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Australian New Zealand Communication Association 2007 Annual Conference |
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AbstractsHeather Anderson Dr Slavka Antonova Internet governance is a contested territory in the international political debate. With the creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in 1998, an alternative regime for public policy-making – without, or with limited government participation was introduced in global communications. This paper explores the power dynamics in the initial period of establishing property rights in the Internet domain name space by focusing on three lines of activity (between 1998 and 2002): 1/ establishing ICANN as a legitimate source of control over the Internet root; 2/ implementing the US government White Paper model of a multi-stakeholder collaborative consensus entity; and 3/ developing substantive policies for the DNS management. By contextualizing the case in the international relations of the late 1990s, I conclude that the lack of understanding of the political aspects of the technological issues undermined the potential of the original multi-stakeholder consensus model. Sarah Baker Television current affairs programmes have from their inception been a flagship genre in the schedules of public service broadcasters. As a television form they were to background, contextualise and examine in depth issues which may have appeared in the news. They clearly met the public broadcasters' brief to 'inform and educate' and contribute to the notional 'public sphere'. Over the past two decades policies of deregulation and the impact of new media technologies have arguably diminished the role of public broadcasting and profoundly affected the resources available for current or public affairs television with subsequent impacts on its forms and importance. This paper looks at the output of one public broadcaster, Television New Zealand (TVNZ), and examines its current affairs programming through this period of change Dr Susan Barber This paper examines three Australian films, Fran (1985), High Tide (1987), and Radiance (1998) which focus on the darker side of motherhood—flawed mothers who are deeply ambivalent about their roles. These films also feature difficult and distressed mother-daughter relationships which are characterized by estrangement, mistrust, and even child endangerment, but also love, devotion and commitment, all in a pressure cooker of personal, social and political forces. These films differ from other Australian mother-daughter dramas which, on the one hand examine loving, unproblematic mother and daughter bonds, and, on the other, explore the tensions and conflicts linked to the maturing daughter’s need for independence from her mother’s protection or control as she undergoes her rites of passage into womanhood. The films examined in this paper are unusual because they broach the unthinkable--what if a mother abandons her daughter(s) and/or relinquishes her title and role as a stable, nurturing figure well before her daughter is an adult? These films also venture into taboo areas such as child molestation and rape (including a cover-up of the rape), and even attempted matricide. Yet, the mothers in these films are not entirely unsympathetic. They live in the “perfect storms” of the consequences of their own choices within situations and events often outside their control. Dean Chan Dead-in Iraq is both a memorial to dead soldiers and a war protest. It also happens to take place within an online multiplayer game, namely the U.S. Army recruiting game America’s Army. This paper examines U.S. based artist Joseph DeLappe’s project as an act of digital culture jamming. As a tactic of intercepting information flows, Dead-in-Iraq highlights the spatial politics at stake in contemporary culture – and specifically, the spatialisation of protest within mediated culture. Dead-in-Iraq is the ludic equivalent of an online pacifist act of civil disobedience; and it serves as an expanded case study to consider how issues of rights and responsibilities are spatialised in online games. At issue here are the imbricated spaces, politics and ethics of digital game art activism. Dr Toija Cinque This paper argues that a public ‘vortal’ to the internet, created and maintained by the Australian public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, can be an important means by which citizens might access information on, and discuss issues involving, the future of the polity. This pluralism requirement has the intention of extending social access and expanding the range of voices and views online. Mary Debrett The proliferation of global niche media with the uptake of digital and broadband technologies has prompted predictions of public broadcasting’s demise. However, despite the ongoing insecurity of public funding, national broadcasters appear to have won a stay of execution, finding new purpose in the digital era. This research explores the proposition that rather than facing death in the user-pays narrowcast marketplace, as many predicted in the 1980s and 1990s, public television broadcasters are undergoing a reinvention, identifying new ways of delivering public value in the era of interactive, on-demand media. Now repositioning as media content companies, the trusted brands of public service broadcasters acquire a heightened premium in the unstable online environment where un-credited, non-accountable content abounds; where