Journal articles on the topic 'Miller and Modigliani's statements'

For the first time we have generalized the world-famous theory by Nobel Prize winners Modigliani and Miller for the case of variable profit, which significantly extends the application of the theory in practice, specifically in business valuation, ratings, corporate finance, etc. We demonstrate that all the theorems, statements and formulae of Modigliani and Miller are changed significantly. We combine theoretical and numerical (by MS Excel) considerations. The following results are obtained: (1) Discount rate for leverage company changes from the weighted average cost of capital, WACC, to WACC–g (where g is growing rate), for a financially independent company from k0 to k0–g. This means that WACC and k0 are no longer the discount rates as it takes place in case of classical Modigliani–Miller theory with constant profit. WACC grows with g, while real discount rates WACC–g and k0–g decrease with g. This leads to an increase of company capitalization with g. (2) The tilt angle of the equity cost ke(L) grows with g. This should change the dividend policy of the company, because the economically justified value of dividends is equal to equity cost. (3) A qualitatively new effect in corporate finance has been discovered: at rate g < g* the slope of the curve ke(L) turns out to be negative, which could significantly alter the principles of the company’s dividend policy.

The main purpose of the current study is the generalization and further development of the Modigliani–Miller theory taking into account one of the conditions of the real functioning of companies for the case of paying income tax with an arbitrary frequency (monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual payments). While a return is not required more than once a year, businesses may be responsible for filing estimated taxes based on profits earned. This requirement is dependent on showing a profit. For example, sole proprietors must file estimated taxes on profits quarterly, on the 15th day of April, June, September and January. In Russia, tax on profit payments could be made annually, quarterly, or monthly. We suppose, that more frequent payment of income tax impacts on all main financial indicators of the company and leads to some important consequences. We use analytical and numerical methods: we derive all main formulas of the modified Modigliani–Miller theory theoretically and then use them to obtain all main financial indicators of company and their dependences on different parameters by MS Excel. We show that: (1) all Modigliani–Miller theorems, statements and formulas change; (2) all main financial indicators, such as the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), company value, V, and equity cost, ke, depend on the frequency of tax on profit payments; (3) in the case of income tax payments more than once per year (at p≠1), as takes place in practice, the WACC, company value, V and equity cost, and ke start depend on debt cost, kd, while in ordinary (classical) Modigliani–Miller theory all these values do not depend on kd; (4) obtained results allow a company to choose the number of payments of tax on profit per year (of course, within actual tax legislation): more frequent payments of income tax are beneficial for both parties, for the company and for the tax regulator.

This study empirically tests for the validity of Miller and Modigliani’s dividend irrelevance proposition in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Secondary data were obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange fact book and firms’ annual audited financial statements for fifteen years (2001-2015). Mediation Analyses, was used to measure the direct and indirect effects of dividend on stock price. Correction of the anomalous use of current dividend and current earnings by the use of naive expectation of dividend and earnings revealed that the direct effect of expected dividend on share price is significant but the indirect effect of expected dividend on share price through earnings is not significant. The implication of these results is that expected dividend has its unique (direct) effect on share price beyond the effect on share price which it shares with expected earnings (indirect effect). This conclusion suggests that dividend policy is relevant in valuation of shares in NSE. It was therefore recommended that company management should treat dividend as an active corporate finance decision-making variable and should employ dividend in information signalling to capital market investors.

This study aims to analyze and determine the effect of the projected capital structure in the leverage ratio on profitability and company value in coal companies that go public in Indonesia in 2013-2015 both directly and indirectly.With the improvement in the selling price of coal today, it is a breath of fresh air for coal mining companies to start their activities. The decision on the proportion between debt and equity is very important. Modigliani and Miller said that the use of debt would be more profitable than the capital itself. The main objective of financial management is to maximize the value of the company. From managed business activities, profits are obtained. The problem is whether the capital structure has a significant effect on profitability and firm value. The development of coal mining companies in Indonesia has good prospects because it is very much needed for the energy industry by generating electricity with coal. The mining and mining service companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2013-2015 were 42 companies and 23 of them were coal mining companies whose financial reports were examined at the same time period. This study uses path analysis with cross section data and secondary data types in the form of financial statements published on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The results of the study show that directly, capital structure has no significant effect on profitability and has a negative and significant effect on firm value. Profitabitas has no significant effect on firm value. Indirectly, profitability has no significant effect in mediating the relationship of capital structure to firm value.

[This is a comment on “The Modigliani-Miller Propositions after Thirty Years” by Merton H. Miller in this same issue.] The influence of the Modigliani-Miller (1958) propositions on capital structure and the Miller-Modigliani (1961) theses on dividend policy permeates almost all aspects of financial economics to this day. In this commentary, I shall focus on the influence of Miller's and Modigliani's contributions on a couple of key areas in corporation finance, and review research progress by later contributors. Broadly speaking, these two themes can be summarized as: (A) integrated tax- and information-related considerations in capital structure and dividend policy choices; and (B) the impact of inflation and nominally denominated debt contracts on the valuation of corporate equity.

[This is a comment on “The Modigliani-Miller Propositions after Thirty Years” by Merton H. Miller in this same issue.] What a treat it is to have the opportunity to read Merton Miller's ruminations on the MM Propositions. A comment on Miller and Modigliani's work can easily become a discussion of any facet of modern finance. I will focus on the two areas of arbitrage and taxation. Since the original MM analysis, economists have learned an enormous amount about the role played by no arbitrage conditions in financial markets. Taxation is where the real world meets the theory. At first blush, the corporate deduction for interest seemed to doom the MM analysis to an academic curiosity, since it appeared to give debt an obvious cost advantage over equity. It was the genius of Miller to see that the arbitrage analysis went much too deeply into the workings of the financial markets and the economy as a whole to be easily unseated by even something as powerful as the tax code.

This study tested Miller and Modigliani dividend policy irrelevant hypothesis in Nigeria. The objective was to examine the validity of the irrelevant hypothesis. Tobins Q measure of market value was modeled as the function of dividend payout ratio, retention ratio, dividend per share and dividend yield. 20 firms were selected on the basis of availability of information necessary for conducting the study and the readiness of annual financial reports for the period of 10 years from 2008-2017. Cross sectional data was sourced from financial statement and annual reports of the firms. Based on the analysis of fixed and random effect results, random effect was used. The study revealed that 75 percent variation on the market value can be predicted by variation on independent variables in the regression model. The beta coefficient of the variables found that all the independent variables have positive and significant relationship with market value of the selected quoted firms. The study concludes that dividend policy is relevant as oppose to the irrelevant hypothesis of Miller and Modigliani. Its therefore recommend that managers should manage their dividend policies effectively since it is relevant and has significant effect on market value and optimal dividend policy which implies policy of trade-off between dividend payout and retain earnings should be well managed and investors should have adequate knowledge of dividend policy of quoted firms that will correspond with their investment objectives of avoid conflict in dividend policy.

ABSTRACT Miller and Modigliani's (1961) dividend irrelevance theorem predicts that in perfect capital markets dividend policy should not affect investment decisions. Yet in imperfect markets, external funding constraints that stem from information asymmetry can force firms to forgo valuable investment projects in order to pay dividends. We find that high-quality financial reporting significantly mitigates the negative effect of dividends on investments, especially on R&D investments. Further, this mitigating role of financial reporting quality is particularly important among firms with a larger portion of firm value attributable to growth options. In addition, we show that the mitigating role of high-quality financial reporting is more pronounced among firms that have decreased dividends than among firms that have increased dividends. These results highlight the important role of financial reporting quality in mitigating the conflict between firms' investment and dividend decisions and thereby reducing the likelihood that firms forgo valuable investment projects in order to pay dividends. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the paper.

Purpose The paper aims to investigate whether the value of banks is affected by their financing policies. Higher capital requirements have been invoked by exploiting a renewed edition of the Modigliani–Miller (M&M) theorem. This paper shows the limits of this claim by highlighting that the general statement that “bank equity is not expensive” can be misleading. The authors argue that market prices should play an important role in bank supervision. Expectations of future profits in prices supply timely information on the viability of a bank. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the Merton model to show the inapplicability of M&M theorem to banks. The long-run viability of a bank is analyzed with a dividend discount model which allows to compare a bank’s long-term profitability with its overall cost of capital implicit in market prices. Findings The authors show that the M&M framework cannot be applied to banks neither ex-ante nor ex-post. Ex-ante the authors focus on government guarantees, ex-post they emphasize the risk-shifting phenomena that may increase the overall risk of the bank. The authors show that a bank’s stability cannot be achieved if the market expectations of its future profits stay below the cost of funding. Research limitations/implications The authors use simple analytical models. In a future study, some key peculiarities of banks, such as the monetary nature of deposits, should be analytically modelled. Practical implications The paper contributes to the debate on capital regulation on the level of capital requirements and the instruments to assess the viability/stability of banks. Originality/value This paper uses simple models to assess analytically the key issues in the debate on banks’ capital regulation.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for youth are unconstitutional. In 2016, the Court held in Montgomery v. Louisiana that the ruling in Miller should be applied retroactively. Drawing from qualitative interviews with justice actors, and individuals who were sentenced to LWOP as juveniles and paroled, this article examines the implementation of Miller-Montgomery in Michigan, the factors that influence decisions to release juvenile lifers, and their reentry process. In doing so, we focus specific attention to the role of publicly appointed defense attorneys and the application of holistic defense practices to support Montgomery case mitigation and juvenile lifer reentry. Findings indicate that institutional disciplinary and programming records, emotional wellness, statements by victims’ family members, political considerations, and reentry plans are key considerations when deciding whether a juvenile lifer should be eligible for parole.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The implication of the study of the Miller Ratio (MR), given the simplicity of its computation, is the possibility of the MR being both a beneficial and easy to use tool for practitioners and regulators to detect for the possibility of earnings management (EM).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The previously studied models, particularly the Modified Jones Model (MJM), were not designed to be utilized on a case-by-case basis since they were studied using large samples of firms in an attempt to make generalized statements about the effectiveness of the models.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The MR, designed to be utilized on a case-by-case basis, is easily computed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If corporate managers become aware of this simple, easy-to-use tool to detect EM, they may be more cautious about engaging in this activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially, the MR could assist practitioners and regulators in prioritizing their work load of companies to analyze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be another tool in their arsenal to assist them in their regulatory and auditing duties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The simplicity and benefit of the MR is discussed in this study.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>

Conflict is an integral part of human relationships. As defined by The University English Dictionary conflict denotes a struggle, a clashing of views or statements, a meeting in opposition or antagonism. The position taken in the present study is that a conflict consists of an opposition between two individuals “when one person does something to which a second person objects” (Hay, 1984, p.2). This particular outlook is consistent with that adopted by Kagan, Knight & Martinez-Romero (1982) in their study of children's conflict resolution styles.Paradoxically, while conflict may be an important aspect of human relations, conflict as evidenced in children's relations has received scant attention. Research has identified possible sex differences in children's conflict with boys engaging in more direct conflict than girls (Miller, Danaher & Forbes, 1986; Shantz, 1986). Boys do appear to use different conflict resolution strategies (namely more threats and physical force as opposed to negotiation) than girls (Miller et al, 1981). Some evidence also exists that there are developmental changes in children's conflict resolution strategies such that from 5 to 9 years there is an increasing use of a reconciliation conflict resolution style (Aboud, 1981).

In this issue, we introduce a new format. To meet reader demand, QRB will augment its long-standing commitment to Reviews with Essays. Essays will be brief, timely commentaries considering one or more of the following: a new idea, a new argument about an old idea, the answer to an outstanding question, a new method, a new interpretation, or a subject otherwise of importance to biophysicists. Whereas Reviews are intellectually rigorous reports that stand as definitive statements on a subject for many years, Essays will seek to apply the same high standard to highlighting a moment in time, to show us where we stand and, so, to infer our trajectory. Essays will appear as deemed appropriate; this inaugural year will be replete with an Essay each quarter. The Board is pleased to announce that our Essayists for 2004 will be Richard Henderson (this issue), Donald Crothers (May), Christopher Miller (August) and Brian Matthews (November).

In 1998 Miller, in his paper titled "The margins of accounting" observed that "By looking at the margins of accounting, we can understand how this influential body of expertise is formed and transformed" (Miller, 1998: 618). Drawing on this analogy, the boundaries of reporting and the ways these are defined and re-defined, as a consequence of the relationships organisations form with other entities from time to time, and their substantive nature provide insights about the business and its business model. Accordingly, an examination of reporting boundaries helps to better understand and appreciate the objective of an organisation, the logic that underlies its business model and how that is ‘reflected' and communicated through the reporting entity's financial statements - which may or may not align with the boundaries of the ‘organisation'. Despite the relevance of reporting boundaries as a critical aspect of the accounting discipline, it remains a relatively unexplored area in the literature. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to offer an initial overview on how the boundaries of reporting have (not) changed in response to the broadening scope of reporting to address both financial and ‘non-financial' information (e.g. sustainability, governance and intangibles) and attempts to promote greater integration between both sets of information (IIRC, 2013). In particular, the analysis draws on the interpretative schemes of Zambon (1996) and Zambon and Zan (2000) and is combined with the concept of ‘transplantation'. The manner in which reporting boundaries are defined for both financial and non-financial reporting is investigated and compared. This comparison enables similarities and differences between the definition of the ‘reporting boundary' to be problematised and explored for both financial and non-financial reporting.

Abstract. A subsetWof the vertex set of a graphGis called aresolving setofGif for every pair of distinct verticesu,vofG, there isw∊Wsuch that the distance ofwanduis different from the distance ofwandv. The cardinality of a smallest resolving set is called the metric dimension ofG, denoted by dim(G). The circulant graphCn(1, 2, . . . ,t) consists of the verticesv0,v1, . . . ,vn−1and the edgesvivi+j, where 0 ≤i≤n− 1, 1 ≤j≤t(), the indices are taken modulon. Grigorious, Manuel, Miller, Rajan, and Stephen proved that dim(Cn(1, 2, . . . ,t)) ≥t+ 1 for, and they presented a conjecture saying that dim(Cn(1, 2, . . . ,t)) =t+p− 1 forn= 2tk+t+p, where 3 ≤p≤t+ 1. We disprove both statements. We show that ift≥ 4 is even, there exists an infinite set of values ofnsuch that dim(Cn(1, 2, . . . ,t)) =t. We also prove that dim(Cn(1, 2, . . . ,t)) ≤t+p/2 forn= 2tk+t+p, wheretandpare even,t≥ 4, 2 ≤p≤t, andk≥ 1.

The article represents the experience of distinguishing and reconstruction of the views of scientists and travelers of the XVIII century on the formation of the Russian border in the Upper Ob-Irtysh area. The emergence of the historical and geographical images is considered as a direct consequence of the lack of delimited and demarcated border between the Russian Empire and the Dzungar Khanate, and then the Qing Empire. The source basis of the publication is composed by writings of significant for the history of region scientific figures: G. F. Miller, G. V. Gennin, I. P. Falk, P. S. Pallas. The study was methodologically grounded by the "close up" method. Research statements are analyzed in detail in the context of the scientists’ targets, attracted sources and circumstances of the implementation of the expeditions. The author identifies the ideologies with predominance of archetypal ideas, pays special attention to P. S. Pallas’s concept of "natural border" and his observations on the mode of functioning of the state borders, finally coming to the conclusion about fragmentariness, eclecticism and multivariatness of historical and geographical images of the Russian border.

SummaryBackground: Palivizumab is effective at reducing hospitalizations due to respiratory syncytial virus among high-risk children, but is indicated for a small population. Identification of patients eligible to receive palivizumab is labor-intensive and error-prone. To support patient identification we developed Clinical Decision Support (CDS) based on published recommendations in 2012. This CDS was developed using a systematic process, which directly linked computer code to a recommendation’s narrative text. In 2014, updated recommendations were published, which changed several key criteria used to determine eligible patients.Objective: Assess the effort required to update CDS in response to new palivizumab recommendations and identify factors that impacted these efforts.Methods: We reviewed the updated American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement from Aug 2014 and identified areas of divergence from the prior publication. We modified the CDS to account for each difference. We recorded time spent on each activity to approximate the total effort required to update the CDS.Results: Of the 15 recommendations in the initial policy statement, 7 required updating. The CDS update was completed in 11 person-hours. Comparison of old and new recommendations was facilitated by the AAP policy statement structure and required 3 hours. Validation of the revised logic required 2 hours by a clinical domain expert. An informaticist required 3 hours to update and test the CDS. This included adding 24 lines and deleting 37 lines of code. Updating relevant data queries took an additional 3 hours and involved 10 edits.Conclusion: We quickly adapted CDS in response to changes in recommendations for palivizumab administration. The consistent AAP policy statement structure and the link we developed between these statements and the CDS rules facilitated our efforts. We recommend that CDS implementers establish linkages between published narrative recommendations and their executable rules to facilitate maintenance efforts.Citation: Michel J, Utidjian LH, Karavite D, Hogan A, Ramos MJ, Miller J, Shiffman RN, Grundmeier RW. Rapid adjustment of clinical decision support in response to updated recommendations for palivizumab eligibility. Appl Clin Inform 2017; 8: 581–592 https://doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2016-10-RA-0173

Ernest Miller Hemingway, one of the best known and most influential of modern American writers. Hemingway will be remembered for his fictional technique, his dialogue consisting of short, concrete statements, his passionate search for the exact world which will express an exact and limited truth, his experiments with prose rhythms which have transformed the staccato rattle of his early writing into the liquid, cadenced ripple of some of his work. The present work intends to make a study of Hemingway’s Obsession with Death and Violence in his works.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The implications of the study of the MR (Miller Ratio) are the possibilities of, with future research support, the MR being both a beneficial, and easy to use, tool for practitioners and regulators to detect for the possibility of EM (earnings management).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The previously studied models were not designed to be utilized on a case-by-case basis since they were studied using large samples of firms in an attempt to make generalized statements about the effectiveness of the models.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The MR, designed to be utilized on a case-by-case basis, is easily computed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If corporate managers were aware of this simple, easy-to-use tool to detect EM, they may be more cautious of engaging in this activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Essentially, the MR could assist practitioners and regulators in prioritizing their work load of companies to analyze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>It is another arrow in their quiver, so to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></p>

This article discusses South African lyric poetry in English including translations since the 1960s. Rather than being private statements, South African lyrics, like all lyrics, are essentially dialogic—in relation to the philosophical, the political or the psychological. The poems examined here are in dialogue with dogs, their embodiment, their subjectivities, their contiguities with humans. This article considers how trans-species entanglements between human and canine, whether convivial or adversarial, manifest poetically in myriad ways in gendered and/or racialised contexts and analyses how the vulnerabilities of both humans and dogs are made to intersect. Ruth Miller portrays dogs as divine creations who are uncertain and “embarrassed”. Ingrid Jonker’s poems intertwine human and canine, foregrounding gendered vulnerabilities. Where dogs are figured metonymically, entanglements of human and dog break down binary categorisations, in Jonker’s poems as well as in those of other poets. Mongane Wally Serote’s creatural humans, for example, seem both animal and human. Oswald Mtshali figures dogs within apartheid structures as antagonists, protectors or savage scavengers. More recent poems, influenced perhaps by new thinking about the animal subject, imagine dogs in compassionate interspecies connections. Many of these recent elegiac poems, in particular those by Jenna Mervis and Harry Owen, are attentive to beloved dogs but without sentimentality or the imposition of an anthropocentric focus.

One of the most common extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease is iron deficiency anemia. It is often an untreated condition that significantly impairs patients' quality of life and elevates mortality and morbidity. Although it is often accompanied by mild symptoms (e.g., fatigue, lethargy), it can provoke severe health conditions, such as dyspnea, palpitation, angina, and mental disorders, and increases hospitalization and mortality rate as well. As anemia develops through several pathomechanisms, such as occult bleeding, chronic inflammation, and medicines (e.g., methotrexate), treating anemia effectively requires to manage the underlying pathological changes as well. Based on international publications and data, it is a frequent condition and more frequent in pediatrics. According to Goodhand et al., iron deficiency is present in more than 60% of children, whereas only 14% of them received oral iron therapy. Compared to adult patients, 22% have iron deficiency, and 48% of them received oral and 41% intravenous iron therapy. Miller et al. also highlighted that among young patients iron deficiency anemia is a frequent condition, as almost 50% of the patients were anemic in their cohort. European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation's statements are clear regarding the diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia, and the iron supplementation as well. Third-generation parenteral iron supplementations seem to be safer and more effective than oral iron pills. Oral iron in many cases cannot replace the iron homeostasis as well; furthermore, it can provoke dysbiosis, which can potentially lead to relapse. As a result, we claim that both oral and parenteral should be used more frequently; furthermore, intravenous iron could replace oral medicines as well in certain cases. Despite the fact that iron deficiency anemia is examined by many aspects, further questions can be raised. Can it imply underlying pathological lesions? Are both oral and intravenous iron therapy safe and effective? When and how are they used? We demand that more studies should be conducted regarding these issues.

Abstract A widely used methodology for estimating the beta of companies with the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) uses comparable firms based only on industry or sector classifications (Bancel, F., and U. R. Mittoo. 2014. “The Gap between the Theory and Practice of Corporate Valuation: Survey of European Experts.” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 26, no. 4 (Fall): 106–17. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jacf.12095, 112; KPMG. 2017. “Cost of Capital Study 2017: Diverging Markets, Converging Business Models.” Accessed September 28, 2018. https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/ch/pdf/cost-of-capital-study-2017-en.pdf, 37). We hypothesize that even within industries, there is a significant relationship between the cost of equity and the life cycle of a firm. We argue that these variables are correlated because different life-cycle stages exhibit different degrees of systematic risk. Therefore, as the firm moves along its life cycle, its unlevered beta decreases. We define the stages of the firm life cycle based on a modification of the theoretical typology of (Miller, D., and P. Friesen. 1984. “A Longitudinal Study of the Corporate Life-Cycle.” Management Sciences 30 (10): 1161–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2631384, 1162–3) and then classify a sample of listed companies into these stages using (Dickinson, V. 2011. “Cash Flow Patterns as a Proxy for Firm Life-Cycle.” The Accounting Review 86 (6): 1969–94. doi:https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-10130) cash flow statements methodology. We construct value-weighted portfolios that are formed based on our life-cycle stages classification, adapting the procedure of (Fama, E., and K. R. French. 1993. “Common Risk Factors in the Returns on Stocks and Bonds.” Journal of Financial Economics 33 (1): 3–56. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-405X(93)90023-5). Finally, we compare the betas (levered and unlevered) of these portfolios to determine whether there are statistically significant differences. Our results show clear evidence of a relationship between betas and the corporate life cycle and that this relationship is robust to both changes in the period of analysis and omitted variables bias (when controlling with the four-factor model of (Carhart, M. M. 1997. “On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance.” The Journal of Finance 52 (1): 57–82. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb03808.x). We believe our results show an important shortcoming in a widely used methodology among practitioners for estimating the CAPM.

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED WITH THE INFORMING SCIENCE INSTITUTE. Aim/Purpose...................................................................................................................................................................................................... The goal of this study was to investigate the financial management practices of SMMEs operating in under developed regions as a challenge facing SMMEs operating in underdeveloped regions using former Transkei Homelands in Eastern Cape Province as a case study. Background......................................................................................................................................................................................................... In South Africa, the works of Cameron and Miller (2008) highlights that South Africa is ranked among top countries in the world with high failure rates of SMMEs during the first year of establishment. This calls for continues research works to identify factors that could be impeding the progress of SMMEs in South Africa. According to Jayansankaran, (1999) proper financial management practices are among the key deciding factors when it comes to the survival of SMMEs. Mostly SMMEs in underdeveloped regions are owned and managed by one person, the lack of financial management competence on the side of the SMMEs owners or managers in turn could bring serious consequences to the financial stability and grow of the SMMEs. It is against this background that this study focuses on financial management practices among SMMEs entrepreneurs operating their businesses in former Transkei Homelands where survival of SMMEs are critical for economic development of the region. Methodology....................................................................................................................................................................................................... The researcher in this study uses both quantitative and purposive sampling approaches to design an exploratory study to sample 68 SMMEs owners/managers based in the various towns of the selected region. Contribution........................................................................................................................................................................................................ This research will add to the growing knowledge about identifying factors that may be impeding survival of SMMEs. Findings .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. The major findings of the study revealed that 95.59% of the owners/managers have no financial management/accounting skills as well as 58.82% of the internal system of recording financial transactions are not audited. Recommendations for Practitioners................................................................................................................................................................. In view of the findings it is recommended that agencies charged with looking after SMMEs provide training in the area of financial management skills for the SMMEs owners/managers. Recommendation for Researchers.................................................................................................................................................................... Future studies can include the other four principles of financial management principles highlighted by Armstrong (2001). Impact on Society............................................................................................................................................................................................... The research will assist to highlight to funders of SMMEs, policy makers and business support agencies the need for educating SMMEs entrepreneurs especially those operating their businesses in underdeveloped regions in proper financial management practices in order to curve the problem of cash flow faced by SMMEs which leads to SMMEs failure. Future Research................................................................................................................................................................................................. Exploring the skills of the SMMEs entrepreneurs’ to prepare, understand and interpretation of financial statements are critical in this context.

