Journal articles on the topic 'Military-owned businesses'

AbstractThis paper explores the Prayuth regime, which began with a military coup in May 2014. Politically, we indicate how the junta has embedded its power in ways different from the past. It does not pursue a power-sharing governance as in the Prem and Surayud governments, but tries to militarise the cabinet, parliament, and even state-owned enterprises. The new constitution is designed to institutionalise the power of the military and the traditional elite vis-à-vis the electoral forces. Ironically, however, the junta's rule by military decree and discretionary power have weakened the bureaucratic polity, rather than strengthening it. Economically, the Prayuth regime forms a partnership with a group of Sino-Thai conglomerates to establish the Pracharath scheme, with an aim to differentiate its grass-roots development policy from Thaksin's populism (Prachaniyom). Nonetheless, it has become a platform through which the giant firms perform the leading role of ‘Big Brother’ in supervising small businesses in their sectors. Pracharath therefore reflects the collective endeavours of the conglomerates to replace competitive markets with hierarchy, rather than encouraging local firms to catch-up with them.

This article endeavours to describe and analyse the media's role in the 11–13 April 2002 attempt to oust Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. The short-lived and unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government exposed the politicised and undemocratic nature of Venezuela's private commercial media. At an international news level, the events of April 2002 demonstrated that foreign news coverage tends to reproduce the version of the dominant elite and over-simplify the causes and outcomes of complex historical events. In this case, most of the foreign news not only reproduced the local private media coverage, but also amplified the strength of the coup. Essentially, this media coup revealed the centrality of the commercial, privately owned media in bringing together some of the key players behind this political operation: businesses, right-wing politicians and some sectors of the military. The key component of the current social and political crisis in Venezuela is the bitter struggle between the government and the commercial media.

AbstractDrawing principally upon a rich vein of previously unexploited business records, this paper analyses the experience of British firms in Indonesia between the achievement of independence and the beginnings of the Suharto regime. As in The Netherlands East Indies, British enterprises occupied a significant position in post-colonial Indonesia in plantations, oil extraction, shipping, banking, the import-export trade, and manufacturing. After the nationalization of Dutch businesses from the end of 1957, Britain emerged as the leading investing power in the archipelago alongside the United States. However, during Indonesia's Confrontation with British-backed Malaysia (1963–1966), most UK-owned companies in the islands were subject to a series of torrid (albeit temporary) takeovers by the trade unions and subsequently various government authorities. Most of these investments were returned to British ownership under Suharto after 1967. But, in surviving the Sukarno era, British firms had endured 15 years of increasing inconvenience and insecurity trapped in a power struggle within Indonesia's perplexing plural polity (and particularly between the Communist Party and the military). Indeed, the Konfrontasi takeovers themselves, varying in intensity from region to region and from firm to firm, were indicative of deep fissures within Indonesian administration and politics. The unpredictable and unsettled political economy of post-colonial Indonesia meant that the balance of advantage lay not with transnational enterprise but with the host state and society.

The article provides insights into financial and economic aspects of international partnerships in the defense sector. A critical review of operational practices of the largest defense companies provides evidence that subcontractor financing (in particular, in case of multi-phase contract financing or investment capital budgeting) is used only if the main contractor gains an advantage (in situations when high demand products are available only from a small, undercapitalised supplier or when a ‘critical’ product supplier faces certain financial difficulties). The findings demonstrate that working and investment capital raising practices refer more to the specifics of how companies accept payments from their customers rather than focusing on the particular military product they offer. Although the company funding needs including capital size and time investment are directly affected by the product type, the factors that drive the company needs in financing are characterised by contract duration and the specific services or products provided to customers in a package. The study suggests a well-reasoned action plan to be implemented at the government level along with specifying the areas of international cooperation to reduce the negative effects from the final severance of value chains between Ukrainian companies and the CIS defense industry. In particular, the study substantiates the need to liberalize the regulatory framework for transferring of military equipment and dual-use goods; the need to change management practices at state-owned enterprises in terms of timely disposal of inefficient assets along with asset corporatization and privatization; the need to reform the standards and technical regulation framework in the area of defense-related product design and manufacturing; the need to implement tax incentives and mandatory payments for defense industry enterprises which invest in production growth. A special emphasis is put on the role of Ukraine – NATO cooperation to modernise the national defense industry and enhance the integration of Ukrainian businesses into global production networks along with demonstrating the benefits gained from international cooperation, in particular this refers to Ukraine's access to important regulatory documents, including military doctrines, which contributes to facilitating reforms within the Armed Forces of Ukraine; approval of the package of measures which are critical to raising awareness and to support NATO partners in the Black Sea region; and finally, the recognition of Ukraine as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner in June 2020.

The paper examines interrelations developed between various authorities of Zabaikalye Oblast and Chinese immigrants who arrived here in early XX century. The author analyses the causes that had motivated the subjects of the Heavenly Empire to appear on the territory of the Russian Empire. The paper shows that the Chinese arrived here due to the simplest reason — in order to provide for their families, that had stayed at home, and with any luck, to open their businesses in Zabaikalye, like their compatriots who had settled down in Russia. The article underlines that the Chinese absolutely took up any job, being not above the most unskilled labor, what’s more, for the same payment the Russians would refuse. In the author's opinion, they made great strides in market gardening as they constantly surprised the Zabaikalye people with their coming out with fresh vegetables to be bought up quickly. Many subjects of the Heavenly Empire labored at the Zabaikalye gold workings, construction sites, including the Zabaikalye railway road, engaged in trade, marketing the products carried out from the motherland. They leased patches of land from local population, doing market gardening. One may believe that such industriousness could win respect of the Zabaikalye people. The truth was that interrelations of the authorizes with part of the Chinese evidently did not develop. Their major mass arrived to Zabaikalye and lived here with their national passports or residence permits, issued by Russian consulates in China or on the place of their stay and living. The Chinese were supposed to have similar documents constantly with them. But not all Chinese arrived legally: part of them penetrated without permitting documents, which caused headaches to civil servant of the Russia’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the military and civil authorities of Siberia, Zabaikalye, Primorye, who saw «yellow danger» in it. Those having no passports or residence permits were not allowed to pass through the border or sent back to China, they were forbidden (since 1910) to be hired for state-owned jobs.

The economics of the American aircraft manufacturing industry have been determined in large measure by government aviation policies and the market for military airplanes. This was most apparent in the 1920s, when the industry suffered from sharply reduced military orders and an almost nonexistent demand for civilian aircraft. Struggling for survival, manufacturers singled out the Naval Aircraft Factory, a large navy-owned and run facility in Philadelphia, as at least partially responsible for the dislocation of their industry; they insisted that it and other forms of “government competition” be eliminated. Professor Trimble explores in this article how the ensuing controversy caused naval and civilian officials in the 1920s to develop policies that integrated the factory into naval aircraft procurement and helped to ameliorate the problems of private aircraft contractors.

The King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) was financed and established by the US Department of Defense, is operated by a US private business, and is owned by the Jordanian army. It not only offers a base for the training of international Special Forces and Jordanian border guards, but also for military adventure holidays, corporate leadership programs, and stunt training for actors. This article provides an analysis of the processes and technologies involved in US–Jordanian military collaboration by investigating some of the ways in which war is simulated, marketed, and played at KASOTC. Particular focus is paid to the stark biopolitical judgments about the different worth of human subjects and their role in intersecting processes of militarization and commercialization. The article argues that US–Jordanian military collaboration at KASOTC is marked by the simultaneous blurring and reinforcement of boundaries, as commercial security is moralized and imagined moral hierarchies marketized. While war at KASOTC is an interactive and consumable event for some, it engenders deadly realities for others. The article is an empirically-grounded contribution to critical security studies based on interviews and observations made during a visit to KASOTC in early 2013.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to convey how the transition to market-based orientations by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly the military sector, represents a coevolutionary process between business and regulatory institutions that has an impact on both the military and civilian markets. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a longitudinal case study of a military SOE, the Aosheng Group, between 1951 and 2012 to understand the dynamics between institutions and organizations. A comparative analysis between the main stages of evolution was completed, and conclusions about the main patterns of organizational and institutional change were reached. Findings – The study reports evidence on the coevolutionary nature of change in big SOEs in China, demonstrating how institutional changes are bigger drivers in promoting reorientations than are market pressures. Within the framework of punctuated equilibrium theory, the determining role that managers may play in leading and implementing organizational reorientations is emphasized. Research limitations/implications – A triangulated methodology was employed to analyse a long period; however, its application to just a single case might be questioned in terms of generalizing any of the findings. Originality/value – The longitudinal perspective applied in this case study contributes to critical questioning as to how Chinese agencies define forms of control and the goals for SOEs under their jurisdiction and the importance of allowing managerial discretion to the assigned managers.

This research is based on Circular Letter 2/SE- HT.02.01/VI/2019, dated June 28, 2019 concerning the Granting of Building Use Rights for the Military Alliance (commanditaire vennootschap). This circular is a guideline for implementing the granting of HGB to the temporary Limited partnership companies (CV) when referring to Article 35 paragraph (1) of the Agrarian Law that Building Rights can only be owned by Indonesian Citizens and Legal Entities established under Indonesian law and domiciled in Indonesia, as also described in Article 19 Implementing Regulations, namely Government Regulation Number 40 of 1996 concerning Land Use Rights, Building Use Rights and Land Use Rights. Circular Number 2/SE-HT.02.01/VI/2019, dated June 28, 2019 concerning the granting of Building Rights for the Limited partnership companies(CV), cause a conflicts of legal norms between laws and regulations of one degree or another or between laws and regulations in a hierarchical manner. Furthermore is the arising of legal uncertainty from the description above, the problems that can be raised in this study are: What is the legal position of the Limited partnership companies (CV) according to the legal provisions in Indonesia and whether the Limited partnership companies (CV) can be used as the subject of the Right to Use. This research uses the Normative legal research method by using a type of approach in the form of a statutory approach and an analytical conceptual approach. Sources of legal materials used in this study include primary, secondary and tertiary legal sources. The results of this study indicate that the legal status of limited partnership (CV) in Indonesian law is that Limited partnership companies(CV) is not a legal entity but only as a business entity. This can be assessed based on the characteristics of the legal entity that is the separation of assets of the state-owned companies with the assets of business entities, so that the state-owned companies are only responsible for the limited assets owned. Meanwhile, in CV, all active (complementary) and passive (limited partnership) companies may be held liable for losses suffered by CV, as Article 21 of the Code of Business Lawthat said CV companies has jointly responsible and jointly responsible (CV) cannot be the

Just months after the outbreak of World War I, rumors spread throughout the Russian Empire that Singer Manufacturing Company’s wholly owned Russian subsidiary, Kompaniia Zinger, was a German company that was actively engaged in espionage on behalf of the German military. Even though these rumors were untrue, they unleashed a wave of actions against the company that Singer’s officials were unable to stop, ultimately leading to tremendous losses for the firm. The central argument of this article is that the power of the accusations of Singer’s German ties rested far more on the nature of the company’s business model than on the national affiliation of its personnel or evidence of espionage. In the context of World War I–era Russia, many Russians took Singer’s operations not as those of an international capitalist enterprise, but rather as evidence of the company’s questionable foreign character. This perspective helps us to understand why Singer’s management had such difficulty shaking the accusations of its German ties; if what was suspicious about the company was the very foundation of its business model, then its continued operation meant that it necessarily exhibited characteristics that reinforced the basis for said suspicion. These findings have implications for international business history, the history of late-Tsarist Russia, and the history of capitalism.

Spain emerged from the Civil War (1936-1939) with formidable economic problems. They were caused by military destruction, by foreign condemnation, and especially by the establishment of an autarkic system, in which the victorious Francoist side followed the political and economic path of other European fascist regimes. Despite legal restrictions, many foreign companies continued to seek out and exploit both new and old relationships in Spain, usually in association with the state-owned holding Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI). This foreign support was a major factor in ending Spain’s international isolation, increasing confidence in the Spanish economy, and removing obstacles for later growth. The purpose of this article is to analyze the collaboration between French firms and INI in the early Franco era (1940s and 1950s), identifying the main enterprises, agreements, and results. We assert that foreign assistance to Spain was present during the autarky period and highlight the continuity of the collaboration between Spain and France in those difficult years. Therefore, we defend multinationals' flexibility in adapting themselves to a hostile environment, particularly across political and economic networks with local partners.

British private investors were not inclined to view the leaders of newly independent Indonesia with much confidence. In 1949, when the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands to the Republic of Indonesia was imminent, the chairman of the United Serdang (Sumatra) Rubber Plantations disclosed the following opinion to the firm's shareholders at a gathering in London's Great Tower Street: “The Republican leaders are mainly ambitious men, whose records are well known, striving for personal aggrandizement. The measure of their interest in the welfare of the country is to be gauged by their policy of wanton destruction of life and physical assets, such as estate factories and ancillary buildings, which are essential for the restoration of the economy of the country once the political problem has been settled.” This article is about how a British enterprise dealt with the significant uncertainties prevailing in the business environment of Indonesia during the early independence period, in particular the 1950s.The economic situation in newly independent Indonesia was a peculiar one. As a major exporter of primary products in high demand such as oil and rubber, prospects were generally bright for the Indonesian economy during and after the Korean War. Just as under colonialism, a modern, large-scale sector accounting for almost 25 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) was still dominated by Dutch firms and British and American multinationals. Eight large Dutch trading companies handled 60 per cent of consumer goods imports. Nevertheless, the business climate had changed dramatically for foreign firms operating in Indonesia. The 1950s saw a gradual shift away from moderate policy-makers towards an increasingly vocal economic nationalism. The former were acutely aware of the country's dependence on foreign capital and know-how, whereas the latter relentlessly pushed for full decolonisation, that is not only in political but in economic terms. Nationalist sentiments gained the upper hand during the first cabinet of Ali Sastroamidjojo (July 1953–July 1955), culminating with the takeover of virtually all remaining Dutch-owned enterprises in Indonesia from December 1957 onwards, eventually followed by formal nationalisation in 1959. Although economic nationalism in the 1950s primarily targeted Dutch enterprises, British foreign firms were affected as well. At a later stage, in the context of the Indonesian military confrontation with Malaysia (1963–6), they were also seized, albeit not nationalised.

The metaphor of the cidade partida (fragmented or broken city), which has been used to characterize Rio de Janeiro's darker aspect—its stark inequality, its class conflicts and violence—is not new but has gained, in the last couple of decades, widespread circulation. Since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, when formal democratic practices such as free speech and open elec–tions were reestablished, it has become more obvious than ever that equal citizenship rights for all, de facto rather than on paper, are still an elusive ideal in Rio and in Brazil as a whole (as in many other places). The neoliberal economic policies of recent decades, with curtailed social spending and privatization of state-owned property, have increased poverty in Rio significantly. The arrival of the large-scale commercialization of cocaine since the late 1970s has deepened urban divisions and intensified violence. The retail end of the drug business often takes place in poor neighborhoods, or favelas. But the violence that prevails in Rio is not limited to warring drug factions or their conflicts with the police. It also inheres in unemployment and inadequate education and health care for the poor, as well as in severely flawed security, judiciary, and penal systems. All in all, the urban experience is fraught with violence and the fear of violence for all residents—though here too there is inequality, since this violence and fear affect some segments of the population far more than others.

What is a corporation? Ed Hartman momentarily hesitates, commenting that “the last thing we need is another metaphor for organizations.” The truth is that we can all too easily imagine—and will no doubt get—much worse than another metaphor or model for organizational structures, functions and behavior, but the critical question is, of course, how apt a metaphor is “the corporation as commons”? If excitement about a subject can be measured by the number of current metaphors,—witness the current overuse and abuse of the “information superhighway” image—then the nature of the corporation would still seem to be a vibrant topic. But whether a metaphor depicts business organizations as teams playing games, as free-for-alls, as military hierarchies or as “dog-eat-dog” jungles makes all the difference, not only in our understanding of organizations but in the way that the people in those organizations understand themselves and, consequently, behave and treat one another.Hartman suggests that corporations and other large organizations are a lot like, in fact are (at least metaphorically) identical to, “a commons.” This is, admittedly, not a very pretty or exciting metaphor. It is rather rural for such an urbane subject, and the metaphor of sheep farming may suggest some unintended and unfortunate images in the corporate world. But, nevertheless, the metaphor of “the commons” has the virtue of being an old, rather established philosophical and political metaphor. Indeed, it is so well established that it is no longer considered to be a metaphor. Literally, the commons is publicly owned land on which any villager’s sheep may graze. It is obviously a finite resource, and its maintenance is in the interests of all.

The objective of this panel is to provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about what they always wanted to know about the wide world of human factors consulting, but were afraid to ask (or didn’t know to ask). This session should be of interest to meeting attendees at any stage of their career, including students and those who might be considering a career change or branching out. These panelists, together, have experience over a wide range of consulting domains, as well as being individuals who are at different stages in their consulting careers. As such, the panel session will provide attendees with multiple perspectives on select topics and on responses to attendees’ questions. Sheree Gibson, PE, CPE is President of Ergonomic Applications, a small industrial ergonomics consulting firm in South Carolina. She has been a consultant for most of her professional life, working for a forensic consulting firm as well as an in-house ergonomics consultant for Michelin Tire before setting out on her own. She has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a M.S.E. in Applied Ergonomics, both from West Virginia University. She is active in the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Society of Safety Engineers and HFES. Sheree is also Vice-President of the Foundation for Professional Ergonomics. Richard Kelly, PhD earned his doctorate in Engineering Psychology from New Mexico State University and went on to work as an engineering psychologist for the Army at White Sands and then for the Navy at SPAWAR in San Diego. After about 10 years supporting large and small RDT&E programs and leading teams of scientists and engineers, he left the government to start Pacific Science & Engineering (PSE). Over the past 34 years, PSE has grown steadily from 2 to 50 employees and has been a prime contractor, subcontractor, and consultant on hundreds of projects in many different domains, including military, intelligence, industrial process, commercial, medical, education, autonomous vehicles, and more. PSE remains an independent, employee-owned company entirely focused on human performance in complex systems. The technical staff have received numerous recognitions from clients and professional groups for their outstanding work that makes a real difference for our users. Dee Miller, PhD works at Dell, Inc. in the Business Transformation Office as the Senior Principal UX & Service Design Engineer building relationships and appropriately influencing relevant internal teams and direct business contacts in the adoption of a human-centered approach to designing internal systems and processes and delivering services related to Order Experience Life Cycle. She recently started an independent consultancy called Dawn Specialty Consulting. One of the first projects of the new consultancy is consulting with a local non-profit and a police department on applying design thinking to community policing initiatives. Dee has prior experience consulting with state and federal government agencies on matters pertaining to transportation and healthcare. Tom Albin, PE, CPE, PhD is a licensed professional engineer and a certified professional ergonomist. He holds a PhD from the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. Currently the principal of High Plains Ergonomics Service, Tom has been engaged in ergonomics consulting since 2001. He has extensive experience as a researcher, a corporate ergonomist and as a product developer. He is active in the US and International Standards community, chairing the ANSI/HFES 100 computer workstation standard and serving as an accredited US expert on several ISO committees. He was Executive Director of the Office Ergonomics Research Committee from 2007 until retiring in 2018. Tom’s consulting work has been principally concerned with physical ergonomics issues in office and industrial settings. Current projects deal with evaluation of injury risk during push and pull tasks and with applied anthropometry. Topics Panelists will each be given time to introduce themselves at the beginning of the session. Each will speak for 7-10 minutes about their career path, ‘what I like best about consulting’, and ‘3-5 things I wish I had known before I started consulting’. The panel will also address the following topics: ethics, running a business (business plans, financing, insurance, legalities, managing employees, marketing, building relationships with clients, and writing contracts), and work/life balance. These topics will be introduced, in the form of questions from the moderator if/when questions from the audience are exhausted.