economies of scale are fuelling corporate conglomeration (such as News Corp's recent acquisition of My Space) transferring more power and influence to fewer hands; and where media access is increasingly conditional. Drawing on recent literature and policy documents and grounded in a series of industry interviews taken from across six case studies, this paper explores the social implications of this reinvention of public broadcasting in the digital age. Michael Dieter This paper theorises 8-bit artistic videogame modification as a critical practice that interrogates the high-speed innovation and hyperrealism that drives informational capitalism. While 8-bit refers specifically to ‘third generation’ game consoles (Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, etc.), I use the term in a more general sense to describe an emergent aesthetics based on the experimental hacking of obsolete gaming technologies. By using a range of examples from artists like Paperrad, Cory Arcangel and Collapsicon, a common formal strategy of simulated technological failure is identified as being a unifying technique deployed in order to both foreground mediation and displace interactivity. I suggest that this method opens a critical space through which to contemplate the enforced obsolescence of commodified videogame systems, and is generally suggestive of a more complex field of engagement with digital technologies than the refrain of accelerated hyperrealism (or those economies of retro-gaming, given the distorted features of art-based modification). While it can be assumed that a kind of nostalgic rendering of infancy underscores these works, in the final section I introduce a way of thinking politically about 8-bit modification as the interpenetration of childhood with digital technologies and the disorientation of advanced capitalism. Shiv Ganesh This essay highlights some key issues involving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the context of third world development by analyzing the growth and development of ICTs in a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in India, over a four-year period. Specifically, it aims to understand the nature of connection and communication enabled by ICTs over this period, as well as ways in which employees of the NGO understood, framed and discussed their use of ICTs. The study establishes that employees’ interpretations of ICT shifted from singularity to plurality, and from simplicity to complexity, and that in the long run, ICTs served to increase the upward and horizontal connections of the NGO. Implications for understanding digital divide issues are discussed. Stuart Glover Australian media accounts of literature and publishing policy have for more than the past decade tended to focus on controversial and glamorous areas of grants and prizes or on specific issues of interest such as the GST on books or the debate over book trade restrictions. Unlike representations of media industry policy in other areas such as televisions, media treatment of literary policy tended to be partial and issue based and rarely invoke literary or publishing policy as a single domain. Literature emerges from a reconsideration of this media treatment as a vital but uncoordinated domain where “the book” has diverse and dispersed functions across a multiplicity of sites including social, cultural, economic, and even education spheres. Dr F. Elizabeth Gray A number of urgent questions face university communication faculty. Should oral communication training make up a part of university level education? What role should it play? And on what rationale should the decision on its inclusion be made – purely pedagogical, or taking into account vocational concerns? If industry demand does shape the approach to teaching oral communication skills, how can or should oral communication training be incorporated alongside training in the technical skills of differing disciplines? Should educators take into account students’ perspectives – and what exactly are students’ perspectives on the role oral communication skills will play in their future careers? Professor Lelia Green On 7 July 2005, three bombs exploded on London underground trains, with a fourth on a double-decker bus. Four British Muslims – Mohammed Siddique Khan (30 years), Shehzad Tanveer (22 years), Germaine Lindsay (19 years) and Hasib Mir Hussain (18 years) carried out the terrorist acts. Reports in the immediate aftermath confirmed that 52 people (including one Muslim girl, Shahara Akhtar Islam, 20 years) had been killed, and many more were injured. British Muslims claim the unacknowledged victims of this tragedy are the mainstream Muslim population who have borne the brunt of the repercussions and that, one year on, little has been done by the Blair government to combat the threat of terror or to build stronger bridges between the Muslim community and the wider British society (Chowdhury, 2006, p. 35). This paper examines in general terms what the print media in the UK say on the first anniversary of the 7/7 atrocity. It draws on four British broadsheets and four tabloids published on 7/7/2006. It is based on a snapshot analysis of the media’s reporting of the London bombings on the occasion of the first anniversary of the attack. Associate Professor R. Harindranath As I write this the Australian media are replete with reports on the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers whose current and future status as refugees and citizens is still