Communication Mixdown

Sonic Gathering Place Melbourne Jail: Creating peaceful spaces in the midst of city chaosOn this Radiothon show we explore the beginnings of the show Communication Mixdown with John Langer, and the ambience of cities with Jordan Lacey. And we encourage listeners to donate to keep community strong and keep 3CR on air for another year. Communication Mixdown? What's that?John Langer, the person who started Communication Mixdown in 2016, tells Judith about how the name came about and the themes the show has covered over the years, from terms like 'fake news' which emerged at the beginning of the Trump era, to how climate change has been communicated to the public and the increase in surveillance-the digital panopticon. While communication is a huge topic, the show comes together around the idea of  communication within power relationships-asking questions like who gets to speak?, who doesn't?, the importance of community languages...and lots more! How does a city makes you feel?Jordan Lacey chats with Judith about what he means by the ambience of a city, how we experience the city "from the position of our own sensing body", and how sound artists in Australia and internationally have worked to create peaceful spaces in the middle of busy cities, not necesarily to hide city sounds, but to transform them. And what about Community Radio Stations? How do they contribute to the ambience of a city? Well, sounds coming out of car windows in Fitzroy...or sounds emerging from a boat on a river in Berlin, just for starters. You can check out Jordan's paper Cities are made from more than buildings and roads. They are made from ambiances-how a city makes you feel here     

Murdoch and mushroomsThis week Communication Mixdown looks at two very different forms of communication. We begin with Dr Victoria Fielding on the Murdoch media's campaign to support Net Zero emissions by 2050 and to educate the Australian public about climate change. Victoria's anaylsis of Newscorp's coverage of the floods in Queensland in 2022 tells a different story.In the second half of the show Professor Katie Field tells us about new research which suggests that mushrooms have the ability to communicate with each other and that fungi has an electrical 'language' all its own, "far more complicated than anyone previously thought" and "might even use 'words' to form 'sentences' to communicate with neighbours".     

‘Social media is full of dead people. Untold millions of dead users haunt the online world where we increasingly live our lives. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them or do they have the right to persist?' These questions are posed in the blurb on the back of a new book called Digital Souls: A Philosophy of Online Death by Patrick Stokes, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, who talks to Reema Rattan about his excellent recent book.

Seeking Asylum: Our StoriesOn November 30th the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre here and Black Inc. Books here  launched Seeking Asylum: Our Stories, a book that features the voices of people who have lived the experience of seeking asylum in Australia. Twenty-three people tell us why they had to leave their country of origin, how they came to Australia and the challenges they faced when they arrived. Each story is different; each story is remarkable. Truly, as it says on the cover, 'the voices Australia should hear'.Dr Ghofran Al-nasiri's story is featured in Seeking Asylum: Our Stories and her photo is on the cover. Ghofran tells Judith about her life in Iraq before the family was forced to flee, why education is so important to her and her commitment to social justice. Now a lecturer and researcher at Victoria University, Ghofran remembers the people who helped her to achieve her dream and the woman who was there at the right moment,  She put her hand on my shoulder and said "You'll be fine". Ghofran also speaks about the volunteer work she does with students who have come from similar backgrounds to her own.

"This is a major economic risk for us": Jake Whitehead on the inadequacies of the Morrison government's new electric vehicle strategy On November 9th the Morrison government announced it's new electric vehicle strategy here, to coincide wiith the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, but it's not the strategy Australia needs to meet its COP26 emission targets and take the country into a sustainable future. Dr Jake Whitehead and his colleagues, Jessica Whitehead and Kai Le Lim from the University of Queensland, have written a paper for The Conversation entitled  As the world surges ahead on electric vehicles, the Morrison government's new strategy leaves Australia idling in the garage here. Jake joins Judith on Communication Mixdown to discuss the problems with the Federal government's new electric vehicle strategy and calls for an honest conversation about what's needed. Dr Jake Whitehead holds a joint position as the Tritium E-mobility Fellow at the University of Queensland Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation here and School of Civil Engineering.       

