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Image of the State Library of Victoria from avlxyz at flickr reproduced under a creative commons licence.
One thing I used to notice when I used to buy newspapers was that around this time of year “culture” steps out of the weekend review pages and takes pride of place as “holiday reading”. Short stories are serialised, the state of art forms and cultural genres worried about, and reviews abound. And not just on Saturday and Sunday.
2008 saw, in my view, a number of tipping points in the mediascape (and I’ll have more to say about this in a later post). For instance, according to the Pew Centre, the net overtook papers for the first time in the United States as a source of news. The current counter to the “death of the newspaper” narrative from some of the editorial and journo crew is a claim that everyone suffers if folks don’t have a comprehensive perspective on what’s going on, limiting themselves to following fields of niche interest. Margaret Simons has something to say about this theme at Content Makers, riffing off a piece by Sally Young at Inside Story. Now, I strongly doubt that there were ever people who read the paper cover to cover as a matter of civic duty. [Young doesn't make that claim, but it's implied in some of the less nuanced arguments from folks in the news biz.] Indeed, the division of newspapers into sections, and the usual relegation of matters cultural to the weekend in itself exemplifies the fact that judgements – highly normative (and often gendered) ones – are being made about what people should read. We’re to assume that serious stuff – politics and crime – occupies the minds of serious people, until they get to take a Christmas/New Year timeout. I’m actually not sure these people exist, and the ideal type of the reader imagined in the mind of the all knowing editor and publisher is one of the big problems with print media.
Anyway, all this is a bit of an introduction to a feature that New Matilda has been running over the last little while – a focus on Australian culture. There’s all sorts of interesting reading – Jason Wilson and Melissa Gregg on why we can thank John Howard for Underbelly, Judith White on museums and galleries, Robert Miller on the state of the film industry, Sue Turnbull on the state of Australian television, David Musgrave on Australian’s relationship to poets and poetry, John Hunter on small presses and independent publishers and Lynden Barber with the obligatory Baz Luhrmann review. All are well worth a read.
Returning to my theme, though, as part of the “State of the Cultural Nation” series, Barry Saunders writes on new media and a “surge” in democracy and citizen journalism:
There’s lots of stuff to play with. Lots of people to talk to on twitter. Cheap publishing platforms. Access to public data. Opportunities to use your knowledge to better Australia. Places to publicise your work and your ideas, to show them directly to the PM, the Leader of the Opposition, the Government and the public. Get among it.
Maybe it’s because my professional hat as a sociologist has a certain sceptical bent, but I’m not quite so optimistic. It strikes me that what’s missing from Saunders’ piece is any assessment of the actual influence and impact of the developments he celebrates. No doubt many are worth celebrating, but some are problematic, and some are still at the baby steps stage. One half of one the entrenched dichotomies I think we need to transcend which continues to haunt most discussion of new media in the political sphere is the view that the new must supplant the old, and that this is an unalloyed good. Things, I dare say, are a bit more complex than this.
Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and it will be interesting to look back on 1 January 2010 to see what’s actually been achieved through e-democracy and social media in the world of politics. But at this stage, my strong feeling, and it’s been a continuing theme in all my writing on this stuff, is that the most important impact has been cultural – in the sense of fostering a more participatory and engaged culture. But, to return to the beginning, I don’t think anyone in this country has figured out how to make that culture more than a very small niche interest and set of practices.
Sally Young argues that some awareness of politics filtered through as readers skimmed the paper on their way to the sports section or wherever. Maybe they threw the front bit out, but in any case, there are two problems glossed over in this narrative – the fact that most political reportage and commentary is of very poor quality and the fact that most Australians aren’t interested in most of it. There’s probably a relationship there! Expanding the circle of political interest through interactivity and conversations online – that’s the big challenge for 2009.
Robert Miller sounds like he wants to be Jim Schembri when he grows up.
But in fact getting access to much data on the public record is still either time-consuming, expensive or both.
For example, while judgments are online, court filings are not; to get them you need to go down to the court, take a number, pay for a search and then pay for copies of the documents.
At $1 a page or more, it ain’t cheap.
