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    ‘Listening closely’ to mediated intimacies and podcast intimacies in Song Exploder
    (1/08/2023) Clarke K; Bjork C
    Intimacy is an important and growing concept in both media studies and podcast studies. But research regarding intimacies in both disciplines has yet to fully account for the connection between sound and normativity, which is essential to podcasting and important to mediated intimacies more broadly. In this article, we mobilise scholarship from these two fields to analyse the award-winning music podcast Song Exploder. Our study highlights that attending to intimacies in podcasting involves both analysing how the story structure aligns with social norms and listening critically to the ways the sound design and audio editing complements and complicates these intimate stories. We contend that identifying the intersection of sound and normativity in this podcast contributes to understanding the cultural work of podcasting and underscores the key role of sound in mediated intimacies.
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    "‘Anybody May Look Smart!’: The Smart Aesthetic and Women Film Stars in 1930s Hollywood
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 3/04/2023) Duncan P
    As Maria DiBattista has shown (2003, 332), the ascendance of figures like Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn during Hollywood’s depression decade (1930–1939) marked the rise of a new breed of woman film star: the “smart girl.” These stars were smart in two senses. Yes, they were quick-witted and quick-tongued—proto-feminist fodder for the newly egalitarian vision of (re-)marriage peddled in 1930s screwball comedy. Yet they were also smart in a new, aesthetic sense, embodying a “smart aesthetic” that marked a shift away from the formal, affective, informational and gendered logics of glamour. For contemporary commentators on 1930s Hollywood, these stars’ smart mouths and their equally smart dresses were in clear accord—and, in part as a result of this apparent accord, the smart aesthetic earned a reputation as a progressive aesthetic formation that both expressed and reinforced the feminist potential of the new strain of “smart girls” on screen. This essay, however, complicates this view by at once elaborating and unpicking the links between these two registers of smartness. Through an analysis of the smart aesthetic as it emerged across coverage in 1930s fan periodicals, it contends that the smart aesthetic’s progressive promise may have been more apparent than actual.
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    Journalism ‘fixers’, hyper-precarity and the violence of the entrepreneurial self
    (1/07/2023) Ashraf SI; Phelan S
    The figure of the so-called journalism ‘fixer’ has received overdue academic attention in recent years. Scholars have highlighted the role played by fixers in international news reporting, a role historically obscured in the mythos of the Western foreign correspondent. Recent research has produced useful insights about the work done by fixers in ‘the shadows’ of the international news economy. However, it has also tended towards a domestication of the role, where the local ‘fixer’ finds their place in a collaborative relationship with those officially consecrated as ‘journalists’ from elsewhere. This article presents a critical theoretical analysis of this functional role, building on the image of the fixer as a kind of ‘entrepreneur’. Rather than interpreting the latter designation as a source of empowerment or agency, we approach it as a euphemism for the hyper-precarious and exploitative underpinnings of fixer-labour. Our argument draws on different theoretical sources, including Foucault-inspired work on the entrepreneurial rationality of the neoliberal self, Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence, and Rancière’s concept of politics. The theoretical argument is supported by the first author’s reflections of working as a Pakistani-based ‘fixer’ during the U.S-led war on terror.
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    'Just doing their job?' Journalism, online critique and the political resignation of Metiria Turei
    (SAGE Publications, 18/03/2019) Phelan S; Salter LA
    Abstract When Metiria Turei resigned as co-leader of the Green party of Aotearoa New Zealand in August 2017, there was clear disagreement about the role played by journalism in her resignation. The controversy began after Turei confessed to not disclosing full information to the authorities about her personal situation as a welfare recipient in the 1990s. Journalists insisted they were simply ‘doing their job’ by interrogating Turei’s story, while online supporters accused the media of hounding her. This article examines the media politics of the controversy by putting Carlson’s concept of metajournalistic discourse into theoretical conversation with Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, especially their concept of antagonism. We explore what the case says about traditional journalistic authority in a media system where journalism is increasingly vulnerable to online critique from non-journalists.
