Prof Dr M Zahangir Kabir :
Australia has a modern and diverse media industry spanning traditional and digital formats mostly catering to its predominantly English-speaking population. In 2011-12, Australia was ranked 30th out of 179th countries in the Press Freedom Index.
Newspapers and news websites
There are 2 national and 10 state/territory daily newspapers, 37 regional dailies and 470 other regional and suburban newspapers. All major newspapers are owned either by News Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, or Fairfax Media. The national daily newspaper is The Australian. Also with nationwide circulation is The Australian Financial Review, the most prominent financial newspaper. Notable newspapers and news websites are: News.com.au (News Corp Australia), abc.net.au (ABC Online), The Age, au.yahoo.com (Yahoo!7), sbs.com.au (Special Broadcasting Service), Crikey, smh.com.au (The Sydney Morning Herald), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), the Herald Sun (Melbourne), Ninemsn, theguardian.com/au (Guardian Australia), and New Matilda.
Radio
Australia’s first regular radio broadcasts began on 13 November 1923 with station 2SB (later to become 2BL) in Sydney. The ABC began broadcasting in 1932. Talkback radio was first broadcast with 3AW in Melbourne, 1967. ABC began experimenting with FM stations in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until July 1980 that the first FM station commenced full operations. Melbourne-based 3EON (now known as 3MMM) was the first to air. Currently there are 274 operational commercial stations (funded by advertising) and 341 community (publicly funded) radio stations.
Television
New South Wales and Victoria were the first to introduce the television transmission in 1956, with the other provinces following suit up to 1971 (the Northern Territory). Colour television was introduced in 1975.
In addition to the public broadcasters which are available to almost all of Australia’s population, there are three major commercial television networks: the Nine Network, the Seven Network and Network Ten. Most of Australia’s heavily populated cities are serviced by all three networks. Some rural or regional areas may receive a more limited selection, often with some of the channels available showing programming from more than one of the major networks. An example of such a ‘shared’ regional network is Imparja.
Digital free-to-air broadcasts commenced on 1 January 2001. Analogue broadcasts were originally intended to be phased out by 2008, however analogue phaseout was not achieved until 2013.
After heated debate in the early 2000s over a Bill that would have removed the foreign ownership restrictions of broadcasting TV licences, the Australian government chose to retain the foreign-ownership restrictions in its 1992 Broadcasting Act. As such, Australia continues to disallow foreign control of a broadcasting licence and limit foreign ownership of broadcasting firms to 20 per cent. The Howard Government was set to remove this law sometime in 2007, having gained parliamentary approval to change the legislation in 2006; however, the Howard Government was removed from power in 2007.
Pay TV
Approximately 25 per cent of Australian households had access to pay television services by the end of 2005. The main provider is Foxtel in both metropolitan, regional and rural areas offering nearly all Australian channels via cable & satellite TV in capital cities, and mostly the same channels are offered by Foxtel via satellite TV (predominantly) in regional areas with the recent merger with Austar in 2012.
There are several smaller competitors offer a subset of channels – with Fetch TV entering the market in 2010 with a subscription service over a few ADSL2+ networks, and Trans ACT offering TV via its own VDSL, VDSL2 and FTTP/FTTH networks in Canberra and its Neighborhood Cable network in parts of Victoria.
Other providers of Internet television in Australia offer free content or PPV, but don’t offer a subscription product. UBI World TV offers many ethnic satellite TV and Radio channels nationwide, and other small companies offer some channels via satellite, especially foreign services or free-to-air channels, and some channels are available over the Internet.
Regulation
Regulation of the media in Australia is limited to a narrow range of specific areas. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is the broadcasting regulator for radio and television in Australia, and also the co-regulatory Online Content Scheme. Consumers who have complaints about programs on television and radio or certain types of content on the Internet can apply to the ACMA. The Commercial Television Code of Practice is a set of regulatory guidelines, registered with the ACMA, with which commercial television broadcasters should comply.
The Australian Press Council is the self-regulatory body of the print media. The Council deals with complaints from the public about editorial material in newspapers and magazines published in Australia, and aims to maintain the freedom of the press.
Media ownership
Controls over media ownership in Australia are laid down in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, administered by the ACMA. Even with laws in place Australia has a high concentration of media ownership compared to other western countries. Ownership of national and the newspapers of each capital city are dominated by two corporations, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, (which was founded in Adelaide but is now based from the United States) and John Fairfax Holdings – Murdoch-owned titles account for nearly two-thirds (64.2 per cent) of metropolitan circulation and Fairfax-owned papers account for a further quarter (26.4 per cent).