undecided. Current discussions on whether or not they should be sent to Nauru or Christmas Island while their applications are being processed are predicated upon certain concerns regarding migration that are shared across Europe, North America, and Australia. Intrinsic to estimations of the validity of their claims for asylum are issues pertaining to the veracity of their reports of their experiences in Sri Lanka. The discourse on ‘illegal’ and ‘bogus’ refugees has become prevalent in the West and often underlies policies aimed at controlling the acceptance of refugees. I have elsewhere (with Bailey, 2005) traced how journalistic practice contributes to a process of ‘othering of refugees, the role that labels such as ‘illegal’ and ‘bogus’ play in the politics of immigration control, and the challenges facing journalists reporting on asylum seekers in the context of globalisation. This paper shifts the focus a little, to argue that exploring the role that such representations play in the politics of immigration and refugee identity involves bringing to the fore the episodes that variously characterise refugee experience. Examining the politics of representation regarding refugees and asylum seekers therefore includes the sometimes fraught and often debated notion of the centrality of experience to the concept of the subaltern and the disenfranchisement of refugees. This is in important ways a continuing project that builds on my argument in the earlier (2005) essay. As such this paper explores the conceptual issues underlying the ways in which existing discursive regimes involving refugees can be redressed by enabling the voices of the refugees to be heard in the media and elsewhere. Dr David Holmes This article analyses the closure of the ‘debate’ that accompanied the passing of The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill in October 2006. I argue that a mischievous discourse about ‘new media’ and ‘diversity’ was deployed as a legitimating narrative for the legislation, whilst a number of damning arguments that illustrate the dangers of the Bill were comprehensively ignored. The fact of the acute oligopoly in ownership of commercial media in Australia combined ill-informed policy making which fails to acknowledge the externalities and the ‘public’ status of media, can only invoke contempt for arguments about diversity. Yet, the legislation was passed, and Australia is about to witness a further level of concentration in media, the consequences of which will be disastrous for the diversity of content in Australian media. Kim A. Johnston Community engagement is increasingly being employed by organisations as a key strategy to incorporate representative community opinions into decision-making. Governments have recognised the benefits of engaged, participatory civic opinion to guide complex social issues and have legislated for consultation to be included in major social projects. Simultaneously community members are looking for ways to be actively involved in decisions that affect their communities and make organisations accountable for their decisions. Public relations practitioners are increasingly being called to manage these programs. Community engagement founded on a relational theory can be used to extend the discussion of community engagement and guide the context of this practice. This paper briefly reviews the major research perspectives of community engagement and proposes a typology of engagement employing a relational framework to contribute to the existing body of community engagement research. An exploratory study of 20 Australian infrastructure projects with a consultation component are analysed applying this framework. While research findings showed no evidence of discrimination between the terms engagement, consultation, and participation, a range of tactics supported both collaborative and advocacy approaches. The implications for adopting a relational framework for public relations are discussed. Zorana Kostic This paper argues in support of the continuing role of public broadcast television in Australia and Japan. This is a significant topic to argue because the pressures resulting from the increasing globalisation and commercialisation of the media have placed public television in jeopardy in many parts of the world. The focus of the paper is the complex relationship between policy, programming and the notion of the public interest. The main question addressed in this paper is: what is the best method to protect, and ensure the future prospects of public service broadcast television in an age that is dominated by an increasingly globalising commercialised media? It may be that a return to the original values of Public Service Broadcasting as a convener of a public forum for re-staging national aspirations, synergised with the latest technological delivery methods will help provide us with an answer. During this era of tumultuous change in the Asia-Pacific region a comparison between Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the respective public broadcasting organisations of Japan and Australia is instructive in providing ways to maintain and protect the public interest elements of television because both organisations have had to respond to these challenges in a number of strategic ways. Dr Jane Landman This paper looks at some of the implications of developments in television production in a multi-channel marketplace, for how we think about ‘national television’. It considers the case of the science