AustLit

'This special issue is dedicated to the memory and work of Brian Shoesmith and Tom O’Regan, the founding editors of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, who sadly passed away within months of each other in 2020. At the time of his passing, Brian Shoesmith was Adjunct Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Perth, Australia, where he is credited with developing the media department where he had worked for more than thirty years. In more recent years, he was also appointed as Dean for Academic Development and as Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning, Board of Trustees of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). Tom O’Regan was Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Previously, Tom had held Australian leadership positions at Murdoch University and Griffith University. Tom was Australia’s UNESCO Professor of Communication from 2001 to 2003. Both Brian and Tom had held senior leadership roles. Both had been Heads of School, Deans, and significantly are widely commended as being pioneers in the field. This special memorial issue brings together a range of notable academics that share their recollections, critical insights and engaging tributes to these pioneering scholars and mentors.' (Panizza Allmark : Continuum and the legacy of Brian Shoesmith and Tom O’Regan: a memorial issue,  Introduction)

'Once accused for the inertia of Chinese feudalism in responding to Western modernity, Confucianism has been attributed to the resurgence of East Asian economies a century later. From the proposition of ‘Asian Values’ by then Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in the 1990s to the establishment of Confucius Institutes globally since 2004 by ironically the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the notions of deference to paternal authority, educational emphasis and family values, have been coined under the umbrella of Confucianism. Within the mediascapes, such notions are often used casually to explain the differences between ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ media. This topic has been receiving scattered scholarly attention with discussions on the ideological relevance and presence of the discourses of Confucianism within the dramatic television texts (Zhu 2008; Kang and Kim 2011; Liew 2011; Dissanayake 2012). Such culturalist explanations still pervade despite the evolution of more complex media industries, communicative technologies and diverse audiences.' (Jocelyn Yi-Hsuan Lai and Liew Kai Khiun, Introduction)

'In the communicative spaces of digital media with their expanded base of user participation, emotions or the social circulation of feelings play a crucial role in the manner in which political positions are articulated and everyday negotiations with politics are performed. The articles in this Special Issue stem from an international workshop held in July 2017 at the University of Amsterdam titled ‘Emotions, political work and participatory media’, where participants working on diverse regions spoke about social media and the role of affect and emotions in the facilitation of politically engaged publics. In this Special Issue, politics emerges in community networks as well as in networks based on an abiding interest in matters of national interests. Both kinds of networks are affective (bound by sentiments of solidarity and belonging) and do deeply political work, in that their performances and interactions concern matters of community building but also identity formation.' (Introduction)

'When the alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolous toured Australia in late 2017, he attacked familiar targets – Muslims, feminists and much of the mainstream media – as well as ridiculing Aboriginal art as ‘crap’ and ‘really shit’. Demonstrating the transnational scope and ubiquity of contemporary racisms, the UK-born, US-based and internationally-known ‘free speech’ advocate had little difficulty in identifying the key targets of vilification in Australia. This theme issue identifies the deep limitations and the violent consequences of the longstanding and constantly developing ‘free speech debates’ typical of so many contexts in the West, and explores the possibilities to combat racism when liberal values are ‘weaponized’ to target racialized communities.'  ( Tanja Dreher & Michael Griffiths Introduction)

'The articles in this themed section report on aspects of the survey component of the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery project Australian Cultural Fields: National and Transnational Dynamics (DP140101970). Critically engaging with Bourdieusian field theory, this project investigated the shaping of, and relations between, art, literary, media, sport, music and heritage fields. It considered the effects on these fields of national and transnational factors including cultural policy-making, digitization and globalization probing, in particular, the role of cultural capital in mediating the relationship between education and occupational class. Particular attention was also paid to the multicultural composition of Australia’s population and the distinctive position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders both within and across the six cultural fields encompassed by the project.' (Deborah Stevenson, Tony Bennett:  'Australian cultural fields: social relations and dynamics' Editorial)

'This special issue aims to generate new ways of theorizing social movement histories, using the critical lens of remediation. An interdisciplinary concept, remediation offers an ideal approach for considering social movement histories because it allows insights into the complex ebbs and flows of social and political change, in ways that avoid overly simplistic narratives of progress, loss, return, backlash, or cooptation. Remediation lets us think about the ways in which media production emerging out of identity-based social movements is a form of activism and, as such, as Bolter and Grusin put it, help shape and reform reality (56). The contributors to this special issue examine media ranging from print (life writing; novels; magazines; letters; newsletters; and other ephemera) to visual and audiovisual (music; movies; and television) to digital materials (BBS; online archives), arguing that these media forms, in the hands of activist media makers and/or members of marginalized identity groups, play a key role in helping to shape and document social movements, build coalitions and create interventions into wider social spheres often unsympathetic to the issues faced by people who face discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, ability, carceral status and/or HIV status. The essays in this volume productively expand upon, extend and critique understandings of remediation as elaborated within media and cultural studies.. (Introduction)

'Continuum has been at the forefront of Cultural Studies for 30 years. Continuum had its beginnings in Perth, Western Australia and many of the early supporters were part of the dynamic 1980s Perth Cultural Studies scene. Jon Stratton’s analysis of the rise of Perth cultural studies places the history of Continuum in this context. He states that ‘the key themes of Perth Cultural Studies was the emphasis on text, the move to visual mass media, the use of semiotics’ and culture.  The emphasis on visual culture is still evidenced in the ever-changing cover image for the journal, which is overseen by Continuum’s Photography Editor...'  (Editorial abstract)