In this guest post, an activist argues why advertising has not subverted culture jamming - and why Australia would be a better place without ‘visual pollution’

At a photography exhibition now on the Sydney Museum last week, a question was put to a panel of experts. Would our cities be better without any advertising. The answer was a resounding “yes”.

This didn’t really come as much of a surprise. After all, the panel were culture jammers – activists who subvert mainstream media, altering the message of an ad to tell a story of their own.

The term culture jamming is associated with the rise of anti-globalisation and a backlash against rising consumerism and the power of brands during the nineties and noughties.

But of course subverting a dominant culture is as old as culture itself. 

On the panel was one of the activists who painted ‘No War’ on the Opera House, a few members of ‘The Lonely Station’, a Sydney-based culture jamming outfit best known for adding the words “Woodchipping the” to the Spirit of Tasmania cruise ship, Buga Up (short for Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions), an informal collective who targeted tobacco billboards in the 70′s and 80′s and Dean Sewell, a well-known Sydney Morning Herald photographer who has documented culture jamming.

In the mid-2000s I was part of The Lonely Station, a small bunch of activists fed-up with many of the issues people get fed up with. A senseless war in Iraq. The inhumane treatment of refugees. The plundering of our natural environment. And the intrusion of advertisements into almost every conceivable public space.

We took to the streets at night and scaled billboards to subvert messages and images that had been used to distract the minds of millions from their personal thoughts to the banalities of how cool it would be to own lingerie that cost half a day’s wages, or the increased social standing from owning a larger car with a bit more grunt.

The changes we made usually only lasted a few days. Sometimes just hours. But we hoped this gave some food for thought to passers-by. And Dean was there to capture the image.

In at least one review of the exhibition (an article in the Herald particularly riles me) it’s been said that advertising has co-opted culture jamming.

Gruen Transfer regular Jane Caro was quoted as saying:

Advertising, being completely amoral, will latch onto anything that might catch someone’s attention. It’s always trying to stay fashionable and relevant. Unfortunately, once advertisers get hold of it, a movement is over.

The examples of Nike defacing its own billboards, the Witchery girl-with-the-jacket hoax, or a St George ad that replaced the ‘No War’ lettering on the Sydney Opera House with ‘No Fees’ are given to show how clever advertisers are at co-opting popular subversion.

It’s hard to disagree with Caro’s first point. But culture jamming is far from dead. I’d argue that it’s more dangerous to the dominant advertising culture and big brands than ever.

Targeted environmental and social campaigns have been using culture jamming tactics on a much broader scale. NGOs like Greenpeace have used social media to co-opt and damage brands like Nike, Adidas, Volkswagen and Mattel.

In the case of Mattel, the culture jam jumped on the back of a multi-million dollar ad campaign in the US where Ken and Barbie were married. In Greenpeace’s spoof, Ken breaks up with Barbie for using rainforest fibre in her packaging.

In Australia, Get-up have used spoof videos to parody the efforts of advertisers working for polluting industries who opposed the carbon tax, the mining tax and ad agencies working for the pokies lobby.  

Smaller groups, such as Markets For Change have used similar tactics and infuriated the Tasmanian logging industry and certain well-known retailers by ripping off their logos and ads.

Changing brands, logos and company slogans is nothing new for activists. But the platform offered by the web and social media means that the clout of a successful culture jam is massively magnified.

Of course, it may not be enough to counter-balance the coffers of those with an agenda, or companies with huge advertising budgets. But the growth of culture jamming coincides with what I see not as apathy – which seems to worry brands most – but increasing cynicism towards advertising.

I still love the idea of spraying or painting over a billboard. Even if only a few thousand people chance upon its new meaning. But would I prefer our cities to be devoid of all outdoor advertising? And in so doing remove my canvas?

I’d say yes. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in thinking we’d better off without outdoor advertising.

Sao Paolo, Brazil, one of the world’s largest metropolises, has been billboard free since 2007 after a law was passed to rid the city of ‘visual pollution’. No posters. No flyers. No ads on buses or trains. Fifteen thousand billboards gone. And you know what? The overwhelming majority of Sao Paolo residents – 70% of those asked – said they want to keep it that way.

In this guest posting, YouTube’s Karen Stocks says why she thinks CIT’s gory-funny ‘It’s a snap’ ad was a hit.

One of this week’s viral hits on YouTube is a science fiction-themed ad for the Central Institute of Technology in Perth. The skit-style video commercial features CIT grads-turned-YouTube stars Henry & Aaron, who magically jump from one CIT department to the next with a snap of Aaron’s fingers. The comedy takes a distinctly darker turn when Aaron’s teleporting skills start going horribly wrong – with gruesome results.

The video holds a couple of lessons for marketers.

First of all, it’s a good example of one of the newest rules of web marketing: “Think popular, not premium.” When it comes to celeb endorsements, don’t just think pro athletes or movie stars – follow your audience.

Comedy duo Henry & Aaron are celebrities on YouTube, and they come with their own devoted following and credibility among their fans. Odds are they’ve got a pretty good following among CIT’s target audience of teenagers considering it’s a technical college education.

We’ve seen this strategy of piggybacking on YouTube stars pay off in Australia before.

Sydney-based shoe start-up Shoes of Prey worked with popular “hauler” Juicystar07 on YouTube – 18-year old beauty guru Blair Fowler – to create a shoe giveaway. Blair promoted the shoes in her video and Shoes of Prey got one of their best weeks of orders. Last year, Lonely Planet worked with Australia’s most successful YouTuber, Sydneysider Natalie Tran, whose videos have been viewed more than 400m times. Natalie’s short travel videos from Miami to the Maldives, Buenos Aires to Egypt, helped to connect Lonely Planet with her fans online.

Secondly, look at the content of the video itself. It may stray into gory territory that’s traditionally scared marketers off, but it’s earned rave reviews – tech news site Gizmodo has called it the “Best. Technical College Ad. Ever” And it’s registered more than 1.4m views online.

CIT’s head of marketing Kenley Gordon sums it up in the press release, saying that even though the ad isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, you can’t argue with its popularity: “The youth market is what Henry and Aaron know and judging from the hits, they nailed it.”

What’s interesting is that the gross-out ending delivers the shock value that’s perhaps helping this go viral, but it doesn’t interfere at all with the key messages of CIT.

The video is yet more evidence that the barriers to entry have disappeared, and the next star to shoot to global popularity on the web can come from anywhere. It’s worth considering how your brand might hitch a ride.

Karen Stocks is head of YouTube and display at Google Australia

I must confess that I didn’t enjoy Mumbrella360 last year.

Having staked our credibility and indeed (although I didn’t like to think about it at the time) the company, on Mumbrella360 being a success, the main thing I actually experienced over the two days was a growing sense of relief that it wasn’t shit.  

As each session went well, and people began to come up to me and say kind things, it began to dawn on me that we had pulled it off.