Many of the new states that emerged or reconstituted themselves after the First World War used declarations of independence or preliminary constitutions, or both, as organic law until the adoption of a permanent constitution. The majority of those documents did not address the civil and political rights of citizens (e.g. Germany, Ireland) or did so very briefly (e.g. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Latvia). Estonia stood out by having a whole chapter dedicated to civil rights in its preliminary constitution. The Preliminary Constitution of Estonia (valitsemise ajutine kord) was adopted by the Constituent Assembly (Asutav Kogu) on 4 June 1919, only six weeks after the Assembly first convened on 23 April 1919. The Constituent Assembly was elected and worked on the Preliminary Constitution at the time of the War of Independence between Estonia and Soviet Russia. Strong left-wing sentiment in the country’s society was reflected in the composition of the Assembly: social democrats held 41 seats, the Labour Party (tööerakond) held 30 seats, and Socialist-Revolutionaries (esseerid) held seven seats, together accounting for 65 per cent of the total 120 seats. The centrist People’s Party (rahvaerakond) led by the journalist and renowned politician Jaan Tõnisson had 25 seats, the centre-right Rural League (maaliit) led by another prominent politician and lawyer Konstantin Päts had only seven seats, the Christian People’s Party had five seats, three seats belonged to representatives of the German minority, and one seat went to the Russian minority. Similar proportions were reflected in the 15-member Constitution Committee that was elected on 24 April 1919. The first draft of the Preliminary Constitution, and of the Civil Rights Chapter as part of it, was allegedly prepared by a young legal scholar named Jüri Uluots. Uluots was a member of the Special Committee that was already convened by the Provisional Government in March of 1919 before the election of the Constituent Assembly. The Special Committee was composed of eight lawyers, each of whom was appointed by one of the major political parties. It was assigned the task to provide first drafts of the provisional and permanent constitutions. The Committee fulfilled only the first task. Due to disagreements in the Special Committee, the draft Preliminary Constitution was submitted to the Assembly without the Civil Rights Chapter. The Constituent Assembly processed the Preliminary Constitution Bill very quickly. The Assembly and its committees worked six days a week. It took about three weeks for the Constitution Committee to modify the Bill and submit it to the plenary session of the Assembly on 18 May 1919. The plenary session read the Bill three times and adopted it on 4 June 1919. The Preliminary Constitution entered into force on 9 July 1919 and was in force until 21 December 1920, when Estonia’s first Constitution entered into full force. The Committee spent considerable time on discussing the Civil Rights Chapter. Although concerns were expressed that the Committee was losing time with such discussions and suggestions were made to develop the chapter later as part of the permanent Constitution, the majority of the Committee deemed it important to also address civil rights in the Bill. Uluots, who had been elected to the Assembly as a candidate of the Rural League and was also a member of the Committee, submitted his draft Civil Rights Chapter to the Committee. Four out of eight sections in the Uluots draft found their way into the Chapter. These included equality before the law, civil and political rights and freedoms, and extraordinary restrictions. Sections regarding the right to participate in politics and the duty to obey the law (including military duty and the duty to pay taxes) were rejected at the plenary session, and the section regarding the right to private property was already omitted by the Committee. Also, the Committee preferred the social security provision proposed by the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the schoolmaster Hans Kruus, to the one included in the Uluots draft. The Committee added a new provision concerning education and rejected the right to choose occupations and engage in business proposed by a People’s Party member, the military officer Karl Einbund, and a provision entitling citizens to bring criminal charges against corrupt officials proposed by the social democrat, lawyer and journalist Johan Jans. The first section of the Uluots draft declared all citizens equal before the law. Disputes arouse over the second sentence of the provision. Uluots had proposed that all property and other rights relating to social ranks (the privileges of the nobility) should be abolished. The social democrats (Jans, the writer Karl Ast and others) demanded that privileges and titles should be abolished immediately. Their more moderate opponents (Uluots, Tõnisson, Westholm and others) feared that this would create a legal vacuum in property, inheritance and matrimonial rights. The majority of the Assembly supported the more radical approach and declared that there are no privileges and titles relating to ranks in Estonia. The law implementing the abolition was adopted a year later, in June of 1920. The school headmaster Jakob Westholm, a member of the People’s Party, and Villem Ernits, a social democrat, proposed that the Committee should include a provision concerning education. Their original proposal was scaled back by omitting the duration of mandatory elementary education and by deleting the right to free secondary and university education for talented students. The Preliminary Constitution eventually stipulated (§ 5) that education is compulsory for school age children and is free in elementary schools, and that every citizen is entitled to education in his/her mother tongue. The Committee combined civil and political rights, which were originally in two separate provisions in the Uluots draft, into one section (§ 6) stipulating that the inviolability of the person and home, secrecy of correspondence, freedom of conscience, religion, expression, language, press, assembly, association, and movement can only be restricted in accordance with the law. There were no disputes over the provision in the Committee or at the plenary session. The Committee preferred the proposal made by Kruus as the basis for further discussions on social security: “Every citizen will be guaranteed a decent standard of living according to which every citizen will have the right to receive the goods and support necessary for the satisfaction of his/her basic needs before less urgent needs of other citizens are satisfied. For that purpose, citizens must be guaranteed the obtaining of employment, the protection of motherhood and work safety, and necessary state support in the case of youth, old age, work disability and accidents.” While the last part of Kruus’ proposal was similar to Uluots’ draft and the term “decent standard of living” resembled the German menschenwürdiges Dasein (later adopted in Article 151 of the Weimar Constitution), the origin of the middle part of the provision remains unclear. The social security provision was by far the most extensively debated provision of the Chapter. The main issue was the state’s ability to fulfil its promises and whether social security should take the form of direct allowances or mandatory insurance.Views diverged even within the same parliamentary groups. The Committee replaced “will be guaranteed” with the less imperative “must be guaranteed in accordance with the law”. As a compromise, it deleted the middle part guaranteeing satisfaction of basic needs since it was deemed ‘too communist’ for many members. The plenary session supported adding the right to acquire land for cultivation and dwelling in the second sentence of the provision (§ 7) just before the adoption of the Bill. The last section in the Chapter (§ 8) provided that extraordinary restrictions of the rights and freedoms of citizens and the imposition of burdens come into force in the event of the proclamation of a state of emergency on the basis and within the limits of the corresponding laws. In the course of the discussions led by the lawyer and member of the Labour Party, Lui Olesk, the Committee turned the original general limitations clause into an emergency powers clause resembling similar provisions in the Russian Constitution of 1906 (Article 83) and the Austrian Basic Law on the General Rights of Nationals of 1867 (Article 20). Uluots urged the Committee to include protection of private property in the Bill as a safeguard against tyranny. The provision caused long and heated debates on the limits to nationalisation of private property, especially the principle of fair compensation. The provision was rejected by the majority of both the Committee and the plenary session. In anticipation of land reform, the deputies did not want to narrow down legal options for the expropriation of large estates owned mostly by the German nobility. After their defeat on the protection of private property, the right-wing members wished to protect freedom to choose an occupation and engage in business, trade, industry and agriculture. The majority refused again, arguing that during the war, there had been too much profiteering, and speculators do not deserve protection, and also that the government should have free hands to regulate industry. Without any long deliberations, the Committee also rejected the proposal to allow citizens to sue civil servants in criminal courts. Jans defended his proposal by pointing out the high level of corruption among officials and the need to provide the people with a means for self-defence. His opponents argued that Estonia had already set up administrative courts in February of 1919, providing citizens with an avenue for challenging the corrupt practices of officials. Committee and Assembly members also discussed the legal nature of the fundamental rights and freedoms included in the Bill. Some social democrats deemed it important to craft the provisions as guarantees that citizens can enforce against the state (Jans), but the majority deemed the provisions as political guidance for the legislator. Supporters of the latter view were afraid that direct enforceability of the Civil Rights Chapter would saddle the government with an unsurmountable economic burden. The state’s only directly binding obligation was probably the right to free elementary education.

"Digital sovereignty" is the idea that states should “reaffirm” their authority over the Internet and protect their citizens, institutions, and businesses from the multiple challenges to their nation’s self-determination in the digital sphere. According to this principle, sovereignty depends on more than supranational alliances or international legal instruments, military might or trade: it depends on locally-owned, controlled and operated innovation ecosystems, able to increase states’ technical and economic independence and autonomy. Presently, digital sovereignty is understood primarily as a legal concept and a set of political discourses. As a consequence, it is predominantly analysed by political science, international relations and international law. However, the study of digital sovereignty as a set of infrastructures and socio-material practices has been largely neglected. In this proposal, I argue that the concept of (digital) sovereignty should also be studied via the infrastructure-embedded “situated practices” of various political and economic projects which aim to establish autonomous digital infrastructures in a hyperconnected world. Although this contribution is also a call for a wider and comparative research programme, I will focus here on the “pilot case” of Russia, which is the subject of an ongoing research project. Ultimately, the analysis of infrastructure-embedded digital sovereignty practices in Russia shows how the Russian discourse on Internet sovereignty as a centralized and top-down apparatus paradoxically open up technical and legal opportunities for mundane resistances and the existence of “parallel” Runets, where particular instantiations of informational freedom are still possible.

In July 2013, a widely celebrated military coup took place in Egypt – only two and a half years after the 2011 Revolution. This article investigates the hegemonic power of the private press owned by Egypt’s business elite during the coup period. In the context of this research objective, this study answers the question of “how did Egypt’s private press provide popular support to the 2013 military coup?” through following a critical approach and conducting framing analysis of news headlines in a period of 112 days. This article examines the popular privately-owned newspapers al-Masry al-Youm and al-Watan as the main case studies. Findings show that Egypt’s business elite engaged in significant news framing in support of the 2013 military coup - for the purpose of maintaining their hegemonic position in the country. They particularly used the frame of “fear” (of the Muslim Brotherhood, potential violence and political chaos) and the frame of “promotion” by portraying the military as a saviour.

This article aims at critically analysing the hegemony of Egypt’s business elite and the private press they own following Mubarak’s fall. Hegemony requires the exercise of power to maintain consent under changing conditions such as the 2011 uprising and the 2013 military coup. This study answers the question of “why and how Egypt’s business elite controls the post-Mubarak press?”. Situated within the interdisciplinary domain of “critical political economy of communication”, this article focuses on the two most popular privately-owned newspapers al-Masry al-Youm and al-Watan. Interviews with high-profile sources have been conducted and embedded into the research. Findings show that the Egyptian private press, particularly in the post-Mubarak era, is closely controlled by the business elite in favour of their interests, and indirectly in favour of the political elite – whether civilian or military. The sector’s hegemonic position was briefly shaken by the 2011 uprising, then quickly maintained and reinforced before the 2013 coup.

This article aims at critically analysing the hegemony of Egypt‟s business elite and the private press they own following Mubarak‟s fall. Hegemony requires the exercise of power to maintain consent under changing conditions such as the 2011 uprising and the 2013 military coup. This study answers the question of “why and how Egypt‟s business elite controls the post-Mubarak press?”. Situated within the interdisciplinary domain of “critical political economy of communication”, this article focuses on the two most popular privately-owned newspapers al-Masry al-Youm and al-Watan. Interviews with high-profile sources have been conducted and embedded into the research. Findings show that the Egyptian private press, particularly in the post-Mubarak era, is closely controlled by the business elite in favour of their interests, and indirectly in favour of the political elite – whether civilian or military. The sector‟s hegemonic position was briefly shaken by the 2011 uprising, then quickly maintained and reinforced before the 2013 coup.

Abstract We study whether crony governance can extend beyond economic policy to the targeting of state violence against citizens. Specifically, we examine the logic driving the choice of firm-level union representatives who were subjected to state repression by the 1976–1983 Argentine military junta. Using an original dataset, we find a positive, nonspurious, and robust correlation between labor repression and cronyism, measured by political, business, and social connections to the regime. Our results indicate that the number of firm-level union representatives victimized by the regime is three times higher for connected firms relative to nonconnected ones. The effect is pronounced in privately owned (as opposed to state-owned) firms, suggesting that the correlation is driven by cronyism for financial gain rather than ideology or information transmission. We show that connected firms benefited from violence against union representatives by subsequently having less strikes and a higher market valuation. Our findings highlight the pervasiveness of governmental cronyism, even in cases where one of the regime's main stated goals was to curb such behavior.

It is often heard, and even more often seen written, for example on social media, that that there is nothing new in the competitive intelligence (CI) field. There are no new ideas, the ideas that are being expressed are the same old, there is no development, there is, at best, stagnation. Even the old claim that CI is dead[1] reappears with a certain frequency[2]: “Competitive intelligence as a profession is dead. There are fewer and fewer full-time, dedicated CI professionals in organizations, and even fewer legitimate CI departments or functions. The need to understand an organization’s competitors has been diffused to several other functions including market research, finance, sales, R&D and others. What the founders of the profession - Jan Herring, Leonard Fuld, and Ben Gilad - built through the 80s and 90s no longer exists. And organizations are the worse off for it”[3]. Is this true? Yes and No. From a research perspective CI has developed and emerged with information technology (IT) solutions over the past ten years. It has come to the point where it does not make much sense to talk about new CI practices. Most advancements and developments are now about IT solutions and applications. This has again given rise to a whole new world of intelligence related problems and opportunities, not only for engineers but for users of these technologies. It is probably fair to say that the intelligence perspective has never been as important for businesses as it is today. Companies and organizations have never collected and analyzed as much information. Another way to explain this development is to say that CI has evolved, thus is no longer the same. Trying to look for the same or insisting that it has not changed gives the impression that there is nothing new in CI. CI consists of an interesting body of literature, but it was not the first term to deal with questions of intelligence in private organizations, and it is not the last. Before CI there was social intelligence, strategic intelligence and corporate intelligence with their own consultants and literature. As Sawka rightly points out CI was a label used in the 80s and 90s. Other terms used include market intelligence, marketing intelligence, business intelligence, collective intelligence, financial intelligence, scientific and technical intelligence, foresight, insight, and equivalent terms in other languages, like “l’information stratégique et de la sécurité économiques” (Sisse) [previously “intelligence économique"], “veille” in French and “omvärldsanalys” in Swedish. All these fields, where a field is defined as a body of literature, basically study the same phenomenon, how to gather information to make better decisions. As such intelligence studies is a part of the information age. The information age gave birth to several bodies of literature, of which the more established include information systems, management information systems and customer relations management. The intelligence perspective never really caught on among business scholars, maybe because it was associated with industrial espionage. The intelligence parallel in business is also a bet, the argument that private organizations are better organized as intelligence organizations, much like in state and/or military organizations. The idea is that this will give better information, which again will lead to a competitive advantage. So far, this bet has not caught on. Business organizations continue to be organized much as they were a hundred years ago: into production, sales, marketing, HR, finance and accounting. However, the way people work in all of these departments with ever larger amounts of information and data is starting to look more like intelligence operatives with their extensive system of files. In other words, the CI position never really saw a breakthrough, but CI has become an ever more important part of employees’ jobs, as a function.How can we then explain the frequently raised discussion related to the problems of CI? Let me suggest two answers, one general, the other more specific. Once we create something, we insist that it has either to exist, as it is, or it must disappear, thus at the end it is declared dead. This is the western mind at work, thinking in dichotomies, a thing either exist or it does not exist. There is no room for evolution, only constants. If a phenomenon such as a discipline evolves, we shouldn’t say that it’s dead, it just isn’t the same anymore, and nothing is more natural than that. So, what must change is rather the way in which we think about the fields we study. The other suggestion is that the critic of CI has more to do with another problem, the selling of consulting services. The market for consultancy services is highly segmented and fiercely competitive. As consultants we are trying to make a name for ourselves in a niche we can call our own and strive to be an acknowledged expert in it. This takes years, often a whole career. Academic careers are created much according to the same logic so the problem is the same there. The underlying message is “this is my area”, my niche, and as such I will defend it. What often happens is that another persons’ or group’s area grows into our own and sometimes is better at explaining the reality of our business problem, thus challenging our very raison d'être. Instead we insist that we are still relevant refusing to read up on other areas. We cease to be curious and the very business problems we study pass on to others. Some would argue this is what happened to CI.So, where is CI today? There certainly are many answers to this question. One suggestion is that it is more often treated as business intelligence again (it very much started there, but then without the IT association), data mining, search engine optimization, social media marketing and digital marketing in general. It suffices to look at the articles in this issue to find other examples: Bleoju et al. write about how MOOCs can be used to teach intelligence. Sperkova writes about customer experience (CX) and voice of customer (VoC). Poblano-Ojinaga et al. write about structural equation modeling for the identification of the intelligence factors. All authors have that in common that the are studying how organizations handle intelligence.In more detail, the first article by Bleoju et al. entitled “Empirical evidence from a connectivist competitive intelligence massive open online course (CI cMOOC) proof of concept” reveals how “the CI learning community perceives the capability of a cMOOC to train foreknowledge practices, given the best match between its content and context.” The paper argues for “an open intelligence approach to cMOOC collective training.”The second article by Maune entitled “Competitive intelligence as a game changer for Africa’s competitiveness in the global economy” develops a conceptual framework for how competitive intelligence can be adopted by African countries to improve their performance in the global economy.The third article by Sperkova entitled “Integration of textual VoC into a CX data model for business intelligence use in B2C” is a summary of her PhD, which will be defended in February 2020 at the University of Economics in Prague, the Department of Information Technologies. The author presents a model to store the customer experience (CX) and voice of customer (VoC) data as part of a business intelligence system. The model can help to improve customer relationships and make future performance more automatic and effective.The fourth article by Palilingan and Batmetan Entitled “How competitive intelligence can be used to improve a management vocational high school: A case from Indonesia” shows how competitive intelligence can be applied to make a vocational high school more efficient.The fifth and last article by Poblano-Ojinaga et al. entitled “Effect of the competitive intelligence on the innovation capability: an exploratory study in Mexican companies”, is an investigation using a methodology of structural equation modeling for the identification of the intelligence factors, to evaluate their relative importance and relationships with the innovation capability of Mexican companies. The empirical results show that the relationship between competitive intelligence and the innovation capability is indirect, with knowledge management as a mediating factor.Some news worth mentioning: we would like to thank the Swedish Research Council/ NOP-HS for receiving the “large” grant for Open Access journals for two years starting in 2020. JISIB is now indexed by Crossref, which should give users direct access to PDF full text through databases like Scopus and Web of Science. The SCIP organization, owned by Frost & Sullivan, has been reignited with a new executive director. We wish them good luck. There are numerous conferences on intelligence related topics this spring and next winter. See the JISIB website for details. Some of the editors of JISIB will be at the ICI in Bad Nauheim 11-14 May 2020. We hope to see you there.As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Thanks to Dr. Allison Perrigo for reviewing English grammar and helping with layout design for all articles.[1] Sawka, Kenneth. (2010). The death of the competitive intelligence professional. Outward Insights, 13(2), 36-39.[2] Sawka, Kenneth. The death of the competitive intelligence professional. Retrieved January 30, 2020 from https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6627549366062194688[3] Idem

