Academic literature on the topic 'Problem definition model • evolutionary problem support system • ill-defined • complex real-world problems'

Alfred Hermida recently posited ‘ambient journalism’ as a new framework for para- and professional journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform. Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida define ‘ambient journalism’ and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that ‘ambient journalists’ might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provide–the musician and producer who coined the term ‘ambient music’ over three decades ago? My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft, skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermida’s participatory media context I emphasise ‘institutional adaptiveness’: how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them. Hermida’s Ambient Journalism and the Role of Journalists Hermida describes ambient journalism as: “broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on communication systems [that] are creating new kinds of interactions around the news, and are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them” (Hermida 2). His ideas appear to have two related aspects. He conceives ambient journalism as an “awareness system” between individuals that functions as a collective intelligence or kind of ‘distributed cognition’ at a group level (Hermida 2, 4-6). Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks are examples. Hermida also suggests that such networks enable non-professionals to engage in ‘communication’ and ‘conversation’ about news and media events (Hermida 2, 7). In a helpful clarification, Hermida observes that ‘para-journalists’ are like the paralegals or non-lawyers who provide administrative support in the legal profession and, in academic debates about journalism, are more commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’. Thus, Hermida’s ambient journalism appears to be: (1) an information systems model of new platforms and networks, and (2) a normative argument that these tools empower ‘para-journalists’ to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. Hermida’s thesis is intriguing and worthy of further discussion and debate. As currently formulated however it risks sharing the blind-spots and contradictions of the academic literature that Hermida cites, which suffers from poor theory-building (Burns). A major reason is that the participatory media context on which Hermida often builds his work has different mental models and normative theories than the journalists or media institutions that are the target of critique. Ambient journalism would be a stronger and more convincing framework if these incorrect assumptions were jettisoned. Others may also potentially misunderstand what Hermida proposes, because the academic debate is often polarised between para-journalists and professional journalists, due to different views about institutions, the politics of knowledge, decision heuristics, journalist training, and normative theoretical traditions (Christians et al. 126; Cole and Harcup 166-176). In the academic debate, para-journalists or ‘citizen journalists’ may be said to have a communitarian ethic and desire more autonomous solutions to journalists who are framed as uncritical and reliant on official sources, and to media institutions who are portrayed as surveillance-like ‘monitors’ of society (Christians et al. 124-127). This is however only one of a range of possible relationships. Sole reliance on para-journalists could be a premature solution to a more complex media ecology. Journalism craft, which does not rely just on official sources, also has a range of practices that already provides the “more complex ways of understanding and reporting on the subtleties of public communication” sought (Hermida 2). Citizen- and para-journalist accounts may overlook micro-studies in how newsrooms adopt technological innovations and integrate them into newsgathering routines (Hemmingway 196). Thus, an examination of the realities of professional journalism will help to cast a better light on how ambient journalism can shape the mental models of para-journalists, and provide more rigorous analysis of news and similar events. Professional journalism has several core dimensions that para-journalists may overlook. Journalism’s foundation as an experiential craft includes guidance and norms that orient the journalist to information, and that includes practitioner ethics. This craft is experiential; the basis for journalism’s claim to “social expertise” as a discipline; and more like the original Linux and Open Source movements which evolved through creative conflict (Sennett 9, 25-27, 125-127, 249-251). There are learnable, transmissible skills to contextually evaluate, filter, select and distil the essential insights. This craft-based foundation and skills informs and structures the journalist’s cognitive witnessing of an event, either directly or via reconstructed, cultivated sources. The journalist publishes through a recognised media institution or online platform, which provides communal validation and verification. There is far more here than the academic portrayal of journalists as ‘gate-watchers’ for a ‘corporatist’ media elite. Craft and skills distinguish the professional journalist from Hermida’s para-journalist. Increasingly, media institutions hire journalists who are trained in other craft-based research methods (Burns and Saunders). Bethany McLean who ‘broke’ the Enron scandal was an investment banker; documentary filmmaker Errol Morris first interviewed serial killers for an early project; and Neil Chenoweth used ‘forensic accounting’ techniques to investigate Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. Such expertise allows the journalist to filter information, and to mediate any influences in the external environment, in order to develop an individualised, ‘embodied’ perspective (Hofstadter 234; Thompson; Garfinkel and Rawls). Para-journalists and social network platforms cannot replace this expertise, which is often unique to individual journalists and their research teams. Ambient Journalism and Twitter Current academic debates about how citizen- and para-journalists may augment or even replace professional journalists can often turn into legitimation battles whether the ‘de facto’ solution is a social media network rather than a media institution. For example, Hermida discusses Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post 140-character messages that are small, discrete information chunks, for short-term and episodic memory. Twitter enables users to monitor other users, to group other messages, and to search for terms specified by a hashtag. Twitter thus illustrates how social media platforms can make data more transparent and explicit to non-specialists like para-journalists. In fact, Twitter is suitable for five different categories of real-time information: news, pre-news, rumours, the formation of social media and subject-based networks, and “molecular search” using granular data-mining tools (Leinweber 204-205). In this model, the para-journalist acts as a navigator and “way-finder” to new information (Morville, Findability). Jaron Lanier, an early designer of ‘virtual reality’ systems, is perhaps the most vocal critic of relying on groups of non-experts and tools like Twitter, instead of individuals who have professional expertise. For Lanier, what underlies debates about citizen- and para-journalists is a philosophy of “cybernetic totalism” and “digital Maoism” which exalts the Internet collective at the expense of truly individual views. He is deeply critical of Hermida’s chosen platform, Twitter: “A design that shares Twitter’s feature of providing ambient continuous contact between people could perhaps drop Twitter’s adoration of fragments. We don’t really know, because it is an unexplored design space” [emphasis added] (Lanier 24). In part, Lanier’s objection is traceable back to an unresolved debate on human factors and design in information science. Influenced by the post-war research into cybernetics, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a cyborg-like model of “man-machine symbiosis” between computers and humans (Licklider). In turn, Licklider’s framework influenced Douglas Engelbart, who shaped the growth of human-computer interaction, and the design of computer interfaces, the mouse, and other tools (Engelbart). In taking a system-level view of platforms Hermida builds on the strength of Licklider and Engelbart’s work. Yet because he focuses on para-journalists, and does not appear to include the craft and skills-based expertise of professional journalists, it is unclear how he would answer Lanier’s fears about how reliance on groups for news and other information is superior to individual expertise and judgment. Hermida’s two case studies point to this unresolved problem. Both cases appear to show how Twitter provides quicker and better forms of news and information, thereby increasing the effectiveness of para-journalists to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. However, alternative explanations may exist that raise questions about Twitter as a new platform, and thus these cases might actually reveal circumstances in which ambient journalism may fail. Hermida alludes to how para-journalists now fulfil the earlier role of ‘first responders’ and stringers, in providing the “immediate dissemination” of non-official information about disasters and emergencies (Hermida 1-2; Haddow and Haddow 117-118). Whilst important, this is really a specific role. In fact, disaster and emergency reporting occurs within well-established practices, professional ethics, and institutional routines that may involve journalists, government officials, and professional communication experts (Moeller). Officials and emergency management planners are concerned that citizen- or para-journalism is equated with the craft and skills of professional journalism. The experience of these officials and planners in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and in 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires in Australia, suggests that whilst para-journalists might be ‘first responders’ in a decentralised, complex crisis, they are perceived to spread rumours and potential social unrest when people need reliable information (Haddow and Haddow 39). These terms of engagement between officials, planners and para-journalists are still to be resolved. Hermida readily acknowledges that Twitter and other social network platforms are vulnerable to rumours (Hermida 3-4; Sunstein). However, his other case study, Iran’s 2009 election crisis, further complicates the vision of ambient journalism, and always-on communication systems in particular. Hermida discusses several events during the crisis: the US State Department request to halt a server upgrade, how the Basij’s shooting of bystander Neda Soltan was captured on a mobile phone camera, the spread across social network platforms, and the high-velocity number of ‘tweets’ or messages during the first two weeks of Iran’s electoral uncertainty (Hermida 1). The US State Department was interested in how Twitter could be used for non-official sources, and to inform people who were monitoring the election events. Twitter’s perceived ‘success’ during Iran’s 2009 election now looks rather different when other factors are considered such as: the dynamics and patterns of Tehran street protests; Iran’s clerics who used Soltan’s death as propaganda; claims that Iran’s intelligence services used Twitter to track down and to kill protestors; the ‘black box’ case of what the US State Department and others actually did during the crisis; the history of neo-conservative interest in a Twitter-like platform for strategic information operations; and the Iranian diaspora’s incitement of Tehran student protests via satellite broadcasts. Iran’s 2009 election crisis has important lessons for ambient journalism: always-on communication systems may create noise and spread rumours; ‘mirror-imaging’ of mental models may occur, when other participants have very different worldviews and ‘contexts of use’ for social network platforms; and the new kinds of interaction may not lead to effective intervention in crisis events. Hermida’s combination of news and non-news fragments is the perfect environment for psychological operations and strategic information warfare (Burns and Eltham). Lessons of Current Platforms for Ambient Journalism We have discussed some unresolved problems for ambient journalism as a framework for journalists, and as mental models for news and similar events. Hermida’s goal of an “awareness system” faces a further challenge: the phenomenological limitations of human consciousness to deal with information complexity and ambiguous situations, whether by becoming ‘entangled’ in abstract information or by developing new, unexpected uses for emergent technologies (Thackara; Thompson; Hofstadter 101-102, 186; Morville, Findability, 55, 57, 158). The recursive and reflective capacities of human consciousness imposes its own epistemological frames. It’s still unclear how Licklider’s human-computer interaction will shape consciousness, but Douglas Hofstadter’s experiments with art and video-based group experiments may be suggestive. Hofstadter observes: “the interpenetration of our worlds becomes so great that our worldviews start to fuse” (266). Current research into user experience and information design provides some validation of Hofstadter’s experience, such as how Google is now the ‘default’ search engine, and how its interface design shapes the user’s subjective experience of online search (Morville, Findability; Morville, Search Patterns). Several models of Hermida’s awareness system already exist that build on Hofstadter’s insight. Within the information systems field, on-going research into artificial intelligence–‘expert systems’ that can model expertise as algorithms and decision rules, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary computation–has attempted to achieve Hermida’s goal. What these systems share are mental models of cognition, learning and adaptiveness to new information, often with forecasting and prediction capabilities. Such systems work in journalism areas such as finance and sports that involve analytics, data-mining and statistics, and in related fields such as health informatics where there are clear, explicit guidelines on information and international standards. After a mid-1980s investment bubble (Leinweber 183-184) these systems now underpin the technology platforms of global finance and news intermediaries. Bloomberg LP’s ubiquitous dual-screen computers, proprietary network and data analytics (www.bloomberg.com), and its competitors such as Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com and www.reuters.com), illustrate how financial analysts and traders rely on an “awareness system” to navigate global stock-markets (Clifford and Creswell). For example, a Bloomberg subscriber can access real-time analytics from exchanges, markets, and from data vendors such as Dow Jones, NYSE Euronext and Thomson Reuters. They can use portfolio management tools to evaluate market information, to make allocation and trading decisions, to monitor ‘breaking’ news, and to integrate this information. Twitter is perhaps the para-journalist equivalent to how professional journalists and finance analysts rely on Bloomberg’s platform for real-time market and business information. Already, hedge funds like PhaseCapital are data-mining Twitter’s ‘tweets’ or messages for rumours, shifts in stock-market sentiment, and to analyse potential trading patterns (Pritchett and Palmer). The US-based Securities and Exchange Commission, and researchers like David Gelernter and Paul Tetlock, have also shown the benefits of applied data-mining for regulatory market supervision, in particular to uncover analysts who provide ‘whisper numbers’ to online message boards, and who have access to material, non-public information (Leinweber 60, 136, 144-145, 208, 219, 241-246). Hermida’s framework might be developed further for such regulatory supervision. Hermida’s awareness system may also benefit from the algorithms found in high-frequency trading (HFT) systems that Citadel Group, Goldman Sachs, Renaissance Technologies, and other quantitative financial institutions use. Rather than human traders, HFT uses co-located servers and complex algorithms, to make high-volume trades on stock-markets that take advantage of microsecond changes in prices (Duhigg). HFT capabilities are shrouded in secrecy, and became the focus of regulatory attention after several high-profile investigations of traders alleged to have stolen the software code (Bray and Bunge). One public example is Streambase (www.streambase.com), a ‘complex event processing’ (CEP) platform that can be used in HFT, and commercialised from the Project Aurora research collaboration between Brandeis University, Brown University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CEP and HFT may be the ‘killer apps’ of Hermida’s awareness system. Alternatively, they may confirm Jaron Lanier’s worst fears: your data-stream and user-generated content can be harvested by others–for their gain, and your loss! Conclusion: Brian Eno and Redefining ‘Ambient Journalism’ On the basis of the above discussion, I suggest a modified definition of Hermida’s thesis: ‘Ambient journalism’ is an emerging analytical framework for journalists, informed by cognitive, cybernetic, and information systems research. It ‘sensitises’ the individual journalist, whether professional or ‘para-professional’, to observe and to evaluate their immediate context. In doing so, ‘ambient journalism’, like journalism generally, emphasises ‘novel’ information. It can also inform the design of real-time platforms for journalistic sources and news delivery. Individual ‘ambient journalists’ can learn much from the career of musician and producer Brian Eno. His personal definition of ‘ambient’ is “an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint,” that relies on the co-evolution of the musician, creative horizons, and studio technology as a tool, just as para-journalists use Twitter as a platform (Sheppard 278; Eno 293-297). Like para-journalists, Eno claims to be a “self-educated but largely untrained” musician and yet also a craft-based producer (McFadzean; Tamm 177; 44-50). Perhaps Eno would frame the distinction between para-journalist and professional journalist as “axis thinking” (Eno 298, 302) which is needlessly polarised due to different normative theories, stances, and practices. Furthermore, I would argue that Eno’s worldview was shaped by similar influences to Licklider and Engelbart, who appear to have informed Hermida’s assumptions. These influences include the mathematician and game theorist John von Neumann and biologist Richard Dawkins (Eno 162); musicians Eric Satie, John Cage and his book Silence (Eno 19-22, 162; Sheppard 22, 36, 378-379); and the field of self-organising systems, in particular cyberneticist Stafford Beer (Eno 245; Tamm 86; Sheppard 224). Eno summed up the central lesson of this theoretical corpus during his collaborations with New York’s ‘No Wave’ scene in 1978, of “people experimenting with their lives” (Eno 253; Reynolds 146-147; Sheppard 290-295). Importantly, he developed a personal view of normative theories through practice-based research, on a range of projects, and with different creative and collaborative teams. Rather than a technological solution, Eno settled on a way to encode his craft and skills into a quasi-experimental, transmittable method—an aim of practitioner development in professional journalism. Even if only a “founding myth,” the story of Eno’s 1975 street accident with a taxi, and how he conceived ‘ambient music’ during his hospital stay, illustrates how ambient journalists might perceive something new in specific circumstances (Tamm 131; Sheppard 186-188). More tellingly, this background informed his collaboration with the late painter Peter Schmidt, to co-create the Oblique Strategies deck of aphorisms: aleatory, oracular messages that appeared dependent on chance, luck, and randomness, but that in fact were based on Eno and Schmidt’s creative philosophy and work guidelines (Tamm 77-78; Sheppard 178-179; Reynolds 170). In short, Eno was engaging with the kind of reflective practices that underpin exemplary professional journalism. He was able to encode this craft and skills into a quasi-experimental method, rather than a technological solution. Journalists and practitioners who adopt Hermida’s framework could learn much from the published accounts of Eno’s practice-based research, in the context of creative projects and collaborative teams. In particular, these detail the contexts and choices of Eno’s early ambient music recordings (Sheppard 199-200); Eno’s duels with David Bowie during ‘Sense of Doubt’ for the Heroes album (Tamm 158; Sheppard 254-255); troubled collaborations with Talking Heads and David Byrne (Reynolds 165-170; Sheppard; 338-347, 353); a curatorial, mentor role on U2’s The Unforgettable Fire (Sheppard 368-369); the ‘grand, stadium scale’ experiments of U2’s 1991-93 ZooTV tour (Sheppard 404); the Zorn-like games of Bowie’s Outside album (Eno 382-389); and the ‘generative’ artwork 77 Million Paintings (Eno 330-332; Tamm 133-135; Sheppard 278-279; Eno 435). Eno is clearly a highly flexible maker and producer. Developing such flexibility would ensure ambient journalism remains open to novelty as an analytical framework that may enhance the practitioner development and work of professional journalists and para-journalists alike.Acknowledgments The author thanks editor Luke Jaaniste, Alfred Hermida, and the two blind peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. References Bray, Chad, and Jacob Bunge. “Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted for Trade Secrets Theft.” The Wall Street Journal 12 Feb. 2010. 