And once the second day of the event had closed, I had the best night’s sleep I’d had all year. Fortunately we hadn’t failed in front of the 800 people whose opinions mattered most to us.

And now we’re ready to do it all over again. This time it’s on June 6 and 7.

And once again, we’re turning to the industry to help us make a success of it.

It hasn’t escaped my notice that when people said good things, a lot of those sessions they were most positive about were those curated by the industry.

A few examples include Naked Communications’ live marketing experiment (the results of which are being presented at the Society of Consumer Pschology Annual Conference this week), the agenda-setting session on media trading curated by Group M, the PHD-led live creation of the Media Manifesto and of course Adam Hunt’s Why is ‘Advertising So Fucking Boring?’ session. Then there was the packed session curated by The Eck Factor on the relationship between Twitter and TV. The CRA’s session on edgy radio was rather excellent too.

Indeed, of the 50 or so sessions, about half were industry curated so I can’t mention all of them here.

And it’s now time for us to make that call again.

If you’ve got a great idea for a subject the industry needs to hear about, the floor is yours.

You’ve got 45 minutes. The topic is up to you, the format is up to you. It’s your chance to lead a debate about something you may feel has been ignored.

If we love your idea, we’ll give you as much or as little practical help as you need to put it on.

The test is a simple one. If you were in the audience – consisting mainly of marketers, agency folk and media people – what would interest you?

Last year we had 120 proposals, so most didn’t make it. Some tips on what cuts through:

• Don’t propose a session that involves presentations from three different members of your own team. That smells like a sales pitch. But we’d love it if you could tap into your networks to get experts for your session that we might be unable to. That might include clients or global staff who might be (or could be persuaded to be) in the country at the time;
• Don’t suggest people you can’t deliver. It was a kind suggestion from one person last year that we should stage a debate between Bill Gates, the boss of Google and Rupert Murdoch, but we weren’t convinced they necessarily had the contacts to get them on the stage;
• Do think beyond the standards formats of three PowerPoint presos from three different people; or four people in a moderated argument. There might be some good sessions like that, but they don’t all need to be. This is a creative industry. The room is yours to surprise.
• Don’t suggest a session in which the main topic is how-the-industry-is-really-lacking-a-particular-product-that-you-happen-to-offer. I’m sure our sales team will be happy to sell you an exhibition stand for that.
• Do sprinkle some magic dust. It’s what our industry does best.

Please feel free to put your idea as an individual, agency, association or organisation.

We’d love to hear from you.

And if you do have a proposal for a curated session, please email my colleague denise@focalattractions.com.au, ideally before March 9.

I look forward to hear what you have in mind. It’ll help me sleep better.

Tim Burrowes

So last night I dropped by my local neighbourhood Virtual Woolworths.

It’s located at Sydney Town Hall station – conveniently enough, almost directly underneath my local neighborhood Real Woolworths.

As you’ll see from the wobbly iPhone video I shot, it was a relatively lonely experience. But it was Sunday night.

The concept is that the consumer downloads the Woolworths iPhone or Android app, then scans the barcodes on the pictures of the products they want before later having their order delivered at home.

First, let’s get the cynical side of this out of the way.

As anyone who was at the Cannes Lions will tell you, it’s a direct borrowing from Cheil Worldwide’s South Korean work for Tesco.

But, that’s fair enough. Creative agency M&C Saatchi and media agency Mitchells aren’t attempting to claim any glory here – they weren’t even mentioned in the initial Woolies press release.

The release only describes it as an Australian first, by the way.

My bigger reservation about the concept – which I also had with the Korean original – is simply that it’s not a genuine business innovation. The choice is too limited for it to accommodate consumers’ normal shopping habits. With just a handful of panels at Town Hall, that’s even more the case.

After going out of my way to look at this last night, it was still easier to go upstairs to do my shopping in the real Woolworths (well, Coles, if truth be told) afterwards.

Also when it’s busy, it’ll be too packed to make use of. And when it’s quiet, there are no customers.

Nonetheless, this was still a worthwhile exercise.

First, when was the last time you saw Woolworths rather than Coles setting the marketing agenda?

Second – and this we’ll only know about if Woolworths later releases data – it may tempt a few more people to download the brand’s shopping app.

But mostly, this works as a pure play PR stunt. A handful of out of home panels does not usually get media coverage, yet this is already doing so.

The Seven News bulletin is not to be sneezed at.

And I’m sure there’s been plenty more coverage I’ve not yet seen.

This is not the future of shopping. But it is a nifty bit of PR.

Tim Burrowes

Google may prove me wrong, but in the entire time Mumbrella has existed, and very possibly for my entire editorship of B&T before that, I can’t remember ever writing the headline “Saatchi & Saatchi wins…”

So today’s appointment by Big W is a big deal.  

Saatchi & Saatchi is one of the world’s greatest agency names, with one of the greatest stories behind it.

For the last couple of years, to the outside observer it’s felt like an agency at death’s door. last year Mumbrella readers – and our own expert panel – voted it one of the worst performing of Australia’s big 30 creative agencies. Happily we also predicted: “It’ll bounce back”.

With new talent coming on board, it looks like, under new CEO Michael Rebelo, it’s starting to happen.

Tim Burrowes

In this guest post, Daniel Monheit argues that Australia’s creative agencies will never be able to hang on to digital talent

In 2010 Steve Jobs was invited by James Murdoch to speak at the annual News Corp management retreat. Jobs issued a blunt, critical assessment of what newspapers were trying to do in technology: “You’re going to find it hard to get things right, because you’re in New York and anyone who’s any good at tech works in Silicon Valley”.

And that’s when it hit me. The reason why Australia’s best traditional agencies, working with the most prolific clients and the biggest budgets cant manage to put out anything remotely passable as decent digital work.

Anyone who’s any good at digital works at an agency that actually believes in it.

Not believes in it as a way to tack another $30k on to a campaign budget or something for the new interns to play with. Agencies that believe that the future of our industry is digital. It’s opt in. It’s creating valuable experiences, not interrupting them. It’s building efficiencies and reducing costs for our clients, just as much as it’s growing their revenues. It’s not what it’s been for the last 70 years. And it’s awesome.

People who subscribe to this view don’t last six months in traditional agencies. They suffocate, or are crushed under the weight of endless banner campaigns and microsite rollouts based on print ads. Their brilliance, ingenuity and ambition goes unnoticed in the opulent shrines dedicated to 30 second spots, catchy jingles and 10% commissions.

The people best placed to lead this revolution are the ones being told to keep calm and carry on. Think the same. Digital is just another channel.

Is it any wonder they leave?

As the talented few are driven to the upstarts, the inevitable next wave of great agencies continues to gain momentum. Without the right people, the traditionals have no choice but to keep pushing digital to the bottom of the list, ignoring its fundamental differences and churning out more of the same.

They’ll keep enticing the superstars of tomorrow with huge salaries and exciting job titles, but just as quickly kill them with bureaucracy, old habits and outdated beliefs that just wont die. They’ll blame the turnover on “typical gen Ys”, and one day wonder where it all went wrong. Just like the newspapers.

