful. Asking Aker about gay footy players is like asking the Pope what he thinks about condoms: you know what’s coming. Pun intended.

Another blight on the media was the coverage of the Equal Marriage rally across the country on May 15.

It was allocated about a 15 second time slot before sport on most major networks. A disgrace.

The 7 PM Project on Channel Ten gave the rally a big preview, but that was the only decent coverage of the issue by the electronic media.

Channel Ten has also done public announcements in support of equality – ‘This is Oz’ – please visit.

The amount of air time/column inches reflects how important a story is. If Jason Akermanis and his ‘gays should stay in the closet’ mantra get more attention than an issue of human rights, we have a lot of work to do.

If Adam Walters thinks a politician being gay affects ‘family value’ in his electorate, he should look at the rate of divorce among heterosexual couples in Australia.

There is a lot of thinly veiled homophobia out there. And stories like this, while not homophobic in themselves, incite hatred and bigotry.

In Uganda, they have just created a law which lets people hunt gay people and stone them to death. Of course Australia is nowhere near that level of barbarism. But we need to push gay rights onto the agenda and let them marry.

After all, marriage is a mistake everyone should be able to make.

Links:

What Aker said: The Age video - his column.

Visit the Gay News Network

Or put human rights on the political agenda and support marriage equality:
http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/

This is a niche!

I just wanna big it up for the Net Communications blog.
It was really cool to check out other student blogs. They gave me a lot of inspiration. But enough ass-kissing…

As this blog is about Australian media, you would think the niche is pretty large. But it really isn’t.

It’s not a media outlet, so people don’t come here for news. Instead, I am commentating on trends within the Australian media. What gets reported. What gets left out. And of course, who is reporting it.

This will interest journalists, media students, media watch-dogs, and probably a user base more random that five minutes of chat roulette.

I’ve found that my posts are similar to sites like:

But also foreign blogs like:

Other American sites like NewsBusters try to expose ‘liberal’ bias in the media, which is sad since the media is supposed to be liberal, free and open.Media Research Center tries to balance these two streams of thought.

This is not really what this blog is about, but it is close.

I have drawn most inspiration from Reporters Without Borders, a French-based group which promotes the free flow of information.

Here’s the link.

My message is clear: exposing bad journalism, media bias, corporate influence, and trends in the Australian media. It is similar to the ABC program Media Watch with Jonathan Holmes, but differs because it is not a TV show, but a blog, with no team and no second voice. It is just me taking a step back at all the media I consume and having a big hard look.

I work at Media Monitors as a casual. It’s a company that has people (me) who listen to radio shows, watch TV news and current affairs shows, read newspapers, check out blogs, and summarise the content. This gives an overview of what’s being talked about by the media.

Ok, enough plugging my employer. But I blog about ‘Ausmedia’ because I consume enough to be able to analyse it on a big scale.

Watching the traffic to and from the blog, it seems like the users are rabid media consumers and probably own iPods, iPhones, TVs, laptops, digital radios etc. So if I’m thinking of an advertising market…Bingo. Techno freaks are always after new ways to interact with information through new media. And I’ve checked out the advertising on other sites, and is mostly for laptops and smart phones.

I’ve posted links to my site on relevant blogs like the Overstimulated blog, and have received traffic back. I think in the ‘long tail’ of the media, where relevance is crucial, this is the best technique. You can also build relationships with like-minded people. I have already made some friends with journalists and citizens doing the same thing as me. In the long tail, which is where most blogs are in the media landscape, you have to stay on topic so users come back to your site, but also so you build up some credibility.

Chris Anderson coined the phrase ‘long tail’ and has a cool site, aptly named longtail.com, which mainly describes how people should market their products, but I think bloggers should take note. It’s like game theory – you can use it for stuff other than maths.

I love the theory because it is a natural product of the Internet. With so many producers of content, so many niches, people can feel overwhelmed by too much info. So they stick to a niche they like. Anderson applies his theory to things like air travel, books, general products.

For the visually stimulated, a nice graph:

My most popular post about Catherine Deveny has been linked by a few sites.
And she tells me her publisher Black Ink is going to put up a link. Sweeeet. I think this is the most important part of a blog. It’s the ‘no blog is an island’ mentality. It has to be relevant.I also use Facebook to promote my site. When I am researching a story on the net, I’ll post a link to my post on the page. Facebook continues to be my biggest source of traffic. Using trackbacks has also been a great way to let other blogs know that I have read their blog. It’s a great system and it’s cool when you get recommended by someone else’s blog.

