This submission made to the Independent Media Inquiry presents and analyses data from the Australian component of the World Internet Project. The data shows that the internet has quickly become a key news and information source for Australians. Online official news sources mostly run by existing 'offline' news organisations dominate. The data also points to most consumers reluctance to pay for news and information delivered online.

This submission was made to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the economic structure and performance of the Australian retail industry. It presents and analyses World Internet Project data from surveys undertaken in 2007, 2009 and 2011 to help the Commission understand the state of play in online retail in Australia.

This report presents findings from the second survey of the Australian component of the World Internet Project. This survey is a project of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology.

This report provides an overview of the study, presenting a broad picture of the Internet in Australia, with comparisons to our earlier 2007 study, and to the international findings of our partners in the World Internet Project.

Australia currently lacks a mechanism to gather evidence on the formation of public attitudes to the introduction of new technologies, particularly the formation of attitudes to nuclear energy technology.

This is a limiting factor in achieving informed debate in the development of a national energy policy.

These are key findings in a research project recently completed by the National Academies Forum. Its report, Understanding the Formation of Attitudes to Nuclear Power in Australia, will be released today at a CEDA function in Perth (details below).

The Creative Economy Report Card provides a snapshot of key facts about Australia's creative industries, the creative workforce and businesses -- based on analysis of national statistics and reports.

Abstract

It has now been over a decade since the concept of creative industries was first put into the public domain through the Creative Industries Mapping Documents developed by the Blair Labour government in Britain. The concept has developed traction globally, but it has also been understood and developed in different ways in Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and North America, as well as through international bodies such as UNCTAD and UNESCO.

Julian Thomas
The Australian
February 22, 2010 12:00AM

CONFUSION and disarray surround Stephen Conroy's decision to rebate licence fees for commercial television broadcasters.

The decision raises the most basic question that can be asked about government dispensation of any kind: what was this money for?

There are young Australians who are already making a name (and money) for themselves in the latest market for creative content – and it didn’t exist a moment ago. YouTube is a huge repository of amateur content, but it is also rapidly evolving into a site that has legally contracted Hollywood movies and TV shows but is working out ways to share revenues from advertising with gifted and committed amateurs whose creativity attracts a big following.

Can government play a role in assisting Australian creative talent to catch some of dynamism of emerging markets for culture?

Media companies’ campaign against internet piracy suffered a major setback last week when a federal court judgement let internet service providers off the hook for their customers’ illegal downloads. But the copyright wars are more than just a matter for the courts, write Julian Thomas and Ramon Lobato in Inside Story

Outlining their radical new roadmap for cultural R&D, the authors’ proposals challenge two entrenched prejudices, which block arts and cultural organisations from playing their full role in society and economy.

Australian Financial Review

Creativity is today’s ultimate black box a Rorschach blot onto which there are projected innumerable meanings. When academic Richard Green reviewed the literature recently, he found so much variation that he concluded the field was ‘so attenuated, extenuated, or misunderstood that operationalising of the key concepts is missing or impossible’. He tried to order the field, and constructed a profile of 42 models of creativity which, when combined with assorted variations and typologies, totted up 303 variables!

A pyrrhic victory for the American recording industry shows that fast broadband and new applications demand a rethink of the law, writes Julian Thomas on Inside Story.

Faculty Seminar Series

Professor Justin O’Connor, Research Capacity Building Professor Tuesday 28th April 12pm-1pm The Hall (Z2-226) CI Precinct QUT Kelvin Grove

Creative labour: emancipation or honey-trap?

This is a number of summary charts from the first World Internet Project Report

This is a summary of the first international comparison report of the World Internet Project.

A map of how we're using the Net will help us identify where it can go next, writes JULIAN THOMAS in the CCI's publication Creative Economy.

This 2008 report presents findings from the first survey undertaken by the Australian component of the World Internet Project. The project's most recent 2010 report is also available.

Ewing, S., ‘The Australian component of the World Internet Project: Preliminary findings’, World Internet Project workshop, Museum of Melbourne, 10 July 2007.

Ewing, S. and Thomas, J., ‘Downloading, uploading: uses and users of digital content in Australia’, Communications Policy & Research Forum, [September] 2007.

Ewing, S., ‘World Internet Project: A presentation of the Australian results of this multi-year, multi-country survey about Internet uptake and use’, presented to the Telstra Consumer Consultative Committee.

The World Internet Project (WIP) is a collaborative survey-based project looking at the social, political and economic impact of the Internet and other new technologies. Founded by the UCLA Center for the Digital Future in the United States in 1999 (now based at the USC Annenberg Center), the WIP now has more than 20 partners in countries and regions all over the world, including Singapore, Italy, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Korea, Philippines, Sweden, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Hungary, Canada, Chile and Argentina.