IntroductionIn this article, I set out to accomplish two tasks. The first is to map coffee and cafés in Mainland China in different historical periods. The second is to focus on coffee and cafés in the socio-cultural milieu of contemporary China in order to understand the symbolic value of the emerging coffee/café-scape. Cafés, rather than coffee, are at the centre of this current trend in contemporary Chinese cities. With instant coffee dominating as a drink, the Chinese have developed a cultural and social demand for cafés, but have not yet developed coffee palates. Historical Coffee Map In 1901, coffee was served in a restaurant in the city of Tianjin. This restaurant, named Kiessling, was run by a German chef, a former solider who came to China with the eight-nation alliance. At that time, coffee was reserved mostly for foreign politicians and military officials as well as wealthy businessmen—very few ordinary Chinese drank it. (For more history of Kiessling, including pictures and videos, see Kiessling). Another group of coffee consumers were from the cultural elites—the young revolutionary intellectuals and writers with overseas experience. It was almost a fashion among the literary elite to spend time in cafés. However, this was negatively judged as “Western” and “bourgeois.” For example, in 1932, Lu Xun, one of the most important twentieth century Chinese writers, commented on the café fashion during 1920s (133-36), and listed the reasons why he would not visit one. He did not drink coffee because it was “foreigners’ food”, and he was too busy writing for the kind of leisure enjoyed in cafés. Moreover, he did not, he wrote, have the nerve to go to a café, and particularly not the Revolutionary Café that was popular among cultural celebrities at that time. He claimed that the “paradise” of the café was for genius, and for handsome revolutionary writers (who he described as having red lips and white teeth, whereas his teeth were yellow). His final complaint was that even if he went to the Revolutionary Café, he would hesitate going in (Lu Xun 133-36). From Lu Xun’s list, we can recognise his nationalism and resistance to what were identified as Western foods and lifestyles. It is easy to also feel his dissatisfaction with those dilettante revolutionary intellectuals who spent time in cafés, talking and enjoying Western food, rather than working. In contrast to Lu Xun’s resistance to coffee and café culture, another well-known writer, Zhang Ailing, frequented cafés when she lived in Shanghai from the 1920s to 1950s. She wrote about the smell of cakes and bread sold in Kiessling’s branch store located right next to her parents’ house (Yuyue). Born into a wealthy family, exposed to Western culture and food at a very young age, Zhang Ailing liked to spend her social and writing time in cafés, ordering her favourite cakes, hot chocolate, and coffee. When she left Shanghai and immigrated to the USA, coffee was an important part of her writing life: the smell and taste reminding her of old friends and Shanghai (Chunzi). However, during Zhang’s time, it was still a privileged and elite practice to patronise a café when these were located in foreign settlements with foreign chefs, and served mainly foreigners, wealthy businessmen, and cultural celebrities. After 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China, until the late 1970s, there were no coffee shops in Mainland China. It was only when Deng Xiaoping suggested neo-liberalism as a so-called “reform-and-open-up” economic policy that foreign commerce and products were again seen in China. In 1988, ten years after the implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s policy, the Nestlé coffee company made the first inroads into the mainland market, featuring homegrown coffee beans in Yunnan province (China Beverage News; Dong; ITC). Nestlé’s bottled instant coffee found its way into the Chinese market, avoiding a direct challenge to the tea culture. Nestlé packaged its coffee to resemble health food products and marketed it as a holiday gift suitable for friends and relatives. As a symbol of modernity and “the West”, coffee-as-gift meshed with the traditional Chinese cultural custom that values gift giving. It also satisfied a collective desire for foreign products (and contact with foreign cultures) during the economic reform era. Even today, with its competitively low price, instant coffee dominates coffee consumption at home, in the workplace, and on Chinese airlines. While Nestlé aimed their product at native Chinese consumers, the multinational companies who later entered China’s coffee market, such as Sara Lee, mainly targeted international hotels such as IHG, Marriott, and Hyatt. The multinationals also favoured coffee shops like Kommune in Shanghai that offered more sophisticated kinds of coffee to foreign consumers and China’s upper class (Byers). If Nestlé introduced coffee to ordinary Chinese families, it was Starbucks who introduced the coffee-based “third space” to urban life in contemporary China on a signficant scale. Differing from the cafés before 1949, Starbucks stores are accessible to ordinary Chinese citizens. The first in Mainland China opened in Beijing’s China World Trade Center in January 1999, targeting mainly white-collar workers and foreigners. Starbucks coffee shops provide a space for informal business meetings, chatting with friends, and relaxing and, with its 500th store opened in 2011, dominate the field in China. Starbucks are located mainly in the central business districts and airports, and the company plans to have 1,500 sites by 2015 (Starbucks). Despite this massive presence, Starbucks constitutes only part of the café-scape in contemporary Chinese cities. There are two other kinds of cafés. One type is usually located in universities or residential areas and is frequented mainly by students or locals working in cultural professions. A representative of this kind is Sculpting in Time Café. In November 1997, two years before the opening of the first Starbucks in Beijing, two newlywed college graduates opened the first small Sculpting in Time Café near Beijing University’s East Gate. This has been expanded into a chain, and boasts 18 branches on the Mainland. (For more about its history, see Sculpting in Time Café). Interestingly, both Starbucks and Sculpting in Time Café acquired their names from literature, Starbucks from Moby Dick, and Sculpting in Time from the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s film diary of the same name. For Chinese students of literature and the arts, drinking coffee is less about acquiring more energy to accomplish their work, and more about entering a sensual world, where the aroma of coffee mixes with the sounds from the coffee machine and music, as well as the lighting of the space. More importantly, cafés with this ambience become, in themselves, cultural sites associated with literature, films, and music. Owners of this kind of café are often lovers of foreign literatures, films, and cultures, and their cafés host various cultural events, including forums, book clubs, movie screenings, and music clubs. Generally speaking, coffee served in this kind of café is simpler than in the kind discussed below. This third type of café includes those located in tourist and entertainment sites such as art districts, bar areas, and historical sites, and which are frequented by foreign and native tourists, artists and other cultural workers. If Starbucks cultivates a fast-paced business/professional atmosphere, and Sculpting in Time Cafés an artsy and literary atmosphere, this third kind of café is more like an upscale “bar” with trained baristas serving complicated coffees and emphasising their flavour. These coffee shops are more expensive than the other kinds, with an average price three times that of Starbucks. Currently, cafés of this type are found only in “first-tier” cities and usually located in art districts and tourist areas—such as Beijing’s 798 Art District and Nanluo Guxiang, Shanghai’s Tai Kang Road (a.k.a. “the art street”), and Hangzhou’s Westlake area. While Nestlé and Starbucks use coffee beans grown in Yunnan provinces, these “art cafés” are more inclined to use imported coffee beans from suppliers like Sara Lee. Coffee and Cafés in Contemporary China After just ten years, there are hundreds of cafés in Chinese cities. Why has there been such a demand for coffee or, more accurately, cafés, in such a short period of time? The first reason is the lack of “third space” environments in Mainland China. Before cafés appeared in the late 1990s, stores like KFC (which opened its first store in 1987) and McDonald’s (with its first store opened in 1990) filled this role for urban residents, providing locations where customers could experience Western food, meet friends, work, or read. In fact, KFC and McDonald’s were once very popular with college students looking for a place to study. Both stores had relatively clean food environments and good lighting. They also had air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, which are not provided in most Chinese university dormitories. However, since neither chain was set up to be a café and customers occupying seats for long periods while ordering minimal amounts of food or drink affected profits, staff members began to indirectly ask customers to leave after dining. At the same time, as more people were able to afford to eat at KFC and McDonald’s, their fast foods were also becoming more and more popular, especially among young people. As a consequence, both types of chain restaurant were becoming noisy and crowded and, thus, no longer ideal for reading, studying, or meeting with friends. Although tea has been a traditional drink in Chinese culture, traditional teahouses were expensive places more suitable for business meetings or for the cultural or intellectual elite. Since almost every family owns a tea set and can readily purchase tea, friends and family would usually make and consume tea at home. In recent years, however, new kinds of teahouses have emerged, similar in style to cafés, targeting the younger generation with more affordable prices and a wider range of choices, so the lack of a “third space” does not fully explain the café boom. Another factor affecting the popularity of cafés has been the development and uptake of Internet technology, including the increasing use of laptops and wireless Internet in recent years. The Internet has been available in China since the late 1990s, while computers and then laptops entered ordinary Chinese homes in the early twenty-first century. The IT industry has created not only a new field of research and production, but has also fostered new professions and demands. Particularly, in recent years in Mainland China, a new socially acceptable profession—freelancing in such areas as graphic design, photography, writing, film, music, and the fashion industry—has emerged. Most freelancers’ work is computer- and Internet-based. Cafés provide suitable working space, with wireless service, and the bonus of coffee that is, first of all, somatically stimulating. In addition, the emergence of the creative and cultural industries (which are supported by the Chinese government) has created work for these freelancers and, arguably, an increasing demand for café-based third spaces where such people can meet, talk and work. Furthermore, the flourishing of cafés in first-tier cities is part of the “aesthetic economy” (Lloyd 24) that caters to the making and selling of lifestyle experience. Alongside foreign restaurants, bars, galleries, and design firms, cafés contribute to city branding, and link a city to the global urban network. Cafés, like restaurants, galleries and bars, provide a space for the flow of global commodities, as well as for the human flow of tourists, travelling artists, freelancers, and cultural specialists. Finally, cafés provide a type of service that contributes to friendly owner/waiter-customer relations. During the planned-economy era, most stores and hotels in China were State-owned, staff salaries were not related to individual performance, and indifferent (and even unfriendly) service was common. During the economic reform era, privately owned stores and shops began to replace State-owned ones. At the same time, a large number of people from the countryside flowed into the cities seeking opportunities. Most had little if any professional training and so could only find work in factories or in the service industry. However, most café employees are urban, with better educational backgrounds, and many were already familiar with coffee culture. In addition, café owners, particularly those of places like Sculpting in Time Cafe, often invest in creating a positive, community atmosphere, learning about their customers and sharing personal experiences with their regular clients. This leads to my next point—the generation of the 1980s’ need for a social community. Cafés’ Symbolic Value—Community A demand for a sense of community among the generation of the 1980s is a unique socio-cultural phenomenon in China, which paradoxically co-exists with their desire for individualism. Mao Zedong started the “One Child Policy” in 1979 to slow the rapid population growth in China, and the generations born under this policy are often called “the lonely generations,” with both parents working full-time. At the same time, they are “the generation of me,” labelled as spoiled, self-centred, and obsessed with consumption (de Kloet; Liu; Rofel; Wang). The individuals of this generation, now aged in their 20s and 30s, constitute the primary consumers of coffee in China. Whereas individualism is an important value to them, a sense of community is also desirable in order to compensate for their lack of siblings. Furthermore, the 1980s’ generation has also benefitted from the university expansion policy implemented in 1999. Since then, China has witnessed a surge of university students and graduates who not only received scientific and other course-based knowledge, but also had a better chance to be exposed to foreign cultures through their books, music, and movies. With this interesting tension between individualism and collectivism, the atmosphere provided by cafés has fostered a series of curious temporary communities built on cultural and culinary taste. Interestingly, it has become an aspiration of many young college students and graduates to open a community-space style café in a city. One of the best examples is the new Henduoren’s (Many People’s) Café. This was a project initiated by Wen Erniu, a recent college graduate who wanted to open a café in Beijing but did not have sufficient funds to do so. She posted a message on the Internet, asking people to invest a minimum of US$316 to open a café with her. With 78 investors, the café opened in September 2011 in Beijing (see pictures of Henduoren’s Café). In an interview with the China Daily, Wen Erniu stated that, “To open a cafe was a dream of mine, but I could not afford it […] We thought opening a cafe might be many people’s dream […] and we could get together via the Internet to make it come true” (quoted in Liu 2011). Conclusion: Café Culture and (Instant) Coffee in China There is a Chinese saying that, if you hate someone—just persuade him or her to open a coffee shop. Since cafés provide spaces where one can spend a relatively long time for little financial outlay, owners have to increase prices to cover their expenses. This can result in fewer customers. In retaliation, cafés—particularly those with cultural and literary ambience—host cultural events to attract people, and/or they offer food and wine along with coffee. The high prices, however, remain. In fact, the average price of coffee in China is often higher than in Europe and North America. For example, a medium Starbucks’ caffè latte in China averaged around US$4.40 in 2010, according to the price list of a Starbucks outlet in Shanghai—and the prices has recently increased again (Xinhua 2012). This partially explains why instant coffee is still so popular in China. A bag of instant Nestlé coffee cost only some US$0.25 in a Beijing supermarket in 2010, and requires only hot water, which is accessible free almost everywhere in China, in any restaurant, office building, or household. As an habitual, addictive treat, however, coffee has not yet become a customary, let alone necessary, drink for most Chinese. Moreover, while many, especially those of the older generations, could discern the quality and varieties of tea, very few can judge the quality of the coffee served in cafés. As a result, few Mainland Chinese coffee consumers have a purely somatic demand for coffee—craving its smell or taste—and the highly sweetened and creamed instant coffee offered by companies like Nestlé or Maxwell has largely shaped the current Chinese palate for coffee. Ben Highmore has proposed that “food spaces (shops, restaurants and so on) can be seen, for some social agents, as a potential space where new ‘not-me’ worlds are encountered” (396) He continues to expand that “how these potential spaces are negotiated—the various affective registers of experience (joy, aggression, fear)—reflect the multicultural shapes of a culture (its racism, its openness, its acceptance of difference)” (396). Cafés in contemporary China provide spaces where one encounters and constructs new “not-me” worlds, and more importantly, new “with-me” worlds. While café-going communicates an appreciation and desire for new lifestyles and new selves, it can be hoped that in the near future, coffee will also be appreciated for its smell, taste, and other benefits. Of course, it is also necessary that future Chinese coffee consumers also recognise the rich and complex cultural, political, and social issues behind the coffee economy in the era of globalisation. References Byers, Paul [former Managing Director, Sara Lee’s Asia Pacific]. Pers. comm. Apr. 2012. China Beverage News. “Nestlé Acquires 70% Stake in Chinese Mineral Water Producer.” (2010). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://chinabevnews.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/nestle-acquires-70-stake-in-chinese-mineral-water-producer›. Chunzi. 张爱玲地图[The Map of Eileen Chang]. 汉语大词典出版 [Hanyu Dacidian Chubanshe], 2003. de Kloet, Jeroen. China with a Cut: Globalization, Urban Youth and Popular Music. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2010. Dong, Jonathan. “A Caffeinated Timeline: Developing Yunnan’s Coffee Cultivation.” China Brief (2011): 24-26. Highmore, Ben. “Alimentary Agents: Food, Cultural Theory and Multiculturalism.” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29.4 (2008): 381-98. ITC (International Trade Center). The Coffee Sector in China: An Overview of Production, Trade And Consumption, 2010. Liu, Kang. Globalization and Cultural Trends in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. Liu, Zhihu. “From Virtual to Reality.” China Daily (Dec. 2011) 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-12/26/content_14326490.htm›. Lloyd, Richard. Neobohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. London: Routledge, 2006. Lu, Xun. “Geming Kafei Guan [Revolutionary Café]”. San Xian Ji. Taibei Shi: Feng Yun Shi Dai Chu Ban Gong Si: Fa Xing Suo Xue Wen Hua Gong Si, Mingguo 78 (1989): 133-36. Rofel, Lisa. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2007: 1-30. “Starbucks Celebrates Its 500th Store Opening in Mainland China.” Starbucks Newsroom (Oct. 2011) 31 Mar. 2012. ‹http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=580›. Wang, Jing. High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: U of California P, 1996. Xinhua. “Starbucks Raises Coffee Prices in China Stores.” Xinhua News (Jan. 2012). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-01/31/c_131384671.htm›. Yuyue. Ed. “On the History of the Western-Style Restaurants: Aileen Chang A Frequent Customer of Kiessling.” China.com.cn (2010). 31 Mar. 2012 ‹http://www.china.com.cn/culture/txt/2010-01/30/content_19334964.htm›.

Each community’s title deed carries the indelible blood stains of our ancestors. (Watson, "Howard’s End" 2)IntroductionAccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term coalition comes from the Latin coalescere or ‘coalesce’, meaning “come or bring together to form one mass or whole”. Coalesce refers to the unity affirmed as something grows: co – “together”, alesce – “to grow up”. While coalition is commonly associated with formalised alliances and political strategy in the name of self-interest and common goals, this paper will draw as well on the broader etymological understanding of coalition as “growing together” in order to discuss the Australian government’s recent changes to land rights legislation, the 2007 Emergency Intervention into the Northern Territory, and its decision to use Indigenous land in the Northern Territory as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. What unites these distinct cases is the role of the Australian nation-state in asserting its sovereign right to decide, something Giorgio Agamben notes is the primary indicator of sovereign right and power (Agamben). As Fiona McAllan has argued in relation to the Northern Territory Intervention: “Various forces that had been coalescing and captivating the moral, imaginary centre were now contributing to a spectacular enactment of a sovereign rescue mission” (par. 18). Different visions of “growing together”, and different coalitional strategies, are played out in public debate and policy formation. This paper will argue that each of these cases represents an alliance between successive, oppositional governments - and the nourishment of neoliberal imperatives - over and against the interests of some of the Indigenous communities, especially with relation to land rights. A critical stance is taken in relation to the alterations to land rights laws over the past five years and with the Northern Territory Emergency Intervention, hereinafter referred to as the Intervention, firstly by the Howard Liberal Coalition Government and later continued, in what Anthony Lambert has usefully termed a “postcoalitional” fashion, by the Rudd Labor Government. By this, Lambert refers to the manner in which dominant relations of power continue despite the apparent collapse of old political coalitions and even in the face of seemingly progressive symbolic and material change. It is not the intention of this paper to locate Indigenous people in opposition to models of economic development aligned with neoliberalism. There are examples of productive relations between Indigenous communities and mining companies, in which Indigenous people retain control over decision-making and utilise Land Council’s to negotiate effectively. Major mining company Rio Tinto, for example, initiated an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Policy platform in the mid-1990s (Rio Tinto). Moreover, there are diverse perspectives within the Indigenous community regarding social and economic reform governed by neoliberal agendas as well as government initiatives such as the Intervention, motivated by a concern for the abuse of children, as outlined in The Little Children Are Sacred Report (Wild & Anderson; hereinafter Little Children). Indeed, there is no agreement on whether or not the Intervention had anything to do with land rights. On the one hand, Noel Pearson has strongly opposed this assertion: “I've got as much objections as anybody to the ideological prejudices of the Howard Government in relation to land, but this question is not about a 'land grab'. The Anderson Wild Report tells us about the scale of Aboriginal children's neglect and abuse" (ABC). Marcia Langton has agreed with this stating that “There's a cynical view afoot that the emergency intervention was a political ploy - a Trojan Horse - to sneak through land grabs and some gratuitous black head-kicking disguised as concern for children. These conspiracy theories abound, and they are mostly ridiculous” (Langton). Patrick Dodson on the other hand, has argued that yes, of course, the children remain the highest priority, but that this “is undermined by the Government's heavy-handed authoritarian intervention and its ideological and deceptive land reform agenda” (Dodson). WhitenessOne way to frame this issue is to look at it through the lens of critical race and whiteness theory. Is it possible that the interests of whiteness are at play in the coalitions of corporate/private enterprise and political interests in the Northern Territory, in the coupling of social conservatism and economic rationalism? Using this framework allows us to identify the partial interests at play and the implications of this for discussions in Australia around sovereignty and self-determination, as well as providing a discursive framework through which to understand how these coalitional interests represent a specific understanding of progress, growth and development. Whiteness theory takes an empirically informed stance in order to critique the operation of unequal power relations and discriminatory practices imbued in racialised structures. Whiteness and critical race theory take the twin interests of racial privileging and racial discrimination and discuss their historical and on-going relevance for law, philosophy, representation, media, politics and policy. Foregrounding contemporary analysis in whiteness studies is the central role of race in the development of the Australian nation, most evident in the dispossession and destruction of Indigenous lands, cultures and lives, which occurred initially prior to Federation, as well as following. Cheryl Harris’s landmark paper “Whiteness as Property” argues, in the context of the US, that “the origins of property rights ... are rooted in racial domination” and that the “interaction between conceptions of race and property ... played a critical role in establishing and maintaining racial and economic subordination” (Harris 1716).Reiterating the logic of racial inferiority and the assumption of a lack of rationality and civility, Indigenous people were named in the Australian Constitution as “flora and fauna” – which was not overturned until a national referendum in 1967. This, coupled with the logic of terra nullius represents the racist foundational logic of Australian statehood. As is well known, terra nullius declared that the land belonged to no-one, denying Indigenous people property rights over land. Whiteness, Moreton-Robinson contends, “is constitutive of the epistemology of the West; it is an invisible regime of power that secures hegemony through discourse and has material effects in everyday life” (Whiteness 75).In addition to analysing racial power structures, critical race theory has presented studies into the link between race, whiteness and neoliberalism. Roberts and Mahtami argue that it is not just that neoliberalism has racialised effects, rather that neoliberalism and its underlying philosophy is “fundamentally raced and produces racialized bodies” (248; also see Goldberg Threat). The effect of the free market on state sovereignty has been hotly debated too. Aihwa Ong contends that neoliberalism produces particular relationships between the state and non-state corporations, as well as determining the role of individuals within the body-politic. Ong specifies:Market-driven logic induces the co-ordination of political policies with the corporate interests, so that developmental discussions favour the fragmentation of the national space into various contiguous zones, and promote the differential regulation of the populations who can be connected to or disconnected from global circuits of capital. (Ong, Neoliberalism 77)So how is whiteness relevant to a discussion of land reform, and to the changes to land rights passed along with Intervention legislation in 2007? Irene Watson cites the former Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, who opposed the progressive individual with what he termed the “failed collective.” Watson asserts that in the debates around land leasing and the Intervention, “Aboriginal law and traditional roles and responsibilities for caring and belonging to country are transformed into the cause for community violence” (Sovereign Spaces 34). The effects of this, I will argue, are twofold and move beyond a moral or social agenda in the strictest sense of the terms: firstly to promote, and make more accessible, the possibility of private and government coalitions in relation to Indigenous lands, and secondly, to reinforce the sovereignty of the state, recognised in the capacity to make decisions. It is here that the explicit reiteration of what Aileen Moreton-Robinson calls “white possession” is clearly evidenced (The Possessive Logic). Sovereign Interventions In the Northern Territory 50% of land is owned by Indigenous people under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 (ALRA) (NT). This law gives Indigenous people control, mediated via land councils, over their lands. It is the contention of this paper that the rights enabled through this law have been eroded in recent times in the coalescing interests of government and private enterprise via, broadly, land rights reform measures. In August 2007 the government passed a number of laws that overturned aspects of the Racial Discrimination Act 197 5(RDA), including the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007. Ostensibly these laws were a response to evidence of alarming levels of child abuse in remote Indigenous communities, which has been compiled in the special report Little Children, co-chaired by Rex Wild QC and Patricia Anderson. This report argued that urgent but culturally appropriate strategies were required in order to assist the local communities in tackling the issues. The recommendations of the report did not include military intervention, and instead prioritised the need to support and work in dialogue with local Indigenous people and organisations who were already attempting, with extremely limited resources, to challenge the problem. Specifically it stated that:The thrust of our recommendations, which are designed to advise the NT government on how it can help support communities to effectively prevent and tackle child sexual abuse, is for there to be consultation with, and ownership by the local communities, of these solutions. (Wild & Anderson 23) Instead, the Federal Coalition government, with support from the opposition Labor Party, initiated a large scale intervention, which included the deployment of the military, to install order and assist medical personnel to carry out compulsory health checks on minors. The intervention affected 73 communities with populations of over 200 Aboriginal men, women and children (Altman, Neo-Paternalism 8). The reality of high levels of domestic and sexual abuse in Indigenous communities requires urgent and diligent attention, but it is not the space of this paper to unpack the media spectacle or the politically determined response to these serious issues, or the considered and careful reports such as the one cited above. While the report specifies the need for local solutions and local control of the process and decision-making, the Federal Liberal Coalition government’s intervention, and the current Labor government’s faithfulness to these, has been centralised and external, imposed upon communities. Rebecca Stringer argues that the Trojan horse thesis indicates what is at stake in this Intervention, while also pinpointing its main weakness. That is, the counter-intuitive links its architects make between addressing child sexual abuse and re-litigating Indigenous land tenure and governance arrangements in a manner that undermines Aboriginal sovereignty and further opens Aboriginal lands to private interests among the mining, nuclear power, tourism, property development and labour brokerage industries. (par. 8)Alongside welfare quarantining for all Indigenous people, was a decision by parliament to overturn the “permit system”, a legal protocol provided by the ALRA and in place so as to enable Indigenous peoples the right to refuse and grant entry to strangers wanting to access their lands. To place this in a broader context of land rights reform, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 2006, created the possibility of 99 year individual leases, at the expense of communal ownership. The legislation operates as a way of individualising the land arrangements in remote Indigenous communities by opening communal land up as private plots able to be bought by Aboriginal people or any other interested party. Indeed, according to Leon Terrill, land reform in Australia over the past 10 years reflects an attempt to return control of decision-making to government bureaucracy, even as governments have downplayed this aspect. Terrill argues that Township Leasing (enabled via the 2006 legislation), takes “wholesale decision-making about land use” away from Traditional Owners and instead places it in the hands of a government entity called the Executive Director of Township Leasing (3). With the passage of legislation around the Intervention, five year leases were created to enable the Commonwealth “administrative control” over the communities affected (Terrill 3). Finally, under the current changes it is unlikely that more than a small percentage of Aboriginal people will be able to access individual land leasing. Moreover, the argument has been presented that these reforms reflect a broader project aimed at replacing communal land ownership arrangements. This agenda has been justified at a rhetorical level via the demonization of communal land ownership arrangements. Helen Hughes and Jenness Warin, researchers at the rightwing think-tank, the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), released a report entitled A New Deal for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Remote Communities, in which they argue that there is a direct casual link between communal ownership and economic underdevelopment: “Communal ownership of land, royalties and other resources is the principle cause of the lack of economic development in remote areas” (in Norberry & Gardiner-Garden 8). In 2005, then Prime Minister, John Howard, publicly introduced the government’s ambition to alter the structure of Indigenous land arrangements, couching his agenda in the language of “equal opportunity”. I believe there’s a case for reviewing the whole issue of Aboriginal land title in the sense of looking more towards private recognition …, I’m talking about giving them the same opportunities as the rest of their fellow Australians. (Watson, "Howard’s End" 1)Scholars of critical race theory have argued that the language of equality, usually tied to liberalism (though not always) masks racial inequality and even results in “camouflaged racism” (Davis 61). David Theo Goldberg notes that, “the racial status-quo - racial exclusions and privileges favouring for the most part middle - and upper class whites - is maintained by formalising equality through states of legal and administrative science” (Racial State 222). While Howard and his coalition of supporters have associated communal title with disadvantage and called for the equality to be found in individual leases (Dodson), Altman has argued that there is no logical link between forms of communal land ownership and incidences of sexual abuse, and indeed, the government’s use of sexual abuse disingenuously disguises it’s imperative to alter the land ownership arrangements: “Given the proposed changes to the ALRA are in no way associated with child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities […] there is therefore no pressing urgency to pass the amendments.” (Altman National Emergency, 3) In the case of the Intervention, land rights reforms have affected the continued dispossession of Indigenous people in the interests of “commercial development” (Altman Neo-Paternalism 8). In light of this it can be argued that what is occurring conforms to what Aileen Moreton-Robinson has highlighted as the “possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty” (Possessive Logic). White sovereignty, under the banner of benevolent paternalism overturns the authority it has conceded to local Indigenous communities. This is realised via township leases, five year leases, housing leases and other measures, stripping them of the right to refuse the government and private enterprise entry into their lands (effectively the right of control and decision-making), and opening them up to, as Stringer argues, a range of commercial and government interests. Future Concerns and Concluding NotesThe etymological root of coalition is coalesce, inferring the broad ambition to “grow together”. In the issues outlined above, growing together is dominated by neoliberal interests, or what Stringer has termed “assimilatory neoliberation”. The issue extends beyond a social and economic assimilationism project and into a political and legal “land grab”, because, as Ong notes, the neoliberal agenda aligns itself with the nation-state. This coalitional arrangement of neoliberal and governmental interests reiterates “white possession” (Moreton-Robinson, The Possessive Logic). This is evidenced in the position of the current Labor government decision to uphold the nomination of Muckaty as a radioactive waste repository site in Australia (Stokes). In 2007, the Northern Land Council (NLC) nominated Muckaty Station to be the site for waste disposal. This decision cannot be read outside the context of Maralinga, in the South Australian desert, a site where experiments involving nuclear technology were conducted in the 1960s. As John Keane recounts, the Australian government permitted the British government to conduct tests, dispossessing the local Aboriginal group, the Tjarutja, and employing a single patrol officer “the job of monitoring the movements of the Aborigines and quarantining them in settlements” (Keane). Situated within this historical colonial context, in 2006, under a John Howard led Liberal Coalition, the government passed the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (CRWMA), a law which effectively overrode the rulings of the Northern Territory government in relation decisions regarding nuclear waste disposal, as well as overriding the rights of traditional Aboriginal owners and the validity of sacred sites. The Australian Labor government has sought to alter the CRWMA in order to reinstate the importance of following due process in the nomination process of land. However, it left the proposed site of Muckaty as confirmed, and the new bill, titled National Radioactive Waste Management retains many of the same characteristics of the Howard government legislation. In 2010, 57 traditional owners from Muckaty and surrounding areas signed a petition stating their opposition to the disposal site (the case is currently in the Federal Court). At a time when nuclear power has come back onto the radar as a possible solution to the energy crisis and climate change, questions concerning the investments of government and its loyalties should be asked. As Malcolm Knox has written “the nuclear industry has become evangelical about the dangers of global warming” (Knox). While nuclear is a “cleaner” energy than coal, until better methods are designed for processing its waste, larger amounts of it will be produced, requiring lands that can hold it for the desired timeframes. For Australia, this demands attention to the politics and ethics of waste disposal. Such an issue is already being played out, before nuclear has even been signed off as a solution to climate change, with the need to find a disposal site to accommodate already existing uranium exported to Europe and destined to return as waste to Australia in 2014. The decision to go ahead with Muckaty against the wishes of the voices of local Indigenous people may open the way for the co-opting of a discourse of environmentalism by political and business groups to promote the development and expansion of nuclear power as an alternative to coal and oil for energy production; dumping waste on Indigenous lands becomes part of the solution to climate change. During the 2010 Australian election, Greens Leader Bob Brown played upon the word coalition to suggest that the Liberal National Party were in COALition with the mining industry over the proposed Mining Tax – the Liberal Coalition opposed any mining tax (Brown). Here Brown highlights the alliance of political agendas and business or corporate interests quite succinctly. Like Brown’s COALition, will government (of either major party) form a coalition with the nuclear power stakeholders?This paper has attempted to bring to light what Dodson has identified as “an alliance of established conservative forces...with more recent and strident ideological thinking associated with free market economics and notions of individual responsibility” and the implications of this alliance for land rights (Dodson). It is important to ask critical questions about the vision of “growing together” being promoted via the coalition of conservative, neoliberal, private and government interests.Acknowledgements Many thanks to the reviewers of this article for their useful suggestions. ReferencesAustralian Broadcasting Authority. “Noel Pearson Discusses the Issues Faced by Indigenous Communities.” Lateline 26 June 2007. 22 Nov. 2010 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1962844.htm>. Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998. Altman, Jon. “The ‘National Emergency’ and Land Rights Reform: Separating Fact from Fiction.” A Briefing Paper for Oxfam Australia, 2007. 1 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.oxfam.org.au/resources/filestore/originals/OAus-EmergencyLandRights-0807.pdf>. Altman, Jon. “The Howard Government’s Northern Territory Intervention: Are Neo-Paternalism and Indigenous Development Compatible?” Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Topical Issue 16 (2007). 1 Aug. 2010 ‹http://caepr.anu.edu.au/system/files/Publications/topical/Altman_AIATSIS.pdf>. Brown, Bob. “Senator Bob Brown National Pre-Election Press Club Address.” 2010. 18 Aug. 2010 ‹http://greens.org.au/content/senator-bob-brown-pre-election-national-press-club-address>. Davis, Angela. The Angela Davis Reader. Ed. J. James, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Dodson, Patrick. “An Entire Culture Is at Stake.” Opinion. The Age, 14 July 2007: 4. Goldberg, David Theo. The Racial State. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2002.———. The Threat of Race: Reflections on Neoliberalism. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2008. Harris, Cheryl. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106.8 (1993): 1709-1795. Keane, John. “Maralinga’s Afterlife.” Feature Article. The Age, 11 May 2003. 24 Nov. 2010 ‹http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/11/1052280486255.html>. Knox, Malcolm. “Nuclear Dawn.” The Monthly 56 (May 2010). Lambert, Anthony. “Rainbow Blindness: Same-Sex Partnerships in Post-Coalitional Australia.” M/C Journal 13.6 (2010). Langton, Marcia. “It’s Time to Stop Playing Politics with Vulnerable Lives.” Opinion. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 Nov. 2007: 2. McAllan, Fiona. “Customary Appropriations.” borderlands ejournal 6.3 (2007). 22 Nov. 2010 ‹http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol6no3_2007/mcallan_appropriations.htm>. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “The Possessive Logic of Patriarchal White Sovereignty: The High Court and the Yorta Yorta Decision.” borderlands e-journal 3.2 (2004). 1 Aug. 2007 ‹http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/moreton_possessive.htm>. ———. “Whiteness, Epistemology and Indigenous Representation.” Whitening Race. Ed. Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 75-89. Norberry, J., and J. Gardiner-Garden. Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006. Australian Parliamentary Library Bills Digest 158 (19 June 2006). Ong, Aihwa. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. 75-97.Oxford English Dictionary. 3rd. ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Rio Tinto. "Rio Tinto Aboriginal Policy and Programme Briefing Note." June 2007. 22 Nov. 2010 ‹http://www.aboriginalfund.riotinto.com/common/pdf/Aboriginal%20Policy%20and%20Programs%20-%20June%202007.pdf>. Roberts, David J., and Mielle Mahtami. “Neoliberalising Race, Racing Neoliberalism: Placing 'Race' in Neoliberal Discourses.” Antipode 42.2 (2010): 248-257. Stringer, Rebecca. “A Nightmare of the Neocolonial Kind: Politics of Suffering in Howard's Northern Territory Intervention.” borderlands ejournal 6.2 (2007). 22 Nov. 2010 ‹http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol6no2_2007/stringer_intervention.htm>.Stokes, Dianne. "Muckaty." n.d. 1 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.timbonham.com/slideshows/Muckaty/>. Terrill, Leon. “Indigenous Land Reform: What Is the Real Aim of Land Reform?” Edited version of a presentation provided at the 2010 National Native Title Conference, 2010. Watson, Irene. “Sovereign Spaces, Caring for Country and the Homeless Position of Aboriginal Peoples.” South Atlantic Quarterly 108.1 (2009): 27-51. Watson, Nicole. “Howard’s End: The Real Agenda behind the Proposed Review of Indigenous Land Titles.” Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 9.4 (2005). ‹http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AILR/2005/64.html>.Wild, R., and P. Anderson. Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarie: The Little Children Are Sacred. Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. Northern Territory: Northern Territory Government, 2007.

