Journal articles on the topic 'Spin-off corporativa'

Esta propuesta utiliza el caso del Antigüo Grupo Empresarial Bavaria para analizar tres aspectos relacionados con la diversificación no relacionada y el proceso de spin off de las firmas. Primero se establece que las empresas con unidades de negocio caracterizadas por excesos de liquidez, se diversifican de manera no relacionada, debido a que la existencia de un mercado interno de capitales, les permite derribar sus restricciones de financiación e incrementar la rentabilidad corporativa. Segundo, se demuestra que la decisión de diversificación de un gerente corporativo es inversamente proporcional a la magnitud del costo esperado por la dilución de esfuerzo del gerente de la nueva unidad de negocio. Y finalmente, se muestra como la diversificación no relacionada presenta un límite en su contribución al incremento de la rentabilidad corporativa, en cuyo caso se puede inducir la decisión de realizar un spin off, para delimitar, especializar y mejorar la calidad de las decisiones de asignación de recursos. Se concluye que lo anterior puede explicar porque en algunos grupos económicos se observan ciclos de diversificación y ciclos de enfoque. Cuando el grupo económico desea incrementar la rentabilidad inicia su proceso de diversificación, una vez llega al umbral que hace que la probabilidad de acierto en sus decisiones de inversión se reduzca, entonces empieza nuevamente su proceso de enfoque, realizando separación de sus unidades no relacionadas. Este ciclo se puede repetir en el desarrollo histórico de un grupo empresarial.

Una spin-off es una estrategia de desinversión corporativa en la cual una firma es dividida en dos(o más) empresas independientes, pero bajo la propiedad de los accionistas de la compañía matriz. Este estudio evalúa el efecto en los retornos accionarios de la spin-off anunciada por la Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) en septiembre de 2011. Esto, con el propósito de extraer lecciones acerca de la implementación de una determinada estrategia corporativa y sus efectos en la riqueza delos accionistas, en el contexto de un mercado emergente y relativamente pequeño como el mercado bursátil chileno. Usando la metodología de estudio de eventos se estudia el efecto en el retorno accionario de CSAV de: el ingreso del Grupo Luksic a la propiedad de CSAV; el anuncio de la spin-off de CSAV; yla aprobación de los accionistas de CSAV del aumento de capital por USD1.200 millones. En el primer evento la acción de CSAV registra retornos anormales positivos y significativos en el día t=0 y el CAR al día t=+10 también es positivo y significativo, lo que muestra una favorable reacción del mercado. En el segundo evento se aprecian retornos anormales negativos y significativos desde el día t=0 hasta el día t=+2, evidenciando una negativa reacción del mercado ante el anuncio de la spin-off y una pérdida de riqueza por parte de los accionistas. Según los tres métodos, el CAR al día t=+10 es negativo y estadísticamente significativo, y fluctúa entre -18,65% y -24,91%. En el tercer evento, dos (de tres) modelos registran retornos anormales negativos y significativos en el día t=0, no obstante el CAR al día t=+10 es no significativo.

Una spin-off es una estrategia de desinversión corporativa en la cual una firma es dividida en dos(o más) empresas independientes, pero bajo la propiedad de los accionistas de la compañía matriz. Este estudio evalúa el efecto en los retornos accionarios de la spin-off anunciada por la Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) en septiembre de 2011. Esto, con el propósito de extraer lecciones acerca de la implementación de una determinada estrategia corporativa y sus efectos en la riqueza delos accionistas, en el contexto de un mercado emergente y relativamente pequeño como el mercado bursátil chileno. Usando la metodología de estudio de eventos se estudia el efecto en el retorno accionario de CSAV de: el ingreso del Grupo Luksic a la propiedad de CSAV; el anuncio de la spin-off de CSAV; yla aprobación de los accionistas de CSAV del aumento de capital por USD1.200 millones. En el primer evento la acción de CSAV registra retornos anormales positivos y significativos en el día t=0 y el CAR al día t=+10 también es positivo y significativo, lo que muestra una favorable reacción del mercado. En el segundo evento se aprecian retornos anormales negativos y significativos desde el día t=0 hasta el día t=+2, evidenciando una negativa reacción del mercado ante el anuncio de la spin-off y una pérdida de riqueza por parte de los accionistas. Según los tres métodos, el CAR al día t=+10 es negativo y estadísticamente significativo, y fluctúa entre -18,65% y -24,91%. En el tercer evento, dos (de tres) modelos registran retornos anormales negativos y significativos en el día t=0, no obstante el CAR al día t=+10 es no significativo.

