Journalism in the 21st Century - keynote podcasts available

The Keynote sessions at the Journalism in the 21st Century: Between Globalisation and National Identity conference is now available as podcasts from the SBS Radio site. I participated in the session titled "Journalism in the New Digital Age: New Directions for national and international media outlets", with Valerio Veo (Executive Producer Online Current Affairs SBS, Sydney), Christoph Lanz (Director Television, Deutsche Welle, Berlin), and Bruce Dover (Chief Executive ABC International TV, Sydney).

The theme of the session was:

The currently proclaimed ‘crisis’ of journalism is caused by new increasingly complex technology developments. Traditional media are deeply challenged by a number of different developments which question not only their business models but also ways of journalistic practice. New transnational interactive journalistic formats but also forms of a ‘global presence’ of local, national or international outlets have an impact on business models as well as journalism practice. Questions asked are: is there a role for national journalism in such a globalized sphere? What are quality standards of new forms of ‘interactive’ journalism? What are the new models of covering worldwide events? What is the role of journalism as a 4th estate in an international context?

Beyond Globalisation

My paper Beyond Globalisation: Rethinking the Scalar and the Relational in Global Media Studies has just been published in Global Media Journal: Australian Edition.

Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the World Communications Association conference in July 2007, the Seoul Symposium on Mobile Communication in October 2007, and the International and Intercultural Communication in the Age of Global Media conference at Monash University in August 2008.

Thanks to Hart Cohen for his support with this publication, and to Caroline Hatcher, Song Gi-Baek and Ron Gallagher for their invitations to present at these events.

The abstract for this paper is below, and the full paper can be accessed here.

This paper traces how the concept of globalisation has been understood in media and communications, and the ongoing tension as to whether we can claim to be in an era of ‘global media’. A problem with this discussion is that it continues to revolve around a scalar understanding of globalisation, where the global has superseded the national and the local, leading to a series of empirically unsustainable, and often misleading, claims. Drawing upon recent work in economic and cultural geography, I will argue that a relational understanding of globalisation enables us to approach familiar questions in new ways, including the question of how global large media corporations are, global production networks and the question of ‘runaway production’, and the emergence of new ‘media capitals’ that can challenge the hegemony of ‘Global Hollywood.’

African mobiles from Chungking: Low-end Globalization

One of the world's fastest growing mobile phone markets is sub-Saharan Africa. But apparently 15% of mobiles that find their way to the continent pass through the Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong.

Anyone who has been to Kowloon knows the foreboding, chaotic presence of Chungking on the Nathan Road. May a backpacker has stayed there - the cheapest, and seediest, accommodation on Hong Kong. And the 1994 classic Chungking Express was of course a worldwide film hit.

This facinating global "grey market" for phones made in China going to Africa has even been tracked by an anthropologist. Professor Gordon Matthews of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has looked at this phenomenon as a case study in what he terms "low-end globalization".

This work can be checked out at:

2008 “Chungking Mansions: A Center of ‘Low-End Globalization.’” Ethnology XLVI (2): 169-183.

(Apologies for lack of a link. Journal web site not up to date at time of posting).

Half the world has a mobile

This is from news.com.au. The story has appeared in several places, but the full report does not as yet appear to be on the Web site of the International Telecommunications Union.

THE number of mobile phone users world soared to over 3.3 billion by the end of 2007, equivalent to a penetration rate of 49 per cent, according to a report by the International Telecommunications Union.

Africa showed the strongest gains over the past two years and more than two thirds of all mobile subscribers were from developing countries by the end of 2007, the ITU said.

This is "a positive trend that suggests that developing countries are catching up," the report said.

Mobile subscription growth stood at 39 per cent annually in Africa between 2005-2007, and 28 per cent in Asia over the same period.

India and China added 154 million and 143 million new subscribers respectively.

The global annual average growth rate stood at 22 per cent, the ITU said.

Mobile phones are eclipsing traditional fixed lines and in Africa they account for nearly 90 per cent of all telephone subscribers, the report said.

"The continued growth in the mobile sector is matched by no-growth in the fixed-line sector. Fixed telephone penetration has been stagnating at just under 20 per cent globally for the last years and growth has been below one per cent between 2005 and 2007," it said.

While developing countries have made great strides in mobile growth, a significant "digital divide" remains for internet use and particularly the availability of broadband connections, it noted.

High-income countries account for 66 per cent of all fixed broadband subscribers although they only represent 16 per cent of the world's population, while developing countries have just 1 per cent of fixed broadband users but 38 per cent of the global population.

"Low-income countries, where broadband access remains very low, risk falling behind in an area that is particularly important in delivering innovative applications and services," the ITU warned.

Some countries have made progress and the ITU highlighted Chile, Senegal and Turkey as states where almost all internet subscribers have now gone high speed.

"For more people to benefit from the potential of broadband and the applications that it can deliver, governments need to do their share to ensure that high-speed technologies become more accessible as well as more affordable," the ITU urged.