You look up at the stages and you see very few women: Women and girls at COP 26During the second week of the climate summit COP 26, a day was allocated to gender equality and the empwerment of women and girls in climate policy and action. Betty Barkha, a PhD candidate at Monash University's Centre for Gender, Peace and Security here, and Katrina Lee-Koo, Associate Professor in International Relations at Monash, spoke to Judith about their paper COP26: why education for girls is crucial in the fight against climate change here.Women and girls at COP 26; "More clean energy means more mines": The challenges of making a just transition to a renewable energy future More clean energy means more mines: the challenges of a just transition to a renewable energy futureNick Bainton is an Associate Professor in Social anthropology at the Universiy of Queensland who specialises in the social aspects of large-scale resource extraction. His work has a broad focus on the Pacific and Papua New Guinea in particular. Nick and his colleagur Deanna Kemp, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at he Universiy of Queensland here, have written an article for The Conversation entitled More clean energy means more mines-we shouldn't sacrifice communities in the name of climate action here.Nick joined Judith on Communication Mix down to discuss the concept of a just transition to renewable energy and the difficulties of achieving it. 

(Image: Angie/Flickr)Books that offer readers the chance to try to change their lives or selves for the better seem to be proliferating. Given their prevalence, it's likely you or someone you know has bought or borrowed from a library some kind of self-help book. And maybe it's even helped solve whatever problem you or they were struggling with. But do self-help books really help? Can they do harm? And are they really increasing in number like they seem to be to me? Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Nick Haslam and philosopher Damon Young discuss whether self-help can actually help.

Peace Building in Africa and Beyond: Creating partnerships in Australia and the Democratic Republic of CongoThe Raising Peace Festival was held from September 16th to September 26th, 2021. The Festival celebrated International Peace Day, September 21st, and was organised by International Volunteers for Peace (IVP), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the The Quakers and  the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). The Festival featured presentations from 37 organisations and went for eleven days with a thousand people attending.Today Comunication Mixdown features two organisations that gave presentations at the Raising Peace Festival; the Great Lakes Agency for Peace and Developmment (GLAPD) and HandUp Congo, in particular their Emergency Medicine program. Judith chats with Dr Nadine Shema, a co-founder of the Great Lakes Agency for Peace and Developmment, Lucy Hopgood-Brown, a co-founder of HandUp Congo and Dr Vera Sistenich, leader of the Emergency Medicine Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Urban foraging: Edible plants, caring for the environment and creating community Urban foraging is an idea that has been taken up by many celebrity chefs but for Alexandra Crosby and IIaria Vanni, from the University of Technology Sydney it's much more. Together they've established Mapping Edges, a transdisciplinary research studio that explores the relationship between plants, people and the urban environment. Their paper Rosemary in roundabouts, lemons over the fence: how to go urban foraging safely, respectfully and cleverly was published in The Conversation on October 5th, 2021. Alexandra and Ilaria join Judith on Communication Mixdown to talk about their research, the relationship between people and plants and their best forage experience.        

Political philosopher Charles Mills died on September 20. Mills was a major figure in philosophy for bringing white supremacy to the fore in his work, changing the way we speak about race. Reema Rattan talks to race scholar Debbie Bargallie, who used Mills' work extensively in her book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service, and philosopher Helen Ngo about his work, legacy and the relevance of his ideas in Australia. 

The Women of Little Lon: Sex workers in 19th Century MelbourneBarbara Minchinton's book The Women of Little Lon: Sex workers in 19th Century Melbourne published by Black Inc is a meticulously researched account of sex work and sex workers in Melbourne from the mid to late 1800s. Barbara chats with Judith about urban archaeology, the situation of settler women in 19th century Melbourne and the attractions of sex work for working class women at that time. Barbara points out that while sex workers were harshly judged by the 'respectible' citizens of Melburne in the 19th Century, the industy was primarily managed by women and those who operated the 'flash' brothels, demonstrated political acumen in the links they developed with police, the legal profession and key political figures.Barbara also considers the extent to which the attitudes of the19th Century moral crusaders, who drove the move to criminalise sex work, are still with us in 21st Century Melbourne. As she says, we'll soon find out when Fiona Patten's bill to de-criminalise sex work is debated in Victoria's Parliament.To hear more from Barbara Minchinton check out 3CR's Done by Law show broadcast on August 31st, 2021.https://www.3cr.org.au/donebylaw/episode-202108311800/women-little-lon-sex-work-and-law-then-and-now-historian-barbaraAnd for a contemporary sex worker perspective, tune in to 3CR's Behind Closed Doors: a safe space to explore the world of sex work from diverse presenters.https://www.3cr.org.au/behindcloseddoors