It all started with a tweet. On the afternoon of 2 June 2013, Professor Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and visiting instructor at New York University (NYU), tweeted out a message that would go on to generate a significant social media controversy. Addressing aspiring doctoral program applicants, Miller wrote:Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truthThe response to Miller’s tweet was swift and fiery. Social media users began engaging with him on Twitter, and in the early hours of the controversy Miller defended the tweet. When one critic described his message as “judgmental,” Miller replied that doing a dissertation is “about willpower/conscientiousness, not just smarts” (Trotter). The tweet above, now screen captured, was shared widely and debated by journalists, Fat Acceptance activists, and academic social media users. Within hours Miller had deleted the tweet and replaced it with two new ones:My sincere apologies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet. It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards andObviously my previous tweet does not represent the selection policies of any university, or my own selection criteriaHe then made his Twitter account private. The captured image, however, continued to spread. Across social media, users began to circulate a campaign that called for Miller to be formally disciplined (Trotter). There was also widespread talk about potential lawsuits from prospective students who were not selected for admission at UNM (Kirby). Indeed, the Fat Chick Sings blogger Jeanette DePatie offered her own advice to Miller: #findagoodlawyer.Soon after the controversy emerged a response appeared on UNM’s website in the form of a video statement by Professor Jane Ellen Smith, the Chair of the UNM Psychology Department. Smith reiterated that Miller’s statements did not reflect the “policies and admissions standards of UNM”. She also stated that Miller had defended his actions by claiming the tweet was part of a “research project” where he would deliberately send out provocative messages in order to measure the public response to them. This claim was met with incredulity by a number of bloggers and columnists, and was later determined to be incorrect in an Institutional Review Board inquiry at UNM, which concluded Miller’s tweets were “self-promotional” in nature. Following a formal investigation, the UNM committee found no evidence that Miller had discriminated against overweight students. It did however pass a motion of censure that included a number of restrictions, including prohibiting Miller from sitting on any graduate admission committee at UNM.The #truth about Fat PhDs?Readers may be wondering why Miller’s tweet continues to matter as I write this article in 2015. It is my belief that the tweet is important insofar as it affords an insight into the cultural scene that surrounds the fat body in higher education. The vigorous debate generated by Miller’s tweet offers researchers a diverse array of media texts that are available to help build a more comprehensive picture of fat embodiment within higher education.Looking at the tweet in the cold light of day it is difficult to imagine any logical links one might infer between a person’s carbohydrate consumption and their ability to excel in doctoral education. And there’s the rub. Of course Miller’s tweet does not represent a careful evaluation of the properties of doctoral willpower. In order to make sense of the tweet we need to understand the ways cultural assumptions about fatness operate. For decades now, researchers have documented the existence of anti-fat attitudes (Crandall & Martinez). Increasingly, scholars and Fat Acceptance activists have described a “thinness norm” that is reproduced across contemporary Western cultures, which discerns normatively slender bodies as “both healthy and beautiful” (Eller 220) and those whose bodies depart from this norm, as “socially acceptable targets for shaming and hate speech” (Eller 220). In order to be intelligible Miller’s tweet relies on a number of deeply entrenched cultural meanings attributed to fatness and fat people.The first is that body-size is primarily a matter of self-control. Although Critical Fat Studies researchers have argued for some time that body weight is determined by complex interactions between the biological and environmental, the belief that a large body size is caused by limited self-control remains prevalent. This in turn supports a host of cultural connotations, which tend to constitute fat people as “lazy, gluttonous, greedy, immoral, uncontrolled, stupid, ugly and lacking in willpower” (Farrell 4).In light of the above, Miller’s message ought to be read as a moral one. I have paraphrased its logic as such: if you [the fat doctoral student] lack the willpower to discipline your body into normatively desired slimness, you will also likely lack the strength of character required to discipline your body-mind into producing a doctoral dissertation. The sad irony here is that, if anything, the attitudes that might hamper fat students from pursuing a doctoral education would be those espoused in Miller’s own tweet. As Critical Fat Studies researchers have illuminated, the anti-fat attitudes the tweet reproduces generate challenging higher education climates for fat people to navigate (Pausé, Express Yourself 6).Indeed, while Miller’s tweet is one case that arose to media prominence, there is evidence that it sits inside a wider pattern of weight discrimination within higher education. For example, Caning and Mayer (“Obesity: Its Possible”, “Obesity: An Influence”) found that despite similar high school performances, ‘obese’ students were less likely to be accepted to elite universities, than their non-obese peers. In a more recent US-based study, Burmeister and colleagues found evidence of weight bias in graduate school admissions. In particular, they found that higher body mass index (BMI) applicants received fewer post-interview offers into psychology graduate programs than other students (920), and this relationship appeared to be stronger for female applicants (920). This picture is supported by a study by Swami and Monk, who examined weight bias against women in a hypothetical scenario about university acceptance. In this study, 198 volunteers in the UK were asked to identify the women they were most and least likely to select for a place at university. Swami and Monk found that participants were biased against fat women, a finding which the authors interpreted as evidence of broader public beliefs about body size and access to higher education.In my examination of the media scene surrounding the Miller case I observed that most commentators associated the tweet with a particular affective formation – shame. Miller’s actions were widely described as “fat-shaming” (Bennet-Smith; Ingeno; Martin; Trotter; Walsh) with Miller himself often referred to simply as the “fat-shaming professor” (King; ThinkTank). In this article I wish to consider the affective-political dimensions of Miller’s tweet, by focusing on one digital community’s response to it: Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs. In following this path I am building on the work of other researchers who have considered fat activisms and Web 2.0 (Pausé, Express Yourself); fat visual activism (Gurrieri); and the emotional politics of fat acceptance blogging (Kargbo; Bronstein).Imaging Alternatives: Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDsBy 3 June 2013 – just one day after Miller’s tweet was published – New Zealand-based academic Cat Pausé had created the Tumblr Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs. This was billed as a photo-blog about “being fatlicious in academia”. Writing on her Friend of Marilyn blog, Pausé explained the rationale behind the Tumblr:I decided that what I wanted to do was to highlight all the amazing fat individuals who are in graduate school, or have completed graduate school – to provide a visual repository … and to celebrate the amazing work being done by these rad fatties!Pausé sent out calls for participants on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook, and emailed a Fat Studies listserv. She asked submitters to send “a photo, along with their name, degree, and awarding institution” (Pausé Express Yourself, 6). Images were submitted thick and fast. Twenty-three were published in the first day of the project, and twenty in the second. At the time of writing, just over 150 images had been submitted, the most recent being November 2013.The Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs project ought to be understood as part the turn away from the textual toward the digital in fat activist movements (Kargbo). This has seen a growth in online communities that are interested in developing “counter-images in response to the fat body’s position as the abject, excluded Other of the socially acceptable body” (Kargbo 162). Examples include a multitude of Fatshion photo-blogs, Tumblrs like Exciting Fat People or the Stocky Bodies image library, which responds to the limited diversity of visual representations of fat people in the mainstream media (Gurrieri).For this article, I have read the images on the Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs Tumblr in order to gain an impression about the affective-political work accomplished by this collective of self-identified fat academic bodies. As I indicated earlier, much of the commentary following Miller’s tweet characterised it as an attempt to ‘shame’ fat doctoral students. As Elspeth Probyn has identified, shame frequently manifests itself on the body “most experiences of shame make you want to disappear, to hide away and to cover yourself” (Probyn 329). I suggest that the core work of the Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs Tumblr is to address the spectre of shame Miller’s tweet projects with visibility, rather than it’s opposite. This visibility also enables the project to proliferate a host of different ways of (feeling about) being fat and doctoral.The first image posted on the Tumblr is Pausé’s own. She is pictured smiling at the 2007 graduation ceremony where she received her own PhD, surrounded by fellow graduates in academic regalia. Her image is followed by many others, mostly white women, who attest to the academic attainments of fat individuals. My first impression as I scrolled through the Tumblr was to note that many of the images (51) referenced scenes of graduation, where subjects wore robes, caps or posed with higher degree certificates. Many more were the kinds of photographs that one might expect to be taken at an academic event. Together, these images attest to the viability of the living, breathing doctoral body - a particularly relevant response given Miller’s tweet. This work to legitimate the fat doctoral body was also accomplished through the submission of two historical photographs of Albert Einstein, a figure who is neither living nor breathing, but highly unlikely to be described as lacking academic ability or willpower.As I read through the Tumblr subsequent times, I noticed that many of the submitters offered images that challenge stereotypical representations of the fat body. As a number of writers have noted, fat people tend to be visually represented as “solitary, lonely figures whose expressions are downcast and dejected” (Gurrieri 202). That is if they aren’t already decapitated in the visual convention of the “headless fatty” used across news media (Kargbo 160). Like the Stocky Bodies project, the Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs Tumblr facilitated a more diverse and less pathologising representation of fat (doctoral) embodiment.Across the images there is little evidence of the downcast eyes of shame and dejection that Miller’s tweet seems to invite of aspiring fat doctoral candidates. Scrolling through the Tumblr one encounters images of fat people singing, swimming, creating art, playing sport, smoking, smiling, dressing up, and making music. A number of images (12) emphasise the social nature of fat doctoral life, by picturing multiple subjects at once, some holding hands, others posing with colleagues, loved ones, and a puppy. Another category of submissions took a playful stance vis-à-vis some representational conventions of imaging fatness. Where portrayals of the fat body from side or rear angles, or images of fat people eating and drinking typically code an affective scene of disgust (Gurrieri), a number of images on the Tumblr appear to reinscribe these scenes with new meaning. Viewers are offered pictures of smiling and contented fat graduates unashamed to eat and drink, or be represented from ‘unflattering’ angles.Furthermore, a number of images offered alternatives to the conventional representation of the fat subject as ugly and sexually unattractive by posing in glamorous shots bubbling with allure and desire. In one memorable picture, blogger and educator Virgie Tovar is snapped wearing a “sex instructor” badge and laughs while holding two sex toys.Reading across the images it becomes clear that the Tumblr offers a powerful response to the visual convention of representing the solitary, lonely fat person. Rather than presenting isolated fat doctoral students the act of holding the images together generates a sense of fat higher education community, as Kargbo notes:A single image posted online amidst vast Internet ephemera is just a fleeting document of a moment in a stranger’s life. But in the plural, as one scrolls through hundreds of images eager to hit the ‘next’ button for what will be a repetition of the same, the image takes on a new function: it becomes an insistent testament to the liveness of fat embodiment in the present. (164)Obesity Timebomb blogger Charlotte Cooper (2013) commented on the significance of the project: “It is pretty amazing to see the names and faces as I scroll through Fuck yeah! Fat PhDs. Many of us are friends and collaborators and the site represents a new community of power.”Concluding Thoughts: Fat Embodiment and Higher Education CulturesThis article has examined a cultural event that that saw the figure of the fat doctoral student rise to international media prominence in 2013. I have argued that while Miller’s tweet can be read as illustrative of the affective scene of shame that surrounds the fat body in higher education, the images offered by the Fuck Yeah! photo submitters work to re-negotiate implication in social discourses of abjection. Indeed, the images assert that alternative ways of feeling about being fat and doctoral remain viable. Fat students can be contented, ambivalent, sultry, pissed off, passionate and proud – and Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs provides submitters with a platform to perform a wide array of these affects. This is not to say that shame is shut out of the project, or the lives of submitters’ altogether. Instead, I am suggesting that the Tumblr generates a more open field of possibilities, providing “a space for re-imagining new forms of attachments and identifications.” (Kargbo 171). Critics might argue that this Tumblr is not particularly novel when set in the context of a range of fat photo-blogs that have sprung up across the Internet in recent years. I would argue, however, that when we consider the kinds of questions Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs might ask of university cultures, and the prompts it offers to higher education researchers, the Tumblr can be seen to make an important contribution. I am in agreement with Kargbo (2013) when she argues that fat photo-blogs “have the potential to alter the conditions of visual reception and perception”. That is, through their “codes and conventions, styles of lighting and modes of address, photographs literally show us how to relate to another person” (Singer 602). When read together, the Fuck Yeah! images insist that a different kind of relationship to fat PhDs is possible, one that exceeds the shaming visible in Miller’s tweet. Ultimately then, the Tumblr is a call to take fat doctoral students seriously, not as problems in need of fixing, but as a diverse group of scholars who make important contributions to the academy and beyond.I would like to use the occasion of concluding this article to call for further conversations about fat embodiment and higher education cultures. The area is significantly under-researched, with higher education scholars largely failing to engage with the material and affective experiences of fat embodiment. Indeed, I would argue that if nothing else, this paper has demonstrated that public scenes of knowledge creation have done a much more comprehensive job of analysing the intersection of ‘fat + university’ than academic books and articles to date. While not offering an exhaustive sketch, I would like to gesture toward some areas that might contribute to a future research agenda. For example, researchers might begin to approach the experience of living, working and studying as a fat person in the contemporary university. Such research might examine whose body the university is imagined and designed for, as well as the campus climate experienced by fat individuals. Researchers might consider how body size could become a part of broader conversations about embodiment and privilege in higher education, alongside race, ability, gender identity, and other categories of social difference.Thinking about the intersection of ‘fat + university’ would also involve tracing possibilities. For example, what role do university campuses play as spaces of fat activism and solidarity? And, what is the contribution made by Critical Fat Studies as a newly established interdisciplinary field of inquiry?Taken together, I hope the questions I have raised in this article demonstrate that the intersection of ‘fat’ and higher education cultures represents a rich and valuable area that warrants further inquiry.ReferencesBennet-Smith, Meredith. “Geoffrey Miller, Visiting NYU Professor, Slammed for Fat-Shaming Obese PhD Candidates.” 6 Apr. 2013. The Huffington Post. ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/geoffrey-miller-fat-shaming-nyu-phd_n_3385641.html›.Bronstein, Carolyn. “Fat Acceptance Blogging, Female Bodies and the Politics of Emotion.” Feral Feminisms 3 (2015): 106-118. Burmeister, Jacob, Allison Kiefner, Robert Carels, and Dara Mushner-Eizenman. “Weight Bias in Graduate School Admissions.” Obesity 21 (2013): 918-920.Canning, Helen, and Jean Mayer. “Obesity: Its Possible Effect on College Acceptance.” The New England Journal of Medicine 275 (1966): 1172-1174. Canning, Helen, and Jean Mayer. “Obesity: An Influence on High School Performance.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 20 (1967): 352-354. Cooper, Charlotte. “The Curious Case of Dr. Miller and His Tweet.” Obesity Timebomb 4 June 2013. ‹http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-curious-case-of-dr-miller-and-his.html›.Crandall, Christian, and Rebecca Martinez. “Culture, Ideology, and Antifat Attitudes.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22 (1996): 1165-1176.DePatie, Jeanette. “Dear Dr. Terrible Your Bigotry Is Showing...” The Fat Chick Sings 2 June 2013. ‹http://fatchicksings.com/2013/06/02/dear-dr-terrible-your-bigotry-is-showing/›.Eller, G.M. “On Fat Oppression.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 24 (2014): 219-245. Farrell, Amy. Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2011. Gurrieri, Lauren. “Stocky Bodies: Fat Visual Activism.” Fat Studies 2 (2013): 197-209. Ingeno, Lauren. “Fat-Shaming in Academe.” Inside Higher Ed 4 June 2013. Kargbo, Majida. “Toward a New Relationality: Digital Photography, Shame, and the Fat Subject.” Fat Studies 2 (2013): 160-172.King, Barbara. “The Fat-Shaming Professor: A Twitter-Fueled Firestorm.” Cosmos & Culture 13.7 (2013) Kirby, Marianne. “How Not to Twitter: Dr. Geoffrey Miller's 140 Fat-Hating Characters of Infamy.” XoJane 5 June 2013. ‹http://www.xojane.com/issues/professor-geoffrey-miller›.Martin, Adam. “NYU Professor Immediately Regrets Fat-Shaming Potential Students.” New York Magazine June 2013. ‹http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/nyu-professor-immediately-regrets-fat-shaming.html›.Pausé, Cat. “On That Tweet – Fat Discrimination in the Education Sector.” Friend of Marilyn 5 June 2013. ‹http://friendofmarilyn.com/2013/06/05/on-that-tweet-fat-discrimination-in-the-education-sector/›.Pausé, Cat. “Express Yourself: Fat Activism in the Web 2.0 Age.” The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat-Acceptance Movement. Ed. Ragen Chastain. New York: ABC-CLIO, 2015. 1-8. Probyn, Elspeth. “Everyday Shame.” Cultural Studies 18.2-3 (2004): 328-349. Singer, T. Benjamin. “From the Medical Gaze to Sublime Mutations: The Ethics of (Re)viewing Non-Normative Body Images.” The Transgender Studies Reader. Eds. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge, 2013. 601-620. Swami, Viren, and Rachael Monk. “Weight Bias against Women in a University Acceptance Scenario.” Journal of General Psychology 140.1 (2013): 45-56.Sword, Helen. “The Writer’s Diet.” ‹http://writersdiet.com/WT.php?home›.ThinkTank. “'Fat Shaming Professor' Gives RIDICULOUS Excuse – Check This Out (Update).” ThinkTank 8 July 2013. ‹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ey9TkG18-o›.Trotter, J.K. “How Twitter Schooled an NYU Professor about Fat-Shaming.” The Atlantic Wire 2013. ‹http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/06/how-twitter-schooled-nyu-professor-about-fat-shaming/65833/›.Walsh, Michael. “NYU Visiting Professor Insults the Obese Ph.D.s with ‘Impulsive’ Tweet.” New York Daily News 2013.