Who’s going to finance that sort of expedition in the future?
And not all judgements in all courts are online. In something akin to some of the ways the FOI legislation has decayed, access to public data is often treated by governments as a revenue raising project – presumably to some degree relying on the fact that news organisations, lawyers, etc. will have to pay what’s asked. But that shuts the actual public out.
More broadly, some Ministers and departments and the Senate etc. have RSS feeds while others don’t and bury “public” reports in user unfriendly and confusing websites. That’s compounded by federalism and different practices among different agencies at different state levels as well as different practices among federal government entities. A whole of government approach to these issues would be a start, but I don’t know if that’s even on the horizon.
And a lot of the stuff that’s brought together by some of the sites referred to is of questionable use – ie speeches by Members of the House of Reps – most of which are going to be tedious and completely tailored to the party line (and very often in terms of speeches on legislation, written for the MPs). The British idea is a good one, because there’s more independence on the backbench of the House of Commons, but it doesn’t transpose all that well to our context. Then there’s the question of what people actually do with the said data…
Putting on my political-economists hat I notice micro-loans appear to work better with women rather than men. So maybe only women should get to vote for a while?
Men could make themselves useful getting rid of all known fascists – most of them are men btw – and tidying up outside.
” is often treated by governments as a revenue raising project”
Really? Not in my experience, which is (admittedly) somewhat dated.
Any figures re supposed positive revenue?
Anecdotal, I guess, but a buck a page for a transcript is certainly more than cost! Similarly, years ago, when I was 17 and worked in the Registrar-General’s Office, the price of searches and full certificates was set with a view to making a profit off people doing family histories – and that was before the Goss boys rode into town.
“before the Goss boys road (sic) into town.”
In my experience the MSM and the Opposition, regardless of political colour, used FOI to trawl for info that could be presented as ‘shock, horror’. Yes it was ‘childish’ but it nevertheless exposed public sector activity to unfair scrutiny and subsequent ridicule that was never applied to publicly funded private organisations. Schools and hospitals are but two examples. Accountability should not be a one-way street.
Also, any serious FOI search was very, very expensive if it involved searches across any number of Departments and agencies across the State.
Sorry about the typo – I’m tired, and when I’m tired, homonyms often end up being spelt the wrong way around.
Not long after the Federal election I commented on the state of the media reporting especially the Murdock press, where it was and still is all negative re the Rudd government, and that I went to the blogs first to get a better balanced opinion which is way out in both directions. One year on nothing has changed and the blogs seem to be getting more attention than the normal media rather confirming the reason for my original comment long live the blogs
We’re to assume that serious stuff – politics and crime – occupies the minds of serious people, until they get to take a Christmas/New Year timeout.
That’s an interesting thought, and reminds me of the 19th century distinction between ‘improving literature’ – eg, the books of sermons on the family bookshelf – and ‘novelties’ – eg, fiction, poetry, ballads, etc. Nowadays I would have thought that poetry and literature are given to the masses in doses and treated as ‘improving’, but I suppose that is belied by the tendency to refer to culture as ‘entertainment’.
My own preference is wholly for the Saturday papers (still buy them) and those magazines like The Spectator and the New Yorker that still have a decent mix of creative pieces, humour, entertainment, games, thoughtful articles, and essays.
you’re absolutely right, of course. No doubt some of these things will fail, some will be problematic, and some will be awesome. I wasn’t really trying to say that the new will supplant the old – the old is doing a bang up job of topping itself anyway – but i was trying to say that there are genuine reasons to be hopeful.
I take your point, but I still wonder about the question I’m posing – how does the best of this stuff reach out beyond a small niche? As I said in the post, I’m sceptical of the argument that mainstream journalism ever conveyed much relevant about politics to teh masses. But surely there’s got to be a way to do it better online?
I don’t know that it’s ever going to reach beyond a small niche directly, but it’s interesting that alternative centres – including places like LP – are forming and injecting into the debate.
For example, Margaret Simons is on twitter, and is picking up on issues as they occur, using that to feed back into Crikey (which is halfway between niche and mainstream now) – and then those stories are getting picked up in the mainstream media.