17 March 2010 ‹http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059660427173510.html›. Burns, Alex. “Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism.” M/C Journal 11.1 (2008). 17 March 2010 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/30›.———, and Barry Saunders. “Journalists as Investigators and ‘Quality Media’ Reputation.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 281-297. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15229/1/CPRF09BurnsSaunders.pdf›.———, and Ben Eltham. “Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation of Twitter’s Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran’s 2009 Election Crisis.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 298-310. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15230/1/CPRF09BurnsEltham.pdf›. Christians, Clifford G., Theodore Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert A. White. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Clifford, Stephanie, and Julie Creswell. “At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World.” The New York Times 14 Nov. 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/media/15bloom.html?ref=businessandpagewanted=all›.Cole, Peter, and Tony Harcup. Newspaper Journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010. Duhigg, Charles. “Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds.” The New York Times 23 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html?_r=2andref=business›. Engelbart, Douglas. “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, 1962.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 60-67. Eno, Brian. A Year with Swollen Appendices. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Garfinkel, Harold, and Anne Warfield Rawls. Toward a Sociological Theory of Information. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Hadlow, George D., and Kim S. Haddow. Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World, Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington MA, 2009. Hemmingway, Emma. Into the Newsroom: Exploring the Digital Production of Regional Television News. Milton Park: Routledge, 2008. Hermida, Alfred. “Twittering the News: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism.” Journalism Practice 4.3 (2010): 1-12. Hofstadter, Douglas. I Am a Strange Loop. New York: Perseus Books, 2007. Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. London: Allen Lane, 2010. Leinweber, David. Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines and Wired Markets. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Licklider, J.C.R. “Man-Machine Symbiosis, 1960.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era, London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 52-59. McFadzean, Elspeth. “What Can We Learn from Creative People? The Story of Brian Eno.” Management Decision 38.1 (2000): 51-56. Moeller, Susan. Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death. New York: Routledge, 1998. Morville, Peter. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2005. ———. Search Patterns. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2010.Pritchett, Eric, and Mark Palmer. ‘Following the Tweet Trail.’ CNBC 11 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.casttv.com/ext/ug0p08›. Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. London: Penguin Books, 2006. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Penguin Books, 2008. Sheppard, David. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno. London: Orion Books, 2008. Sunstein, Cass. On Rumours: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Tamm, Eric. Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Colour of Sound. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. Thackara, John. In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Boston, MA: The MIT Press, 1995. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Science of Mind. Boston, MA: Belknap Press, 2007.

Australia in Maps is a compilation of cartography taken from the collection of over 600,000 maps held at the Australian National Library. Included in this collection are military maps, coastal maps and modern-day maps for tourists. The map of the eastern coast of ‘New Holland’ drawn by James Cook when he ‘discovered’ Australia in 1770 is included. Also published is Eddie Koiki Mabo’s map drawn on a hole-punched piece of paper showing traditional land holdings in the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait. This map became a key document in Eddie Mabo’s fight for native title recognition, a fight which became the precursor to native title rights as they are known today. The inclusion of these two drawings in a collection of maps defining Australia as a country illustrates the dichotomies and contradictions which exist in a colonial nation. It is now fifteen years since the Native Title Act 1994 (Commonwealth) was developed in response to the Mabo cases in order to recognise Indigenous customary law and traditional relationships to the land over certain (restricted) parts of Australia. It is 220 years since the First Fleet arrived and Indigenous land was (and remains) illegally possessed through the process of colonisation (Moreton-Robinson Australia). Questions surrounding ‘country’ – who owns it, has rights to use it, to live on it, to develop or protect it – are still contested and contentious today. In part, this contention arises out of the radically different conceptions of ‘country’ held by, in its simplest sense, Indigenous nations and colonisers. For Indigenous Australians the land has a spiritual significance that I, as a non-Indigenous person, cannot properly understand as a result of the different ways in which relationships to land are made available. The ways of understanding the world through which my identity as a non-Indigenous person are made intelligible, by contrast, see ‘country’ as there to be ‘developed’ and exploited. Within colonial logic, discourses of development and the productive use of resources function as what Wetherell and Potter term “rhetorically self-sufficient” in that they are principles which are considered to be beyond question (177). As Vincent Tucker states; “The myth of development is elevated to the status of natural law, objective reality and evolutionary necessity. In the process all other world views are devalued and dismissed as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’, ‘irrational’ or ‘naïve’” (1). It was this precise way of thinking which was able to justify colonisation in the first place. Australia was seen as terra nullius; an empty and un-developed land not recognized as inhabited. Indigenous people were incorrectly perceived as individuals who did not use the land in an efficient manner, rather than as individual nations who engaged with the land in ways that were not intelligible to the colonial eye. This paper considers the tensions inherent in definitions of ‘country’ and the way these tensions are played out through native title claims as white, colonial Australia attempts to recognise (and limit) Indigenous rights to land. It examines such tensions as they appear in the media as an example of how native title issues are made intelligible to the non-Indigenous general public who may otherwise have little knowledge or experience of native title issues. It has been well-documented that the news media play an important role in further disseminating those discourses which dominate in a society, and therefore frequently supports the interests of those in positions of power (Fowler; Hall et. al.). As Stuart Hall argues, this means that the media often reproduces a conservative status quo which in many cases is simply reflective of the positions held by other powerful institutions in society, in this case government, and mining and other commercial interests. This has been found to be the case in past analysis of media coverage of native title, such as work completed by Meadows (which found that media coverage of native title issues focused largely on non-Indigenous perspectives) and Hartley and McKee (who found that media coverage of native title negotiations frequently focused on bureaucratic issues rather than the rights of Indigenous peoples to oppose ‘developments’ on their land). This paper aims to build on this work, and to map the way in which native title, an ongoing issue for many Indigenous groups, figures in a mainstream newspaper at a time when there has not been much mainstream public interest in the process. In order to do this, this paper considered articles which appeared in Australia’s only national newspaper – The Australian – over the six months preceding the start of July 2008. Several main themes ran through these articles, examples of which are provided in the relevant sections. These included: economic interests in native title issues, discourses of white ownership and control of the land, and rhetorical devices which reinforced the battle-like nature of native title negotiations rather than emphasised the rights of Indigenous Australians to their lands. Native Title: Some Definitions and Some Problems The concept of native title itself can be a difficult one to grasp and therefore a brief definition is called for here. According to the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) website (www.nntt.gov.au), native title is the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs. The native title rights and interests held by particular Indigenous people will depend on both their traditional laws and customs and what interests are held by others in the area concerned. Generally speaking, native title must give way to the rights held by others. Native title is therefore recognised as existing on the basis of certain laws and customs which have been maintained over an area of land despite the disruption caused by colonisation. As such, if native title is to be recognised over an area of country, Indigenous communities have to argue that their cultures and connection with the land have survived colonisation. As the Maori Land Court Chief Judge Joe Williams argues: In Australia the surviving title approach […] requires the Indigenous community to prove in a court or tribunal that colonisation caused them no material injury. This is necessary because, the greater the injury, the smaller the surviving bundle of rights. Communities who were forced off their land lose it. Those whose traditions and languages were beaten out of them at state sponsored mission schools lose all of the resources owned within the matrix of that language and those traditions. This is a perverse result. In reality, of course, colonisation was the greatest calamity in the history of these people on this land. Surviving title asks aboriginal people to pretend that it was not. To prove in court that colonisation caused them no material injury. Communities who were forced off their land are the same communities who are more likely to lose it. As found in previous research (Meadows), these inherent difficulties of the native title process were widely overlooked in recent media reports of native title issues published in The Australian. Due to recent suggestions made by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin for changes to be made to the native title system, The Australian did include reports on the need to ensure that traditional owners share the economic profits of the mining boom. This was seen in an article by Karvelas and Murphy entitled “Labor to Overhaul Native Title Law”. The article states that: Fifteen years after the passage of the historic Mabo legislation, the Rudd Government has flagged sweeping changes to native title to ensure the benefits of the mining boom flow to Aboriginal communities and are not locked up in trusts or frittered away. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, delivering the third annual Eddie Mabo Lecture in Townsville, said yesterday that native title legislation was too complex and had failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities, despite lucrative agreements with mining companies. (1) Whilst this passage appears supportive of Indigenous Australians in that it argues for their right to share in economic gains made through ‘developments’ on their country, the use of phrases such as ‘frittered away’ imply that Indigenous Australians have made poor use of their ‘lucrative agreements’, and therefore require further intervention in their lives in order to better manage their financial situations. Such an argument further implies that the fact that many remote Indigenous communities continue to live in poverty is the fault of Indigenous Australians’ mismanagement of funds from native title agreements rather than from governmental neglect, thereby locating the blame once more in the hands of Indigenous people rather than in a colonial system of dispossession and regulation. Whilst the extract does continue to state that native title legislation is too complex and has ‘failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities’, the article does not go on to consider other areas in which native title is failing Indigenous people, such as reporting the protection of sacred and ceremonial sites, and provisions for Indigenous peoples to be consulted about developments on their land to which they may be opposed. Whilst native title agreements with companies may contain provisions for these issues, it is rare that there is any regulation for whether or not these provisions are met after an agreement is made (Faircheallaigh). These issues almost never appeared in the media which instead focused on the economic benefits (or lack thereof) stemming from the land rather than the sovereign rights of traditional owners to their country. There are many other difficulties inherent in the native title legislation for Indigenous peoples. It is worth discussing some of these difficulties as they provide an image of the ways in which ‘country’ is conceived of at the intersection of a Western legal system attempting to encompass Indigenous relations to land. The first of these difficulties relates to the way in which Indigenous people are required to delineate the boundaries of the country which they are claiming. Applications for native title over an area of land require strict outlining of boundaries for land under consideration, in accordance with a Western system of mapping country. The creation of such boundaries requires Indigenous peoples to define their country in Western terms rather than Indigenous ones, and in many cases proves quite difficult as areas of traditional lands may be unavailable to claim (Neate). Such differences in understandings of country mean that “for Indigenous peoples, the recognition of their indigenous title, should it be afforded, may bear little resemblance to, or reflect minimally on, their own conceptualisation of their relations to country” (Glaskin 67). Instead, existing as it does within a Western legal system and subject to Western determinations, native title forces Indigenous people to define themselves and their land within white conceptions of country (Moreton-Robinson Possessive). In fact, the entire concept of native title has been criticized by many Indigenous commentators as a denial of Indigenous sovereignty over the land, with the result of the Mabo case meaning that “Indigenous people did not lose their native title rights but were stripped of their sovereign rights to manage their own affairs, to live according to their own laws, and to own and control the resources on their lands” (Falk and Martin 38). As such, Falk and Martin argue that The Native Title Act amounts to a complete denial of Aboriginal sovereignty so that Indigenous people are forced to live under a colonial regime which is able to control and regulate their lives and access to country. This is commented upon by Aileen Moreton-Robinson, who writes that: What Indigenous people have been given, by way of white benevolence, is a white-constructed from of ‘Indigenous’ proprietary rights that are not epistemologically and ontologically grounded in Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty. Indigenous land ownership, under these legislative regimes, amounts to little more than a mode of land tenure that enables a circumscribed form of autonomy and governance with minimum control and ownership of resources, on or below the ground, thus