An Ethical Approval Statement and/or Statement of Informed Consent should have been included for the articles listed below. Their corresponding statements are presented following the article information: Emerson GG, Kim JE, Packo KH, Flynn HW Jr. Guidelines for intraoperative time-out before corneal scraping and before fluid–air exchange. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(1):79-80. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126416680932) Ethical Approval: Ethical approval was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images or information were used and because this was a special correspondence. Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images were used. Ryder SJ, Tutiven JL, Gayer S, Miller D, Flynn HW Jr, Townsend JH. Retinal detachment repair in a patient with active Zika virus infection. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(1):81-83. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126416685495) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for this case report because no identifiable images were used. Dubey N, Minija CK, Shanmugam MP. Intravitreal dexamethasone implant in a case of recurrent posterior scleritis. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(1):84-87. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126416681324) Statement of Informed Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from the patient to perform the procedure and have photographs taken. Kim H, Wang A, Mititelu M. Case series of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor and photodynamic therapy in the treatment of circumscribed choroidal hemangiomas. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(2):133-137. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126416687424) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images were used. Cunningham WJ, Michael E, Welch S, Crosby N, Host B, Polkinghorne P. The Auckland Endophthalmitis Study: the incidence and management of endophthalmitis following intravitreal bevacizumab. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(3):175-180. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417690987) Ethical Approval: Ethical approval for this study was waived by the Health and Disabilities Ethics Committees of New Zealand because the details of our study were such that ethics approval was not required. Statement of Informed Consent: Not applicable. Lee AC, Opremcak EM, Hunt C, et al. Severe corneal complications associated with corneal lubricant used during surgery. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(3):187-190. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417698880) Ethical Approval: Ethical approval was not sought for the present study because it was a retrospective report and no identifiable data were included in the study. Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study images because no identifiable images were used. Chen Y, Shah V, Jeroudi AM, Blinder KJ, Shah GK. Surgical detachment of the anterior hyaloid membrane from the posterior lens capsule: two techniques. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(3):214-217. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417698873) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images or data were used. Yau GL, Chin EK, Parke DW III, Bennett SR, Almeida DRP. West Nile virus chorioretinitis with foveal involvement: evolution of lesions on optical coherence tomography. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(3):218-221. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417697593) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images were used. Rahman R, Khan K, Stephenson J, Amjad M. Nonposturing surgery for persistent macular hole using heavy silicone oil (Oxane HD) endotamponade. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(4):246-250. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417712645) Ethical Approval: Ethical approval was not sought for the present study because of the following reasons: The basis for this decision was made on the fact that there would be no change to the standard of care for patients studied and we were evaluating our service for failed macular holes treatment offered to patients. Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because it was not required as no identifiable images were used. Sundy M, Malihi M, Chang EY, et al. Retinal artery occlusions in healthy children. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(4):257-260. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417710138) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not obtained for this multicenter retrospective case series because no identifiable images were used. Oellers P, Eliott D. Good visual outcome following vitrectomy for epiretinal membrane with foveal tissue herniation. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(4):278-280. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417709382) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images were used. Kovach JL. Persistent placoid maculopathy treatment response imaged with OCT angiography. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(4):281-283. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417712646) Statement of Informed Consent: Informed consent was not sought for the present study because no identifiable images were used. Reyes-Capó D, Ventura CV, Tekin M, Lam BL, Berrocal AM. ABCA4 mutation in a patient with juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis. J Vitreoretin Dis. 2017;1(4):284-286. (Original DOI: 10.1177/2474126417714136) Statement of Informed Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from the subject for the use of photographs for professional publication.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim". —Lyndon B. Johnson Introduction The term “spin” implies manipulating the truth, and this concept, along with “spin doctoring,” is now common in media and public discourse. The prevalence of “spin zones” in American politics is undeniable; media outlets themselves, such as Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” on Fox News, now run segments on the topic. Despite this apparent media certainty about what constitutes “spin” there is a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the term among those who study media and politics. This article will draw on previous literature to identify two competing yet overlapping spin zones in American politics: the media’s spin zone and the President’s spin zone. Highlighting examples from the two most recent American presidential election campaigns, the article will evaluate the interplay of these zones and the consequences for future campaigns. Spin Zones In the United States, the press and the President are engaged in a struggle over providing information. Ever since the Watergate Scandal, the media is increasingly expected to be a “watchdog” that informs citizens and keeps the Executive accountable (Coronel 13) The President, conversely, may attempt to use the power of his position to set the discursive agenda or frame the political debate in his favor. Furthermore, with the rise of multi-media access and information provision, the lines between the spin doctoring of the Executive and the media have become even more blurred. Because of the complexities of these overlapping spin zones, many scholars disagree on how to define and/or precisely measure these effects. The following section briefly describes the ‘spin zone’ tools of agenda setting, framing, and priming, and then considers the example of a candidate who failed to prime his negative evaluation and a President who primes his image and successfully counterattacks his negative evaluation. The literature recognises two separate, yet interrelated zones that are integral to understanding these media/presidential relations: what we term the presidential spin zone and the media spin zone. The interplay between these zones comes together around three key concepts—agenda setting, framing, and priming. A key difficulty for scholars is that the President, his electoral challengers, and the press are engaged in agenda setting, framing and priming, sometimes simultaneously. Agenda setting is a broad concept and refers to focusing on certain issues to the exclusion of others. Framing is defined as the decision by the news media to “emphasise certain elements to define the ‘public’s belief’ about social and political issues” (Van Gorp 488). Other scholars describe priming as “a disproportionate amount of public comments with the hope . . . of causing voters to base their selection among the candidates on [that] issue” (Druckman et al. 1181; see also Druckman “Framing Effects”; Nelson, Clawson and Oxley; Van Gorp). Candidates may also undertake “image priming,” which is proposed by James Druckman et al., as a tool that can be used to counteract negative candidate evaluations (1182–1183). The definition of the media spin zone is, in most instances, synonymous with priming. Defining the presidential spin zone is more complex. Clearly the presidential spin zone involves both the previously-discussed “issue framing abilities of the president” and how he “set[s] the agenda” (Miller and Krosnick 301; see also, Gamson and Modigliano, Baumgardner and Jones; Druckman, “Framing Effects”). Mark Rozell, for instance, found that the Ford and Carter administrations had difficulty controlling the public agenda since many issues were either beyond their control, or because the president and his advisors lacked the strategy or skill to affect media coverage. The Reagan White House however was able to use his “image” to control the media (85–86). Similarly, George W. Bush’s administration was able to implement policies concerning the invasion of Iraq after the 9-11 through “issue framing” scare tactics, which were constantly reinforced by media outlets (Kellner 643). However, the President can also be engaged in priming at any given time. In other words, the President (or candidate) may attempt to prime what the media has already spun about him/her. A problem, of course, is that the President or candidate, in attempting to prime an issue that has already been spun in a sense tacitly admits they have lost the opportunity to set the agenda in the first place. However, this is when he can seize the aforementioned opportunity to use “image priming” to counterattack the media. In the examples that follow we examine whether the President or candidate can use priming to effectively counterattack the media spin zone, with a focus on two political tools that have been historically reserved for the President or candidates, namely, holding the base and wedge issues. Holding the Base and the Media Spin Zone Holding the base has been defined as a way in which candidates or Presidents can use the media to strengthen support among voters who already identify with their political party (Iyengar and McGrady 246). A classic example of this is the 1984 Reagan/Bush re-election campaign, the “The Bear.” This featured a bear in the woods that “some” could “see” and others didn’t “see at all” which was an implicit threat regarding Soviet communism and a reminder that Reagan was tough on foreign policy (“The Bear”). However, the evidence indicates that the media has increasingly begun “holding the base” on its own to facilitate its partisan framing and priming of candidates or Presidents. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack advertisements on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is a key example of a media attempt to “hold the base.” In these advertisements, former “Swift Boat Veterans attack[ed] his [Kerry’s] military record” (Muravchik A17). While this initiative began as a means to collect Republican donations, Shanto Iyengar and Jennifer McGrady maintain that the amount was “trivial” and that the real impact came with “the torrent of news reports across the country” (150). Indeed, Kathleen Jamieson and Joseph Capella found that by August 2004, “viewers of Fox News were more likely than other network viewers to say that candidate John Kerry did not earn his Vietnam medals” (279). Their evaluation of this data demonstrated the power of the media spin zone: “He (Limbaugh) employs intense language, disparaging information and negative framing to distance perceptions of the Democratic candidate from those of the anointed Republican candidate” (Jamieson and Capella 228). The coverage of disputes surrounding Kerry’s military record was augmented by the media’s simultaneous coverage of the threat of terrorism. This priming “in the media continued, reaching a high peak of 55 threat messages in August 2004, a month later 25% of the public was very concerned about another major terrorist attack in the US—two months before the presidential election” (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon and Shapiro 120). Both President Bush and Candidate Kerry acknowledged that their respective win/loss could be attributed in some measure to the press coverage of the “war on terror” (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon and Shapiro 124). While questions loomed about his military experience against the backdrop of the war on terror, Senator Kerry won the first two Presidential debates by significant margins. Alec Gallup and Frank Newport suggested that the Kerry camp had “won the spin contest … to characterize their own candidate as the winner” (406). So, what happened to Kerry? The media spin zone stopped him. The presidential debate wins were 30 September 2004 and 8 October 2004, respectively. Iyengar and McGrady demonstrate that before the debates even began the number of Swift Boat veteran stories primed in the national and international press went from under 100 to over 500 (151). According to Kim Fridkin et al. the media’s spin was a significant factor in the third debate. They found that media coverage concerning Senator Kerry’s response to one question on whether homosexuality was a choice affected citizens’ evaluations of the candidate. In the post debate coverage, the tone “in newspapers, on the Internet, and on television was uniformly negative in its assessment of Senator Kerry’s comments” (Fridkin et al. 30). The impact of this negative framing was sufficiently strong to override positive evaluations of Kerry held by those who watched the debate. In sum, the “perfect storm of media coverage lessened the bounce that Senator Kerry received from the actual debate and led people to develop negative impressions of Kerry a mere three weeks before Election Day” (Fridkin 43). Despite these liabilities, Kerry should have counterattacked the media spin zone. He should have “counterpunched,” as noted by Drew Westen, priming the media that he was “a different kind of Democrat”—“one who knows when it’s time to take off the gloves” (337). Westen’s advice is echoed in Druckman’s call for further research in this area as well as by his own research findings. The media’s framing and priming led to negative evaluations of Kerry, which afforded him the opportunity to prime his “image” in a counterattack, as Druckman suggests (1183). Overcoming the Wedge Issues of the Media Spin Zone President Obama, however, orchestrates a different outcome in dealing with the media spin zone attack against him which centered on a “wedge” or “us verses them” issue. Iyengar and McGrady note that “wedge issues are designed to pit groups against each other, to appeal to voters’ sense of group identity” (145). However, they define wedge issues within the context of presidential spin zones; thus, the candidate or the president would be framing the “us versus them” topic. In this instance, the media framed a wedge issue, the status of President Obama’s citizenship, against him. In this case the birther movement, oft-promoted by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, argued that President Obama was not a US citizen. This issue became so prominent that it was soon adopted by the media spin zone. The media framing demanded proof in addition to the short form birth certificate that the President had already released (Wilson 109). For his part, President Obama handled the media spin zone’s wedge issue with great aplomb, responding in a brief statement to the public on 27 April 2011: “We do not have time for this kind of silliness” (Shear). Moreover, he did not alienate the media for framing the birther movement, but he placed the blame implicitly on Donald Trump who had taken up the birther gauntlet thrown down by Rush Limbaugh. It was “clearly Trump” he was priming when he indicated that he did not want to be “distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers” (Shear). Moreover, his strategic focus on “silliness” is an illustration of “image priming”. He did not allow himself to be drawn into the race-baiting or religious controversy that was a component of some of the media talk show discussions. The Washington Post reported after Obama’s speech that the percentage of Americans who questioned his legitimacy to serve as President dropped from 20% to 10%—thus legitimating his choice to address the nation. This result meant that the President responded to an attack from the media spin zone with a counterattack of his own; he effectively counterattacked to prime his image. Interestingly, Stephen Ansolobehare and Iyengar have indirectly demonstrated the efficacy of counterattacks in presidential spin zone situations by evaluating situations where one candidate attacks another and the “victim” of the attack either, does not respond, responds with a positive message or responds with a counterattack (143). They found overwhelming evidence that voters prefer their party’s candidate to counterattack rather than be victimised. Conclusion In this paper we have furthered the call for conceptual clarity in the field by joining Druckman et al. in emphasising the need for more research on “image priming” on the part of candidates and Presidents in the interplay between the press and the presidency. If used properly, image priming seems a viable way for the presidency to counterattack against media framing and priming, but squandered opportunities may irreparably harm candidates. President Obama faced a difficult wedge issue that had undercurrents of both racial and religious tensions, but he deftly avoided those issues and found a way to “use Trump as a foil and present the president as a more serious leader” (Shear). His counterattack against the wedge used by the media spin zone was successful. Senator Kerry, on the other hand, failed to counterattack the media spin zone’s rallying of the base. His silence allowed the media to generate both issue and image frames and priming against him. This is an important lesson for future candidates and presidents and the media and presidential spin zones are important topics for further research. References Ansolabehare, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: Free Press, 1995. Baumgardner, Frank, and Bryan D. Jones. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, Illinois: U of Chicago P, 1993. Cappella, Joseph N., and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Coronel, Sheila S. “The Media as Watchdog.” The Role of the News Media in the Governance Realm 29–31 May 2008. 18 Oct. 2011 ‹http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Conference/Conference%20papers/Coronel%20Watchdog.pdf›. Druckman, James N. “On the Limits of Framing Effects: Who Can Frame?” The Journal of Politics 63.4 (2001): 1041–1066. ——. “The Power of Television Images.” The Journal of Politics 65.2 (2003): 559–71. Druckman, James N., et al. “Candidate Strategies to Prime Issues and Image.” The Journal of Politics 66.4 (2004): 1180–1202. Esser, Frank, Carsten Reinemann, and David Fan. “Spin Doctoring in British and German Election Campaigns: How the Press Is Being Confronted with a New Quality of Political PR.” European Journal of Communication 15.2 (2000): 209–239. Fridkin, Kim L., et al. “Spinning Debates: The Impact of the News Media’s Coverage of the Final 2004 Presidential Debate.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 13.1 (2008): 29–51. Funk, Carolyn. “Bringing the Candidate in Models of Candidate Evaluation.” The Journal of Politics 61.3 (1999): 700–720. Gallup, Alec M., and Frank Newport. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion in 2004. Lanham, Maryland: Rowland & Littlefield Publishers, 2006 Gamson, William A., and Andre Modigliani. “Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 95.1 (1989): 1–37. Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1974 Iyengar, Shanto, and Jennifer A. McGrady. Media Politics: A Citizens Guide. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. News That Matters. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987. Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Robert Y. Shapiro. “Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness.” Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Joseph N. Capella. Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Kellner, Douglas. “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the War on Terror.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37.4 (2007): 622–645. Miller, Joanne M., and Jon A. Krosnick. “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens are Guided by a Trusted Source.” American Journal of Political Science 44.2 (2000): 301-315. Muravchik, Joshua. “Kerry’s Cambodia Whopper.” Washington Post 24 Aug. 2004: A17. Nacos, Brigette L., Yaeli Boch-Elkon, Robert Y. Shapiro. “Post 9-11 Terrorism Threats, News Coverage, and Public Perceptions in the United States.” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 1.2 (2007): 105–126. Nelson, Thomas E., Rosalee A. Clawson, and Zoe M. Oxley. “Media Framing of Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance.” American Political Science Review 91 (1997): 567-583. Rozell, M.J. “Presidential Image-Makers on the Limits of Spin Control.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 25.1 (1995): 67–90. Scheufele, Dietram A., and David Tewksbury. “Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models.” Journal of Communication 57.1 (2007): 9–20. 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According to the ABC television program Four Corners, “Parliament House in Canberra is a hotbed of political intrigue and high tension … . It’s known as the ‘Canberra Bubble’ and it operates in an atmosphere that seems far removed from how modern Australian workplaces are expected to function.” The term “Canberra Bubble” morphed to its current definition from 2001, although it existed in other forms before this. Its use has increased since 2015, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison regularly referring to it when attempting to deflect from turmoil within, or focus on, his Coalition government (Gwynn). “Canberra Bubble” was selected as the 2018 “Word of the Year” by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, defined as “referring to the idea that federal politicians, bureaucracy, and political journalists are obsessed with the goings-on in Canberra (rather than the everyday concerns of Australians)” (Gwynn). In November 2020, Four Corners aired an investigation into the behaviour of top government ministers, including Attorney-General Christian Porter, Minister Alan Tudge, and former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party Barnaby Joyce; entitled “Inside the Canberra Bubble”. The program’s reporter, Louise Milligan, observed: there’s a strong but unofficial tradition in federal politics of what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra. Politicians, political staff and media operate in what’s known as ‘The Canberra Bubble’. Along with the political gamesmanship, there’s a heady, permissive culture and that culture can be toxic for women. The program acknowledged that parliamentary culture included the belief that politicians’ private lives were not open to public scrutiny. However, this leaves many women working in Parliament House feeling that such silence allows inappropriate behaviour and sexism to “thrive” in the “culture of silence” (Four Corners). Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was interviewed for the Four Corners program, acknowledged: “there is always a power imbalance between the boss and somebody who works for them, the younger and more junior they are, the more extreme that power imbalance is. And of course, Ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff, so they’ve got enormous power.” He equates this to past culture in large corporations; a culture that has seen changes in business, but not in the federal parliament. It is the latter place that is a toxic bubble for women. A Woman Problem in the Bubble Louise Milligan reported: “the Liberal Party has been grappling with what’s been described as a ‘women problem’ for several years, with accusations of endemic sexism.” The underrepresentation of women in the current government sees them holding only seven of the 30 current ministerial positions. The Liberal Party has fewer women in the House of Representatives now than it did 20 years ago, while the Labor Party has doubled the number of women in its ranks. When asked his view on the “woman problem”, Malcolm Turnbull replied: “well I think women have got a problem with the Liberal Party. It’s probably a better way of putting it … . The party does not have enough women MPs and Senators … . It is seen as being very blokey.” Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March 2019: “we want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise, only on the basis of others doing worse” (Four Corners); with “others” seen as a reference to men. The Liberal Party’s “woman problem” has been widely discussed in recent years, both in relation to the low numbers of women in its parliamentary representation and in its behaviour towards women. These claims were evident in an article highlighting allegations of bullying by Member of Parliament (MP) Julia Banks, which led to her resignation from the Liberal Party in 2018. Banks’s move to the crossbench as an Independent was followed by the departure from politics of senior Liberal MP and former Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and three other female Liberal MPs prior to the 2019 federal election. For resigning Liberal MP Linda Reynolds, the tumultuous change of leadership in the Liberal Party on 24 August 2018, when Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, left her to say: “I do not recognise my party at the moment. I do not recognise the values. I do not recognise the bullying and intimidation that has gone on.” Bishop observed on 5 September: “it’s evident that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace.” And in her resignation speech on 27 November, Banks stated: “Often, when good women call out or are subjected to bad behaviour, the reprisals, backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones – the liar, the troublemaker, the emotionally unstable or weak, or someone who should be silenced” (Four Corners). Rachel Miller is a former senior Liberal staffer who worked for nine years in Parliament House. She admitted to having a consensual relationship with MP Alan Tudge. Both were married at the time. Her reason for “blowing the whistle” was not about the relationship itself, rather the culture built on an imbalance of power that she experienced and witnessed, particularly when endeavouring to end the relationship with Tudge. This saw her moving from Tudge’s office to that of Michaelia Cash, eventually being demoted and finally resigning. Miller refused to accept the Canberra bubble “culture of just putting your head down and not getting involved”. The Four Corners story also highlighted the historical behaviour of Attorney-General Christian Porter and his attitude towards women over several decades. Milligan reported: in the course of this investigation, Four Corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving staffers, politicians, and members of the legal profession. Many have worked within, or voted for, the Liberal Party. And many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by Christian Porter – including being drunk in public and making unwanted advances to women. Lawyer Josh Bornstein told Four Corners that the role of Attorney-General “occupies a unique role … as the first law officer of the country”, having a position in both the legal system and in politics. It is his view that this comes with a requirement for the Attorney-General “to be impeccable in terms of personal and political behaviour”. Milligan asserts that Porter’s role as “the nation’s chief law officer, includes implementing rules to protect women”. A historical review of Porter’s behaviour and attitude towards women was provided to Four Corners by barrister Kathleen Foley and debating colleague from 1987, Jo Dyer. Dyer described Porter as “very charming … very confident … Christian was quite slick … he had an air of entitlement … that I think was born of the privilege from which he came”. Foley has known Porter since she was sixteen, including at university and later when both were at the State Solicitors’ Office in Western Australia, and her impression was that Porter possessed a “dominant personality”. She said that many expected him to become a “powerful person one day” partly due to his father being “a Liberal Party powerbroker”, and that Porter had aspirations to become Prime Minister. She observed: “I’ve known him to be someone who was in my opinion, and based on what I saw, deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women, in the way that he spoke about women.” Foley added: “for a long time, Christian has benefited from the silence around his conduct and his behaviour, and the silence has meant that his behaviour has been tolerated … . I’m here because I don’t think that his behaviour should be tolerated, and it is not acceptable.” Miller told the Four Corners program that she and others, including journalists, had observed Porter being “very intimate” with a young woman. Milligan noted that Porter “had a wife and toddler at home in Perth”, while Miller found the incident “quite confronting … in such a public space … . I was quite surprised by the behaviour and … it was definitely a step too far”. The incident was confirmed to Four Corners by “five other people, including Coalition staffers”. However, in 2017 the “Public Bar incident remained inside the Canberra bubble – it never leaked”, reports Milligan. In response to the exposure of Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s relationship with a member of his staff, Malcolm Turnbull changed the Code of Ministerial Standards (February 2018) for members of the Coalition Government (Liberal and National Parties). Labelled by many media as the “bonk ban”, the new code banned sexual relationships between ministers and their staff. Turnbull stopped short of asking Joyce to resign (Yaxley), however, Joyce stepped down as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister shortly after the code was amended. Turnbull has conceded that the Joyce affair was the catalyst for implementing changes to ministerial standards (Four Corners). He was also aware of other incidents, including the behaviour of Christian Porter and claims he spoke with Porter in 2017, when concerns were raised about Porter’s behaviour. In what Turnbull acknowledges to be a stressful working environment, the ‘Canberra bubble’ is exacerbated by long hours, alcohol, and being away from family; this leads some members to a loss of standards in behaviour, particularly in relation to how women are viewed. This seems to blame the ‘bubble’ rather than acknowledge poor behaviour. Despite the allegations of improper behaviour against Porter, in 2017 Turnbull appointed Porter Attorney-General. Describing the atmosphere in the Canberra bubble, Miller concedes that not “all men are predators and [not] all women are victims”. She adds that a “work hard, play hard … gung ho mentality” in a “highly sexualised environment” sees senior men not being called out for behaviour, creating the perception that they are “almost beyond reproach [and it’s] something they can get away with”. Turnbull observes: “the attitudes to women and the lack of respect … of women in many quarters … reminds me of the corporate scene … 40 years ago. It’s just not modern Australia” (Four Corners). In a disclaimer about the program, Milligan stated: Four Corners does not suggest only Liberal politicians cross this line. But the Liberal Party is in government. And the Liberal politicians in question are Ministers of the Crown. All ministers must now abide by Ministerial Standards set down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018. They say: ‘Serving the Australian people as Ministers ... is an honour and comes with expectations to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity.’ They also prohibit Ministers from having sexual relations with staff. Both Tudge and Porter were sent requests by Four Corners for interviews and answers to detailed questions prior to the program going to air. Tudge did not respond and Porter provided a brief statement in regards to his meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, denying that he had been questioned about allegations of his conduct as reported by Four Corners and that other matters had been discussed. Reactions to the Four Corners Program Responses to the program via mainstream media and on social media were intense, ranging from outrage at the behaviour of ministers on the program, to outrage that the program had aired the private lives of government ministers, with questions as to whether this was in the public interest. Porter himself disputed allegations of his behaviour aired in the program, labelling the claims as “totally false” and said he was considering legal options for “defamation” (Maiden). However, in a subsequent radio interview, Porter said “he did not want a legal battle to distract from his role” as a government minister (Moore). Commenting on the meeting he had with Turnbull in 2017, Porter asserted that Turnbull had not spoken to him about the alleged behaviour and that Turnbull “often summoned ministers in frustration about the amount of detail leaking from his Cabinet.” Porter also questioned the comments made by Dyer and Foley, saying he had not had contact with them “for decades” (Maiden). Yet, in a statement provided to the West Australian after the program aired, Porter admitted that Turnbull had raised the rumours of an incident and Porter had assured him they were unfounded. In a statement he again denied the allegations made in the Four Corners program, but admitted that he had “failed to be a good husband” (Moore). In a brief media release following the program, Tudge stated: “I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms. Miller has experienced” (Grattan). Following the Four Corners story, Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston, the Minister for Families and Social Services, held a media conference to respond to the allegations raised by the program. Ruston was asked about her views of the treatment of women within the Liberal Party. However, she was cut off by Morrison who aired his grievance about the use of the term “bonk ban” by journalists, when referring to the ban on ministers having sexual relations with their staff. This interruption of a female minister responding to a question directed at her about allegations of misogyny drew world-wide attention. Ruston went on to reply that she felt “wholly supported” as a member of the party and in her Cabinet position. The video of the incident resulted in a backlash on social media. Ruston was asked about being cut off by the Prime Minister at subsequent media interviews and said she believed it to be “an entirely appropriate intervention” and reiterated her own experiences of being fully supported by other members of the Liberal Party (Maasdorp). Attempts to Silence the ABC A series of actions by government staff and ministers prior to, and following, the Four Corners program airing confirmed the assumption suggested by Milligan that “what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra”. In the days leading to the airing of the Four Corners program, members of the federal government contacted ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and other senior staff, criticising the program’s content before its release and questioning whether it was in the public interest. The Executive Producer for the program, Sally Neighbour, tweeted about the attempts to have the program cancelled on the day it was to air, and praised ABC management for not acceding to the demands. Anderson raised his concerns about the emails and calls to ABC senior staff while appearing at Senate estimates and said he found it “extraordinary” (Murphy & Davies). Buttrose also voiced her concerns and presented a lecture reinforcing the importance of “the ABC, democracy and the importance of press freedom”. As the public broadcaster, the ABC has a charter under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983) (ABC Act), which includes its right to media independence. The attempt by the federal government to influence programming at the ABC was seen as countering this independence. Following the airing of the Four Corners program, the Morrison Government, via Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, again contacted Ita Buttrose by letter, asking how reporting allegations of inappropriate behaviour by ministers was “in the public interest”. Fletcher made the letter public via his Twitter account on the same day. The letter “posed 15 questions to the ABC board requesting an explanation within 14 days as to how the episode complied with the ABC’s code of practice and its statutory obligations to provide accurate and impartial journalism”. Fletcher also admitted that a senior member of his staff had contacted a member of the ABC board prior to the show airing but denied this was “an attempt to lobby the board”. Reportedly the ABC was “considering a response to what it believes is a further attack on its independence” (Visentin & Samios). A Case of Double Standards Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells told Milligan (Four Corners) that she believes “values and beliefs are very important” when standing for political office, with a responsibility to electors to “abide by those values and beliefs because ultimately we will be judged by them”. It is her view that “there is an expectation that in service of the Australian public, [politicians] abide by the highest possible conduct and integrity”. Porter has portrayed himself as being a family man, and an advocate for people affected by sexual harassment and concerned about domestic violence. Four Corners included two videos of Porter, the first from June 2020, where he stated: “no-one should have to suffer sexual harassment at work or in any other part of their lives … . The Commonwealth Government takes it very seriously”. In the second recording, from 2015, Porter spoke on the topic of domestic violence, where he advocated ensuring “that young boys understand what a respectful relationship is … what is acceptable and … go on to be good fathers and good husbands”. Tudge and Joyce hold a conservative view of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. They made this very evident during the plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage in 2017. One of Tudge’s statements during the public debate was shown on the Four Corners program, where he said that he had “reservations about changing the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples” as he viewed “marriage as an institution … primarily about creating a bond for the creation, love and care of children. And … if the definition is changed … then the institution itself would potentially be weakened”. Miller responded by confirming that this was the public image Tudge portrayed, however, she was upset, surprised and believed it to be hypocrisy “to hear him … speak in parliament … and express a view that for children to have the right upbringing they need to have a mother and father and a traditional kind of family environment” (Four Corners). Following the outcome to the plebiscite in favour of marriage equality (Evershed), both Tudge and Porter voted to pass the legislation, in line with their electorates, while Joyce abstained from voting on the legislation (against the wishes of his electorate), along with nine other MPs including Scott Morrison (Henderson). Turnbull told Milligan: there’s no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery. As I said many times, this issue of the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with hypocrisy and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious. The Bubble Threatens to Burst On 25 January 2021, the advocate for survivors of sexual assault, Grace Tame, was announced as Australian of the Year. This began a series of events that has the Canberra bubble showing signs of potentially rupturing, or perhaps even imploding, as further allegations of sexual assault emerge. Inspired by the speech of Grace Tame at the awards ceremony and the fact that the Prime Minister was standing beside her, on 15 February 2021, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins disclosed to journalist Samantha Maiden the allegation that she had been raped by a senior staffer in March 2019. Higgins also appeared in a television interview with Lisa Wilkinson that evening. The assault allegedly occurred after hours in the office of her boss, then Minister for Defence Industry and current Minister for Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds. Higgins said she reported what had occurred to the Minister and other staff, but felt she was being made to choose between her job and taking the matter to police. The 2019 federal election was called a few weeks later. Although Higgins wanted to continue in her “dream job” at Parliament House, she resigned prior to her disclosure in February 2021. Reynolds and Morrison were questioned extensively on the matter, in parliament and by the media, as to what they knew and when they were informed. Public outrage at the allegations was heightened by conflicting stories of these timelines and of who else knew. Although Reynolds had declared to the Senate that her office had provided full support to Higgins, it was revealed that her original response to the allegations to those in her office on the day of the media publication was to call Higgins a “lying cow”. After another public and media outcry, Reynolds apologised to Higgins (Hitch). Initially avoiding addressing the Higgins allegation directly, Morrison finally stated his empathy for Higgins in a doorstop media interview, reflecting advice he had received from his wife: Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, "You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?" Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has. On 3 March 2021, Grace Tame presented a powerful speech to the National Press Club. She was asked her view on the Prime Minister referring to his role as a father in the case of Brittany Higgins. Morrison’s statement had already enraged the public and certain members of the media, including many female journalists. Tame considered her response, then replied: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. [pause] And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.” The statement was met by applause from the gallery and received public acclaim. A further allegation of rape was made public on 27 February 2021, when friends of a deceased woman sent the Prime Minister a full statement from the woman that a current unnamed Cabinet Minister had raped her in 1988, when she was 16 years old (Yu). Morrison was asked whether he had spoken with the Minister, and stated that the Minister had denied the allegations and he saw no need to take further action, and would leave it to the police. New South Wales police subsequently announced that in light of the woman’s death last year, they could not proceed with an investigation and the matter was closed. The name of the woman has not been officially disclosed, however, on the afternoon of 3 March 2021 Attorney-General Christian Porter held a press conference naming himself as the Minister in question and vehemently denied the allegations. In light of the latest allegations, coverage by some journalists has shown the propensity to be complicit in protecting the Canberra bubble, while others (mainly women) endeavour to provide investigative journalistic coverage. The Outcome to Date Focus on the behaviour highlighted by “Inside the Canberra Bubble” in November 2020 waned quickly, with journalist Sean Kelly observing: since ABC’s Four Corners broadcast an episode exploring entrenched sexism in Parliament House, and more specifically within the Liberal Party, male politicians have said very, very, very little about it … . The episode in question was broadcast three weeks ago. It’s old news. But in this case that’s the point: every time the issue of sexism in Canberra is raised, it’s quickly rushed past, then forgotten (by men). Nothing happens. As noted earlier, Rachel Miller resigned from her position at Parliament House following the affair with Tudge. Barrister Kathleen Foley had held a position on the Victorian Bar Council, however three days after the Four Corners program went to air, Foley was voted off the council. According to Matilda Boseley from The Guardian, the change of council members was seen more broadly as an effort to remove progressives. Foley has also been vocal about gender issues within the legal profession. With the implementation of the new council, five members held their positions and 16 were replaced, seeing a change from 62 per cent female representation to 32 per cent (Boseley). No action was taken by the Prime Minister in light of the revelations by Four Corners: Christian Porter maintained his position as Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, and Leader of the House; and Alan Tudge continued as a member of the Federal Cabinet, currently as Minister for Education and Youth. Despite ongoing calls for an independent enquiry into the most recent allegations, and for Porter to stand aside, he continues as Attorney-General, although he has taken sick leave to address mental health impacts of the allegations (ABC News). Reynolds continues to hold the position of Defence Minister following the Higgins allegations, and has also taken sick leave on the advice of her specialist, now extended to after the March 2021 sitting of parliament (Doran). While Scott Morrison stands in support of Porter amid the allegations against him, he has called for an enquiry into the workplace culture of Parliament House. This appears to be in response to claims that a fourth woman was assaulted, allegedly by Higgins’s perpetrator. The enquiry, to be led by Kate Jenkins, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, is focussed on “how to change the culture, how to change the practices, and how to ensure that, in future, we do have the best possible environment for prevention and response” (Murphy). By focussing the narrative of the enquiry on the “culture” of Parliament House, it diverts attention from the allegations of rape by Higgins and against Porter. While the enquiry is broadly welcomed, any outcomes will require more than changes to the workplace: they will require a much broader social change in attitudes towards women. The rage of women, in light of the current gendered political culture, has evolved into a call to action. An initial protest march, planned for outside Parliament House on 15 March 2021, has expanded to rallies in all capital cities and many other towns and cities in Australia. Entitled Women’s March 4 Justice, thousands of people, both women and men, have indicated their intention to participate. It is acknowledged that many residents of Canberra have objected to their entire city being encompassed in the term “Canberra Bubble”. However, the term’s relevance to this current state of affairs reflects the culture of those working in and for the Australian parliament, rather than residents of the city. It also describes the way that those who work in all things related to the federal government carry an apparent assumption that the bubble offers them immunity from the usual behaviour and accountability required of those outside the bubble. It this “bubble” that needs to burst. With a Prime Minister seemingly unable to recognise the hypocrisy of Ministers allegedly acting in ways contrary to “good character”, and for Porter, with ongoing allegations of improper behaviour, as expected for the country’s highest law officer, and in his mishandling of Higgins claims as called out by Tame, the bursting of the “Canberra bubble” may cost him government. References ABC News. “Christian Porter Denies Historical Rape Allegation.” Transcript. 4 Mar. 2021. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-03/christian-porter-press-conference-transcript/13212054>. Boseley, Matilda. “Barrister on Four Corners' Christian Porter Episode Loses Victorian Bar Council Seat.” The Guardian 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/12/barrister-on-four-corners-christian-porter-episode-loses-victorian-bar-council-seat>. Buttrose, Ita. “The ABC, Democracy and the Importance of Press Freedom.” Lecture. 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Introduction Although our postmodern (media) society should provide room for diversity and otherness (Greer and Jewkes), some people are not integrated but rather excluded. Social exclusion can be defined as the discrepancy of the wish of being part of a society and its possibilities to be part of it and contains feelings or experiences of physically or emotionally exclusion from others (Burchardt et al.; Riva and Eck). It is not really known what or who is responsible for social exclusion (Hills et al.), but it is certain that it is not that rare phenomenon — especially in social media. Here, digital engagement characteristics (likes, follows, shares, and comments) are important to build up, renew, and strengthen different forms of relationships. But if users do not receive any feedback, the risk of feeling social excluded increases. In this context, adolescents and young adults as the primary audience are the focus of interest. They seem to be especially vulnerable when it comes to social ostracism within social media and its potential negative psychological effects (Timeo et al.). The variety of social exclusion allows multiple perspectives on the topic. Hereafter we focus on young people with cancer. This life-threatening disease can increase the risk of being excluded. Cancer as a chronic illness and its negative effects on people’s lives, such as potential death, long-term and late effects, private and social burdens (Hilgendorf et al.), show an obvious otherness compared to the healthy peer, which might push ostracism effects and social exclusion of young people within social media to a new level. We actually can see a large number of (included) young cancer patients and survivors using social media for information sharing, exchanging ideas, networking, and addressing their unmet needs of the real world (Chou et al.; Chou and Moskowitz; Ruckenstuhl et al.; Perales et al.). Especially Instagram is becoming more present in social cancer communication (Stage et al.), though it actually increasingly represents cheerful, easy-going content (Hu et al.; Waterloo et al.). Judging by the number of cancer-related hashtags, we can see more and more public cancer bloggers thematise cancer illness on Instagram. But less is known about the actual content posted by cancer bloggers on Instagram. This leads us to the question, to what extent is cancer content found and included or excluded on public Instagram profiles of German speaking cancer bloggers? And is there a difference between biography descriptions with visible cancer references and posted motifs, captions and hashtags? Chronic Illnesses, Identities, and Social Networks Chronic illnesses such as cancer not only affect the body, but also impact on the identity of those affected. It is understood as life-changing with both short-term and long-term effects on the identity-forming process and on the already developed identity (Bury; Charmaz; Leventhal et al.). With their diagnosis, adolescents and young adults face a double challenge: they have to cope with the typical developmental changes of this age group and they have to negotiate these changes against the background of a life-threatening illness (Makros and McCabe; Zebrack and Isaacso). Miller shows three levels of identity for young cancer patients (pre-cancer identity, patient identity, and post-cancer identity), which are used regularly and flexibly by those affected in their interaction with the social network in order to maintain relationships and to minimise communicative misunderstandings. Moreover, the negotiation of the self within the social network and its expectations, especially towards convalescent people, can lead to paradoxical situations and identities of young people with cancer (Jones et al.). Although therapeutic measures are completed and patients may be discharged as cured, physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges with regard to the illness (e.g. fatigue, loss of performance, difficulty concentrating) still have to be overcome. These challenges, despite recovery, cause those affected to feel they still belong to a cancer group which they have actually largely outgrown medically and therapeutically, and also continually remind them of their present difference from the healthy peer group. To minimise these differences, narratives are the means for those affected to negotiate their new illness-related identity with their network (Hyde). These processes can be digitally transformed on blogs or to age-appropriate social network sites (SNS), which enable users to record and communicate experiences and emotions in an uncomplicated, situational manner and with fewer inhibitions (Kim and Gilham). Cancer contents on SNS are called autopathography and can serve as a means of self-expression, whilst at the same time stimulating communication and networking and thus significantly influencing identity and identity development in the chronic disease process (Rettberg; Ressler et al.; Abrol et al.; Stage). The possibility of recording and archiving private moments in a digital environment through photos and texts creates a visual diary. Here, illness recordings are not just motifs, but also part of an identity process by accepting the self as being ill (Nesby and Salamonsen; Tembeck). Instagram-Exclusive Positivity Instagram is the most popular social media network amongst 14-29 year olds in Germany (Beisch et al.). It presents itself as a highly visual structured platform. Furthermore, both posts and stories are dominated by content with innocuous motifs (Hu et al.). Additionally, the visual culture on Instagram is supported by integrated image optimisations such as filters and therefore often associated with high aesthetic standards (Waterloo et al.). This encourages the exchange of idealised self-presenting and self-advertising content (Lee et al.; Lup et al.; Sheldon and Bryant). The positive tone of the shared motifs and captions can also be explained by larger, sometimes anonymous networks on Instagram. The principle of non-reciprocal following of public accounts increasingly creates weak ties, which can additionally encourage the sharing of positively connoted content due to the anonymity (Lin et al.; Waterloo et al.). The posting of negative moods or image motifs to anonymous followers does not seem to be socially standardised, due to the associated intimate thoughts and feelings (Bazarova). In addition, users are aware of the public framework in which they address intimate topics and discourses (Bazarova and Choi). Internal platform standards and technical possibilities thus create a particular posting culture: an environment that is—due to its strong visual-aesthetic structure and anonymous follower-based networks—almost exclusively positive. However, these assumptions and findings are based on a general posting culture, which is usually not focussed on niche topics like cancer. Previous studies show that SNS are used for exchange and networking, especially by young cancer patients (Chou and Moskowitz; Perales et al.). Studies from online SNS disease-related self-help groups show that weak ties in illness situations are considered beneficial when it comes to self-disclosure, seeking help, and support (Wright et al.; Love et al.; Donovan et al.). In addition, Instagram is part of the so-called “vital media” (Stage et al.), which means it is very important for young cancer patients to share cancer-related material. But despite these research findings less is known about the content shared by German-speaking bloggers who have visible cancer references in their Instagram biography. Do they include a serious, even life-threatening illness on a platform that actually stands for positivity, or do they follow the invisible platform regulations in their posted content and statements and exclude it by themselves? The specific objectives of this explorative study were (a) to obtain a descriptive analysis of the manner in which cancer bloggers post content on Instagram, and (b) to determine the extent to which most applied practices exclude the posting of certain negatively connoted motives and emotions associated with cancer. Methodology For the study, 142 German-speaking cancer bloggers (14–39 years of age) with public accounts and visible cancer references in their biography were researched on Instagram. The sample was divided into posts (7,553) and stories (4,117). The content was examined using a standardised content analysis and a code book with relevant categories (motifs, body presences, emotions, captions, emojis; ICR Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85). Measured by the value of the content posted, the story users, at 23 years of age, were comparatively much younger than the post users, at 30 years of age. The sample was predominantly female in both posts (81%) and stories (99%). The most common form of cancer was breast cancer (posts: 28%; stories: 29%), followed by brain tumors (posts: 19%; stories: 16%) and leukaemia (posts: 4%; stories: 19%). Most content was shared by people who were actively involved in treatment – 46% of posts and 54% of stories. Completed treatments were more common in posts (39%) than in stories (19%). At the time of data collection, the Instagram entries were explicitly open to the public, and no registration was required. The content, not the individual, was analysed to minimise the risk for the bloggers and to prevent them from violations of privacy and autonomy by third parties. Furthermore, the entries were assigned unidentifiable numbers to ensure that no tracing is possible (Franzke et al.). Results The sample consists of public cancer blogger accounts who document everyday experiences for their network in images and videos. The following results are shown for posts (P) and stories (S). Motifs and Bodies Looking at the evaluation of the image motifs, the selfie predominates both in posts, with 20.7 per cent, and stories, with 32.8 per cent. Other popular photo motifs are pictures of food (P: 10.2%; S: 11.0%), activities (P: 7.2%; S: 7.7%), landscapes (P: 6.3%; S: 7.1%), and of/with family and friends (P: 12.5%; S: 6.0%). Photos in medical or clinical settings are rare, with one per cent in the posts and three per cent in the stories. Looking at the bodies and faces displayed, a comparatively normal to positive image of the bloggers that were studied can be observed. Most of the people in the posts present themselves with hair (81.3%), wear make-up (53.3%) and smile at the camera (64.1%). A similar trend can also be seen in the stories. Here 63.8 per cent present themselves with hair, 62.7 per cent with make-up and 55.3 per cent with happy facial expressions. In contrast, scars (P: 1.6%; S: 4.4%) or amputations (P: 0.2%; S: 0.1%) are hardly ever shown. Thus, possible therapy-accompanying symptoms, such as alopecia, ports for chemotherapy, or amputations (e.g. mastectomy in the case of breast cancer) are rarely or hardly ever made visible by cancer bloggers. Captions, Hashtags, and Emojis Similar to the motifs, everyday themes dominate in the captions of the images, such as the description of activities (P: 23.2%; S: 18.0%), food (P: 8.2%; S: 9.3%), or beauty/fashion (P: 6.2%; S: 10.2%). However, information on the current health status of the person affected can be found under every tenth photo, both in the stories and in the posts. Hashtags are mainly found amongst the posts with 81.5 per cent. In keeping with the caption, normal themes were also chosen here, divided into the categories of activities (17.7%), beauty/fashion (7.6%), food (5.8%), and family/friends (4.8%). Illness-specific hashtags (e.g. #cancer, #survivor, or #chemo) were chosen in 15.6 per cent. In addition, the cancer bloggers in this study used emojis in 74 per cent of their posts. In the stories, however, only 28.2 per cent of the content was tagged with emojis. The most common category is smileys & people (P: 46.8%; S: 52.8%), followed by symbols (e.g. hearts, ribbons) (P: 21.1%; S: 26.5%), and animals & nature (P: 17.0%; S: 14.2%). Emotions In captions, hashtags and emojis, emotions were divided into positive (e.g. joy, fighting spirit), neutral (e.g. simple narration of the experience), and negative (e.g. fear, anger). It is noticeable that in all three categories predominantly and significantly positive or neutral words and images were used to describe emotional states or experiences. In the case of captions, 40.4 per cent of the posts and 43.9 per cent of the stories could be classified as positive. For the hashtags, the values were 18.7 per cent (P) and 43 per cent (S), and for the emojis 60 per cent (P) and 65.7 per cent (S). In contrast, there were hardly any negative moods (captions P: 5.7%, S: 5.8%; hashtags P: 4.4%, S: 0.7%; emojis P: 8.7%, S: 6.4%). Although the disease status (e.g. active in therapy or completed) had less impact on emotional messages, a significant connection with the applied thematic areas could be observed. Thus, it is apparent that medical and/or therapeutic aspects tend to be described with positive and negative words and hashtags, e.g. the current health status (χ²(3) = 795.44, p =.000, φ = 0.346) or the topics of illness/health via hashtag (χ²(3) = 797.67, p =.000, φ = 0.361). Topics such as food (χ²(3) = 20.49, p =.000, φ = 0.056) or beauty/fashion (χ²(3) = 51.52, p =.000, φ = 0.092) are recognisably more impersonal from an emotional perspective. Discussion A Digital Identity Paradox Drugs, chemotherapy, setbacks, physical impairments, or anxiety are issues that usually accompany cancer patients during treatment and also in remission. Looking at the content posted by German-speaking cancer bloggers on Instagram, illness-related images and words are comparatively rare. The bloggers show their normal, mostly cancer-free world, in which negative and illness-related content does not seem to fit. Although they clearly draw attention to their illness through their biography, this is not or only rarely addressed. Therefore, it can be stated that cancer as a topic is excluded by choice by the bloggers examined. Neither motifs, captions, nor hashtags make the illness visible. This seems paradoxical because the content and biography appear to contradict each other. And yet, the content studied only shows what Jones et al. and Miller have already described: their identity paradox, or multiple identities. The digital acceptance of one's own illness and solidarity with (anonymous) fellow sufferers is clearly given through the disclosure in the biography, but yet a normal and healthy online ego—comparable to the peer group and equal to their own illness identity—is aspired to. It seems as if those affected have to switch their identity back and forth. The awareness that they are already different in real life (in this case, ill) encourages the users examined to show a normal, age-appropriate life—at least online, which is why we speak of an identity paradox 2.0. Based on our data, the obvious otherness of being ill—and in this context the potential higher risk of digital ostracism effects (Greer and Jewkes; Timeo et al.)—can be a reason for self-exclusion of the cancer topic, in order not to be excluded by a healthy peer. The Standard Creates the Content The positive tone that can be found in almost every second post can be explained by the platform standards and practices themselves (Waterloo et al.). Thus, smiling faces in a public environment correspond more to this than sadness, anger, or despair. Although disease-related topics in captions are also provided with negatively connoted language, they do not have a determining influence on the public self-image of the blogger and their life and the illness. The strong visual culture on Instagram does not leave much scope for "other", perhaps more authentic serious content. The fact that published content has the potential to talk about cancer and to make one’s own experience with the disease transparent is proven by blogs (Kim and Gilham). Instagram does not currently seem to be particularly suitable for public profiles to make serious illness narratives about cancer. Conclusion It remains to be noted that public cancer blogs attempt to include a serious topic on Instagram. But with regard to the data, we can see a form of (maybe unconsciously) self-chosen exclusion of illness narratives. The reasons might vary. On the one hand, cancer bloggers want to belong to a healthy peer group, and expressing a visible otherness would exclude them. Therefore, they try to reduce the higher risk potential of ostracism effects. On the other hand, internal Instagram regulations and standards create an environment which can strengthen the bloggers' posting behaviours: young people, especially, post life-affirming and life-related content. This also helps them to cope with crisis situations and to avoid being dominated by a life-threatening disease. Further research on cancer on Instagram is needed to determine to what extent this is desired, and whether an awareness of this paradox exists or develops intuitively. 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Introduction There are increasing levels of concern around the health of citizens within Western neo-liberal democracies like Britain, the USA, and Australia. These governmental concerns are made manifest by discursive mechanisms that seek to both survey and regulate the lifestyles, eating habits and exercise regimes of citizens. Such governmental imperatives have historically targeted schools with school food ranking high in the priorities of public health policy, particularly in regards to the fears around childhood obesity and related health problems (Gard and Wright, Rich, Vander Schee and Gard). However, more recently such concerns have spilled into the wider public arena in Australia where fears of an “obesity epidemic”, the revision of the “food pyramid” and recent calls that make it mandatory for fast food companies to display calorie/kilojoule content on menu boards illustrate the increasing levels to which governments seek to intervene regarding the health of citizens. Not only does the attempt to produce a healthy citizen take place within policy imperatives but also within popular culture. Here, we see healthy eating and diet shows becoming international brands. For example The Biggest Loser, where obese contestants embark on a televised diet and exercise regime, competing to lose the most weight in the shortest time, and also Jamie Oliver’s attempt to change the eating habits of the British has crossed the Atlantic to the USA. There is a sense of urgency embedded in many such discursive practices and an implication that, as a society, we need a “lifestyle change” to make us healthier. Reflecting this urgency is an increase in cookbooks that not only provide recipe ideas but also seek to intervene into our day-to-day conduct. The content of such books moves beyond ways of putting a meal together and into the territory of self-surveillance and regulation. In this way, then, cookbooks can be read as pedagogical. This particular brand of pedagogy, moreover, feeds into wider socio-political discourses around the governance of the self within our late modern context. This chapter will argue that many contemporary cookbooks attempt to enact governmental imperatives around health and nutrition and that, by doing this, they become pedagogical devices that translate governmental devices into the homes of their readers. By using a post-Foucauldian analytical framework, we will illustrate the ways in which Jane Kennedy’s cookbook, Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah mobilises discourses of health, gender, risk, and food in a rich (but 99 per cent fat free) mix. Analytical Framework This paper draws upon Foucauldian governmentality studies and the ways in which discursive practices are enacted in order to position and offer an analysis of cookbooks as pedagogical devices that translate the work of government into readers’ homes. Foucault defined government as “the conduct of conduct” arguing that government relates to the “way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick […] to govern in this sense, is to structure the possible field of action” (220–1). Foucault argued that attempts to shape conduct occur within socio-historical moments and contexts (Gordon) and they are, therefore, subject to change. Within this article, we seek to understand the ways in which governmental imperatives around food and lifestyle are taken up by cookbook authors and the implications of this in terms of public pedagogies within our late-modern context. Public health is located within a myriad of governmental sites that attempt to regulate people’s lives. In deciphering how government sites operate as mechanisms of regulation in modern times, Miller and Rose suggest that we require: An investigation not merely of grand political schemata, or economic ambitions, or even of general slogans such as ‘state control’, nationalization, the free market, and the like, but of apparently humble and mundane mechanisms which appear to make it possible to govern […] the list is heterogeneous and is, in principle unlimited (32). Such investigations can be grouped under the umbrella of “governmentality studies”. To grasp “governmentality” is complex and requires an analytics that can span history, and reach across macro and micro contours to trace various linkages and connections forged between governmental rationalities, techniques and practices (Leahy, Assembling). For the purposes of this paper we will be offering an analytic of the humble cookbook and its potential role in the governance of the self, a technique vital to contemporary neo-liberal modes of governance. Neo-liberalism produces particular versions of health, citizenship, and individualism. Within neo-liberal governmental assemblages, public health policy operates as a key site for enacting what Miller and Rose label “government at a distance” (32) by working to facilitate the shifting of responsibility for the health of citizens from the State to the individual. The individual, however, does not instinctively know how to incorporate governmental hopes for a healthy lifestyle into their lives—it is here that the cookbook, as pedagogical device, is vital because it translates macro governmental hopes to the micro level, that is, into the kitchens of citizens. Both risk and expertise also work alongside neo-liberalism in the assemblage to render the problems of government both thinkable and calculable, and in turn, practical. We will see in the next section how Jane Kennedy, the author of Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah deploys both popular notions of risk alongside her own experience and expertise (her lifelong “battle” with weight) in order to fold the (female) reader in to Kennedy’s particular approach to healthy eating. Pedagogy could be described as part of the “doing” of education, the means through which ideas are transmitted through and between learners and teachers. Like contemporary neo-liberal government, contemporary pedagogies can be understood as assemblages; that is, they are made up of competing, intersecting, contradictory and multiple elements. Pedagogy is a technical device through which these elements are translated and transmitted to its audience, be that school pupils, students, adult learners or citizens. Elizabeth Ellsworth argues that pedagogy is a “social relationship [that] is very close in. It gets right in there in your brain, your body, your heart, your sense of self, of the world, of others, and of possibilities and impossibilities in all those realms” (6). In other words, effective pedagogical devices are necessary contact points between ideas and the self; they inform relationships between the macro and the micro, thus shaping both the individual and the collective. The remainder of this paper will demonstrate how Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah deploys popular discursive trends regarding food, health, gender, and citizenship as pedagogic tools that aim to cultivate a healthier subject. Food That Makes Your Arse Huge? “Boombah: (adj). Word to describe food that makes your arse huge” (Kennedy 5). Lifestyle, diet, and health books can be seen to have saturated the market over recent years in an almost epidemic-like way. This phenomenon both mirrors and informs governmental imperatives around the health and lifestyle of citizens. A recent visit to our local bookshop revealed that there appears to be a polarisation of texts relating to food, health, and wellbeing. Books that explicitly relate to health and health issues can be found in one section, and cookbooks in another. However, there are an increasing number of texts that blend the two genres and offer diet, health, and lifestyle tips along with recipe ideas and cooking techniques. Within this blend there is also variation; there are texts that offer a scientific exposition of food, nutrition, and diet, such as Ricotti and Connelly’s The Healthy Family Cookbook, a text which offers a twelve-chapter overview of current theories and practices around health and nutrition before offering recipe ideas designed to help the reader achieve and maintain a “healthy weight” (page). In addition there are also texts that fold particular approaches to weight-loss, such as Jenny Craig or The Biggest Loser, together with cooking. The input of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to the mix has been well documented (see Pike; Leahy, Disgusting; Rawlins; Zimmet and James) and the influence of Oliver’s approachable style of writing can be found within many contemporary cookbooks, including Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah, a text within which Jane Kennedy blends together cooking, health, and lifestyle into a paste that is bound together with a Bridget Jones-style confessional commentary on her own, personal struggles with weight and dieting. For example: “I love food. Always have. Unfortunately I love it about one kilo per month more than I should. Perhaps I should put it another way: the food I love seems to have more calories than I need over a month and a year and a lifetime … it adds up! Yep, I get FAT” (xi). This style can be read as a way of “getting right in” (Ellsworth 6), to enfold the reader into Kennedy’s world. It also may provide readers, particularly, as we will discus below, middle-class Anglo-Australian females, with a sense of solidarity in a struggle against weight gain. Kennedy often deploys the spectre of designer jeans that no longer fit as a way to further entice the reader to embrace the healthy eating regime promoted by the book. Kennedy draws upon notions of horror and disgust at the fat body (her own but, implicitly, also the readers). Horror and disgust are potent pedagogical devices that are often put to work in educational and health promotion settings in an attempt to lure people and their bodies into action (Leahy, Disgusting; Lupton). In many ways Kennedy’s cookbook can be read as public pedagogy—its aim is to teach the reader how to cook food that is “packed full of flavour but minus the boombah” (xxvii), or minus that which causes bodily harm and/or disgusting transformation. In order to achieve this, Kennedy deploys “expert knowledge” as she takes the reader on a journey through her own struggles with weight, fad diets and failure to epiphany—which for Kennedy was a personal trainer and a new approach to cooking, eating and lifestyle and her book is peppered with self help-style narrative devices, for example: The key to successful weight loss with this style of eating is to be organised. Disorganisation is the open door though which every second excuse (and French fry) slips. “Oh no, the stores are closed. Oh well, better order takeaway”. Don’t do it. There. Is. No. Good. Takeaway. Food. (Kennedy xxii, emphasis original). Several mechanisms are being deployed here. Firstly, she is inadvertently constructing the perfect western neo-liberal subject: organised, self-contained, disciplined, and able to make informed rational decisions around food type and purchase. Secondly, by predicting and addressing the reader’s perceived resistance, Kennedy reveals her moralistic overtones. We see the judgment of a rational, ordered subject versus a messy, disorganised, immoral (and fat) subject in a piling up of connotations that lead to the same conclusion: this healthy way is the best healthy way. Kennedy’s personal narrative within the text follows a trajectory of “awareness, struggle and epiphany” (Plummer 131) that often characterise the confessional stories that we tell about ourselves: “I ended up […] back at square one: overweight, staring down a year of chicken consommé dinners […] I finally grew a brain and motivated myself to see a personal trainer” (Kennedy xiv). Kennedy’s narrative is a familiar one and a Foucauldian reading of confession enables us to take the position that confession is imperative to the contemporary construction of self. Modes of confession have become increasingly diverse and reified through the era of reality TV, social networking and the “personal trauma” sub-genre of autobiographical memoir (Brien). Kennedy’s book deploys confession as a narrative device that, like her moralising about the dangers of take away food, attempts to fold the reader into her world and, as a result, reifies her approach to healthy eating and lifestyle. We can do it because she has done it. Through the confessional she is not only able to tell of her love of food but also of her understanding of it as risky. This can be outlined by drawing upon an extract we looked at earlier: “the food I love seems to have more calories than I need and over a month and a year and lifetime it adds up! Yep, I get FAT” (xi). Risk and expertise work alongside neo-liberal individualism in the governmental assemblage to render the problems of government both thinkable and calculable, and in turn, practical. Kennedy deploys both risk and expert knowledge in order to successfully demonstrate her understanding of healthy eating as a battleground that see her appetite and tastes at war with her waistline. She guides us through the various fad diets she has tried, through gaining weight while being pregnant, and the anguish of seeing her image reflected back at her through her career in television, until her epiphany: the realisation that in order to achieve and maintain a healthy weight a balance of healthy eating and exercise is required. These are convincing pedagogical strategies that encourage the reader to apply modes of self-governance that reflect wider, macro hopes for the healthy neo-liberal citizen and Kennedy’s status as TV celebrity within Australia. Her use of the colloquial term “boombah” makes hers a uniquely Australian endeavour. It is worth noting here that Kennedy’s brand of Australian humour and use of colloquialism is deeply entrenched with raced and classed assumptions about desirable body size and the economic and cultural capital of its readers. It is middle class white Anglo-Australian women who are being targeted by this book and, arguably, by this brand of public pedagogy. As with many contemporary cultural texts about cooking, Kennedy’s book promotes an: “upper-middle-class lifestyle enhanced by the appropriation of goods and commodities. All the while, real issues surrounding the life-sustaining reality of food are ignored” (Wright and Sandlin 406). The lifestyle promoted by Kennedy is classed in this way. She writes of Bettina Liano jeans, of working on the popular Australian television show A Current Affair, of drinking wine, and using goats cheese and kaffir lime leaves in her cooking. Her levels of economic and cultural capital are obvious, and this sets the scene well for the type of reader she is attempting to educate. Although she does not explicitly mention gender, her “Bridget Jones”-style confessions of dietary failure (though Kennedy succeeds where Bridget would inevitably continue to fail), the mention of cooking both children’s and adult’s dinners, and the illustrations throughout the book that feature children’s toys implicitly position her as a “typical modern woman” with a career and a family to boot. In terms of pedagogy, Kennedy’s book reflects contemporary governmental discourse around health, food and wellbeing. It is designed “to shape with some degree of deliberation aspects of our behaviour according to particular sets of norms and for a variety of ends” (Dean 18). It reflects government fears around obesity, portion size, calorific content, and body shape. Pike and Leahy argue that food pedagogies provide government, and in this case the individual, with opportunities to shape, sculpt, mobilise, and work through the food choices, desires and aspirations, needs, wants, and lifestyles of parents, families, and children. The explicit intention of food pedagogies is to enlist the public into a process of “governmental self formation”: that is, “the ways in which various authorities and agencies seek to shape the conduct, aspirations, needs, desires and capacities of specified political and social categories, to enlist them in particular strategies and to seek definite goals” (Dean 563). Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah then uses confession as a springboard to enlisting its readers into a healthier lifestyle and, more importantly, a healthier, risk aversive relationship with food. It individualises this struggle, and, like all good neo-liberal subjects, presents a healthy diet as an individual struggle: This way of cooking and eating works for me […] I feel much healthier and happier and I’ve got a lot more energy […] These recipes have to be better for you than chowing down a creepy bowl of 2 minute noodles and an entire pack of Tim Tams (yes, it’s time to let go). Be disciplined, even if you’ve struggled before. And if you really can’t live without your nightly routine of creamy pasta […] then bung this book back on the shelf. But stop whingeing about your huge arse (xix). This passage illustrates Kennedy’s pedagogy well, particularly the way in which her pedagogy is infused with neo-liberal discursive techniques. She positions herself as expert by stating that her way of cooking “works for me” as well as by deploying phrases like “I feel” and “I’ve got”. She then expertly shifts the reader’s focus from herself to the governance of the self by stating that it is up to the individual to be self-disciplined. Her pedagogy is littered with risk discourse as she informs us that you can continue to eat as you wish, but that there are consequences (a “huge arse”). This particular brand of risk discourse is gendered, as it is arguably mostly women who worry about the size of this part of their anatomy. One of the greatest contradictions of a neo-liberal approach to governance is that at the same time as promoting individual responsibility, there is also a strong emphasis on the collective. Kennedy reflects this throughout the book, as the above passage suggests. Her introductory section acts as a guide for the reader, who—once enfolded into Kennedy’s approach—she lets make their own way with encouragement. This is manifest in her final statements, “So let’s say goodbye to boombah. Go for it! And enjoy!” (xxvii). As pedagogy, then, Fabulous Food, Minus the Boombah attempts to cultivate and shape the reader’s choices around food by providing a practical means for transforming not only the reader’s food practices but also her image and self-esteem. This is achieved by the author’s supplement of supplying expert information, cooking skills, guidance, and incitement. Let’s Say Goodbye to Boombah? This paper has demonstrated how the contemporary cookbook can be read as pedagogy. In some ways the humble cookbook has always been pedagogical; seeking to teach the reader to make something that they previously did not, presumably, know how to, as well as providing cooking techniques and advice on the most suitable produce to use in particular recipes. However, in the contemporary moment, the cookbook arguably increasingly acts as a translation mechanism for governmental imperatives around food, health, and wellbeing. We have taken one cookbook amongst many as an illustration of our thesis. Jane Kennedy’s Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah is an Australian example of the neo-liberal project that lies at the heart of contemporary modes of governance of the population, but also, and more importantly, governance of the self. At the very heart of neo-liberalism is an imagined subject. That is, neo-liberalism needs and wants citizens to be autonomous, health seeking, enterprising, rational, choice-making individuals. The contemporary cookbook, it has been argued, can assist the individual in the production of a healthier-eating self. However, the more complex and intersecting aspects of selfhood—aspects such as socio-economic status, gender, location and ethnicity—are often absent from the construction of the healthy individual promoted by the contemporary cookbook. Above all, this paper has sought to problematise some of the dominant discourse around food, health, and wellbeing that can be found on the pages of the modern-day cookbook. References Brien, Donna Lee. “True Tales that Nurture: Defining Auto/Biographical Storytelling”. Australian Folklore 19 (2004): 84-95. Brien, Donna Lee, and Adele Wessel. “From ‘Training in Citizenship and Home-making’ to ‘Plating Pp’: Writing Australian Cookbooks for Younger Readers”. Ethical Imaginations: Writing Worlds: Refereed Papers of the 16th Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference. Canberra: AAWP, 2011. Dean, Mitchell. “Governing the Unemployed Self in an Active Society”. Economy and Society 24 (1995): 559–83. Dean, Mitchell. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (2nd ed.). London: Sage, 2010. Ellsworth, Elizabeth. “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Myths of Critical Pedagogy.” Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. Ed. Luke, Carmen and Gore, Jennifer. New York: Routledge, 1992. 90–119. Foucault, Michel. “The Subject And Power.” Michel Foucault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Ed. Dreyfus, Hubert, and Paul Rabinow. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982. 208–26. Gard, Michael, and Jan Wright. The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology. London: Routledge, 2005. Gordon, Colin. “Governmental Rationality: An Introduction”. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Eds. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, Foucault, Michel, and Miller, Peter. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. 1–52. Kennedy, Jane. Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah. Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 2009. Leahy, Deana. “Assembling a Health[y] Subject.” Unpublished PhD Thesis. Melbourne: Deakin University, 2012. Leahy, Deana. “Disgusting Pedagogies.” Biopolitics and the Obesity Epidemic. Eds. Wright, Jan, and Harwood, Valerie. Routledge: New York, 2009. 172–83. Lupton, Deborah. Fat. New York: Routledge, 2012. Miller, Peter, and Rose, Nicholas. Governing the Present. Cambridge: Polity, 2008. Pike, Jo. “Junk Food Mums: Class, Gender and the Battle of Rawmarsh.” Fat Studies and Health at Every Size. Conference: Durham U, 2010. Pike, Jo, and Leahy, Deana. “School Food and the Pedagogies of Parenting”. Australian Journal of Adult Learning 52.3 (2012): 434–59.Plummer, Ken. Telling Sexual Stories. London: Routledge, 1995. Rawlins, Emma. “Citizenship, Health Education and the Obesity Crisis”. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 7 (2006). 18 Apr. 2013. ‹http://www.acme-journal.org›. Rich, Emma. (2010b). “Obesity Assemblages and Surveillance in Schools” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 23 (2010): 803–21. Ricotti, Henry, and Connelly, Vincent. The Healthy Family Cookbook. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Vander Schee, Carol, and Michael Gard. “Editorial: Politics, Pedagogy and Practice in School Health Policy”. Policy Futures in Education 9 (2011): 307–14. Wright, Robin Redman, and Jennifer A. Sandlin. “You Are What You Eat!?: Television Cooking Shows, Consumption, and Lifestyle Practices as Adult Learning”. Honoring Our Past, Embracing Our Future: Proceedings of the 50th Annual Adult Education Research Conference. 2009: 402-407. 18 Apr. 2013. ‹http://digitalcommons.nl.edu/ace_aerc/1›. Zimmet, Paul Z., and James, Phillip W.T. “The Unstoppable Australian Obesity and Diabetes Juggernaut: What Should Politicians Do?”. Medical Journal of Australia 185 (2008): 187–8.

