Donald Reid

Sharing the halal snack-pack: multiculturalism as neo-assimilation in Australia

ABSTRACT In Australia and around the globe, debates over multiculturalism, integration and the vexed issue of cultural tolerance versus national security have raged across political and media forums. This includes events in the UK, the USA and the re-emergence of the One Nation party in Australia. The intensification of anti-immigration/anti-multiculturalism debates serves as a contradictory discourse to the prevailing globalization agenda. This configuration situates a seemingly progressive stance on cultural diversity as easy bedfellows with neoliberal economics. Employing a ‘post-multiculturalism’ framework, this paper argues that within the current socio-political conditions, diversity operates solely at a representational level, with migrant subjects assimilated into regimented forms of economic citizenship, described by the author as ‘neo-assimilation’. This process is illustrated via two recent media examples: the first an interview between former Labour senator Sam Dastyari and One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson, the second an appearance by young Syrian-born Australian residents Omar and Saad Al Kassab on the ABC discussion programme Q&A – where the subjects are self-represented as politically benign through their incorporation into the logic of neoliberalism.

Public Broadcasting through the Public Sphere: A Reimagining of Public Service Media in New Zealand

During 2013, the New Zealand government heralded the launch of the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) and Rural Broadband Initiatives (RBI) as significant tools across a range of economic and social policy areas, including the delivery of education and health services and the promotion of development policies for Maori. Conspicuously absent in the associated political discussion was the issue of public service broadcasting and the possibility for internet-based technologies to provide an efficient and cost-effective platform for the production and delivery of non-commercial public service media. The reason for this omission may be due to the governing National Partys historic disregard for public service broadcasting, as demonstrated by its disestablishment of a number of public broadcasting initiatives since 1999. Drawing on a Habermasian theoretical framework and Dan Hinds concept of ‘public commissioning’, the purpose of this article is to outline an alternative system for public service broadcasting based on a series of referenda and on open public debate. I begin by examining the present public broadcasting system and the traditional centrality of the state in governance and gatekeeping issues. I argue that the communicative potential of social media, enabled by universally accessible ultra-fast broadband, could provide an adequate platform for public gatekeeping, with the state having a significantly reduced role. I make the argument that the technological and resourcing mechanisms for such a system already exist, and the required shift in audience culture is already present in the consumption of entertainment and reality TV texts.