The Australian story of Mikis Theodorakis' legendary song ZorbaMikis Theodorakis, considered by many of his country people to be the greatest Greek composer in history, died on September 2nd at his home in Athens at the age of 96. As the country mourned his passing he was remembered as a patriot and a person whose music touched generations of people in Greece and internationally. While Theodorakis is probably best known for his film scores composed for Zorba the Greek, Z, and Serpico, he also revived interest  in Greek traditional music and wrote classical compositions. His musical output is estimated at over one thousand compositions.There is also an Australian story about Theodorakis' song Zorba. Andonis Piperoglou is a cultural historian and adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Cultural and Social Research. He joins Judith on Communication Mixdown to discuss his article published in The Conversation on September 7th, Politics, flashmobs, Yolngu dancers: the Australian story of Mikis Theodorakis' legendary song Zorba.  Zorba the Greek Yolngu style; Chooky dancers now Djuki Malahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-MucVWo-Pw     

Technological disruption of all kinds of industries is the norm rather than the exception now and the film industry is no different. As cameras on smartphones improve, more and more people are embracing the tool as an opportunity to tell their stories, and even traditional filmmakers are joining in. Max Schleser, senior lecturer in film and television at Swinburne University of Technology, and founder of the Mobile Innovation Network and Association, and Daniel Schultheis, founder of the not-for-profit organization Cinespace, which promotes cultural diversity on screen, who has been running workshops about how to make films with your smartphone around Victoria, discuss making films using smartphones. Some resources Mobile Innovation Network and Association (MINA) * Conference (October)  * Twitter: @MINAmobile  * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MobileInnovationNetwork    * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MobileInnovationNetwork/ Cinespace * Smartphone Stories Book: Max Schleser, Smartphone Filmmaking: Theory and Practice Facebook groups * Smartphone Filmmaking & Mobile Social Media Content Producers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smartphonefilmmakers * Mobile Fillmakers: https//www.facebook.com/groups/287493301745902 Mobile Motion Film Festival (Sweden): International Smartphone Film Festival     

Origins and principles of Shariah law: Which version the Taliban is likely to implement?As the Taliban consolidates its rule in Afghanistan it is endeavouring to present a more moderate face to the world. However the statement from the Taliban that it would not discriminate against women and would give them their rights “within the bounds of shariah”, means little if they don't define which version of Shariah law they plan to implement.An article by Associate Professors Zuleyha Keskin and Mehmet Osalp entitled Explainer: What is Shariah law and what version of it is the Taliban likely to implement was published in the Conversation on August 25th, 2021. It looks at the history and principles of Shariah Law, how it declined after the golden age of Islam and with the colonisation of Islamic countries, and how more recently it's been co-opted and misrepresented by ultra-conservative groups.Associate Professor Zuleyha Keskin, from the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation at Charles Sturt Unversty, joins Communication Mixdown to discuss the article and what might eventuate in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. We also find out about  about Zuleyha's new book Attaining Inner Peace in Islam: Said Nursi's Perspective published just this week, and finish with a brief discussion of the Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, who was born in Balkh, present-day Afghanistan. 

Making the Law work for WomenRamona Vijeyarasa is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the editor of International Women's Rights Law and Gender Equality: Making the law work for women which was launched on July 29th this year. The book is the result of a seminar, Making the Law Work for Women, held in August 2020 which drew together scholars from around the world to look at the impact of the law on women, what has been effective and what more needs to be done to achieve gender equality.As part of her work at the School of Law at UTS, Ramona has developed the Gender Legislative Index or GLI, a tool to rank and score legislation against global standards for women's rights. The GLI facilitates a comparison of laws addressing the same issues, legislation across different areas of the law, and allows comparisons across countries.On Communication Mixdown this week Ramona Vijeyarasa chats with Judith about the book International Women's Rights Law and Gender Equality: Making the law work for women, the Gender Legislative Index she developed at UTS and the potential of the law in the work of progressing women's rights and gender equality. 