When George Orwell encountered ideas of a technological utopia sixty-five years ago, he acted the grumpy middle-aged man Reading recently a batch of rather shallowly optimistic “progressive” books, I was struck by the automatic way in which people go on repeating certain phrases which were fashionable before 1914. Two great favourites are “the abolition of distance” and “the disappearance of frontiers”. I do not know how often I have met with the statements that “the aeroplane and the radio have abolished distance” and “all parts of the world are now interdependent” (1944). It is worth revisiting the old boy’s grumpiness, because the rhetoric he so niftily skewers continues in our own time. Facebook features “Peace on Facebook” and even claims that it can “decrease world conflict” through inter-cultural communication. Twitter has announced itself as “a triumph of humanity” (“A Cyber-House” 61). Queue George. In between Orwell and latter-day hoody cybertarians, a whole host of excitable public intellectuals announced the impending end of materiality through emergent media forms. Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Daniel Bell, Ithiel de Sola Pool, George Gilder, Alvin Toffler—the list of 1960s futurists goes on and on. And this wasn’t just a matter of punditry: the OECD decreed the coming of the “information society” in 1975 and the European Union (EU) followed suit in 1979, while IBM merrily declared an “information age” in 1977. Bell theorized this technological utopia as post-ideological, because class would cease to matter (Mattelart). Polluting industries seemingly no longer represented the dynamic core of industrial capitalism; instead, market dynamism radiated from a networked, intellectual core of creative and informational activities. The new information and knowledge-based economies would rescue First World hegemony from an “insurgent world” that lurked within as well as beyond itself (Schiller). Orwell’s others and the Cold-War futurists propagated one of the most destructive myths shaping both public debate and scholarly studies of the media, culture, and communication. They convinced generations of analysts, activists, and arrivistes that the promises and problems of the media could be understood via metaphors of the environment, and that the media were weightless and virtual. The famous medium they wished us to see as the message —a substance as vital to our wellbeing as air, water, and soil—turned out to be no such thing. Today’s cybertarians inherit their anti-Marxist, anti-materialist positions, as a casual glance at any new media journal, culture-industry magazine, or bourgeois press outlet discloses. The media are undoubtedly important instruments of social cohesion and fragmentation, political power and dissent, democracy and demagoguery, and other fraught extensions of human consciousness. But talk of media systems as equivalent to physical ecosystems—fashionable among marketers and media scholars alike—is predicated on the notion that they are environmentally benign technologies. This has never been true, from the beginnings of print to today’s cloud-covered computing. Our new book Greening the Media focuses on the environmental impact of the media—the myriad ways that media technology consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources. We introduce ideas, stories, and facts that have been marginal or absent from popular, academic, and professional histories of media technology. Throughout, ecological issues have been at the core of our work and we immodestly think the same should apply to media communications, and cultural studies more generally. We recognize that those fields have contributed valuable research and teaching that address environmental questions. For instance, there is an abundant literature on representations of the environment in cinema, how to communicate environmental messages successfully, and press coverage of climate change. That’s not enough. You may already know that media technologies contain toxic substances. You may have signed an on-line petition protesting the hazardous and oppressive conditions under which workers assemble cell phones and computers. But you may be startled, as we were, by the scale and pervasiveness of these environmental risks. They are present in and around every site where electronic and electric devices are manufactured, used, and thrown away, poisoning humans, animals, vegetation, soil, air and water. We are using the term “media” as a portmanteau word to cover a multitude of cultural and communications machines and processes—print, film, radio, television, information and communications technologies (ICT), and consumer electronics (CE). This is not only for analytical convenience, but because there is increasing overlap between the sectors. CE connect to ICT and vice versa; televisions resemble computers; books are read on telephones; newspapers are written through clouds; and so on. Cultural forms and gadgets that were once separate are now linked. The currently fashionable notion of convergence doesn’t quite capture the vastness of this integration, which includes any object with a circuit board, scores of accessories that plug into it, and a global nexus of labor and environmental inputs and effects that produce and flow from it. In 2007, a combination of ICT/CE and media production accounted for between 2 and 3 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted around the world (“Gartner Estimates,”; International Telecommunication Union; Malmodin et al.). Between twenty and fifty million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated annually, much of it via discarded cell phones and computers, which affluent populations throw out regularly in order to buy replacements. (Presumably this fits the narcissism of small differences that distinguishes them from their own past.) E-waste is historically produced in the Global North—Australasia, Western Europe, Japan, and the US—and dumped in the Global South—Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Southern and Southeast Asia, and China. It takes the form of a thousand different, often deadly, materials for each electrical and electronic gadget. This trend is changing as India and China generate their own media detritus (Robinson; Herat). Enclosed hard drives, backlit screens, cathode ray tubes, wiring, capacitors, and heavy metals pose few risks while these materials remain encased. But once discarded and dismantled, ICT/CE have the potential to expose workers and ecosystems to a morass of toxic components. Theoretically, “outmoded” parts could be reused or swapped for newer parts to refurbish devices. But items that are defined as waste undergo further destruction in order to collect remaining parts and valuable metals, such as gold, silver, copper, and rare-earth elements. This process causes serious health risks to bones, brains, stomachs, lungs, and other vital organs, in addition to birth defects and disrupted biological development in children. Medical catastrophes can result from lead, cadmium, mercury, other heavy metals, poisonous fumes emitted in search of precious metals, and such carcinogenic compounds as polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, polyvinyl chloride, and flame retardants (Maxwell and Miller 13). The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2007 US residents owned approximately three billion electronic devices, with an annual turnover rate of 400 million units, and well over half such purchases made by women. Overall CE ownership varied with age—adults under 45 typically boasted four gadgets; those over 65 made do with one. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) says US$145 billion was expended in the sector in 2006 in the US alone, up 13% on the previous year. The CEA refers joyously to a “consumer love affair with technology continuing at a healthy clip.” In the midst of a recession, 2009 saw $165 billion in sales, and households owned between fifteen and twenty-four gadgets on average. By 2010, US$233 billion was spent on electronic products, three-quarters of the population owned a computer, nearly half of all US adults owned an MP3 player, and 85% had a cell phone. By all measures, the amount of ICT/CE on the planet is staggering. As investigative science journalist, Elizabeth Grossman put it: “no industry pushes products into the global market on the scale that high-tech electronics does” (Maxwell and Miller 2). In 2007, “of the 2.25 million tons of TVs, cell phones and computer products ready for end-of-life management, 18% (414,000 tons) was collected for recycling and 82% (1.84 million tons) was disposed of, primarily in landfill” (Environmental Protection Agency 1). Twenty million computers fell obsolete across the US in 1998, and the rate was 130,000 a day by 2005. It has been estimated that the five hundred million personal computers discarded in the US between 1997 and 2007 contained 6.32 billion pounds of plastics, 1.58 billion pounds of lead, three million pounds of cadmium, 1.9 million pounds of chromium, and 632000 pounds of mercury (Environmental Protection Agency; Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 6). The European Union is expected to generate upwards of twelve million tons annually by 2020 (Commission of the European Communities 17). While refrigerators and dangerous refrigerants account for the bulk of EU e-waste, about 44% of the most toxic e-waste measured in 2005 came from medium-to-small ICT/CE: computer monitors, TVs, printers, ink cartridges, telecommunications equipment, toys, tools, and anything with a circuit board (Commission of the European Communities 31-34). Understanding the enormity of the environmental problems caused by making, using, and disposing of media technologies should arrest our enthusiasm for them. But intellectual correctives to the “love affair” with technology, or technophilia, have come and gone without establishing much of a foothold against the breathtaking flood of gadgets and the propaganda that proclaims their awe-inspiring capabilities.[i] There is a peculiar enchantment with the seeming magic of wireless communication, touch-screen phones and tablets, flat-screen high-definition televisions, 3-D IMAX cinema, mobile computing, and so on—a totemic, quasi-sacred power that the historian of technology David Nye has named the technological sublime (Nye Technological Sublime 297).[ii] We demonstrate in our book why there is no place for the technological sublime in projects to green the media. But first we should explain why such symbolic power does not accrue to more mundane technologies; after all, for the time-strapped cook, a pressure cooker does truly magical things. Three important qualities endow ICT/CE with unique symbolic potency—virtuality, volume, and novelty. The technological sublime of media technology is reinforced by the “virtual nature of much of the industry’s content,” which “tends to obscure their responsibility for a vast proliferation of hardware, all with high levels of built-in obsolescence and decreasing levels of efficiency” (Boyce and Lewis 5). Planned obsolescence entered the lexicon as a new “ethics” for electrical engineering in the 1920s and ’30s, when marketers, eager to “habituate people to buying new products,” called for designs to become quickly obsolete “in efficiency, economy, style, or taste” (Grossman 7-8).[iii] This defines the short lifespan deliberately constructed for computer systems (drives, interfaces, operating systems, batteries, etc.) by making tiny improvements incompatible with existing hardware (Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 33-50; Boyce and Lewis). With planned obsolescence leading to “dizzying new heights” of product replacement (Rogers 202), there is an overstated sense of the novelty and preeminence of “new” media—a “cult of the present” is particularly dazzled by the spread of electronic gadgets through globalization (Mattelart and Constantinou 22). References to the symbolic power of media technology can be found in hymnals across the internet and the halls of academe: technologies change us, the media will solve social problems or create new ones, ICTs transform work, monopoly ownership no longer matters, journalism is dead, social networking enables social revolution, and the media deliver a cleaner, post-industrial, capitalism. Here is a typical example from the twilight zone of the technological sublime (actually, the OECD): A major feature of the knowledge-based economy is the impact that ICTs have had on industrial structure, with a rapid growth of services and a relative decline of manufacturing. Services are typically less energy intensive and less polluting, so among those countries with a high and increasing share of services, we often see a declining energy intensity of production … with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy ending the old linear relationship between output and energy use (i.e. partially de-coupling growth and energy use) (Houghton 1) This statement mixes half-truths and nonsense. In reality, old-time, toxic manufacturing has moved to the Global South, where it is ascendant; pollution levels are rising worldwide; and energy consumption is accelerating in residential and institutional sectors, due almost entirely to ICT/CE usage, despite advances in energy conservation technology (a neat instance of the age-old Jevons Paradox). In our book we show how these are all outcomes of growth in ICT/CE, the foundation of the so-called knowledge-based economy. ICT/CE are misleadingly presented as having little or no material ecological impact. In the realm of everyday life, the sublime experience of electronic machinery conceals the physical work and material resources that go into them, while the technological sublime makes the idea that more-is-better palatable, axiomatic; even sexy. In this sense, the technological sublime relates to what Marx called “the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour” once they are in the hands of the consumer, who lusts after them as if they were “independent beings” (77). There is a direct but unseen relationship between technology’s symbolic power and the scale of its environmental impact, which the economist Juliet Schor refers to as a “materiality paradox” —the greater the frenzy to buy goods for their transcendent or nonmaterial cultural meaning, the greater the use of material resources (40-41). We wrote Greening the Media knowing that a study of the media’s effect on the environment must work especially hard to break the enchantment that inflames popular and elite passions for media technologies. We understand that the mere mention of the political-economic arrangements that make shiny gadgets possible, or the environmental consequences of their appearance and disappearance, is bad medicine. It’s an unwelcome buzz kill—not a cool way to converse about cool stuff. But we didn’t write the book expecting to win many allies among high-tech enthusiasts and ICT/CE industry leaders. We do not dispute the importance of information and communication media in our lives and modern social systems. We are media people by profession and personal choice, and deeply immersed in the study and use of emerging media technologies. But we think it’s time for a balanced assessment with less hype and more practical understanding of the relationship of media technologies to the biosphere they inhabit. Media consumers, designers, producers, activists, researchers, and policy makers must find new and effective ways to move ICT/CE production and consumption toward ecologically sound practices. In the course of this project, we found in casual conversation, lecture halls, classroom discussions, and correspondence, consistent and increasing concern with the environmental impact of media technology, especially the deleterious effects of e-waste toxins on workers, air, water, and soil. We have learned that the grip of the technological sublime is not ironclad. Its instability provides a point of departure for investigating and criticizing the relationship between the media and the environment. The media are, and have been for a long time, intimate environmental participants. Media technologies are yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s news, but rarely in the way they should be. The prevailing myth is that the printing press, telegraph, phonograph, photograph, cinema, telephone, wireless radio, television, and internet changed the world without changing the Earth. In reality, each technology has emerged by despoiling ecosystems and exposing workers to harmful environments, a truth obscured by symbolic power and the power of moguls to set the terms by which such technologies are designed and deployed. Those who benefit from ideas of growth, progress, and convergence, who profit from high-tech innovation, monopoly, and state collusion—the military-industrial-entertainment-academic complex and multinational commandants of labor—have for too long ripped off the Earth and workers. As the current celebration of media technology inevitably winds down, perhaps it will become easier to comprehend that digital wonders come at the expense of employees and ecosystems. This will return us to Max Weber’s insistence that we understand technology in a mundane way as a “mode of processing material goods” (27). Further to understanding that ordinariness, we can turn to the pioneering conversation analyst Harvey Sacks, who noted three decades ago “the failures of technocratic dreams [:] that if only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed.” Such fantasies derived from the very banality of these introductions—that every time they took place, one more “technical apparatus” was simply “being made at home with the rest of our world’ (548). Media studies can join in this repetitive banality. Or it can withdraw the welcome mat for media technologies that despoil the Earth and wreck the lives of those who make them. In our view, it’s time to green the media by greening media studies. References “A Cyber-House Divided.” Economist 4 Sep. 2010: 61-62. “Gartner Estimates ICT Industry Accounts for 2 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions.” Gartner press release. 6 April 2007. ‹http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503867›. Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia. Seattle: Basel Action Network, 25 Feb. 2002. Benjamin, Walter. “Central Park.” Trans. Lloyd Spencer with Mark Harrington. New German Critique 34 (1985): 32-58. Biagioli, Mario. “Postdisciplinary Liaisons: Science Studies and the Humanities.” Critical Inquiry 35.4 (2009): 816-33. Boyce, Tammy and Justin Lewis, eds. Climate Change and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Commission of the European Communities. “Impact Assessment.” Commission Staff Working Paper accompanying the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (recast). COM (2008) 810 Final. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 3 Dec. 2008. Environmental Protection Agency. Management of Electronic Waste in the United States. Washington, DC: EPA, 2007 Environmental Protection Agency. Statistics on the Management of Used and End-of-Life Electronics. Washington, DC: EPA, 2008 Grossman, Elizabeth. Tackling High-Tech Trash: The E-Waste Explosion & What We Can Do about It. New York: Demos, 2008. ‹http://www.demos.org/pubs/e-waste_FINAL.pdf› Herat, Sunil. “Review: Sustainable Management of Electronic Waste (e-Waste).” Clean 35.4 (2007): 305-10. Houghton, J. “ICT and the Environment in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Developments.” Paper prepared for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2009. International Telecommunication Union. ICTs for Environment: Guidelines for Developing Countries, with a Focus on Climate Change. Geneva: ICT Applications and Cybersecurity Division Policies and Strategies Department ITU Telecommunication Development Sector, 2008. Malmodin, Jens, Åsa Moberg, Dag Lundén, Göran Finnveden, and Nina Lövehagen. “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Operational Electricity Use in the ICT and Entertainment & Media Sectors.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 14.5 (2010): 770-90. Marx, Karl. Capital: Vol. 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, 3rd ed. Trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, Ed. Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers, 1987. Mattelart, Armand and Costas M. Constantinou. “Communications/Excommunications: An Interview with Armand Mattelart.” Trans. Amandine Bled, Jacques Guot, and Costas Constantinou. Review of International Studies 34.1 (2008): 21-42. Mattelart, Armand. “Cómo nació el mito de Internet.” Trans. Yanina Guthman. El mito internet. Ed. Victor Hugo de la Fuente. Santiago: Editorial aún creemos en los sueños, 2002. 25-32. Maxwell, Richard and Toby Miller. Greening the Media. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Nye, David E. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994. Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2007. Orwell, George. “As I Please.” Tribune. 12 May 1944. Richtel, Matt. “Consumers Hold on to Products Longer.” New York Times: B1, 26 Feb. 2011. Robinson, Brett H. “E-Waste: An Assessment of Global Production and Environmental Impacts.” Science of the Total Environment 408.2 (2009): 183-91. Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: New Press, 2005. Sacks, Harvey. Lectures on Conversation. Vols. I and II. Ed. Gail Jefferson. Malden: Blackwell, 1995. Schiller, Herbert I. Information and the Crisis Economy. Norwood: Ablex Publishing, 1984. Schor, Juliet B. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York: Penguin, 2010. Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials. Los Angeles: Academy Imprints, 2007. Weber, Max. “Remarks on Technology and Culture.” Trans. Beatrix Zumsteg and Thomas M. Kemple. Ed. Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture [i] The global recession that began in 2007 has been the main reason for some declines in Global North energy consumption, slower turnover in gadget upgrades, and longer periods of consumer maintenance of electronic goods (Richtel). [ii] The emergence of the technological sublime has been attributed to the Western triumphs in the post-Second World War period, when technological power supposedly supplanted the power of nature to inspire fear and astonishment (Nye Technology Matters 28). Historian Mario Biagioli explains how the sublime permeates everyday life through technoscience: "If around 1950 the popular imaginary placed science close to the military and away from the home, today’s technoscience frames our everyday life at all levels, down to our notion of the self" (818). [iii] This compulsory repetition is seemingly undertaken each time as a novelty, governed by what German cultural critic Walter Benjamin called, in his awkward but occasionally illuminating prose, "the ever-always-the-same" of "mass-production" cloaked in "a hitherto unheard-of significance" (48).