IntroductionIn 1802 George Howe (1769-1821), the recently appointed Government Printer, published Australia’s first book. The following year he established Australia’s first newspaper; an enterprise that ran counter to all the environmental factors of the day, including: 1) issues of logistics and a lack of appropriate equipment and basic materials to produce a regularly issued newspaper; 2) issues resulting from the very close supervision of production and the routine censorship by the Governor; and 3) issues associated with the colony’s primary purposes as a military outpost and as a penal settlement, creating conflicts between very different readerships. The Sydney Gazette was, critically for Howe, the only newspaper in the infant city for over two decades. Alternative voices would not enter the field of printed media until the 1820s and 1830s. This article briefly explores the birth of an Australian industry and looks at how a very modest newspaper overcame a range of serious challenges to ignite imaginations and lay a foundation for media empires.Government Printer The first book published in Australia was the New South Wales General Standing Orders and General Orders (1802), authorised by Governor Philip Gidley King for the purposes of providing a convenient, single-volume compilation of all Government Orders, issued in New South Wales, between 1791 and 1802. (As the Australian character has been described as “egalitarian, anti-authoritarian and irreverent” [D. Jones 690], it is fascinating that the nation’s first published book was a set of rules.) Prescribing law, order and regulation for the colony the index reveals the desires of those charged with the colony’s care and development, to contain various types of activities. The rules for convicts were, predictably, many. There were also multiple orders surrounding administration, animal husbandry as well as food stuffs and other stores. Some of the most striking headings in the index relate to crime. For example, in addition to headings pertaining to courts there are also headings for a broad range of offences from: “BAD Characters” to “OFFENSIVE Weapons – Again[s]t concealing” (i-xii). The young colony, still in its teenage years, was, for the short-term, very much working on survival and for the long-term developing ambitious plans for expansion and trade. It was clear though, through this volume, that there was no forgetting the colony of New South Wales was first, and foremost, a penal settlement which also served as a military outpost. Clear, too, was the fact that not all of those who were shipped out to the new colony were prepared to abandon their criminal careers which “did not necessarily stop with transportation” (Foyster 10). Containment and recidivism were matters of constant concern for the colony’s authorities. Colonial priorities could be seen in the fact that, when “Governor Arthur Phillip brought the first convicts (548 males and 188 females) to Port Jackson on 26 January 1788, he also brought a small press for printing orders, rules, and regulations” (Goff 103). The device lay dormant on arrival, a result of more immediate concerns to feed and house all those who made up the First Fleet. It would be several years before the press was pushed into sporadic service by the convict George Hughes for printing miscellaneous items including broadsides and playbills as well as for Government Orders (“Hughes, George” online). It was another convict (another man named George), convicted at the Warwick Assizes on March 1799 (Ferguson vi) then imprisoned and ultimately transported for shoplifting (Robb 15), who would transform the small hand press into an industry. Once under the hand of George Howe, who had served as a printer with several London newspapers including The Times (Sydney Gazette, “Never” 2) – the printing press was put to much more regular use. In these very humble circumstances, Australia’s great media tradition was born. Howe, as the Government Printer, transformed the press from a device dedicated to ephemera as well as various administrative matters into a crucial piece of equipment that produced the new colony’s first newspaper. Logistical Challenges Governor King, in the year following the appearance of the Standing Orders, authorised the publishing of Australia’s first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. The publication history of The Sydney Gazette, in a reflection of some of the challenges faced by the printer, is erratic. First published on a Saturday from 5 March 1803, it quickly changed to a Sunday paper from 10 April 1803. Interestingly, Sunday “was not an approved day for the publication of newspapers, and although some English publishers had been doing so since about 1789, Sunday papers were generally frowned upon” (Robb 58). Yet, as argued by Howe a Sunday print run allowed for the inclusion of “the whole of the Ship News, and other Incidental Matter, for the preceeding week” (Sydney Gazette, “To the Public” 1).The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser Vol. 1, No. 1, 5 March 1803 (Front Page)Call Number DL F8/50, Digital ID a345001, State Library of New South WalesPublished weekly until 1825, then bi-weekly until 1827 before coming out tri-weekly until 20 October 1842 (Holden 14) there were some notable pauses in production. These included one in 1807 (Issue 214, 19 April-Issue 215, 7 June) and one in 1808-1809 (Issue 227, 30 August-Issue 228, 15 May) due to a lack of paper, with the latter pause coinciding with the Rum Rebellion and the end of William Bligh’s term as Governor of New South Wales (see: Karskens 186-88; Mundle 323-37). There was, too, a brief attempt at publishing as a daily from 1 January 1827 which lasted only until 10 February of that year when the title began to appear tri-weekly (Kirkpatrick online; Holden 14). There would be other pauses, including one of two weeks, shortly before the final issue was produced on 20 October 1842. There were many problems that beset The Sydney Gazette with paper shortages being especially challenging. Howe regularly advertised for: “any quantity” of Spanish paper (e.g.: Sydney Gazette, “Wanted to Purchase” 4) and needing to be satisfied “with a variety of size and colour” (P.M. Jones 39). In addition, the procurement of ink was so difficult in the colony, that Howe often resorted to making his own out of “charcoal, gum and shark oil” (P.M. Jones 39).The work itself was physically demanding and papers printed during this period, by hand, required a great deal of effort with approximately “250 sheets per hour … [the maximum] produced by a printer and his assistant” (Robb 8). The printing press itself was inadequate and the subject of occasional repairs (Sydney Gazette, “We Have” 2). Type was also a difficulty. As Gwenda Robb explains, traditionally six sets of an alphabet were supplied to a printer with extras for ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘r’ and ‘t’ as well as ‘s’. Without ample type Howe was required to improvise as can be seen in using a double ‘v’ to create a ‘w’ and an inverted ‘V’ to represent a capital ‘A’ (50, 106). These quirky work arounds, combined with the use of the long-form ‘s’ (‘∫’) for almost a full decade, can make The Sydney Gazette a difficult publication for modern readers to consume. Howe also “carried the financial burden” of the paper, dependent, as were London papers of the late eighteenth century, on advertising (Robb 68, 8). Howe also relied upon subscriptions for survival, with the collection of payments often difficult as seen in some subscribers being two years, or more, in arrears (e.g.: Sydney Gazette, “Sydney Gazette” 1; Ferguson viii; P.M. Jones 38). Governor Lachlan Macquarie granted Howe an annual salary, in 1811, of £60 (Byrnes 557-559) offering some relief, and stability, for the beleaguered printer.Gubernatorial Supervision Governor King wrote to Lord Hobart (then Secretary of State for War and the Colonies), on 9 May 1803: it being desirable that the settlers and inhabitants at large should be benefitted by useful information being dispersed among them, I considered that a weekly publication would greatly facilitate that design, for which purpose I gave permission to an ingenious man, who manages the Government printing press, to collect materials weekly, which, being inspected by an officer, is published in the form of a weekly newspaper, copies of which, as far as they have been published, I have the honor to enclose. (85)In the same letter, King wrote: “to the list of wants I have added a new fount of letters which may be procured for eight or ten pounds, sufficient for our purpose, if approved of” (85). King’s motivations were not purely altruistic. The population of the colony was growing in Sydney Cove and in the outlying districts, thus: “there was an increasing administrative need for information to be disseminated in a more accessible form than the printed handbills of government orders” (Robb 49). There was, however, a need for the administration to maintain control and the words “Published By Authority”, appearing on the paper’s masthead, were a constant reminder to the printer that The Sydney Gazette was “under the censorship of the Secretary to the Governor, who examined all proofs” (Ferguson viii). The high level of supervision, worked in concert with the logistical difficulties described above, ensured the newspaper was a source of great strain and stress. All for the meagre reward of “6d per copy” (Ferguson viii). This does not diminish Howe’s achievement in establishing a newspaper, an accomplishment outlined, with some pride, in an address printed on the first page of the first issue:innumerable as the Obstacles were which threatened to oppose our Undertaking, yet we are happy to affirm that they were not insurmountable, however difficult the task before us.The utility of a PAPER in the COLONY, as it must open a source of solid information, will, we hope, be universally felt and acknowledged. (Sydney Gazette, “Address” 1)Howe carefully kept his word and he “wrote nothing like a signature editorial column, nor did he venture his personal opinions, conscious always of the powers of colonial officials” (Robb 72). An approach to reportage he passed to his eldest son and long-term assistant, Robert (1795-1829), who later claimed The Sydney Gazette “reconciled in one sheet the merits of the London Gazette in upholding the Government and the London Times in defending the people” (Walker 10). The censorship imposed on The Sydney Gazette, by the Governor, was lifted in 1824 (P.M. Jones 40), when the Australian was first published without permission: Governor Thomas Brisbane did not intervene in the new enterprise. The appearance of unauthorised competition allowed Robert Howe to lobby for the removal of all censorship restrictions on The Sydney Gazette, though he was careful to cite “greater dispatch and earlier publication, not greater freedom of expression, as the expected benefit” (Walker 6). The sudden freedom was celebrated, and still appreciated many years after it was given:the Freedom of the Press has now been in existence amongst us on the verge of four years. In October 1824, we addressed a letter to the Colonial Government, fervently entreating that those shackles, under which the Press had long laboured, might be removed. Our prayer was attended to, and the Sydney Gazette, feeling itself suddenly introduced to a new state of existence, demonstrated to the Colonists the capabilities that ever must flow from the spontaneous exertions of Constitutional Liberty. (Sydney Gazette, “Freedom” 2)Early Readerships From the outset, George Howe presented a professional publication. The Sydney Gazette was formatted into three columns with the front page displaying a formal masthead featuring a scene of Sydney and the motto “Thus We Hope to Prosper”. Gwenda Robb argues the woodcut, the first produced in the colony, was carved by John W. Lewin who “had plenty of engraving skills” and had “returned to Sydney [from a voyage to Tahiti] in December 1802” (51) while Roger Butler has suggested that “circumstances point to John Austin who arrived in Sydney in 1800” as being the engraver (91). The printed text was as vital as the visual supports and every effort was made to present full accounts of colonial activities. “As well as shipping and court news, there were agricultural reports, religious homilies, literary extracts and even original poetry written by Howe himself” (Blair 450). These items, of course, sitting alongside key Government communications including General Orders and Proclamations.Howe’s language has been referred to as “florid” (Robb 52), “authoritative and yet filled with deference for all authority, pompous in a stiff, affected eighteenth century fashion” (Green 10) and so “some of Howe’s readers found the Sydney Gazette rather dull” (Blair 450). Regardless of any feelings towards authorial style, circulation – without an alternative – steadily increased with the first print run in 1802 being around 100 copies but by “the early 1820s, the newspaper’s production had grown to 300 or 400 copies” (Blair 450).In a reflection of the increasing sophistication of the Sydney-based reader, George Howe, and Robert Howe, would also publish some significant, stand-alone, texts. These included several firsts: the first natural history book printed in the colony, Birds of New South Wales with their Natural History (1813) by John W. Lewin (praised as a text “printed with an elegant and classical simplicity which makes it the highest typographical achievement of George Howe” [Wantrup 278]); the first collection of poetry published in the colony First Fruits of Australian Poetry (1819) by Barron Field; the first collection of poetry written by a Australian-born author, Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel (1826) by Charles Tompson; and the first children’s book A Mother’s Offering to Her Children: By a Lady, Long Resident in New South Wales (1841) by Charlotte Barton. The small concern also published mundane items such as almanacs and receipt books for the Bank of New South Wales (Robb 63, 72). All against the backdrop of printing a newspaper.New Voices The Sydney Gazette was Australia’s first newspaper and, critically for Howe, the only newspaper for over two decades. (A second paper appeared in 1810 but the Derwent Star and Van Diemen’s Land Intelligencer, which only managed twelve issues, presented no threat to The Sydney Gazette.) No genuine, local rival entered the field until 1824, when the Australian was founded by barristers William Charles Wentworth and Robert Wardell. The Monitor debuted in 1826, followed the Sydney Herald in 1831 and the Colonist in 1835 (P.M. Jones 38). It was the second title, the Australian, with a policy that asserted articles to be: “Independent, yet consistent – free, yet not licentious – equally unmoved by favours and by fear” (Walker 6), radically changed the newspaper landscape. The new paper made “a strong point of its independence from government control” triggering a period in which colonial newspapers “became enmeshed with local politics” (Blair 451). This new age of opinion reflected how fast the colony was evolving from an antipodean gaol into a complex society. Also, two papers, without censorship restrictions, without registration, stamp duties or advertisement duties meant, as pointed out by R.B. Walker, that “in point of law the Press in the remote gaol of exile was now freer than in the country of origin” (6). An outcome George Howe could not have predicted as he made the long journey, as a convict, to New South Wales. Of the early competitors, the only one that survives is the Sydney Herald (The Sydney Morning Herald from 1842), which – founded by immigrants Alfred Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie – claims the title of Australia’s oldest continuously published newspaper (Isaacs and Kirkpatrick 4-5). That such a small population, with so many pressing issues, factions and political machinations, could support a first newspaper, then competitors, is a testament to the high regard, with which newspaper reportage was held. Another intruder would be The Government Gazette. Containing only orders and notices in the style of the London Gazette (McLeay 1), lacking any news items or private advertisements (Walker 19), it was first issued on 7 March 1832 (and continues, in an online format, today). Of course, Government orders and other notices had news value and newspaper proprietors could bid for exclusive rights to produce these notices until a new Government Printer was appointed in 1841 (Walker 20).Conclusion George Howe, an advocate of “reason and common sense” died in 1821 placing The Sydney Gazette in the hands of his son who “fostered religion” (Byrnes 557-559). Robert Howe, served as editor, experiencing firsthand the perils and stresses of publishing, until he drowned in a boating accident in Sydney Harbour, in 1829 leaving the paper to his widow Ann Howe (Blair 450-51). The newspaper would become increasingly political leading to controversy and financial instability; after more changes in ownership and in editorial responsibility, The Sydney Gazette, after almost four decades of delivering the news – as a sole voice and then as one of several alternative voices – ceased publication in 1842. During a life littered with personal tragedy, George Howe laid the foundation stone for Australia’s media empires. His efforts, in extraordinary circumstances and against all environmental indicators, serve as inspiration to newspapers editors, proprietors and readers across the country. He established the Australian press, an institution that has been described asa profession, an art, a craft, a business, a quasi-public, privately owned institution. It is full of grandeurs and faults, sublimities and pettinesses. It is courageous and timid. It is fallible. It is indispensable to the successful on-going of a free people. (Holden 15)George Howe also created an artefact of great beauty. The attributes of The Sydney Gazette are listed, in a perfunctory manner, in most discussions of the newspaper’s history. The size of the paper. The number of columns. The masthead. The changes seen across 4,503 issues. Yet, consistently overlooked, is how, as an object, the newspaper is an exquisite example of the printed word. There is a physicality to the paper that is in sharp contrast to contemporary examples of broadsides, tabloids and online publications. Concurrently fragile and robust: its translucent sheets and mottled print revealing, starkly, the problems with paper and ink; yet it survives, in several collections, over two centuries since the first issue was produced. The elegant layout, the glow of the paper, the subtle crackling sound as the pages are turned. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser is an astonishing example of innovation and perseverance. It provides essential insights into Australia’s colonial era. It is a metonym for making words matter. AcknowledgementsThe author offers her sincere thanks to Geoff Barker, Simon Dwyer and Peter Kirkpatrick for their comments on an early draft of this paper. The author is also grateful to Bridget Griffen-Foley for engaging in many conversations about Australian newspapers. ReferencesBlair, S.J. “Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser.” A Companion to the Australian Media. Ed. Bridget Griffen-Foley. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014.Butler, Roger. Printed Images in Colonial Australia 1801-1901. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2007.Byrnes, J.V. “Howe, George (1769–1821).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography: 1788–1850, A–H. Canberra: Australian National University, 1966. 557-559. Ferguson, J.A. “Introduction.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser: A Facsimile Reproduction of Volume One, March 5, 1803 to February 26, 1804. Sydney: The Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales in Association with Angus & Robertson, 1963. v-x. Foyster, Elizabeth. “Introduction: Newspaper Reporting of Crime and Justice.” Continuity and Change 22.1 (2007): 9-12.Goff, Victoria. “Convicts and Clerics: Their Roles in the Infancy of the Press in Sydney, 1803-1840.” Media History 4.2 (1998): 101-120.Green, H.M. “Australia’s First Newspaper.” Sydney Morning Herald, 11 Apr. 1935: 10.Holden, W. Sprague. Australia Goes to Press. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1961. “Hughes, George (?–?).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography: 1788–1850, A–H. Canberra: Australian National University, 1966. 562. Isaacs, Victor, and Rod Kirkpatrick. Two Hundred Years of Sydney Newspapers. Richmond: Rural Press, 2003. Jones, Dorothy. “Humour and Satire (Australia).” Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. 2nd ed. Eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. London: Routledge, 2005. 690-692.Jones, Phyllis Mander. “Australia’s First Newspaper.” Meanjin 12.1 (1953): 35-46. Karskens, Grace. The Colony: A History of Early Sydney. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2010. King, Philip Gidley. “Letter to Lord Hobart, 9 May 1803.” Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Volume IV, 1803-1804. Ed. Frederick Watson. Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1915.Kirkpatrick, Rod. Press Timeline: 1802 – 1850. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2011. 6 Jan. 2017 <https://www.nla.gov.au/content/press-timeline-1802-1850>. McLeay, Alexander. “Government Notice.” The New South Wales Government Gazette 1 (1832): 1. Mundle, R. Bligh: Master Mariner. Sydney: Hachette, 2016.New South Wales General Standing Orders and General Orders: Selected from the General Orders Issued by Former Governors, from the 16th of February, 1791, to the 6th of September, 1800. Also, General Orders Issued by Governor King, from the 28th of September, 1800, to the 30th of September, 1802. Sydney: Government Press, 1802. Robb, Gwenda. George Howe: Australia’s First Publisher. Kew: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2003.Spalding, D.A. Collecting Australian Books: Notes for Beginners. 1981. Mawson: D.A. Spalding, 1982. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. “Address.” 5 Mar. 1803: 1.———. “To the Public.” 2 Apr. 1803: 1.———. “Wanted to Purchase.” 26 June 1803: 4.———. “We Have the Satisfaction to Inform Our Readers.” 3 Nov. 1810: 2. ———. “Sydney Gazette.” 25 Dec. 1819: 1. ———. “The Freedom of the Press.” 29 Feb. 1828: 2.———. “Never Did a More Painful Task Devolve upon a Public Writer.” 3 Feb. 1829: 2. Walker, R.B. The Newspaper Press in New South Wales, 1803-1920. Sydney: Sydney UP, 1976.Wantrup, Johnathan. Australian Rare Books: 1788-1900. Sydney: Hordern House, 1987.

