gatewatching

Along with his fellow pseph bloggers, Possum Comitatus made a big splash during the Federal Election campaign, and he now has a loyal, politically literate readership. Now he’s giving some more back to the Australian blogosphere.
On the weekend, he launched a companion site for his blog, the Possum Box, that he’s thrown open as a [...]

I use a MacBook and everything, and I wouldn’t go back to PCs, but sometimes I find Apple-devotion a little creepy. Everyone knows they’re a multinational corporation that’s basically a lot like Bill’s mob, right? (Even though I use them, I always laugh at this Charlie Brooker takedown).
Anyway I laughed at GrodsCorp’s post today, which [...]

UPDATE: Download of today’s broadcast on citizen journalism available here. Well worth a listen.
Aussie readers should tune in at 6PM to ABC Radio National for Australia Talks this evening. It’s about citizen journalism.
Preview from the RN’s Australia Talks website:

According to a recent study conducted by the UK’s Guardian, there’s been a serious decline in [...]

Because we’re always keen to support other researchers, I’m re-posting this call out for research participants from an Honours student down the road at UQ. It looks like a research project on the relationship between bloggers and their readership - interesting stuff. Put the word out if possible.
Do you have a favourite blogger that [...]

Thanks to a heads-up from Tim at Tree of Knowledge, I found out about this conference, the Personal democracy Forum, being held in New York City this month. Looks like they’ll be discussing some issues that have preoccupied us here at Gatewatching - the influence of new technologies on political campaigning and debate.
The debate in [...]

It’s probably going to be everywhere soon, but I just thought I’d link to what Daily Kos claims is the leaked text of Barry O’Bama’s victory speech claiming the Democratic Party’s nomination for the US Presidency. Whichever way you look at it, this is an historic moment.

Yesterday, Possum did a piece for Crikey (reproduced on his blog) which was a great take-down of some MSM reporting of some pretty inconsequential movements in the Newspoll numbers. Poss reckons the Oz (especially the Shanahany bits) is back to their old tricks - spinning, shifting the goalposts, and generally trying to make things look [...]

Update: For those prepared to contemplate the erotic allure of blogspot profile photos in relation to the Henson debate, the NSFW (language) Grodsthink for this week should provide some food for thought.
This week, in the tissues and the blogosphere, there has been a lot of discussion of art, and its “evil twin” pornography, in [...]

One of the biggest annual events in our disciplinary area is the International Communications Association conference.
Our colleague Terry Flew is there, and judging by his activity on his blog over the last few days, he’s going to be filling us in on what we’re missing. He’s already railed against the fast and loose use of [...]

Alcopops, petrol tax holidays, who leaked emails from whom… Sometimes its difficult to get serious policy discussion in the MSM (unless, like me, you’re a Fin junkie).
The best way to find out about major policy developments that impact on your areas of concern is through your RSS reader. I thought I’d try to start sharing [...]