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ISSN: 1329-878X |
Contents
AbstractsBen Goldsmith and Christina Spurgeon: Introduction: Culture, trade, servicesThis themed issue of Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy explores some of the issues raised at the nexus of debates around trade liberalisation, trade in cultural goods and services, and cultural policy. Jock Given: ‘Not unreasonably denied’: Australian content after AUSFTAThe text of the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), released in early March 2004, makes more concessions than many in Australia’s audiovisual and cultural industries might have hoped, but less than they feared. Its precise impact will depend on how ‘new media’ replaces, subsumes or supplements ‘old media’, and how quickly. AUSFTA institutionalises much lower aspirations about the level of Australian content in emerging media systems than Australians have come to expect in broadcast television. Some will interpret this simply as an articulation of the policy impotence which will inevitably flow from technological change. Others will recognise it as a partial, but historic, concession of Australian policy capacity and a broad acceptance of the long-standing US agenda for the information economy — long and tough protections for intellectual property rights, but increasingly liberal global markets for trading them. This article explains the provisions of AUSFTA and examines their effect on Australian audiovisual and cultural activities. Catherine Griff and Drew MacRae Flexible vision: Emerging audiovisual technologies and services, and options to support Australian contentThe Australian audiovisual industry is facing two significant policy challenges — rapid technological change and trade liberalisation — both of which have the potential to limit the scope of government regulatory action to support local content. The Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) brought into focus both of these challenges, with Australia’s ability to regulate future audiovisual delivery services becoming a central issue of the services negotiations. This article draws upon recent research by the Australian Film Commission on regulatory options to ensure the ongoing availability of Australian content via new media. Internationally, many new media technologies are now regulated to support local content, and many governments are reviewing content regulation options on digital and interactive delivery systems. This article discusses the merits of the key policy levers available to government in order to support the continued presence of Australian content in new services and delivery technologies. Justin Malbon: The Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement: Trade trumps indigenous interestsThis article argues that the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) selectively recognises and affirms international conventions and agreements that promote the narrow economic self-interests of powerful groups. It does this whilst disregarding those international instruments — including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity — that seek to recognise and promote the cultural and intellectual property rights of Indigenous people. Although AUSFTA does make some concessions for Indigenous interests by providing negative exemptions from the chapters dealing with trade in services, government procurement and investment, these concessions are relatively weak in the face of the Agreement’s pursuit of free trade. Using the model of Chapter 19, which imposes positive obligations on the United States and Australia to promote environmental interests, it is proposed that future Australian FTAs should enunciate positive obligations for Australia’s Indigenous people. Julia Hammett-Jamart: Regulating diversity: Cultural diversity, national film policy and the international coproduction of filmsThe audiovisual sector has figured significantly in recent multilateral negotiations. Within this broad domain of cultural policy, and because of the hindrance they represent to the implementation of the ‘most favoured nation’ clause, local content regulations and the practice of international coproduction have received particular attention. This paper considers the contrasting approaches of the French and Australian governments to cinematic coproduction. Whilst the objectives of the two countries are ostensibly aligned, the mechanism for assessing eligible films varies tremendously, reflecting a fundamental difference in policy preoccupations. Drawing upon a discursive analysis of interviews, public speeches and unpublished correspondence, and juxtaposing this with specific policy instances, the paper will identify some of the underlying motives for international coproduction and, by extension, assess the potential of ‘cultural diversity’ to find its expression in the Australian film policy milieu. Tom O’Regan: The utility of a global forum: UNESCO’s significance for communication, culture and ICTsThis paper contrasts the role of UNESCO as a global forum, with a particular remit for dialogue and tolerance, with the more limited attention given to it by local actors. UNESCO forums, declarations and principles are argued to be significant for their capacity to be diffused as common sense in communications and cultural policy-making. This capacity to create shared norms has made UNESCO both important and contentious with its New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) deliberations in the late 1970s and early 1980s leading the United States and the United Kingdom to withdraw from the organisation. The article considers how UNESCO has shaped its policy interventions in the wake of NWICO, and more latterly the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) in both the cultural and creative industries and in information and communication technology (ICT). Joost Smiers: A Convention on Cultural Diversity: From WTO to UNESCOArticle 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights grants everybody the right ‘to freedom of opinion and expression … to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’. Article 27 asserts that everybody has the right to participate freely in the cultural life of their community and enjoy the arts. In many countries, there is a growing perception that free trade agreements have debilitated these and other rights, and that consequently cultural identity is unsettled, and cultural diversity threatened. Concern