The latest reality program about weight loss makeover, Australian Channel Seven’s Bringing Sexy Back maintained the dominant frame of fat as bad, shameful and unsexy. Similar to other programs’ point of view, only slim bodies could claim to be healthy and sexy. Conversely the Fat Acceptance movement presents fat as beautiful, sexy, and healthy. But what did online audiences in 2014 think about Bringing Sexy Back? In this article online-viewer-generated comments are analysed to find out: a) whether audiences challenged and contested the dominant framing; and b) what phrases did they use to do this. The research task is a discourse analysis in which key words and phrases are highlighted and colour coded as categories and patterns begin to emerge. My intention is to represent the expressions of the participants responding to the articles and or online forums about the program. The focus is on the ‘language-in-use’ (Gee 34), in particular their gut reactions to the idea of whether only slim people can be sexy and their experience of viewing the program. Selected television websites, online television forums and blogs will be analysed. Introduction The latest makeover television program drawing on the obesity-epidemic discourse Bringing Sexy Back (BSB) promises the audience that by the end of the program participants will have bought their sexy back. Sexy in the program is equated with one’s younger and slimmer self; the program host Samantha Armytage (from Sunrise the national Australian morning show) tells viewers sexy can be reclaimed if participants (from their late 30s and up to 51 years) drop kilos, commit to a strenuous exercise regime, and re-style their wardrobe. Experts, the usual suspects, are bought in—the medical machinery, the personal trainer, the stylist, and the hairdresser etc.—to assess, admonish, advise and appraise the participants. At the final reveal the audience—made up of family, friends and the local community—show enthusiasm for the aesthetic desirability of the participants slimmer sexier body as evidenced by descriptors such as “wow”, and “oh my God” as well as an outpouring of emotion such as crying and squeals of delight. Previous researchers of fat-shaming television programs have found audience’s reactions divided: some audience members see it as motivating; others see it as humiliating; and others see it as what the contestants deserve (Holland, Blood and Thomas; Rodan, Ellis and Lebeck; Sender and Sullivan)! I want to find out if online and social media audiences of the relatively tame makeover program BSB, which features individual Australians and couples who are overweight and obese, challenge and contest the dominant framing. In my analysis of the phrases online audiences’ have used about BSB, posters mostly found the program inspiring and motivating. From this inauspicious first strike, I will push onto examine the phrases posters have used to respond to the program. The paper begins with a short background about the program. The key elements of the makeover television genre are then discussed. Following this, I provide an analysis of the program’s official BSB Facebook site, and unofficial viewer-generated sites, such as the bubhub, TVTONIGHT, MamaMia, The Hoopla and the hashtag #sexybackau on Twitter. Posters to these sites were regular, infrequent or intermittent viewers. My approach to the analysis of these online forums and social media sites is a discourse analysis that examines “language-in-use”—as well as other elements such as values, symbols, tools and thinking styles—so as to identify and track tacit knowledge—that is, meanings emerging from obesity-epidemic discourse (Gee 34, 40–41). Such a method is apt given its capacity to analyse contributors’ spontaneous statements of their feelings—in particular their gut reactions to the program and the participants. The paper ends with my findings and conclusions. Bringing Sexy Back: Background Information Screened in 2014, season one of BSB format consists of a host Samantha Armytage, fitness trainer Cameron Byrnes and stylist Jules Sebastian and her team of hairdresser, groomers etc. Undoubtedly, part of the program’s construction is to select participants who appeal to a broad range of viewers. Participants’ ages range from 21 years (Courney Gollings) to 51 years (Vicki Gollings). The individuals or couples who make up the series include: Ned (truck driver), Sam and Gary (parents of two boys), Lisa Wilson (single mother and hairdresser), Vicki and Courtney Golling (mother and daughter), Livio Caldarone (pizza/small restaurant owner), and Paula Beckton (mother of four), The first episode was aired on Australia’s Channel Seven on 12 August 2014 and the final episode on 13 January 2015. This particular series consisted of 9 episodes. In this paper I focus on the six episodes that were aired in 2014. Generally each individual episode consisted of: the intervention, presenting medical facts about participant’s weight; the helper figures setting training and diet regimes; the trials leading to transformation; and the happy ending evident in the reveal. Essentially, these segments illustrate that the program series is highly contrived and they also demonstrate the program’s method of challenging participants to lose weight. Makeover Television I now provide a further construct to assist the reader’s understanding of ‘what is going on’ in the BSB program, which fits within the genre of makeover program. As reflected in the literature, makeover television has some or all of the following ingredients: personal fitness trainer as expertstylist and grooming expertsfamily members and contestant’s reflexivity (reflect on their own behaviour)new self-celebrated photo shootscontestant winning challengessymbols, such as the dream outfit, and before and after photographstransformation before the ‘big reveal’ Moreover, makeover programs are about the ordinary person on television. According to Redden, identities on these programs are individual rather than collective in that they serve to show a type of “individuality” as if it exists irrespective of any social or cultural group (156). And what is the role of the expert? Redden points out the expert on makeover programs interprets the “life situation of the given person, who may represent a certain social category of ordinary person” (153). So while makeover programs purport to be about the ordinary person and make claims about the actuality of the ordinary person’s life (Skeggs and Wood 559; Stagi 138), they also depict a hierarchy of social categories. The participants’ class also features in makeover programs like BSB. Class is evident in that participants who are selected to be on the program are often from lower-middle class backgrounds. Most participants have non-professional occupations—truck driver (Ned), hairdresser (Lisa), pizza/small restaurant owner (Livio), body caster, a person who makes body casts (Paula). Similar to The Biggest Loser (2004–2014) on American NBC, and Australia Network Ten, the participants in BSB were also mainly from lower–middle class backgrounds (Rodan; Sender and Sullivan 575) Several researcher’s show that makeover television promises advancement for lower–middle class citizens (Fraser 188–189; Miller 589; Redden 155; Skeggs and Wood 561) based on the proposition that contestants have the power to transform themselves (Bratich 17; Ouellette and Hay 471–472; Lewis 443; Sender and Sullivan 581). Like other makeover programs BSB takes advantage of the aspirations of working and lower-middle class participants. And, not surprisingly, the desired transcendence is something most participants/viewers from lower-middle and working class backgrounds cannot strive to achieve without participating in the program (Miller 589). Transcendence in BSB comes from losing weight, and acquiring new gym equipment, gym clothing, access to a personal trainer, gym membership, holiday at a health retreat, new wardrobe, new haircut, and new gym clothes. These acts to transform oneself are often “presented” as the middle class “standard,” taste and specific ongoing “intimate practices” of the “middle class” (Skeggs and Wood 561; Redden 155). But clearly much of the sprucing up (such as a private gym at home, personal trainers) are expensive and beyond the budget of even an Australian middle-class family. Analysis Posters on the official BSB Channel Seven Facebook forum overall were the most positive about the program—they found the program motivating and inspiring. Several posters on Facebook asked how they might apply to be on the program. After the airing of the reveal, posters on all the online forums and social media analysed consistently used adjectives such as fantastic, awesome, congratulations, stunning, amazing, gorgeous, wow, incredible, look sensational, look hot, look great, champion effort, fabulous, impressive, beautiful, inspirational. Fat-Shaming In BSB fat-shaming works through the use of medical machines and imagery, which measure weight and body fat percentage (BMI) using the DXA scanner and X-ray machine. Even though many physicians object to BMI measurement, it has become an “infallible marker of dangerous risk-saturated obesity” (Morgan 205) in Health Department campaigns, insurance company policies and on makeover television. Participants’ current weight is compared to the weight of their 20 year-old self. The program also induces fat-shaming through visuals of food and drink stashes found in participant’s bedroom cupboards (Ned), remnants of take-away packaging in rubbish bins (Lisa), processed foods in pantry cupboards (Vicki and Courtney), and pizza cartons at work (Livio). Here food amounts are quantified for audiences to gasp with shock and horror reinforcing the stereotype that people are fat because they have insufficient willpower and overeat (Farrell 34), thus perpetuating the view that obese people are undisciplined, sloppy and “less likely to do productive work” (Greenberg et al.). Banners are produced of participants’ photographs in their 20s; the photographs chosen have been taken when participants were slim and looked hot at the beach or night clubbing. These banners are juxtaposed with a banner of participant’s current self—appearing overweight in unflattering short crop top and underwear. Both banners are flashed onto the screen during the program especially in the final reveal presumably as a visual measurement to shame participants for “letting themselves go”. Even though host Samantha provides reasons for participants gaining weight—such as the stress of being a single parent, having a busy life as a mother of four, work commitments etc—the visual banners powerfully signify more than the presenter’s dialogue. Katrina Dowd on Facebook suggests it is the banners that signified the truth about participants’ lifestyles when she comments: Absolutely. Amazing how people whom follow unhealthy eating patterns for years with lack of exercise get congratulated because they’ve lost weight. Should never have let yourself get to that stage. Using your children and work commitments as excuses for why you got that way is a big “fail”. Some social media participants on Twitter and online forum posters saw the participants as “Bogan” ( a white working-class person who lacks fashion sense, is uncouth unsophisticated and invokes disgust), lazy, slobs as represented in the following comments: “Bogan Hunters Makeover” (tvaddict); “STILL A FUCKING FAT BOGAN […] JUST STOP EATING” (Al_Mack); “Stop being a lazy bitch […] Seriously lazy slobs” (Dutchess of Tweet St); “learn to cook lazy cow” (Gidgit VonLaRue). Thus, for Katrina and the posters above, it is the “fat body” that is seen as the “uncivilized body” that lacks the self-control of the thin body (Richardson 80). Inspirational and Motivational I discovered that many online forum and social media participants found the program BSB inspiring and motivating. A similar finding to my study of The Biggest Loser online viewers (Rodan), as well as other researchers who interviewed audiences about The Biggest Loser (Readdy and Ebbeck). For instance, Twitter posters said the BSB inspires “everyday women” (Sharon@Shar0n) and “inspires me that I can do the same” (Sharon@KeepitRealV), “another great show #inspiring” (miss shadow). On Facebook most of the posters talked about how inspired they were by the show and or by the individual participants, for instance: Hi Lisa, I think I see a lot of me in you, I pretty much cried through the whole show. You have inspired me, much admiration for sharing your story with Australia. (Haigh) Many posters on Facebook identified with Lisa as a single mother (Jenkins) and her declaration that she was “an emotional eater” (McTavish). This may account for Lisa Wilson (5,824 likes) receiving the most likes on Facebook. There were those who identified with individual participants, such as Paula, who were attempting to lose weight. On the forum the bubhub, a forum for parents established in 2002, the administrator BH-bubhub started a thread titled “Need some motivation to shift those kilos? Our pal Paula is here to help hubbers!” Paula was the participant on BSB who lost the most weight, and was invited onto the forum to answer forum members’ questions. On this forum, disparaging, negative, demotivating comments were removed from public viewing (see caveat BH-bubhub). Overall, online forum posters on the bubhub expressed positive feelings about BSB as a weight loss program. Participants comments included “Awesome work Paula, I have no doubt you will inspire many and I look forward to hearing all your tips” (Mod-Uniquey) “and … you look fabulous” (BH-KatiesMum), “Wow, you must be so proud of yourself! That is an amazing effort and you look great” (Curby), “What an inspirational story!” (Mod-Nomsie). Facebook posters on the BSB official forum found the show motivating and evidence of others finding the same are: “I feel great after watching #sexybackau” (Freeburn), “an uplifting hour” (Hustwaite), “feeling motivated now to change a lot of things about myself” (McDonald). However, online posters rarely commented that the program inspired or motivated them to take specific actions about their own body size or lifestyle. For some, as other researchers have found about makeover programs, it is a form of televisual escapism (Holland, Blood and Thomas; Readdy and Ebbeck 585)—that is, the pleasure of watching others’ emotions in achieving their goal. For many others, identifying with the participants’ struggle, and seeing them overcome daily challenges and obstacles to losing weight, gave posters insights about themselves and how to change their own lifestyle. But maintaining weight-loss and a lifestyle that supports it—as Facebook posters frequently suggest—is very challenging for most people who are overweight. The transformations and reveals make for fairy-tale endings (the essence of makeover television), but the reality of losing weight is persistence, perseverance and hard work. Criticisms of the Program Posters on Facebook were censored more than some of the other online forums and social media. Facebook criticisms about the program BSB were dealt with swiftly by other posters—that is, posters were pressured to only express positive feelings about the program. For instance, Lynne Nicholas in response to Peter Thomson’s criticism that the program is “exploiting these people for cheap television entertainment” (Facebook, 14 August 2014) posted on Facebook: If you don’t like the show then don’t come on the page and comment. Channel 7 gives these people a chance to change their life and inspire others to do the same. (Facebook, 14 Aug. 2014) And in response to criticisms about the amount of processed food Cam discarded from participants Vicki and Courtney’s cupboard, Emily McCabe commented: If you don’t enjoy the concept of the program, feel free to change the channel and keep your negative comments to yourself. (Facebook, 2 Sep. 2014) Nevertheless, a lot of criticism appeared on the various online and social media outlets ranging from: the commercial aspects (matúš; Hales); the constant use of the word “fat” by the host (Spencer); the sponsorship and advertisements by a take-away food company (Daisy Murray; Patriot); the “irresponsible/unsafe training!” (M_Gardner; Ashton); the insufficient number of “diet tips” (Pedron-Peggs); and “sick of seeing all that food thrown away!!” (Barkla; Dunell; Robbie; Martin; Coupland). As noted above, some of the sites were censored. Criticisms of the program were only aired if the online forum and social media allowed people to vent their feelings and express their opinion. Allowing viewers to express their concerns about mainstream television programs such as BSB counters the argument made by other researchers suggesting that makeover programs do the work of audiences becoming “self-managing” and self-governing citizens (see Stagi; Ouellette and Hay 471-472; Sender and Sullivan 581; Ringrose and Walkerdine); and makeover programs perpetuate the myth that obesity is solely an individual behavioural problem (Yoo). Such critical comments (above) reveal that some viewers do question the show’s premises, and as a consequence they do not accept the dominant framing. Thus the hypothesis that all viewers of makeover programs are pliable and docile cannot be supported in my analysis. Findings and Conclusion Most BSB posters said they found the program inspiring and motivating. It seems many of the online posters identified with the participants’ struggle to lose their weight, and stay motivated to keep it off. So there was little fat-shaming from posters on Facebook and the online forums. The posters on Facebook expressed the most positive comments about the BSB program and the participants; however, the Facebook site was the official BSB social media site. It seems that many of the Facebook and online forum discussants were makeover television fans who had acquired a taste for the makeover genre – that is the transformation and the big reveal at the end, the re-styled self, the symbols as well as the tips, information and ideas about how to lose weight and change their lifestyle. Questions were often asked by posters about the participants’ eating plan, exercise regime, maintenance program etc., as well as how they (the posters) could apply to be on the show. Very few social media or online posters questioned and challenged the makeover genre, the advertising during the program, the quality and number of diet and nutrition tips, and the time as well as financial cost required to maintain the new self. References Al_Mack. “STILL A FUCKING FAT BOGAN.” 26 Aug. 2014, no time. Tweet. Al_Mack. “JUST STOP EATING.” 26 Aug. 2014, no time. Tweet. Ashton, Susan. “Bringing Sexy Back.” 13 Jan. 2015, 17:56. Facebook comment. Barkla, Michelle. “Bringing Sexy Back.” 9 Sep. 2014, 18:39. Facebook comment. BH-bubhub Administrator. “Need Some Motivation to Shift Those Kilos? Our Pal Paula Is Here to Help Hubbers!” The Bubhub 3 March 2015. 15:27. BH-KatiesMum. “Need Some Motivation to Shift Those Kilos? Our Pal Paula Is Here to Help Hubbers!” The Bubhub 3 Mar. 2015 19:26. Bratich, Jack Z. “Programming Reality: Control Societies, New Subjects and the Powers of Transformation.” Ed. Dana Heller. Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled. London: I.B. 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Health Communication 28 (2013): 294-303.