entrenching economic dependence on the nation state. (Moreton-Robinson Sovereign Subjects 4) The native title laws in place in Australia restrict Indigenous peoples to existing within white frameworks of knowledge. Within the space of The Native Title Act there is no room for recognition of Indigenous sovereignty whereby Indigenous peoples can make decisions for themselves and control their own lands (Falk and Martin). These tensions within definitions of ‘country’ and sovereignty over land were reflected in the media articles examined, primarily in terms of the way in which ‘country’ was related to and used. This was evident in an article entitled “An Economic Vision” with a tag-line “Native Title Reforms offer Communities a Fresh Start”: Central to such a success story is the determination of indigenous people to help themselves. Such a business-like, forward-thinking approach is also evident in Kimberley Land Council executive director Wayne Bergmann's negotiations with some of the world's biggest resource companies […] With at least 45 per cent of Kimberley land subject to native title, Mr Bergmann, a qualified lawyer, is acutely aware of the royalties and employment potential. Communities are also benefitting from the largesse of Australia’s richest man, miner Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, whose job training courses and other initiatives are designed to help the local people, in his words, become “wonderful participating Australians.” (15) Again, this article focuses on the economic benefits to be made from native title agreements with mining companies rather than other concerns with the use of Indigenous areas of country. The use of the quote from Forrest serves to imply that Indigenous peoples are not “wonderful participating Australians” unless they are able to contribute in an economic sense, and overlooks many contributions made by Indigenous peoples in other areas such as environmental protection. Such definitions also measure ‘success’ in Western terms rather than Indigenous ones and force Indigenous peoples into a relationship to country based on Western notions of resource extraction and profit rather than Indigenous notions of custodianship and sustainability. This construction of Indigenous economic involvement as only rendered valid on particular terms echoes findings from previous work on constructions of Indigenous people in the media, such as that by LeCouteur, Rapley and Augoustinos. Theorising ‘Country’ The examples provided above illustrate the fact that the rhetoric and dichotomies of ‘country’ are at the very heart of the native title process. The process of recognising Indigenous rights to land through native title invites the question of how ‘country’ is conceived in the first place. Goodall writes that there are tensions within definitions of ‘country’ which indicate the ongoing presence of Indigenous people’s connections to their land despite colonisation. She writes that the word ‘country’: may seem a self-evident description of rural economy and society, with associations of middle-class gentility as well as being the antonym of the city. Yet in Australia there is another dimension altogether. Aboriginal land-owners traditionally identify themselves by the name of the land for which they were the custodians. These lands are often called, in today’s Aboriginal English, their ‘country’. This gives the word a tense and resonating echo each time it is used to describe rural-settler society and land. (162) Yet the distinctions usually drawn between those defined as ‘country’ people or ‘locals’ and the traditional Indigenous people of the area suggest that, as Schlunke states, in many cases Indigenous people are “too local to be ‘local’” (43). In other words, if white belonging and rights to an area of country are to be normalised, the prior claims of traditional owners are not able to be considered. As such, Indigenous belonging becomes too confronting as it disrupts the ways in which other ‘country’ people relate to their land as legitimately theirs. In the media, constructions of ‘country’ frequently fell within a colonial definition of country which overlooked Indigenous peoples. In many of these articles land was normatively constructed as belonging to the crown or the state. This was evidenced in phrases such as, “The proceedings [of the Noongar native title claim over the South Western corner of Australia] have been watched closely by other states in the expectation they might encounter similar claims over their capital cities” (Buckley-Carr 2). Use of the word their implies that the states (which are divisions of land created by colonisation) have prior claim to ‘their’ capital cities and that they rightfully belong to the government rather than to traditional owners. Such definitions of ‘country’ reflect European rather than Indigenous notions of boundaries and possession. This is also reflected in media reports of native title in the widespread use of European names for areas of land and landmarks as opposed to their traditional Indigenous names. When the media reported on a native title claim over an area of land the European name for the country was used rather than, for example, the Indigenous name followed by a geographical description of where that land is situated. Customs such as this reflect a country which is still bound up in European definitions of land rather than Indigenous ones (Goodall 167; Schlunke 47-48), and also indicate that the media is reporting for a white audience rather than for an Indigenous one whom it would affect the most. Native title debates have also “shown the depth of belief within much of rural and regional Australia that rural space is most rightfully agricultural space” (Lockie 27). This construction of rural Australia is reflective of the broader national imagining of the country as a nation (Anderson), in which Australia is considered rich in resources from which to derive profit. Within these discourses the future of the nation is seen as lying in the ‘development’ of natural resources. As such, native title agreements with industry have often been depicted in the media as obstacles to be overcome by companies rather than a way of allowing Indigenous people control over their own lands. This often appears in the media in the form of metaphors of ‘war’ for agreements for use of Indigenous land, such as development being “frustrated” by native title (Bromby) and companies being “embattled” by native title issues (Wilson). Such metaphors illustrate the adversarial nature of native title claims both for recognition of the land in the first place and often in subsequent dealings with resource companies. This was also seen in reports of company progress which would include native title claims in a list of other factors affecting stock prices (such as weak drilling results and the price of metals), as if Indigenous claims to land were just another hurdle to profit-making (“Pilbara Lures”). Conclusion As far as the native title process is concerned, the answers to the questions considered at the start of this paper remain within Western definitions. Native title exists firmly within a Western system of law which requires Indigenous people to define and depict their land within non-Indigenous definitions and understandings of ‘country’. These debates are also frequently played out in the media in ways which reflect colonial values of using and harvesting country rather than Indigenous ones of protecting it. The media rarely consider the complexities of a system which requires Indigenous peoples to conceive of their land through boundaries and definitions not congruent with their own understandings. The issues surrounding native title draw attention to the need for alternative definitions of ‘country’ to enter the mainstream Australian consciousness. These need to encompass Indigenous understandings of ‘country’ and to acknowledge the violence of Australia’s colonial history. Similarly, the concept of native title needs to reflect Indigenous notions of country and allow traditional owners to define their land for themselves. In order to achieve these goals and overcome some of the obstacles to recognising Indigenous sovereignty over Australia the media needs to play a part in reorienting concepts of country from only those definitions which fit within a white framework of experiencing the world and prioritise Indigenous relations and experiences of country. If discourses of resource extraction were replaced with discourses of sustainability, if discourses of economic gains were replaced with respect for the land, and if discourses of white control over Indigenous lives in the form of native title reform were replaced with discourses of Indigenous sovereignty, then perhaps some ground could be made to creating an Australia which is not still in the process of colonising and denying the rights of its First Nations peoples. The tensions which exist in definitions and understandings of ‘country’ echo the tensions which exist in Australia’s historical narratives and memories. The denied knowledge of the violence of colonisation and the rights of Indigenous peoples to remain on their land all haunt a native title system which requires Indigenous Australians to minimise the effect this violence had on their lives, their families and communities and their values and customs. As Katrina Schlunke writes when she confronts the realisation that her family’s land could be the same land on which Indigenous people were massacred: “The irony of fears of losing one’s backyard to a Native Title claim are achingly rich. Isn’t something already lost to the idea of ‘Freehold Title’ when you live over unremembered graves? What is free? What are you to hold?” (151). If the rights of Indigenous Australians to their country are truly to be recognised, mainstream Australia needs to seriously consider such questions and whether or not the concept of ‘native title’ as it exists today is able to answer them. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Damien Riggs and Andrew Gorman-Murray for all their help and support with this paper, and Braden Schiller for his encouragement and help with proof-reading. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their insightful comments. References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983. “An Economic Vision.” The Australian 23 May 2008. Bromby, Robin. “Areva deal fails to lift Murchison.” The Australian 30 June 2008: 33. Buckley-Carr, Alana. “Ruling on Native Title Overturned.” The Australian 24 April 2008: 2. Faircheallaigh, Ciaran. “Native Title and Agreement Making in the Mining Industry: Focusing on Outcomes for Indigenous Peoples.” Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title 2, (2004). 20 June 2008 http://ntru.aiatsis.gov.au/ntpapers/ipv2n25.pdf Falk, Philip and Gary Martin. “Misconstruing Indigenous Sovereignty: Maintaining the Fabric of Australian Law.” Sovereign Subjects: Indigenous Sovereignty Matters. Ed. Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Allen and Unwin, 2007. 33-46. Fowler, Roger. Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge, 1991. Glaskin, Katie. “Native Title and the ‘Bundle of Rights’ Model: Implications for the Recognition of Aboriginal Relations to Country.” Anthropological Forum 13.1 (2003): 67-88. Goodall, Heather. “Telling Country: Memory, Modernity and Narratives in Rural Australia.” History Workshop Journal 47 (1999): 161-190. Hall, Stuart, Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the state, and Law and Order. London: Macmillan, 1978. Hartley, John, and Alan McKee. The Indigenous Public Sphere: The Reporting and Reception of Aboriginal Issues in the Australian Media. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Karvelas, Patricia and Padraic Murphy. “Labor to Overhaul Native Title Laws.” The Australian, 22 May 2008: 1. LeCouteur, Amanda, Mark Rapley and Martha Augoustinos. “This Very Difficult Debate about Wik: Stake, Voice and the Management of Category Membership in Race Politics.” British Journal of Social Psychology 40 (2001): 35-57. Lockie, Stewart. “Crisis and Conflict: Shifting Discourses of Rural and Regional Australia.” Land of Discontent: The Dynamics of Change in Rural and Regional Australia. Ed. Bill Pritchard and Phil McManus. Kensington: UNSW P, 2000. 14-32. Meadows, Michael. “Deals and Victories: Newspaper Coverage of Native Title in Australia and Canada.” Australian Journalism Review 22.1 (2000): 81-105. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “I still call Australia Home: Aboriginal Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonising Nation.” Uprooting/Regrounding: Questions of Home and Migration. Eds. S Ahmed et.al. Oxford: Berg, 2003. 23-40. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “The Possessive Logic of Patriarchal White Sovereignty: The High Court and the Yorta Yorta Decision.” Borderlands e-Journal 3.2 (2004). 20 June 2008. http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/moreton_possessive.htm Morteton-Robinson, Aileen. Ed. Sovereign Subjects: Indigenous Sovereignty Matters. Allen and Unwin, 2007. Neate, Graham. “Mapping Landscapes of the Mind: A Cadastral Conundrum in the Native Title Era.” Conference on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development, Melbourne, Australia (1999). 20 July 2008. http://www.sli.unimelb.edu.au/UNConf99/sessions/session5/neate.pdf O’Connor, Maura. Australia in Maps: Great Maps in Australia’s History from the National Library’s Collection. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2007. “Pilbara Lures Explorer with Promise of Metal Riches.” The Australian. 28 May 2008: Finance 2. Schlunke, Katrina. Bluff Rock: An Autobiography of a Massacre. Fremantle: Curtin U Books, 2005. “The National Native Title Tribunal.” Exactly What is Native Title? 29 July 2008. http://www.nntt.gov.au/What-Is-Native-Title/Pages/What-is-Native-Title.aspx The National Native Title Tribunal Fact Sheet. What is Native Title? 29 July 2008. http://www.nntt.gov.au Path; Publications-And-Research; Publications; Fact Sheets. Tucker, Vincent. “The Myth of Development: A Critique of Eurocentric Discourse.” Critical Development Theory: Contributions to a New Paradigm. Ed. Ronaldo Munck, Denis O'Hearn. Zed Books, 1999. 1-26. Wetherell, Margaret, and Jonathan Potter. Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Williams, Joe. “Confessions of a Native Title Judge: Reflections on the Role of Transitional Justice in the Transformation of Indigeneity.” Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title 3, (2008). 20 July 2008. http://ntru.aiatsis.gov.au/publications/issue_papers.html Wilson, Nigel. “Go with the Flow.” The Australian, 29 March 2008: 1.

Photo by Mehdi Imani on Unsplash ABSTRACT Non-Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations (NPOs/NGOs) often receive research funds from private for-profit corporations through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Harm industries such as tobacco and alcohol have utilized this opportunity to clear themselves of any blame in contributing to the disease burden, thus obscuring the real danger of their products. The association of public health institutions with such harmful industries has given rise to both financial and non-financial Conflicts of Interest (COIs). To resolve conflicts that arise out of this association, institutions have sought prohibition and full disclosure models. This article highlights the necessity to expand conflict of interest and include industries of implicit harm (fast fashion, mining, cosmetics, and sugary drinks) and not limit itself to just tobacco and alcohol. Simultaneously, the article underlines the hurdles in such an expansion. In conclusion, the article provides a hybrid model for conflict assessment that attempts to account for the limitations of a prohibition model as well as a full disclosure model. INTRODUCTION As public health research lacks funding, corporations fill a funding gap by allocating money to non-governmental organizations and non-profits.[1] However, the financial involvement of private corporations in public health research raises questions about conflicts of interest and research integrity.[2] Conflicts of interest must be a consideration in the philosophical framework that public health institutions ought to adopt. The recent focus on promoting a “socially conscious capitalistic environment” has led to the inception of corporate social responsibility[3] or an obligation of corporations to address social concerns their products or operations might bring about. Corporations engage in responsible actions to improve transparency and be more accountable for their actions.[4] Some corporations are motivated to be good corporate citizens through ethically profitable practices; they recognize a self-imposed obligation to use their resources to protect, and benefit society and they adhere to a social contract.[5] Corporate social responsibility has strong parallels with entrepreneurial philanthropy. By investing in research, that benefits the socio-economically disadvantaged, social responsibility initiatives further social goals.[6] There are two distinct problems with corporate social responsibility models: First, they attempt (but fail) to make up for a poor corporate endeavor like selling cigarettes. Some companies abuse their responsibilities and produce unhealthy goods or engage in practices that are contrary to social good. Furthermore, their philanthropic engagement may be ill-motivated. It enables them to access the socio-political domain, benefit from tax breaks, and profit directly from the “generosity” label without changing their core practices.[7] Second, corporate social responsibility leads to conflicts of interest in public research. Corporations fund public health research as a way to “act” responsible and to further a social goal.[8] Corporations that fund research at academic institutions, and non-profits pose financial conflicts of interest.[9] l. Conflict of Interest: Funding Effect and Ethical Engagement Arguably, tobacco and alcohol industries are in stark contrast to the goals of public health.[10] Their involvement in and contribution towards public health research may be motivated by a desire to improve their reputation. Harm industries engaging in public health research create a fundamental ethical tension.[11] Many scholars have defined conflict of interest in a variety of ways. In this article, we take the definition of conflict of interest as "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary or a competing interest" [12] Thus, a financial conflict of interest occurs when funding leads to the risk of compromising the research project that is financed by the corporation. "Funding Effect" was coined after a study showed significant differences in research outcomes of private and public-funded drug efficiency safety studies.[13] Private-industry-sponsored research produced commercially favorable outcomes in comparison to publicly sponsored studies.[14] Research sponsored by the tobacco industry had scientists produce biased data, often making the best case for industrial interests.