The townspeople of Buenos Aries (Ecuador) met with excessive violence when protesting against mining and the incursion of the police on their land Between 2016 and 2018 a cash-strapped Ecuador sold around a third of the country's land mass to multinational mining corporationswithout consultation with traditional owners, as required by Ecuador's constitution. Around 40 per cent of those concessions were bought  by Australian mining companies or their subsidiaries despite the legal uncertainty created by the Ecuadorian government's failure to consult with owners. Concerned about the damage to land and water caused by mining in neighbouring areas, the people of Buenos Aries in northwest Ecuador have tried to prevent Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining S.A. from coming into their town and onto the land designated for Hanrine mining operations. Liz Downes is a researcher and campaign organiser with the Rainforest Action Group Melbourne/Naarm which has been documenting events in Beunos Aries over the past few years. Liz describes the most recent developments in the town and the need for immediate action. For more informantion about the activities of Australian mining companies overseas see the 2015 report Fatal Extraction:Australian Mining in Africa produced by the Centre for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists https://www.icij.org/investigations/fatal-extraction/ https://www.thewire.org.au/story/australian-mining-companies-lethal-footprint-in-africa/      

In the middle of April, Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison attended a national Australian Christian Churches Conference in the Gold Coast. A video of his speech was broadcast by Vineyard Church and distributed by the Rationalist Society soon afterwards, leading to public discussions about the separation of church and state in Australia.In his speech, Scott Morrison revealed, among other things, that he is often secretly praying and described social media misuse as the work of ‘the evil one'. It's worth noting that Morrison is the first Pentecostal prime minister Australia has had.Discussing the role of religion in Australian politics with me -- in the order you will hear from them -- are Wendy Mayer, Joanne Cruickshank and Tanya Levin.Wendy Mayer is a professor of Christianity, with a specialisation in early Christianity and  particularly social history but also in contemporary religious violence and radicalisation. She is at associate dean for research at the Australian Lutheran College.Dr Joanne Cruickshank is a historian of Christianity in Britain and Australia, from the 18th century onwards, at Deakin University. She now works on religion and race, particularly the role of Christianity in Australia in relation to Aboriginal missions.Tanya Levin grew up in the church known as Hillsong and the author of the 2007 book People in Glass Houses: An Insiders Story of a Life in and out of Hillsong, which was re-released in 2015. The book outlines her story growing up in the church as well as other experiences and some theory about what takes place in Hillsong and how it became what it is with its focus on money, celebrities and music.

In the middle of April, Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison attended a national Australian Christian Churches Conference in the Gold Coast. A video of his speech was broadcast by Vineyard Church and distributed by the Rationalist Society soon afterwards, leading to public discussions about the separation of church and state in Australia.  In his speech, Scott Morrison revealed, among other things, that he is often secretly praying and described social media misuse as the work of ‘the evil one'. It's worth noting that Morrison is the first Pentecostal prime minister Australia has had. Discussing the role of religion in Australian politics with me -- in the order you will hear from them -- are Joanne Cruickshank, Tanya Levin and Wendy Mayer.  Dr Joanne Cruickshank is a historian of Christianity in Britain and Australia, from the 18th century onwards, at Deakin University. She now works on religion and race, particularly the role of Christianity in Australia in relation to Aboriginal missions. Tanya Levin grew up in the church known as Hillsong and the author of the 2007 book People in Glass Houses: An Insiders Story of a Life in and out of Hillsong, which was re-released in 2015. The book outlines her story growing up in the church as well as other experiences and some theory about what takes place in Hillsong and how it became what it is with its focus on money, celebrities and music. Wendy Mayer is a professor of Christianity, with a specialisation in early Christianity and  particularly social history but also in contemporary religious violence and radicalisation. She is at associate dean for research at the Australian Lutheran College.

Mining or farming: What do the Nationals really stand for?Barnaby Joyce's return to the leadership and his hard pro-mining stance raise questions about the future of an increasingly divided National Party. Honorary Professor Geoff Cockfield from the Institute for Resilient Regions and the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems at the University of Southern Queensland, explores these issues against the backdrop of current international developments and the downturn in the market for coal, the relationship between Australian farmers and mining companies and the history of the National Party.https://theconversation.com/are-the-nationals-now-the-party-for-mining-not-farming-if-so-barnaby-joyce-must-tread-carefully-163988 Environmental markets can't compensate for decades of government neglectThis year's federal budget included an A$32.1 million scheme to promote a so-called "biosecurity stewardship" scheme. Dr Philippa England from Griffith Law School tells us why the scheme is a lose-lose project, failing the majority of farmers and the environment. Evaluations have shown that such schemes are expensive, time consuming and often unworkable. They don't replace investment in sustained long term government funding for projects that we know are effective in protecting the land and biodiversity.https://theconversation.com/nature-is-a-public-good-a-plan-to-save-it-using-private-markets-doesnt-pass-muster-161361  