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    Decolonising public service television in Aotearoa New Zealand: telling better stories about Indigenous rurality
    (SAGE Publications, 25/10/2022) Fountaine S; Bulmer S; Palmer F; Chase L
    In settler-colonial countries like Aotearoa New Zealand, television programmes about rurality are fundamentally entwined with the nation’s colonial history, but how this context impacts on locally made, public service television content and production is seldom examined. Utilising data collected from interviews with programme makers and a novel bi-cultural friendship pair methodology, we examine how a high-rating mainstream programme, Country Calendar, conceptualises and delivers stories about Indigenous Māori and consider the extent to which these stories represent a decolonising of television narratives about rurality. The findings highlight the importance of incorporating Indigenous voices and values, the impact of structural limitations and staffing constraints on public service television’s decolonising aspirations, and challenges reconciling settler-colonialism with the show’s well-established ‘rosy glow’. While rural media are often overlooked by communication scholars, our study demonstrates the contributions they might make to the larger task of decolonising storytelling about national identity.
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    The morality and political antagonisms of neoliberal discourse: Campbell Brown and the dorporatization of educational justice
    (University of Southern California, 2017) Salter LS; Phelan SP
    Neoliberalism is routinely criticized for its moral indifference, especially concerning the social application of moral objectives. Yet it also presupposes a particular moral code, where acting on the assumption of individual autonomy becomes the basis of a shared moral-political praxis. Using a discourse theoretical approach, this article explores different articulations of morality in neoliberal discourse. We focus on the case of Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who reinvented herself from 2012 to 2016 as a prominent charter school advocate and antagonist of teachers unions. We examine the ideological significance of a campaigning strategy that coheres around an image of the moral superiority of corporatized schooling against an antithetical representation of the moral degeneracy of America’s public schools system. In particular, we highlight how Brown attempts to incorporate the fragments of different progressive discourses into a neoliberalized vision of educational justice.
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    Public Relations and Participatory Culture: Fandom, Social Media and Community Engagement. Routledge, 2016. Edited by Amber L. Hutchins and Natalie T. J. Tindall
    (The University of Newcastle, 2016) Swiatek LM
    A book review for Public Relations and Participatory Culture: Fandom, Social Media and Community Engagement. Routledge, 2016. Edited by Amber L. Hutchins and Natalie T. J. Tindall
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    Telling stories about farming: Mediated authenticity and New Zealand's Country Calendar
    (SAGE Publications, 2022-01) Fountaine S; Bulmer S
    Mediated authenticity in New Zealand’s Country Calendar (CC) television program is explored from the perspective of its producers, and rural and urban audiences. Paradoxically, CC is understood as both “real” and “honest” television and a constructed, idyllic version of the rural good life in New Zealand. Techniques and devices such as a predictable narrative arc, consistent narration, invisible reporting and directing, and naturalized sound and vision contribute to the show’s predictability, ordinariness, spontaneity and im/perfection, mediating an authentic yet aspirational view of farming life. We elucidate how factual, primetime television contributes to a shared national sense of “who we are” while navigating different audience experiences and expectations. At stake is New Zealanders’ attachment to rural identity, which underpins public policy commitments to the farming sector, at a time when new agricultural politics are increasingly contested.
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    I'd be surprised if you get anyone admitting to these things: New Zealand journalists' use of aggressive reporting practices
    (1/01/2022) Hollings J
    Aggressive reporting practices involving deception or intrusion have long been controversial, yet little is known about how often journalists use them, and why. This study of New Zealand journalists is the first since 2005 that has asked a representative national sample of journalists about their experience of these practices. Some practices were commonly used despite being highly controversial amongst journalists. The main predictors of use of these aggressive practices were a journalist’s role orientation, or goal in journalism, being influenced by journalism ethical norms and social influences, and to a lesser extent gender, attitude, and organisational factors such as working on a daily newspaper. The profile of a journalist who would use these practices is one with a clear belief in their journalism goal who is more influenced by journalism ethical norms and friends and family than media regulation, authority figures or organisational pressures such as editorial policy. This study gives further support to a risk model as an explanation for journalists’ use of these practices.