fiction series, Farscape, a US-Australian co-production that qualified as Australian content. It argues that whilst there are well-motivated discomforts associated with ‘collaborating’ with dominant US television producers, study of the process of production does not support an argument that Australians were exploited or creatively stymied in its making, and proposes a re-evaluation or opening out of what can be understood as national production and/or national creativity in co-productions. Clare Lloyd This paper reports on a research project which investigates the social and cultural effects of mobile phone use. Examples from my research to date reveal that the communicative practices of mobile phone users are the result of a dynamic mix that is shaping an emerging new discourse; as mobile phones are used in, and are affected by the specific cultural and interpersonal dynamics of contexts. My research examines how mobile phone use is reshaping how we engage with our culture, and considers what discourses feed the meanings we have for mobile phones. This paper illustrates that the use of the mobile phone for interpersonal communication involves a complex negotiation that affects our relationships at home, with the public, with peers, as citizens, and in the workplace. Steve Mackey The intention of this paper is to build on a book by Anne Surma (2005). It takes some of Surma’s ideas probably beyond what was originally intended in order to suggest their logical conclusions for the practice of public relations. Surma argues that writing and reading of every type enables or otherwise facilitates or restricts imagination. Further, this shaping or inflection of the imagination leads to the shaping or the inflection of the type of ‘ethic’ which we are able to hold in our heads about the world which surrounds us. If this is the case then public relations writing, which has the very raison d’etre of influencing thought, must lend itself to important analysis in this regard. This paper presumes the reader has a basic understanding of Charles Saunders Peirce’s notion of semiotics. Anthony Mason The ways in which the Australian media presented particular interpretations of the coups in Fiji in 1987 and 2000 helped to reinforce negative notions o f the island nation. This paper examines how the media reinforced particular interpretations of Fijian society, and what this means for Fiji and Australia. It is based on the analysis of my PhD research, which includes a content analysis of broadsheet newspapers looking at the kind of sources used in the reports, and interviews with Australian journalists about how they went about their work in Fiji. Kerry McCallum The association between Indigenous Australians and violence remains a persistent backdrop to public discussion of issues of race in Australia. This paper reports on initial analysis of a survey of newspaper reporting of ‘Indigenous violence’ in seven Australian newspapers from January 2000 to June 2006. From a ‘high point’ in the reporting of Indigenous affairs in the year 2000, reporting of Indigenous Australia has increasingly focused on news of violence, conflict and corruption in remote, rural and urban settings. Over the six-year period, stories relating to Indigenous violence featured at regular intervals on the news landscape through stories of substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse in remote communities. Significantly, such news stories were not treated consistently across all newspapers or time periods, with substantial variation in the extent of coverage in different newspaper locations and genres. In addition, a series of ‘moral panics’ periodically confronted Australian media audiences - moments of intense scrutiny of alarming events resulting in calls for government action to remedy the perceived ‘problem’ (Critcher 2003; Cohen 1973; 2002). Reporting of such crises was typically juxtaposed against political news stories of corruption and the ultimate demise of representative Indigenous government. Most striking was the reporting by the Australian and the Fairfax press of the issue of violence and child sex abuse in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory in May and June 2006. The paper argues that Indigenous Australia continues to be mediated as an underlying societal risk, and that parts of the Australian media have sought to actively drive political agendas in Indigenous affairs through the construction of mediated public crises (Cottle 2004, p. 2). Lucy Morieson This paper lays the groundwork for a genealogy of online newspapers in Australia. Its main task is descriptive, mapping the field of study – online newspapers in Australia – and discussing the main landmarks in this media environment, such as News Limited’s www.news.com.au, and Fairfax’s online versions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. As a necessary point of departure and comparison, the development and social function of the earlier print newspaper are discussed, and a theoretical framework is signalled by discussing the need for online papers to be situated within their broader social context. While attempting to establish a history of online newspapers in Australia, this paper is also a response to concerns about the future of print media, as well as the ongoing discursive struggles and attempts to constitute this new cultural form. Dalmé Mulder In this paper I explore the conceptual underpinnings of IMC. Duncan and Moriarty (1997) offer a set of criteria that