So I don’t need to post every day – people just won’t want that much information on this topic. Instead, I’ll keep it to no more than two a week. In my experience, I’ve ‘unsubscribed’ to blogs because there were too many posts. I think people in my niche will appreciate less frequent, but more comprehensive, posts.

Essentially my niche are the people like me who consume a lot of media on various machines and gadgets.

That is a niche.

Muhammad may have been a prophet, but he didn’t see this coming

Didn’t the 16th Century happen like 500 years ago? Are people still scared of ideas? What’s going on?

In case you haven’t heard, about ten people got angry about a recent South Park episode which pictures the Islamic prophet Muhammad (think tarot cards, astrology, crystal balls, tea leaves…etc) wearing a bear suit. Fair enough-bear suits deeply offend me as well.

The episode hasn’t aired yet in Australia, and in such a secular society it may well go unnoticed. But with the sh*t hitting the proverbial fan overseas, I somehow doubt it. If you want the episode to play in Australia, check out the Facebook group to support.

If you haven’t seen any South Park, you should. But for now, the Media Know-all sums it up nicely:

It’s possibly the cleverest thing on American TV and regularly confronts the hypocrisy of a nation that sanctions violent murder as entertainment but shies away from naked nipples or the word “shit”.

Created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in 1998, it takes on some of the glaring hypocrisies in (American) society, like people touting freedom of religion in the Constitution then spewing unreflective hate towards Islam and other ideologies. The cartoon take on celebrities, religions, politicians, ‘community standards’ and confronts the audience with every taboo possible. It is exhilarating.

Parker + Stone = Stoner (Granted- they are much better at comedy than me)

America’s Fox News contends that:

Religion in general hasn’t become taboo — just Islam.

Maybe in this instance, but some Christians do not take well to criticism. The same people who oppose the ‘extremists’ who made death threats/warnings against Trey and Parker are the same people who can’t handle seeing Jesus portrayed in the same way. Think about the opposition to Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ when it came out in 1988. If you were too young, or don’t remember, see the video at the bottom of the page: people speaking freely, about why Scorsese shouldn’t have.

South Park’s Muhammad episode, which also featured Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Joseph Smith (Mormon Church), was offensive to most superstitions and medieval myths. And as you would expect, some looney was willing to defend their choice of fairy tale with violence. They took the site revolutionmuslim.org down, but they told Trey and Parker they would wind up dead, throats slit Qu’uran (and Bible) style in the street, like Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who made a film about some Islamic men beating their wives.

The star of that film, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has taken refuge from the violence in her home country. She speaks to CNN about the show. This is a must watch:

This is Ali’s personal site. Her story is harrowing but inspirational.

Islam is an idea, a way of life, just like being an athlete or gastronome.People are condemned to make a choice. Unfortunately, many people chant to themselves that they are 100% right and their particular religion is the one true. How many times have you heard that pearl of wisdom? Of course, violent fanatics are an embarrassment to anyone with a serious view on the limits of free expression. But it’s funny how ‘atheists’ have significantly fewer protests about having their ideas challenged or their feelings hurt…I’m just sayin’.

The Guardian reckons Revolution Muslim is a group of probably fewer than 10 extremists based in New York who hand out leaflets outside the moderate 96th-street mosque. But from the infinity of videos on YouTube and other video sites of certain ‘scholars’ talking about certain religious rules, it would seem they have more support than a bunch of whackos on the street corner. Americans especially know the supreme sadness of religious violence.

Freedom of expression is under attack. Christians will be reminded that Jesus was killed for challenging the popular idea at the time. Jews have faced unspeakable horrors. And today Islam seems to be the scapegoat of the insecure. These ideas are not immune from scrutiny and ridicule. It is common in Australia, and other Western countries, to criticise politicians, cultural traits and celebrities. The Chaser’s War on Everything did it the best. The same goes for religions.

So maybe you are religious and don’t agree with my views on the subject. That’s cool. But think about freedom of expression for a minute. Religious ideas are usually fundamentally different to my view of things, but they seem to get a pretty good gig. The Australian media broadcast religious festivals, ideas and direct messages from preachers. They also broadcast, though not in proportion, secular ideas. The SBS should extend the courtesy granted to religions to South Park.

