gatewatching

Just posting an author copy of the latest paper I’ve submitted for a journal special issue. In it I discuss the looming NBN investment in the context of the decline of regional public spheres.

I use Townsville as a case-study, and argue that the regional public sphere there has declined over many years, to the detriment (and chagrin) of citizens there, and yet despite a level of Internet service provision that’s often comparable with the capitals, people haven’t engaged with the opportunities of public sphere blogging. This is a problem, then, that big fat cables alone won’t fix. I suggest we need to think about the role of creative clusters and intermediary institutions, and think about ABC Open in that light.

This will be the first in a series of articles that talk about the regional uptake of tools for public sphere engagement. I think that we are too often technologically-determinist when we think about things like the NBN investment, and we too seldom think about who’s excluded from online public spheres. I think there are systematic silences generated by our “networked public sphere” in Australia - future pieces will use empirical tools to investigate this.

Anyway, it’s embedded as a Scribd document below the fold. Comments welcome, and I’ll let you know whether it gets through peer review.

Oh, but please don’t quote it at this point without letting me know.

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broadband, journalism, regional bloggers blogging, broadband, journalism, public sphere, Queensland, townsville

Tonight’s 7.30 Report story about the disproportionate impact of high fuel prices in the Torres Strait was excellent. While a lot of the coverage of rising energy prices has concentrated on impacts on metropolitan commuters, and the he-said she-said antics of Governments and Oppositions on who’s to blame, this showed us how much is at stake in parts of Australia where the economy is configured quite differently to cities or mining boom-towns.

In short, petrol is approaching $3 a litre on some islands. In the Strait, the main means of transport is the tinnie” - small aluminium motor boats. When petrol prices hit these levels, it affects the prospects of one of the main sources of employment in the region outside government services, the fishing industry. It also affects people’s ability to access markets for their goods, basic services, and the price of fresh fruit and vegetables. The 7.30 Report yarn made it clear that the viability of these communities is important for the rest of us too - along with preserving an amazing, unique cultural heritage, strong communities in our northernmost islands help with border security, customs and quarantine control.

But we shouldn’t have to rely on the MSM to convey all this to us in the occasional feature. It would be great if there were more people on the ground providing hyperlocal coverage of the issues affecting the Islands. This isn’t just a matter of infrastructure, but of literacy, and of actively promoting and evangelising the use of blogs and other open publishing platforms.

The State, obviously, is better-placed than anyone to do this in remote communities. That’s why I’m hoping that, along with the current emphasis on security, the Government will start to avidly spruik the potential of open publishing technologies for remote communities, so we can all get a better idea of the challenges facing our sprawling, multi-speed national economy

blogging, broadband, regional bloggers 7.30 Report, abc, blogging, broadband, Queensland, regional bloggers, remote communities

It’s good to get offline for a while now and then. Last night I went to the Belgian Beer Cafe in Brisbane with some colleagues and friends. The mussels were lovely (as was the beer), but as well as getting some nourishment and giving my eyes a rest I got to hear about an interesting local campaign: Save Our Kenmore!

The reason SOK is of interest here is that they’re using blogs and social networking to coordinate protest about a controversial freeway development in Brisbane’s west. Some background: the plan being protested is part of the (ahem) “Moggill Pocket Sub-Arterial”, known as the Kenmore bypass, but its most controversial element might be that it doesn’t actually “bypass” Kenmore. The road is a State Government initiative intended to speed car travel from the leafy western suburbs into the city. Admittedly, the traffic situation on the western arterials is horrendous, but many Kenmore folk are worried about the impact on their suburb, lifestyle and land values, especially since it isn’t clear how directly the road will advantage them. Some residents (including my informant) are being threatened with resumptions.

As SOK’s main site puts it:

This site represents the effort of a large community united to find a better alternative to the Moggill Pocket Sub Arterial (Stage One and Two), which includes the so-called Kenmore Bypass. This proposed major road would slice through the reserve corridor from Kenmore to North Tivoli and many suburbs in between. Stage One starts by dividing Kenmore, and this is where all the threatened communities must make their stand to stop Stage Two.

Kenmore is a pretty solidly middle-class suburb, and obviously there are more than a few web-literate folk who are opposed to this road. They not only have a blog (which seems well-patronised) but a Facebook group!

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blogging activism, blogging, Brisbane, hyperlocal, protest, Queensland

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.

Link to the video of the show here.

blogging, citizen journalism abc, blogging, citizen journalism, journalism, law, Queensland

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.

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blogging, media blogging, elections, gaming, journalism, law, media, Outsiders, Queensland