successful companies are using to integrate their marketing communication activities. The criteria identified by Duncan and Moriarty (1997) offer a valuable conceptual framework consisting of ten drivers. In the first part of this paper these drivers are discussed in brief. Thereafter different definitions of IMC are explored by means of qualitative content analysis within the context of grounded theory, to identify the core components constituting IMC. Although Duncan and Moriarty’s ten drivers are mainly criteria of evaluation, it is assumed that the implementation of the ten drivers will lead to integration. In merging the ten drivers and the new fundamental principles identified in this study, an explanation of the theoretical fundamentals of IMC is presented. The elaborated IMC driver model acknowledge the ten drivers identified by Duncan and Moriarty (1997), but adds nine principles that underwrite the strategic approach that should be followed, operational processes that must be employed and infrastructure that should be available to facilitate effective IMC practices in organisations. It is argued that knowledge of the fundamental principles of IMC will contribute a great deal towards the successful implementation thereof. The model presented in the paper provides insight into three levels of integration and identifies several aspects that can be used to measure IMC implementation, or that can be applied to get the integration process started. The paper concludes with an operational definition of IMC derived from the model. Niki Murray Governments in both NZ and Australia have been concerned about low levels of literacy among adults which are in turn associated with unemployment and social disconnectedness. Interviews with those in adult literacy training programmes in Wanganui reveal a series of barriers to full and equal participation in mainstream society. Further those with low functional literacy expressed a need for communication skills even more than for traditional literacy skills. We examine these findings in the light of theories about communication and community. Bahiyah Omar Using remediation theory (Bolter and Grusin, 1999) as a guide, this study tested the concept of immediacy in a ‘between-subject’ design experiment that compared differential effects of exposure to print and online versions of The Australian newspaper. The results did not support the hypothesis that online readers would perceive greater immediacy than print readers. This seemed to contradict remediation’s view, yet the study did support the idea that immediacy is a factor in the switch of consumers from old to new media. Immediacy was strongly related to the goals of surveillance gratification seeking and moderately related to current issues knowledge. Because goals drive actions, this study suggests that immediacy could be responsible for the switch of customers to online newspapers as a consequence of its significant correlation to information seeking and knowledge acquisition. Andrea Roberts The Foucaultian notion of a dominant discourse shaping and constraining our understanding of a social issue is raised. The paper asks how the current discourse around menopause, in Australia, might affect a senior professional woman in her career. It laments the lack of research into the possible effects on authority and promotion produced if it was the case that negative connotations concerning mental reasoning and emotional balance are generally held by society at large and the work colleagues of menopausal women. The theme of the paper is that the dominant discourse concerning menopause is constraining our knowledge and understanding of this period of a career woman’s life. This paper highlights the dominance of dysfunction as a dominant discourse around menopause. The medicalisation of menopause from the time of definition is established. The paper demonstrates the continuing dominance of research into menopause emanating from the fields of medicine, gerontology and psychology. Figures of the predominance of research into Hormone Replacement Therapy are provided. The need for therapy, by definition reinforces dysfunction. The paper also notes the extremely limited research into the portrayal of menopausal women in the media. Dr Usha M. Rodrigues The Indian television industry has been dramatically transformed since 1991 when foreign television channels such as STAR TV and others began beaming their programs into Indian households from foreign soil. The impact of the exponential growth in television channels, television viewers and the television software industry in India between 1991 and 2006 has been well documented (Rodrigues, 1998, 2005). This paper analyses whether the Indian government’s television policy during the past decade and a half adequately met the challenge of the entry of private and foreign channels into Indian homes. The paper also makes a set of recommendations to the Government of India with regards to its television policy so that this popular medium can achieve its potential as a catalyst for social change in India (NAMEDIA, 1986). Philip Senior Since 1984, every Australian federal election campaign except 1987 has featured at least one televised debate between the leaders of the two major parties. The leaders’ debates have always been the subject of considerable interest and speculation, and received considerable media attention. Overseas research suggests that media coverage can influence perceptions of televised debates, for