Introduction In a 1984 New York Times interview, Germaine Greer discussed the quite different views that have surrounded her supposed attitude towards sex. As she put it, “People seem to think I'm Hugh Hefner and that the reason women started having sex is because I told them to” (qtd. in De Lacy). This view had, however, shifted by the 1980s. As she told reporter Justine De Lacy, “Now they are saying that I'm against sex.” In this article, I tease out Greer’s remarks about the supposed transformation of her political persona. I do so with reference to her work on Suck Magazine, which was billed by its editors as “The First European Sex Paper,” and which was first published in 1969 (cited in Gleeson 86). The article has two key aims. The first is to demonstrate that Greer has not (as it might seem) transformed from a sexual revolutionary to an anti-sex ideologue. This view is too simplistic. The article’s second aim is to explore Greer’s significant but under-acknowledged contribution to feminist debates about pornography. Far from being strictly anti- or pro-porn, Greer’s work on Suck actually aligns with both of these positions, and it appeared before the feminist porn debates really gained traction. Germaine Greer as Sexual Revolutionary and/or Anti-Sex Ideologue? The apparent political transformation that Greer mentioned in 1984 has been particularly apparent since the 1990s. Since that decade, she has criticised pornography on several occasions. For example, in her book The Whole Woman (1999), Greer argued, “Pornography is the flight from woman, men’s denial of sex as a medium of communication . . .” (181). In an article published in The Guardian in 2000, Greer wrote, “Can [pornography] go too far? No, it can't. As far as male sexual fantasy is concerned there is no too far.” In a 2012 episode of the Australian current affairs program Q&A, Greer argued, “Pornography is the advertisement of prostitution.”Greer’s stance on pornography, and particularly her invocation of female sexual subordination, might seem to represent a radical shift from the political persona that she cultivated during the 1960s and 1970s. During that earlier period, Greer was arguing for female sexual empowerment. She posed nude for Suck. In 1971, the US magazine Life described Greer as a “saucy feminist that even men like” (qtd. in Wallace, unpaginated photograph). There is nothing “saucy” about her more recent anti-porn posture; this posture is not concerned with “empowerment” in any obvious way. Yet I would suggest that Greer at least anticipated this posture in her work on Suck. In that magazine, she did not frame sex as being entirely emancipatory. Rather, Greer argued for sexual liberation (particularly for women), but (in doing so) she also invoked the hierarchical gender roles that would later be invoked in anti-porn feminist arguments. Examining some of Greer’s contributions to Suck will make clear the important contribution that she has made to feminist debates about pornography. These are debates which she has not generally been associated with, or at least not to the extent that Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon (both US feminists who have very publicly remonstrated against porn) have (see Dworkin; MacKinnon and Dworkin). The feminist porn debates gained ascendance during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and seem to have been liveliest in North America (see Bronstein; Duggan and Hunter; MacKinnon and Dworkin). These debates are significant because of what they say about the truly complex and contentious relationship between sex, gender, power, and representation. The feminist porn debates have been broad-ranging (Sullivan and McKee 10), though they tend to have been framed as polarised conflicts between anti-pornography feminists and “sex-positive”/“anti-censorship” feminists. For anti-pornography feminists, pornography always symptomatises and perpetuates gender hierarchy. Andrea Dworkin famously defined “pornography” as the graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women in pictures and/or words that also includes women presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or women presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; or women presented as sexual objects who experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or women presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or women presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or women’s body parts—including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, buttocks—exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or women presented as whores by nature . . . (xxxiii) Conversely, sex-positive/anti-censorship feminists tend to assess pornography “on a case by case basis”; porn can range from woman-hating to politically progressive (McKee, Albury, and Lumby 22). For these feminists, attempts to legislate against pornography (for example, via the anti-porn ordinance drawn up in the US during the 1980s by Dworkin and MacKinnon) amount to censorship, and are not in the interest of women, feminism, or sexual liberation (Duggan and Hunter 29–39; and see also MacKinnon and Dworkin). Among the most striking aspects of Greer’s work on Suck is that it actually mobilises aspects of both these (loosely-defined) feminist positions, and appeared almost a decade before pornography became an issue of contention amongst feminists. This work was published not in North America, but in Europe; the Australian-born Greer was living in the United Kingdom at the time of that magazine’s publication, and indeed she has been described as “Britain’s . . . most well-known feminist” (Taylor 759; and see also Gleeson). Does Porn Suck? Greer co-founded Suck in 1969, the year before The Female Eunuch was published. Greer had already established a minor public profile through her journalistic contributions to the London-based Oz Magazine. Several of those contributions were written under the guise of “Dr G—the only groupie with a Ph.D in captivity,” and featured references to “groupiedom” and “cunt power” (qtd. in Gleeson 86). Suck was published in Amsterdam to circumvent “British censorship laws” (Wallace 15). The magazine was very much a product of the then-current sexual revolution, as suggested by the following passage from a 1971 editorial: “Our cause is sexual liberation. Our tactic is the defiance of censorship” (University of Melbourne Archives). Suck comprised sexually-explicit imagery (for example, nudity and shots of (hetero)sexual penetration) and similarly explicit articles. These articles are furnished with the vivid, deliberately provocative prose for which Greer is renowned.In some articles, Greer argues that women’s acceptance of their bodies constitutes a rebellion against patriarchy. In a 1971 article, she writes, “Primitive man feared the vagina . . . as the most magical of magical orifices of the body” (University of Melbourne Archives). The title of this piece is “Lady Love Your Cunt,” and indicates Greer’s view that patriarchal fears—or, as she puts it, the fears of “primitive man”—have contributed to stigma that has surrounded the vagina. Greer concludes thus: “Why not send a photograph of your own cunt, with your names labelled on?” (Whether any readers responded to this invitation remains unclear.) In “Bounce Titty Bounce,” she describes a “Mafia that controls the shapes of [women’s] bodies” (University of Melbourne Archives). This control is particularly evident in the brassiere, which Greer calls “a muzzle, a mask, binding joys and desires with wire and rubber and nylon and clips and cotton.” In a 1970 article entitled “Ladies get on top for better orgasms,” Greer opens with the statement: “The prevalence of the missionary position of fucking in the Western World [sic] seems to mean a widespread unfairness in sex.” She elaborates: Even if women were not . . . slighter than men, the missionary position would have little to commend it. The hands of the man are not free to play with his lover’s breasts or clitoris . . . because he must support himself, at least partially by them . . . The male ismin [sic] full control. Greer concedes that the “female on top position is perhaps the least popular of the alternatives to the missionary position.” The “female on top” position does, however, have advantages for women, one being that a woman “can arrive at a position to accept the cock without having to take her weight on her hands.” Greer’s best-known contribution to Suck is a selection of nude photographs that were published in a 1971 edition. In one shot, Greer is lying on her back, her legs behind her ears, her anus directly in front of the camera. In another shot, she is positioned in the same manner, although her anus and vagina are more central within the frame. In both shots, Greer is gazing directly into the camera and smiling. On one level, the textual and photographic examples described above—and, in fact, the very publication of Suck—suggest a rebellion against sexual repression. This rebellion was characteristic of the sexual revolution (Gleeson 86). Yet, in advocating female sexual empowerment, Greer distanced herself from the masculine bias of that movement. In her 1984 New York Times interview, Greer was quoted as saying that “. . . the sexual revolution never happened. Permissiveness happened, and that’s no better than repressiveness, because women are still being manipulated by men” (qtd. in De Lacy). Here, she anticipates arguments (e.g. Jeffreys) that the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s actually sanctioned (heterosexual) male desire and men’s sexual access to women. In Suck, then, Greer argued that women need to liberate themselves sexually, and not only be seen as instruments for male sexual liberation. Greer did pose nude, but, in doing so, she stared back into the camera/at the spectator—thus returning the gaze, rather than being objectified by this gaze (Mulvey). Greer has described her shots thus: “Face, pubes and anus, nothing decorative about it. Nothing sexy about it either. Confrontation was the name of the game” (qtd. in Gleeson 86). In 2013, Greer wrote of that photo shoot: “Women’s bodies were merchandised. Each week we saw a little more: nipples, then pussy . . . drip-feeding the masturbation fantasies of a [male] generation. My gesture aimed to short-circuit that process.” She has also been quoted as saying that she envisioned Suck as an “antidote to the exploitative papers like Screw and Hustler,” by “developing a new kind of erotic art, away from the tits ‘n’ ass and the peep show syndrome” (qtd. in Gleeson 86). Thus, Greer’s Suck contributions seem to foreshadow the “sex-positive” feminism that would emerge later in the 1970s in North America (e.g. Duggan and Hunter). Her work would also anticipate feminist uses of porn to explore female sexuality from specifically female and feminist perspectives (see Taormino et al.). A closer examination of these contributions, however, suggests a more complex picture. Witness Greer’s reference to the popularity of “missionary sex” as a reason for “widespread unfairness in sex,” or her description of a (presumably) male-dominated “Mafia” who control women’s bodies (for example, via the bra). In a newspaper interview that was published around the time of The Female Eunuch’s 1970 publication, Greer argued that sex needs to be “rescued” from the patriarchy by feminists. This is because sex under patriarchy has been characterised by the dichotomised positions of “powerful and powerless, masterful and mastered.” In this scenario, women are the ones who are “powerless” and “mastered.” The title of that interview is “Author Attacks Dominating Male” (University of Melbourne Archives).The above statements suggest a sexual landscape characterised by “potentially violent, dominant men and subordinated, silenced women” (Duggan and Hunter 7). In this landscape, sex is a site of gender inequality; and even something as apparently innocuous as underwear is used by men to control women. The pervasive sense of patriarchy invoked here would (as scholars such as Duggan and Hunter have argued) be invoked in much anti-pornography feminist writing. And Greer would go on to concur with the anti-porn stance, as the three pronouncements cited at the beginning of this article attest. (In Suck, Greer does not attempt to define “pornography,” and nor does she classify her contributions as being “pornography” or “anti-pornography.”)ConclusionI have argued that it is useful to revisit some of Germaine Greer’s contributions to Suck Magazine in order to reassess her apparent transformation from sexual revolutionary to anti-sex ideologue. These contributions (which include articles and photographs) are celebrations of female sexual empowerment and critiques of what Greer sees as a pervasive gender hierarchy. I have argued that this work is also useful in that it anticipates the feminist debates about pornography that would gain ascendance in North America almost a decade after Suck’s publication. Greer articulates arguments that would come to be aligned with both “sex-positive” and “anti-pornography” feminist discourses. To this extent, she has made an important and thus far largely unacknowledged contribution to these highly polarised feminist debates. ReferencesBronstein, Carolyn. Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011.De Lacy, Justine. “Germaine Greer’s New Book Stirs a Debate.” The New York Times. 5 Mar. 1984. 21 Oct. 2015 <https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/specials/greer-debate.html>.Duggan, Lisa, and Nan D. Hunter, eds. “Introduction.” Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture. 10th Anniversary Edition. London: Routledge, 2006. 1–13.Dworkin, Andrea. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Plume, 1989. Gleeson, Kate. “From Suck Magazine to Corporate Paedophilia: Feminism and Pornograph—Remembering the Australian Way.” Women’s Studies International Forum 38 (2013): 83–96.Greer, Germaine. The Whole Woman. London: Transworld Publishers, 1999. ———. “Gluttons for Porn.” The Guardian 24 Sep. 2000. 21 Oct. 2015 <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/24/society>.———. “As Women Bare All in Feminist Protest, Germaine Greer Asks: Is This Feminism?” News.com.au 17 Mar. 2013. 30 July 2016 <http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/as-women-bare-all-in-feminist-protest-germaine-greer-asks-is-this-feminism/story-fneszs56-1226598414628>.Jeffreys, Sheila. Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution. London: The Women’s Press, 1990. MacKinnon, Catharine A., and Andrea Dworkin, eds. In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1997. McKee, Alan, Katherine Albury, and Catharine Lumby. The Porn Report. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2008. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16.3 (1975): 6–18. Q&A. “Politics and Porn in a Post-Feminist World.” First screened 19 Mar. 2012. 20 May 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3451584.htm>.Suck Magazine. Copies held by Germaine Greer Archive, University of Melbourne. Sullivan, Rebecca, and Alan McKee. Pornography: Structures, Agency and Performance. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015.Taormino, Tristan, Celine Parrenas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young, eds. The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2013.Taylor, Anthea. “Germaine Greer’s Adaptable Celebrity: Feminism, Unruliness, and Humour on the British Small Screen.” Feminist Media Studies 14.5 (2014): 759–74.University of Melbourne Archives, Germaine Greer archive. Undated. 2014.0038, Unit 216. File name “(Drawer 158) Press clippings about Germaine Greer.” “Author Attacks Dominating Male.” Interview with Germaine Greer. Interviewer and place of publication unknown. Unpaginated. ———. Undated. 2014.0038, Unit 219. File name “Bounce Titty Bounce.” “Bounce Titty Bounce.” Originally published in Suck Magazine. Viewed in unpublished manuscript form. Unpaginated. ———. 1971. 2014.0038, Unit 219. File name “Suck Editorial 1971?” “Editorial.” Suck Magazine. Issue number not provided. Unpaginated. ———. 1971. 2014.0038, Unit 219. File name: “Lady Love Your Cunt Suck.” “Lady Love Your Cunt.” Originally published in Suck Magazine. Viewed in unpublished manuscript form. Unpaginated. ———. Undated. 2014.0038, Unit 219. File name: “Suck Correspondence 73.” Untitled photographs of Germaine Greer. Originally published in Suck Magazine. Unpaginated. Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer, Untamed Shrew. Sydney: Pan MacMillan, 1997.