Introduction In this article, we hypothesise how mainstream media coverage can promote the spread of disinformation about Covid-19. Mainstream media are often discussed as opposed to disinformation (Glasser; Benkler et al.). While the disinformation phenomenon is related to the intentional production and spread of misleading and false information to influence public opinion (Fallis; Benkler et al.), mainstream media news is expected to be based on facts and investigation and focussed on values such as authenticity, accountability, and autonomy (Hayes et al.). However, journalists might contribute to the spread of disinformation when they skip some stage of information processing and reproduce false or misleading information (Himma-Kadakas). Besides, even when the purpose of the news is to correct disinformation, media coverage might contribute to its dissemination by amplifying it (Tsfati et al.). This could be particularly problematic in the context of social media, as users often just read headlines while scrolling through their timelines (Newman et al.; Ofcom). Thus, some users might share news from the mainstream media to legitimate disinformation about Covid-19. The pandemic creates a delicate context, as journalists are often pressured to produce more information and, therefore, are more susceptible to errors. In this research, we focussed on the hypothesis that legitimate news can contribute to the spread of disinformation on social media through headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses, even though the actual piece may frame the story differently. The research questions that guide this research are: are URLs with headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses and other mainstream media links shared into the same Facebook groups? Are the headlines that support disinformation discourses shared by Facebook users to reinforce disinformation narratives? As a case study, we look at the Brazilian disinformation context on Covid-19. The discussion about the disease in the country has been highly polarised and politically framed, often with government agents and scientists disputing the truth about facts on the disease (Araújo and Oliveira; Recuero and Soares; Recuero et al.). Particularly, the social media ecosystem seems to play an important role in these disputes, as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters use it as a key channel to spread disinformation about the virus (Lisboa et al.; Soares et al.). We use data from public groups on Facebook collected through CrowdTangle and a combination of social network analysis and content analysis to analyse the spread and the content of URLs and posts. Theoretical Background Disinformation has been central to the Covid-19 “infodemic”, created by the overabundance of information about the pandemic, which makes it hard for people to find reliable guidance and exacerbates the outbreak (Tangcharoensathien et al.). We consider disinformation as distorted, manipulated, or false information intentionally created to mislead someone (Fallis; Benkler et al.). Disinformation is often used to strengthen radical political ideologies (Benkler et al.). Around the world, political actors politically framed the discussion about the pandemic, which created a polarised public debate about Covid-19 (Allcott et al., Gruzd and Mai; Recuero and Soares). On social media, contexts of polarisation between two different political views often present opposed narratives about the same fact that dispute public attention (Soares et al.). This polarisation creates a suitable environment for disinformation to thrive (Benkler et al.) The polarised discussions are often associated with the idea of “bubbles”, as the different political groups tend to share and legitimate only discourses that are aligned with the group's ideological views. Consequently, these groups might turn into ideological bubbles (Pariser). In these cases, content shared within one group is not shared within the other and vice versa. Pariser argues that users within the bubbles are exposed exclusively to content with which they tend to agree. However, research has shown that Pariser’s concept of bubbles has limitations (Bruns), as most social media users are exposed to a variety of sources of information (Guess et al.). Nevertheless, polarisation might lead to different media diets and disinformation consumption (Benkler et al.). That is, users would have contact with different types of information, but they would choose to share certain content over others because of their political alignment (Bruns). Therefore, we understand that bubbles are created by the action of social media users who give preference to circulate (through retweets, likes, comments, or shares) content that supports their political views, including disinformation (Recuero et al.). Thus, bubbles are ephemeral structures (created by users’ actions in the context of a particular political discussion) with permeable boundaries (users are exposed to content from the outside) in discussions on social media. This type of ephemeral bubble might use disinformation as a tool to create a unique discourse that supports its views. However, it does not mean that actors within a “disinformation bubble” do not have access to other content, such as the news from the mainstream media. It means that the group acts to discredit and to overlap this content with an “alternative” story (Larsson). In addition, the mainstream media might disseminate false or inaccurate disinformation (Tsfati et al.). Particularly, we focus on inaccurate headlines that reinforce disinformation narratives, as social media users often only read news headlines (Newman et al.; Ofcom). This is especially problematic because a large number of social media users are exposed to mainstream media content, while exposure to disinformation websites is heavily concentrated on only a few users (Guess et al.; Tsfati et al.). Therefore, when the mainstream media disseminate disinformation, it is more likely that a larger number of social media users will be exposed to this content and share it into ideological bubbles. Based on this discussion, we aim to understand how the mainstream media contribute to the spread of disinformation discourses about Covid-19. Methods This study is about how mainstream media coverage might contribute to the spread of disinformation about Covid-19 on Facebook. We propose two hypotheses, as follows: H1: When mainstream media headlines frame the information in a way that reinforces the disinformation narrative, the links go into a “disinformation bubble”. H2: In these cases, Facebook users might use mainstream media coverage to legitimate disinformation narratives. We selected three case studies based on events that created both political debate and high media coverage in Brazil. We chose them based on the hypothesis that part of the mainstream media links could have produced headlines that support disinformation discourses, as the political debate was high. The events are: On 24 March 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made a public pronouncement on live television. In the week before the pronouncement, Brazilian governors decided to follow World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols and closed non-essential business. In his speech, Bolsonaro criticised social distancing measures. The mainstream media reproduced some of his claims and claims from other public personalities, such as entrepreneurs who also said the protocols would harm the economy. On 8 June 2020, a WHO official said that it “seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person transmits [Covid-19] onward to a secondary individual”. Part of the mainstream media reproduced the claim out of context, which could promote the misperception that both asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic persons (early stages of an illness, before the first symptoms) do not transmit Covid-19 at all. On 9 November 2020, Brazil’s national sanitary watchdog Anvisa reported that they had halted the clinical studies on the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by the Chinese company Sinovac. Bolsonaro often criticised CoronaVac because it was being produced in partnership with São Paulo’s Butantan Institute and became the subject of a political dispute between Bolsonaro and the Governor of São Paulo, João Dória. Bolsonaro said the halt of the CoronaVac trial was "another victory for Jair Bolsonaro". Anvisa halted the trail after a "severe adverse event". The mainstream media rapidly reverberated the decision. Later, it was revealed that the incident was a death that had nothing to do with the vaccine. Before we created our final dataset that includes links from the three events together, we explored the most shared URLs in each event. We used keywords to collect posts shared in the public groups monitored by CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook that tracks publicly available posts on the platform. We collected posts in a timeframe of three days for each event to prevent the collection of links unrelated to the cases. We collected only posts containing URLs. Table 1 summarises the data collected. Table 1: Data collected Dates March 24-26 2020 June 8-10 2020 November 9-11 2020 Keywords “Covid-19” or “coronavirus” and “isolation” or “economy” “Covid-19” or “coronavirus” and “asymptomatic” “vaccine” and “Anvisa” or “CoronaVac” Number of posts 4780 2060 3273 From this original dataset, we selected the 60 most shared links from each period (n=180). We then filtered for those which sources were mainstream media outlets (n=74). We used content analysis (Krippendorff) to observe which of these URLs headlines could reinforce disinformation narratives (two independent coders, Krippendorff’s Alpha = 0.76). We focussed on headlines because when these links are shared on Facebook, often it is the headline that appears to other users. We considered that a headlined reinforced disinformation discourses only when it was flagged by both coders (n=21 – some examples are provided in Table 3 in the Results section). Table 2 provides a breakdown of this analysis. Table 2: Content analysis Event Mainstream media links Headlines that support disinformation discourses Number of links Number of posts Economy and quarantine 24 7 112 Asymptomatic 22 7 163 Vaccine trial 28 7 120 Total 74 21 395 As the number of posts that shared URLs with headlines that supported disinformation was low (n=395), we conducted another CrowdTangle search to create our final dataset. We used a sample of the links we classified to create a “balanced” dataset. Out of the 21 links with headlines that reinforced disinformation, we collected the 10 most shared in public groups monitored by CrowdTangle (this time, without any particular timeframe) (n=1346 posts). In addition, we created a “control group” with the 10 most shared links that neither of the coders considered could reinforce disinformation (n=1416 posts). The purpose of the “control group” was to identify which Facebook groups tend to share mainstream media links without headlines that reinforce disinformation narratives. Therefore, our final dataset comprises 20 links and 2762 posts. We then used social network analysis (Wasserman and Faust) to map the spread of the 20 links. We created a bipartite network, in which nodes are (1) Facebook groups and (2) URLs; and edges represent when a post within a group includes a URL from our dataset. We applied a modularity metric (Blondel et al.) to identify clusters. The modularity metric allows us to identify “communities” that share the same or similar links in the network map. Thus, it helped us to identify if there was a “bubble” that only shares the links with headlines that support disinformation (H1). To understand if the disinformation was supporting a larger narrative shared by the groups, we explored the political alignments of each cluster (H2). We used Textometrica (Lindgreen and Palm) to create word clouds with the most frequent words in the names of the cluster groups (at least five mentions) and their connections. Finally, we also analysed the posts that shared each of the 10 links with headlines that reinforced disinformation. This also helped us to identify how the mainstream media links could legitimate disinformation narratives (H2). Out of the 1346 posts, only 373 included some message (the other 973 posts only shared the link). We used content analysis to see if these posts reinforced the disinformation (two independent coders – Krippendorff’s Alpha = 0.723). There were disagreements in the categorisation of 27 posts. The two coders reviewed and discussed the classification of these posts to reach an agreement. Results Bubbles of information In the graph (Figure 1), red nodes are links with headlines that support disinformation discourses, blue nodes are the other mainstream media links, and black nodes are Facebook groups. Our first finding is that groups that shared headlines that support disinformation rarely shared the other mainstream media links. Out of the 1623 groups in the network, only 174 (10.7%) shared both a headline that supports disinformation discourse, and another mainstream media link; 712 groups (43.8%) only shared headlines that support disinformation; and 739 groups (45.5%) only shared other links from the mainstream media. Therefore, users’ actions created two bubbles of information. Figure 1: Network graph The modularity metric confirmed this tendency of two “bubbles” in the network (Figure 2). The purple cluster includes seven URLs with headlines that support disinformation discourse. The green cluster includes three headlines that support disinformation discourse and the other 10 links from the mainstream media. This result partially supports H1: When mainstream media headlines frame the information in a way that reinforces the disinformation narrative, the links go into a “disinformation bubble”. As we identified, most of the headlines that support disinformation discourse went into a separate “bubble”, as users within the groups of this bubble did not share the other links from the mainstream media. Figure 2: Network graph with modularity This result shows that users’ actions boost the creation of bubbles (Bakshy et al.), as they choose to share one type of content over the other. The mainstream media are the source of all the URLs we analysed. However, users from the purple cluster chose to share only links with headlines that supported disinformation discourses. This result is also related to the political framing of the discussions, as we explore below. Disinformation and Political Discourse We used word clouds (Lindgreen and Palm) to analyse the Facebook groups’ names to explore the ideological affiliation of the bubbles. The purple bubble is strongly related to Bolsonaro and his discourse (Figure 3). Bolsonaro is the most frequent word. Other prevalent words are Brazil, patriots (both related to his nationalist discourse), right-wing, conservative, military (three words related to his conservative discourse and his support of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985), President, support, and Alliance [for Brazil] (the name of his party). Some of the most active groups within the purple bubble are “Alliance for Brazil”, “Bolsonaro 2022 [next presidential election]”, “Bolsonaro’s nation 2022”, and “I am right-wing with pride”. Figure 3: Purple cluster word cloud Bolsonaro is also a central word in the green cluster word cloud (Figure 4). However, it is connected to other words such as “against” and “out”, as many groups are anti-Bolsonaro. Furthermore, words such as left-wing, Workers’ Party (centre-left party), Lula and Dilma Rousseff (two Workers’ Party ex-presidents) show another ideological alignment in general. In addition, there are many local groups (related to locations such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, and others), and groups to share news (news, newspaper, radio, portal). “We are 70 per cent [anti-Bolsonaro movement]”, “Union of the Left”, “Lula president”, and “Anti-Bolsonaro” are some of the most active groups within the green cluster. Figure 4: Green cluster word cloud Then, we analysed how users shared the mainstream media links with headlines that support disinformation discourses. In total, we found that 81.8% of the messages in the posts that shared these links also reproduced disinformation narratives. The frequency was higher (86.2%) when considering only posts that shared one of the seven links from the purple cluster (based on the modularity metric). Consequently, it was lower (64%) in the messages that shared one of the other three links. The messages often showed support for Bolsonaro; criticised other political and health authorities (the WHO, São Paulo Governor João Dória, and others), China, and the “leftists” (all opposition to Bolsonaro); claimed that quarantine and social distancing measures were unnecessary; and framed vaccines as dangerous. We provide some examples of headlines and posts in Table 3 (we selected the most-shared URL for each event to illustrate). This result supports H2 as we found that users shared mainstream media headlines that reinforce disinformation discourse to legitimate the disinformation narrative; and that it was more prevalent in the purple bubble. Table 3: Examples of headlines and posts Headline Post "Unemployment is a crisis much worse than coronavirus", says Bolsonaro Go to social media to support the President. Unemployment kills. More than any virus... hunger, depression, despair and everything UNEMPLOYMENT, THE DEPUTIES CHAMBER, THE SENATE AND THE SUPREME COURT KILL MORE THAN COVID19 Asymptomatic patients do not boost coronavirus, says WHO QUARANTINE IS FAKE #StayHome, the lie of the century! THIS GOES TO THE PUPPETS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES THE AND FUNERARY MEDIA Anvisa halts Coronavac vaccine trial after "serious adverse event" [The event] is adverse and serious, so the vaccine killed the person by covid And Doria [Governor of São Paulo and political adversary of Bolsonaro] wants to force you to take this shit This result shows that mainstream media headlines that support disinformation narratives may be used to reinforce disinformation discourses when shared on Facebook, making journalists potential agents of disinformation (Himma-Kadakas; Tsfati et al.). In particular, the credibility of mainstream news is used to support an opposing discourse, that is, a disinformation discourse. This is especially problematic in the context of Covid-19 because the mainstream media end up fuelling the infodemic (Tangcharoensathien et al.) by sharing inaccurate information or reverberating false claims from political actors. Conclusion In this article, we analysed how the mainstream media contribute to the spread of disinformation about Covid-19. In particular, we looked at how links from the mainstream media with headlines that support disinformation discourse spread on Facebook, compared to other links from the mainstream media. Two research questions guided this study: Are URLs with headlines that reinforce disinformation discourses and other mainstream media links shared into the same Facebook groups? Are the headlines that support disinformation discourses shared by Facebook users to reinforce disinformation narratives? We identified that (1) some Facebook groups only shared links with headlines that support disinformation narratives. This created a “disinformation bubble”. In this bubble, (2) Facebook users shared mainstream media links to reinforce disinformation – in particular, pro-Bolsonaro disinformation, as many of these groups had a pro-Bolsonaro alignment. 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The object of mapping is to produce a "correct" relational model of the terrain. Its assumptions are that the objects in the world to be mapped are real and objective, and that they enjoy an existence independent of the cartographer; that their reality can be expressed in mathematical terms; that systematic observation and measurement offer the only route to cartographic truth; and that this truth can be independently verified. -- J. B. Harley, "Deconstructing the Map" Cartography, in its pragmatic operation under these assumptions, avoids almost all of the problems of representation with which cultural studies is only too familiar. Maps are representations, and all representations, even "scientific" ones, are cultural signs rather than truths produced in an ideological vacuum. The notion that mathematics, as a tool of Renaissance rationality, allowed real, objective detachment from an object of study was slowly absorbed into the cartographic tradition of Europe about four hundred years ago. "From at least the seventeenth century onward there was an epistemic break in activities such as cartography and architecture, and European map makers increasingly promoted what we would describe today as a standard scientific model of knowledge and cognition" (Harley 234). This model, in its increasing reliance upon mathematics and mathematical probability, essentially avoids or denies the objection that scientific observation and interpretation, and especially the technological gaze of its lens, produce anything other than objective, "real" knowledge. Through a mathematical detachment from the world, aided by the gaze of the lens, we see not the world itself (which includes us in its unmappable flux) but the numbers, straight lines and generalisations (which do not) that modern maps, including photographs, must employ to give the world fixed form and meaning. We find this model of cartography most impressively represented today in NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) probe, not merely as a sign of the technical success of mathematics, but also of its conceptual failure to provide the "true" representations of terrain to which a truly scientific cartography must aspire. MGS's 1998 attempt to "solve" the controversy surrounding a particularly contentious area on Mars, called Cydonia, with newer, "truer" images of the infamous Face on Mars was, contrary to popular opinion, an unsuccessful one; unsuccessful because NASA failed to remove all reasonable doubt that the Face was a natural geological formation. Not that this was particularly evident from media coverage of the image's release and reception -- the maverick researchers who comprised the protest were given a less than admirable hearing at the trial. Australian headlines reported that the Mars "romantics" (The Australian) had their Face theory "scuttled" (Courier-Mail). Professor Stanley V. McDaniel was demoted to "Mr McDaniel" in the The Australian, someone who wants NASA to continue re-imaging Cydonia to document other nearby features because "he believes [they] are further evidence of a Martian civilisation" (6). Also misrepresented was the like-minded, if slightly more adventurous researcher, Richard Hoagland, author of the underground classic, The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever (1987). Hoagland carelessly became (in both newspapers) Richard "Hoaglund", "leader of the movement" that believes the face is a monument left in Mars's Cydonia region by an ancient civilisation. The Australian, in line with the rest of the Earth's media, was apparently closing the door on the annoyingly persistent research into the Artificial Origin at Cydonia (AOC) hypothesis, which actually "does not claim that there is proof of artificial features on Mars, but that the probability of there being artificial features is strong enough to make new high-resolution photographs a top priority for any future mission to that planet" (McDaniel 2). Rather than confront the hypothesis itself, The Australian merely reminded us that "despite the image being 10 times better than the Viking photograph [a simplified qualification of the imaging process], it seems that some people still want to dream about ancient Martians building huge monuments to themselves" (The Australian). Dr. Mark J. Carlotto, a widely published specialist in the areas of digital image processing, pattern recognition, and computer vision, apparently still wants to dream that dream. An advocate of the AOC hypothesis, he notes that close examination of the image reveals the formation to be rough and highly eroded. Many have therefore concluded that the Face is natural. But others contend that if the Face is artificial it must certainly be very old and highly eroded. Thus the question remains as to how to distinguish an eroded artificial feature from a natural one. (Carlotto) This interestingly portentous question is one which NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and their contracted image processors, the privately owned Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) have been somewhat reluctant to confront since the image of the Face was first captured in Viking frame 35A72. NASA's inaugural public statement on the Cydonia issue, for example, was handled ... "clumsily". As McDaniel reports: Upon the discovery of the Face in July, 1976, a Viking Project Scientist held up Viking frame 35A72, containing the Face, and announced to the assembled press corps that in a picture taken a few hours later "it all went away; it was just the way the light fell on it" -- but with a significant omission: the alleged later photograph, in which the facial features were supposed to have disappeared, was not shown for comparison [because] the statement could not possibly have been true. Frame 35A72 was taken in the early evening at approximately 6pm local time (sun angle 10 degrees). The object was in darkness a few hours later; the spacecraft, with an orbital period of about 24 hours, was no longer in a position to re-photograph the site; nor would it return to the site for many more orbits to come. Thus NASA's first official response to this strange object was an inexplicable misstatement based upon an apparent impossibility. (McDaniel 11-2) Things did not improve from there. NASA was never able to produce the elusive second photograph, yet continued to maintain that it both existed and conclusively disproved that the landform in question could possibly be artificial. In May 1993 the paradox attracted the attention of Senator John Glenn, who received (along with at least ten other members of the House and the Senate) a copy of the NASA document "Information on NASA's Re-Photographing of the Cydonia Region of Mars", which still held that the Face disappeared in the different lighting angles of a separate frame, which it did not reference. Finally in June 1993, after another inquiry by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a revised draft was issued which omits reference to the mysterious "real" photograph of the Face (McDaniel 12-3). NASA's next attempt to re-image Mars, including Cydonia, was the Observer probe, which failed to observe much at all and was declared lost in space. In conjunction with the recent mysterious failure of the Russian Phobos probe, and NASA's constant public relations blunders, conspiracy theories abounded. Was there something lurking at the threshold? The answer came in 1998 through the MGS, from which MSSS had produced a newer, clearer, "truer" image of the contentious feature which seemed to confirm Dr. Michael Malin's own earlier (and strangely self-contradictory) evaluation of 35A72: "it's simply a funny looking hill -- there is nothing unusual about it" (McDaniel 55). The MGS image certainly appeared, at least to the "naked eye" perusing the newspaper, to be just that. The wilderness had been tamed, and the coals cooled, temporarily. We had melted the witch. But exorcisms are never "final". Although NASA had apparently relegated the monstrous Face back to the realm of nature, restoring it within the parameters of conventional geology, McDaniel, Carlotto and others have maintained that NASA's conclusions were drastically premature, noting, as mentioned previously, that if the Face is artificial it must certainly be very old and, considering the Martian environment, highly eroded (Carlotto). According to their independent research, detailed analysis of the MGS image (which NASA appears not to have commissioned), does not invalidate the hypothesis that the Face may be artificial. Rather, it confirms many of the facial features recorded by the Viking, provides further evidence for the formation's high degree of lateral symmetry, and illuminates more anomalous internal detail (Carlotto). The Face on Mars, like the classical monsters of history, will not die easily. Ironically, perusal of Carlotto's dense research is an entry into the latent but undeniable plasticity of numbers, which itself is the quality of the monster that haunts modern cartographic representation. Mathematics, in almost every field of application, is finding it increasingly difficult to keep its disordering unknowns at bay. Geographer Erol Torun, for example, examined the angles formed by the facets of the two-mile long "D & M pyramid" (named after its discoverers, Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar). As Brian O'Leary writes, he subsequently found that the ratios between the five principal angles at the pyramid apex "express the universal mathematical constants of the square roots of 2,3,5,6, e, and pi ... . These constants should be known by any civilisation possessing Egyptian level technology (or greater) ... . The constants themselves are universal because they exist regardless of the number of the base being used". Regarding the other angles, Torun continued to find mathematically significant numbers "no matter how I looked at the object" (O'Leary 210). As the Cydonia controversy seems to clearly demonstrate, rather than revealing obvious, fixed truths about the world, mathematics and the observational tools they inspire require us to learn to see an approximation of the object they construct and represent as "real". We are thus compelled to draw the Other closer, but not "really", through the technological gaze of the artificial lens, a gaze that works to mask its own latent epistemic crisis. Indeed, this very compulsion inspired the growth of popular microscopy in the mid-eighteenth century, which required a new mode of seeing that could only very generously be termed "observation". Captain Basil Hall vividly recalls a meeting of the Geological Society, when a bottle was produced which was said to contain certain zoophytes. It was handed round, in the first instance, among the initiated on the foremost benches, who commented freely with one another on the forms of the animals in the fluid; but, when it came to our hands, we could discover nothing in the bottle but the most limpid fluid, -- without any trace, so far as our optics could make out, of animals dead or alive, the whole appearing absolutely transparent. The surprise of the ignorant at seeing nothing was only equal to that of the learned who saw so much to admire; nor was it till we were specifically instructed what we were to look for, and the shape, size, and general aspect of the zoophytes pointed out, that our understandings began to co-operate with our eyesight in peopling the fluid, which, up to that moment, had seemed perfectly uninhabited. The wonder then was, how we could possibly have omitted seeing objects now so palpable. (Mantell 8) Indeed, as Harley indicates, the relationship between the geographic and microscopic gaze is fundamental to the modern cartographic tradition. He cites Monmonier and Schnell's Map Appreciation (1988) as a recent example: Geography thrives on cartographic generalisation. The map is to the geographer what the microscope is to the microbiologist, for the ability to shrink the earth and generalise about it ... the microbiologist must choose a suitable objective lens, and the geographer must select a map scale appropriate to both the phenomenon in question and the "regional laboratory" in which the geographer is studying it. (in Harley 245) Importantly for this discussion, through both microscopy and cartography, "photography has also played a large role in twentieth-century ethnological representation", writes James Duncan. What better way to assert the primacy of the visual, produce a "true" representation of the place in question and establish presence than through the use of photography? But the mimetic claims of photography can also be called into question. A camera is a machine constructed to produce an image based upon artificial perspective. Only if one accepts the claims of the naturalness of Renaissance artificial perspective can we accept photography as a mimetic representation of the world. Such claims can be cast in doubt, for example, by the failure of peoples unfamiliar with photographs to be able to "read" them. (43) At the end of the day, though, it all may have more to do with down-to-earth economics than Martian "geopolitics". For many researchers, McDaniel among them, NASA's evasive treatment of the Face and surrounding features (variously labelled the Tholus, the D&M pyramid, the Fort, and the City Square) suggests a cover-up. Specifically, a cover-up of NASA's own inexplicable lack of investigation into apparently artificial structures on the Martian surface. Since the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's data imaging is contracted to a private company legally unaccountable to the public, McDaniel has confronted the somewhat disheartening possibility that financial motives may be obscuring investigation into what seem to be the most intriguing features of the Martian surface. He "does not personally believe in the conspiracy theory", but simply suggests that the Cydonia controversy may demonstrate that the financial interests of Malin Space Science Systems have assumed higher priority than the search for extraterrestrial artefacts: The contract for the Mars Observer (now MGS) involved close to 10 million dollars for Malin Space Science Systems ... . If it became clear that the probability of artificial structures on Mars is very high [or even that such a probability existed], it seems the focus of investigation would shift radically. The emphasis would fall to an accelerated manned mission to Mars. Archaeologists and perhaps biologists would assume an increasingly important role. It would be the manned mission (Johnson Space Flight Centre), not JPL, that takes the driver's seat. (McDaniel 1999) In other words, by producing results which indicated that the Cydonia region was worthy of closer attention, MSSS would jeopardise the future of its own multi-million dollar contract with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- hardly a wise business venture, regardless of their geopolitical stance. But whatever the "true" source of the Martian controversy (it is, after all, the mythic planet of war), it seems undeniable that the Face on Mars is at once both an appropriately postmodern enigma and a genuine cartographic anomaly. For we find embodied within its monstrous form (through the lens), the message that our gaze is destined to be returned by ourselves. From the stars to the quarks, "we" seem to forever inhabit the very wilderness our technological gaze functions to both distance and draw closer; to abject. References Berland, Jody. "Mapping Space: Imaging Technologies and the Planetary Body." Technoscience and Cyberculture. Eds. Stanley Aronowitz, Barbara Martinsons, and Michael Menser. New York: Routledge, 1996. 123-37. Bull, Sandra. "Images from Mars Scuttle Face Theory." The Courier-Mail 8 April 1998. Carlotto, Mark J. "Analysis of Global Surveyor Imagery of the Face on Mars." 1998. 4 Oct. 2000 <http://www.psrw.com/~markc/Articles/MGSreport/paper.php>. ---. "New Cydonia Images -- April 2000: Preliminary Data Analysis." 2000. 4 Oct. 2000 <http://www.psrw.com/~markc/Articles/April_2000/April2000.php>. Crowley, Brian, and James J. Hurtak. The Face on Mars: Evidence of a Lost Martian Civilisation. 1986. Melbourne: Sun/Macmillan, 1989. Duncan, James. "Sites of Representation: Place, Time and the Discourse of the Other." Place/Culture/Representation. Eds. James Duncan and David Ley. London: Routledge, 1993. 39-56. Harley, J. B. "Deconstructing the Map." Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape. Eds. Trevor J. Barnes and James Duncan. London: Routledge, 1992. 231-47. Leech, Graeme. "Mars Romantics Face the Truth: There's Nothing Out There." The Australian 8 April 1998. Mantell, Gideon Algernon. The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope; or, Thoughts on Animalcules. London: John Murray, 1850. McDaniel, Stanley V. The McDaniel Report: On the Failure of Executive, Congressional and Scientific Responsibility in Investigating Possible Evidence of Artificial Structures on the Surface of Mars and in Setting Mission Priorities for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 1993. ---. "Here It Is! But What Is It?" 1998. 4 Oct. 2000 <http://www.mcdanielreport.com/homepage.htm>. ---. "The Cydonia Question: Where Do We Stand?" 1999. 4 Oct. 2000. <http://www.mcdanielreport.com/standing.php>. O'Leary, Brian. "Mars and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life." Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries. Ed. Jonathan Eisen. Auckland: AIT, 1994. 204-13. Picknett, Lynn, and Clive Prince. The Stargate Conspiracy: Revealing the Truth behind Extraterrestrial Contact, Military Intelligence and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. London: Little, Brown and Co., 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Adam Dodd. "'Unacceptable Renewals': The Geopolitics of Martian Cartography." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.6 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/mars.php>. Chicago style: Adam Dodd, "'Unacceptable Renewals': The Geopolitics of Martian Cartography," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 6 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/mars.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Adam Dodd. (2000) 'Unacceptable renewals': the geopolitics of Martian cartography. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(6). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/mars.php> ([your date of access]).