[15] Receiving funds from for-profit corporations has also led to reduced dissemination of unfavorable results and under-reporting of negative findings.[16] There is not enough research to assess the value of corporate funding to those in academics.[17] Qualitative and quantitative empirical research may help shape best practices when engaging with private corporations. Corporate social responsibility creates an illusion of righteousness. Tobacco companies have funded public health research designed to influence tobacco control policies.[18] Corporations have used research to further the narrative that personal responsibility plays an outsized role in alcohol consumption, thereby ignoring the social determinants of addiction and programs that include alcohol supply reduction.[19] A similar narrative has pervaded the sugary drinks discussion.[20] While there are many considerations, there is no homogenous policy to help tackle conflicts of interest in public health research.[21] Academic journals mandate declaring financial conflicts of interest. [22] However, declarations should attempt to incorporate an institutional view of values and not restrict themselves to personal convictions. Rather than approaching each conflict of interest and using declarations, journals should evaluate conflicts of interest in terms of risk. Such an evaluation also would address embedded research practices that may appear ethical on the surface but represent unrecognized bias.[23] The Mohammed Ali effect is a good example of this phenomenon. Self-reporting of ethical research behavior by scientists is under representative of actual occurrences of misconduct simply because peers are held to different standards than self.[24] ll. The Prohibition Model – A Deontological Framework The prohibition model discards any research in association with industries that would create a conflict of interest.[25] Academic institutions or journals that prohibit research by industry limit the ability of harm industries to engage in philanthropic public health research that may reflect pro-industry bias. The non-association with harm industries draws from Kant’s categorical imperative. In From the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant[26] believes that moral behavior exists a priori. If we consider ethics a posteriori, we only deal with what we ‘already did,’ which is not the basis for a moral system. In a Kantian analysis, non-association with harm industries is the starting point of ethical behavior. Furthermore, in Metaphysics of Morals, Kant[27] outlines the motivations to act. He posits that ethical actions are motivated by duty and not by self-interest or immediate inclination. Thus, the prohibition model grounds itself in strong ethical imperatives. However, it would limit public health research funding. lll. The Disclosure Model: Conflicts of Interest are Inevitable The disclosure model claims that transparent disclosure procedures are enough to manage conflicts of interest. Often, a placating response to any concern is the disclosure of otherwise unavailable information.[28] Any disclosure should include enough information about the nature, scope, duration, and monetary forces within the for-profit organizational web to allow institutions to assess the risk to their own reputation of engaging in partnership or publishing research conducted by corporations.[29] In addition to transparency, disclosure allows for weighing risks and benefits by assessing proportionality. The proportionality principle requires that the benefits of the association or accepting funds from for-profits be great to justify the conflict of interest.[30] As a result of full disclosure, there is scope for increased accountability from private corporations and public health scholars to ensure that values are upheld throughout the association. However, disclosure is not always effective as it does not prevent or remedy a conflict of interest.[31] Disclosure rests on a presumption of wrongdoing and can deter prospective corporate engagement in public health research. However, the risk of deterring research participation is not a concern strong enough to loosen the values a public health institution must strive to achieve. Values such as transparency, proportionality, precautionary measures, and accountability make it easier to navigate disclosure requirements. Disclosure as a standalone method is not a foolproof technique.[32] Thus, a tailor-made model that can switch between the prohibition model and the disclosure model on a case-by-case basis might be more effective. Furthermore, academics need to ensure reasonable confidence that corporations would disclose financial conflicts of interest as the disclosure requirement often acts on an honor system. In case of non-compliance, either terminating the ties or establishing a legal recourse could be sought as alternatives. lV. The Case for Expanding the Definition of Conflicts of Interests Many industries are explicitly harmful to people. Tobacco and alcohol corporations engage in actions and create products that work against the ideals of public health. Industries like fast fashion, cosmetics, and many others that are seemingly harmless contribute significantly to the deterioration of public health through their treatment of workers, environmental impacts, and lobbying efforts that include relaxing laws meant to protect consumers and workers. The fashion industry produces large amounts of inexpensive clothing by outsourcing labor to lower- and middle-income countries,[33] creating environmental and occupational hazards for their citizens. Many countries lack institutional structures to prevent abuse of workers.[34] Fast fashion also leads to the production of solid waste that ends up in landfills with no efficient mechanism for its disposal.[35] The cosmetic industry releases a great number of micro-plastics into aquatic systems through face products which lead to a shift in their chemical composition.[36] The gambling industry harms health as gambling is addictive and can financially harm individuals, families, and interpersonal relationships.[37] The mining industry has occupational hazards such as inhaling of toxic substances as well as environmental hazards.[38] The sugary drink industry increases the burden of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.[39] A prohibition model works well with industries that explicitly harm. Thus, non-association with the tobacco and alcohol industry becomes obvious. The difficulty in deciphering conflict of interest through association arises when public health institutions are looking to expand their non-association to industries of implicit harm. When looking to expand non-association into industries such as mining, fast fashion, sugary drinks, etc., we need to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach. Disclosure is not enough as it does not resolve the risk of bias; it merely provides transparency. Yet, a prohibition model would require academic institutions and journals to research funding relationships as well as harmful practices and would lead to less funding for research. V. The Traffic Light Model: A tailor-made hybrid of prohibition and disclosure Academic institutions, non-profits, and public health organizations might shape market practices and unearth latent intentions to contradict the social determinants of health if they are able to eliminate bias in public health research. This section presents a hybrid model for conflict-of-interest assessment and resolution that takes the metaphor of a traffic light. Figure 1 represents a schematic of the hybrid. Figure 1: A Schematic of the Traffic Light Hybrid As the schematic represents, industries that project values against public health, such as tobacco and alcohol, fall under the red light and hence can be put under non-association, i.e., the prohibition model. Expanding non-association to industries implicit in their harms, such as fast fashion, sugary drinks, mining, companies that exploit labor, would require us to proceed with the disclosure model. As mentioned before, disclosure would require assessing the conflict of interest in terms of proportionality, transparency, accountability, and ensuring that the precautionary principle has been met. Providing a legal recourse at every significant point during research might be helpful to eliminate conflicts that surface during the intermediate stages of research. The entire disclosure model falls under the yellow light urging us to go slow and err on the side of caution. The green light comprises pro-public health values corporations and exercises impactful operational methods that do not devalue public health goals. However, this should not be taken for face value. Any suspicion of conflict must be dealt with disclosure, and risk-based assessment should precede every funding decision. The three categories serve as a starting point for public health researchers to invest more in building a framework that helps assess such conflicts. Conflicts of interest are rather dynamic and require constant attention. Examining research practices and funder objectives is crucial. The impact of private corporations on public health research needs to be widely discussed in the academic community. Although the hybrid provides a starting point in designing a more dynamic and flexible framework, the presence of an institutional conflict of interest policy and committee with independent review and oversight of research is also a necessity.[40] Considering decreased federal funding, scholars have argued the necessity for corporate funding. Besides meeting the financial demand, corporate funding has brought in benefits such as employment opportunities, access to otherwise unavailable tools and technology, and turning academic research into commercially viable practice.[41] Although the goals of public health research, such as the creation of public goods, affordable and safe housing, access to vaccines, etc., may seem utilitarian, it is important to understand that corporations influence research practices that are more deontological in nature. Research integrity has to do with ethical conduct of research and shaping best practices. Thus, an efficient way to deal with research practice and bias is by invoking the Kantian categorical imperative grounded in procedural ethics rather than consequentialist ethics. A Kantian perspective allows considering conflicts of interest as an institutional value. In addition to focusing on individual research practices, public health institutions need to develop an institutional conflict of interest framework where the values of a public health institution shape corporate engagement. Another closely related discourse that has a significant bearing on corporate involvement is commercial determinants of health. It considers corporations as contributors to disease burden and holds them as part of a structural problem.[42] By shaping research practices and investing in designing conflicts of interest policies, public health institutions can redefine the narrative of accountability. By actively evaluating financial links within the corporation and assessing risks of bias and influence in research, public health institutions can check the power imbalance that corporations tend to misuse.[43] More importantly, furthering a narrative that defines disease burden in terms of corporate contribution signals support to those who fight against the injustices perpetrated by large-scale corporations. People from lower- and middle-income countries and several indigenous communities have been forced out of their neighborhoods for corporate expansion.[44] As a public health institution, it is important to support vulnerable groups outpowered and forced into poor living conditions by global corporations. CONCLUSION The consumption of tobacco, alcohol, polluting motor vehicles, and other products of disease-promoting corporations have presented a significant struggle in improving public health. Engaging with such corporations through corporate social responsibility ventures into the highly contentious ethical territory. From a fundamental difference in the values endorsed, for-profit corporations present a conflict of interest in public health research. Public health institutions should be wary of the influence of corporate funding provided through social responsibility programs. Academic bias and the use of corporate social responsibility as a backdoor to legitimizing questionable practices are problematic. The prohibition and disclosure models independently do not perform efficiently against the dynamic nature of conflicts of interest. The hybrid model for institutional conflict-of-interest policy incorporates both the prohibition and disclosure models and allows for switching between them on a case-by-case basis. Managing corporate power requires dealing with conflict of interests broadly and as a risk-susceptibility issue rather than an occurrence issue. - [1] Denier, Y. (2008). Mind the gap! Three Approaches to Scarcity in Health Care. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 11(1), 73-87. [2] Gupta, A., Holla, R., & Suri, S. (2015). Conflict of Interest in Public Health: Should There be a Law to Prevent It? Indian J Med Ethics, 12(3), 172-7. [3] de Vries, H. (2016). Invited Commentary: Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Health: An Unwanted Marriage; Resnik, D. B. (2019). Institutional Conflicts of Interest in Academic Research. Science and Engineering Ethics, 25(6), 1661-1669. [4] Lee, K., & Bialous, S. A. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility: Serious Cause for Concern. Tobacco Control, 15(6), 419-419. [5] Macassa, G., da Cruz Francisco, J., & McGrath, C. (2017). Corporate social responsibility and population health. Health Science Journal, 11(5), 1-6. [6] Harvey, C., Gordon, J., & Maclean, M. (2021). The Ethics of Entrepreneurial Philanthropy. Journal of Business Ethics, 171(1), 33-49. [7] Harvey, C., Gordon, J., & Maclean, M. (2021). The Ethics of Entrepreneurial Philanthropy. Journal of Business Ethics, 171(1), 33-49. [8] Resnik, D. B. (2019). Institutional Conflicts of Interest in Academic Research. Science and Engineering Ethics, 25(6), 1661-1669. [9] Royo Bordonada, M., & García López, F. (2018). What Is and What Is Not a Conflict of Interest in Public Health Research. European Journal of Public Health, 28(suppl_4), cky213-750. [10] de Vries, H. (2016). Invited Commentary: Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Health: An Unwanted Marriage. [11] Lee, K., & Bialous, S. A. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility: Serious Cause for Concern. Tobacco Control, 15(6), 419-419. [12] Gupta, A., Holla, R., & Suri, S. (2015). Conflict of Interest In Public Health: Should There Be A Law To Prevent It?. Indian J Med Ethics, 12(3), 172-7. [13] Krimsky, S. (2013). Do Financial Conflicts of Interest Bias Research? An Inquiry into The “Funding Effect” Hypothesis. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 38(4), 566-587. [14] Ibid. [15] Ibid. [16] Nakkash, R. T., Mugharbil, S., Alaouié, H., & Afifi, R. A. (2017). Attitudes of Public Health Academics Toward Receiving Funds from For-Profit Corporations: A Systematic Review. Public Health Ethics, 10(3), 298-303. [17] Nakkash, R. T., Mugharbil, S., Alaouié, H., & Afifi, R. A. (2017). Attitudes of Public Health Academics Toward Receiving Funds From For-Profit Corporations: A Systematic Review. Public Health Ethics, 10(3), 298-303. (An attempt to review the research failed as there was not data on the “Attitudes of Public Health Academics towards receiving funds from for-profit corporations.”) [18] de Vries, H. (2016). Invited Commentary: Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Health: An Unwanted Marriage. [19] Yoon, S., & Lam, T. H. (2013). The illusion of Righteousness: Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Of The Alcohol Industry. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 1-11. [20] Gupta, A., Holla, R., & Suri, S. (2015). Conflict of interest in Public Health: Should There Be A Law To Prevent It?. Indian J Med Ethics, 12(3), 172-7. [21] Shamoo, A. S., & Resnik, D. B. (2015). Responsible Conduct of Research (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. [22] Resnik, D. B. (2019). Institutional Conflicts of Interest in Academic Research. Science And Engineering Ethics, 25(6), 1661-1669. [23] Field, M. J., & Lo, B. (Eds.). (2009). Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, And Practice. [24] Fanelli, D. (2009). How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Of Survey Data. PloS one, 4(5), e5738. [25] Field, M. J., & Lo, B. (Eds.). (2009). Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice. [26] Kant, I. (2008). Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Yale University Press. [27] Kant, I. (2008). Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Yale University Press. [28] Field, M. J., & Lo, B. (Eds.). (2009). Conflict of Interest In Medical Research, Education, And Practice. [29] IbId. [30] Childress, James F., R. Gaare Bernheim, R. J. Bonnie, and A. L. Melnick. "Introduction: A Framework For Public Health Ethics." Essentials Of Public Health Ethics 1 (2015): 1-20. [31] Fleishman, J. L. (1981). The Disclosure Model and Its Limitations. Hastings Center Report, 15-17. [32] Ibid. [33] Bick, R., Halsey, E., & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The Global Environmental Injustice of Fast Fashion. Environmental Health, 17(1), 1-4. [34] Anguelov, N. (2015). The Dirty Side of The Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society. CRC Press. [35] Wicker, A. Fast Fashion Is Creating an Environmental Crisis. Newsweek. September 1, 2016; Available from: https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/ 09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html. Accessed 13 Aug 2021 [36] Alabi, O. A., Ologbonjaye, K. I., Awosolu, O., & Alalade, O. E. (2019). Public and Environmental Health Effects of Plastic Wastes Disposal: A Review. J Toxicol Risk Assess, 5(021), 1-13. [37] Wardle, H., Reith, G., Langham, E., & Rogers, R. D. (2019). Gambling and Public Health: We Need Policy Action to Prevent Harm. BMJ, 365. [38] Hendryx, M. (2015). The Public Health Impacts of Surface Coal Mining. The Extractive Industries and Society, 2(4), 820-826. [39] Flynn, A., & Okuonzi, S. A. (2016). Coca-Cola's Multifaceted Threat to Global Public Health. The Lancet, 387(10013), 25. [40] Resnik, D. B. (2019). Institutional Conflicts of Interest in Academic Research. Science And Engineering Ethics, 25(6), 1661-1669. [41] Bayer, R., & Sampat, B. N. (2016). Corporate Funding for Schools of Public Health: Confronting the Ethical and Economic Challenges. American Journal of Public Health, 106(4), 615-618. [42] McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2018). Revisiting The Corporate and Commercial Determinants of Health. American Journal of Public Health, 108(9), 1167-1170. [43] Daube, M. (2018). Shining a Light on Industry Research Funding. American Journal of Public Health, 108(11), 1441. [44] Munarriz, G. (2008). Rhetoric and Reality: The World Bank Development Policies, Mining Corporations, and Indigenous Communities in Latin America. International Community Law Review, 10(4), 431-443.