debate viewers and particularly for non-watchers. In Australia, whilst televised leaders’ debates are now a well established part of federal election campaigns, there has been a steady decline in the size of viewing audiences in the last four campaigns, suggesting an important role for media coverage. Despite this, the nature of media coverage of Australian leaders’ debates has received little academic attention. This paper aims to remedy this, by considering post-debate press coverage of the 1993, 1996 and 2004 leaders’ debates. Nick Sharman Martin Luther King, Jr was the most recognisable face of the African American civil rights movement whose message of racial equality helped to end the generations of legal discrimination against blacks in the American South. Apart from his political achievements King is best known as a communicator and orator whose message of equality and peace was most famously expressed in his ‘I have a dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in 1963. Although King strived to act as both an ethical leader and communicator throughout his life he nevertheless made many compromises to political realities in his speeches and writings to American audiences. King, for example, deliberately minimised the influence on his thought of his background in the black church in favour of foregrounding his reading of white philosophers and theologians in order to appeal to mainstream white audiences. Similarly, he at times softened his public criticisms of American involvement in the Vietnam War to avert criticism of himself and the civil rights movement by the Johnson administration and other influential white leaders. This paper will consider the ethical decisions King made to fashion his identity to win white support in his first book Stride Toward Freedom. This work, King’s first book, was central to developing his persona among liberal whites after the success of the Montgomery bus boycott. I will use deontological theory, as well considering the personal motivation for King’s communication choices and the political circumstances he faced to analyse the ethics of his rhetorical decisions in Stride. Peter Simmons Studies in organisations and other contexts have shown that people who perceive fairness tend to behave more cooperatively (Lind, 2005). Focus group discussions were held with 40 football (soccer) players to explore their expectations of referees and perceptions of referees’ verbal and non-verbal communicative displays. The analysis applied organisational justice concepts to the emergent themes and displays. Three forms of referee meta-display were revealed - displays of self, displays of reaction to players and pressure, and displays of preferred interaction style. Player perceptions of fairness are enhanced when players perceive referees to be:
Many displays are amenable to practice and improvement, some are not. Even before the game starts, young referees are perceived to be less physically and mentally competent, less dependable, less respectful, and consequently less fair. The study is exploratory and preliminary but the findings suggest that justice models and concepts can raise understanding of referee-player communication, and contribute to referee training by making them more aware of influential verbal and non-verbal displays. Frank Sligo, Elspeth Tilley, Niki Culligan, Margie Comrie and Franco Vaccarino Following one to one interviews with 90 participants in adult literacy training courses we sought ways to provide quality research feedback both to them and to governmental adult literacy policy makers and funders in ways other than in written reports. Pictorial images were designed comprising a combination of place (photographs of the research site Wanganui), people (depictions of our interviewees following actual participant demographics) and voice (interviewees’ words selected from interview transcripts. To date little detailed attention seems to have been paid to the mechanisms of just how expressive content in media of this nature is manufactured or communicated. We explore how expressive content is produced by a cluster of factors including the appealing expression on or form of the person’s face, the words used, and an evocation of community values to be inferred from the person’s words. We go on to explore how the images that we depict are an attempt to construct voice and person as strong individuals who are striving to better themselves. As such we undertake a particular construction of people of low literacy in community and accept that our communicative intent is political in nature. Christina Spurgeon New media studies have tended to focus on the implications of new media for citizenship. The interests of consumers – or more precisely, consumer citizens – in new media remain under-theorised. This paper considers how developments in the co-adaptation of advertising and new media might be theoretically framed. The active role of citizen consumers in new shaping media environments is noted, and a framework is developed for understanding new networked media such as the Internet and mobile phones as new media of mass conversation. This draws upon theories of interactivity. Interactivity is often taken to be the key point of difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, but is rarely adequately elaborated. In specifying these differences, an important distinction is drawn between types of interactive properties of new media and communication systems, and conversation as a