 Jesus and John Wayne: A reckoning Kristin Du Mez is a professor of history at Calvin University in Grand Rapids Michigan in the United States. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, religion, and politics in recent American history. Last year she published Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, a study of white evangelical views of masculinity from the Cold War to the present, culminating in the election of Donald Trump. Kristin's book reached number four on the New York Times best sellar list last month, so it's obviously having an impact. She tells Communication Mixdown why she wrote the book, what her research revealed and how people have responded to the book in the US. For Australians, Kristin's book is a cautionary tale about what we might expect if Christian Right activists succeed in their efforts to move State Lberal Parties and the Coalition even further to the right to take up Trump-style policies.  Kristin Du Mez is a keynote speaker at a Symposium organised by the Australian Catholic University and Deakin University and brings together North American and Australian researchers to look at the way Christianity has related to public life in each country over the past 50 years.Symposium details:Title: Intellectual Authority and its Changing Infrastructures in North American and Australian Christianity, 1960s-2010sDates: July 29-30Venue: Online and in-person at ACU Brisbane's CBD Leadership CentreCost: FreeDetails and registration: https://intellectual-authority.eventbrite.com.au Also see Washington Post article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/07/16/jesus-and-john-wayne-evangelicals-surprise-bestseller/  

Saving Westernport:  How a determined community stopped AGL's plan for a Floating Storage and Regasification Unit in Westernport BayOn October 17th, 2017, Candy Van Rood woke to the news that energy giant AGL was planning to install a Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) at Cribb point in Westernport Bay on the Mornington Peninsula, and it seemed that the Victorian government was right behind it. Candy  set up a Facebook page to inform the community about the proposed project and what it would mean for Westernport Bay. In April 2018 the Save Westernport committee was formed and the successful campaign to stop AGL's Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (SFRU) began.In this episode of Communication Mixdown, people involved in the campaign will tell us why they organised, what they were up against and what the experience has taught them about environmental democracy in Australia.  

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The issue of sexual assault brought women into the streets across Australia to demand change and over forty thousand people have signed a petition calling for consent education to be included in sex education programs in Australian schools earlier. The teaching resources have been devloped, so why is it so difficult?In February this year Chanel Contos launched a petition calling for consent to be included in Australian Schools' sex education earlier. As of May 17th over 40,000 people had signed the petition and over 6000 provided testimonies. And a number of politicians and school principals have contacted Chanel Contos to discuss what needs to be done. The attention to the issue is welcome, and people who have advocated for comprehensive sexualities and relationships education in schools are hoping that at last we will see real change. One of those people is Deb Ollis. Deb Ollis is an Associate Professor in Education at Deakin University, specialising in sexuality and relationships education. During her career that spans over 30 years, she's worked as a secondary school teacher, policy officer, curriculum consultant, curriculum writer, teacher educator and researcher. Deb has co-authored two national frameworks in health and sexuality education and written curriculum resources for state and federal governments. Most recently she's written a respectful relationships curriculum for Victorian secondary schools. Deb speaks with Communication Mixdown about her work in sexuality and relationships education, the barriers to putting curriculum into practice and her hopes for the future. Music Artist     Song    Oetha     Cruisin' Further listeninghttps://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/nsw-transgender-bill/13336648 

Communication Mixdown looks into how local news in rural and regional areas is faring. Local newspapers are a dying breed and the coronavirus pandemic has not helped their fortunes. But does that matter and why? Reema Rattan talks to Lisa Millar, professor of digital communication at RMIT who specialises in journalism.  

 Award-winning philosopher and author Damon Young discusses his latest book, On Getting Off: Sex and Philosophy, with Reema Rattan.

British film director Ken Loach often features stories about people from the working class in his films.The author of "Class on Screen: The Global Working Class in Contemporary Cinema" Dr Sarah Attfield talks to Reema Rattan about her new book which evaluates depictions of the working class in films from around the world.      

When the pandemic subsides, we're facing another global crisis  - climate change. Warming Up is a recently launched project that aims to link the unique position of Australia's community radio sector with communication about climate change. Kerrie Foxwell Norton and Bridget Backhaus, two of the project's key organizers, both from Griffith University's Centre for Social and Cultural Research, talk about the innovative role local community radio takes in generating conversations and guiding communities through the perils  and challenges of climate change.