While exploring the virtual world Second Life one day, I received a group message across the in-world communication system – “there’s a griefer on the beach. Stay away from the beach till we catch him.” There was no need to explain; everyone receiving the message knew what a griefer was and had a general idea of the kinds of things that could be happening. We’d all seen griefers at work before – someone monopolising the chat channel so no one else can communicate, people being “caged” at random, or even weapons fire causing so much “overhead” that all activity in the area slows to a crawl. These kinds of attacks are not limited to virtual worlds. Most people have experienced griefing in their everyday lives, which might best be defined as having fun at someone else’s expense. More commonly seen examples of this in the real world include teasing, bullying, and harassment; playground bullies have long made other children’s free time miserable. More destructive griefing includes arson and theft. Griefing activities happen in all kinds of games and virtual worlds. Griefers who laugh at new users and “yell” (so that all players can hear) that they stink, have followed new users of Disney’s tween-popular ToonTown. Griefers pose as friendly, helpful players who offer to show new users a path through difficult parts of a game, but then who abandon the new user in a spot where he or she does not have the skills to proceed. In World of Warcraft, a popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard with more than seven million registered, if not active, users, griefers engage in what is known as corpse camping; they sit by a corpse, killing it over and over every time the player tries to get back into the game. The griefer gets a small number of experience points; the player being killed gets aggravated and has to wait out the griefing to play the game again (Warner & Raiter). Griefing in World of Warcraft was featured in an award nominated episode of the television program South Park, in which one character killed every other player he met. This paper considers different types of griefing, both in online games and virtual worlds, and then looks at the actions other players, those being griefed, take against griefers. A variety of examples from Second Life are considered because of the open-structure of the world and its developing nature. Definitions and Types Griefing in online environments such as video games and virtual worlds has been defined as “purposefully engaging in activities to disrupt the gaming experience of other players” (Mulligan & Patrovsky 250). The “purposeful” part of the definition means that accidental bumping and pushing, behaviours often exhibited by new users, are not griefing (Warner & Raiter). Rossingol defines a griefer as, “a player of malign intentions. They will hurt, humiliate and dishevel the average gamer through bending and breaking the rules of online games. ...They want glory, gain or just to partake in a malignant joy at the misfortune of others.” Davis, who maintains a gaming blog, describes Second Life as being populated by “those who build things and those who like to tear them down,” with the latter being the griefers who may be drawn to the unstructured anything-goes nature of the virtual world (qtd. in Girard). Definitions of griefing differ based on context. For instance, griefing has been examined in a variety of multi-player online games. These games often feature missions where players have to kill other players (PvP), behaviour that in other contexts such as virtual worlds would be considered griefing. Putting a monster on the trail of a player considered rude or unskilled might be a way to teach a lesson, but also an example of griefing (Taylor). Foo and Koivisto define griefing in MMORPGs as “play styles that disrupt another player’s gaming experience, usually with specific intention. When the act is not specifically intended to disrupt and yet the actor is the sole beneficiary, it is greed play, a subtle form of grief play” (11). Greed play usually involves actions that disrupt the game play of others but without technically breaking any game rules. A different way of looking at griefing is that it is a sign that the player understands the game or virtual world deeply enough to take advantage of ambiguities in the rules by changing the game to something new (Koster). Many games have a follow option; griefers pick a victim, stand near them, get as naked as possible, and then just follow them around without talking or explaining their actions (Walker). Another example is the memorial service in World of Warcraft for a player who died in real life. The service was interrupted by an attack from another clan; everyone at the memorial service was killed. It is not clear cut who the griefers actually were in this case – the mourners who chose to have their peaceful service in an area marked for player combat or the attackers following the rules for that area and working to earn points and progress in the game. In the case of the mourners, they were changing the rules of the game to suit them, to create something unique – a shared space to mourn a common friend. But they were definitely not playing by the rules. The attackers, considered griefers by many both in and outside of the game, did nothing that broke any rules of the game, though perhaps they broke rules of common decency (“World”); what they did does not fit into the definition of griefing, as much as do the actions of the mourners (Kotaku). Reshaping the game can be done to embed a new, sometimes political, message into the game. A group named Velvet Strike formed to protest US military action. They went into Counter Strike to bring a “message of peace, love and happiness to online shooters by any means necessary” (King). They placed spray painted graphics containing anti-war messages into the game; when confronted with people from other teams the Velvet Strike members refused to shoot (King). The group website contains “recipes” for non-violent game play. One “recipe” involved the Velvet Strike member hiding at the beginning of a mission and not moving for the rest of the game. The other players would shoot each other and then be forced to spend the rest of the game looking for the last survivor in order to get credit for the win. Similar behaviour has been tried inside the game America’s Army. Beginning March, 2006, deLappe, an artist who opposes the U.S. government’s involvement in Iraq, engaged in griefing behaviour by filling (spamming) the in-game text channel with the names of the people killed in the war; no one else can communicate on that channel. Even his character name, dead-in-Iraq, is an anti-war protest (deLappe). “I do not participate in the proscribed mayhem. Rather, I stand in position and type until I am killed. After death, I hover over my dead avatar’s body and continue to type. Upon being re-incarnated in the next round, I continue the cycle” (deLappe n.p.). What about these games and virtual worlds might lead people to even consider griefing? For one thing, they seem anonymous, which can lead to irresponsible behaviour. Players use fake names. Characters on the screen do not seem real. Another reason may be that rules can be broken in videogames and virtual worlds with few consequences, and in fact the premise of the game often seems to encourage such rule breaking. The rules are not always clearly laid out. Each game or world has a Terms of Service agreement that set out basic acceptable behaviour. Second Life defines griefing in terms of the Terms of Service that all users agree to when opening accounts. Abuse is when someone consciously and with malicious intent violates those terms. On top of that limited set of guidelines, each landowner in a virtual world such as Second Life can also set rules for their own property, from dress code, to use of weapons, to allowable conversation topics. To better understand griefing, it is necessary to consider the motivations of the people involved. Early work on categorising player types was completed by Bartle, who studied users of virtual worlds, specifically MUDs, and identified four player types: killers, achievers, socialisers, and explorers. Killers and achievers seem most relevant in a discussion about griefing. Killers enjoy using other players to get ahead. They want to do things to other people (not for or with others), and they get the most pleasure if they can act without the consent of the other player. Knowing about a game or a virtual world gives no power unless that knowledge can be used to gain some advantage over others and to enhance your standing in the game. Achievers want power and dominance in a game so they can do things to the game and master it. Griefing could help them feel a sense of power if they got people to do their will to stop the griefing behavior. Yee studied the motivations of people who play MMORPGs. He found that people who engage in griefing actually scored high in being motivated to play by both achieving and competition (“Facets”). Griefers often want attention. They may want to show off their scripting skills in the hope of earning respect among other coders and possibly be hired to program for others. But many players are motivated by a desire to compete and to win; these categories do not seem to be adequate for understanding the different types of griefing (Yee, “Faces of Grief”). The research on griefing in games has also suggested ways to categorise griefers in virtual worlds. Suler divides griefers into two types (qtd. in Becker). The first is those who grief in order to make trouble for authority figures, including the people who create the worlds. A few of the more spectacular griefing incidents seem designed to cause trouble for Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. Groups attacked the servers that run Second Life, known as the grid, in October of 2005; this became known as the “gray goo attack” (Second Life; Wallace). Servers were flooded with objects and Second Life had to be taken off line to be restored from backups. More organised groups, such as the W-hats, the SL Liberation Army, and Patriotic Nigas engage in more large scale and public griefing. Some groups hope to draw attention to the group’s goals. The SL Liberation Army wants Linden Lab to open up the governance of the virtual world so that users can vote on changes and policies being implemented and limit corporate movement into Second Life (MarketingVox). Patriotic Nigas, with about 35 active members, want to slow the entry of corporations into Second Life (Cabron, “Who are Second Life’s”). One often discussed griefer attack in Second Life included a flood of pink flying penises directed against land owner and the first person to have made a profit of more than one million United States dollars in a virtual world, Anshe Chung, during a well-publicised and attended interview in world with technology news outlet CNET (Walsh, “Second Life Millionaire” ). The second type proposed by Suler is the griefer who wants to hurt and victimise others (qtd. in Becker). Individual players often go naked into PG-rated areas to cause trouble. Weapons are used in areas where weapons are banned. Second Life publishes a police blotter, which lists examples of minor griefing and assigned punishment, including incidents of disturbing the peace and violating community standards for which warnings and short bans have been issued. These are the actions of individuals for the most part, as were the people who exploited security holes to enter the property uninvited during the grand opening of Endemol’s Big Brother island in Second Life; guests to the opening were firebombed and caged. One of the griefers explained her involvement: Well I’m from The Netherlands, and as you might know the tv concept of big brother was invented here, and it was in all the newspapers in Holland. So I thought It would be this huge event with lots of media. Then I kinda got the idea ‘hey I could ruin this and it might make the newspaper or tv. So that’s what set me off, lol. (qtd. in Sklar) Some groups do grief just to annoy. The Patriotic Nigas claim to have attacked the John Edwards headquarters inside SL wearing Bush ‘08 buttons (Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”), but it was not a political attack. The group’s founder, Mudkips Acronym (the name of his avatar in SL) said, “I’m currently rooting for Obama, but that doesn’t mean we won’t raid him or anything. We’ll hit anyone if it’s funny, and if the guy I want to be president in 2008’s campaign provides the lulz, we’ll certainly not cross him off our list” (qtd. in Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”). If they disrupt a high profile event or site, the attack will be covered by media that can amplify the thrill of the attack, enhance their reputation among other griefers, and add to their enjoyment of the griefing. Part of the definition of griefing is that the griefer enjoys causing other players pain and disrupting their game. One resident posted on the SL blog, “Griefers, for the most part, have no other agenda other than the thrill of sneaking one past and causing a big noise. Until a spokesperson comes forward with a manifesto, we can safely assume that this is the work of the “Jackass” generation, out to disrupt things to show that they can“ (Scarborough). Usually to have fun, griefers go after individuals, rather than the owners and administrators of the virtual world and so fit into Suler’s second type of griefing. These griefers enjoy seeing others get angry and frustrated. As one griefer said: Understanding the griefer mindset begins with this: We don’t take the game seriously at all. It continues with this: It’s fun because you react. Lastly: We do it because we’re jerks and like to laugh at you. I am the fly that kamikazes into your soup. I am the reason you can’t have nice things … . If I make you cry, you’ve made my day. (Drake) They have fun by making the other players mad. “Causing grief is the name of his game. His objective is simple: Make life hell for anyone unlucky enough to be playing with him. He’s a griefer. A griefer is a player bent on purposely frustrating others during a multiplayer game” (G4). “I’m a griefer. It’s what I do,” the griefer says. “And, man, people get so pissed off. It’s great” (G4). Taking Action against Griefers Understanding griefing from the griefer point of view leads us to examine the actions of those being griefed. Suler suggests several pairs of opposing actions that can be taken against griefers, based on his experience in an early social environment called Palace. Many of the steps still being used fit into these types. He first describes preventative versus remedial action. Preventative steps include design features to minimise griefing. The Second Life interface includes the ability to build 3D models and to create software; it also includes a menu for land owners to block those features at will, a design feature that helps prevent much griefing. Remedial actions are those taken by the administrators to deal with the effects of griefing; Linden Lab administrators can shut down whole islands to keep griefer activities from spreading to nearby islands. The second pair is interpersonal versus technical; interpersonal steps involve talking to the griefers to get them to stop ruining the game for others, while technical steps prevent griefers from re-entering the world. The elven community in Second Life strongly supports interpersonal steps; they have a category of members in their community known as guardians who receive special training in how to talk to people bent on destroying the peacefulness of the community or disturbing an event. The creators of Camp Darfur on Better World island also created a force of supporters to fend off griefer attacks after the island was destroyed twice in a week in 2006 (Kenzo). Linden Lab also makes use of technical methods; they cancel accounts so known griefers can not reenter. There were even reports that they had created a prison island where griefers whose antics were not bad enough to be totally banned would be sent via a one-way teleporter (Walsh, “Hidden Virtual World Prison”). Some users of Second Life favour technical steps; they believe that new users should be held a fixed amount of time on the Orientation island which would stop banned users from coming back into the world immediately. The third is to create tools for average users or super users (administrators); both involve software features, some of which are available to all users to help them make the game good for them while others are available only to people with administrator privileges. Average users who own land have a variety of tools available to limit griefing behaviour on their own property. In Second Life, the land owner is often blamed because he or she did not use the tools provided to landowners by Linden Lab; they can ban individual users, remove users from the land, mute their conversation, return items left on the property, and prevent people from building or running scripts. As one landowner said, “With the newbies coming in there, I’ve seen their properties just littered with crap because they don’t know protective measures you need to take as far as understanding land control and access rights” (qtd. in Girard). Super users, those who work for Linden Lab, can remove a player from the game for a various lengths of time based on their behaviour patterns. Responses to griefers can also be examined as either individual or joint actions. Individual actions include those that land owners can take against individual griefers. Individual users, regardless of account type, can file abuse reports against other individuals; Linden Lab investigates these reports and takes appropriate action. Quick and consistent reporting of all griefing, no matter how small, is advocated by most game companies and user groups as fairly successful. Strangely, some types of joint actions have been not so successful. Landowners have tried to form the Second Life Anti-Griefing Guild, but it folded because of lack of involvement. Groups providing security services have formed; many event organisers use this kind of service. (Hoffman). More successful efforts have included the creation of software, such as SLBanLink.com, Karma, and TrustNet that read lists of banned users into the banned list on all participating property. A last category of actions to be taken against griefers, and a category used by most residents of virtual worlds, is to leave them alone—to ignore them, to tolerate their actions. The thinking is that, as with many bullies in real life, griefers want attention; when deprived of that, they will move on to find other amusements. Yelling and screaming at griefers just reinforces their bad behaviour. Users simply teleport to other locations or log off. They warn others of the griefing behaviour using the various in-world communication tools so they too can stay away from the griefers. Most of the actions described above are not useful against griefers for whom a bad reputation is part of their credibility in the griefer community. The users of Second Life who staged the Gray Goo denial of service attack in October, 2005 fit into that category. They did nothing to hide the fact that they wanted to cause massive trouble; they named the self-replicating object that they created Grief Spawn and discussed ways to bring down the world on griefer forums (Wallace) Conclusion The most effective griefing usually involves an individual or small group who are only looking to have fun at someone else’s expense. It’s a small goal, and as long as there are any other users, it is easy to obtain the desired effect. In fact, as word spreads of the griefing and users feel compelled to change their behaviour to stave off future griefer attacks, the griefers have fun and achieve their goal. The key point here is that everyone has the same goal – have fun. Unfortunately, for one group – the griefers – achieving their goal precludes other users from reaching theirs. Political griefers are less successful in achieving their goals. Political creative play as griefing, like other kinds of griefing, is not particularly effective, which is another aspect of griefing as error. Other players react with frustration and violence to the actions of griefers such as deLappe and Velvet-Strike. If griefing activity makes people upset, they are less open to considering the political or economic motives of the griefers. Some complaints are relatively mild; “I’m all for creative protest and what not, but this is stupid. It’s not meaningful art or speaking out or anything of the type, its just annoying people who are never going to change their minds about how awesome they think war is” (Borkingchikapa). Others are more negative: “Somebody really needs to go find where that asshole lives and beat the shit out of him. Yeah, it’s a free country and he can legally pull this crap, but that same freedom extends to some patriot kicking the living shit out of him” (Reynolds). In this type of griefing no one’s goals for using the game are satisfied. The regular users can not have fun, but neither do they seem to be open to or accepting of the political griefer’s message. This pattern of success and failure may explain why there are so many examples of griefing to disrupt rather then the politically motivated kind. It may also suggest why efforts to curb griefing have been so ineffective in the past. Griefers who seek to disrupt for fun would see it as a personal triumph if others organised against them. Even if they found themselves banned from one area, they could quickly move somewhere else to have their fun since whom or where they harass does not really matter. Perhaps not all griefing is in error, rather, only those griefing activities motivated by any other goal than have fun. People invest their time and energy in creating their characters and developing skills. The behaviour of people in these virtual environments has a definite bearing on the real world. And perhaps that explains why people in these virtual worlds react so strongly to the behaviour. So, remember, stay off the beach until they catch the griefers, and if you want to make up the game as you go along, be ready for the other players to point at you and say “Bad, Bad Avatar.” References Bartle, Richard. “Players Who Suit MUDs.” Journal of MUD Research 1.1 (June 1996). 10 Sep. 2007 http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm>. Becker, David. Inflicting Pain on “Griefers.” 13 Dec. 2004. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.news.com/Inflicting-pain-on-griefers/2100-1043_3-5488403.html>. Borkingchikapa. Playing America’s Army. 30 May 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.metafilter.com/51938/playing-Americas-Army>. Cabron, Lou. John Edwards Attackers Unmasked. 5 Mar. 2007. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/05/john-edwards-virtual-attackers-unmasked/>. Cabron, Lou. Who Are Second Life’s “Patriotic Nigas”? 8 Mar. 2007. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/08/patriotic-nigras-interview-john-edwards-second-life/>. DeLappe, Joseph. Joseph deLappe. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007. http://www.unr.edu/art/DELAPPE/DeLappe%20Main%20Page/DeLappe%20Online%20MAIN.html>. Drake, Shannon. “Jerk on the Internet.” The Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 31-32. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/31>. Foo, Chek Yang. Redefining Grief Play. 2004. 10 Oct. 2007 http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1mBYzWVqAsIJ:www.itu.dk/op/papers/ yang_foo.pdf+foo+koivisto&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a>. Foo, Chek Yang, and Elina Koivisto. Grief Player Motivations. 2004. 15 Aug. 2007 http://www.itu.dk/op/papers/yang_foo_koivisto.pdf>. G4. Confessions of a Griefer. N.D. 21 June 2007 http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/42527/Confessions_of_a_Griefer.html>. Girard, Nicole. “Griefer Madness: Terrorizing Virtual Worlds.”_ Linux Insider_ 19 Sep. 2007. 3 Oct. 2007 http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/59401.html>. Hoffman, E. C. “Tip Sheet: When Griefers Attack.” Business Week. 2007. 21 June 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/playbook/07/0416_1.htm>. Kenzo, In. “Comment: Has Plastic Duck Migrated Back to SL?” Second Life Herald Apr. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/04/has_plastic_duc.html>. King, Brad. “Make Love, Not War.” Wired June 2002. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2002/06/52894>. Koster, Raph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Scotsdale, AZ: Paraglyph, 2005. Kotaku. _WoW Funeral Party Gets Owned. _2006. 15 Aug. 2007 http://kotaku.com/gaming/wow/wow-funeral-party-gets-owned-167354.php>. MarketingVox. Second Life Liberation Army Targets Brands. 7. Dec. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2006/12/07/second-life-liberation-army-targets-brands/>. Mulligan, Jessica, and Bridget Patrovsky. Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003. Reynolds, Ren. Terra Nova: dead-in-iraq. 7 May 2006. 15 Aug. 2007 http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/05/deadiniraq_.html>. Rossingnol, Jim. “A Deadly Dollar.” The Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 23-27. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/23>. Scarborough, Solivar. Mass Spam Issue Inworld Being Investigated. 13 Oct. 2006. 20 June 2007 http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/13/mass-spam-issue-inworld-being-investigated/>. Sklar, Urizenus. “Big Brother Opening Hypervent Griefed for 4 Hours.” Second Life Herald 12 Dec. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/12/big_brother_ope.html>. Suler, John. The Bad Boys of Cyberspace. 1997. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/badboys.html>. Taylor, T.L. Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2006. Velvet Strike. Velvet-Strike. N.D. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/nonflame.html>. Walker, John. “How to Be a Complete Bastard.” PC Gamer 13 Mar. 2007. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=159883&site=pcg>. Wallace, Mark. “The Day the Grid Disappeared.” Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 11. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/11>. Walsh, Tony. Hidden Virtual-World Prison Revealed. 3 Jan. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/hidden_virtual_world_prison_revealed/>. Walsh, Tony. Second Life Millionaire Interview Penis-Bombed. 20 Dec. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/second_life_millionaire_interview_penis_bombed/>. Warner, Dorothy, and Mike Raiter. _Social Context in Massively-Multiplayer Online Games. _2005. 20 Aug. 2007 http://www.i-r-i-e.net/inhalt/004/Warner-Raiter.pdf>. “World of Warcraft: Funeral Ambush.” 2006. YouTube. 15 Aug. 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MVOE2ak5w>. Yee, Nicholas. Facets: 5 Motivational Factors for Why People Play MMORPG’s. 2002. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.nickyee.com/facets/home.html>. Yee, Nicholas. Faces of Grief. 2005. June 2007 http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000893.php?page=1>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Gregson, Kimberly. "Bad Avatar!: Griefing in Virtual Worlds." M/C Journal 10.5 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/06-gregson.php>. APA Style Gregson, K. (Oct. 2007) "Bad Avatar!: Griefing in Virtual Worlds," M/C Journal, 10(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/06-gregson.php>.