O spin-off corporativo se configura como alternativa eficiente na expansão do empreendedorismo, pois apresenta taxa de crescimento expressiva e capacidade de inovação decorrente da experiência adquirida na organização-mãe. Nesse contexto, este estudo se propõe a analisar o surgimento de spin-offs corporativos sob a perspectiva da relação com a organização-mãe por meio da adaptação do modelo de Tubke (2005), combinado com os recursos do modelo de Clarysse et al. (2005). Adotou-se a estratégia de pesquisa de estudo de casos múltiplos, com dois casos, nos quais foram considerados como unidades de análise as organizações-mãe e os spin-offs. Os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevista semiestruturada e foram tratados com a análise de conteúdo categorizada em temas. Dentre os resultados, observou-se que o tipo de ligação e os recursos fornecidos contribuem para a consolidação dos novos negócios. Adicionalmente, verificou-se que a organização-mãe tende a apoiar casos em que o spin-off faça parte de sua cadeia de valor.

The author uses the case of Displaytech, Inc to illustrate the selection, formation and structure of successful university spin-off corporations at the University of Colorado Foundation. He highlights the key factors that have contributed to the success of University Research Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary set up by the Foundation to deal with equity and royalty income from spin-off ventures. Still using the case of Displaytech as an example, the author also explores the risks involved in university-sponsored new ventures. Advice is offered on corporate structure, reward systems, attainment of consensus, protection against liability, and equities and royalties.

The Xerox Corporation has devised several strategies for managing the numerous spin-off firms that independently commercialized many of its technologies. From 1979 to 1998, thirty-five technology-based organizations emerged from Xerox's research centers. Contradicting the common perception that Xerox “fumbled the future” by letting its technology walk out the door, in fact the company set in motion a series of deliberate initiatives to manage its spin-off organizations. After initially adopting a laissez-faire approach, the company soon turned to ad hoc methods, which evolved into a formal internal venture capital structure and culminated in a triage process, with the result that only companies perceived by Xerox as fitting into its overall corporate strategy were retained. By using spin-offs to withdraw gracefully from areas it considered to be marginal, Xerox for feited the potential to realize value from their research. Some, but not all, of the spin-offs obtained venture capital financing from outside sources and thus prospered independently. Their success demonstrated the opportunity that Xerox missed in managing its spin-offs.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-organisational dynamics, in terms of the triggers to spin-off formation and the genealogical inheritance of spin-offs, between a parent characterised by an adverse event and the spin-offs that emerge. The study focusses on the nature of the triggering event, exploring the heterogeneous nature of the processes by which some spin-offs are formed to exploit new opportunities created unexpectedly by an adverse event, and on the genealogical inheritance that forms the pre-entry experience of the founder. Design/methodology/approach A case study based on interview data with founders of spin-offs, supplemented with interviews with managers and industry experts, and with secondary data sources. The case study is of the spin-offs from a successful firm, Élan Corporation, reported to be the world’s 20th largest drug firm in 2002, that experienced an adverse event in 2002. The Élan case offers the opportunity to focus exclusively on what Buenstorf (2009) refers to as necessity spin-offs. Prior to collecting data it was necessary to identify the population of spin-offs from Élan. Findings This study extends existing research by identifying “opportunistic spin-offs”: spin-offs that occur in the wake of an adverse event where the entrepreneur exploits an unexpected opportunity to engage in entrepreneurship but does not feel compelled to establish the spin-off. These spin-offs are characterised by “unexpected opportunities”, “opportunistic acquisition of assets” and, perhaps reflecting the seniority and experience of those involved, “alternative employment opportunities”. Originality/value Understanding the process of spin-off formation is important because it provides insight into how and why individuals initiate new ventures. Spin-offs are an important source of new firms and an important mechanism in the process of industry evolution. The study contributes to the literature on spin-offs by providing evidence of the heterogeneous nature of spin-offs that occur in the aftermath of an adverse event, leading to the classification of some spin-offs as “opportunistic spin-offs”. The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating that an important trigger for venture creation is unexpected changes in an individual’s employment circumstances.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the minimum conditions for the formation of an ecosystem that favours the emergence of spin-offs whose parent company is a family business. Design/methodology/approach Three family companies that have experienced processes supporting the creation of new companies led by family members were used for this exploration. Findings The findings show that it is possible to form an ecosystem with five basic components from which other factors of a different kind are derived, and that would favour the minimum conditions for new companies to emerge from the family business. Originality/value Spin-off companies have received valuable recognition in recent years. The vast majority of research on spin-offs considers those arising under the protection of a private innovation centre, a corporation, or university. This research gives more breadth to this coverage, by studying the emergence of spin-offs that rely on the family business as the parent company.