According to Oscar Wilde, the problem with socialism was that it took up too many evenings. Wilde’s aphorism alludes to a major issue that bedevils all attempts to influence the public sphere: the fact that public activities encroach unduly on citizens’ valuable time. In the 21st century, the dilemma of how to deal with “too many evenings” is one that many citizen journalists face as they give their own time to public pursuits. This paper will look at the development of the public citizen and what it means to be a citizen journalist with reference to some of the writer’s own experiences in the field. The paper will conclude with an examination of future possibilities. While large media companies change their change their focus from traditional news values, citizen journalism can play a stronger role in public life as long as it grasps some of the opportunities that are available. There are substantial compensations available to citizen journalists for the problems presented by Wilde’s evenings. The quote from Wilde is borrowed from Albert Hirschman’s Shifting Involvements, which among other things, is an examination of the disappointments of public action. Hirschman noted how it was a common experience for beginners who engage in public action to find that takes up more time than expected (96). As public activity encroaches not only on time devoted to private consumption but also on to the time devoted to the production of income, it can become a costly pursuit which may cause a sharp reaction against the “practice of citizenship” (Hirschman 97). Yet the more stimuli about politics people receive, the greater the likelihood is they will participate in politics and the greater the depth of their participation (Milbrath & Goel 35). People with a positive attraction to politics are more likely to receive stimuli about politics and participate more (Milbrath & Goel 36). Active citizenship, it seems, has its own feedback loops. An active citizenry is not a new idea. The concepts of citizen and citizenship emerged from the sophisticated polity established in the Greek city states about 2,500 years ago. The status of a citizen signified that the individual had the right to full membership of, and participation in, an independent political society (Batrouney & Goldlust 24). In later eras that society could be defined as a kingdom, an empire, or a nation state. The conditions for a bourgeois public sphere were created in the 13th century as capitalists in European city states created a traffic in commodities and news (Habermas 15). A true public sphere emerged in the 17th century with the rise of the English coffee houses and French salons where people had the freedom to express opinions regardless of their social status (Habermas 36). In 1848, France held the first election under universal direct suffrage (for males) and the contemporary slogan was that “universal suffrage closes the era of revolutions” (Hirschman 113). Out of this heady optimism, the late 19th century ushered in the era of the “informed citizen” as voting changed from a social and public duty to a private right – a civic obligation enforceable only by private conscience (Schudson). These concepts live on in the modern idea that the model voter is considered to be a citizen vested with the ability to understand the consequences of his or her choice (Menand 1). The internet is a new knowledge space which offers an alternative reading of the citizen. In Pierre Lévy’s vision of cyberculture, identity is no longer a function of belonging, it is “distributed and nomadic” (Ross & Nightingale 149). The Internet has diffused widely and is increasingly central to everyday life as a place where people go to get information (Dutton 10). Journalism initially prospered on an information scarcity factor however the technology of the Internet has created an information rich society (Tapsall & Varley 18). But research suggests that online discussions do not promote consensus, are short-lived with little impact and end up turning into “dialogues of the deaf” (Nguyen 148). The easy online publishing environment is a fertile ground for rumours, hoaxes and cheating games to circulate which risk turning the public sphere into a chaotic and anarchic space (Nguyen 148). The stereotypical blogger is pejoratively dismissed as “pajama-clad” (Papandrea 516) connoting a sense of disrespect for the proper transmission of ideas. Nevertheless the Internet offers powerful tools for collaboration that is opening up many everyday institutions to greater social accountability (Dutton 3). Recent research by the 2007 Digital Futures project shows 65 percent of respondents consider the Internet “to be a very important or extremely important source of information” (Cowden 76). By 2006, Roy Morgan was reporting that three million Australians were visiting online news site each month (Cowden.76). Crikey.com.au, Australia’s first online-only news outlet, has become a significant independent player in the Australia mediascape claiming over 5,000 subscribers by 2005 with three times as many non-paying “squatters” reading its daily email (Devine 50). Online Opinion has a similar number of subscribers and was receiving 750,000 page views a month by 2005 (National Forum). Both Crikey.com.au and Online Opinion have made moves towards public journalism in an attempt to provide ordinary people access to the public sphere. As professional journalists lose their connection with the public, bloggers are able to fill the public journalism niche (Simons, Content Makers 208). At their best, blogs can offer a “more broad-based, democratic involvement of citizens in the issues that matter to them” (Bruns 7). The research of University of North Carolina journalism professor Philip Meyer showed that cities and towns with public journalism-oriented newspapers led to a better educated local public (Simons, Content Makers 211). Meyer’s idea of good public journalism has six defining elements: a) the need to define a community’s sense of itself b) devotion of time to issues that demand community attention c) devotion of depth to the issues d) more attention to the middle ground e) a preference for substance over tactics and f) encouraging reciprocal understanding (Meyer 1). The objective of public journalism is to foster a greater sense of connection between the community and the media. It can mean journalists using ordinary people as sources and also ordinary people acting as journalists. Jay Rosen proposed a new model based on journalism as conversation (Simons, Content Makers 209). He believes the technology has now overtaken the public journalism movement (Simons, Content Makers 213). His own experiments at pro-am Internet open at assignment.net have had mixed results. His conclusion was that it wasn’t easy for people working voluntarily on the Internet to report on big stories together nor had they “unlocked” the secret of successful pro-am methods (Rosen). Nevertheless, the people formerly known as the audience, as Rosen called them, have seized the agenda. The barriers to entry into journalism have disappeared. Blogging has made Web publishing easy and the social networks are even more user friendly. The problem today is not getting published but finding an audience. And as the audience fragments, the issue will become finding a niche. One such niche is local political activism. The 2007 Australian federal election saw many online sites actively promoting citizen journalism. Most prominent was Youdecide2007 at Queensland University of Technology, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with SBS, Online Opinion and the Brisbane Institute. Site co-editor Graham Young said the site’s aim was to use citizen journalists to report on their own electorates to fill the gap left by fewer journalists on the ground, especially in less populated areas (Young). While the site’s stated aim was to provide a forum for a seat-by-seat coverage and provide “a new perspective on national politics” (Youdecide2007), the end result was significantly skewed by the fact that the professional editorial team was based in Brisbane. Youdecide2007 published 96 articles in its news archive of which 59 could be identified as having a state-based focus. Figure 1 shows 62.7% of these state-based stories were about Queensland. Figure 1: Youdecide2007 news stories identifiable by state (note: national stories are omitted from this table): State Total no. of stories %age Qld 37 62.7 NSW 8 13.6 Vic 6 10.2 WA 3 5.1 Tas 2 3.4 ACT 2 3.4 SA 1 1.6 Modern election campaigns are characterised by a complex and increasingly fragmented news environment and the new media are rapidly adding another layer of complexity to the mix (Norris et al. 11-12). The slick management of national campaigns are is counter-productive to useful citizen journalism. According to Matthew Clayfield from the citizen journalism site electionTracker.net, “there are very few open events which ordinary people could cover in a way that could be described as citizen journalism” (qtd. in Hills 2007). Similar to other systems, the Australian campaign communication empowers the political leaders and media owners at the expense of ordinary party members and citizens (Warhurst 135). However the slick modern national “on message” campaign has not totally replaced old-style local activity. Although the national campaign has superimposed upon the local one and displaced it from the focus of attention, local candidates must still communicate their party policies in the electorate (Warhurst 113). Citizen journalists are ideally placed to harness this local communication. A grassroots approach is encapsulated in the words of Dan Gillmor who said “every reporter should realise that, collectively, the readers know more than they do about what they write about” (qtd. in Quinn & Quinn-Allan 66). With this in mind, I set out my own stall in citizen journalism for the 2007 Australian federal election with two personal goals: to interview all my local federal Lower House candidates and to attend as many public election meetings as possible. As a result, I wrote 19 election articles in the two months prior to the election. This consisted of 9 news items, 6 candidate interviews and 4 reports of public meetings. All the local candidates except one agreed to be interviewed. The local Liberal candidate refused to be interviewed despite repeated requests. There was no reason offered, just a continual ignoring of requests. Liberal candidates were also noticeably absent from most candidate forums I attended. This pattern of non-communicative behaviour was observed elsewhere (Bartlett, Wilson). I tried to turn this to my advantage by turning their refusal to talk into a story itself. For those that were prepared to talk, I set the expectation that the entire interview would be on the record and would be edited and published on my blog site. As a result, all candidates asked for a list of questions in advance which I supplied. Because politicians devote considerable energy and financial resources to ensure the information they impart to citizens has an appropriate ‘spin’ on it, (Negrine 10) I reserved the right to ask follow-up questions on any of their answers that required clarification. For the interviews themselves, I followed the advice of Spradley’s principle by starting with a conscious attitude of near-total ignorance, not writing the story in advance, and attempting to be descriptive, incisive, investigative and critical (Alia 100). After I posted the results of the interview, I sent a link to each of the respondents offering them a chance to clarify or correct any inaccuracies in the interview statements. Defamation skirts the boundary between free speech and reputation (Pearson 159) and a good working knowledge of the way defamation law affects journalists (citizen or otherwise) is crucial, particularly in dealing with public figures. This was an important consideration for some of the lesser known candidates as Google searches on their names brought my articles up within the top 20 results for each of the Democrat, Green and Liberal Democratic Party candidates I interviewed. None of the public meetings I attended were covered in the mainstream media. These meetings are the type of news Jan Schaffer of University of Maryland’s J-Lab saw as an ecological niche for citizen journalists to “create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of news organisations who don’t have the resources” (Schaffer in Glaser). As Mark Bahnisch points out, Brisbane had three daily newspapers and a daily state based 7.30 Report twenty years ago which contrasts with the situation now where there’s no effective state parliamentary press gallery and little coverage of local politics at all (“State of Political Blogging”). Brisbane’s situation is not unique and the gaps are there to be exploited by new players. While the high cost of market entry renders the “central square” of the public sphere inaccessible to new players (Curran 128) the ease of Web access has given the citizen journalists the chance to roam its back alleys. However even if they fill the voids left by departing news organisations, there will still be a large hole in the mediascape. No one will be doing the hardhitting investigative journalism. This gritty work requires great resources and often years of time. The final product of investigative journalism is often complicated to read, unentertaining and inconclusive (Bower in Negrine 13). Margaret Simons says that journalism is a skill that involves the ability to find things out. She says the challenge of the future will be to marry the strengths of the newsroom and the dirty work of investigative journalism with the power of the conversation of blogs (“Politics and the Internet”). One possibility is raised by the Danish project Scoop. They offer financial support to individual journalists who have good ideas for investigative journalism. Founded by the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism and funded by the Danish Foreign Ministry, Scoop supports media projects across the world with the only proviso being that a journalist has to have an agreement with an editor to publish the resulting story (ABC Media Report). But even without financial support, citizens have the ability to perform rudimentary investigative journalism. The primary tool of investigative journalism is the interview (McIlwane & Bowman 260). While an interview can be arranged by anyone with access to a telephone or e-mail, it should not be underestimated how difficult a skill interviewing is. According to American journalist John Brady, the science of journalistic interviewing aims to gain two things, trust and information (Brady in White 75). In the interviews I did with politicians during the federal election, I found that getting past the “spin” of the party line to get genuine information was the toughest part of the task. There is also a considerable amount of information in the public domain which is rarely explored by reporters (Negrine 23). Knowing how to make use of this information will become a critical success factor for citizen journalists. Corporate journalists use databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Factiva to gain background information, a facility unavailable to most citizen journalists unless they are either have access through a learning institution or are prepared to pay a premium for the information. While large corporate vendors supply highly specialised information, amateurs can play a greater role in the creation and transmission of local news. According to G. Stuart Adam, journalism contains four basic elements: reporting, judging, a public voice and the here and now (13). Citizen journalism is capable of meeting all four criteria. The likelihood is that the future of communications will belong to the centralised corporations on one hand and the unsupervised amateur on the other (Bird 36). Whether the motive to continue is payment or empowerment, the challenge for citizen journalists is to advance beyond the initial success of tactical actions towards the establishment as a serious political and media alternative (Bruns 19). Nguyen et al.’s uses and gratification research project suggests there is a still a long way to go in Australia. While they found widespread diffusion of online news, the vast majority of users (78%) were still getting their news from newspaper Websites (Nguyen et al. 13). The research corroborates Mark Bahnisch’s view that “most Australians have not heard of blogs and only a tiny minority reads them (quoted in Simons, Content Makers 219). The Australian blogosphere still waits for its defining Swiftboat incident or Rathergate to announce its arrival. But Bahnisch doesn’t necessarily believe this is a good evolutionary strategy anyway. Here it is becoming more a conversation than a platform “with its own niche and its own value” (Bahnisch, “This Is Not America”). As far as my own experiments go, the citizen journalism reports I wrote gave me no financial reward but plenty of other compensations that made the experience richly rewarding. It was important to bring otherwise neglected ideas, stories and personalities into the public domain and the reports helped me make valuable connections with public-minded members of my local community. They were also useful practice to hone interview techniques and political writing skills. Finally the exercise raised my own public profile as several of my entries were picked up or hyperlinked by other citizen journalism sites and blogs. Some day, and probably soon, a model will be worked out which will make citizen journalism a worthwhile economic endeavour. In the meantime, we rely on active citizens of the blogosphere to give their evenings freely for the betterment of the public sphere. References ABC Media Report. “Scoop.” 2008. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2151204.htm#transcript>. Adam, G. Notes towards a Definition of Journalism: Understanding an Old Craft as an Art Form. St Petersburg, Fl.: Poynter Institute, 1993. Alia, V. “The Rashomon Principle: The Journalist as Ethnographer.” In V. Alia, B. Brennan, and B. Hoffmaster (eds.), Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1996. Bahnisch, M. “This Is Not America.” newmatilda.com 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/10/04/not-america>. Bahnisch, M. “The State of Political Blogging.” Larvatus Prodeo 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/30/the-state-of-political-blogging/>. Bartlett, A. “Leaders Debate.” The Bartlett Diaries 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1767>. Batrouney, T., and J. Goldlust. Unravelling Identity: Immigrants, Identity and Citizenship in Australia. Melbourne: Common Ground, 2005. Bird, R. “News in the Global Village.” The End of the News. Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 2005. Bruns, A. “News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism.” In K. Prasad (ed.), E-Journalism: New Directions in Electronic News Media. New Delhi: BR Publishing, 2008. 2 Feb. 2008 http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf>. Cowden, G. “Online News: Patterns, Participation and Personalisation.” Australian Journalism Review 29.1 (July 2007). Curran, J. “Rethinking Media and Democracy.” In J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds.), Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. London: Arnold, 2000. Devine, F. “Curse of the Blog.” Quadrant 49.3 (Mar. 2005). Dutton, W. Through the Network (of Networks) – The Fifth Estate. Oxford Internet Institute, 2007. 6 April 2007 http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ 5th-estate-lecture-text.pdf>. Glaser, M. “The New Voices: Hyperlocal Citizen’s Media Sites Want You (to Write!).” Online Journalism Review 2004. 16 Feb. 2008 http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1098833871.php>. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989 [1962]. Hills, R. “Citizen Journos Turning Inwards.” The Age 18 Nov. 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/citizen-journos- turning-inwards/2007/11/17/1194767024688.html>. Hirschman, A, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982. Hunter, C. “The Internet and the Public Sphere: Revitalization or Decay?” Virginia Journal of Communication 12 (2000): 93-127. Killenberg, G., and R. Dardenne. “Instruction in News Reporting as Community Focused Journalism.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 52.1 (Spring 1997). McIlwane, S., and L. Bowman. “Interviewing Techniques.” In S. Tanner (ed.), Journalism: Investigation and Research. Sydney: Longman, 2002. Menand, L. “The Unpolitical Animal: How Political Science Understands Voters.” The New Yorker 30 Aug. 2004. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge>. Meyer, P. Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity. 1995. 16 Feb. 2008 http://www.unc.edu/%7Epmeyer/ire95pj.htm>. Milbrath, L., and M. Goel. Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? Chicago: Rand McNally M, 1975. National Forum. “Annual Report 2005.” 6 April 2008 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/documents/reports/ annual_report_to_agm_2005.pdf>. Negrine, R. The Communication of Politics. London: Sage, 1996. Nguyen, A. “Journalism in the Wake of Participatory Publishing.” Australian Journalism Review 28.1 (July 2006). Nguyen, A., E. Ferrier, M. Western, and S. McKay. “Online News in Australia: Patterns of Use and Gratification.” Australian Studies in Journalism 15 (2005). Norris, P., J. Curtice, D. Sanders, M. Scammell, and H. Setemko. On Message: Communicating the Campaign. London: Sage, 1999. Papandrea, M. “Citizen Journalism and the Reporter’s Privilege.” Minnesota Law Review 91 (2007). Pearson, M. The Journalist’s Guide to Media Law. 2nd ed. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2004. Quinn, S., and D. Quinn-Allan. “User-Generated Content and the Changing News Cycle.” Australian Journalism Review 28.1 (July 2006). Rosen, J. “Assignment Zero: Can Crowds Create Fiction, Architecture and Photography?” Wired 2007. 6 April 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_zero_all>. Ross, K., and V. Nightingale. Media Audiences: New Perspectives. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open UP, 2003. Schaffer, J. “Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point.” Nieman Reports 59.4 (Winter 2005). Schudson, M. Good Citizens and Bad History: Today’s Political Ideals in Historical Perspective. 1999. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.mtsu.edu/~seig/paper_m_schudson.html>. Simons, M. The Content Makers. Melbourne: Penguin, 2007. Simons, M. “Politics and the Internet.” Keynote speech at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, 14 Sep. 2007. Tapsall, S., and C. Varley (eds.). Journalism: Theory in Practice. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2001. Warhurst, J. “Campaign Communications in Australia.” In F. Fletcher (ed.), Media, Elections and Democracy, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991. White, S. Reporting in Australia. 2nd ed. Melbourne: MacMillan, 2005. Wilson, J. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Electorate.” Youdecide2007 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.youdecide2007.org/content/view/283/101/>. Young, G. “Citizen Journalism.” Presentation at the Australian Blogging Conference, 28 Sep. 2007. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Barry, Derek. "Wilde’s Evenings: The Rewards of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/09-barry.php>. APA Style Barry, D. (Apr. 2008) "Wilde’s Evenings: The Rewards of Citizen Journalism," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/09-barry.php>.