Investigative journalist Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart of The Daily Show: MOYERS: I do not know whether you are practicing an old form of parody and satire…or a new form of journalism. STEWART: Well then that either speaks to the sad state of comedy or the sad state of news. I can’t figure out which one. I think, honestly, we’re practicing a new form of desperation…. July 2003 (Bill Moyers Interview of Jon Stewart, on Public Broadcasting Service) Transmission, while always fraught and ever-changing, is particularly so at a moment when coincidentally the exponential increase in access to new media communication is paired with the propagandized and state-dominated moment of war, in this case the U.S. preemptive invasion of Iraq in 2003. U.S. fighter planes drop paper propaganda along with bombs. Leaked into mainstream media by virtue of new media technologies, the violations of Abu-Ghraib represent the challenge of conducting war in a digital era. Transmissions are highly controlled and yet the proliferation of access poses a new challenge – explicitly named by Rumsfeld in December 2005 on the Jim Lehrer news hour: DONALD RUMSFELD: No, I think what is happening – and this is the first war that has ever been conducted in the 21st century when you had talk radio, the Internet, e-mails, bloggers, 24-hour news, digital cameras, video cameras, instant access to everything, and we haven’t accommodated to that yet. … And what’s happening is the transmission belt that receives it spreads all these things. … Rumsfeld’s comments about the convergence of new media with a time of war highlights what those of us studying cultural communication see as a crucial site of study: the access and use of new media to transmit dissenting political commentary is arguably a sign of new counter-public spaces that coincide with increased mainstream media control and erosion of civil liberties surrounding free speech. In this particular instance, the strategic use of media by U.S. political administration to sell a morally questionable war to the public through deceptions and propaganda raises new questions about the transmission and phenomenon of truth claims in a digital age. In this essay I examine three sites through which satire is used to express political commentary in the convergent moment of repression combines with increased affordances. The examples I offer have been chosen because they illustrate what I recognize as a cultural shift, an emotional sea change even for staunch postmodernists: replacing Jameson’s characterization of the “waning of affect,” there has emerged renewed desire for truthfulness and accountability. What’s unique is that this insistence on the possibility of truthfulness is held in simultaneous contradiction with cynical distrust. The result is a paradoxical affective sentiment shared by many: the simultaneous belief that all truths are rhetorically constructed along with the shared certainty that we have been lied to, that this is wrong, and that there is a truthfulness that should be delivered. This demand is directed at the corrupted synergy created between media and politicians. The arguments used to counter the dominant content (and form) of transmission are made using new digital media. The sea-change in transmission is its multidirectionality, its frequency, and its own rapidly-changing modes of transmission. In short, communication and the political role of media has become exponentially complex in the simultaneous demand for truthfulness alongside the simultaneous awareness that all truth is constructed. Visual satire offers an ideal form to transmit the post-9/11 contradictions because irony turns on the unsaid; it uses the dominant forms of logic to express what is otherwise silenced as dissenting didacticism; it expresses horrors in forms that are palatable; it creates a sense of shared meaning and community by using the unsaid to create a recognition of the dominant culture as misrepresentation. While irony has been used for centuries as a political tool, what is unique about the digitally produced and disseminated cultures created through visual ironies after 9/11 is that these expressions explicitly reference again and again a desire for accountability. Much could be said about the history of political satire, and if space permitted I would develop here my discussion of affect and parody, best excavated beginning with a history of political satire moving up to current “fair use legislation” which legally protects those who perform parody, one subset of satire. A more general comment on the relation of humor to politics helps set a context for the relationship of satire to contemporary political transmissions I address. Humor … helps one only to bear somewhat better the unalterable; sometimes it reminds both the mighty and the weak that they are not to be taken seriously. …One’s understanding of political jokes obviously depends on one’s understanding of politics. At one level, politics is always a struggle for power. Along with persuasion and lies, advice and flattery, tokens of esteem and bribery, banishment and violence, obedience and treachery, the joke belongs to the rich treasury of the instruments of politics. We often hear that the political joke is an offensive weapon with which an aggressive, politically engaged person makes the arrangements or precautions of an opponent seem ridiculous. But even when political jokes serve defensive purposes, they are nonetheless weapons (Speier and Jackall 1998, 1352). The productions I am studying I define as digital dissent: the use of new media to engage in tactical media, culture jamming, or online civic participation that interrupts mainstream media narratives. The sites I am studying include multimedia memes, blogs, and mirrored streaming of cable-channel Comedy Central’s highly popular news satire. These three examples illustrate a key tension embedded in the activity of transmission: in their form (satirical) and content (U.S. mainstream media and U.S. politicians and mistakes) they critique prevailing (dominant) transmissions of mainstream media, and perform this transmission using mainstream media as the transmitter. The use of the existing forms to critique those same forms helpfully defines “tactical media,” so that, ironically, the transmission of mainstream news is satirized through content and form while in turn being transmitted via corporate-owned news show. The following illustrations of digital dissent employ irony and satire to transmit the contradictory emotional sensibilities: on the one hand, the awareness that all truth claims are constructed and on the other, a longing for truthful accountability from politicians and media. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart The Daily Show (TDS) with Jon Stewart is a highly-popular news satire. “The most trusted name in fake news” is transmitted four nights a week in the U.S. and Canada on cable television and often on another local network channel. TDS format uses “real” news clips from mainstream media – generally about Washington D.C. politics – and offers satirical and ironic commentary about the media representations as well as about the actions and speech of the politicians represented. Aired in Europe through CNN as well througha half-hour once weekly version, TDS is also streamed online both through Comedy Central’s official site as well as on mirrored independent streaming. The Daily Show has been airing for 6 years, has 1.7 million television viewers, a wide audience who view TDS online, and a larger segment of age 18-31 viewers than any other U.S. nightly news show (Friend 28). Jon Stewart has become an icon of a cross-partisan North American critique of George W. Bush in particular (though Stewart claims himself as non-partisan). Particularly since his appearance on CNN news debate show Crossfire and now poised to host the Academy Awards (two days until Oscar broadcast as I write), Jon Stewart emblematizes a faith in democracy, and demand for media accountability to standards of civic discourse seen as central to democracy. (In a March 2, 2006 blog-letter to Jon Stewart, Ariana Huffington warns him against losing his current political legitimacy by blowing it at the Oscars: “Interjecting too much political commentary – no matter how trenchant or hilarious – is like interrupting the eulogy at a funeral to make a political point … . At the same time, there is no denying the fact, Jon, that you are going to have the rapt attention of some 40 million Americans. Or that political satire – done right – can alter people’s perceptions (there’s a reason emperors have always banned court jesters in times of crisis). Or that a heaping dose of your perception-altering mockery would do the American body politic a load of good.”) “Stop hurting America” Stewart pleads with two mainstream news show hosts on the now-infamous Crossfire appearance, (an 11 minute clip easily found online or through ifilm.com). Stewart’s public shaming of mainstream media as partisan hackery theatre, “helping corporations and leaving all of us alone to mow our lawns,” became the top-cited media event in the blogosphere in 2004. The satirical form of The Daily Show illustrates how the unsaid functions as truth. Within the range of roles classically defined within the history of humor and satire, Jon Stewart represents the court jester (Jones). First, the unsaid often occurs literally through Stewart’s responses to material: the camera often shows simply his facial expression and speechlessness, which “says it all.” The unsaid also occurs visually through the ironic adoption of the familiar visuals of a news show: for example, situating the anchor person (Stewart) behind his obscenely large news desk. Part of this unsaid is an implicit questioning of the performed legitimacy of a news report. For viewers, The Daily Show displaces a dominant and enforced hegemonic cultural pastime: individuals in isolated living rooms tuned in to (and alienated by) the 11 o’clock dose of media spin about politicians’ and military versions of reality have been replaced by a new virtual solidarity of 1.2 million living rooms who share a recognition of deception. Ironically, as Bill Moyers expresses to Jon Stewart, “but when I report the news on this broadcast, people say I’m making it up. When you make it up, they say you’re telling the truth” (“Transcript”). The unsaid also functions by using actual existing logics, discourses, and even various familiar reiterated truth claims (the location of WMD; claims made by Hans Blix, etc.) and shifting the locutionary context of these slightly in order to create irony – putting “real” words into displaced contexts in a way that reveals the constructed-ness of the “real” and thereby creates an unsaid, shared commentary about the experience of feeling deceived by the media and by the Pentagon. Through its use of both “real” news footage combined with ironic “false” commentary, The Daily Show allows viewers to occupy the simultaneous space of cynicism and desire for truth: pleasure and satisfaction followed by a moment of panic or horror. Bush in 30 Seconds The Bushin30seconds campaign was begun by the organization MoveOn, who solicited entries from the public and received over 500 which were streamed as QuickTime videos on their Website. The guidelines were to use the form of a campaign ad, and the popularly-selected winner would be aired on major network television during the 2004 Superbowl. The majority of the Bushin30Seconds ads include content that directly addresses Bush’s deception and make pleas for truth, many explicitly addressing the demand for truth, the immorality of lies, and the problems that political deception pose for democracy (along with a research team, I am currently working on a three year project analyzing all of these in terms of their content, rhetorical form, and discursive strategies and will be surveying and interviewing the producers of the Bushin30Seconds. Our other two sites of study include political blogs about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and online networks sparked by The Daily Show). The demand for truthfulness is well exemplified in the ad called “Polygraph” (see also #27 A Big Puzzle). This ad invokes a simulated polygraph – the polygraph being a classic instrument of rational positivism and surveillance – which measures for the viewer the “truth” quotient of Bush’s own “real” words. Of course, the polygraph is not actually connected to Bush’s body, and hence offers a visual symbolic “stand in” for the viewer’s own internal or collectively shared sensibility or truth meter. Illustrating my central argument about the expressed desire for truthfulness, the ad concludes with the phrase “Americans are dying for the truth.” Having examined 150 ads, it is remarkable how many of these – albeit via different cultural forms ranging from hip hop to animation to drama to pseudo-advertisement for a toy action figure – make a plea for accountability, not only on behalf of one’s own desire but often out of altruistic concern for others. The Yes Men I offer one final example to illustrate transmissions that disrupt dominant discourses. The Yes Men began their work when they created a website which “mirrored” the World Trade Organization site. Assumed to represent the WTO, they were subsequently offered invitations to give keynotes at various international conferences and press meetings of CEOs and business people. (Their work is documented in an hour-long film titled The Yes Men available at many video outlets and through their web site.) The main yes man, Bichlbaum, arrives to these large international meetings with careful attire and speech, and offers a straight-faced keynote with subversive content. For example, at a textile conference he suggests that slavery had been a very profitable form of labor and might be reintroduced as alternative to unionized labor. At another conference, he announced that the WTO had decided to disband because it has realized it is only causing harm to international trade and economy. In December 2004, the Yes Men struck again when they were invited by the BBC as representatives of DOW chemical on the 20th anniversary of the Union Carbide Bhopal accident in India. Those who watched the BBC news and Channel 4 and the hundreds of thousands who viewed these clips afterwards are made aware of the anniversary of the worst chemical accident in history; are apprised of the ongoing effects on the people of Bhopal; and hear an unusual primetime soundbyte lambasting the utter absence of social responsibility of corporations such as Dow Chemical. The Yes Men illustrate what some might call tactical media, some might call media terrorism, and what some aspire to in their own activism. “They compare their work to that of a “funhouse mirror” – exaggerating hideous features. ‘We do that kind of exaggeration operation, but with ideas. We agree with people – turning up the volume on their ideas as we talk, until they can see their ideas distorted in our funhouse mirror. Or that’s what we try to do anyhow. As it turns out, the image always seems to look normal to them,’ Bichlbaum said” (Marchlewski). Another article describes their goal as follows: When newspapers and television stations out their acts, it’s not just the Yes Men who get attention, but also the issues they address … . The impersonations, which the two call identity corrections, are intended to show, in a colorful and humorous way, what they say are errors of corporate and government ways. (Marchlewski 2005) In conclusion, these three examples illustrate the new media terrain of access and distribution which enables transmissions that arguably construct significant new public spheres constructed around a desire for truthfulness and accountability. While some may prefer “civil society,” I find the concept of a public useful because its connotations imply less regimentation. If the public sphere is in part constructed through the reflexive circulation of discourse, the imaginary relation with strangers, and with affect as a social glue (my addition to Michael Warner’s six features of a public), we have described some of the ways in which counterpublics are produced (Warner 2002; Boler, forthcoming). If address (the circulation and reception of a cultural production under consideration) in part constructs a public, how does one imagine the interactivity between the listener/bystander/participant and the broadcast or image? To what extent do the kinds of transmission I have discussed here invite new kinds of multi-directional interactivity, and to what extent do they replicate problematic forms of broadcast? Which kind of subject is assumed or produced by different “mediated” publics? What is the relationship of discourse and propaganda to action and materiality? These are some of the eternally difficult questions raised when one analyzes ideology and culture in relation to social change. It is indeed very difficult to trace what action follows from any particular discursive construction of publics. One can think of the endings of the 150 Finalists in the Bush in30 Seconds campaign, each with an explicit or implicit imperative: “think!” or “act!” What subject is hailed and invoked, and what relationship might exist between the invocation or imagining of that listener and that listener’s actual reception and translation of any transmission? The construction of a public through address is a key feature of the politics of representation and visions of social change through cultural production. Each of the three sites of productions I have analyzed illustrate a renewed call for faith in media as an institution which owes a civic responsibility to democracy. The iterations of calls for truthful accounts from media and politicians stand in tension with the simultaneous recognition of the complex social construction of any and all truth claims. The uncertainty about whether such transmissions constitute “an old form of parody and satire…or a new form of journalism” reflects the ongoing paradox of what Jon Stewart describes as a “new form of desperation.” For those who live in Western democracies, I suggest that the study of political transmission is best understood within this moment of convergence and paradox when we are haunted by paradoxical desires for truths. References “American Daily.” 7 Nov. 2003 http://www.americandaily.com/article/5951>. Boler, Megan. “Mediated Publics and the Crises of Democracy.” Philosophical Studies in Education 37 (2006, forthcoming), eds. Justen Infinito and Cris Mayo. Colebrook, Claire. Irony. London: Routledge, 2004. Jameson, Frederic. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” The Anti-Aesthetic. Ed. H. Foster. Seattle: Bay Press, 1983. Jones, Jeffrey. Entertaining Politics: New Political Television and Civic Culture. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Fletcher, M.D. Contemporary Political Satire. New York: University Press of America, 1987. Friend, Tad. “Is It Funny Yet? Jon Stewart and the Comedy of Crisis”. The New Yorker 77.47 (11 Feb. 2002): 28(7). Huffington, Ariana. “Memo to Jon Stewart: Tread Lightly and Carry a Big Schtick.” 2 March 2006. 4 March 2006 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/memo-to-jon-stewart-trea_b_16642.html>. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004). http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v30/30n2.Latour.html>. Marchlewski, Kathie. “Hoaxsters Target Dow, Midland Daily News.” 20 May 2005 http://www.theyesmen.org/articles/dowagmmidlanddailynews.html>. Speier, Hans, & Robert Jackall. “Wit and Politics: An Essay on Laughter and Power.” The American Journal of Sociology 103.5 (1998): 1352. “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” 8 Dec. 2005. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/july-dec05/rumsfeld_12-08.html>. “Transcript – Bill Moyers Inverviews Jon Stewart.” 7 Nov. 2003 . Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Public Culture 14.1 (2002): 49-90. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Boler, Megan. "The Transmission of Political Critique after 9/11: “A New Form of Desperation”?." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/11-boler.php>. APA Style Boler, M. (Mar. 2006) "The Transmission of Political Critique after 9/11: “A New Form of Desperation”?," M/C Journal, 9(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/11-boler.php>.