• Daniel Monheit is director of strategy at Hard Hat Digital

Although I rather like stats, there are a few days a year where they become a little overwhelming.

Radio ratings releases offer eight such days annually. Over the space of a couple of hours, the data drops for the five main metro markets. Generally the phone starts ringing within 10 minutes, from station bosses aiming to give their interpretation of those numbers. It becomes a game of keeping them on the line long enough to sift through the data to try to discover the real story you need to ask them about. Within minutes a blizzard of press releases follow too.

In truth, the press releases mostly get ignored in the race to write the story. Then they’re mostly ignored because the story is already written.

And twice a year, a similar exercise surrounds the release of the monthly magazine sales figures, albeit under embargo a day or so before. Four times if you include the weekly mags and newspapers too.

Friday was such a day.

And in the blizzard of topline headlines, I think most people missed chewing over what it all means.

So 48 hours on, I want to draw breath and do so. Because there’s a lot to think about.

Not least because Fairfax chose that day to release a heap of new data from outside of the audit process on how it is travelling digitally.

Clearly it was designed to counter negative headlines around its poor print numbers. From that point of view, it wasn’t much of a success – not least because the print numbers are released under embargo, so the stories were already written and published.

But more importantly, it would have been almost inconceivable much more than a year ago that Fairfax Media would be the company setting the agenda on data transparency. I suspect that there will soon be pressure from the market for News Limited to respond. And then for the Audit Bureau of Circulations to provide a wider digital data verification service, although that is already in train.

The digital numbers are important, but let’s start with the print side of things.

Men’s magazines

The biggest shock for me was just how badly FHM – and indeed ACP Magazines generally – fared.  I’ve been writing about media on three different continents for a decade now, and I’ve never seen a major media title lose half of its sales in a single year before.

One possibility I’d anticipated was that the monthly FHM had been giving away cheap copies and had perhaps stopped. But a look at the ABC certificate for the last year negates that. There never were any of those declared. Instead what we see is an accelerating decline.

Source: ABC. Click to enlarge

A year ago the title had just over 50,000 sales. It lose 10,000 of them in the first six months of last year, dropping to 40,000. Then the decline accelerated, dropping a further 14,000 in the last six months.

There are, I suspect, a few factors at work. First, ACP’s debt-laden parent company – now known as Nine Entertainment Co, previously PBL – was being prepared for a float. I wonder if marketing costs were being cut from the budget to try to make the numbers look better. The float didn’t happen, and of course, ACP’s numbers are now worse than ever.

So today’s news of the talks to sell to PacMags make sense even if it would create a mega mag group.

Another factor is simply that of the threat of the internet to the men’s market. When a big element of the product is semi-naked bodies, it’s hard to see a bright future for the sector. Which would explain fellow ACP title Zoo Weekly’s big fall too. And indeed the drop for ACP’s soft porn titles Picture and People.

Source: ABC. Click to enlarge

At least Zoo Weekly’s decline – about 15,000 in the first half of last year and 8,000 in the second half – appears to be slowing down.

Another bellwether would be NewsLifeMedia’s GQ, by the way – but it isn’t audited. Based on its last available Roy Morgan readership numbers (96,000 for GQ vs FHM’s somewhat doubtful 144,000), I wouldn’t be surprised if its sales are even worse than FHM.

It feels to me like all the publishers may simply be squeezing the last drips of profit from a sector they view as beyond saving.

Then too is the cyclical nature of magazines – even in normal times, some titles decline and die as new ones are launched. It tends to be a swifter cycle than other media channels.

That may explain why the younger (and in my view excellent) Men’s Health, from Pacific Magazines is holding relatively steady. (Its non reliance on naked women is of course another reason.)

Source: ABC. Click to enlarge

However, assuming it is a category specific move away from print, ACP’s claim to be investing in digital does look thin, for male readers at least. As I write, much of the content on the FHM homepage is weeks or even months old, and there’s no app for either FHM or Zoo.

Newspapers

Meanwhile, Fairfax got the worst of the headlines. The SMH’s Monday to Friday sale was down by nearly 12% year-on-year to well below 200,000, a historic low. It was down nearly 8% on a Saturday with sister Sunday title the Sun-Herald down by just over 8%.

Fairfax has given a few indications that its strategy is to stop so many cheap giveaway copies to concentrate on genuine readers. One hurdle to direct comparisons is that the way these are declared changed after questions were raised about potentially dodgy deals (not that the new system is much better at identifying genuine full price sales).

So is that why The SMH fell so badly?

Take out the different types of bulk giveaways and the latest sales number was just over 168,000 (although I stress again, that doesn’t mean all those copies were sold for $1.50 apiece.)

A year ago the same maths would deliver a number of nearly 192,000.

That gives a year-on-year drop of about 24,000 – so still just over 12%.

So the idea that the fall is about stripping out “bad” copies doesn’t really stand. The top line sales are down by slightly more.

Click to enlarge. Source: ABC

Which is why the digital numbers start to matter. At some point the newspaper publishers need to start putting on digital readers at a faster rate than they drop out as print readers. Which is why the new Fairfax data comes at an important moment.

Source: Fairfax/ various data sources. Click to enlarge

Let’s take it a line at a time.

Monthly unique audience

Audience matters more as a reach argument in sales negotiations, but is also relevant when sales conversations are based on sponsorships rather than CPM.

Last year, Nielsen puts the SMH’s unique browser audience at about 2.8m and The Age 1.7m. because the IAB pushed Nielsen into a hybrid panel and cookies system, those numbers aren’t comparable to previous years. But hopefully there is less double or triple counting of people across multiple devices than previously.

Average time on site per person per month

About three-quarters of an hour for both – down slightly on 2010, but again the methodology had changed. I honestly don’t know that this number is that helpful, except as the first point on a trend graph. Compare it to TV or radio and it seems low.

Page views

We’re still with publicly available data at this stage. Insofar as you need to deliver a number of page views to charge your CPM, it matters. About 150m for the smh.com.au and just over 100m for theage.com.au. On a CPM guesstimate of $5, that equates to revenue of $1.25m. I hope that’s per month, not per year, although the data is not clear on this point (I’m waiting to hear back from Fairfax).

Video streams

Video is where it gets seriously interesting. Across smh.com.au and theage.com.au there were more than 10m video plays per month.

A few points occur around that. First, that’s up about 20% year-on-year, according to Fairfax’s numbers. It’s solid growth, but it’s not the kind of exponential growth I half expected to see.

And let’s remember that it was driven by autoplay. You can see why Fairfax is reluctant to turn it off. Call it a CPM of $50, and that’s a half a million dollar a month revenue stream.

Although, to put it in the context of TV, something like Seven’s My Kitchen Rules would deliver that number of advertising impacts in a single ad break, with room to spare.

