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Mon, 16/06/2008 - 10:27 — Warren Reed
 Let's face it, you ever only realise how fundamental your home grammar is when you study another language, especially one from a vastly different cultural or civilization bailiwick.
Prime Minister Rudd's personal interest in Asia and his two recent trips to the region have highlighted the importance to Australia of understanding why people think and act the way they do there. In Japan in mid-June, Mr. Rudd mentioned that he'd like to see Australia become, over time, the most Asia-literate country in the world. That's an admirable aim, especially after the damaging slippage in Asian studies over the past decade. But we have a lot of work to do even to point in the right direction, let alone come anywhere near to achieving such a reasonable goal. A key shaper of public opinion on these matters is the media. If reporters and commentators don't bother to get the names of the region's top people and places correct, opting instead for their own imagined pronunciation, then Australians will be left feeling that it's not a challenge worth taking seriously.
Wed, 21/05/2008 - 12:21 — Douglascomms
Let's drop the drivel and find a real story. We've come to a pretty pass when journalists are again engaging in petty cut-and-paste politics, and puerile analysis, this time about disunity in the Federal Liberal Party. The leaked email, leapt on first by the leaper of leapers Glen Milne, was initially referred to as a liberal party squabble, nyer, OK, maybe he has a point, but then it became a division in the party and not just in one paper. Almost as soon as the story has been whipped up out of nowhere, poorly analysed and reported, we get a flurry of contradictory stories suggesting poor Mr Nelson is calling for party unity, burying the hatchet (in whom we might ask), and generally trying to ease his way out of a major conflagration. A major conflagration entirely lit and fed by poor analysis on the part of headline grabbing journalists, editors, sub-editors and the rest. With thousands of words and dozens of column inches now dedicated to this drivel, I can only bury my fingers in my keyboard to bemoan this kind of cheap trick journalism, and hope that it soon gives way to some real investigative reporting which will contribute, rather than detract from, our democratic process.
Mon, 07/04/2008 - 10:28 — Warren Reed
Would an 'Asia Daily' news bulletin help Australia to better understand its closest neighbours? Despite Australia becoming increasingly enmeshed with the Asian world - whether economically, politically or culturally - we are experiencing a serious decline in the numbers of young Australians studying the region's languages, as well as its history and thought patterns. This leaves us with a growing information gap, and one that has little to do with major events. If an aircraft crashes in Indonesia, a bridge collapses in Vietnam, or floods devastate much of China, it's more than likely you'll see it on the nightly TV news. You'll also find coverage in the following day's newspapers. But the things that regularly impact on the lives of our Asian neighbours - in the way that interest rates, mortgage payments and skyrocketing rents do with us - receive scant, if any, attention here. You might see some analysis in a specialist journal, but that's about all. Most Australians, for example, would have no idea how a shortage of onions and potatoes in northern India can impact on the life of a citizen there. Australians, whether locally born or from overseas, who are fluent in regional languages, can already access much of this information via the excellent news services provided by say, SBS TV and radio. But that's a relatively small part of our population.
Wed, 27/02/2008 - 17:37 — tamaraplakalo
Can reporting too much of the bad stuff actually create more bad stuff? People buy perceptions. Malcolm Gladwell did a great job of illustrating this in his book Tipping Point when he described the role of graffiti cleaning action in combating the crime wave in New York back in the 1980s. It was, by all accounts, a matter of focusing on perceptions that the NYC chose as the way of creating a feeling of more security and crime-rate reduction in what was becoming an unlivable city, full of fearful residents. More importantly, the strategy was successful. By choosing a few variables to focus on, and creating the perception that things were improving (among other things, graffiti were disappearing from public places and metro carriages as fast as they were appearing indicating that the city was winning the 'war'), things really improved. If this sounds like a bit of new-age mambo-jumbo, think again. The role of perceptions in collective human psychology is a powerful one. Public relations practitioners understand this well. As do companies, organisations and individuals that use them to support whatever ends they want.
Thu, 17/01/2008 - 13:04 — tamaraplakalo
So, let’s see … in the last seven days the Australian share-market lost ground on each consecutive day with no recovery in sight … the Australian Embassy in Kabul was attacked by the Taliban in a guerrilla-style attack … one child has died from malnutrition while you were reading this sentence … someone, somwhere has made an amazing discovery ... Yet, the “buzz-iest” news item in the Australian mediascape over the last week was the story of the Victorian party-boy Corey ‘I don’t take my sunglasses off indoors or outdoors’ Delaney, whose contribution to the newsworhiness-starved staple of the mainstream media has been … well, what exactly?
Tue, 14/10/2008 - 21:58 — ralphkerle
How can our tertiary education sector move away from their institutionalized, governance-driven and regulated process of education that is obsolete before it begins? www.newmediaminded.com.au is the type of creative business model innovation that Australian industry and government desperately needs. It is the brain child of Scott-Bradley Pearce, Strategic Business Development, CBS Interactive, a digital media pioneer who has worked in and co-owned some of Australia's leading digital agencies, including Big Hand Asia Pacific, Brainwaave Interactive and MediaZoo and as a result has developed a specific interest in that old-fashion notion - convergence. The site's purpose is to offer students in digital media studies an opportunity to engage with each other whilst working in the real world using real challenges offered by prospective employees in the process gaining practical on the job experience. This may seem relatively simple as a business model at first. Get students to do your work at piecemeal rates was my initial cynical perspective. However, that thinking would be cliched and deceptive. Pearce's business model is really creating a very specific collaborative ecology through building a framework for the potentiality for convergence to occur. Bring all the stakeholders together, the producers, the designers, and the clients and let's see what develops.
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