Media International Australia

The 2022 Australian and New Zealand Communications Association (ANZCA) conference was held in November at the University of Wollongong. Over 4 days the conference showcased new directions for research focusing on fundamental changes occurring across the broad sectors of communication, journalism, digital health, and digital media. This included burgeoning research and methodological frameworks in public and health communication, civic participation, and community building. The conference focused on the specific theme of “Communicating through Chaos: Connection, Disruption, Community,” which garnered much interest within the ANZCA community. Due to the apparent wane of the pandemic, we were finally able to hold an in-person conference again after 2 years of gathering virtually amid Covid-19 lockdowns and travel and social restrictions. As such, the event attracted more than 550 participants representing 16 countries, who contributed to more than 200 conference presentations and panels.

Health misinformation, a major public health challenge, is increasingly spread through social networking sites such as WhatsApp which is popular among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities including the African migrant and refugee community, a relatively disadvantaged minority in Australia. Knowledge remains limited about how health misinformation spread occurs through WhatsApp in this community. The present study explored the mechanism of health misinformation circulation on WhatsApp, and the ways members of the African community in Southeast Queensland (SEQ) respond to it. Findings include a technological aspect of WhatsApp, especially technological affordances that facilitate health misinformation spread with features such as sharing and forwarding buttons. Also, at a user or an individual level, trust in significant others favour the reception and sharing of unverified health information to WhatsApp contacts and group members. Although WhatsApp group members, especially leaders usually set up rules to moderate content including health misinformation to primarily preserve harmony in groups, lack of or suboptimal content moderation on WhatsApp exacerbates its spread among community members whose responses vary. Responses include fear and mistrust which could confuse them and hinder acceptance and compliance to public health measures from credible sources such as governments. Therefore, it is essential that public health stakeholders acknowledge and foster information-sharing culture on WhatsApp in the African community. They should also raise awareness among community members and train them on how to deal with health misinformation. The training could focus on reducing negative individual and social influences by improving literacy and self-efficacy in detecting health misinformation and decreasing echo chamber effects. Additionally, the training could emphasise health misinformation management on WhatsApp by leveraging African community leaders’ gatekeeping role and involving them in content moderation.

Cases of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) – the creation or distribution of private sexual or nude images – are on the rise across the world and internet, but the public does not understand this issue as a form of sexual violence. This is due in part to the role of journalists and the news media as the first site where the general audience hears about new issues. Research into IBSA has not considered the role of the news media to educate the public, so this article seeks to explore this gap through the creation of an experimental work of journalism. The creative component is an interactive journalism feature hosted on a website that offers the audience opportunities to engage with victim perspectives within the context of an explanatory journalism article about IBSA. This approach seeks to be an example for future journalism about sexual abuse and improve public understanding of IBSA.

In mid-2022, AI systems automatically translating text into evocative original images became an internet sensation. People compared it to magic: invoking an uncannily competent artist–magician. We call it ‘autolography’ from the Greek ‘automatos + logos + graphos’ (self + word + drawing). Following a discourse analysis of online publications comparing autolography to magic, we analyse its enthusiastic reception from some and critique from others. We identify historical parallels and divergences between the reception of contemporary autolography and early photography: the reduction or transformation of creative labour, negotiations over intellectual property, the alleged democratisation of visual cultural production, and the association with the Western magical imagination. Both photography and autolography prompted renegotiations of artistic practices, professional identities and intellectual property laws. However, rather than being a mechanical eye on the world, autolography undermines faith in images by invoking digitally uncanny materialisations of floating signifiers from AI models.

This article presents responses from a range of Australian scholars on communication research and teaching in the context of a roundtable in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Australian Communication Association (ACA), the precursor organisation to the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA). Emphasising the range and diversity of approaches and epistemologies in this field, the roundtable invited a ‘situated’ response to questions considering scholarship, frameworks, and theoretical perspectives useful in thinking through the near and mid-term challenges facing the area. Emerging from the exercise is a snapshot of different agendas for research and teaching, many of them future-oriented and reformist in their emphasis on responsible practice and social change.

While Africa has largely been considered a digitally-disconnected country, recent studies have shown that connectivity figures are on a rise. In this paper, we theorize digital wellbeing in a context characterized by a fast-growing number of mobile data users despite a historically low Internet penetration. It is focused on an ongoing ethnographic research on mobile users and digital inequalities in Africa, zooming in on results from an explorative study featuring 10 in-depth interviews with young adult heavy users (more than 4–5 hours a day) and seeking to understand strategies they use in attaining digital wellbeing. The findings show how the sampled young adults (18–30 years old) struggle with the daily realities of digital participation including addiction and generational conflict in technology use. Results also reveal ways through which electronic connectivity is perceived both be a tool of freedom as well as a subtle form of potential digital enslavering.

In Australia, policies that mandate levels of production and distribution of local television content are shaping factors of the sector. Many of these policies are under review due to the impact of new streaming services. At a time of major overhaul of policies, it is illustrative to return to the development of earlier local content policies in Australia. The development of the 1992 New Eligible Drama Expenditure Requirement (NEDE) on Australian pay-TV reveals the difficult balancing act between cultural and economic rationalisations of cultural policy. Using policy analysis of key historical documents surrounding the NEDE's development, this article charts how decisions over the shape of the policy were constructed in ways that prioritised impacts on industry. In doing so, this article reveals how despite some objectives of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) aiming to balance culture and the economy, the NEDE was designed with industry at the forefront.

Over the last two decades, media and associated creative disciplines have moved increasingly towards digital and online production. This shift has seen proprietary software companies clamouring for market share by proclaiming their product as ‘industry standard’ ( Keith et al., 2021). These discourses of professionalism implicitly suggest that proficiency in particular software leads to improved employment outcomes. In turn, many higher education institutions have co-opted this branding message, embedding specific software in their marketing materials. To this end, this research aims to unpack the notion of proprietary software as ‘industry standard’, by undertaking a quantitative survey of media job advertisements. It also aims more broadly to determine what constitutes a ‘media job’ in today’s labour market.

This is a review essay, focussing on Emma A. Jane's (2022) memoir, Diagnosis Normal: Living with Abuse, Undiagnosed Autism, and coronavirus disease grade Crazy (2022).