The license agreement between the Italian Fiat and the Yugoslav Crvena Zastava, signed in 1954, was the first commercial arrangement and enterprise between a Western corporation and a socialist country in the post-war era. The Yugoslav side expected the establishment of the modern automobile industry to have a spin-off effect, helping to modernise the entire industrial sector. However, this ambitious plan failed to materialise, leaving the country with Western-type automobiles, which often fell below even East European quality standards. As it was linked to almost the entire industrial sector, the underperformance of the Yugoslav automobile industry can be understood as both a reason for and indication of a dangerously overstretched political and economic system. In particular, the ‘ethnic key’ policy and so-called workers’ self-management were bottlenecks in reaching successful outcomes, only further fuelling Yugoslav contradictions instead of helping to modernise the Yugoslav economy.

Twenty-years ago groups from California to Massachusetts were actively involved in the development of an artificial heart. From biomaterials development to biomedical power sources, the supporting industry and spin-off benefit was broad indeed. Young people were seeking careers in biomedical engineering and science. The National Institutes of Health was supporting artificial heart research at $10 to $12 million dollar levels. Groups at Andros, Inc. (now Baxter Novacor) and Stanford, Thoratec, Penn State and the Hershey Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic and the Division of Artificial Organs, the University of Utah, the Texas Heart Institute and the Baylor College of Medicine, Thermal Electron Corporation, and many more were the source of research and breakthrough development of pumps and systems for artificial hearts. We reported on performance criteria for an artificial heart pump at the First Biomechanics Symposium in 1973 [1]. By the beginning of the decade of the 90’s, thousands of presentations had been made and manuscripts written reporting significant progress in the development of artificial heart pumps and systems. The Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health was supporting an artificial heart contract research and development program at a level of $6 million dollars in 1991 [2]. Broad basic research grant activity also continues. The National Institutes of Health’s artificial heart program received renewed support from the Institute of Medicine’s special review in 1991 [3]. In December of 1992, the 16th Annual Cardiovascular Science and Technology Conference attracted over 500 attendees. This annual conference has provided a continuing forum for an update on progress in artificial heart development.

