This could end up rivalling the Keating/Albrechtsen stoush. The reason it’s of interest to Gatewatching is the way it’s played out over on- and offline outlets. It starts with Ellis here on the ABC’s Unleashed, making some possibly ill-advised speculation about the Clintons’ private life. Blair takes exception on his blog. Then Blair writes Tele column on the story. Ellis replies (citing his literary prizes, among other things. It’s a heavyweight bout, played out in multimedia. You can keep feuds ticking along for yonks now, at high velocity, all thanks to the power of blogging and online publishing. Pass the popcorn.
Well, maybe not ever ever, but as a Queenslander it’s hard not to think that tonight’s edition was important for revisiting a turning-point in our State’s history. Four premiers were interviewed, and there was some overdue credit for unlikely heroes like Mike Ahern, who realised the State needed to change, and made it happen at personal and political cost.
One of the big criticisms that the blogosphere (right across the political spectrum) makes of the mainstream media is that it’s abandoned its “Fourth Estate” role, and is too far integrated with the PR industry and the machinery of government.
This show was a nice reprise by Chris Masters of his own classic investigative work in programmes like “The Moonlight State”, which saw investigative journalism lead directly to bringing down a corrupt government. The economics of the contemporary commercial media make this kind of blockbusting investigative work more difficult to carry out, and for now the blogosphere is not really equipped to do it either, except perhaps on a hyperlocal level (have I plugged Cairnsblog and Strewth today?)
This is something that we need to address as a society - and I think that’s what we were trying to pick up on in our latest ABC column. Meanwhile, ask a Queenslander what happens when media, business and the machinery of government get too cosy.
This is the first go at a regular feature I’ll try on the blog where, every Sunday, we’ll bypass the gallery ‘insiders’ and set out the political blogosphere’s prospective agenda for the week with some selected links.
Council elections: The rest of the country might be having a little break from elections for a while, but here in the Sunshine State we have to elect our local councils in a couple of weeks. You’ll remember that one of John Howard’s unsuccessful late “wedges” was trying to turn amalgamations into an issue for Kevin Rudd by offering plebiscites, and attacking Peter Beattie as a Rudd proxy. The update is that people are voting in some brand new Local Government areas, and in the resultant game of musical chairs, some long-serving councillors are bound to miss out. The blogosphere up here is doing a great job of covering it.
Indeed, few things have pleased me more in recent weeks than finding out about hyperlocal bloggers in regional Queensland like Cairnsblog (covering Cairns and surrounds) and Strewth! (Covering Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast). These are providing alternative news sources in some areas that are under-serviced by the mainstream media. They’re both also in the best tabloid traditions of pugnacious, colourful muckraking. Go, now, and add them to your RSS subscriptions. This is what I’d hope that one possible future direction for the political blogosphere could look like.
1. It’s very difficult to stop people watching a television programme that’s been broadcast in another State, even if you’ve banned it, and even if it might prejudice court proceedings. (Bloody Internet.)
2. It’s very difficult to keep a Prince’s wherabouts under wraps when the media are globally networked, even if his life depends on it. (Bloody Internet. Bloody New Idea.)
3. It’s very difficult for Attorneys-General to back away from regulation that frames gamers as children, even if everyone knows that it’s in large part an adult market, and even if, in any case, any fourteen-year-old can acquire any game (or movie, or song) they want. (Bloody Internet. Bloody Family First to please. Bloody Senate.)
Dan Hunter of the University of Melbourne at the Computer Games, Law, Regulation, Policy Symposium 2008 speaking on innovation, property and virtual worlds.
Fred von Lohmann of the EFF at the Computer Games, Law, Regulation, Policy Symposium 2008, talking about copyright and contract law as it pertains to machinima. Read more…
This site is a group blog run by the three of us - Barry Saunders, Jason Wilson, and Axel Bruns. What we’re looking to do here is to track and analyse the further development of the phenomenon of citizen journalism, in Australia - where we’re all based - and elsewhere; in fact, the recent federal elections in Australia in late 2007, and in the U.S. in late 2008, produced plenty of interesting developments for us to observe and examine. In the Australian context, we were also part of the team behind an ARC Linkage research project into citizen journalism which operated a hyperlocal citizen journalism site for the 2007 election, at youdecide2007.org.
Recent Comments