In August 2017, a white supremacist rally marketed as “Unite the Right” was held in Charlottesville, Virginia. In participation were members of the alt-right, including neo-nazis, white nationalists, neo-confederates, and other hate groups (Atkinson). The rally swiftly erupted in violence between white supremacists and counter protestors, culminating in the death of a counter-protester named Heather Heyer, who was struck by a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields, and leaving dozens injured. Terry McQuliffe, the Governor of Virginia, declared a state of emergency on August 12, and the world watched while white supremacists boldly marched in clothing emblazoned with symbols ranging from swastikas to a cartoon frog (Pepe), with flags featuring the nation of “Kekistan”, and carrying tiki torches chanting, “You Will Not Replace Us... Jews Will Not Replace Us”.The purpose of this essay is not, however, to examine the Internet symbols that circulated during the Unite the Right rally but rather to hone in on a specific moment that illustrates a key part of Internet culture that was often overlooked during analysis of the events that occurred during the riots: a documentary filmmaker, C. J. Hunt, was at the rally to record footage for a project on the removal of Confederate monuments. While there, he saw a rally-goer dressed in the white polo t-shirt and khaki pants uniform of the white nationalist group Vanguard America. The rally-goer, a young white man, was being chased by a counter-protester. He began to scream and beg for mercy, and even went as far as stripping off his clothing and denying that he really believed in any of the group’s ideology. In the recording by Hunt, who asks why he was there and why he was undressing, the young white man responded that shouting white power is “fun”, and that he was participating in the event because he, quote, “likes to be offensive” (Hunt).As Hunt notes in a piece for GQ reflecting on his experience at the rally, as soon as the man was cut off from his group and confronted, the runaway racist’s demeanor immediately changed when he had to face the consequences of his actions. Trolls often rely on the safety and anonymity of online forums and digital spaces where they are often free from having to face the consequences of their actions, and for the runaway racist, things became real very quickly when he was forced to own up to his hateful actions. In a way, many members of these movements seem to want politics without consequence for themselves, but with significant repercussions for others. Milo Yiannopoulos, a self-professed “master troll”, built an entire empire worth millions of dollars off of what the far-right defends as ironic hate speech and a form of politics without consequences reserved only for the privileged white men that gleefully engage in it. The runaway racist and Yiannopoulos are borne out of an Internet culture that is built on being offensive, on trolling, and “troll” itself being an aspirational label and identity, but also more importantly, a political aesthetic.In this essay, I argue that trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity, and provide evidence via examples like hoaxes, harassment campaigns, and the use of memes to signal to certain online populations and extremist groups in violent attacks. First coined by Walter Benjamin in order to explain a fundamental component of using art to foster consent and compliance in fascist regimes, the term since then has evolved to encompass far more than just works of art. Benjamin’s original conception of the term is in regard to a creation of a spectacle that prevents the masses from recognizing their rights – in short, the aestheticization of politics is not just about the strategies of the fascist regimes themselves but says more about the subjects within them. In the time of Benjamin’s writing, the specific medium was mass propaganda through the newly emerging film industry and other forms of art (W. Benjamin). To Benjamin, these aesthetics served as tools of distracting to make fascism more palatable to the masses. Aesthetic tools of distraction serve an affective purpose, revealing the unhappy consciousness of neoreactionaries (Hui), and provide an outlet for their resentment.Since political aesthetics are concerned with how cultural products like art, film, and even clothing reflect political ideologies and beliefs (Sartwell; McManus; Miller-Idriss), the objects of analysis in this essay are part of the larger visual culture of the alt-right (Bogerts and Fielitz; Stanovsky). Indeed, aesthetic aspects of political systems shift their meaning over time, or are changed and redeployed with transformed effect (Sartwell). In this essay, I am applying the concept of the aestheticization of politics by analyzing how alt-right visual cultures deploy distraction and dissimulation to advance their political agenda through things like trolling campaigns and hoaxes. By analyzing these events, their use of memes, trolling techniques, and their influence on mainstream culture, what is revealed is the influence of trolling on political culture for the alt-right and how the alt-right then distracts the rest of the public (McManus).Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Troll?Large scale analyses of disinformation and extremist content online tends to examine how certain actors are connected, what topics emerge and how these are connected across platforms, and the ways that disinformation campaigns operate in digital environments (Marwick and Lewis; Starbird; Benkler et al.). Masculine and white-coded technology gave rise to male-dominated digital spaces (R. Benjamin), with trolling often being an issue faced by non-normative users of the Internet and their communities (Benjamin; Lumsden and Morgan; Nakamura; Phillips, Oxygen). Creating a kind of unreality where it is difficult to parse out truth from lies, fiction from non-fiction, the troll creates cultural products, and by hiding behind irony and humor confuses onlookers and is removed from any kind of reasonable blame for their actions. Irony has long been a rhetorical strategy used in politics, and the alt right has been no exception (Weatherby), but for our current sociopolitical landscape, trolling is a political strategy that infuses irony into politics and identity.In the digital era, political memes and internet culture are pervasive components of the spread of hate speech and extremist ideology on digital platforms. Trolling is not an issue that exists in a vacuum – rather, trolls are a product of greater mainstream culture that encourages and allows their behaviors (Phillips, This Is Why; Fichman and Sanfilippo; Marwick and Lewis). Trolls, and meme culture in general, have often been pointed to as being part of the reason for the rise of Trump and fascist politics across the world in recent years (Greene; Lamerichs et al.; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir; Glitsos and Hall). Although criticism has been expressed about how impactful memes were in the election of Donald Trump, political memes have had an impact on the ways that trolling went from anonymous jerks on forums to figures like Yiannapoulos who built entire careers off of trolling, creating empires of hate (Lang). These memes that are often absurd and incomprehensible to those who are not a part of the community that they come from aim to cheapen, trivialize, and mock social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and others.But the history of trolling online goes as far back as the Internet itself. “Trolling” is just a catch all term to describe online behaviors meant to antagonize, to disrupt online conversations, and to silence other users (Cole; Fichman and Sanfilippo). As more and more people started moving online and engaging in participatory culture, trolling continued to evolve from seemingly harmless jokes like the “Rick Roll” to targeted campaigns meant to harass women off of social media platforms (Lumsden and Morgan; Graham). Trolling behaviors are more than just an ugly part of the online experience, but are also a way for users to maintain the borders of their online community - it’s meant to drive away those who are perceived to be outsiders not just from the specific forum, but the Internet itself (Graham). With the rise of modern social media platforms, trolling itself is also a part of the political landscape, creating a “toxic counterpublic” that combines irony with a kind of earnestness to spread and inject their beliefs into mainstream political discourse (Greene). As a mode of information warfare, these subversive rhetorical strategies meant to contradict or reverse existing political and value systems have been used throughout history as a political tactic (Blackstock).The goal of trolling is not just to disrupt conversations, but to lead to chaos via confusion about the sincerity and meaning of messages and visuals, and rather than functioning as a politics of outrage (on the part of the adherents), it is a politics of being as outrageous as possible. As a part of larger meme culture, the aesthetics of trolls and their outrageous content manage to operate under the radar by being able to excuse their behaviors and rhetoric as just “trolling” or “joking”. This ambiguity points to trolling on the far right as a political strategy and identity to absolve them of blame or accusations of what their real intentions are. Calling them “trolls” hides the level of sophistication and vast levels of influence that they had on public opinion and discourse in the United States (Geltzer; Starks et al.; Marwick and Lewis). We no longer live in a world apart from the troll’s influence and immune from their toxic discourse – rather, we have long been under the bridge with them.Co-Opted SymbolsOne of the most well-known examples of trolling as a political aesthetic and tactic may be the OK hand sign used by the Christchurch shooter. The idea that the OK hand sign was a secretly white supremacist symbol started as a hoax on 4chan. The initial 2017 hoax purported that the hand sign was meant to stand for “White Power”, with the three fingers representing the W and the circle made with the index finger and thumb as the P (Anti-Defamation League, “Okay Hand Gesture”). The purpose of perpetuating the hoax was to demonstrate that (a) they were being watched and (b) that the mainstream media is stupid and gullible enough to believe this hoax. Meant to incite confusion and to act as a subversive strategy, the OK hand sign was then actually adopted by the alt-right as a sort of meme to not just perpetuate the hoax, but to signal belonging to the larger group (Allyn). Even though the Anti-Defamation League initially listed it as not being a hate symbol and pointed out the origins of the hoax (Anti-Defamation League, “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol”), they then switched their opinion when the OK hand sign was being flashed by white supremacists, showing up in photographs at political events, and other social media content. In fact, the OK hand sign is also a common element in pictures of Pepe the Frog, who is a sort of “alt right mascot” (Tait; Glitsos and Hall), but like the OK hand sign, Pepe the Frog did not start as an alt-right mascot and was co-opted by the alt-right as a mode of representation.The confusion around the actual meaning behind the hand symbol points to how the alt-right uses these modes of representation in ways that are simultaneously an inside joke and a real expression of their beliefs. For instance, the Christchurch shooter referenced a number of memes and other rhetoric typical of 4chan and 8chan communities in his video and manifesto (Quek). In the shooter’s manifesto and video, the vast amounts of content that point to the trolling and visual culture of the alt-right are striking – demonstrating how alt-right memes not only make this violent ideology accessible, but are cultural products meant to be disseminated and ultimately, result in some kind of action (DeCook).The creation and co-optation of symbols by the alt-right like the OK hand sign are not just memes, but a form of language created by extremists for extremists (Greene; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). The shooter’s choice of including this type of content in his manifesto as well as certain phrases in his live-streamed video indicate his level of knowledge of what needed to be done for his attack to get as much attention as possible – the 4chan troll is the modern-day bogeyman, and parts of the manifesto have been identified as intentional traps for the mainstream media (Lorenz).Thus, the Christchurch shooter and trolling culture are linked, but referring to the symbols in the manifesto as being a part of “trolling” culture misses the deeper purpose – chaos, through the outrage spectacle, is the intended goal, particularly by creating arguments about the nature and utility of online trolling behavior. The shooter encouraged other 8chan users to disseminate his posted manifesto as well as to share the video of the attack – and users responded by immortalizing the event in meme format. The memes created celebrated the shooter as a hero, and although Facebook did remove the initial livestream video, it was reuploaded to the platform 1.2 million times in the first 24 hours, attempting to saturate the online platform with so many uploads that it would cause confusion and be difficult to remove (Gramenz). Some users even created gifs or set the video to music from the Doom video game soundtrack – a video game where the player is a demon slayer in an apocalyptic world, further adding another layer of symbolism to the attack.These political aesthetics – spread through memes, gifs, and “fan videos” – are the perfect vehicles for disseminating extremist ideology because of what they allow the alt-right to do with them: hide behind them, covering up their intentions, all the while adopting them as signifiers for their movement. With the number of memes, symbols, and phrases posted in his manifesto and spoken aloud in his mainstream, perhaps the Christchurch shooter wanted the onus of the blame to fall on these message board communities and the video games and celebrities referenced – in effect, it was “designed to troll” (Lorenz). But, there is a kernel of truth in every meme, post, image, and comment – their memes are a part of their political aesthetic, thus implicit and explicit allusions to the inner workings of their ideology are present. Hiding behind hoaxes, irony, edginess, and trolling, members of the alt-right and other extremist Internet cultures then engage in a kind of subversion that allows them to avoid taking any responsibility for real and violent attacks that occur as a result of their discourse. Antagonizing the left, being offensive, and participating in this outrage spectacle to garner a response from news outlets, activists, and outsiders are all a part of the same package.Trolls and the Outrage SpectacleThe confusion and the chaos left behind by these kinds of trolling campaigns and hoaxes leave many to ask: How disingenuous is it? Is it meant for mere shock value or is it really reflective of the person’s beliefs? In terms of the theme of dissimulation for this special issue, what is the real intent, and under what pretenses should these kinds of trolling behaviors be understood? Returning to the protestor who claimed “I just like to be offensive”, the skepticism from onlookers still exists: why go so far as to join an alt-right rally, wearing the uniform of Identity Evropa (now the American Identity Movement), as a “joke”?Extremists hide behind humor and irony to cloud judgments from others, begging the question of can we have practice without belief? But, ultimately, practice and belief are intertwined – the regret of the Runaway Racist is not because he suddenly realized he did not “believe”, but rather was forced to face the consequences of his belief, something that he as a white man perhaps never really had to confront. The cultural reach of dissimulation, in particular hiding true intent behind the claim of “irony”, is vast - YouTuber Pewdiepie claimed his use of racial and anti-Semitic slurs and putting on an entire Ku Klux Klan uniform in the middle of a video were “accidental” only after considerable backlash (Picheta). It has to be noted, however, that Pewdiepie is referenced in the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter – specifically, the shooter yelled during his livestream “subscribe to Pewdiepie”, (Lorenz). Pewdiepie and many other trolls, once called out for their behavior, and regardless of their actual intent, double down on their claims of irony to distract from the reality of their behaviors and actions.The normalization of this kind of content in mainstream platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even Instagram show how 4chan and alt-right Internet culture has seeped out of its borders and exists everywhere online. This “coded irony” is not only enabled rhetorically due to irony’s slippery definition, but also digitally via these online media (Weatherby). The aesthetics of the troll are present in every single platform and are disseminated everywhere – memes are small cultural units meant to be passed on (Shifman), and although one can argue it was not memes alone that resulted in the rise of the alt-right and the election of Donald Trump, memes are a part of the larger puzzle of the political radicalization process. The role of the Internet in radicalization is so powerful and insidious because of the presentation of content – it is funny, edgy, ironic, offensive, and outrageous. But these behaviors and attitudes are not just appealing to some kind of adolescent-like desire to push boundaries of what is and is not socially acceptable and/or politically incorrect (Marwick and Lewis), and calling it such clouds people’s perceptions of their level of sophistication in shaping political discourse.Memes and the alt-right are a noted phenomenon, and these visual cultures created by trolls on message boards have aided in the rise of the current political situation worldwide (Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). We are well in the midst of a type of warfare based on not weapons and bodies, but information and data - in which memes and other elements of the far right’s political aesthetic play an important role (Molander et al.; Prier; Bogerts and Fielitz). The rise of the online troll as a political player and the alt-right are merely the logical outcomes of these systems.ConclusionThe alt-right’s spread was possible because of the trolling cultures and aesthetics of dissimulation created in message boards that predate 4chan (Kitada). The memes and inflammatory statements made by them serve multiple purposes, ranging from an intention to incite outrage among non-members of the group to signal group belonging and identity. In some odd way, if people do not understand the content, the content actually speaks louder and, in more volumes, that it would if its intent was more straightforward – in their confusion, people give these trolling techniques more attention and amplification in their attempt to make sense of them. Through creating confusion, distraction, and uncertainty around the legitimacy of messages, hand signs, and even memes, the alt-right has elevated the aestheticization of politics to a degree that Walter Benjamin could perhaps not have predicted in his initial lament about the distracted masses of fascist regimes (McManus). The political dimensions of trolling and the cognitive uncertainty that it creates is a part of its goal. Dismissing trolls is no longer an option, but also regarding them as sinister political operatives may be overblowing their significance. 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IntroductionUtopian and forward looking in tenor, official narratives of urban renewal and development implicitly promote normative ideals of progress and necessary civic improvement. Yet an underlying condition of such renewal is frequently the very opposite of building: the demolition of existing urban fabric. Taking as its starting point the large-scale demolition of buildings proposed for the NSW Government’s Sydney Metro rail project, this article interrogates the role of literary treatments of demolition in mediating complex, and often contradictory, responses to transformations of the built environment. Case studies are drawn from literary texts in which demolition and infrastructure development are key preoccupations, notably Louis Aragon’s 1926 Surrealist document of a threatened Parisian arcade, Paris Peasant, and the non-fiction accounts of the redevelopment of London’s East End by British writer Iain Sinclair. Sydney UnbuiltPresently, Australia’s biggest public transport project according to the NSW Government website, the Sydney Metro is set to revolutionise Sydney’s rail future with more than 30 metro stations and a fleet of fully-automated driverless trains. Its impetus extends at least as far back as the Liberal-National Coalition’s landslide win at the 2011 New South Wales state election when Barry O’Farrell, then party leader, declared “NSW has to be rebuilt” (qtd in Aston). Infrastructure upgrades became one of the Coalition’s key priorities upon forming government. Following a second Coalition win at the 2015 election, the state of NSW, or the city of Sydney more accurately, remains today deep amidst widespread building works with an unprecedented number of infrastructure, development and urban renewal projects simultaneously underway.From an historical perspective, Sydney is certainly no stranger to demolition. This was in evidence in Demolished Sydney, an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney that captured the zeitgeist of 2016 with its historical survey of Sydney’s demolished architecture. As the exhibition media release pointed out: “Since 1788 Sydney has been built, unbuilt and rebuilt as it has grown from Georgian town to Victorian city to the global urban centre it is today” (Museum of Sydney). What this evolutionist narrative glosses over, however, is the extent to which the impact of Sydney’s significant reinventions of itself through large-scale redevelopment are often not properly registered until well after such changes have taken place. With the imminent commencement of Sydney Metro Stage 2 CBD works, the city similarly stands to lose a number of buildings that embody the civic urban ideals of an earlier era, the effects of which are unlikely to be fully appreciated until the project’s post-demolition phase. The revelation, over the past year, of the full extent of demolition required to build Sydney Metro casts a spotlight on the project and raises questions about its likely impact in reconfiguring the character of Sydney’s inner city. An Environmental Impact Statement Summary (EISS) released by the NSW Government in May 2016 confirms that 79 buildings in the CBD and surrounding suburbs are slated for demolition as part of station development plans for the Stage 2 Chatswood to Sydenham line (Transport for NSW). Initial assurances were that the large majority of acquisitions would be commercial buildings. Yet, the mix also comprises some locally-heritage listed structures including, most notably, 7 Elizabeth Street Sydney (Image 1), a residential apartment tower of 54 studio flats located at the top end of the Sydney central business district.Image 1: 7 Elizabeth Street Sydney apartment towers (middle). Architect: Emil Sodersten. Image credit: Ella Mudie.As the sole surviving block of CBD flats constructed during the 1930s, 7 Elizabeth Street had been identified by the Australian Institute of Architects as an example of historically significant twentieth-century residential architecture. Furthermore, the modernist block is aesthetically significant as the work of prominent Art Deco architect Emil Sodersten (1899-1961) and interior designer Marion Hall Best (1905-1988). Disregarding recommendations that the building should be retained and conserved, Transport for NSW compulsorily acquired the block, evicting residents in late 2016 from one of the few remaining sources of affordable housing in the inner-city. Meanwhile, a few blocks down at 302 Pitt Street the more than century-old Druids House (Image 2) is also set to be demolished for the Metro development. Prior to purchase by Transport for NSW, the property had been slated for a state-of-the-art adaptive reuse as a boutique hotel which would have preserved the building’s façade and windows. In North Sydney, a locally heritage listed shopfront at 187 Miller Street, one of the few examples of the Victorian Italianate style remaining on the street, faces a similar fate. Image 2. Druids House, 302 Pitt Street Sydney. Image credit: Ella Mudie.Beyond the bureaucratic accounting of the numbers and locations of demolitions outlined in the NSW Government’s EISS, this survey of disappearing structures highlights to what extent, large-scale transport infrastructure projects like Sydney Metro, can reshape what the Situationists termed the “psychogeography” of a city; the critical manner in which places and environments affect our emotions and behaviour. With their tendency to erase traces of the city’s past and to smooth over its textures, those variegations in the urban fabric that emerge from the interrelationship of the built environment with the lived experience of a space, the changes wrought by infrastructure and development thus manifest a certain anguish of urban dynamism that is connected to broader anxieties over modernity’s “speed of change and the ever-changing horizons of time and space” (Huyssen 23). Indeed, just as startling as the disappearance of older and more idiosyncratic structures is the demolition of newer building stock which, in the case of Sydney Metro, includes the slated demolition of a well-maintained 22-storey commercial office tower at 39 Martin Place (Image 3). Completed in just 1972, the fact that the lifespan of this tower will amount to less than fifty years points to the rapid obsolescence, and sheer disposability, of commercial building stock in the twenty first-century. It is also indicative of the drive towards destruction that operates within the project of modernism itself. Pondering the relationship of modernist architecture to time, Guiliana Bruno asks: can we really speak of a modernist ruin? Unlike the porous, permeable stone of ancient building, the material of modernism does not ‘ruin.’ Concrete does not decay. It does not slowly erode and corrode, fade out or fade away. It cannot monumentally disintegrate. In some way, modernist architecture does not absorb the passing of time. Adverse to deterioration, it does not age easily, gracefully or elegantly. (80)In its resistance to organic ruination, Bruno’s comment thus implies it is demolition that will be the fate of the large majority of the urban building stock of the twentieth century and beyond. In this way, Sydney Metro is symptomatic of far broader cycles of replenishment and renewal at play in cities around the world, bringing to the fore timely questions about demolition and modernity, the conflict between economic development and the civic good, and social justice concerns over the public’s right to the city. Image 3: 39 Martin Place Sydney. Image credit: Ella Mudie.In the second part of this article, I turn to literary treatments of demolition in order to consider what role the writer might play in giving expression to some of the conflicts and tensions, as exemplified by Sydney Metro, that manifest in ‘unbuilding’ the city. How might literature, I ask, be uniquely placed to mobilise critique? And to what extent does the writer—as both a detached observer and engaged participant in the city—occupy an ambivalent stance especially sensitive to the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of the built environment’s relationship to modernity?Iain Sinclair: Calling Time on the Grand Projects For more than two decades, British author Iain Sinclair has been mapping the shifting terrain of London and its edgelands across a spectrum of experimental fiction and non-fiction works. In addition to the thematic attention paid to neoliberal capitalist processes of urban renewal and their tendency to implode established ties between place, memory and identity, Sinclair’s hybrid documentary-novels are especially pertinent to the analysis of “writing demolition” for their distinct writerly approach. Two recent texts, Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project (2011) and London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line (2015), highlight an intensification of interest on Sinclair’s part in the growing influence exerted by global finance, hyper consumerism and security fears on the reterritorialisation of the English capital. Written in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympics, Ghost Milk is Sinclair’s scathing indictment of the corporate greed that fuelled the large-scale redevelopment of Stratford and its surrounds ahead of the Games. It is an angry and vocal response to urban transformation, a sustained polemic intensified by the author’s local perspective. A long-term resident of East London, in the 1970s Sinclair worked as a labourer at Chobham Farm and thus feels a personal assault in how Stratford “abdicated its fixed identity and willingly prostituted itself as a backdrop for experimental malls, rail hubs and computer generated Olympic parks” (28). For Sinclair, the bulldozing of the Stratford and Hackney boroughs was performed in the name of a so-called civic legacy beyond the Olympic spectacle that failed to culminate in anything more than a “long march towards a theme park without a theme” (11), a site emblematic of the bland shopping mall architecture of what Sinclair derisorily terms “the GP [Grand Project] era” (125).As a literary treatment of demolition Ghost Milk is particularly concerned with the compromised role of language in urban planning rhetoric. The redevelopment required for the Olympics is backed by a “fraudulent narrative” (99), says Sinclair, a conspiratorial co-optation of language made to bend in the service of urban gentrification. “In many ways,” he writes, “the essential literature of the GP era is the proposal, the bullet-point pitch, the perversion of natural language into weasel forms of not-saying” (125). This impoverishment and simplification of language, Sinclair argues, weakens the critical thinking required to recognise the propagandising tendencies underlying so many urban renewal programs.The author’s vocal admonishment of the London Olympics did not go unnoticed. In 2008 a reading from his forthcoming book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire (2009), at a local library was cancelled out of fear of providing a public platform for his negative views. In Ghost Milk Sinclair reflects upon the treatment of his not yet published docu-novel as “found guilty, with no right of reply, of being political but somehow outside politics” (115). Confronted with the type of large-scale change that underpins such projects as the Olympic Games, or the Sydney Metro closer to home, Sinclair’s predicament points to the ambiguous position of influence occupied by writers. On the one hand, influence is limited in so far as authors play no formal part in the political process. Yet, when outspoken critique resonates words can become suddenly powerful, radically undermining the authority of slick environmental impact statements and sanctioned public consultation findings. In a more poetic sense, Sinclair’s texts are further influential for the way in which they offer a subjective mythologising of the city as a counterpoint to the banal narratives of bureaucratised urbanism. This is especially apparent in London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line (2015), in which Sinclair recounts a single-day street-level pedestrian exploration of the 35-mile and 33-station circuit of the new London Overground railway line. Surveying with disapproval the “new bridges, artisan bakeries, blue-bike racks and coffee shops” (20) that have sprung up along the route of the elevated railway, the initial gambit of the text appears to be to critique the London Overground as a “device for boosting property values” (23). Rail zone as “generator for investment” (31), and driver of the political emasculation of suburbs like Hackney and Shoreditch. Yet as the text develops the narrator appears increasingly drawn to the curious manner in which the Overground line performs an “accidental re-mapping of London” (24). He drifts, then, in search of: a site in which to confront one’s shadow. In a degraded form, this was the ambition behind our orbital tramp. To be attentive to the voices; to walk beside our shadow selves. To reverse the polarity of incomprehensible public schemes, the secret motors of capital defended and promoted by professionally mendacious politicians capable of justifying anything. (London Overground 127)Summoning the oneiric qualities of the railway and its inclination to dreaming and reverie, Sinclair reimagines it as divine oracle, a “ladder of initiation” (47) bisecting resonant zones animated by traces of the visionary artists and novelists whose sensitivity to place have shaped the perception of the London boroughs in the urban imaginary. It is in this manner that Sinclair’s walks generate “an oppositional perspective against the grand projects of centralized planning and management of space” (Weston 261). In a kind of poetic re-enchantment of urban space, texts like Ghost Milk and London Overground shatter the thin veneer of present-day capitalist urbanism challenging the reader to conceive of alternative visions of the city as heterogeneous and imbued with deep historical time.Louis Aragon: Demolition and ModernityWhile London Overground was composed after the construction of the new railway circuit, the pre-demolition phase of a project is, by comparison, a threshold moment. Literary responses to impending demolition are thus shaped in an unstable context as the landscape of a city becomes subject to unpredictable changes that can unfold at a very swift pace. Declan Tan suggests that the writing of Ghost Milk in the lead up to the London Olympics marks Sinclair’s disapproval as “futile, Ghost Milk is knowingly written as a documentary of near-history, an archival treatment of 2012 now, before it happens.” Yet, paradoxically it is the very futility of Sinclair’s project that intensifies the urgency to record, sharpening his polemic. This notion of writing a “documentary of near-history” also suggests a certain breach in time, which in the case of Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant is mined for its revolutionary energies.First published in book form in 1926, Paris Peasant is an experimental Surrealist novel comprising four collage-like fragments including Aragon’s famous panegyric on the Passage de l’Opéra, a nineteenth-century Parisian arcade slated for demolition to make way for a new access road to the Boulevard Haussmann. Reading the text in the present era of Sydney Metro works, the predicament of the disappearing Opera Arcade resonates with the fate of the threatened Art Deco tower at 7 Elizabeth Street, soon to be razed to build a new metro station. Critical of the media’s overall neglect of the redevelopment, Aragon’s text pays sympathetic attention to the plight of the arcade’s business owners, railing against the injustices of their imminent eviction whilst mourning the disappearance of one of the last vestiges of the more organic configuration of the city that preceded the Haussmann renovation of Paris:the great American passion for city planning, imported into Paris by a prefect of police during the Second Empire and now being applied to the task of redrawing the map of our capital in straight lines, will soon spell the doom of these human aquariums. (Aragon 14)In light of these concerns it is tempting to cast Paris Peasant as a classic anti-development polemic. However, closer interrogation of the narrator’s ambivalent stance points to a more complicated attitude towards urban renewal. For, as he casts a forensic eye across the arcade’s shops it becomes apparent that these threatened sites hold a certain lure of attraction for the Surrealist author. The explanatory genre of the guide-book is subverted in a highly imaginative inventory of the arcade interiors. Touring its baths, brothels and hair salon, shoe shine parlour, run-down theatre, and the Café Certa—meeting place of the Surrealists—the narrator’s perambulation provides a launching point for intoxicated reveries and effervescent flights of fancy. Finally, the narrator concedes: “I would never have thought of myself as an observer. I like to let the winds and the rain blow through me: chance is my only experience, hazard my sole experiment” (88). Neither a journalist nor an historian, Paris Peasant’s narrator is not concerned merely to document the Opera Arcade for posterity. Rather, his interest in the site resides in its liminal state. On the cusp of being transformed into something else, the ontological instability of the arcade provides a dramatic illustration of the myth of architecture’s permanency. Aragon’s novel is concerned then, Abigail Susik notes, with the “insatiable momentum of progress,” and how it “renders all the more visible what could be called the radical remainders of modernity: the recently ruined, lately depleted, presently-passé entities that, for better and for worse, multiply and accumulate in the wake of accelerated production and consumption in industrial society” (34). Drawing comparison with Walter Benjamin’s sprawling Arcades Project, a kaleidoscopic critique of commodity culture, Paris Vaclav similarly characterises Paris Peasant as manifesting a distinct form of “political affect: one of melancholy for the destruction of the arcades yet also of a decidedly non-conservative devotion to aesthetic innovation” (24).Sensitive to the contradictory nature of progress under late capitalist modernity, Paris Peasant thus recognises destruction as an underlying condition of change and innovation as was typical of avant-garde texts of the early twentieth century. Yet Aragon resists fatalism in his simultaneous alertness to the radical potential of the marvellous in the everyday, searching for the fault lines in ordinary reality beneath which poetic re-enchantment challenges the status quo of modern life. In this way, Aragon’s experimental novel sketches the textures and psychogeographies of the city, tracing its detours and shifts in ambience, the relationship of architecture to dreams, memory and fantasy; those composite layers of a city that official documents and masterplans rarely ascribe value to and which literary authors are uniquely placed to capture in their writings on cities. ConclusionUnable to respond within the swift publication timeframes of journalistic articles, the novelist is admittedly not well-placed to halt the demolition of buildings. In this article, I have sought to argue that the power and agency of the literary response resides, rather, in its long view and the subjective perspective of the author. At the time of writing, Sydney Metro is poised to involve a scale of demolition that has not been seen in Sydney for several decades and which will transform the city in a manner that, to date, has largely passed uncritiqued. The works of Iain Sinclair and Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant point to the capacity of literary texts to deconstruct those broader forces that increasingly reshape the city without proper consideration; exposing the seductive ideology of urban renewal and the false promises of grand projects that transform multifaceted cityscapes into homogenous non-places. The literary text thus makes visible what is easily missed in the experience of everyday life, forcing us to consider the losses that haunt every gain in the building and rebuilding of the city.ReferencesAragon, Louis. Paris Peasant. Trans. Simon Taylor Watson. Boston: Exact Change, 1994. Aston, Heath. “We’ll Govern for All.” Sydney Morning Herald 27 Mar. 2011. 23 Feb. 2017 <http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/well-govern-for-all-20110326-1cbbf.html>. Bruno, Guiliana. “Modernist Ruins, Filmic Archaeologies.” Ruins. Ed. Brian Dillon. London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2011. 76-81.Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003.Museum of Sydney. Demolished Sydney Media Release. Sydney: Sydney Living Museums 20 Oct. 2016. 25 Feb. 2017 <http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/2016/12/05/new-exhibition-demolished-sydney>.Paris, Vaclav. “Uncreative Influence: Louis Aragon’s Paysan de Paris and Walter Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk.” Journal of Modern Literature 37.1 (Autumn 2013): 21-39.Sinclair, Iain. Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project. London: Penguin, 2012. ———. Hackney, That Rose Red Empire. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2009.———. London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2015.Susik, Abigail. “Paris 1924: Aragon, Le Corbusier, and the Question of the Outmoded.” Wreck: Graduate Journal of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory 2.2 (2008): 29-44.Tan, Declan. “Review of Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project by Iain Sinclair.” Huffington Post 15 Dec. 2011; updated 14 Feb. 2012. 21 Feb 2017 <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/declan-tan/ghost-milk-ian-sinclair-review_b_1145692.html>. Transport for NSW, Chatswood to Sydenham: Environmental Impact Statement Summary. 25 Mar. 2017 <http://www.sydneymetro.info>. Sydney: NSW Government, May-June 2016.Weston, David. “Against the Grand Project: Iain Sinclair’s Local London.” Contemporary Literature 56.2 (Summer 2015): 255-79.