Mobile sites

Across the two mastheads, mobile usage and page views have both doubled – although mobile traffic still makes up less than 10% of the total.

Phone apps

Again, the apps numbers are fascinating reading. You can bet your life the staff of News Limited were scrutinising this data.

However, this number is not as transparent as it first appears. Based on the fact that tablets are broken out later, we have to assume these are smartphone apps only and we don’t know the breakdown between paid and free. (Edit: Fairfax now confirms this)

There are five SMH branded iPhone apps in the Apple store – SMH news (free), SMH Good Food Guide (free), SMH Good Cafe Guide ($2.99), SMH Good Food Shopping Guide (99c)and SMH Everyday Eats ($2.99). There’s just one for The Age news offering which is also free. (Edit: Fairfax says that the only apps included in its data are the news app for The Age and smh.com.au, not the other branded apps. It is choosing not to release the value of in-app subscriptions)

The number of downloads to date sounds kind of impressive. Until you think about it. Around 75,000 of the SMH app and 62,000 of The Age.

Fair to assume that most were for the free news app. Let’s be generous and assume that there were 20,000 downloads of the $2.99 apps. That’s only $60,000.

But the number that shocked (and depressed) me was average daily unique browsers. Just 3576 for the Herald and 2924 for The Age. So about 5% of those who downloaded the apps use them every day.

Tablet apps

This is slightly more encouraging. More than 200,000 downloads of the SMH app and just under 200,000 for The Age. The apps were free, but the numbers were still decent.

But, but… the average daily unique browsers number is disappointing – not much more than 10% of those who have downloaded the app use it every day, by the looks of it.

I’m also suspicious of the claimed monthly page views via tablet of 33m for the SMH and 29m for The Age. I suspect (and am waiting for Fairfax to clarify) that Fairfax has counted both in-app views and also those reading the website and happening to use their tablet to do so. Clearly this is key information for in-app advertisers that could do with being broken out separately. (Edit: Fairfax says this figure is for page views within the apps only. I remain a little doubtful that 26,000 daily browsers would really generate 33m monthly page views although it’s not entirely impossible.)

Digital editions

I’m less surprised at how low this number is. Three or four thousand people across each of the mastheads choose to read what is effectively a PDF of the paper. It feels like the worst of both worlds – the lack of interactivity of a newspaper, combined with the lack of tactility of online. it never seemed a great strategy.

Taken as a whole, these numbers give a snapshot of a company in transition from print to digital – and finding it tough, but no tougher than any other major publisher.

It’s also worth noticing that these are only the numbers from Fairfax’s Metro media division. Also lost in the noise was a separate announcement from the Australian Financial Review that it’s total online subscriptions now sit at 10,987. Which based on a sub of $680 would be $7m (although there are probably a fair few bulk deals in there).

However, by putting the numbers out there, Fairfax has given a better picture of what everyone is dealing with. You may recall that to coincide with the launch of The Australian’s paywall, News Limited launched The Future Of Jouralism website, to foster informed debate about the digital transition. A good contribution would be a similar level of transparency.

What these numbers make very clear though is that the transition is going to be hard.

Tim Burrowes

Economist Richard Denniss of Australian National University argues in a post that first appeared on The Conversation that the public needs to decide if it cares who owns the media.

The mining industry is used to having its voice heard in Australian public debates, so it should come as no surprise that mining billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer would consider buying up a bigger slice of the Australian media.

While the estimated $20m spent by the mining industry on television advertisements opposing the introduction of a mining tax was the most visible example of the industry’s determination to influence the public it is, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg.  

The problem for those interested in old-fashioned ideas like representative democracy and the development of policy in the national interest is that the mining industry has demonstrated, very clearly, that some sectional interests in Australia effectively have a veto over policy they don’t like the sound of.

Very few economists dispute the fact that a well designed mining tax would transfer huge amounts of money from those who extract resources to those who actually own them, that is, the citizens of Australia. And very few pollsters dispute that the public believes miners can and should be asked to pay more to extract our natural resources.

But despite having the public and the policy elites on side, the Rudd Government failed spectacularly to introduce its proposed mining tax. Julia Gillard’s first act as Prime Minister was to negotiate a deal that the big miners could live with, a deal which collected $100 billion less than the original plan.

A similar story recently played out in relation to the proposed reform of poker machines in Australia. Repeated inquiries from bodies as radical as the Productivity Commission have developed a comprehensive reform agenda which is backed by a majority of the population and then committed to in writing by the Prime Minister. Until the multi-billion dollar gambling industry ramped up its public and private campaign that is.

One of the main fronts in these policy battles is “jobs”. Despite a long history of job shedding and off-shoring, big business in Australia has done a remarkable job of presenting themselves as being primarily concerned with job creation. Government policy, we are told, will typically destroy jobs while leaving businesses alone will create them. The media has played a major role in perpetuating such a view.

A recent survey by The Australia Institute found that the average Australian thought that 16% of the Australian workforce was employed in mining when, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the actual figure is 2%. This 800% perception gap is a result of a ten year PR strategy by the miners to describe themselves as big employers who contribute enormously to the prosperity of most communities.

The business pages of our major dailies have often acted as a cheer squad for the mining industry’s determination to extract as much as it can as quickly as it can. Australia has a bigger share of the world’s traded coal market than the Saudis have of the world’s traded oil market; but while the Saudis think the way to get rich is to restrict supply, it is now common sense in Australia to accept that the way to get rich is to sell as fast as we can. Could it be that foreign owned mining companies are not acting in Australia’s interests?

It is rare that such questions were taken seriously by the Australian media even before Gina Rinehart bought a major stake in Fairfax to accompany her share of Ten Network Holdings, where she now sits on the board.

The mining industry has been working hard, and successfully, to manipulate the Australian media. Relatively small projects are breathlessly described as $50 billion projects by simply adding up the total sales over the next 40 years. If you added up Woolworths’ projected sales over the next 40 years you would get an even bigger number, but why would you? You could say that someone who earns $50,000 per year will be a millionaire over the next 20 years but, again, why would you?

The media can and does play an important role in democracies. It provides both scrutiny and platforms for those who seek to influence the nation. But that role is becoming both harder and more contestable.

Newspapers in particular are struggling financially, in part because of online competition for breaking news but mainly because of online competition for the once lucrative classified advertising markets. A quick look at the number of private advertisements for cars in a Saturday newspaper will give you a good idea about the scale of the changes that have occurred with the ads typically making it from A for Audi to V for Volkswagen in less than half a page.

The contest over the role of newspapers is as tough as the fight for advertising revenue. Should newspapers be “campaigning” for or against particular change or should they be reporting “just the facts”? Opinions obviously differ.

A recent blogpost in the United States created an outcry when the New York Times asked its readers whether or not the paper should check the claims made by politicians before they reported them. It is an understatement to suggest that most readers were apoplectic that the question was even asked.

