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Academia Media

CFP: ‘audio’ in M/C Journal

My colleagues Michelle O’Connor, Professor David Marshall and I are editing a special edition of M/C Journal on ‘audio’. Here’s the Call for Papers: Sound is a physical phenomenon. It propagates as acoustic waves through space and time via physical media including solids, liquids, and gasses. Humans have spent much of our cultural history producing […]

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Academia

The University of Regional Australia?

The Universities Accord interim report indicates an interest in the establishment of a National Regional University (following the 2008 Bradley Review recommendation for just such an institution). The interim report states: The Review is considering the views of stakeholders who believe that establishing a NRU as a second national university, with a distinctive institutional and […]

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Media Pop Culture

How ‘Jurassic Park’ changed film-making and our view of dinosaurs

IMDB Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University In June 1993, director Steven Spielberg released a film that unleashed a wave of technological change in film-making and simultaneously helped to revive popular interest in dinosaurs. Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s novel, spawned five blockbuster sequels as well as a multitude of spin-off games, toys, novels, and […]

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Academia Studies

Finding a communication career in space through the SHSSP

A reflection on my participation in the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program and what it means for my career.

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Academia Media Pop Culture The Simpsons

‘They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons’

Travis Holland, Charles Sturt University Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, will speak at the Sydney Opera House this weekend on the secrets of the show. Now in its 28th season, The Simpsons is one of the mostly widely lauded, and enduring series in TV history. But has it peaked creatively? Is it time […]

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Academia Media

Media Studies and the Struggle for Relevance

I’m increasingly annoyed with media studies— a field I’ve devoted years to — and this is why. My plea for interventionist academics. My colleague Rob Carr (an historian) suggested on Facebook today that academics need to ask “how is my research going to benefit society, and will it benefit society as much as another research topic?” “Marshall […]

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Academia Local Government PhD Politics/Government

A Capital On the Highlands

Canberra, by Brendan Ashton on Flickr On Wednesday March 1, 1899, the town of Bowral and it’s neighbours in the Southern Highlands joined other contenders hoping to become Australia’s capital city. Moss Vale-based newspaper The Scrutineer records that “there was fairly good attendance, between 40 and 50 gentlemen being present, including residents of Mittagong, Bowral, Moss […]

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Academia

Why I Won’t Use TurnItIn to Check My PhD Thesis

‘A Belgian Politician’, by Flickr user Phillipe Put, illustrates a well-known Belgian plagiarism case I’m in the latter stages of preparing my PhD thesis for submission, and I’ve been told I have to submit the whole thesis through plagiarism-detection software turnitin. But I’m not intending to do that, and here’s why. Firstly, I received an […]

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Academia PhD

Moving from Scrivener to Google Docs for Thesis Writing

Why I need to move my thesis into GDocs #phdchat

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Academia Media The Simpsons Uncategorized

Springfield, A Hell of a Place

Springfield, Springfield,it’s a hell of a town.The schoolyard’s upand the shopping mall’s down— Bart and Milhouse (Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood) Springfield, as seen in The Simpsons Movie. (image copyright Fox) The town of Springfield, USA, is one of the most recognisable fictional places ever created. Alongside the cavalcade of characters, Springfield has everything it needs […]