Ok, so here’s the philosophical part:
Salman Rushdie once wrote a book with Muhammad in it, The Satanic Verses, saying “there can be no taboos.” He almost died for writing that book. I stand with him though, and I reckon you should as well. Quietly, of course. We must not become the hatred we denounce! But this issue is more than a trivial point of journalistic integrity. Remember, your ideas are certainly offensive to somebody else. Don’t presume they are any better without first challenging them. It’ll be like therapy: Just talk it out!

South Park, for all its ‘vulgarity’ and ‘obscenity’ demands we take a look in the mirror. Clearly some people don’t like what they see.

Feel free to comment below. I love this topic.

Here are some articles, videos and cool and not-so-cool sites:

Ed Pilkington in The Age (originally from The Guardian) is my favourite one.

Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian is equally valid and eloquent.

Access Now is the best site for internet freedom.

News Busters is a cool site, a lot like this one.

Get Religion talks about how the media portray religions. They’re sponsored by the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life.

ACT for America! is borderline ‘Christian soldier’ but seems pretty well-grounded.

Child Care Action Project is a fundy Christian site full of the usual hypocritical stuff like denouncing hatred, violence, killing, and then telling kids to read the bible! Endless amusement.

Interview with Stone and Parker after the threats were made:

For media buffs, Noam Chomsky talks here about hypocrisy, Islamic terrorism, US terrorism and media reporting:

If you have read his book 9-11, please let me know if it’s a good one. I’ll get it.

Christopher Hitchens debates about freedoms of speech. This is my favourite discussion on the topic. (To spoil the ending, Hitchens wins)

Reaction to The Last Temptation of Christ:

Feel free to comment about how far the media should take free expression. Go ahead, no topic is taboo!

Catherine Deveny should not have been sacked from The Age. The paper has lost support from her fans, and gained no new readers from her dismissal. From their point of view, a devenstating mistake.

Editor-in-Chief Paul Ramadge gave her the flick after several of her tweets from the Logies were published in The Age, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, the ABC, and were discussed on several radio shows including 3AW, whose parent company Fairfax also owns The Age.

Obviously The Age is worried about publishing offensive material, which is why it is their biggest story at the moment. Talk about double standards.

The Daily Telegraph, that respectable publication, has labelled her ‘acid tongued and vicious‘.

The Herald Sun, that beacon of journalistic integrity, has called it a ‘vulgar and offensive attacks on guests‘. Deveny responded by saying that ‘Twitter is online graffiti, not a news source. Offence is a healthy by-product of free speech.’ The Sun, in all their righteousness, told readers that Twitter users were all against Deveny. I invite readers to visit her Twitter account to see just how wrong they are.

So, what did she say?

“I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid.”

“Rove and Tasma look so cute . . . hope she doesn’t die, too.”

Sounds pretty sick, right? Probably would not get a run in the newspapers if it were a column, right?

Exactly.

Twitter, our beloved status update machine, is not a newspaper.

3AW’s Neil Mitchell disagrees. He has called Deveny “bitter…sour and confusing” this morning on his radio show. ‘Bitter’ is a bit rich coming from Mitchell. But I digress…

Gordon Farrer makes a good point about Twitter. He argues ‘posts to Twitter are not private messages.’ And he is right. But Gordon, the medium is the message. Deveny says things to friends which would be offensive to many people. Those comments can be repeated. Unless they are published in her capacity a Fairfax employee, her comments should read in the context of Twitter.

If you were offended by the Bindi Irwin comments, visit her website or her Twitter and see what (often true) things she has to say about Tony Abbott or the Catholic Church.

Oh, and you know the term ‘devo’ – as in: “OMG I was so devo to hear the news” ? Yep. Deveny.

Deveny told Jon Faine on ABC 774 radio this morning

“I’m not a journalist. I’m a writer, I’m a polemicist.”

She’s right. She is paid for her opinions. And if you sometimes find her commentary offensive, then she has succeeded. People like Deveny, Andrew Bolt, Sam Newman, are in the media to provide a polar view against which we can measure our own.

Here’s the full audio *open in another tab*

Take a look at some of Deveny’s other comments on Twitter. Her swings between eloquence and rough language keeps her readers guessing- just one of the reasons she is so successful.

Her ‘arch nemesis’ Andrew Bolt tweeted:

“We gave Sam Newman a job on MTR just because he IS offensive.”

Are the Herald Sun or Melbourne Talk Radio going to fire him? I doubt it.

Of course, it is a fake Twitter account, but it’s uncannily accurate.

Deveny’s response is interesting:

This is not about Twitter my friends. This is SO not about Twitter. This is about gender, class and relevance deprivation.