But the responsibility to inquire into, and speak out concerning the truth does not rest solely, or some would say at all, on the shoulders of the media. Academia, the public service, civil society and the courts all have a role to play in keeping our national debates centred on the national interest rather than the self interest of powerful industries or groups.

Unfortunately, just as the media claim that tight budgets and shorter deadlines impede their capacity to inquire and question so too do many academics, community organisations and public servants raise similar issues. The courts, on the other hand, have simply never been a level playing field for settling disputes between the wealthy and the majority.

The prospect of mining magnates buying up large slices of the Australian media has understandably made many citizens anxious about the future of public debate in Australia. But the real issue is not whether Gina Rinehart should be able to buy shares in a media company. She is not breaking any laws and has done nothing to suggest she would be a better or worse proprietor than Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer or Conrad Black.

The real issue is how, if at all, Australians want to limit the capacity of those with the greatest wealth to influence what the rest of the country sees, hears and reads.

If we decide we do not care who owns the media and how much a vested industry can spend to protect its interests, then we need to consider how much, if at all, we want to buttress our universities, community organisations, the public service and the courts against that same kind of influence.

We seem to take for granted that businesses can spend $20m, tax deductible, buying blanket TV ads for their cause or $200m for a slice of a media empire but should the same sorts of money be able to buy you a university centre or a community organisation?

At a time in which the mining industry is more profitable than any time in history, public resourcing of higher education, public broadcasting and the community sector is at historical lows. Ironically these groups are often encouraged to go and seek commercial sponsorships, or more politely, commercial partnerships, from the same industries whose influence the public is concerned about.

While all votes might be equal, the bank balances of Australians clearly never have been and never will. Russia provides an extreme case study in the possibilities for enormous wealth to purchase enormous political support. Australia’s democracy is far more vibrant and robust than Russia’s, but the ability of corporate money to purchase political influence is clearly greater today than it has been.

Gina Rinehart’s purchase of a large parcel of shares in Fairfax has led to a wide ranging debate about who should own the media but, perhaps unsurprisingly, it has resulted in far less debate about how it is that so much of Australia’s natural resource wealth has been allowed to accumulate in the hands of so few people. Deciding who can or cannot own a media enterprise will never be easy in a democracy. Perhaps surprisingly, it might be easier to redistribute our wealth than to distribute the right to own a newspaper.

• Richard Denniss is The Australia Institute’s executive director and adjunct professor at Crawford School of ANU. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The original article can be seen here

In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial,  personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.

Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.

And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick” (I’ve edited the swear word but they didn’t).

Yup. They seriously wrote that.

In four years of being on Twitter it’s the first time I’ve been visibly shocked by a tweet.

I never mentioned politics.

I never mentioned communism.

I never mentioned sex.

Oh yeah and I’m Scottish and not a citizen in Australia so I can’t even vote here!

Yet there they were attacking me for correcting them. Which brings me to the world of the lone keyboard warrior. I spend a lot of time online and more and more I’m seeing this kind of thing. I’m used to it on forums where long-term friendships and hatreds are born. I’ve even been a moderator on a gaming forum where daily abuse was the norm but Twitter – where people are more likely to use their own names – I’m noticing a marked increase in the attacks.

Maybe it’s because I’m spending a lot more time looking at certain issues which people are passionate about but even then the debate should be cordial and without personal attacks. But on Twitter the area I have noticed the most hatred and vitriol is from the political area. It seems that when people start talking about politics there are those online who revert to the most vile and disgusting abuse … but only behind their keyboards.

I’ve never really had the urge to troll nor attack people online. I’ve occasionally defended myself but I see online and offline as two worlds that have less and less of a gap between them and people at some point will have to stop being keyboard warriors and start realising that what they say online can and will have repercussions for them offline. If you wouldn’t say it to someone in a street then don’t say it online.

Have you had any dealing with any crazy keyboard warriors?

• A version of this article first appeared on Scott Rhodie’s personal blog Kilt For Hire. His day job is as digital communications manager at NBN Co. He’s on Twitter as @ScottRhodie

In this guest post, Moensie Rossier wonders about the power of names for brands and marketers.

Brands have been having a bit of fun with names lately, not to mention a fair bit of success. Interbrand just named a headhunting firm Cloak & Dagger. And ‘Share a Coke’ showed how much power there is in a name.

The Coke campaign effectively short-circuited the usual mechanics of communication. It undoubtedly stroked people’s egos. But, I believe, its success stems from the fact that it directly and automatically affected people’s behaviour, rather than doing so indirectly by shaping attitudes.

It used a type of behavioural economics, which is a rather fancy name for a simple theory. When our names are called out, we’re hard wired to respond. It’s a simple nudge, a Pavlovian response. And, with the alacrity of hungry dogs, we fought the other Kates and Adrians and Matts down to the last bottle – and cried for more in social media.

We sense the potency in names.

Qualitative researchers address respondents by name to engender trust and encourage participation because there is no word more dear to us, or more likely to wake us up. When naming a baby – or brand – people painstakingly deliberate about what the name denotes, infers, implies, sounds like, whether it’s friendly, serious, classy, but not arrogant, distinctive, but not too weird, reflective of family history, or not, ambitious, hopeful, or successful-sounding, easy to pronounce, befitting the subject, unlikely to make them a laughing stock, etc.

What it boils down to is the desire for a name to be memorable and meaningful. New brands, the business of SEO and SEM, our egos and legacies depend on it!

Yet, for many people, names are notoriously hard to recall. Meeting you for the first time, there’s a 95% chance that I won’t remember your name and, for added comedic value at my expense, I’m not too hot with faces either. Compounding my embarrassment, people usually remember my name because it requires a fair bit of effort. So I smile at everyone and stick to pronouns, or safe bets like “mate”.

Some research suggests that people’s names are harder to recall than their jobs, hobbies or home towns. Names are, semantically speaking, a bit rubbish because they’ve become dissociated from their meanings – those very jobs, hobbies and home towns that were once relevant, identifying things about a person. A name used to tell you what they did, for example, “Cook,” or where they came from, “Pontefract” perhaps. A name might have evoked a person’s ancestry, “Johnston” being the son of John.

Today, there are more names than ever and little to remember them by. There’s even a name for the memory loss associated with names: clinical trials company CPS Research calls it “Busy Lifestyle Syndrome.” The more stimuli we encounter, the more likely we are to forget things; in fact the more we need to be selective about what we do and don’t commit to memory. And, with the added help of digital devices as memory aids and directories, there’s no need to remember a lot of the things that we used to.

With all these obstacles, how do we hit upon a memorable name? There’s a clue in nicknames, which, in the way that surnames used to do, often reflect a personal trait or behaviour, making them automatically more meaningful and memorable. The same goes for our virtual names and wi-fi network names. We choose multiple online identities based on our personality and passions, for example, “fashionista” or “suspicious dancing” or “your creepy neighbour”. Avatars are relatively anonymous, allowing us to express ourselves unselfconsciously. So, they’re often more candid, irreverent or extreme than given names.