characteristic of human communication and social participation. These are important questions to consider in light of the growing new media studies fascination with ‘Web 2.0’ media and commercial business models. Web 2.0 marketing communication propositions open a very interesting window of opportunity for applying critical insights to the imagining and social shaping of economically viable, convivial, new media, markets, and citizen consumers. Identifying the limits to this coincidence of the interests in critical enquiry in new media, and professional marketing communication theory and practice emerges an important challenge for new media studies. David S. Waller The corporate annual report has become more than a mandatory financial report for public companies, with many companies also using it as an important marketing communication tool. As corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue of growing interest in the business world, many publicly listed companies, including advertising agencies, are voluntarily disclosing information regarding their CSR activities in their annual report. This descriptive study analyses the annual reports of the top six holding companies in the global advertising industry, in order to observe which advertising companies disclose their CSR activities and what activities they undertake, and the development of a CSR disclosure index for advertising agencies. The results indicate that some advertising companies do engage in CSR activities and disclose them in the annual report, but the level of these CSR disclosures is different between the organisations. David Waller Introducing a new technology into the marketplace can be risky, so it is vital that those who are potential customers have enough information about the technology to decide whether (or not) to make a purchase. For the marketer it is important to undertake an appropriate media strategy so that all the information is available to those who need it, particularly when several communications activities are being used. This paper will present the results of two surveys (1495 and 1308 respondents a year apart) as they simulate the purchase of a DVD recorder and determine which media they would choose to give them information on the potential purchase, and compare responses across four decision states (Unaware; Aware but not in the market; Aware and in the market; and Already purchased). The results found that the Internet was perceived as a major source of information across all decision states; however, there were differences in the use of other media which is of importance to marketers of new technology. Dr Niranjala (Nina) Weerakkody The current penetration of mobile phones in Australia is 92% and it records one of the world’s highest rates of ownership among children under 18. The paper reviews the literature on mobile phones and Australian children and examines the various discourses dominating the public debates; the systematic frames used in these discourses; and whose interests are served in the process. The frames discussed fall under the optimistic (gains); pessimistic (losses, costs or harms); pluralistic (technology per se is neutral but how it is used matters); historical development (skills learnt and the importance of using mobiles); futuristic predictions (promises and dangers for the future); current uses (connectivity, convergence and interactivity); and the techno-realist view (as a mixed blessing) views of technology. Taking the critical perspective and borrowing from Joshua Meyrowitz, the paper illustrates how mobile phones have eroded parental power over how, when, where and with whom their children communicate, surpassing adult supervision, intervention or knowledge, while at the same time, becoming a ‘digital leash’ for parents to re-establish their control an d an ‘umbilical cord’ for their off spring to remain connect! ed with parents, at all times. Rowan Wilken Global marketers have long been perplexed with the question of how to make global branding work. Historically, this issue generally pivots around whether, in what situations, and to what extent advertising across national and regional borders should be “standardized”, or alternatively, “localized”, that is, made specific to each market. While questions of cultural diversity and geographical difference have dominated debate, other factors also affect the success of standardized advertising. This paper focuses on organizational structures, management, products and marketing efforts in an investigation of the shifting attitudes of global marketers to the issue of corporate and advertising standardization versus localization. It surveys the advertising trade-press literature of the past ten years to examine the corporate strategies of two global marketers: Procter & Gamble and McDonald’s. This examination reveals that “glocalization” – an amalgam of global strategy and local adaptation – continues to be the dominant global marketing approach. Furthermore, there is also evidence of increased efforts towards regionalization of corporate operations and marketing strategies. Finally, it is also found that certain singular individuals, such as company CEOs and other senior executives, exert a clear influence on global corporate strategy. This influence goes some way to explaining the dramatic shifts and changes of marketing direction that often characterize the stance of global marketers on global advertising strategy.
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