According to Oscar Wilde, the problem with socialism was that it took up too many evenings. Wilde’s aphorism alludes to a major issue that bedevils all attempts to influence the public sphere: the fact that public activities encroach unduly on citizens’ valuable time. In the 21st century, the dilemma of how to deal with “too many evenings” is one that many citizen journalists face as they give their own time to public pursuits. This paper will look at the development of the public citizen and what it means to be a citizen journalist with reference to some of the writer’s own experiences in the field. The paper will conclude with an examination of future possibilities. While large media companies change their change their focus from traditional news values, citizen journalism can play a stronger role in public life as long as it grasps some of the opportunities that are available. There are substantial compensations available to citizen journalists for the problems presented by Wilde’s evenings. The quote from Wilde is borrowed from Albert Hirschman’s Shifting Involvements, which among other things, is an examination of the disappointments of public action. Hirschman noted how it was a common experience for beginners who engage in public action to find that takes up more time than expected (96). As public activity encroaches not only on time devoted to private consumption but also on to the time devoted to the production of income, it can become a costly pursuit which may cause a sharp reaction against the “practice of citizenship” (Hirschman 97). Yet the more stimuli about politics people receive, the greater the likelihood is they will participate in politics and the greater the depth of their participation (Milbrath & Goel 35). People with a positive attraction to politics are more likely to receive stimuli about politics and participate more (Milbrath & Goel 36). Active citizenship, it seems, has its own feedback loops. An active citizenry is not a new idea. The concepts of citizen and citizenship emerged from the sophisticated polity established in the Greek city states about 2,500 years ago. The status of a citizen signified that the individual had the right to full membership of, and participation in, an independent political society (Batrouney & Goldlust 24). In later eras that society could be defined as a kingdom, an empire, or a nation state. The conditions for a bourgeois public sphere were created in the 13th century as capitalists in European city states created a traffic in commodities and news (Habermas 15). A true public sphere emerged in the 17th century with the rise of the English coffee houses and French salons where people had the freedom to express opinions regardless of their social status (Habermas 36). In 1848, France held the first election under universal direct suffrage (for males) and the contemporary slogan was that “universal suffrage closes the era of revolutions” (Hirschman 113). Out of this heady optimism, the late 19th century ushered in the era of the “informed citizen” as voting changed from a social and public duty to a private right – a civic obligation enforceable only by private conscience (Schudson). These concepts live on in the modern idea that the model voter is considered to be a citizen vested with the ability to understand the consequences of his or her choice (Menand 1). The internet is a new knowledge space which offers an alternative reading of the citizen. In Pierre Lévy’s vision of cyberculture, identity is no longer a function of belonging, it is “distributed and nomadic” (Ross & Nightingale 149). The Internet has diffused widely and is increasingly central to everyday life as a place where people go to get information (Dutton 10). Journalism initially prospered on an information scarcity factor however the technology of the Internet has created an information rich society (Tapsall & Varley 18). But research suggests that online discussions do not promote consensus, are short-lived with little impact and end up turning into “dialogues of the deaf” (Nguyen 148). The easy online publishing environment is a fertile ground for rumours, hoaxes and cheating games to circulate which risk turning the public sphere into a chaotic and anarchic space (Nguyen 148). The stereotypical blogger is pejoratively dismissed as “pajama-clad” (Papandrea 516) connoting a sense of disrespect for the proper transmission of ideas. Nevertheless the Internet offers powerful tools for collaboration that is opening up many everyday institutions to greater social accountability (Dutton 3). Recent research by the 2007 Digital Futures project shows 65 percent of respondents consider the Internet “to be a very important or extremely important source of information” (Cowden 76). By 2006, Roy Morgan was reporting that three million Australians were visiting online news site each month (Cowden.76). Crikey.com.au, Australia’s first online-only news outlet, has become a significant independent player in the Australia mediascape claiming over 5,000 subscribers by 2005 with three times as many non-paying “squatters” reading its daily email (Devine 50). Online Opinion has a similar number of subscribers and was receiving 750,000 page views a month by 2005 (National Forum). Both Crikey.com.au and Online Opinion have made moves towards public journalism in an attempt to provide ordinary people access to the public sphere. As professional journalists lose their connection with the public, bloggers are able to fill the public journalism niche (Simons, Content Makers 208). At their best, blogs can offer a “more broad-based, democratic involvement of citizens in the issues that matter to them” (Bruns 7). The research of University of North Carolina journalism professor Philip Meyer showed that cities and towns with public journalism-oriented newspapers led to a better educated local public (Simons, Content Makers 211). Meyer’s idea of good public journalism has six defining elements: a) the need to define a community’s sense of itself b) devotion of time to issues that demand community attention c) devotion of depth to the issues d) more attention to the middle ground e) a preference for substance over tactics and f) encouraging reciprocal understanding (Meyer 1). The objective of public journalism is to foster a greater sense of connection between the community and the media. It can mean journalists using ordinary people as sources and also ordinary people acting as journalists. Jay Rosen proposed a new model based on journalism as conversation (Simons, Content Makers 209). He believes the technology has now overtaken the public journalism movement (Simons, Content Makers 213). His own experiments at pro-am Internet open at assignment.net have had mixed results. His conclusion was that it wasn’t easy for people working voluntarily on the Internet to report on big stories together nor had they “unlocked” the secret of successful pro-am methods (Rosen). Nevertheless, the people formerly known as the audience, as Rosen called them, have seized the agenda. The barriers to entry into journalism have disappeared. Blogging has made Web publishing easy and the social networks are even more user friendly. The problem today is not getting published but finding an audience. And as the audience fragments, the issue will become finding a niche. One such niche is local political activism. The 2007 Australian federal election saw many online sites actively promoting citizen journalism. Most prominent was Youdecide2007 at Queensland University of Technology, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with SBS, Online Opinion and the Brisbane Institute. Site co-editor Graham Young said the site’s aim was to use citizen journalists to report on their own electorates to fill the gap left by fewer journalists on the ground, especially in less populated areas (Young). While the site’s stated aim was to provide a forum for a seat-by-seat coverage and provide “a new perspective on national politics” (Youdecide2007), the end result was significantly skewed by the fact that the professional editorial team was based in Brisbane. Youdecide2007 published 96 articles in its news archive of which 59 could be identified as having a state-based focus. Figure 1 shows 62.7% of these state-based stories were about Queensland. Figure 1: Youdecide2007 news stories identifiable by state (note: national stories are omitted from this table): State Total no. of stories %age Qld 37 62.7 NSW 8 13.6 Vic 6 10.2 WA 3 5.1 Tas 2 3.4 ACT 2 3.4 SA 1 1.6 Modern election campaigns are characterised by a complex and increasingly fragmented news environment and the new media are rapidly adding another layer of complexity to the mix (Norris et al. 11-12). The slick management of national campaigns are is counter-productive to useful citizen journalism. According to Matthew Clayfield from the citizen journalism site electionTracker.net, “there are very few open events which ordinary people could cover in a way that could be described as citizen journalism” (qtd. in Hills 2007). Similar to other systems, the Australian campaign communication empowers the political leaders and media owners at the expense of ordinary party members and citizens (Warhurst 135). However the slick modern national “on message” campaign has not totally replaced old-style local activity. Although the national campaign has superimposed upon the local one and displaced it from the focus of attention, local candidates must still communicate their party policies in the electorate (Warhurst 113). Citizen journalists are ideally placed to harness this local communication. A grassroots approach is encapsulated in the words of Dan Gillmor who said “every reporter should realise that, collectively, the readers know more than they do about what they write about” (qtd. in Quinn & Quinn-Allan 66). With this in mind, I set out my own stall in citizen journalism for the 2007 Australian federal election with two personal goals: to interview all my local federal Lower House candidates and to attend as many public election meetings as possible. As a result, I wrote 19 election articles in the two months prior to the election. This consisted of 9 news items, 6 candidate interviews and 4 reports of public meetings. All the local candidates except one agreed to be interviewed. The local Liberal candidate refused to be interviewed despite repeated requests. There was no reason offered, just a continual ignoring of requests. Liberal candidates were also noticeably absent from most candidate forums I attended. This pattern of non-communicative behaviour was observed elsewhere (Bartlett, Wilson). I tried to turn this to my advantage by turning their refusal to talk into a story itself. For those that were prepared to talk, I set the expectation that the entire interview would be on the record and would be edited and published on my blog site. As a result, all candidates asked for a list of questions in advance which I supplied. Because politicians devote considerable energy and financial resources to ensure the information they impart to citizens has an appropriate ‘spin’ on it, (Negrine 10) I reserved the right to ask follow-up questions on any of their answers that required clarification. For the interviews themselves, I followed the advice of Spradley’s principle by starting with a conscious attitude of near-total ignorance, not writing the story in advance, and attempting to be descriptive, incisive, investigative and critical (Alia 100). After I posted the results of the interview, I sent a link to each of the respondents offering them a chance to clarify or correct any inaccuracies in the interview statements. Defamation skirts the boundary between free speech and reputation (Pearson 159) and a good working knowledge of the way defamation law affects journalists (citizen or otherwise) is crucial, particularly in dealing with public figures. This was an important consideration for some of the lesser known candidates as Google searches on their names brought my articles up within the top 20 results for each of the Democrat, Green and Liberal Democratic Party candidates I interviewed. None of the public meetings I attended were covered in the mainstream media. These meetings are the type of news Jan Schaffer of University of Maryland’s J-Lab saw as an ecological niche for citizen journalists to “create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of news organisations who don’t have the resources” (Schaffer in Glaser). As Mark Bahnisch points out, Brisbane had three daily newspapers and a daily state based 7.30 Report twenty years ago which contrasts with the situation now where there’s no effective state parliamentary press gallery and little coverage of local politics at all (“State of Political Blogging”). Brisbane’s situation is not unique and the gaps are there to be exploited by new players. While the high cost of market entry renders the “central square” of the public sphere inaccessible to new players (Curran 128) the ease of Web access has given the citizen journalists the chance to roam its back alleys. However even if they fill the voids left by departing news organisations, there will still be a large hole in the mediascape. No one will be doing the hardhitting investigative journalism. This gritty work requires great resources and often years of time. The final product of investigative journalism is often complicated to read, unentertaining and inconclusive (Bower in Negrine 13). Margaret Simons says that journalism is a skill that involves the ability to find things out. She says the challenge of the future will be to marry the strengths of the newsroom and the dirty work of investigative journalism with the power of the conversation of blogs (“Politics and the Internet”). One possibility is raised by the Danish project Scoop. They offer financial support to individual journalists who have good ideas for investigative journalism. Founded by the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism and funded by the Danish Foreign Ministry, Scoop supports media projects across the world with the only proviso being that a journalist has to have an agreement with an editor to publish the resulting story (ABC Media Report). But even without financial support, citizens have the ability to perform rudimentary investigative journalism. The primary tool of investigative journalism is the interview (McIlwane & Bowman 260). While an interview can be arranged by anyone with access to a telephone or e-mail, it should not be underestimated how difficult a skill interviewing is. According to American journalist John Brady, the science of journalistic interviewing aims to gain two things, trust and information (Brady in White 75). In the interviews I did with politicians during the federal election, I found that getting past the “spin” of the party line to get genuine information was the toughest part of the task. There is also a considerable amount of information in the public domain which is rarely explored by reporters (Negrine 23). Knowing how to make use of this information will become a critical success factor for citizen journalists. Corporate journalists use databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Factiva to gain background information, a facility unavailable to most citizen journalists unless they are either have access through a learning institution or are prepared to pay a premium for the information. While large corporate vendors supply highly specialised information, amateurs can play a greater role in the creation and transmission of local news. According to G. Stuart Adam, journalism contains four basic elements: reporting, judging, a public voice and the here and now (13). Citizen journalism is capable of meeting all four criteria. The likelihood is that the future of communications will belong to the centralised corporations on one hand and the unsupervised amateur on the other (Bird 36). Whether the motive to continue is payment or empowerment, the challenge for citizen journalists is to advance beyond the initial success of tactical actions towards the establishment as a serious political and media alternative (Bruns 19). Nguyen et al.’s uses and gratification research project suggests there is a still a long way to go in Australia. While they found widespread diffusion of online news, the vast majority of users (78%) were still getting their news from newspaper Websites (Nguyen et al. 13). The research corroborates Mark Bahnisch’s view that “most Australians have not heard of blogs and only a tiny minority reads them (quoted in Simons, Content Makers 219). The Australian blogosphere still waits for its defining Swiftboat incident or Rathergate to announce its arrival. But Bahnisch doesn’t necessarily believe this is a good evolutionary strategy anyway. Here it is becoming more a conversation than a platform “with its own niche and its own value” (Bahnisch, “This Is Not America”). As far as my own experiments go, the citizen journalism reports I wrote gave me no financial reward but plenty of other compensations that made the experience richly rewarding. It was important to bring otherwise neglected ideas, stories and personalities into the public domain and the reports helped me make valuable connections with public-minded members of my local community. They were also useful practice to hone interview techniques and political writing skills. Finally the exercise raised my own public profile as several of my entries were picked up or hyperlinked by other citizen journalism sites and blogs. Some day, and probably soon, a model will be worked out which will make citizen journalism a worthwhile economic endeavour. In the meantime, we rely on active citizens of the blogosphere to give their evenings freely for the betterment of the public sphere. References ABC Media Report. “Scoop.” 2008. 17 Feb. 2008 < http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2151204.htm#transcript >. Adam, G. Notes towards a Definition of Journalism: Understanding an Old Craft as an Art Form. St Petersburg, Fl.: Poynter Institute, 1993. Alia, V. “The Rashomon Principle: The Journalist as Ethnographer.” In V. Alia, B. Brennan, and B. Hoffmaster (eds.), Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1996. Bahnisch, M. “This Is Not America.” newmatilda.com 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 < http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/10/04/not-america >. 