Names have become less formal, more playful, more flexible. In a digital world, we wear them lightly and adopt new personae at will, each reflecting a different aspect of our life story. Coke has been riding this cultural wave. By taking on the names of its customers, giving them a sense of importance and belonging, Coke became the archetypal Everyman. Yet far from losing its identity, the success of the campaign was testament to the strength of Coke’s identity.

An extract from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline goes:
“What’s your name,’ Coraline asked the cat. ‘Look, I’m Coraline. Okay?’
‘Cats don’t have names,’ it said.
‘No?’ said Coraline.
‘No,’ said the cat. ‘Now you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.”

Moensie Rossier is planning director at GPY&R Sydney

The Super Bowl is all done and a team from North America won. But as well as some sort of sporting event, it’s the world’s biggest advertising showcase. See the best of them right here… and please tell us what you think.  

Saturday morning cartoons come alive in this ad for MetLife. There’s also some great extras starring Yosemite Sam and Snagglepuss. Rating 7/10

When I’m confident I have a slight rise in my step… This guy from Cars.com gets a second head out his back. Rating 4/10

Doritos ran a competition letting fans vote for which ad would run in the Super Bowl. This won. Thoughts? Rating 5/10

Budweiser have always made a mark on Superbowl Sunday, the croaking frogs, ‘the wazzup’ guys. Now the beer co celebrates good times in America’s history, beginning with the end of prohibition. Rating 6/10

Another from Chevy, this time for the brand’s Silverado truck. Slightly unsettling that at the end of the world is just men, trucks and twinkies, but it’s a great ad. Rating 8/10

Prudential Financial, spending money on ad spots, not ads. Rating 3/10

What is M&M‘s “milk chocolate” a euphemism for? Rating 7/10

Getting the blood pumping, Hyundai‘s Genesis shows some cheek. Rating 7/10

Suzuki‘s Kizashi gets cool with 50 Cent and some huskies. Rating 6/10

Chrysler, Detroit and America goes on the defensive for the poor old car industry with coach Dirty Harry during halftime. Rating 8/10

Coke‘s polar bears are back with one a New England fan, the other a Giants fan. Coke has different ads to run periodically depending on the game’s results. Concept rating: 8/10, execution of the ads, Rating 4/10

NBC are making sure you know all their new shows. Howard Stern to judge NBC’s America’s Got Talent… sans porn star guests presumably. Rating 4/10

And just when we thought we’d seen the last of Deborah Messing, she pops up in Glee for adults… I mean Smash. Rating 6/10

Shoe company Skechers falls somewhere between so bad it’s bad and so bad it’s good. Rating 4/10

So if you miss Smash, find it in Hulu‘s Hulubratory, with Stan Marsh, Paris Hilton and Arrested Development’s Will Arnett. Rating 6/10

Audi achieves the hat-trick – vampires, comedy and a greta soundtrack. Rating 9/10

Go Daddy demonstrates that there’s nothing wrong with tacky for selling stuff. Rating: 4/10

David Beckham also flashes the flesh for his underwear range. Rating: 5/10

Honda persuaded Matthew Broderick to create this ode to Ferris Bueller. Mumbrella rates it: 8/10

Volkswagen was the hit of 2011 with the cute Darth Vader kid. This time round it’s cute dogs. And Star Wars. Rating: 8/10

Volkswagen‘s teaser for the ad was pretty good too. Rating: 8/10

Lexus forgot to have an idea with its ad. Rating: 2/10

Acura has uncovered the little known fact that as well as being the front man for the Greater Building Society, Jerry Seinfeld usaed to be funny. Rating: 7/10

Teleflora doesn’t actually state that if you send flowers to your woman you’ll get a shag. But it certainly implies it. Rating: 6/10

E*Trade goes the cute route – and no doubt inspired by the minor commercial success of A Few Best Ben, goes with a baby as a best man. Rating: 6/10

Pepsi Max resurrects Regis Phillbin for a cameo as a Cola Zero driver is caught preferrign the drink. Rating: 4/10

Toyota Camry goes with a great ad about reinvention. That has just about nothing to do with the product. Rating: 7/10

Another for Camry… Romeo’s story is probably most touching. Rating 4/10

Chevy goes for a heavily telagraphed gag (with a nod to an ancient YiouTube meme) about a graduate who mistakes his gift. Rating: 6/10

Chevy also gets chucked out of a plane. And bungee jumps. Which is clearly a product attribute well worth demonstrating. Rating: 8/10

Fiat 500 features a man who can’t distinguish between a car and a sexy woman with foam on her breasts. Rating: 6/10

And that’s not the only lame Chevy ad. There’s spy kids too. Rating: 3/10

G.I Joe: Retaliation Joe is back… and he’s actually Bruce Willis. Rating 5/10

In this post, UWS’s Ullrich Ecker, John Cook and Stephen Lewandowsky argue that cognitive science can help PRs form strategies in managing media misreporting.

A growing cohort of commentators has bemoaned the descent of contemporary political “debate” into a largely fact-free zone.  

People used to be entitled to their own opinions, but not their own set of facts. In the contemporary spectacle that passes for politics, it appears as though politicians are also entitled to make up their own facts at will.

There are small but encouraging signs that this era of post-fact politics might be coming to an end.

The boundary between truth and falsehood has arguably been eroded during the past few decades, aided in part by a media which has gradually discarded actual journalism that establishes and reports facts in favour of “he-said-she-said” churnalism.

This trend has made it possible for outlandish and patently false claims, such as the imaginary uncertainty surrounding President Obama’s place of birth, to be given extended coverage by the “mainstream” media, rather than being speedily dismissed upon investigation for complete lack of substance.

Truth vigilantes

Into this fact-free media world exploded a bombshell earlier this year when public editor of the New York Times Arthur Brisbane asked whether the paper should be a “truth vigilante”. Brisbane asks “whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.”

Excuse me?!

Isn’t this why we have a free press in the first place?

The very fact this question is posed reveals the full depth of the vortex into which some Western societies have descended — Australia, sadly, among them. But the fact the question was posed also shows this crisis is beginning to penetrate even the minds of those who are partially responsible for it in the first place. This is surely an encouraging sign.

Moons and myths

In light of all this, how might we restore the twin notions of “fact” and “reality” to public discourse?

If people mistakenly believe the moon is made of green cheese, how can we help them acquire a more realistic view of the world? Research in cognitive science can help answer that question.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as saying “actually, the moon is not made of green cheese.”

It is not even sufficient to say it repeatedly.

So how do we then correct misinformation?

Enter the Debunking Handbook.

The Debunking Handbook is a freely available booklet written by two of the present authors which provides practical tips to effectively debunk misinformation and avoid pitfalls. The booklet reviews and explains some of the recent research on misinformation effects, and we provide a quick summary here.