Remember Kyle Sandilands and his lovely little segment on teenage rape? Back on the air within a month. Unfortunately I don’t think the same thing will happen with The Age.

I think her some comments were offensive and in bad taste. But some were not. Yea, she could have made her point without involving Bindi Irwin, or many other guests. But that is beside the point. We can read her comments and decide if we agree or not. Gordon Farrer, technology editor for The Age, says we should all be careful online and that Deveny got what was coming to her.

Sure, we have to be careful what we write and say anywhere, but her comments were not hateful, nor criminal. They are covered under free speech. George Orwell says free speech is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Catherine Deveny has done just that for years on several issues.

The Overstimulated blog makes a great point on this: visit for a far better argument on the implications of Deveny’s plight. The Australian just posted a great article about Twitter. And finally, The Drum editor Jonathan Green sums it up very well.

Deveny’s columns sparked my interest in being able to speak your mind and the knowledge that sometimes people will disagree with what you say, or how you say it, on a fundamental level. The beauty of free speech is that it caters to all.

The Age has lost a columnist who is unafraid to speak out against sexism, rapists, liars and religion – to name but a few imposters. She and her words will live on.

Remember the good old days where real men smoked Marlboro Reds? Not anymore. Not for Kevin Rudd anyway, who announced today more tax on tobacco.

Kev may be from ‘the country’ – but he’s no Marlboro man. It seems he has adapted just fine to the big city life of our nation’s capital.

Well, despite what Kev said today about tobacco, the journos at the ABC have decided to run a piece paradoxically dedicated to Kevin Rudd’s announcement and Winfield cigarettes.

How? They just ran a free advertisement for them on national TV!

You would think after Monday’s episode of Media Watch that reporters at the ABC would think twice about product placement. Host Jonathan Holmes spoke about using the Volvo brand for a story about the rise of diesel cars in Australia.

It’s a bit naughty of the ABC to show brands because they’re funded by the government. They even apologised and they tell us they don’t really like showing brands, but sometimes they will to make a good story. More like ‘guidelines’ it seems.

Yep. They’ve done it again. I’ve got a good mind to write them a strongly worded letter for this one. In today’s Midday Report the main story was about the federal government’s changes to cigarette packaging. All brands will be removed by 2012, says the Optimus Prime Minister. Like Robin to Rudd’s Batman, Health Minister Nicola Roxon makes the very same speech, only she says “I make no apologies” more often. Is it time we demand an apology for not apologising?

In the fifties, more doctors smoked Camels than any other cigarette. (See hilariously antiquated advertisement)

But today Winfield is the ABC’s brand of choice. Multiple close-ups of that brand gave them wonderful advertising that would otherwise be illegal.

Unlike the Volvo case, advertising or displaying cigarette brands in Australia is not only against the ABC code of practise, but it is against the law. The free-to-air channels blur them when they cover the F1 Grand Prix. When was the last time you saw

Given the ABC is not supposed to advertise, and the fact that they’ve had so much attention recently, it seems more than odd they would show brands on cigarette packets during a story about the removal of brands from cigarette packets.

All I know is Winfield sales must have gone through the roof.

Oh hell, if the ABC does it, why not here?

The Age today reported on the killer of Carl Williams, who faced court yesterday. The man’s identity is supposed to be a secret but The Age may as well have told us where the guy lives. You can see the colour of his thin eyebrows, his bald head, large build, mouth and ears.

Later today, they pulled the picture, but only after Chief Editor Paul Ramage was told by Jon Faine on ABC radio that the picture was probably not in the spirit of the court-ordered identity protection.

The Herald Sun acknowledged it shouldn’t be talking about his identity, and yet in the same breath describe him as ‘large, bald, and broad-chested’

Enter the white knight, the glorious ABC, who reveal the man’s age but nothing else. Quoting the judge, the ABC story acknowledges “He asked the media to refrain from publishing any prejudicial or sensitive information, adding such forbearance is necessary, “not only to respect court processes, but in respect for public rights and freedoms that we all should seek to enjoy and protect”. Jon Faine was keen to let listeners know that the ABC was not going to reveal any parts of his identity. But he doesn’t have to sell papers, The Age and Herald Sun do. Does that excuse them? How much of the man’s identity can they reveal?

Melbourne knows Carl Williams was not a good bloke. And his alleged killer is in a maximum security jail, so you wouldn’t invite him to Christmas day lunch. But if he’s to get a fair trial, his identity should not be revealed. I’m all for trial by media, but only  after trial in the courts.