News Corporation (News Corp) and Fairfax along with West Australian Newspapers and the Harris Group work together to create Australian Associated Press (AAP) which distributes the news and then sells it on to other outlets such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Although much of the everyday mainstream news is drawn from the AAP, all the privately owned media outlets still compete with each other for exclusive pop culture news.
Rural and regional media is dominated by Rural Press Limited, with significant holdings in all states and territories. Rural Press received a takeover offer from John Fairfax Holdings in late 2006, and completed the merger on 8 May 2007. There are rules governing foreign ownership of Australian media and these rules were being considered for loosening by the Howard Government.
According to Reporters Without Borders in 2006, Australia was in 35th position on a list of countries ranked by Press Freedom; well behind New Zealand (19th) and United Kingdom (27th) (but well ahead of the USA, ranked 53rd). This ranking was primarily due to the restrictions imposed by the recent anti-terrorism laws. The problem, and the concentration of media ownership, was one of many mentioned on the television show Media Watch, broadcast on the government funded ABC.
Some media organisations still do investigation, though, and they – The Guardian, for example; the SMH in Australia; News Corp – are pioneering the involvement of the reader-user in data gathering and sifting. For organisations such as this – which consider the investigative role of journalism to be essential to their Fourth Estate role – user-generated content strengthens investigative journalism, extends its reach into the vastness of the online data bank. It democratises the process of critical scrutiny, passing ownership of that process to the citizen.
Not only that, it strengthens the engagement of the user base in the production process. In finding and suggesting stories for publication, readers may feel themselves to become part of the organisation in ways which were never possible before. In the fragmented online information marketplace, such participation builds brand identity and loyalty. Journalism becomes a genuinely collaborative enterprise, on a truly global scale.
Journalism in Australia
Journalism in Australia is a strong industry with an extensive history. In terms of press freedom index, Australia is placed ahead of both the United Kingdom and United States. Print media in the country is generally under control of Fairfax Media and News Corporation.
History
Most of the published material in the first twenty years of the New South Wales colony was to inform residents of the rules and laws of the time. These were printed with a portable wooden and iron printing press. Since half of the convicts of the time were not able to read, it was compulsory for these notices to be read at Sunday church services.
On 22 November 1800, George Howe arrived in Australia. Nicknamed “Happy”, Howe was born in the West Indies, although his father had been a native of Ireland. In London, Howe had worked in the print industry for several newspapers including The Times, but was sent to New South Wales after being charged with shoplifting, a crime which was also punishable by hanging.
In 1803, Howe started production on Australia’s first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette. While much of its content was government notices, there was also an abundance of news to report in the burgeoning colony. An extract from the paper about the first Koala to be captured told of the “graveness of the visage”, which “would seem to indicate a more than ordinary portion of animal sagacity”.
One news gathering technique that Howe used for local content was to place a slip box outside of the store where the Gazette was published, to let the public suggest stories. Because of the country’s geographic isolation, international news arriving via arriving ships was usually printed 10 to 14 weeks out of date.
The Sydney Gazette was the only paper published until 1824, when William Wentworth began publishing the colony’s first privately owned newspaper, The Australian (no connection with the current paper of the same name, which was established by Rupert Murdoch in 1964).
The Australian Journalist’s Association (AJA) was formed in 1910 and registered federally in 1911. In 1921, the University of Queensland became the first Australian institution to offer a diploma of journalism. The AJA was amalgamated in 1992 into the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. In 1956, Ampol Petroleum founder Sir William Gaston Walkley established Australia’s most prestigious Journalism Awards, the Walkleys.
On 16 October 1975, five Australian journalists, now known as the Balibo Five, reporting on the invasion of East Timor (then Portuguese Timor) by Indonesia were murdered at a house in Balibo. The journalists, from both the Nine Network and the Seven Network, were killed by Indonesian soldiers after recording footage which proved Indonesia was behind the conflict, as opposed to the claim it was an internal Timorese coup.
Paul Moran, an ABC cameraman from Adelaide became the first Australian journalist to die while covering the Iraq war in March 2003. He was killed while working when a car bomb near him exploded. The ABC foreign correspondent working with Moran, Eric Campbell, survived the explosion and went on to write about the incident in his book Absurdistan.