Backfire effects

The first thing we need to realise is that simple retractions are often ineffective. For example, when a person — let’s call him John — is accused of a crime, a simple statement that John has been found innocent will not suffice to eradicate people’s suspicions of John. Even if people understand and remember the retraction, the initial accusation will have an ongoing effect on people’s understanding of the crime and their attitude towards the accused.

This persistence of misinformation arises because people build “mental models” of the world based on the information they are given. When some of this information later turns out to be wrong, a gap is left in this mental model. Having these gaps feels uncomfortable, so in the absence of a better explanation, people often opt for the initial, easily available explanation even if it is wrong.

Even retracting an untruth multiple times may not do the trick. That’s perhaps a bit surprising because repetition is one of the most potent ways to increase belief in an assertion.

Alas, not only are simple retractions pretty ineffective, some debunking tactics can actually backfire and ironically amplify the misinformation effects. The debunking handbook describes three such “backfire” effects.

The “familiarity” backfire effect arises because retractions often repeat the misinformation (for example, “the moon is not made of green cheese” repeats the moon-cheese association). This makes the false link appear more familiar, and familiar arguments are more likely to be accepted as true. The “overkill” backfire effect implies that people may be more likely to accept the green-cheese hypothesis the more one throws contrary arguments at them. Worse yet, if people’s core beliefs rest on the assumption that the moon is made of green cheese, then any direct attempt to alter their beliefs may meet resistance and lead to entrenchment of the original misinformation. This is called the “worldview” backfire effect.

So what can you do to avoid these backfire effects?

Fill in the gaps

First of all remember a retraction will leave a gap in a person’s understanding of the world, so the correction should try to fill the gap. Sometimes this is easy. In the crime example, if the true culprit has been found, the gap in the mental model can easily be filled — it wasn’t John, it was Jim. Providing plausible and valid alternative information will drastically reduce reliance on misinformation.

Another gap worth filling after a retraction is to explain why the misinformation may have been presented in the first place.

Promoting a sceptical look at both the evidence itself and who presented the evidence (and what their agenda might be) is undoubtedly a good thing. “So Jack told you it was John? Well, guess what, Jack is Jim’s cousin”. A healthy sense of scepticism helps people tell the wrong from the right.

Don’t add fuel to the fire

First, one should not start a debunk by repeating the myth. Begin with the truth: the moon is a rock.

In some cases, repeating the myth is unavoidable when trying to debunk it; otherwise people may not know what you’re talking about. But if the myth has to be repeated, repeat it after presenting the facts.

Also, any myth repetition should be prefaced with a warning. Warnings put people in a cognitive mode of strategic monitoring and can hence reduce effects of misinformation.

Back to basics

Next, keep it simple. Stick to the facts. Leave out irrelevant details. Choose the strongest argument(s) and focus on what’s important. If you can offer one strong reason why the misinformation is false, leave it at that — do not accompany a strong reason with a few weaker ones; they may undermine your strong case.

Use simple language. Avoid the standard science terms relating to probability and the ever-looming possibility of falsification — “highly likely” and “strongly suggests” mean different things to a scientist and the man in the street.

Begin and end on a strong and simple message that people will remember and tweet to their friends, such as “study shows MMR vaccines are safe.”

Use simple graphics to illustrate your points.

Know your audience

The trickiest backfire effect to deal with is arguably the worldview backfire effect. Fact is, all the evidence in the world will not change the view of the hardcore moon-cheese believer.

But you stand a greater chance of correcting misinformation among those not as firmly decided. Hence debunking should be directed towards the undecided majority rather than the unswayable (and usually most vocal) minority. There is no point arguing with “birthers” about the President’s birth place, but you can address rational adults.

Any debunking messages should also be worded and framed in a way that is least threatening to the recipient’s worldview. Using non-inflammatory language, or presenting the opportunities that a change-of-mind may bring with it, can go a long way in avoiding polarisation.

The full picture

So what’s the take-home message?

When debunking misinformation, don’t just retract. Give the facts. Warn people if you have to repeat the myth. Explain why the misinformation was given in the first place. Focus on what is most important. Use simple language and graphics. End on a strong take-home message. And begin by downloading the Debunking Handbook.

• This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article here.

In this guest post, Peter Mountford argues that brands should think more about what is really going on for consumers

Who here is hoping their favourite brand of toilet paper is going to be organizing a flash mob on their way home from work today?  

The othernight I was watching an episode of the UK version of Undercover Boss with my wife. The episode followed Nikki King, the Managing Director of Isuzu trucks UK as she spent time working ‘undercover’ in various parts of her business.

The most interesting part of the show occurred when Ms King realised that one of the employees from their emergency service team was not handing over an apology letter she had written to truck drivers after their trucks had been fixed. The gist of the apology letter was that Isuzu was sorry for any inconvenience caused by their breakdown.

Now, I am not a truck driver but I can imagine the last thing on earth I would be interested in while I am broken down in the middle of a four lane motorway is getting a pre-printed letter from a woman I have never met. I would like to think that the bloke from Isuzu service would instead be concentrating on getting me going again as soon as possible.

For me this was a good example of how easy it is to overlook what consumers actually want and instead come to the conclusion that giving them another form of communication is the answer. The Qantas Twitter debacle is a great example of this. Consumers were in no way interested in engaging in a conversation with Qantas about their business class experience instead they just wanted them to get their bloody planes in the air and flying again.

Surely as marketers our focus should be engaging our customers when they are researching, purchasing and using our products or services before we look at engaging them with social media stunts.

Worse than this is when brands spend too much time telling us what they stand for and very little time actually demonstrating it. For some reason I don’t believe ANZ when they tell me they ‘live in my world’. Not only because they made $5.36 billion last year (I made slightly less) but mainly because they don’t demonstrate it. Right on the heels of this campaign ANZ were the first bank to start announcing their own interest rate verdict separate of the RBA.

Don’t get me wrong – I agree that announcing their own rates is probably more relevant for them these days than following the RBA’s official rate but the problem is as consumers it is hard to feel too sorry for the banks when they tell us how much margin pressure they are under only to roll out another record profit.

All of this is obvious but the question is what do we do about it?

I think to be truly seen as partners with our clients we need to discuss all areas of their brand with them. This may mean some challenging discussions but it should lead to what I believe are truly integrated campaigns. Not just integrated in the types of media chosen to convey a message but integrated into our clients business and way they operate.

On this front I like Dominos commitment to improving the quality of ingredients used in their pizzas. The great thing about this campaign is not necessarily the execution but the fact they are actually following through on their promise and are making changes to their pizzas. To me this is a true integrated campaign that shows that they are listening to their customers.

• Peter Mountford is client services director at em communications and fuse digital

In this analysis first published on The Conversation, RMIT’s Marita Shelly examines the implications of Telstra’s defeat over the online rights to the AFL broadcast deal

This week’s Federal Court ruling that Optus customers are able to view sporting matches minutes after they are streamed live without breaching copyright is a landmark decision that alters our understanding of copyright law, and has significant implications for the AFL’s broadcasting rights deal.  

