In the age of the “creative economy”, reality programs are dominating Australian TV. The problem is, reality TV is squeezing the creativity out of our screen culture.
We have hit a new milestone in carbon dioxide levels: the average for February topped 400ppm. It’s the first time this has happened in the northern winter, when levels are typically lower than in summer.
Barack Obama is considering supplying “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. But how meaningful is that description? There are simply “weapons”, all of which can be used for defence or for aggression.
In the month since the the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, the significance of visual representation has been a topic of much discussion. Political cartoons have the potential to reinforce problematic stereotypes…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made two key pledges in recent weeks – to begin “good government” and to no longer give “the benefit of doubt” to people suspected of planning terrorist activities in Australia…
We all want young children to be given the very best opportunities to become successful, engaged and passionate readers. The teaching of reading is constantly mired, however, in a tired old debate between…
Our major performing arts organisations are Australian culture’s country clubs. Sponsored by a matrix of old money and old-school networks and infused with the new managerialism, the majors currently enjoy…
The distinction between the global and the local is collapsing under the pressure of climate change, economic restructuring, global migration and jihadism on the one hand and the populist and information…
Barring some sort of last-minute miracle, two relatively young Australian men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are going to be killed by the Indonesian state. They will not be the first to die this way…
Driving back to Brisbane from my childhood home of Nambour, I saw the most extraordinary political billboard. In monumental black and white, it simply said: Hung Parliament. Chaos. That these stark and…
Many lament that the “good old days” when they were taught “the basics” at school have gone. When launching the National Curriculum in 2010, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd stated his objective was: … without…
Causing offence to others often causes hurt. Such actions have been condemned as unethical, even immoral behaviour in a civilised society. There have been many examples. The Bill Henson photographs of…
The federal government’s new “Technical Advisory Forum” on weather data, announced by parliamentary environment secretary Bob Baldwin last week, will “review and provide advice on Australia’s official…
Pema Düddul, Southern Cross University; Jen Webb, University of Canberra, and Nike Sulway, University of Southern Queensland
Recently, The Conversation published what was described as “an experiment in collaborative writing” (featuring, among others, Dallas J Baker and Nike Sulway of this present article). The question behind…
A key plank of the Australian Government’s draft energy policy is to reform electricity pricing so that it more accurately reflects rises and falls in peak demand. New tariffs, such as time-of-use (TOU…
I learned a number of lessons about Islam in Peshawar, Pakistan. As a senior United Nations official, I arrived in the country within 24 hours of the massive earthquake that struck in October 2005. Pakistan…
Australia’s public youth radio station, Triple J, turns 40 today. On January 19 1975, Triple J’s AM predecessor, Double J, infamously burst onto Sydney’s airwaves with the track, You Just Like Me Cause…