Jersey Oil and Gas Unearths Wengen Prospect The Greater Buchan Area (GBA) now has four drill-ready prospects to add to discoveries already slated for development. In a new subsurface evaluation, Jersey Oil & Gas, a British-independent North Sea-focused upstream oil and gas company, has uncovered a new prospect, named Wengen, to complement its Verbier Deep, Cortina NE, and Zermatt drill-ready prospects. The four are estimated to host some 222 million bbl of P50 prospective resources, all in the immediate vicinity of Jersey’s planned GBA production facility. The consolidated Greater Buchan venture comprises Buchan field (80 million bbl), Verbier (c25 million bbl), J2 (c20 million), and Glenn (14 million). The new prospect, located in License P2170, is directly west of the Tweedsmuir field and should host some 62 million bbl of potential resources (P50), with the probabilistic range set at 31 million bbl at P90 (higher confidence) and 162 mil-lion for P10 (lower confidence). Probability of geological success is 22% for the prospect. Contractor Rockflow previously estimated the recoverable resources in the GBA at 94.7 million bbl, including the parts within P2170. In late November, Jersey announced it is taking full ownership of License P2170, which hosts most of the Verbier discovery, as part of the GBA. In March, Jersey told investors the project is fully funded and that it intends to take the project to potential industry partners via a farm-out process. An exploratory drilling campaign is being planned for 2022. Jordan Finds “Promising” Gas Reserves Near Iraq Border Jordan’s majority state-owned National Petroleum Company (NPC) has discovered “promising” natural gas in the Risha gas field along its eastern border with Iraq. Risha makes up nearly 5% of the kingdom’s consumption of natural gas of around 350 MMcf/D for power generation, Jordanian officials said. The flow of new gas supplies will raise the productivity of the gas field and help Jordan cut dependence on oil imports to fuel its power sector and industries. The country, which now imports over 93% of its total energy supplies, is burdened by a $3.5-billion annual bill, comprising almost 8% of Jordan’s GDP. Although British supermajor BP abandoned the eastern desert area in 2014 after investing over $240 million, Jordanian exploration has stepped up since 2019, boosting quantities by at least 70%, Mohammad al Khasawneh, head of NPC, said. An ambitious 10-year energy plan unveiled in 2019 aims to secure nearly half of the country’s electricity generation from local energy sources com-pared to a current 15%, according to Iraq Energy Minister Hala Zawati. The plan is meant to diversify local energy sources by expanding investments in renewable and oil shale to reduce costly foreign fuel imports, Zawati added. ExxonMobil Discovers Hydrocarbons Offshore Suriname ExxonMobil and Petronas have discovered several hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone zones with good reservoir qualities in the Campanian section of the Sloanea-1 exploration well on Block 52 offshore Suriname, adding to ExxonMobil’s finds in the Guyana-Suriname basin. The well was drilled by operator Petronas. ExxonMobil said in November that it is prioritizing near-term capital spending on advantaged assets with the highest potential future value. Maersk Drilling reported in early July that it had secured the Maersk Developer from Petronas subsidiary PSEPBV in a $20.4-million one-well exploration con-tract offshore Suriname. The semisubmersible rig drilled the Suriname-Guyana basin well to a total depth of 15,682 ft. “We are pleased with the positive results of the well,” Emeliana Rice-Oxley, Petronas’ vice president of upstream exploration, said. “It will provide the drive for Petronas to continue exploring in Suriname, which is one of our focus basins in the Americas.” Block 52 covers an area of 1.2 million acres and is located approximately 75 miles offshore north of Paramaribo. The water depths on Block 52 range from 160 to 3,600 ft. ExxonMobil E&P Suriname BV, an affiliate of ExxonMobil, holds 50% interest in Block 52. PSEPBV is operator and holds 50% interest. CNOOC Starts Production on Penglai 25-6 Oil Field Area 3 Project China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced on 14 December that its Bohai Sea Project - the Penglai 25-6 oil field area 3 - has started production ahead of schedule. The biggest offshore oil field and the second biggest oil field in China, the Penglai is located in the south central Bohai Sea, with average water depth of about 27 m. In addition to fully utilizing the existing processing facilities of Penglai oil fields, the project has built a new wellhead platform and plans 58 development wells, including 38 production wells and 20 water-injection wells. The project is expected to reach its peak production of approximately 11,511 B/D of crude oil in 2023. Six successful appraisal wells were also drilled, which confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in reservoirs located with-in Miocene, Lower Minghuazhen, and Guantao sandstones. The Penglai 19-3 oil field is located in Block 11/05 of Bohai Bay, approximately 235 km southeast of Tanggu. The production-sharing contract for block 11/05 was signed between CNOOC and ConocoPhillips China (COPC) in December 1994; the field was discovered jointly by CNOOC and COPC in 1999. The oil field was developed in two phases. Phase I production started in December 2002; production from the wellhead platform C, which is tied back temporarily to the production facilities of Phase I, began in June 2007. Since June 2020, CNOOC has announced five production startups: the Jinzhou 25-1 oilfield 6/11 area project, the Liuhua 16-2 oilfield/ 20-2 oil-field joint development project, the Nan-bao 35-2 oilfield S1 area project, the Luda 21-2/16-3 regional development project, and the