Australia in Maps is a compilation of cartography taken from the collection of over 600,000 maps held at the Australian National Library. Included in this collection are military maps, coastal maps and modern-day maps for tourists. The map of the eastern coast of ‘New Holland’ drawn by James Cook when he ‘discovered’ Australia in 1770 is included. Also published is Eddie Koiki Mabo’s map drawn on a hole-punched piece of paper showing traditional land holdings in the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait. This map became a key document in Eddie Mabo’s fight for native title recognition, a fight which became the precursor to native title rights as they are known today. The inclusion of these two drawings in a collection of maps defining Australia as a country illustrates the dichotomies and contradictions which exist in a colonial nation. It is now fifteen years since the Native Title Act 1994 (Commonwealth) was developed in response to the Mabo cases in order to recognise Indigenous customary law and traditional relationships to the land over certain (restricted) parts of Australia. It is 220 years since the First Fleet arrived and Indigenous land was (and remains) illegally possessed through the process of colonisation (Moreton-Robinson Australia). Questions surrounding ‘country’ – who owns it, has rights to use it, to live on it, to develop or protect it – are still contested and contentious today. In part, this contention arises out of the radically different conceptions of ‘country’ held by, in its simplest sense, Indigenous nations and colonisers. For Indigenous Australians the land has a spiritual significance that I, as a non-Indigenous person, cannot properly understand as a result of the different ways in which relationships to land are made available. The ways of understanding the world through which my identity as a non-Indigenous person are made intelligible, by contrast, see ‘country’ as there to be ‘developed’ and exploited. Within colonial logic, discourses of development and the productive use of resources function as what Wetherell and Potter term “rhetorically self-sufficient” in that they are principles which are considered to be beyond question (177). As Vincent Tucker states; “The myth of development is elevated to the status of natural law, objective reality and evolutionary necessity. In the process all other world views are devalued and dismissed as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’, ‘irrational’ or ‘naïve’” (1). It was this precise way of thinking which was able to justify colonisation in the first place. Australia was seen as terra nullius; an empty and un-developed land not recognized as inhabited. Indigenous people were incorrectly perceived as individuals who did not use the land in an efficient manner, rather than as individual nations who engaged with the land in ways that were not intelligible to the colonial eye. This paper considers the tensions inherent in definitions of ‘country’ and the way these tensions are played out through native title claims as white, colonial Australia attempts to recognise (and limit) Indigenous rights to land. It examines such tensions as they appear in the media as an example of how native title issues are made intelligible to the non-Indigenous general public who may otherwise have little knowledge or experience of native title issues. It has been well-documented that the news media play an important role in further disseminating those discourses which dominate in a society, and therefore frequently supports the interests of those in positions of power (Fowler; Hall et. al.). As Stuart Hall argues, this means that the media often reproduces a conservative status quo which in many cases is simply reflective of the positions held by other powerful institutions in society, in this case government, and mining and other commercial interests. This has been found to be the case in past analysis of media coverage of native title, such as work completed by Meadows (which found that media coverage of native title issues focused largely on non-Indigenous perspectives) and Hartley and McKee (who found that media coverage of native title negotiations frequently focused on bureaucratic issues rather than the rights of Indigenous peoples to oppose ‘developments’ on their land). This paper aims to build on this work, and to map the way in which native title, an ongoing issue for many Indigenous groups, figures in a mainstream newspaper at a time when there has not been much mainstream public interest in the process. In order to do this, this paper considered articles which appeared in Australia’s only national newspaper – The Australian – over the six months preceding the start of July 2008. Several main themes ran through these articles, examples of which are provided in the relevant sections. These included: economic interests in native title issues, discourses of white ownership and control of the land, and rhetorical devices which reinforced the battle-like nature of native title negotiations rather than emphasised the rights of Indigenous Australians to their lands. Native Title: Some Definitions and Some Problems The concept of native title itself can be a difficult one to grasp and therefore a brief definition is called for here. According to the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) website (www.nntt.gov.au), native title is the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs. The native title rights and interests held by particular Indigenous people will depend on both their traditional laws and customs and what interests are held by others in the area concerned. Generally speaking, native title must give way to the rights held by others. Native title is therefore recognised as existing on the basis of certain laws and customs which have been maintained over an area of land despite the disruption caused by colonisation. As such, if native title is to be recognised over an area of country, Indigenous communities have to argue that their cultures and connection with the land have survived colonisation. As the Maori Land Court Chief Judge Joe Williams argues: In Australia the surviving title approach […] requires the Indigenous community to prove in a court or tribunal that colonisation caused them no material injury. This is necessary because, the greater the injury, the smaller the surviving bundle of rights. Communities who were forced off their land lose it. Those whose traditions and languages were beaten out of them at state sponsored mission schools lose all of the resources owned within the matrix of that language and those traditions. This is a perverse result. In reality, of course, colonisation was the greatest calamity in the history of these people on this land. Surviving title asks aboriginal people to pretend that it was not. To prove in court that colonisation caused them no material injury. Communities who were forced off their land are the same communities who are more likely to lose it. As found in previous research (Meadows), these inherent difficulties of the native title process were widely overlooked in recent media reports of native title issues published in The Australian. Due to recent suggestions made by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin for changes to be made to the native title system, The Australian did include reports on the need to ensure that traditional owners share the economic profits of the mining boom. This was seen in an article by Karvelas and Murphy entitled “Labor to Overhaul Native Title Law”. The article states that: Fifteen years after the passage of the historic Mabo legislation, the Rudd Government has flagged sweeping changes to native title to ensure the benefits of the mining boom flow to Aboriginal communities and are not locked up in trusts or frittered away. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, delivering the third annual Eddie Mabo Lecture in Townsville, said yesterday that native title legislation was too complex and had failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities, despite lucrative agreements with mining companies. (1) Whilst this passage appears supportive of Indigenous Australians in that it argues for their right to share in economic gains made through ‘developments’ on their country, the use of phrases such as ‘frittered away’ imply that Indigenous Australians have made poor use of their ‘lucrative agreements’, and therefore require further intervention in their lives in order to better manage their financial situations. Such an argument further implies that the fact that many remote Indigenous communities continue to live in poverty is the fault of Indigenous Australians’ mismanagement of funds from native title agreements rather than from governmental neglect, thereby locating the blame once more in the hands of Indigenous people rather than in a colonial system of dispossession and regulation. Whilst the extract does continue to state that native title legislation is too complex and has ‘failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities’, the article does not go on to consider other areas in which native title is failing Indigenous people, such as reporting the protection of sacred and ceremonial sites, and provisions for Indigenous peoples to be consulted about developments on their land to which they may be opposed. Whilst native title agreements with companies may contain provisions for these issues, it is rare that there is any regulation for whether or not these provisions are met after an agreement is made (Faircheallaigh). These issues almost never appeared in the media which instead focused on the economic benefits (or lack thereof) stemming from the land rather than the sovereign rights of traditional owners to their country. There are many other difficulties inherent in the native title legislation for Indigenous peoples. It is worth discussing some of these difficulties as they provide an image of the ways in which ‘country’ is conceived of at the intersection of a Western legal system attempting to encompass Indigenous relations to land. The first of these difficulties relates to the way in which Indigenous people are required to delineate the boundaries of the country which they are claiming. Applications for native title over an area of land require strict outlining of boundaries for land under consideration, in accordance with a Western system of mapping country. The creation of such boundaries requires Indigenous peoples to define their country in Western terms rather than Indigenous ones, and in many cases proves quite difficult as areas of traditional lands may be unavailable to claim (Neate). Such differences in understandings of country mean that “for Indigenous peoples, the recognition of their indigenous title, should it be afforded, may bear little resemblance to, or reflect minimally on, their own conceptualisation of their relations to country” (Glaskin 67). Instead, existing as it does within a Western legal system and subject to Western determinations, native title forces Indigenous people to define themselves and their land within white conceptions of country (Moreton-Robinson Possessive). In fact, the entire concept of native title has been criticized by many Indigenous commentators as a denial of Indigenous sovereignty over the land, with the result of the Mabo case meaning that “Indigenous people did not lose their native title rights but were stripped of their sovereign rights to manage their own affairs, to live according to their own laws, and to own and control the resources on their lands” (Falk and Martin 38). As such, Falk and Martin argue that The Native Title Act amounts to a complete denial of Aboriginal sovereignty so that Indigenous people are forced to live under a colonial regime which is able to control and regulate their lives and access to country. This is commented upon by Aileen Moreton-Robinson, who writes that: What Indigenous people have been given, by way of white benevolence, is a white-constructed from of ‘Indigenous’ proprietary rights that are not epistemologically and ontologically grounded in Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty. Indigenous land ownership, under these legislative regimes, amounts to little more than a mode of land tenure that enables a circumscribed form of autonomy and governance with minimum control and ownership of resources, on or below the ground, thus entrenching economic dependence on the nation state. (Moreton-Robinson Sovereign Subjects 4) The native title laws in place in Australia restrict Indigenous peoples to existing within white frameworks of knowledge. Within the space of The Native Title Act there is no room for recognition of Indigenous sovereignty whereby Indigenous peoples can make decisions for themselves and control their own lands (Falk and Martin). These tensions within definitions of ‘country’ and sovereignty over land were reflected in the media articles examined, primarily in terms of the way in which ‘country’ was related to and used. This was evident in an article entitled “An Economic Vision” with a tag-line “Native Title Reforms offer Communities a Fresh Start”: Central to such a success story is the determination of indigenous people to help themselves. Such a business-like, forward-thinking approach is also evident in Kimberley Land Council executive director Wayne Bergmann's negotiations with some of the world's biggest resource companies […] With at least 45 per cent of Kimberley land subject to native title, Mr Bergmann, a qualified lawyer, is acutely aware of the royalties and employment potential. Communities are also benefitting from the largesse of Australia’s richest man, miner Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, whose job training courses and other initiatives are designed to help the local people, in his words, become “wonderful participating Australians.” (15) Again, this article focuses on the economic benefits to be made from native title agreements with mining companies rather than other concerns with the use of Indigenous areas of country. The use of the quote from Forrest serves to imply that Indigenous peoples are not “wonderful participating Australians” unless they are able to contribute in an economic sense, and overlooks many contributions made by Indigenous peoples in other areas such as environmental protection. Such definitions also measure ‘success’ in Western terms rather than Indigenous ones and force Indigenous peoples into a relationship to country based on Western notions of resource extraction and profit rather than Indigenous notions of custodianship and sustainability. This construction of Indigenous economic involvement as only rendered valid on particular terms echoes findings from previous work on constructions of Indigenous people in the media, such as that by LeCouteur, Rapley and Augoustinos. Theorising ‘Country’ The examples provided above illustrate the fact that the rhetoric and dichotomies of ‘country’ are at the very heart of the native title process. The process of recognising Indigenous rights to land through native title invites the question of how ‘country’ is conceived in the first place. Goodall writes that there are tensions within definitions of ‘country’ which indicate the ongoing presence of Indigenous people’s connections to their land despite colonisation. She writes that the word ‘country’: may seem a self-evident description of rural economy and society, with associations of middle-class gentility as well as being the antonym of the city. Yet in Australia there is another dimension altogether. Aboriginal land-owners traditionally identify themselves by the name of the land for which they were the custodians. These lands are often called, in today’s Aboriginal English, their ‘country’. This gives the word a tense and resonating echo each time it is used to describe rural-settler society and land. (162) Yet the distinctions usually drawn between those defined as ‘country’ people or ‘locals’ and the traditional Indigenous people of the area suggest that, as Schlunke states, in many cases Indigenous people are “too local to be ‘local’” (43). In other words, if white belonging and rights to an area of country are to be normalised, the prior claims of traditional owners are not able to be considered. As such, Indigenous belonging becomes too confronting as it disrupts the ways in which other ‘country’ people relate to their land as legitimately theirs. In the media, constructions of ‘country’ frequently fell within a colonial definition of country which overlooked Indigenous peoples. In many of these articles land was normatively constructed as belonging to the crown or the state. This was evidenced in phrases such as, “The proceedings [of the Noongar native title claim over the South Western corner of Australia] have been watched closely by other states in the expectation they might encounter similar claims over their capital cities” (Buckley-Carr 2). Use of the word their implies that the states (which are divisions of land created by colonisation) have prior claim to ‘their’ capital cities and that they rightfully belong to the government rather than to traditional owners. Such definitions of ‘country’ reflect European rather than Indigenous notions of boundaries and possession. This is also reflected in media reports of native title in the widespread use of European names for areas of land and landmarks as opposed to their traditional Indigenous names. When the media reported on a native title claim over an area of land the European name for the country was used rather than, for example, the Indigenous name followed by a geographical description of where that land is situated. Customs such as this reflect a country which is still bound up in European definitions of land rather than Indigenous ones (Goodall 167; Schlunke 47-48), and also indicate that the media is reporting for a white audience rather than for an Indigenous one whom it would affect the most. Native title debates have also “shown the depth of belief within much of rural and regional Australia that rural space is most rightfully agricultural space” (Lockie 27). This construction of rural Australia is reflective of the broader national imagining of the country as a nation (Anderson), in which Australia is considered rich in resources from which to derive profit. Within these discourses the future of the nation is seen as lying in the ‘development’ of natural resources. As such, native title agreements with industry have often been depicted in the media as obstacles to be overcome by companies rather than a way of allowing Indigenous people control over their own lands. This often appears in the media in the form of metaphors of ‘war’ for agreements for use of Indigenous land, such as development being “frustrated” by native title (Bromby) and companies being “embattled” by native title issues (Wilson). Such metaphors illustrate the adversarial nature of native title claims both for recognition of the land in the first place and often in subsequent dealings with resource companies. This was also seen in reports of company progress which would include native title claims in a list of other factors affecting stock prices (such as weak drilling results and the price of metals), as if Indigenous claims to land were just another hurdle to profit-making (“Pilbara Lures”). Conclusion As far as the native title process is concerned, the answers to the questions considered at the start of this paper remain within Western definitions. Native title exists firmly within a Western system of law which requires Indigenous people to define and depict their land within non-Indigenous definitions and understandings of ‘country’. These debates are also frequently played out in the media in ways which reflect colonial values of using and harvesting country rather than Indigenous ones of protecting it. The media rarely consider the complexities of a system which requires Indigenous peoples to conceive of their land through boundaries and definitions not congruent with their own understandings. The issues surrounding native title draw attention to the need for alternative definitions of ‘country’ to enter the mainstream Australian consciousness. These need to encompass Indigenous understandings of ‘country’ and to acknowledge the violence of Australia’s colonial history. Similarly, the concept of native title needs to reflect Indigenous notions of country and allow traditional owners to define their land for themselves. In order to achieve these goals and overcome some of the obstacles to recognising Indigenous sovereignty over Australia the media needs to play a part in reorienting concepts of country from only those definitions which fit within a white framework of experiencing the world and prioritise Indigenous relations and experiences of country. If discourses of resource extraction were replaced with discourses of sustainability, if discourses of economic gains were replaced with respect for the land, and if discourses of white control over Indigenous lives in the form of native title reform were replaced with discourses of Indigenous sovereignty, then perhaps some ground could be made to creating an Australia which is not still in the process of colonising and denying the rights of its First Nations peoples. The tensions which exist in definitions and understandings of ‘country’ echo the tensions which exist in Australia’s historical narratives and memories. The denied knowledge of the violence of colonisation and the rights of Indigenous peoples to remain on their land all haunt a native title system which requires Indigenous Australians to minimise the effect this violence had on their lives, their families and communities and their values and customs. As Katrina Schlunke writes when she confronts the realisation that her family’s land could be the same land on which Indigenous people were massacred: “The irony of fears of losing one’s backyard to a Native Title claim are achingly rich. Isn’t something already lost to the idea of ‘Freehold Title’ when you live over unremembered graves? What is free? What are you to hold?” (151). If the rights of Indigenous Australians to their country are truly to be recognised, mainstream Australia needs to seriously consider such questions and whether or not the concept of ‘native title’ as it exists today is able to answer them. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Damien Riggs and Andrew Gorman-Murray for all their help and support with this paper, and Braden Schiller for his encouragement and help with proof-reading. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their insightful comments. References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. 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