Media International Australia

The broadcasting act restricts the advertising of alcohol and prohibits the advertising of cigarette products. However, an analysis of the television broadcast of the 1989 Adelaide Grand Prix reveals extensive amounts of so-called ‘incidental exposure’ of promotional material for these products. This may have an effect which differs little from that of direct advertising. The Marlboro name or logo appeared on screen for up to 35.7% of the sampled time, but this dropped to 7.6% after the company's sponsored cars withdrew. The Fosters name or logo appeared for an average of 20.4% of broadcast time. More research and legal test cases are needed to determine the effect of such high exposure rates, particularly on young people, and the limits of the existing broadcast act.

Analysis of daily current affairs programs' content and production procedures shows that dramatic structuring plays a dominant role in determining the subject matter and the way it is portrayed. Rather than providing closer analysis, the programs offer a pre-interpreted political and social content that confirms for audiences their ‘remoteness’ from events and their ‘helplessness’ in affecting them. This is not the product of some broadcasting conspiracy but rather the result of programming responsively' to an audience that draws comfort from, and even demands, a nightly illustration of societal deviance and its attendant ‘control’.

How a former academic finds a new niche as a radio producer, lets MPs go to air as they said it in the House and the Senate and copes with weird phone calls, letters and faxes. How a ‘quirky perspective on otherwise obscure things’ has already gained quite an audience, largely built up by word of mouth, for a weekly dose of parliamentary doings. This article describes the initiation and growth of the ABC Radio National program on parliament, Ring the Bells.

Audience outrage in Perth in May this year resulted in the sacking of two channel Seven journalists for intruding on a woman's private grief. This article looks at some of the issues of media intrusion into private grief from the points of view of the audience, the bereaved and the news.

Supporting breastfeeding is a motherhood statement for every politician, government department bureaucrat and health professional. Their failure to implement an international code on breastfeeding indicates the complexity of this public interest issue. Issues arising in lobbying on breastfeeding and artificial feeding and marketing of artificial feeding are analysed.

Cultural differences between Indonesia and Australia have tended to affect media relations between the two neighbours. The article analyses some specific differences in attitudes to the role of the media and freedom of speech. A better mutual understanding of these differing attitudes would go some way to bridging the gulf and the article suggests some practical ways in which this could be achieved.

The recent interest in cultural policy by those who place themselves within the field or cultural studies marks an ironic return to the neglected concerns of one of the founders of that field, Raymond Williams. Despite his evident theoretical capabilities in the sociology of culture, policy questions were always at the fore of his formulations. Williams' particular interest in the invasive capabilities of advertising provides a means of discussing the author's submission to the ABT's review of the trial of deregulated television advertising time standards. The ABT's omission of qualitative programming research from its monitoring allowed the extraordinarily destructive practice of ‘running time editing’ to go unnoticed.