about multinational conglomerates’ influence over cultural production and circulation, and a desire to ensure that countries can continue to make cultural policies and regulate their cultural markets without contravening commitments made as part of multilateral trade agreements, have contributed to efforts to develop a Convention on Cultural Diversity. UNESCO has now taken on this task. This article discusses the grounds for this Convention, and outlines some of the principles which will underpin it, as well as some of the problems it raises. Rafael Segovia: Costco in Mexico: What struggles for a dignified life are set to be in a globalised worldThis article tells the story of a battle in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca between a coalition of civil society groups on one side, and a multinational corporation, its local partner, and entrenched political and economic interests on the other. This battle over the transformation of a former casino and hotel into a supermarket is a story about resistance to the neoliberal paradigm underpinning a trade agreement (in this case, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA) which privileges the interests of capital and foreign investment over local particularity and cultural and ecological heritage. It is also a story about the politicisation of a cultural NGO, the Civic Council for Culture and the Arts of Morelos (CCCAM), which was founded by an independent group of citizens who were looking for a way to increase and optimise cultural activities in the state. The CCCAM, which was a non-political movement, without any allegiance to any political party, became involved in this struggle against the destruction and loss of an important artistic, archaeological and natural heritage in the downtown area of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos state. The organisation didn’t go looking for conflict, but organisations such as this — operating in a society lacking democratic mechanisms for conciliation — often naturally become focal points for dissent, and therefore attract conflict. The conflict ended up in repression and abuse by governmental authorities. Eventually, the story raised national and international concern, and has been considered by analysts, politicians and newsmen as one of the most significant civic struggles of modern times in Mexico. Michael Keane and Christina Spurgeon: Advertising industry and culture in post-WTO ChinaThis paper looks at recent developments in the Chinese magazine industry to illustrate trends in advertiser-funded media associated with China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Advertising services are an integral element of the WTO ‘wrecking ball’ now being wielded to reform the marketplace and promote innovation and entrepreneurship. As the smallest of ‘main media’ categories, the Chinese magazine industry provides an interesting starting point for a larger investigation of the impact of competition unleashed by internationalisation on key creative industries sectors. Two case studies illustrate the roles and limits of advertising in this complex process and, more broadly, in the management of China’s developing ‘commercial culture’. These are Shanghai Bride (linlang xinniang), a provincial magazine distributed from Shanghai targeted primarily at women considering marriage, and Caijing, a national ‘blue-chip’ financial magazine based in Beijing. David McKnight: Australian film and the cultural cold warThis article examines whether, and in what way, anti-Communism was a factor in the slow development of an Australian film industry in the 1950s and early 1960s and in the kind of film culture developed in Australia, particularly through film festivals. In particular it examines the activities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) towards left and liberal filmmakers and film lovers. It briefly examines the effect of anti-communism on the struggle for Australian content by Actors’ Equity in the early years of television. Kieran Lewis: Australian newspapers online: Four business models revisitedThis article revisits four online news business models, first documented in 1997, to discuss current worldwide newspaper website trends and new research data on Australian newspaper websites. The data are from a survey of Australian newspapers and their websites, and show that the Australian experience mirrors international experience in terms of the growth of newspapers online and their lack of profitability. The survey shows that, while there is international evidence that providing news content online reduces offline newspaper subscriptions, a third of the newspapers studied registered circulation increases after setting up their websites. While there is international evidence that generating revenue through online advertising is difficult, for nearly half of the newspapers studied, overall advertising revenue increased after setting up their websites. The survey also found that, while newspaper publishers worldwide continue to rely mainly on the subscription and advertising business models to generate revenue online, there is evidence that Australian newspapers are forming online alliances with other media and non-media businesses to facilitate their online business activities. John Prince: Keeping the conversation going: Voluntary associations in the public sphere(s)While Jürgen Habermas claims the public sphere — and therefore democracy — is in a state of atrophy, other theorists claim that in recent decades there has been an overwhelming democratisation of our media. For many theorists who support Habermas’s arguments, voluntary associations are best suited to reinvigorating a public sphere in decay. Indeed, Habermas himself claims voluntary associations are essential to a properly functioning, democratic public sphere. This paper presents some of the findings of recent research, which considered the facts on the ground and examined at close quarters the operations, activities and communicative structures of voluntary associations. As such, the paper argues against Habermas, contending first that, while less than perfect, the public sphere is essentially not in a state of atrophy, and second, this is due in part to the organisations Habermas valorises — voluntary associations — using the very media he so reviles — mass media. Book Reviews Allen, Robert C. and Hill, Annette (eds), The Television Studies Reader
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