50170 Australian Communication and Cultural Policy

Handbook description

This subject examines how public policy processes attempts to rationalise the political, economic, technological, and social conditions underpinning Australia's communication and cultural industries. Despite the rhetoric of free market competition, national governments still attempt to foster, constrain, control or otherwise regulate broadcasting, telecommunications, the internet, and cultural production and consumption.

This subject starts by examining the present and future of television, and then looking at telecommunications issues, including the development of broadband and the increasing importance of global media regulation. This is such a broad topic that students need to look at a wide range of issues including digital television broadcasting, data-casting and multi-channelling; cultural subsidies and quotas for film and television production; commercial, public service, broadcasting the impact of convergence and the increasing relevance of telecommunications regimes in broadcasting; intellectual property; and international issues, including the role of the WTO in the communications sector and the impact of globalisation on national communications systems.

Students are encouraged to critically explore and analyse how and why governments construct markets, condition technological futures, and support and circumscribe cultural outcomes. In the assignments and tutorials, students research and investigate current policy processes and analyse industry positions. The focus is mainly on understanding policy formulation in a governmental sense but theoretical concepts such as political, economic and cultural power, the public sphere and civil society are also examined.

The subject comprises lectures, including lectures by industry specialists, followed by tutorial discussions on the readings/ research set for each week.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On completing of this subject students are expected to be able to understand and critically analyse in an Australian context:

1. how policy processes address the economic, technological, political, and social conditions underpinning communication and cultural activity
2. why and how governments and their agencies attempt to foster, constrain, control or otherwise regulate mediated communication and cultural activity
3. the policy tensions between seemingly contradictory tendencies such as regulation-deregulation, convergence-diversity, subsidy-market, private–public, local-global, commercial interest-public interest
4. empirical instances of policy formulation and implementation
5. the operation of political, economic and cultural power and of public interest considerations in policy formulation and implementation.

Contribution to graduate profile

On completion of the course, students:

• have a knowledge and critical understanding of the media
• will seek opportunities to make significant intellectual and creative contributions to the social, political and cultural life of the communities in which they live
• have an understanding of the role of the media in local, regional, national and global contexts
• have strong research skills and effectively retrieve and analyse information from a range of sources
• have a critical understanding of issues of gender, racism, ethnicity, disability and class and the way these are linked to issues of media representation, production and reception
• understand the role the media has played in the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the importance of the role the media can play in the reconciliation process and bringing justice to all communities
• have an understanding and commitment to ethical journalism practice

Teaching and learning strategies

The subject will comprise lectures, including lectures by industry specialists, followed by tutorial discussions on the readings/ research set for each week.

Content

Australian Communication and Cultural Policy examines how public policy processes attempt to rationalise the political, economic, technological, and social conditions underpinning Australia's communication and cultural industries. Despite the rhetoric of free market competition, national governments still attempt to foster, constrain, control or otherwise regulate broadcasting, telecommunications, the internet, and cultural production and consumption.

During the lectures and tutorials, students study recent and current policy initiatives in areas such as: digital television broadcasting, data casting and multi-channeling; cultural subsidies and quotas for film and television production; the fledgling broadband Internet sector; commercial, public service, and community broadcasting; intellectual property; the parallel importation of CDs; and privacy, including media privacy.

Students are encouraged to critically explore and analyse how and why governments construct markets, condition technological futures, and support and circumscribe cultural outcomes. In the assignments and tutorials, students research and investigate current policy processes and analyse industry positions. The focus is mainly on understanding policy formulation in a governmental sense but theoretical concepts such as political, economic and cultural power, the public sphere and civil society are also examined.

Issues covered may include:

• What is the industry and policy environment for film and television production? We will examine the role of federal and state funding agencies, international distribution/co-production partners, quotas for commercial television, and free trade treaties.
• Community radio has had a statutory underpinning for more than two decades, but community television has been operating in a 'policy vacuum'. Community groups are lobbying to secure a place for independent, non-profit broadcasting in the current analog environment and to ensure a viable transition to digital.
• We will explore the policymaking process surrounding parallel importation of CDs and other audiovisual products to illustrate how cultural arguments, global industry interests, and political payback collide over intellectual property or copyright.
• After three years of industry consultation, in 2000 the Government passed digital copyright legislation to take account of the Internet and cable TV. We will explore the policy process leading up the digital copyright reforms.
• Online communication has magnified the ability to collect, use and manipulate personal information. The government has recently extended privacy legislation to cover the private sector while maintaining controls on Commonwealth agencies. The capacity to build personal profiles for commercial and political purposes holds implications for our rights as citizens and consumers.
• What are the pressures operating on the two public service broadcasters, the ABC and SBS? What is the government's current policy stance? How do the broadcasters fund their production activities in an increasingly commercially dominated market? How is innovation and Australian content maintained in a global production environment?
• Australia's emerging broadband Internet market, convergent developments and trends, the growth of a new interactive content sector, and recent government initiatives to support digital content creation.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Questions about policy and regulation

Assessment item 2: Formulation of a research question for the major assignment

Assessment item 3: Investigation of a communications policy issue

Minimum requirements

Students are expected to read the subject outline to ensure they are familiar with the subject requirements. Since class discussion and participation in activities form an integral part of this subject, you are expected to attend, arrive punctually and actively participate in classes. If you experience difficulties meeting this requirement, please contact your lecturer. Students who have a reason for extended absence (e.g., illness) may be required to complete additional work to ensure they achieve the subject objectives.

Indicative references

Richard Collins and Cristina Murroni, New Media, New Policies: Media and Communications Strategies for the Future, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996.

Marc Raboy (ed.), Global Media Policy in the New Millenium, Luton: University of Luton Press, 2002.

Sean O Siochru and Bruce Girard with Amy Mahan, Global Media Governance: A Beginner's Guide, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.

Denise Meredyth and Jeffrey Minson (eds.), Citizenship and Cultural Policy, London: SAGE Publications, 2001.

Tony Bennett, Michael Emmison and John Frow, Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

David Throsby, Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Tony Bennett, Culture, A Reformer's Science, St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1998.

Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis, The Australian Policy Handbook, St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1998, 2000.

Tony Bennett and David Carter (eds.), Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Justin Lewis and Toby Miller (eds.), Critical Cultural Policy Studies: A Reader, Malden, Maryland: Blackwell Publishers, 2003.

Jock Given, Turning off the Television: Broadcasting's Uncertain Future, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003

Bob Mansfield, The Challenge of a Better ABC, Vols 1 and 2, Canberra, AGPS, 1996.

Graeme Osborne and Glen Lewis, Communications Traditions in Australia: Packaging the People, Oxford University Press, Mellbourne, 2001

Productivity Commission, Broadcasting: Inquiry Report, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2000.

Mark Armstrong, David Lindsay and Ray Watterson, Media Law in Australia, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, third edition 1999.

Relevant web-sites

The main regulatory agencies have web-sites as follows:

Department of Communications, Information Technology and Arts (DOCITA): www.dcita.gov.au
The Australian Media and Communications Authority: www.acma.gov.au
The Productivity Commission: www.pc.gov.au
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: www.accc.gov.au

You will also find a reasonably good range of relevant journals in the UTS library.

You should also try to read the Media section of The Australian published every Thursday and listen to or read the transcript of Radio National's The Media Report: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/