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Gurevitch (eds.), Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. London: Arnold, 2000. Devine, F. “Curse of the Blog.” Quadrant 49.3 (Mar. 2005). Dutton, W. Through the Network (of Networks) – The Fifth Estate. Oxford Internet Institute, 2007. 6 April 2007 < http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ 5th-estate-lecture-text.pdf >. Glaser, M. “The New Voices: Hyperlocal Citizen’s Media Sites Want You (to Write!).” Online Journalism Review 2004. 16 Feb. 2008 < http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1098833871.php >. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989 [1962]. Hills, R. “Citizen Journos Turning Inwards.” The Age 18 Nov. 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 < http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/citizen-journos- turning-inwards/2007/11/17/1194767024688.html >. Hirschman, A, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982. Hunter, C. “The Internet and the Public Sphere: Revitalization or Decay?” Virginia Journal of Communication 12 (2000): 93-127. Killenberg, G., and R. Dardenne. “Instruction in News Reporting as Community Focused Journalism.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 52.1 (Spring 1997). McIlwane, S., and L. Bowman. “Interviewing Techniques.” In S. Tanner (ed.), Journalism: Investigation and Research. Sydney: Longman, 2002. Menand, L. “The Unpolitical Animal: How Political Science Understands Voters.” The New Yorker 30 Aug. 2004. 17 Feb. 2008 < http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge >. Meyer, P. Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity. 1995. 16 Feb. 2008 < http://www.unc.edu/%7Epmeyer/ire95pj.htm >. Milbrath, L., and M. Goel. Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? Chicago: Rand McNally M, 1975. 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Rosen, J. “Assignment Zero: Can Crowds Create Fiction, Architecture and Photography?” Wired 2007. 6 April 2008 < http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_zero_all >. Ross, K., and V. Nightingale. Media Audiences: New Perspectives. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open UP, 2003. Schaffer, J. “Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point.” Nieman Reports 59.4 (Winter 2005). Schudson, M. Good Citizens and Bad History: Today’s Political Ideals in Historical Perspective. 1999. 17 Feb. 2008 < http://www.mtsu.edu/~seig/paper_m_schudson.html >. Simons, M. The Content Makers. Melbourne: Penguin, 2007. Simons, M. “Politics and the Internet.” Keynote speech at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, 14 Sep. 2007. Tapsall, S., and C. Varley (eds.). Journalism: Theory in Practice. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2001. Warhurst, J. “Campaign Communications in Australia.” In F. Fletcher (ed.), Media, Elections and Democracy, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991. White, S. Reporting in Australia. 2nd ed. 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Introduction «I have never worked in the technocratic exaltation, solving a constructive problem and that’s it. I’ve always tried to interpret the space of human life» (Vittorio Garatti). Vittorio Garatti (Milan, April 6, 1927) is certainly one of the last witnesses of one “heroic” season of Italian architecture. In 1957 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan with a thesis proposing the redesign of a portion of the historic centre of Milan: the area between “piazza della Scala”, “via Broletto”, “via Filodrammatici” and the gardens of the former Olivetti building in via Clerici. These are the years in which Ernesto Nathan Rogers established himself as one of the main personalities of Milanese culture. Garatti endorses the criticism expressed by Rogers to the approval of the Rationalist “language” in favour of an architecture that recovers the implications of the place and of material culture. The social responsibility of architecture and connections between architecture and other forms of artistic expression are the invariants of all the activity of the architect, artist and graphic designer of Garatti. It will be Ernesto Nathan Rogers who will offer him the possibility of experiencing these “contaminations” early: in 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffaella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, he designs the preparation of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. The temporary installations will be a privileged area in which Garatti will continue to experiment and integrate the qualities of artist, graphic designer and architect with each other. Significant examples of this approach are the Art Schools in Cuba 1961-63, the residential complex of Cusano Milanino in 1973, the Attico Cosimo del Fante in 1980, the fittings for the Bubasty shops in 1984, the Camogli residence in 1986, his house atelier in Brera in 1988 and the interiors of the Hotel Gallia in 1989. True architecture generates itself1: an approach that was consolidated over the years of collaboration with Raúl Villanueva in Venezuela and is fulfilled in Cuba in the project of the Art Schools, where Garatti makes use of a plurality of tools that cannot be rigidly confined to the world of architecture. In 1957, in Caracas, he came into contact with Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi. Ricardo Porro, who returned to Cuba in 1960, will be the one to involve Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi in the Escuelas Nacional de Arte project. The three young architects will be the protagonists of a happy season of the architecture of the Revolution, they will be crossed by that “revolutionary” energy that Ricardo Porro has defined as “magical realism”. As Garatti recalls: it was a special moment. We designed the Schools using a method developed in Venezuela. We started from an analysis of the context, understood not only as physical reality. We studied Cuban poets and painters. Wifredo Lam was a great reference. For example, Lezama Lima’s work is clearly recalled in the plan of the School of Ballet. We were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution. The contamination between knowledge and disciplines, the belief that architecture is a “parasitic” discipline are some of the themes at the centre of the conversation that follows, from which a working method that recognizes architecture as a “social transformation” task emerges, more precisely an art with a social purpose. Garatti often cites Porro’s definition of architecture: architecture is the poetic frame within which human life takes place. To Garatti architecture is a self-generating process, and as such it cannot find fulfilment within its disciplinary specificity: the disciplinary autonomy is a contradiction in terms. Architecture cannot be self-referencing, it generates itself precisely because it finds the sense of its social responsibility outside of itself. No concession to trends, to self-referencing, to the “objectification of architecture”, to its spectacularization. Garatti as Eupalino Valery shuns “mute architectures” and instead prefers singing architectures. A Dialogue of Luigi Alini with Vittorio Garatti Luigi Alini. Let’s start with some personal data. Vittorio Garatti. I was born in Milan on April 6, 1927. My friend Emilio Vedova told me that life could be considered as a sequence of encounters with people, places and facts. My sculptor grandfather played an important role in my life. I inherited the ability to perceive the dimensional quality of space, its plasticity, spatial vision from him. L.A. Your youth training took place in a dramatic phase of history of our country. Living in Milan during the war years must not have been easy. V.G. In October 1942 in Milan there was one of the most tragic bombings that the city has suffered. A bomb exploded in front of the Brera Academy, where the Dalmine offices were located. With a group of boys we went to the rooftops. We saw the city from above, with the roofs partially destroyed. I still carry this image inside me, it is part of that museum of memory that Luciano Semerani often talks about. This image probably resurfaced when I designed the ballet school. The idea of a promenade on the roofs to observe the landscape came from this. L.A. You joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic in May 1946-47. V.G. Milan and Italy were like in those years. The impact with the University was not positive, I was disappointed with the quality of the studies. L.A. You have had an intense relationship with the artists who gravitate around Brera, which you have always considered very important for your training. V.G. In 1948 I met Ilio Negri, a graphic designer. Also at Brera there was a group of artists (Morlotti, Chighine, Dova, Crippa) who frequented the Caffè Brera, known as “Bar della Titta”. Thanks to these visits I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge. As you know, I maintain that there are life’s appointments and lightning strikes. The release of Dada magazine provided real enlightenment for me: I discovered the work of Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, the value of the image and three-dimensionality. L.A. You collaborated on several projects with Ilio Negri. V.G. In 1955 we created the graphics of the Lagostina brand, which was then also used for the preparation of the exhibition at the “Fiera Campionaria” in Milan. We also worked together for the Lerici steel industry. There was an extraordinary interaction with Ilio. L.A. The cultural influence of Ernesto Nathan Rogers was strong in the years you studied at the Milan Polytechnic. He influenced the cultural debate by establishing himself as one of the main personalities of the Milanese architectural scene through the activity of the BBPR studio but even more so through the direction of Domus (from ‘46 to ‘47) and Casabella Continuità (from ‘53 to ‘65). V.G. When I enrolled at the university he was not yet a full professor and he was very opposed. As you know, he coined the phrase: God created the architect, the devil created the colleague. In some ways it is a phrase that makes me rethink the words of Ernesto Che Guevara: beware of bureaucrats, because they can delay a revolution for 50 years. Rogers was the man of culture and the old “bureaucratic” apparatus feared that his entry into the University would sanction the end of their “domain”. L.A. In 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, all graduating students of the Milan Polytechnic, you designed the staging of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. V.G. The project for the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at the Milan Triennale was commissioned by Rogers, with whom I subsequently collaborated for the preparation of the graphic part of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, together with Ilio Negri. We were given a very small budget for this project. We decided to prepare a sequence of horizontal planes hanging in a void. These tops also acted as spacers, preventing people from touching the tools. Among those exhibited there were some very valuable ones. We designed slender structures to be covered with rice paper. The solution pleased Rogers very much, who underlined the dialogue that was generated between the exhibited object and the display system. L.A. You graduated on March 14, 1957. V.G. The project theme that I developed for the thesis was the reconstruction of Piazza della Scala. While all the other classmates were doing “lecorbusierani” projects without paying much attention to the context, for my part I worked trying to have a vision of the city. I tried to bring out the specificities of that place with a vision that Ernesto Nathan Rogers had brought me to. I then found this vision of the city in the work of Giuseppe De Finetti. I tried to re-propose a vision of space and its “atmospheres”, a theme that Alberto Savinio also refers to in Listen to your heart city, from 1944. L.A. How was your work received by the thesis commission? V.G. It was judged too “formal” by Emiliano Gandolfi, but Piero Portaluppi did not express himself positively either. The project did not please. Also consider the cultural climate of the University of those years, everyone followed the international style of the CIAM. I was not very satisfied with the evaluation expressed by the commissioners, they said that the project was “Piranesian”, too baroque. The critique of culture rationalist was not appreciated. Only at IUAV was there any great cultural ferment thanks to Bruno Zevi. L.A. After graduation, you left for Venezuela. V.G. With my wife Wanda, in 1957 I joined my parents in Caracas. In Venezuela I got in touch with Paolo Gasparini, an extraordinary Italian photographer, Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi, who came from Venice and had worked in Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ studio in Milan. Ricardo Porro worked in the office of Carlos Raúl Villanueva. The Cuban writer and literary critic Alejo Carpentier also lived in Caracas at that time. L.A. Carlos Raul Villanueva was one of the protagonists of Venezuelan architecture. His critical position in relation to the Modern Movement and the belief that it was necessary to find an “adaptation” to the specificities of local traditions, the characteristics of the places and the Venezuelan environment, I believe, marked your subsequent Cuban experience with the creative recovery of some elements of traditional architecture such as the portico, the patio, but also the use of traditional materials and technologies that you have masterfully reinterpreted. I think we can also add to these “themes” the connections between architecture and plastic arts. You also become a professor of Architectural Design at the Escuela de Arquitectura of the Central University of Caracas. V.G. On this academic experience I will tell you a statement by Porro that struck me very much: The important thing was not what I knew, I did not have sufficient knowledge and experience. What I could pass on to the students was above all a passion. In two years of teaching I was able to deepen, understand things better and understand how to pass them on to students. The Faculty of Architecture had recently been established and this I believe contributed to fuel the great enthusiasm that emerges from the words by Porro. Porro favoured mine and Gottardi’s entry as teachers. Keep in mind that in those years Villanueva was one of the most influential Venezuelan intellectuals and had played a leading role in the transformation of the University. Villanueva was very attentive to the involvement of art in architecture, just think of the magnificent project for the Universidad Central in Caracas, where he worked together with artists such as the sculptor Calder. I had recently graduated and found myself catapulted into academic activity. It was a strange feeling for a young architect who graduated with a minimum grade. At the University I was entrusted with the Architectural Design course. The relationships with the context, the recovery of some elements of tradition were at the centre of the interests developed with the students. Among these students I got to know the one who in the future became my chosen “brother”: Sergio Baroni. Together we designed all the services for the 23rd district that Carlos Raúl Villanueva had planned to solve the favelas problem. In these years of Venezuelan frequentation, Porro also opened the doors of Cuba to me. Through Porro I got to know the work of Josè Martì, who claimed: cult para eser libre. I also approached the work of Josè Lezama Lima, in my opinion one of the most interesting Cuban intellectuals, and the painting of Wilfredo Lam. L.A. In December 1959 the Revolution triumphed in Cuba. Ricardo Porro returned to Cuba in August 1960. You and Gottardi would join him in December and begin teaching at the Facultad de Arcuitectura. Your contribution to the training of young students took place in a moment of radical cultural change within which the task of designing the Schools was also inserted: the “new” architecture had to give concrete answers but also give “shape” to a new model of society. V.G. After the triumph of the Revolution, acts of terrorism began. At that time in the morning, I checked that they hadn’t placed a bomb under my car. Eisenhower was preparing the invasion. Life published an article on preparing for the invasion of the counterrevolutionary brigades. With Eisenhower dead, Kennedy activated the programme by imposing one condition: in conjunction with the invasion, the Cuban people would have to rise up. Shortly before the attempted invasion, the emigration, deemed temporary, of doctors, architects, university teachers etc. began. They were all convinced they would return to “liberated Cuba” a few weeks later. Their motto was: it is impossible for Americans to accept the triumph of the rebel army. As is well known, the Cuban people did not rise up. The revolutionary process continued and had no more obstacles. The fact that the bourgeois class and almost all the professionals had left Cuba put the country in a state of extreme weakness. The sensation was of great transformation taking place, it was evident. In that “revolutionary” push there was nothing celebratory. All available energies were invested in the culture. There were extraordinary initiatives, from the literacy campaign to the founding of international schools of medicine and of cinema. In Cuba it was decided to close schools for a year and to entrust elementary school children with the task of travelling around the country and teaching illiterate adults. In the morning they worked in the fields and in the evening they taught the peasants to read and write. In order to try to block this project, the counter-revolutionaries killed two children in an attempt to scare the population and the families of the literate children. There was a wave of popular indignation and the programme continued. L.A. Ricardo Porro was commissioned to design the Art Schools. Roberto Gottardi recalls that: «the wife of the Minister of Public Works, Selma Diaz, asked Porro to build the national art schools. The architecture had to be completely new and the schools, in Fidel’s words, the most beautiful in the world. All accomplished in six months. Take it or leave it! [...] it was days of rage and enthusiasm in which all areas of public life was run by an agile and imaginative spirit of warfare»2. You too remembered several times that: that architecture was born from a life experience, it incorporated enthusiasm for life and optimism for the future. V.G. The idea that generated them was to foster the cultural encounter between Africa, Asia and Latin America. A “place” for meeting and exchanging. A place where artists from all over the third world could interact freely. The realisation of the Schools was like receiving a “war assignment”. