ISSN: 1329-878X

Making Information Policy, Menzies, ASIO and Australian TV, Cultural Policy in Cool Britannia No 87 May 1998 Order form Abstracts

Contents

Abstracts

MAKING INFORMATION POLICY

Towards information policy? -- Julian Thomas

Julian Thomas considers developments in national information policy since the change of government. He considers some long-standing problems such as the fragmentation of information policy across numerous agencies, paying particular attention to the objectives of the new National Office of the Information Economy. The article argues that information policy lacks focus, and has not yet moved beyond the boosterism of the mid-1990s.

The Goldsworthy Report: Credibility and Australian information policy -- Terry Flew

Recent Australian federal government statements on information policy can be seen as manifesting a tension, and possibility a deeper crisis of credibility. On the one hand, the rhetoric of global neo-liberalism emphasises the 'ungovernability' of the global information infrastructure and the need to forsake interventionist approaches by nation-states. On the other, documents such as the Goldsworthy Report promote a supply-side economic nationalism, premised upon incentives to encourage new investment in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. It is argued that national initiatives are important in a global information economy, but that the Goldsworthy Report's approach is flawed by its neglect of issues of consumer demand and equitable access. Consideration of these issues points to a need for a different vision of information policy, which stresses its social, cultural and community development aspect as well as economic outcomes.

National culture, communications and the information economy -- Christina Spurgeon

This article analyses developments in Australian communications policy since the March 1996 change of national government. It considers Artsinfo, a new Australian government-sponsored Internet and telephone-based information service, as a product of this conjunction. It argues that Artsinfo is emblematic of the ways in which Internetworking developments are altering social space on local, national and global scales. This article also explores temporal dimensions of these themes. It reviews the Artsinfo launch event as an exercise in nation-building which is suggestive of a paradoxical limit faced by peripheral economies seeking to locate 'the nation' in the global 'information economy', where that development is contingent upon the privatisation of communications infrastructure. Specifically, what kinds of national public culture can be sustained on the basis of wholly and partly privatised communications infrastructures?

MENZIES, ASIO AND AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION

Broadcasting and the enemy within: Political surveillance and the ABC, 1951 – 64 -- David McKnight

For many years, Australia's internal securtity agency, ASIO, ran security checks on potential and actual ABC staff and monitored ABC radio and TV broadcasts, noting examples of left-wing influence. This was done with the cooperation of ABC senior management and the encouragement of the conservative federal government. These facts, long suspected, are now confirmed by the use of recently released archives which give specific instances of security surveillance and vetting.

Menzies and television: A medium he 'endured' -- Lyn Gorman

In his 1967 reminiscences, Menzies referred to 'the new dominance of Press, Radio, and Television. These "Media, as they are now called ...' On the basis of research in the Menzies Papers, national archives and other manuscript sources, this paper examines the evolution of Menzies' relationship with television, the newest of 'these "Media"', against the background of his earlier relations with the press and radio, and his attitudes to technological innovation in the media. It examines the evolution of television policy under Menzies, particularly the introduction of television, and issues of media ownership and cultural nationalism. It analyses the manner in which Menzies reacted to, adapted to and used television. Existing studies of Menzies' relationship with television have not given due weight to its complexity; here the emphasis is on ambivalence - Menzies disliked television, but presided over its introduction in Australia; he was little interested as a viewer, yet he became a competent television 'performer' who outshone political contemporaries; he denied 'deferring' to the media, yet he helped to incorporate television into Australian political life.

CULTURAL POLICY IN COOL BRITANNIA

National government and the cultural public sphere -- Jim McGuigan

This article introduces the concept of the cultural public sphere to examine public debate around national government policy in the cultural field when the nation-state is said to be of diminishing significance. The election of New Labour in Britain and the cultural politics of its first six months in office are taken as a case study. A distinction is made between cultural policy proper and cultural policy as display. New Labour is especially notable for its symbolic politics and manipulation of cultural policy as display, much more so than its program for cultural policy proper, which remained little developed during the first year of office. The New Labour project is nothing less than a redefinition of Britishness - largely reduced, however, to the 'rebranding' of Britain as a 'Young Nation' or 'Cool Britannia', in the wake of Thatcherism's lengthy period of 'regressive modernisation'. The May 1997 general election itself, the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and intense controversy over the New Millennium Experience all occurred within the first six months of Labour government. The article analyses the relations between these events and concludes that the New Labour project, symbolised by the Millennium Dome, articulates a national hubris that reproduces Britain's historical problem of coming to terms with its declining significance in the world. New Labour's virtual politics and its adherence to an accentuated public relations and marketing model of politics are at odds with the democratic principles of the public sphere in general, illustrated in the article by the particular operations and limitations of the cultural public sphere.

From arts policy to creative economy -- Liz Greenhalgh

This article considers the way the Labour Party, since its election in May 1997, has promoted ideas about the value of the creative economy to Britain's industrial future. It argues that the Party's approach to the creative economy has more in common with new business and management theories, rather than being a fully worked-out approach to cultural policy. There is now a disjuncture between the recognition of the creative economy and the continued existence of traditional arts policy-making institutions. New government initiatives around the idea of re-branding Britain and promoting Britain's creative economies through the public spectacle and millennium celebrations have opened up this incipient gap between traditional arts policies and new thinking about the creative economy. The article notes that much of the pioneering work developing the idea of cultural industries was carried out more than a decade ago by city councils in Britain, which sought to sustain their small cultural businesses with limited programs of investment and business support. At the time, this work was largely ignored by traditional arts policy bodies. The paper concludes by speculating about whether the Labour Party can turn its rhetoric about the creative economy into a more substantive policy which brings together the mixed economy of public and private in the cultural sector.

Telephone privacy: Residential user perspectives and strategies -- Peter Shields and Brenda Dervin

As policy-makers in various countries have turned to devising policy in the relatively unfamiliar terrain of telephone privacy, it is evident that they have done so with little empirical evidence concerning the relevant perceptions and behaviours of residential telephone users. We have two objectives. First, focusing on the US context, we seek to build on the little empirical work that has been done on these users' perceptions and behaviours regarding telephone privacy. Second, we discuss the implications of our analysis for policy deliberations. Emphasis is placed on the need to construct appropriate public education campaigns that can aid in reducing the gulf between privacy concerns expressed by telecommunication privacy experts and those expressed by residential users.

Monitoring the establishment: The development of the alternative press in Australia -- Susan Forde

The mainstream press in Australia, and indeed most Western nations, claims a strong and romantic history. But our alternative press also has a strong past, harking back to the days of the great general strikes and the anti-conscription movement, which were all captured in detail by the radical working-class press. Similarly, the counter-culture publications of the late 1960s and 1970s recorded and reflected a time of major social change and upheaval in our nation. This paper is principally an overview of the Australian alternative press, past and present, and is part of a larger study of the contemporary Australian alternative press. The study identifies 28 alternative publications and surveys editors' and journalists' attitudes to issues of objectivity, news values, ethics and news-gathering practices. A look at the alternative press industry has revealed publications with an overwhelming commitment to 'filling in the gaps' left by the mainstream, and providing context to issues which are generally given cursory treatment by the dailies.