Lelia Green

The Intratourist Gaze: Grey Nomads and ‘Other Tourists’

The presence of other tourists is an integral part of the tourist experience. Hence, gazing upon other tourists is an inevitable part of being a tourist. This paper introduces the concept of the intratourist gaze, a tourist gaze where tourists are both the subjects and objects of the gaze. An analysis from ethnographic fieldwork carried out with senior tourists in rural and remote Australia indicates that the intratourist gaze has the potential to be a disciplinary gaze which, in this case, privileges and safeguards the natural environment. This paper explores the important influence other tourists have on tourists’ behaviours and sense of identity. It also contributes to discussion regarding tourist/tourist interactions in the under-explored area of qualitative research into senior tourism.

Fear, Anxiety and the State of Terror

The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon marked the advent of an unprecedented preoccupation with terrorism. Although Australias actual terrorist risk profile remains marginal in comparison with other mortality risks, in times of crisis, the reasoned negotiation of risk is marginalised. Drawing on the findings of qualitative research, this article offers an analysis of how Australians are responding to the threat of terrorism embodied in a developing discourse of the war on terror and how they construct their perceptions of terrorist risk. The findings implicate community fear as a factor that should be considered in the development of counter terrorism strategies that emphasize community engagement as a mechanism for challenging radicalisation in democratic states.

The Internet of toys

ABSTRACT The Internet of Toys refers to a future where toys not only relate one-on-one to children but are wirelessly connected to other toys and/or database data. While existing toy companies and start-ups are eagerly innovating in this area, problems involving data hacking and other privacy issues have already occurred. The Hello Barbie and VTech hacks in late 2015 are recent examples. This article reviews, outlines, and analyses these recent advances in children’s engagement with the Internet. It shows how Internet-connected toys, among other data-inducing practices (such as baby wearables and school analytics), are implicated in big data processes that are datafying a generation of youngsters. Significant issues exist around the data security and safety of The Internet of Toys for child consumers who are usually too young to fully understand and consent to data collection or to understand other security issues.

Room to View Family Television Use in the Australian Context

Although Australian media consumption follows general Western trends toward increasingly media rich households, there seems to be a distinctly regional response to how media technologies are incorporated into the Australian home. Although a majority of Australian families with children have a second (and many a third) television set, few choose to locate these technologies in childrens bedrooms. Thus, Australias high level of screen entertainment media is not associated with a high level of childrens bedroom access, as would generally be expected. When family conflict does arise regarding television viewing, it is just as likely to be about “where to watch” as “what to watch.” Through the use of an audience ethnography approach, this article explores how Australian parents and their children make sense of their television viewing in the home environment, highlighting how new and multiple media technologies are integrated into the spatial geography of the antipodean family home.

Rethinking social support in women’s midlife years: Women’s experiences of social support in online environments

The midlife years (45–55) often coincide with fundamental changes in women’s lives, as women experience transitions such as menopause, changes to family structure due to departure of children or divorce, and parents’ ageing and death. These circumstances tend to increase women’s reliance upon their social support networks. Evidence suggests that social support is critical in helping women manage transitions during the midlife period and develop a sense of self-efficacy; this article highlights that this support is being increasingly exchanged through mediated communication channels. The article presents a comparative investigation of mediated communication channels, primarily email and online chat, through which women give and receive social support, and addresses the factors underpinning women’s media choices. The findings indicate that in determining their media selection, women are judging their ‘audience’ and social context of their communication in order to select the most appropriate channel through which to exchange support.

Australian migrant children: ICT use and the construction of future lives

This book chapter was published in the book Migration Diaspora and Information Technology in Global Societies [

Contextualizing children’s problematic situations online

This special issue of Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research places a particular focus on two research agendas. Firstly, it deals primarily with the online experiences of children and young people from a range of European contexts and, secondly, it does this through reporting research projects that employ qualitative methods approaches. This allows the voices and experiences of young people themselves to be heard.

Symbolic Interactionism in Safety Communication in the Workplace

This chapter uses symbolic interactionism as a theoretical framework for considering data produced during two in-depth ethnographic investigations: one at Orco, a minerals processing facility; the other at RTE, the Rail Transport Executive of an urban region in Australia. It discusses the value of symbolic interactionism in revealing the detailed importance of interaction between managers and workers and, particularly, within specific workgroups. It argues that regular, repeated and intense interaction such as characterizes daily work in high-pressure occupations helps establish subcultures. It is then comparatively easy for a subculture group to develop its own values and meanings in opposition to those promulgated by management. The two case studies differ significantly around the organizational value placed on investigating injuries and accidents. In the Orco workplace, injury statistics are clearly communicated and workers believe that the “zero injury workplace” is a management priority. In the RTE, transit officer injuries are kept confidential and workers believe that a major purpose of investigations is to show how individual workers are at fault. In both cases, however, the work group has developed an informal safety culture at odds with that promoted by managers.The conclusion drawn by the end of the chapter is that managers seeking to influence the safety cultures of workers in dangerous and fraught occupations should pay close attention to the ways in which those workers operate at a symbolic distance from management. They should engage with the workers to understand the symbolic value placed by frontline staff upon the meanings attributed to safe work practices, and should collaborate together to develop a shared safety culture in which workers are protected by active management engagement in their symbolic reality. Where this occurs, workers’ perspectives are appreciated at the same time as their practices become more regulated and aligned with managerial wishes. Symbolic interactionism offers a rich perspective that takes into account the dynamism of changing circumstances and that works outwards from the thought processes of individuals through to interactions across entire organizations.

Is big brother more at risk than little sister? The sibling factor in online risk and opportunity:

This article uses data from the 25,142-child study EU Kids Online to investigate the impact of sibling status on a child’s experience of online risk and opportunities. In general, the effects associated with having a sibling appear to be comparatively small. The presence of older siblings slightly increases use and skills, while younger siblings are associated with slight reductions. These dynamics are particularly visible in the use of social networking sites. Older siblings have the effect of increasing the range and number of online activities pursued by their younger siblings. Patterns around concerning exposure to risk and possible harm are not straightforward but younger children with an older sibling are not at an increased risk. Where younger aged children have even younger siblings, this is associated with a slight reduction in risk, whereas older-aged children with a younger sibling, and only children, appear to experience slight increases in risk.

What is new, here? Locating an art form within the Western Australian New Music Archive

Abstract The Western Australian New Music Archive seeks to collect documentation of art music activity from Western Australia from 1970 to the present, with the collection materials being made accessible online via a public web portal. Seeking to archive, compile and curate a collection based solely around a particular musical community has required a number of questions to be posed around what actually constitutes new music practice, and specifically, what this practice looks (and sounds) like in the context of Western Australia as the home to the community being represented by this collection. These questions have been answered in part by analysing the collection items themselves, but also through identifying the primary roles of each of the project partners. Tura New Music and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have contributed content to the collection and the web portal, respectively. Edith Cowan University has had a long tradition of composition and music technology students and staff who have contributed to this community, and leads the research. Finally, as collecting institutions the State Library of Western Australia and the National Library of Australia will retain and provide access to collection materials. Nonetheless, a sufficiently layered and complete analysis of what constitutes new music, and how Western Australian new music practice can be identified, are only possible through analysis of the collection items that is also informed by collection development and its relationship to discourses of art and academia.