IllegitimacyBack in 1987, Gregory Bateson argued that:Kurt Vonnegut gives us wary advice – that we should be careful what we pretend because we become what we pretend. And something like that, some sort of self-fulfilment, occurs in all organisations and human cultures. What people presume to be ‘human’ is what they will build in as premises of their social arrangements, and what they build in is sure to be learned, is sure to become a part of the character of those who participate. (178)The human capacity to marginalise and discriminate against others on the basis of innate and constructed characteristics is evident from the long history of discrimination against people whose existence is ‘illegitimate’, defined as being outside the law. What is inside or outside the law depends upon the context under consideration. For example, in societies such as ancient Greece and the antebellum United States, where slavery was legal, people who were constructed as ‘slaves’ could legitimately be treated very differently from ‘citizens’: free people who benefit from a range of human rights (Northup). The discernment of what is legitimate from that which is illegitimate is thus implicated within the law but extends into the wider experience of community life and is evident within the civil structures through which society is organised and regulated.The division between the legitimate and illegitimate is an arbitrary one, susceptible to changing circumstances. Within recent memory a romantic/sexual relationship between two people of the same sex was constructed as illegitimate and actively persecuted. This was particularly the case for same-sex attracted men, since the societies regulating these relationships generally permitted women a wider repertoire of emotional response than men were allowed. Even when lesbian and gay relationships were legalised, they were constructed as less legitimate in the sense that they often had different rules around the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual couples. In Australia, the refusal to allow same sex couples to marry perpetuates ways in which these relationships are constructed as illegitimate – beyond the remit of the legislation concerning marriage.The archetypal incidence of illegitimacy has historically referred to people born out of wedlock. The circumstances of birth, for example whether a person was born as a result of a legally-sanctioned marital relationship or not, could have ramifications throughout an individual’s life. Stories abound (for example, Cookson) of the implications of being illegitimate. In some social stings, such as Catherine Cookson’s north-eastern England at the turn of the twentieth century, illegitimate children were often shunned. Parents frequently refused permission for their (legitimate) children to play with illegitimate classmates, as if these children born out of wedlock embodied a contaminating variety of evil. Illegitimate children were treated differently in the law in matters of inheritance, for example, and may still be. They frequently lived in fear of needing to show a birth certificate to gain a passport, for example, or to marry. Sometimes, it was at this point in adult life, that a person first discovered their illegitimacy, changing their entire understanding of their family and their place in the world. It might be possible to argue that the emphasis upon the legitimacy of a birth has lessened in proportion to an acceptance of genetic markers as an indicator of biological paternity, but that is not the endeavour here.Given the arbitrariness and mutability of the division between legitimacy and illegitimacy as a constructed boundary, it is policed by social and legal sanctions. Boundaries, such as the differentiation between the raw and the cooked (Lévi-Strauss), or S/Z (Barthes), or purity and danger (Douglas), serve important cultural functions and also convey critical information about the societies that enforce them. Categories of person, place or thing which are closest to boundaries between the legitimate and the illegitimate can prompt existential anxiety since the capacity to discern between these categories is most challenged at the margins. The legal shenanigans which can result speak volumes for which aspects of life have the potential to unsettle a culture. One example of this which is writ large in the recent history of Australia is our treatment of refugees and asylum seekers and the impact of this upon Australia’s multicultural project.Foreshadowing the sexual connotations of the illegitimate, one of us has written elsewhere (Green, ‘Bordering on the Inconceivable’) about the inconceivability of the Howard administration’s ‘Pacific solution’. This used legal devices to rewrite Australia’s borders to limit access to the rights accruing to refugees upon landing in a safe haven entitling them to seek asylum. Internationally condemned as an illegitimate construction of an artificial ‘migration zone’, this policy has been revisited and made more brutal under the Abbot regime with at least two people – Reza Barati and Hamid Khazaei – dying in the past year in what is supposed to be a place of safety provided by Australian authorities under their legal obligations to those fleeing from persecution. Crock points out, echoing the discourse of illegitimacy, that it is and always has been inappropriate to label “undocumented asylum seekers” as “‘illegal’” because: “until such people cross the border onto Australian territory, the language of illegality is nonsense. People who have no visas to enter Australia can hardly be ‘illegals’ until they enter Australia” (77). For Australians who identify in some ways – religion, culture, fellow feeling – with the detainees incarcerated on Nauru and Manus Island, it is hard to ignore the disparity between the government’s treatment of visa overstayers and “illegals” who arrive by boat (Wilson). It is a comparatively short step to construct this disparity as reflecting upon the legitimacy within Australia of communities who share salient characteristics with detained asylum seekers: “The overwhelmingly negative discourse which links asylum seekers, Islam and terrorism” (McKay, Thomas & Kneebone, 129). Some communities feel themselves constructed in the public and political spheres as less legitimately Australian than others. This is particularly true of communities where members can be identified via markers of visible difference, including indicators of ethnic, cultural and religious identities: “a group who [some 585 respondent Australians …] perceived would maintain their own languages, customs and traditions […] this cultural diversity posed an extreme threat to Australian national identity” (McKay, Thomas & Kneebone, 129). Where a community shares salient characteristics such as ethnicity or religion with many detained asylum seekers they can become fearful of the discourses around keeping borders strong and protecting Australia from illegitimate entrants. MethodologyThe qualitative fieldwork upon which this paper is based took place some 6-8 years ago (2006-2008), but the project remains one of the most recent and extensive studies of its kind. There are no grounds for believing that any of the findings are less valid than previously. On the contrary, if political actions are constructed as a proxy for mainstream public consent, opinions have become more polarised and have hardened. Ten focus groups were held involving 86 participants with a variety of backgrounds including differences in age, gender, religious observance, religious identification and ethnicity. Four focus groups involved solely Muslim participants; six drew from the wider Australian community. The aim was to examine the response of different communities to mainstream Australian media representations of Islam, Muslims, and terrorism. Research questions included: “Are there differences in the ways in which Australian Muslims respond to messages about ‘fear’ and ‘terror’ compared with broader community Australians’ responses to the same messages?” and “How do Australian Muslims construct the perceptions and attitudes of the broader Australian community based on the messages that circulate in the media?” Recent examples of kinds of messages investigated include media coverage of Islamic State’s (ISIS’s) activities (Karam & Salama), and the fear-provoking coverage around the possible recruitment of Australians to join the fighting in Syria and Iraq (Cox). The ten focus groups were augmented by 60 interviews, 30 with respondents who identified as Muslim (15 males, 15 female) and 30 respondents from the broader community (same gender divisions). Finally, a market research company was commissioned to conduct a ‘fear survey’, based on an established ‘fear of rape’ inventory (Aly and Balnaves), delivered by telephone to a random sample of 750 over-18 y.o. Australians in which Muslims formed a deliberative sub-group, to ensure they were over-sampled and constituted at least 150 respondents. The face-to-face surveys and focus groups were conducted by co-author, Dr Anne Aly. General FindingsMuslim respondents indicate a heightened intensity of reaction to media messages around fear and terror. In addition to a generalised fear of the potential impact of terrorism upon Australian society and culture, Muslim respondents experienced a specific fear that any terrorist-related media coverage might trigger hostility towards Muslim Australian communities and their own family members. According to the ‘fear survey’ scale, Muslim Australians at the time of the research experienced approximately twice the fear level of mainstream Australian respondents. Broader Australian community Australian Muslim communityFear of a terrorist attackFear of a terrorist attack combines with the fear of a community backlashSpecific victims: dead, injured, bereavedCommunity is full of general victims in addition to any specific victimsShort-term; intense impactsProtracted, diffuse impactsSociety-wide sympathy and support for specific victims and all those involved in dealing with the trauma and aftermathSociety-wide suspicion and a marginalisation of those affected by the backlashVictims of a terrorist attack are embraced by broader communityVictims of backlash experience hostility from the broader communityFour main fears were identified by Australian Muslims as a component of the fear of terrorism:Fear of physical harm. In addition to the fear of actual terrorist acts, Australian Muslims fear backlash reprisals such as those experienced after such events as 9/11, the Bali bombings, and attacks upon public transport passengers in Spain and the UK. These and similar events were constructed as precipitating increased aggression against identifiable Australian Muslims, along with shunning of Muslims and avoidance of their company.The construction of politically-motivated fear. Although fear is an understandable response to concerns around terrorism, many respondents perceived fears as being deliberately exacerbated for political motives. Such strategies as “Be alert, not alarmed” (Bassio), labelling asylum seekers as potential terrorists, and talk about home-grown terrorists, are among the kinds of fears which were identified as politically motivated. The political motivation behind such actions might include presenting a particular party as strong, resolute and effective. Some Muslim Australians construct such approaches as indicating that their government is more interested in political advantage than social harmony.Fear of losing civil liberties. As well as sharing the alarm of the broader Australian community at the dozens of legislative changes banning people, organisations and materials, and increasing surveillance and security checks, Muslim Australians fear for the human rights implications across their community, up to and including the lives of their young people. This fear is heightened when community members may look visibly different from the mainstream. Examples of the events fuelling such fears include the London police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian Catholic working as an electrician in the UK and shot in the month following the 7/7 attacks on the London Underground system (Pugliese). In Australia, the case of Mohamed Hannef indicated that innocent people could easily be unjustly accused and wrongly targeted, and even when this was evident the political agenda made it almost impossible for authorities to admit their error (Rix).Feeling insecure. Australian Muslims argue that personal insecurity has become “the new normal” (Massumi), disproportionately affecting Muslim communities in both physical and psychological ways. Physical insecurity is triggered by the routine avoidance, shunning and animosity experienced by many community members in public places. Psychological insecurity includes fear for the safety of younger members of the community compounded by concern that young people may become ‘radicalised’ as a result of the discrimination they experience. Australian Muslims fear the backlash following any possible terrorist attack on Australian soil and describe the possible impact as ‘unimaginable’ (Aly and Green, ‘Moderate Islam’).In addition to this range of fears expressed by Australian Muslims and constructed in response to wider societal reactions to increased concerns over radical Islam and the threat of terrorist activity, an analysis of respondents’ statements indicate that Muslim Australians construct the broader community as exhibiting:Fear of religious conviction (without recognising the role of their own secular/religious convictions underpinning this fear);Fear of extremism (expressed in various extreme ways);Fear of powerlessness (responded to by disempowering others); andFear of political action overseas having political effects at home (without acknowledging that it is the broader community’s response to such overseas events, such as 9/11 [Green ‘Did the world really change?’], which has also had impacts at home).These constructions, extrapolations and understandings by Australian Muslims of the fears of the broader community underpinning the responses to the threat of terror have been addressed elsewhere (Green and Aly). Legitimate Australian MuslimsOne frustration identified by many Muslim respondents centres upon a perceived ‘acceptable’ way to be an Australian Muslim. Arguing that the broader community construct Muslims as a homogenous group defined by their religious affiliation, these interviewees felt that the many differences within and between the twenty-plus national, linguistic, ethnic, cultural and faith-based groupings that constitute WA’s Muslim population were being ignored. Being treated as a homogenised group on a basis of faith appears to have the effect of putting that religious identity under pressure, paradoxically strengthening and reinforcing it (Aly, ‘Australian Muslim Responses to the Discourse on Terrorism’). The appeal to Australian Muslims to embrace membership in a secular society and treat religion as a private matter also led some respondents to suggest they were expected to deny their own view of their faith, in which they express their religious identity across their social spheres and in public and private contexts. Such expression is common in observant Judaism, Hinduism and some forms of Christianity, as well as in some expressions of Islam (Aly and Green, ‘Less than equal’). Massumi argues that even the ways in which some Muslims dress, indicating faith-based behaviour, can lead to what he terms as ‘affective modulation’ (Massumi), repeating and amplifying the fear affect as a result of experiencing the wider community’s fear response to such triggers as water bottles (from airport travel) and backpacks, on the basis of perceived physical difference and a supposed identification with Muslim communities, regardless of the situation. Such respondents constructed this (implied) injunction to suppress their religious and cultural affiliation as akin to constructing the expression of their identity as illegitimate and somehow shameful. Parallels can be drawn with previous social responses to a person born out of wedlock, and to people in same-sex relationships: a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of denial.Australian Muslims who see their faith as denied or marginalised may respond by identifying more strongly with other Muslims in their community, since the community-based context is one in which they feel welcomed and understood. The faith-based community also allows and encourages a wider repertoire of acceptable beliefs and actions entailed in the performance of ‘being Muslim’. Hand in hand with a perception of being required to express their religious identity in ways that were acceptable to the majority community, these respondents provided a range of examples of self-protective behaviours to defend themselves and others from the impacts of perceived marginalisation. Such behaviours included: changing their surnames to deflect discrimination based solely on a name (Aly and Green, ‘Fear, Anxiety and the State of Terror’); keeping their opinions private, even when they were in line with those being expressed by the majority community (Aly and Green, ‘Moderate Islam’); the identification of ‘less safe’ and ‘safe’ activities and areas; concerns about visibly different young men in the Muslim community and discussions with them about their public behaviour and demeanour; and women who chose not to leave their homes for fear of being targeted in public places (all discussed in Aly, ‘Australian Muslim Responses to the Discourse on Terrorism’). Many of these behaviours, including changing surnames, restricting socialisation to people who know a person well, and the identification of safe and less safe activities in relation to the risk of self-revelation, were common strategies used by people who were stigmatised in previous times as a result of their illegitimacy.ConclusionConstructions of the legitimate and illegitimate provide one means through which we can investigate complex negotiations around Australianness and citizenship, thrown into sharp relief by the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers, also deemed “illegals”. Because they arrive in Australia (or, as the government would prefer, on Australia’s doorstep) by illegitimate channels these would-be citizens are treated very differently from people who arrive at an airport and overstay their visa. The impetus to exclude aspects of geographical Australia from the migration zone, and to house asylum seekers offshore, reveals an anxiety about borders which physically reflects the anxiety of western nations in the post-9/11 world. Asylum seekers who arrive by boat have rarely had safe opportunity to secure passports or visas, or to purchase tickets from commercial airlines or shipping companies. They represent those ethnicities and cultures which are currently in turmoil: a turmoil frequently exacerbated by western intervention, variously constructed as an il/legitimate expression of western power and interests.What this paper has demonstrated is that the boundary between Australia and the rest, the legitimate and the illegitimate, is failing in its aim of creating a stronger Australia. The means through which this project is pursued is making visible a range of motivations and concerns which are variously interpreted depending upon the position of the interpreter. The United Nations, for example, has expressed strong concern over Australia’s reneging upon its treaty obligations to refugees (Gordon). Less vocal, and more fearful, are those communities within Australia which identify as community members with the excluded illegals. The Australian government’s treatment of detainees on Manus Island and Nauru, who generally exhibit markers of visible difference as a result of ethnicity or culture, is one aspect of a raft of government policies which serve to make some people feel that their Australianness is somehow less legitimate than that of the broader community. AcknowledgementsThis paper is based on the findings of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP0559707), 2005-7, “Australian responses to the images and discourses of terrorism and the other: establishing a metric of fear”, awarded to Professors Lelia Green and Mark Balnaves. 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