Week 11: National Identity Flashcards
Introduction
Hodgepodge of: National identity Debate on need for regulation Media monopolies Print, radio, television
Try to relate topics to how this may impact us as consumers – in terms of media output that is and will be available or unavailable in future.
Recap: Sports, media and national identity
“What does the Union Jack mean to you?” https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/sunder-katwala/feeling-british-after-olympics
“Olympics is the ultimate show of pride and identity. For me, competing in the Olympic games has been an opportunity to thank a country that opened its arms to me 11 years ago, showing me that I mattered.” http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/26/which-country-did-you-say-you-were-playing-for-in-the-olympics/the-olympics-should-be-about-national-pride-and-identity
Debates of multiculturalism
Sports, media and national identity
Football:
England lost World Cup in 2014
“Uruguay managed to find a national identity”: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/20/england-footballers-confused-as-england-itself
Abundance of non-English players in Premier League
Manchester United vs Liverpool, Everton
Myanmarese activist and German football
History of Australian radio
Miller, “series of negotiations, impositions and accidents involving invention, infrastructural development and political obstruction”:
1920s: radio as a form of two-ways communication
1930s: radio as broadcast medium
1940s: variations of production systems, debates over local content, wartime censorship (inevitably affecting output)
1960s: introduction of television, Top Forty charts
1990s: proliferation of FM stations, presence of market values in public policy, impact of recession on capacity of state to fund free or subsidised media + impact on private media corporations
Docker
‘tradition of support for surveillance and policing of popular culture’, through TV regulation, imposes ‘high culture’ on commercial broadcasters and audiences
Australian regulations are based on the (false) premise that audiences need enlightenment via TV programmes as they do not know what is good for them
Also, ratings are a better indication of quality – compared to unions, public interest bodies and regulatory authorities
Obviously, Docker’s argument is flawed:
Audiences watch both high and low culture
Regulation in fact needs to deal with quality of local progammes’ capacity, despite budgeting constraints
Change in Australian television
Technological level: cable and satelite have overcome signal scarcity and internationalised broadcasting signals raising concerns for countries’ capacities to manage communication flows
Economic level: costs and saturation of domestic markets encouragement of corporations to globalise operations increased competition
National culture as a unifying theme: particularly by indigenous Aboriginal and migrant Australians
Political level: deregulation, with implications for media conglomerates
Transformation in how we understand ‘audience’: more active than passive
National identity issues in the media
Communications technologies (including media) have large public reach and cultural significance giving rise to responsibility on the part of both public and private media organisations giving rise to media regulations (funding, censorship, national requirements)
Cultural imperialism
State of having achieved political emancipation, but not economically or culturally
National identity issues in the media
Responsibilities include:
Utilising local talent
Ensuring that media ownership is predominantly local and controlled
Media output represents country and national identity
Maintaining objective of creating and maintaining national identity
National identity issues in the media
Let the market decide vs regulation
Costs
Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT):
Privileging cultural priorities over financial ones
Policy would not impact financial viability
“Australian look”, “Australian way of life”
Printing presses under Murdoch
US TV shows 20-30% cost of Australian shows
Murdock and Golding
Audiences as citizens
What defines citizenship
Who is a full citizen
Without full information, full membership as a citizen is denied information poverty
Impacts of economic changes on sociiety:
Consequence of increased privatisation (and therefore, reduction of free or subsidised media)
Increasing unemployment
Domestication of leisure
Consequences of economic processes for cultural production:
Range declines as market forces will exlude all but the commercially viable, which is further exacerbated by internationalisation/globalisation (audiences become commodified social, political and economic implications, homogenisation of programming)
Exclusion of voices lacking economic power
Cunningham
Need to respond to profitability and narrowcasting objectives vs Australian content quota and regulations
Argues that policies for diversity, innovation and cultural pluralism are in fact based on a protective policy framework Australian creative potential to flourish
Hence, the ‘cultural mandate’: enacting broadcasting policies that recognise importance of national standards of regulation that engage Australia’s cultural framework and possible cultural futures, in a critical manner
In contrast to Cunningham – might it be sufficient to point out that economic factors will require regulation to protect local industry?
Competition in print media
Rupert Murdoch
Australian-born, US citizen
Strategy of buying flagging print news agencies and turning them around: by focusing on sports and scandals
Expanded from Australia and NZ in 50s and 60s into the UK in late 60s, eventually acquiring and turning around The Sun
Faced allegations in that owned companies were hacking phones of persons who included celebrities and royalty in 2011
“I want atearawaypaper-with lot’s oftitsin it”
Competition in print media
Kerry Packer
Passed away in 2008
Famous for evading tax, richest man in Australia, yet state hosted a funeral at Sydney Opera House for AUD73,000: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/funeral-for-packer-cost-state-73000/2008/09/09/1220857547458.html , http://johnpilger.com/articles/no-mourning-for-kerry-packer
Interests included Nine television network, which was top Australian network when he passed away
Had sold Nine for AUD1.05 billion in 1987, and bought it back 3 years later for AUD250 million
“If anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax, they want their heads read, because as a government, I can tell you, you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra,”
Monopoly issues in print media
Private vs Public
Reduction in competition conservative news policies
Less diversity in ownership less diversity in ideological opinions and discourses
Increasing consumer dissatisfaction decreasing readership?
Less opportunity for readers to shape public opinion