Image: Esther Vargas/Flickr Among the many underlying problematic social issues the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified is how journalism is done in Australia. Journalists’ conduct during the press conferences held daily by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during Victoria’s second lockdown, in particular, attracted much criticism on social media channels such as Twitter.  Ingrid Matthews, who teaches law and philosophy and researches law, its philosophy and the creation of criminality, and Tim Dunlop,a writer based in Melbourne who writes on Australian and US politics and the media, as well as writing books about the future of work, discuss who it is that journalists are accountable to and why it matters.

This week, psychologist Wayne Gillespie, specialist in counselling for musicians and entertainers, explains how covid 19 restrictions and the personality traits of rock musicians make for a particulalry stressful mix. Then Clive Miller from Support Act talks about some of the ways his organization has helped working muscians negotiate their way through the lockdown.

Tanya Notley from the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Institute of Culture and Society at Western Sydney University talks about Media Literacy Week 2020, the newly formed Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA), young people deciphering fake news and why media literacy is an evolving and life-long skill needed to engage critically with our vast contemporary mediascape and for social justice.

This year marks 50 years since Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s most influential work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published in English. A foundational work of critical pedagogy, Freire’s book argues against the traditional model of education which treats students as if they are empty vessels and call for teachers and learners to be co-creators of knowledge. Fifty years later, what Freire calls the banking model of education persists, so does Pedagogy of the Oppressed still have something to teach us? Reema Rattan discusses the enduring legacy of Freire's work with Andrés Donoso Romo, a Chilean researcher whose work focuses on Latin American education history, student movements and educational thought, and Robert Austin is an honorary associate of the department of history at the University of Sydney, with Robert translating for Andrés.  

Since the arrival of the global pandemic, the flow of conspiracy theories online and in social media has turned into a deluge. Kaz Ross from the School of Humanities (Asian Studies) at the University of Tasmania explains how, in particular, QAnon has become globally popular, and increasingly attactive to people in Australia.Recommended listening: QAnon Anonymous 

The global pandemic has raised pressing questions about trustworthy health information, and journalism is postioned to play a significant role. Citing the results of research done in Australia and the Unitied States, Andrea Carson from the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University explains how the covid crisis provides a critical moment from which to examine trust in professional journalism.  

 Dr Debbie Bargallie discusses her new book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous Voices on Racism in the Australian Public Service. Based on the PhD Bargallie completed at Queensland University of Technology after taking a voluntary redundancy from the APS in 2013, it uses interviews with 21 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who work in the APS or have previously done so, to highlight the exclusion of First Nations employees from its upper echelons. Now based at Griffith University, Dr Bargallie explains what the racial contract is and how we all need more racial literacy if we are to tackle structural racism.

Early in the year the World Health Organization warned that we were battling not just a pandemic but an "infodemic". Robin Canniford from the Department of Management and Marketing at Melbourne University talks with Zac Shapiro about how this infodemic has manifested itself in the proliferation of digitally driven conspiracy theories.

Mask wearing has become a normalized part of the covid crisis. Fashion historian Lydia Edwards from Edith Cowan University talks about various manifestations of facial covering and mask wearing in western culture, and how these have plugged into circuits of fashion and communication.

One of Australia’s national myths is that we are an egalitarian country where class is of marginal, if any, importance. Yet during election campaigns, policies that attempt to redistribute wealth are shot down as being part of a class war. And more significantly, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted that maybe we aren’t as equal a society as we would like to imagine. So, what does class mean in contemporary Australia? Demographer and social researcher Dr Liz Allen from ANU, Emma Dawson, executive director of Per Capita and Dr Elizabeth Humphrys, a political economist at UTS discuss different aspects of class and inequality in Australia today.

"I'll just Google it". How many times a day has this refrain been uttered by someone struggling to find the answer to a question? Timothy Eric Strom, researcher and writer on global political economy, looks at the power of Google to enter our everyday lives and translate that power into profit-making and personal surveillance.

What do we mean when we say race? Why is it that it seems like calling someone racist is worse than the racism they display? Who gets to decide what's racism anyway?Alana Lentin, Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University, talks to Reema Rattan about her new book 'Why Race Still Matters', which argues that we need to pay attention to both when and how race matters but also when, how and why it is said to not matter. 