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Australia has a modern and diverse media industry spanning traditional and digital formats mostly catering to its predominantly English-speaking population. In 2011-12, Australia was ranked 30th out of 179th countries in the Press Freedom Index.
Newspapers and news websites
There are 2 national and 10 state/territory daily newspapers, 37 regional dailies and 470 other regional and suburban newspapers. All major newspapers are owned either by News Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, or Fairfax Media. The national daily newspaper is The Australian. Also with nationwide circulation is The Australian Financial Review, the most prominent financial newspaper. Notable newspapers and news websites are: News.com.au (News Corp Australia), abc.net.au (ABC Online), The Age, au.yahoo.com (Yahoo!7), sbs.com.au (Special Broadcasting Service), Crikey, smh.com.au (The Sydney Morning Herald), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), the Herald Sun (Melbourne), Ninemsn, theguardian.com/au (Guardian Australia), and New Matilda.
Radio
Australia’s first regular radio broadcasts began on 13 November 1923 with station 2SB (later to become 2BL) in Sydney. The ABC began broadcasting in 1932. Talkback radio was first broadcast with 3AW in Melbourne, 1967. ABC began experimenting with FM stations in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until July 1980 that the first FM station commenced full operations. Melbourne-based 3EON (now known as 3MMM) was the first to air. Currently there are 274 operational commercial stations (funded by advertising) and 341 community (publicly funded) radio stations.
Television
New South Wales and Victoria were the first to introduce the television transmission in 1956, with the other provinces following suit up to 1971 (the Northern Territory). Colour television was introduced in 1975.
In addition to the public broadcasters which are available to almost all of Australia’s population, there are three major commercial television networks: the Nine Network, the Seven Network and Network Ten. Most of Australia’s heavily populated cities are serviced by all three networks. Some rural or regional areas may receive a more limited selection, often with some of the channels available showing programming from more than one of the major networks. An example of such a ‘shared’ regional network is Imparja.
Digital free-to-air broadcasts commenced on 1 January 2001. Analogue broadcasts were originally intended to be phased out by 2008, however analogue phaseout was not achieved until 2013.
After heated debate in the early 2000s over a Bill that would have removed the foreign ownership restrictions of broadcasting TV licences, the Australian government chose to retain the foreign-ownership restrictions in its 1992 Broadcasting Act. As such, Australia continues to disallow foreign control of a broadcasting licence and limit foreign ownership of broadcasting firms to 20 per cent. The Howard Government was set to remove this law sometime in 2007, having gained parliamentary approval to change the legislation in 2006; however, the Howard Government was removed from power in 2007.
Pay TV
Approximately 25 per cent of Australian households had access to pay television services by the end of 2005. The main provider is Foxtel in both metropolitan, regional and rural areas offering nearly all Australian channels via cable & satellite TV in capital cities, and mostly the same channels are offered by Foxtel via satellite TV (predominantly) in regional areas with the recent merger with Austar in 2012.
There are several smaller competitors offer a subset of channels – with Fetch TV entering the market in 2010 with a subscription service over a few ADSL2+ networks, and Trans ACT offering TV via its own VDSL, VDSL2 and FTTP/FTTH networks in Canberra and its Neighborhood Cable network in parts of Victoria.
Other providers of Internet television in Australia offer free content or PPV, but don’t offer a subscription product. UBI World TV offers many ethnic satellite TV and Radio channels nationwide, and other small companies offer some channels via satellite, especially foreign services or free-to-air channels, and some channels are available over the Internet.
Regulation
Regulation of the media in Australia is limited to a narrow range of specific areas. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is the broadcasting regulator for radio and television in Australia, and also the co-regulatory Online Content Scheme. Consumers who have complaints about programs on television and radio or certain types of content on the Internet can apply to the ACMA. The Commercial Television Code of Practice is a set of regulatory guidelines, registered with the ACMA, with which commercial television broadcasters should comply.
The Australian Press Council is the self-regulatory body of the print media. The Council deals with complaints from the public about editorial material in newspapers and magazines published in Australia, and aims to maintain the freedom of the press.
Media ownership
Controls over media ownership in Australia are laid down in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, administered by the ACMA. Even with laws in place Australia has a high concentration of media ownership compared to other western countries. Ownership of national and the newspapers of each capital city are dominated by two corporations, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, (which was founded in Adelaide but is now based from the United States) and John Fairfax Holdings – Murdoch-owned titles account for nearly two-thirds (64.2 per cent) of metropolitan circulation and Fairfax-owned papers account for a further quarter (26.4 per cent).