The ruling, by Justice Steven Rares in the Optus v Telstra, AFL and NRL copyright case, finds that computers (including tablets such as the iPad) and mobile devices such as iPhones and smartphones are now the modern equivalent of the video cassette recorder.

Individuals are now able to record free-to-air broadcasts onto their computer or mobile device and watch the broadcast moments after the original broadcast – which in many cases will be live – without breaching copyright.

Justice Rares found that Optus customers, rather than Optus, had made the recordings of the live or pre-recorded free to air AFL and NRL games using the TV Now service. Optus customers were then able to watch the game at a time convenient to them, potentially a few minutes after the original broadcast.

Under the Australian Copyright Act, individuals are able to make:

“a cinematograph film or sound recording of a broadcast solely for the private or domestic use by watching or listening to the material broadcast at a time more convenient than the time when the broadcast is made.”

What the Optus customers did using the TV Now service is known as “time shifting”. The Act does not state a time period such as a day or hour that must be observed before time shifting can occur. So the fact that in this case, the time shifting occurred within a few minutes of the original broadcast is not a factor under copyright law.

Given that the Federal Court has found that there has been no copyright breach by Optus customers in their use of the TV Now service to record and view live or pre-recorded free to air AFL and NRL games, this activity can continue.

The Court’s finding (if it is upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court) could de-value broadcast and media rights for sporting events. For sporting organisations that heavily rely on media and television for income this could place them at financial risk.

For the AFL, the value of its five-year $1.25 billion broadcasting media deal with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra could be reduced – particularly if Telstra attempts and succeeds in voiding the agreement for exclusive rights to the internet and mobile services of AFL games, worth over $150m. It has further implications for future deals.

The big losers will be the football clubs and the players. Potentially, the AFL will attempt to re-negotiate with the AFL Players Association in regards to the collective bargaining agreement. Clubs could also be placed in financial risk if their funding was to be reduced.

The decision for Telstra means it has potentially over-valued the rights for exclusive uses of the internet and mobile services of the AFL, given that based on this ruling, the mobile services to AFL games are not the exclusive rights of Telstra and their customers.

Obviously, Optus is the big winner with potential increases in customers to their News TV service and revenue from data charges as a result of the recordings of the broadcast videos.

But this is not likely to be the end of the issue. Expect the AFL, NRL and Telstra to lobby the Australian Government for changes to the Copyright Act, which is currently being reviewed.

This review, announced last October will examine “whether the exceptions [such as time and format shifting] in the Copyright Act are adequate and appropriate in the digital environment”.

A leave to appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court has been granted. The AFL, NRL and Telstra have all indicated that they will be appealing. So stay tuned.

• This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article here. Marita Shelly is a PHD candidate at the Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University

In an article that first appeared in The Conversation, Mark Rolfe wonders whether the mining magnate’s move could turn Fairfax into something resembling America’s Fox network.

Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has moved to increase her stake in Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and a number of radio stations. Rinehart has already shown her desire to play a role in public life, campaigning against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s aborted mining tax. She has also demonstrated a willingness to make media investments to ensure her pro-business worldview is promulgated.

What does this latest move by Rinehart mean?

Are we seeing the rise of a resources-based oligarchy that trumps democracy in Australia? Or is this simply a new iteration of an age-old effort by rich people to influence debate that affects their interests?

The Conversation spoke with University of New South Wales political expert, Mark Rolfe about the political implications of the Rinehart bid.

Is Gina Rinehart now behaving like the kind of oligarch we see in countries such as Russia?

No, more like the billionaires in America. To make the Russian analogy would be to take it a little too far in the authoritarian, anti-democratic direction. It’s more like the American example where there’s tendencies amongst particularly conservative billionaires, or multi, multi-millionaires, to seek to expand political influence.

I say that with some comparison to America, but also there’s a comparison there with her father, Lang Hancock who wasn’t satisfied with merely sticking to the mining industry, but also threw his weight around politically in the 70s and 80s, particularly in his connections to the Premier of Queensland, Jo Bjelke-Petersen.

And there’s instances in America of billionaires like Philip Anschutz who get large enough and see directions in the country which they don’t like. They buy newspapers and other media outlets and set up think tanks to try to influence the terms of debate within the country, in the direction they like.

Pressure brought about by Rinehart and others saw the mining tax dumped. Are we now seeing a situation where democracy is being challenged by the emerging resources oligarchy?

I think there’s always been that tension in modern representative democracy. You can take it back to the battles in the late 19th century, early 20th century America with the “muck-raking media” as it was called versus the plutocrats – the Rockerfellers and others. So there’s always been this tension within democracy between ideas of the people and equality, and the power of rich and their capacity to control politics and/or the media.

I see it not as a start of this trend, but a recycling of an old battle that will continue. In the light of the global recession of the last couple of years and the Occupy movement across the world, which has targeted these sorts of plutocrats as their enemy, we are seeing a sort of 21st century global re-invention of that old battle.

Do the politicians have the heart for that fight?

Yes, of course. It goes along political and ideological lines in this battle, and the sympathies of politicians for or against such involvements by the billionaires. But there is a great potential at the moment.

In the light of the global recession, this problem about the distribution of wealth, of power, of equality and the rights of people, many politicians on both the left and the right in Australia, and in America we’re even seeing this from Republican presidential candidates, are using the language of populism.

So no politician these days can afford, if they want to keep their jobs, to be seen to be out of favour with the people, whoever they might be, and for expressing sympathies for the plight of the people. That context gives a great deal of leverage for pushing back against the political and economic power of the billionaires. Although nothing is assured in the political game.

What would be the political effect of Rinehart taking control of Fairfax. Could that mean a shift in its editorial line toward a more pro-business, anti-union, right-wing climate sceptic agenda?

She can try to. And from all accounts, she’s tried at the Ten Network using her similar shareholding there. So that’s evidence of her political desires.

Doing that at Fairfax is more complicated. There’s certainly a very good brand name in the Fairfax-owned Australian Financial Review (AFR), and as much as there are accusations of the Fairfax group being an old, 20th century, dying media company, at least the AFR has a special niche and it’s doing very well catering to that niche. Playing around with that, even if it’s to push things in a more conservative, right-wing direction, people might not want to see the current set-up change because it’s working well.

With other elements of the Fairfax group, like the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, we’ve seen battles in the past at those newspapers with Conrad Black, the Canadian media proprietor who is also very right-wing. He wanted to shift things in directions that pleased him but he came a cropper there.

And Rinehart could come a cropper with the same group of people, the journalists who are prepared to, in spite of the threats to jobs and so on, push back. And of course, Rinehart is seeking 10-14% of the company, so there are limitations at the moment.

Her ability to influence the agenda through an increased share of Fairfax may not be as great as people would suspect. At this stage I wouldn’t see the masthead newspapers at Fairfax shifting to become the Fox Network in America. I don’t see things changing dramatically.

Mark Rolfe is a lecturer at the School of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of New South Wales