A critique on an online communication business: Crikey.com
Crikey, an electronic magazine centering on Australian politics, was not the first to leverage the democratic characteristics of the Internet. However, simply by its very presence, it reinforces an undeniable shift seen in communication businesses. This in turn questions the viability of traditional media, its relationship with various stakeholders and its role in these changes.
Through the lens: Aboriginal Australians in Public Policy debate
“By the look of the Other I have been made an object for his subjectivity, and he knows me only as object, never as subject. In the same manner I know the Other as object, never as subject.” (Satre, 1973)
In 1990, from the tiny village of Kuranda, near Cairns, a group of enterprising entertainers from the indigenous Tjapukai community joined Australian Tourist Commission, Qantas and Ansett on a prolific tour (Tourism Australia, 2006) in an international tourism recovery campaign. Through the new millennium, Tjapukai’s multiple award-winning performances have won over visitors from all over the world with their unique appeal, contributing to 3.7% of Australia’s GDP (Tourism Australia, 2007). This successful positioning of Australian culture however, is unacknowledged and disassociated in ‘mainstream’ Australia as local media is strife with negative Aboriginal images and reports (Meadows, 2001).
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Synergy and its web of lyrical deceit
Synergy is an important strategy as it facilitates, with its flexible style of maximizing commercial influence while segmenting creative variety, the growth of an industry that is already populous in nature. Synergy is a subtle and passive approach to “world domination” and globalization. It is a strategy that allows conglomerates to be multi-faceted in supply with the advantage of funneling resources back into the company. By spreading the risks through synergy, large corporations as well as indie labels, lower overall operational costs. Therefore, a higher profit margin as well as a more controlled contribution to media consumption is witnessed.
Commercial originality: Does it exist?
With the homogenization of popular music, the struggle of its origins (rock) against hoi polloi remains fraught. Record companies influence music consumption to a great extent, through the conglomeration of media entities that includes radio and television stations, publishing houses as well as acquisitions of other ‘boutique’ companies.
This ‘Mcdonaldization’ of culture, as capitalism grows to be the No.1 religion of Western societies, created an oligopolistic industry that is far from the competition amongst 1950’s radio stations that had wanted to “capture the local market”. The role played by BMI when it protested against ASCAP’s market monopolization encapsulates the initial rebellious spirit of popular music. However, while the competition was relatively healthy in fostering new or expanded genres, it questions the cliché of “suffering for your art”.
Kev’s “little red book of Chairman Mao”
Today in Parliament, the PM was bombarded by the Opposition in regards to the decision his team made on implementing a new tax on the guarantee of Australian deposit. Malcom Turnbull mocked Kevin Rudd and his cabinet, spouting quotes such as,
this control freak of a Prime Minister
the Prime Minister is well known for his cliches
So much for copying Asian Values
and
The Prime Minister’s little red book of Chairman Mao
Rudd fired back by reiterating the problems with “democracy” within Asia and defended his leadership amongst a rowdy Opposition,
we acted and we are proud of the action we took
he’s saying they are responding to mere hype
fear and anxiety are not a product of hype
We’re Socially Free!
With the US buying stakes in large financial institutions as an attempt to rescue the idea of a Free Market, one needs to question the method used that harks back to socialism.
Capitalism works when there is a one-way model of communication, where a top down approach reaps benefits that flow back into a central bank. With power shifts occurring due to hegemonic battles, capitalism fails in the ways it was meant to save. This exposes the idea of capitalism and the Free Market, as flimsy players on the world stage.
Will the US need to be rescued from its own doing?
Is China the saviour? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7671482.stm
Reverse terrorism? Renegade controllers manipulating air safety for a better life
In THE AGE today, the breaking news was about how a Qantas flight was jeapordised by the irresponsible acts of a group of traffic air controllers. The controllers are acting to push ahead their agenda “to an industrial campaign for big wage rises”.
While the Western world wage a war against terror, it has failed to observe how its very system expounds and encourages rebellion as a means to achieve goals. Additionally, this very version of proving a point is rewarded through the acceptance or awareness of organized protests.
How can the human race fight terrorism in countries far flung, strange and misunderstood, when the very acts of terrorism are happening within our familiar environments? While some renegades fight for the very survival of being able to walk down a street without the threat of being gunned down or for the right to practice and celebrate their humanistic differences, societies higher up the Maslow pyramid are displaying the most basic of flaws- greed, selfishness and sheer stupidity.
Is the medium the message?
A critique of the theory of Marshall McLuhan in relation to the American dollar
Act II, Scene 1
Gonzalo:When every grief is entertain’d that’s offer’d, Comes to th’ entertainer -
Sebastian:A dollar.
Gonzalo:Dolour comes to him, indeed: you have spoken truer than you purpos’d.
The Tempest, William Shakespeare (Shakespeare & Holland, 1999)
The effect that the American dollar has on society can be drawn back to McLuhan’s study of mediums and medias in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. By simultaneously applying the tetrad of media effects (McLuhan & McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science, 1988), a study of the historical to present relationship that the American dollar has with society can be observed.