News Corporation (News Corp) and Fairfax along with West Australian Newspapers and the Harris Group work together to create Australian Associated Press (AAP) which distributes the news and then sells it on to other outlets such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Although much of the everyday mainstream news is drawn from the AAP, all the privately owned media outlets still compete with each other for exclusive pop culture news.
Rural and regional media is dominated by Rural Press Limited, with significant holdings in all states and territories. Rural Press received a takeover offer from John Fairfax Holdings in late 2006, and completed the merger on 8 May 2007. There are rules governing foreign ownership of Australian media and these rules were being considered for loosening by the Howard Government.
According to Reporters Without Borders in 2006, Australia was in 35th position on a list of countries ranked by Press Freedom; well behind New Zealand (19th) and United Kingdom (27th) (but well ahead of the USA, ranked 53rd). This ranking was primarily due to the restrictions imposed by the recent anti-terrorism laws. The problem, and the concentration of media ownership, was one of many mentioned on the television show Media Watch, broadcast on the government funded ABC.
Some media organisations still do investigation, though, and they – The Guardian, for example; the SMH in Australia; News Corp – are pioneering the involvement of the reader-user in data gathering and sifting. For organisations such as this – which consider the investigative role of journalism to be essential to their Fourth Estate role – user-generated content strengthens investigative journalism, extends its reach into the vastness of the online data bank. It democratises the process of critical scrutiny, passing ownership of that process to the citizen.
Not only that, it strengthens the engagement of the user base in the production process. In finding and suggesting stories for publication, readers may feel themselves to become part of the organisation in ways which were never possible before. In the fragmented online information marketplace, such participation builds brand identity and loyalty. Journalism becomes a genuinely collaborative enterprise, on a truly global scale.
Journalism in Australia
Journalism in Australia is a strong industry with an extensive history. In terms of press freedom index, Australia is placed ahead of both the United Kingdom and United States. Print media in the country is generally under control of Fairfax Media and News Corporation.
History
Most of the published material in the first twenty years of the New South Wales colony was to inform residents of the rules and laws of the time. These were printed with a portable wooden and iron printing press. Since half of the convicts of the time were not able to read, it was compulsory for these notices to be read at Sunday church services.
On 22 November 1800, George Howe arrived in Australia. Nicknamed “Happy”, Howe was born in the West Indies, although his father had been a native of Ireland. In London, Howe had worked in the print industry for several newspapers including The Times, but was sent to New South Wales after being charged with shoplifting, a crime which was also punishable by hanging.
In 1803, Howe started production on Australia’s first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette. While much of its content was government notices, there was also an abundance of news to report in the burgeoning colony. An extract from the paper about the first Koala to be captured told of the “graveness of the visage”, which “would seem to indicate a more than ordinary portion of animal sagacity”.
One news gathering technique that Howe used for local content was to place a slip box outside of the store where the Gazette was published, to let the public suggest stories. Because of the country’s geographic isolation, international news arriving via arriving ships was usually printed 10 to 14 weeks out of date.
The Sydney Gazette was the only paper published until 1824, when William Wentworth began publishing the colony’s first privately owned newspaper, The Australian (no connection with the current paper of the same name, which was established by Rupert Murdoch in 1964).
The Australian Journalist’s Association (AJA) was formed in 1910 and registered federally in 1911. In 1921, the University of Queensland became the first Australian institution to offer a diploma of journalism. The AJA was amalgamated in 1992 into the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. In 1956, Ampol Petroleum founder Sir William Gaston Walkley established Australia’s most prestigious Journalism Awards, the Walkleys.
On 16 October 1975, five Australian journalists, now known as the Balibo Five, reporting on the invasion of East Timor (then Portuguese Timor) by Indonesia were murdered at a house in Balibo. The journalists, from both the Nine Network and the Seven Network, were killed by Indonesian soldiers after recording footage which proved Indonesia was behind the conflict, as opposed to the claim it was an internal Timorese coup.
Paul Moran, an ABC cameraman from Adelaide became the first Australian journalist to die while covering the Iraq war in March 2003. He was killed while working when a car bomb near him exploded. The ABC foreign correspondent working with Moran, Eric Campbell, survived the explosion and went on to write about the incident in his book Absurdistan.
Contd on Page 5