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara selected the Country Club as the place to build a large training centre for all of Latin America. They understood that it was important to foster the Latin American union, a theme that Simón Bolivar had previously wanted to pursue. Il Ché and Fidel, returning from the Country Club, along the road leading to the centre of Havana, met Selma Diaz, architect and wife of Osmany Cienfuegos, the Cuban Construction Minister. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entrusted Selma Diaz with the task of designing this centre. She replied: I had just graduated, how could I deal with it? Then she adds: Riccardo Porro returned to Cuba with two Italian architects. Just think, three young architects without much experience catapulted into an assignment of this size. The choice of the place where to build the schools was a happy intuition of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. L.A. How did the confrontation develop? V.G. We had total freedom, but we had to respond to a functional programme defined with the heads of the schools. Five directors were appointed, one for each school. We initially thought of a citadel. A proposal that did not find acceptance among the Directors, who suggest thinking of five autonomous schools. We therefore decide to place the schools on the edge of the large park and to reuse all the pre-existing buildings. We imagined schools as “stations” to cross. The aim was to promote integration with the environment in which they were “immersed”. Schools are not closed spaces. We established, for example, that there would be no doors: when “everything was ours” there could not be a public and a private space, only the living space existed. L.A. Ricardo Porro recalled: I organised our study in the chapel of the former residence of the Serrà family in Vadado. It was a wonderful place [...]. A series of young people from the school of architecture came to help us […]. Working in that atmosphere, all night and all day was a poetic experience (Loomis , 1999). V.G. We felt like Renaissance architects. We walked around the park and discussed where to locate the schools. Imagine three young people discussing with total, unthinkable freedom. We decided that each of us would deal with one or more schools, within a global vision that was born from the comparison. I chose the Ballet School. Ivan Espin had to design the music school but in the end I did it because Ivan had health problems. Porro decided to take care of the School of Plastic Arts to support his nature as a sculptor. Gottardi had problems with the actors and directors, who could not produce a shared functional programme, which with the dancers was quite simple to produce. The reasons that led us to choose the different project themes were very simple and uncomplicated, as were those for identifying the areas. I liked hidden lands, I was interested in developing a building “embedded” in the ground. Ricardo, on the other hand, chose a hill on which arrange the school of Modern Art. Each of us chose the site almost instinctively. For the Classical Dance School, the functional programme that was provided to me was very meagre: a library, a deanery, an infirmary, three ballet classrooms, theoretical classrooms and one of choreography. We went to see the dancers while they were training and dancing with Porro. The perception was immediate that we had to think of concave and convex spaces that would welcome their movements in space. For a more organic integration with the landscape and to accommodate the orography of the area, we also decided to place the buildings in a “peripheral” position with respect to the park, a choice that allowed us not to alter the nature of the park too much but also to limit the distances to be covered from schools to homes. Selma Diaz added others to the first indications: remember that we have no iron, we have little of everything, but we have many bricks. These were the indications that came to us from the Ministry of Construction. We were also asked to design some large spaces, such as gyms. Consequently, we found ourselves faced with the need to cover large spans without being able to resort to an extensive use of reinforced concrete or wood. L.A. How was the comparison between you designers? V.G. The exchange of ideas was constant, the experiences flowed naturally from one work group to another, but each operated in total autonomy. Each design group had 5-6 students in it. In my case I was lucky enough to have Josè Mosquera among my collaborators, a brilliant modest student, a true revolutionary. The offices where we worked on the project were organised in the Club, which became our “headquarters”. We worked all night and in the morning we went to the construction site. For the solution of logistical problems and the management of the building site of the Ballet School, I was entrusted with an extraordinary bricklayer, a Maestro de Obra named Bacallao. During one of the meetings that took place daily at the construction site, Bacallao told me that in Batista’s time the architects arrived in the morning at the workplace all dressed in white and, keeping away from the construction site to avoid getting dusty, they transferred orders on what to do. In this description by we marvelled at the fact that we were in the construction site together with him to face and discuss how to solve the different problems. In this construction site the carpenters did an extraordinary job, they had considerable experience. Bacallao was fantastic, he could read the drawings and he managed the construction site in an impeccable way. We faced and solved problems and needs that the yard inevitably posed on a daily basis. One morning, for example, arriving at the construction site, I realised the impact that the building would have as a result of its total mono-materiality. I was “scared” by this effect. My eye fell on an old bathtub, inside which there were pieces of 10x10 tiles, then I said to Bacallao: we will cover the wedges between the ribs of the bovedas covering the Ballet and Choreography Theatre classrooms with the tiles. The yard also lived on decisions made directly on site. Also keep in mind that the mason teams assigned to each construction site were independent. However the experience between the groups of masons engaged in the different activities circulated, flowed. There was a constant confrontation. For the workers the involvement was total, they were building for their children. A worker who told me: I’m building the school where my son will come to study. Ricardo Porro was responsible for the whole project, he was a very cultured man. In the start-up phase of the project he took us to Trinidad, the old Spanish capital. He wanted to show us the roots of Cuban architectural culture. On this journey I was struck by the solution of fan windows, by the use of verandas, all passive devices which were entrusted with the control and optimisation of the comfort of the rooms. Porro accompanied us to those places precisely because he wanted to put the value of tradition at the centre of the discussion, he immersed us in colonial culture. L.A. It is to that “mechanism” of self-generation of the project that you have referred to on several occasions? V.G. Yes, just that. When I design, I certainly draw from that stratified “grammar of memory”, to quote Luciano Semerani, which lives within me. The project generates itself, is born and then begins to live a life of its own. A writer traces the profile and character of his characters, who gradually come to life with a life of their own. In the same way the creative process in architecture is self-generated. L.A. Some problems were solved directly on site, dialoguing with the workers. V.G. He went just like that. Many decisions were made on site as construction progressed. Design and construction proceeded contextually. The dialogue with the workers was fundamental. The creative act was self-generated and lived a life of its own, we did nothing but “accompany” a process. The construction site had a speed of execution that required the same planning speed. In the evening we worked to solve problems that the construction site posed. The drawings “aged” rapidly with respect to the speed of decisions and the progress of the work. The incredible thing about this experience is that three architects with different backgrounds come to a “unitary” project. All this was possible because we used the same materials, the same construction technique, but even more so because there was a similar interpretation of the place and its possibilities. L.A. The project of the Music School also included the construction of 96 cubicles, individual study rooms, a theatre for symphonic music and one for chamber music and Italian opera. You “articulated” the 96 cubicles along a 360-metre-long path that unfolds in the landscape providing a “dynamic” view to those who cross it. A choice consistent with the vision of the School as an open place integrated with the environment. V.G. The “Gusano” is a volume that follows the orography of the terrain. It was a common sense choice. By following the level lines I avoided digging and of course I quickly realized what was needed by distributing the volumes horizontally. Disarticulation allows the changing vision of the landscape, which changes continuously according to the movement of the user. The movements do not take place along an axis, they follow a sinuous route, a connecting path between trees and nature. The cubicles lined up along the Gusano are individual study rooms above which there are the collective test rooms. On the back of the Gusano, in the highest part of the land, I placed the theatre for symphonic music, the one for chamber music, the library, the conference rooms, the choir and administration. L.A. In 1962 the construction site stopped. V.G. In 1962 Cuba fell into a serious political and economic crisis, which is what caused the slowdown and then the abandonment of the school site. Cuba was at “war” and the country’s resources were directed towards other needs. In this affair, the architect Quintana, one of the most powerful officials in Cuba, who had always expressed his opposition to the project, contributed to the decision to suspend the construction of the schools. Here is an extract from a writing by Sergio Baroni, which I consider clarifying: «The denial of the Art Schools represented the consolidation of the new Cuban technocratic regime. The designers were accused of aristocracy and individualism and the rest of the technicians who collaborated on the project were transferred to other positions by the Ministry of Construction [...]. It was a serious mistake which one realises now, when it became evident that, with the Schools, a process of renewal of Cuban architecture was interrupted, which, with difficulty, had advanced from the years preceding the revolution and which they had extraordinarily accelerated and anchored to the new social project. On the other hand, and understandably, the adoption of easy pseudo-rationalist procedures prevailed to deal with the enormous demand for projects and constructions with the minimum of resources» (Baroni 1992). L.A. You also experienced dramatic moments in Cuba. I’m referring in particular to the insane accusation of being a CIA spy and your arrest. V.G. I wasn’t the only one arrested. The first was Jean Pierre Garnier, who remained in prison for seven days on charges of espionage. This was not a crazy accusation but one of the CIA’s plans to scare foreign technicians into leaving Cuba. Six months after Garnier, it was Heberto Padilla’s turn, an intellectual, who remained in prison for 15 days. After 6 months, it was my turn. I was arrested while leaving the Ministry of Construction, inside the bag I had the plans of the port. I told Corrieri, Baroni and Wanda not to notify the Italian Embassy, everything would be cleared up. L.A. Dear Vittorio, I thank you for the willingness and generosity with which you shared your human and professional experience. I am sure that many young students will find your “story” of great interest. V.G. At the end of our dialogue, I would like to remember my teacher: Ernesto Nathan Rogers. I’ll tell you an anecdote: in 1956 I was working on the graphics for the Castello Sforzesco Museum set up by the BBPR. Leaving the museum with Rogers, in the Rocchetta courtyard the master stopped and gives me a questioning look. Looking at the Filarete tower, he told me: we have the task of designing a skyscraper in the centre. Usually skyscrapers going up they shrink. Instead this tower has a protruding crown, maybe we too could finish our skyscraper so what do you think? I replied: beautiful! Later I thought that what Rogers evoked was a distinctive feature of our city. The characters of the cities and the masters who have consolidated them are to be respected. If there is no awareness of dialectical continuity, the city loses and gets lost. It is necessary to reconstruct the figure of the architect artist who has full awareness of his role in society. The work of architecture cannot be the result of a pure stylistic and functional choice, it must be the result of a method that takes various and multiple factors into analysis. In Cuba, for example, the musical tradition, the painting of Wilfredo Lam, whose pictorial lines are recognisable in the floor plan of the Ballet School, the literature of Lezama Lima and Alejo Carpentier and above all the Cuban Revolution were fundamental. We theorised this “total” method together with Ricardo Porro, remembering the lecture by Ernesto Nathan Rogers.

This body of research focuses on supporting problem-stakeholders, decision-makers and problem-solvers faced with an ill-defined and complex real world problem. An ill-defined problem has a characteristic trait of continual refinement. That is, the definition of the problem changes throughout the problem investigation and resolution process. The central theme of this research is that a support system should provide problem stakeholders with a problem definition model for constructing and manipulating a representation of the definition of the problem as they understand it. The approach adopted herein is to first develop a problem definition model for ill-defined problems— the 6-Component problem definition model. With this model, it is then possible to move on to identifying the types of changes or modifications to the problem definition that problem stakeholders, decision makers and problem solvers may wish to explore. Importantly, there must be a connection between the surface representation of the problem and the underlying implementation of the support system. This research argues that by focusing the support system around the problem definition, it is possible to reduce the mismatch between the problem objectives and the representation of the problem that the support system offers. This research uses the Unified Modelling Language to record and explore the requirements that problem stakeholders, faced with an evolving problem definition, place on a support system. The 6-Component problem definition model is then embedded within a design for an evolutionary support system. This embedding, supported by collaboration diagrams, shows how a system using the 6-Component problem definition model will support stakeholders in their exploration, evaluation and resolution of an ill-defined and complex real-world problem. A case study provides validation of the effectiveness of the 6-Component problem definition model proposed and developed in this work. The case study uses the 6-Component problem definition model as a basis for implementing the Integration Workbench, an evolutionary support system for land-use planning. Stakeholders explore, communicate, evaluate and resolve the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement problem with assistance from the Integration Workbench.

This body of research focuses on supporting problem-stakeholders, decision-makers and problem-solvers faced with an ill-defined and complex real world problem. An ill-defined problem has a characteristic trait of continual refinement. The central theme of this research is that a support system should provide problem stakeholders with a problem definition model for constructing and manipulating a representation of the definition of the problem as they understand it. The approach adopted herein is to first develop a problem definition model for ill-defined problems— the 6-Component problem definition model. With this model, it is then possible to move on to identifying the types of changes or modifications to the problem definition that problem stakeholders, decision makers and problem solvers may wish to explore. Importantly, there must be a connection between the surface representation of the problem and the underlying implementation of the support system. This research argues that by focusing the support system around the problem definition, it is possible to reduce the mismatch between the problem objectives and the representation of the problem that the support system offers. This research uses the Unified Modelling Language to record and explore the requirements that problem stakeholders, faced with an evolving problem definition, place on a support system. The 6-Component problem definition model is then embedded within a design for an evolutionary support system. This embedding, supported by collaboration diagrams, shows how a system using the 6-Component problem definition model will support stakeholders in their exploration, evaluation and resolution of an ill-defined and complex real-world problem. A case study provides validation of the effectiveness of the 6-Component problem definition model proposed and developed in this work. The case study uses the 6-Component problem definition model as a basis for implementing the Integration Workbench, an evolutionary support system for land-use planning. Stakeholders explore, communicate, evaluate and resolve the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement problem with assistance from the Integration Workbench.