{"id":82514,"date":"2016-11-07T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=82514"},"modified":"2016-11-06T14:58:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T14:58:45","slug":"bugger-the-journalism-the-slow-death-of-critical-thinking-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/11\/bugger-the-journalism-the-slow-death-of-critical-thinking-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Bugger the Journalism: The Slow Death of Critical Thinking in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jake<\/a>The Australian Research Council\u2019s latest funding round is rich on gadgets, but a wasteland when it comes to social justice projects and big ideas.<\/em><\/p>\n

5 Nov 2016 – <\/em>Am I alone in my disquiet at the recently published list of \u2018Discovery Projects\u2019 to be funded by the Australian Research Council for commencement in 2017?<\/p>\n

Interest declared: this is a bona fide<\/em> case of sour grapes, since my own proposal was not only unfunded, but rated in the bottom 25 per cent of unsuccessful applications in my field.<\/p>\n

Parsing the list of successful ones, however, I am bound to ask: what field? My designated Field of Research Code, from the government\u2019s published list, is Journalism Studies. And yet, of 630 funded projects, the number in Journalism Studies is\u2026 zero. Yes, that\u2019s right: the square root of naff all.<\/p>\n

This is an age in which it is widely acknowledged, in scholarly and policy-making communities, that \u2013 in the words of the influential Communications scholar, Manuel Castells \u2013 the \u201cpublic sphere\u2026 [has]shift[ed]\u2026 from the institutional realm to the new communication space\u201d. The latter makes for more multifarious mediascapes than of yore; however it is equally widely acknowledged, as Robert A Hackett puts it, that journalism is still the \u201cmost important story-telling genre\u201d in them.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the critical study of journalism is, it might be thought, of particular importance here. Why? On vital global issues, Australia \u2013 in its diplomacy, or in the dominant mainstream of its political discourse \u2013 tends to sit way out on the extreme right-wing fringe of global political opinion.<\/p>\n

What issues? Responses to refugees and asylum seekers would be top of many people\u2019s list right now. Canberra\u2019s signature combination of heedlessness and deceit over anthropogenic climate change is another; then, one-eyed partisanship in the Israel-Palestine conflict could be name-checked.<\/p>\n

\"media-3-logo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If that\u2019s not enough, try the lamentable state of relations with Indigenous people, including world-leading rates of incarceration; attempts on the world stage to sabotage multilateral initiatives from investigating war-crimes allegations in Sri Lanka, to a treaty banning nuclear weapons; a kneejerk recourse to the use of military force in response to conflicts and crises; officially sanctioned scapegoating of minorities, from Muslims to Aborigines, and the near-maniacal compulsion to mow down barriers to capital accumulation, from a modest proposed mining tax to so-called \u201cpenalty rates\u201d of pay for the poor souls whose job it is to serve coffee on a Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

In all these areas, there is at least embryonic evidence \u2013 and, in some, strong evidence \u2013 that Australia is leading Australians in directions they do not want to go.<\/p>\n

There are significant gaps \u2013 in some cases, a chasm \u2013 between public opinion on the one hand, and political opinion on the other. So, what interferes in Australia\u2019s mediatized public sphere, to reduce us to what journalist and film-maker, John Pilger has called a \u201cmortuary democracy\u201d, incapable of operationalising the progressive instincts of so many of our fellow citizens?<\/p>\n

Why not start with the country\u2019s journalism? Near-unique in wealthy developed countries is our deadly combination of dominance by a tiny number of commercial interests; at-best vestigial regulation of news and current affairs on radio and television, and intolerable political pressure on the public broadcaster. New Matilda is a point of light, of course \u2013 but its most devoted fans would accept that it is isolated indeed.<\/p>\n

Scan the webpage setting out the abstracts of the 630 Discovery Projects funded by the ARC and you will search in vain for any mention of the issues listed above. There\u2019s no \u201cjournalism\u201d, as already established. \u201cPalestine\u201d? You must be kidding. \u201cNuclear weapons\u201d? Nada<\/em>. OK, what about \u201casylum seekers\u201d? Nope. \u201cIslamophobia\u201d? Nothing there either.<\/p>\n

Where Aboriginal people are mentioned, it tends to be in the context of worthy aims such as improving literacy outcomes for school students, or benefiting the health and well-being of Aboriginal women. What about the structural and systemic factors bearing down on the educational and health prospects of Aboriginal people in today\u2019s Australia?<\/p>\n

Factors that construct and maintain gradients of wealth and power which benefit the settler community at their expense? No \u2013 nothing there, either.<\/p>\n

Instead, there is a disturbingly high incidence of projects that appear to be devoted to the invention of widgets of one kind or another, including \u201cengineering consultancy\u201d and \u201cprogrammable chips\u201d, but also ways to support Australian success in \u201cglobalised markets\u201d and to \u201chelp organisations\u2026 to exploit social media\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a perfectly proper function of academic research funding, of course, to extend Australia\u2019s innovative capacity. And none of the foregoing comments should be interpreted as casting the slightest aspersion on the quality or importance of individual colleagues\u2019 work that is being funded.<\/p>\n

Viewed as a whole, however, the ARC list is strongly reminiscent of Robert W Cox\u2019s famous critique of \u201cproblem-solving\u201d as an approach to scholarly inquiry, which:<\/p>\n

Takes the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organised, as the given framework for action. The general aim of problem-solving is to make those relationships and institutions work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble.<\/em><\/p>\n

The possibility that these self-same relationships and institutions may be<\/em> the source of trouble, and therefore in need of radical reform, appears to be foreclosed in the ARC\u2019s universe.<\/p>\n

Journalism Studies is just one field in which such perspectives could be developed and projected, of course.<\/p>\n

Let this complaint not be construed as mere special pleading. And there would be little point in keeping any insights so gleaned within the academy \u2013 publicly funded research should lead to demonstrable public benefits.<\/p>\n

That category, though, must include added capacity to think critically about where we are heading, as a society; how it compares with where we want to go \u2013 and what to change, and how to change it, if we want to switch direction.<\/p>\n

That might not be of interest to the present Federal Government, but it is of interest to Australia. And it should be better reflected in funding decisions by the ARC.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Jake Lynch, former BBC newsreader, political correspondent for Sky News and Sydney correspondent for the Independent, is Associate Professor of Peace Journalism and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and the advisor for TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS<\/a>. Lynch is the co-author, with Annabel McGoldrick, of <\/em>Peace Journalism (Hawthorn Press, 2005), and his new book, <\/em>Debates in Peace Journalism, has just been published by Sydney University Press and TUP \u2013 TRANSCEND University Press<\/a>. He also co-authored with Johan Galtung and Annabel McGoldrick \u2018<\/em>Reporting Conflict-An Introduction to Peace Journalism,’\u00a0which <\/em>TMS editor Antonio C. S. Rosa translated to Portuguese.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 newmatilda.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian Research Council\u2019s latest funding round is rich on gadgets, but a wasteland to social justice projects and big ideas. My designated Field of Research is Journalism Studies. And yet, of 630 funded projects, the number in Journalism Studies is\u2026 zero. Yes, that\u2019s right: the square root of naff all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}