Image: Tim Waters/FlickrColonial monuments have been in the spotlight since the Rhodes Must Fall movement started in South Africa in March 2015, and have faced renewed focus in 2020 because of the Black Lives Matter protests. Starting with the removal of slaver Edward Colston's statue in Bristol, a number of statues have been pulled down around the world -- but not in Australia.Reema Rattan facilitates a discussion between ANU Professor of History Bruce Scates and  Shanti Sumartojo, Associate Professor of Design Research at Monash University, about what monuments and memorials communicate to try to uncover their role in the public and historical imagination.  

Facial recogniton technology is being rolled out across Australia with what some, including the Human Rights Commission, consider to be unseemly haste. Is mass societal face surveillance the next step, and will the current Covid crisis be an additional push factor? Rick Sarre, adjunct professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Australia, and Seth Lazar, professor of philosophy at the Australian National University take up the legal, ethical and privacy issues.

Discrimination, hidden and not so hidden, appears to be pervasive in communication and culture insdurties across Australia. The ABC, SBS, Network Seven and the National Institute of Dramatic Art have all been in the spotlight in recent years. Black Lives Matter organizer, screen writer, Sydney Theatre Company emerging playwright and graduate of NIDA, Enoch Mailangi reflects on his own experiences in the culture industry and offers his prognosis for reform and change. 

Deliberative democracy - utopian pipe dream or attainable vision for the future, and how does it intersect with specific modes of communication and counter the global rise of populist rhetoric? Nicole Curato from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Governance at the University of Canberra surveys some of the issues.

Image: Natalie Macguire/FlickrEvery year during NAIDOC Week, 3CR broadcasts the voices of Indigenous men and women from the inside Victorian prisons. In 2020, Beyond the Bars by disrupted by COVID-19 restrictions, making live broadcasts impossible at a time when prison abolition was in the news agenda for a change and the weeklong broadcast was pre-recorded. This programme mines the 2019 Beyond the Bars special to show why we need prison abolition, in the words of Indigenous prison inmates.  

First, the disasterous bushfire summer, then the covid19 pandemic. Add in the years of punishing drought, and there it is - Australia's crisis trifecta. Through these challenging weeks, months and years, despite the hardship and struggle, community radio has been there, offering support and a broad range of locally based services. Holly Friedlander Liddicoat, project co-ordinator with the CBAA, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, talks about the important role of community radio in these unprecedented times.

Image Binuri Ranasinghe/FlickrReema Rattan talks to senior editor at NITV Jack Latimore and Heidi Norman, Professor of Australian Aboriginal Political History at UTS and one of the editors of 'Does the Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations? 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments' (2019) about how the Australian media ignores the voices of First Nations peoples in news coverage. Using Norman's book as a launching point, this programs examines the reasons and justifications for this historical absence and whether we can expect change in the near future. 

What's the connection between a video chat and the celebrity autobiography? This week, we find out when lecturer and researcher in communication and media studies at the University of Western Australia, Katja Lee talks about persona studies, the memoir boom and her own pivotal encounter with video conferencing during the pandemic lockdown. 

The start of the pandemic was marked by a disturbing rise of online videos of people fighting over toilet paper and racist attacks. But rarely, if ever, did they feature an intervention by a bystander. Reema Rattan asks Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University Patrick Stokes whether it's enough to record such events rather than intervening and what, if anything, that says about how the online world has affected behaviour?

This week, a discussion of the shift to digital campaigning within the student movement during the coronavirus pandemic with long term activists and SCR Education Officers Jack Mansell from University of Sydney and Shovan Bhattarai at the University of NSW.

We may have been in lockdown due to the coronavirus for the past two months, but social media has been in overdrive. It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s never been a time when so many people around the world are actively posting to various digital platforms. This week Professor Axel Bruns from the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology explains the ways that social media links with "panic spirals", conspiracy theories, and creates the conditions for another global contagion: what's been called "the info-demic".

 If you regularly listen to this show live, you may be aware that the program that follows us is Eritrean Voices, one of the longer-running radio programs on 3CR. Programmed by volunteers from the Eritrean community, the show is presented in Arabic, Tigrinya, a language spoken by the Tigrinya people of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and English. The programmers of Eritrean Voices recently celebrated their show, which is widely recognised as an essential service in the community, by launching a book about the program at an event in Flemington. I spoke to a number of people about the show there and today present a celebration of Eritrean Voices, which covers political, social, cultural and health issues for the Eritrean community.