AustLit

'One of the things we are constantly told about the internet is that the world becomes a smaller place. Communication with like-minded individuals is easier through virtual communication. For radio practitioners this connectivity should allow people with common interests and skills to collaborate more effectively on radio-like productions. Shared Stories is about this type of collaborative production of documentaries and features. The first version of this project involved university students in Australia and England. This paper describes the processes and challenges encountered in this collaboration, identifying the ways in which this form of production can be developed.' (Abstract)

'This article provides a critical examination of community media practices by young recently arrived African refugees and Cambodian young migrants in Western Sydney, Australia. Against the backdrop of contemporary cultural politics of migration in Australia the article is grounded on a recent participatory community media research project conducted in 2008-2009, which aimed to conceptualise the emerging spaces for claiming new forms of citizen agency and contest the general representations of newly arrived migrants in the mainstream media. The paper argues that community media is better positioned to recognise changing attitudes towards migrants and refugees, and that these changes must also take place from the bottom up. Extending existing notions of citizens’ media the paper articulates a view that young media practitioners become active citizens in the exercise of their civil and communication rights and their self-representation, by owning the process of content creation and communication, thus redefining the content (rather than the form) of what citizenship means in different social contexts.' (Abstract)