There were a couple of weird things in this otherwise reasonable piece (italics added):
"Despite the era of traditional media information monopoly being over, there was a view that we could create a monopoly on quality information, over quantity and speed."
"We each have individual responsibility to disable the ad blockers, reject web cookies, and encourage our communities to be alert and alarmed by the digital infodemic."
There's a slew of good points to highlight but yes, those two are odd.
The framing for the first is:
The role of independent media and journalism also received much attention, with an emphasis on the need for robust domestic information sources.
Despite the era of traditional media information monopoly being over, there was a view that we could create a monopoly on quality information, over quantity and speed.
I don't believe monopoly was a good word choice to pivot from past to future on, I do think there's much to be gained from encouraging traditional investigative journalism to grow and attaching value to independant Media Watch commentary.
Pandering for eyeballs via dark algorithms is just diving headfirst into the abyss.
As for the second, surely that was meant to be a call to enable ad blockers and dodgy source filters.
> I don't believe monopoly was a good word choice to pivot from past to future on, I do think there's much to be gained from encouraging traditional investigative journalism to grow
Agreed. But having a reasonable business model is hard, and there hasn't been real progress at this front for the past twenty years or so. In other words, what the piece lacked is the competition policy aspect and the Big Tech's capture of much of the ad revenues. Note also that the same issue affects science; OA hasn't really caught up, not at least in the way envisioned. Meanwhile, certain political forces attack both media and science, so it is not only about money.
> As for the second, surely that was meant to be a call to enable ad blockers and dodgy source filters.
Hopefully. But then again, newspapers are probably the worst in the town in this regard. Taking the previous point into account, sometimes I think they've built their own demise.
Of course what the author really wants (and it's not a great article for this at all) is for readers to think about means of defeating concerted disinfomation campaigns, especially those wielded to weaken democracy, and to then perhaps apply for work with one of Australia's (10!) national intelligence communities
ASPI articles can be pretty weird at times, they're often placeholders for the unspoken or churned "filler" content to make up the weekly newsletter releases.
Of course, and you always need the touted media literacy when reading pieces from these international relations institutes and associated think-tanks, including OECD that was the subject matter of the piece.
International as in international relations, the field that studies foreign policy, security, and defense. While ASPI has branded itself as a strategy institute, it is still very much similar to those found in all Western countries.
Thank you for taking the time to explain International Relations to an elderly Australian that's been reading daily and weekly newsfeeds on the subject for decades.
I enjoyed visiting your country prior to 2000 and was delighted to be gifted a SAKO rifle and scope set for some work I did at the time mapping radiation from the air .. if only I had grasped the concept of "international relations" then I would have appreciated the experience all the more.
No need to be snark. As for IR, my opinion is that it hasn't really progressed as a field at all; mostly still speculation about contemporary matters in world politics with some vague theory thrown in.
"Despite the era of traditional media information monopoly being over, there was a view that we could create a monopoly on quality information, over quantity and speed."
"We each have individual responsibility to disable the ad blockers, reject web cookies, and encourage our communities to be alert and alarmed by the digital infodemic."