Qinhuangdao 33-1S oilfield phase-I project. In Q3 2020, CNOOC achieved a total net production of 131.2 million BOE, which the company said represented an increase of 5.1% year over year. Production from China was said to have increased by 10.4% year over year to 88.6 million BOE. In November, CNOOC revealed that the Liuhua 29-1 gas field had begun production; in September, the company said the Bozhong 19-6 condensate gas field pilot area development project had also begun. Operator CNOOC holds 51% interest while COPC holds 49% interest in the Penglai 25-6 oilfield area 3 project. Equinor’s Snorre Expansion Project Starts Ahead of Schedule, Below Cost Work began in December on the Snorre Expansion Project in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea. This increased-oil-recovery project will add almost 200 million bbl of recoverable oil reserves and help extend the productive life of the Snorre field through 2040. The expansion project is proposed in blocks 34/4 and 34/7 of the Tampen area, approximately 124 miles west of Florø in the Norwegian North Sea. “I am proud that we have managed to achieve safe startup of the Snorre Expansion Project ahead of schedule in such a challenging year as 2020. In addition, the project is set to be delivered more than NOK 1 billion below the cost estimate in the plan for development and operation,” Geir Tungesvik, Equinor’s executive vice president for technology, projects, and drilling, said. Originally scheduled to come onstream in the first quarter of 2021, the project comprises 24 new wells divided into six subsea templates, drilled to recover the new volumes. Bundles connecting the new wells to the platform have been installed, in addition to new risers. The project also includes a new module and modifications on Snorre A. In December 2017, Equinor submitted a modified plan for development and operation of the field. With the expansion, the recovery factor will increase from 46 to 51%, representing significant value for a field with 2 billion bbl of recoverable oil reserves. Wind power will supply about 35% of the power requirement for the Snorre and Gullfaks fields. The Hywind Tampen project, featuring 11 floating wind turbines, should start up in Q3 2022. The investments in the expansion project total NOK 19.5 billion (2020 value). The project has had substantial spin-off effects for the supply industry in Norway, particularly in eastern Norway and in Rogaland. The Snorre field partnership comprises Equinor (operator) 33.27%, Petoro 30%, Vår Energi 18.55%, Idemitsu 9.6%, and Wintershall Dea 8.57%. Petrobras To Sell Entire Stake in Onshore Field of Sergipe Petrobras on 11 December signed a contract with Energizzi Energias do Brasil to sell its entire stake in the onshore field of Rabo Branco, located south of the Carmópolis field in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, Sergipe state. The Rabo Branco field is part of the BT-SEAL-13 concession. The $1.5-million sale is in line with Petrobras’ strategy to cut costs and improve its capital allocation, to focus its resources increasingly on deep and ultradeep waters. The average oil production of the field, from January to October 2020, was 138 B/D. Energizzi Energias do Brasil will own 50% stake in the Rabo Branco field; operator Produção de Óleo e Gás (Petrom) holds the remaining 50%. On 10 December, Petrobras closed the divestiture of its full ownership in four onshore fields at the Tucano Basin site in the state of Bahia. Petrobras sold its entire interest to Eagle Exploração de Óleo e Gás (Eagle). Petrobras earned $2.571 million from this sale, in addition to the $602,000 that the company received at the time of signing the sale contract, for a total of $3.173 million. BP, Reliance Announce First Gas From Asia’s Deepest Project Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP have started production from India’s first ultradeepwater gas project, the first of three such projects in the KG D6 block. The R Cluster gas field is located off the east coast of India, about 60 km from the existing KG D6 control-and-riser platform (CRP), and comprises a subsea production system tied back to the CRP via a subsea pipeline. It is the deepest offshore gas field in Asia at a depth greater than 2000 m. The companies’ next project, the Satellites Cluster, is expected to come on stream this year, followed by the MJ project in 2022. These projects will utilize the existing hub infrastructure in the KG D6 block. “Growing India’s own production of cleaner-burning gas to meet a significant portion of its energy demand, these three new KG D6 projects will support the country’s drive to shape and improve its future energy mix,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said. The R Cluster field is expected to reach plateau gas production of about 12.9 million standard cubic meters per day (MMscm/D) in 2021. Peak gas production from the three fields should be 30 MMscm/D (1 Bcf/D) by 2023, about 25% of India’s domestic production, and will help reduce the country’s dependence on imported gas. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67% interest; BP holds a 33.33% participating interest.

Liberalisation of industrial relations entails the weakening of unions and a respective rise of alternative, ‘new labour actors’, altering traditional class representation by introducing new strategies. Research on this phenomenon has focused on decentralised contexts, where new actors are seen to pursue both independent strategies as well as cooperation with unions to contest rising employers’ discretion. Drawing on multiple qualitative methodologies, this article analyses the roles and contributions of new actors in the context of corporatist industrial relations, to find rising conflicts between them and unions. Combining social movement theories of strategic change with industrial relations theories of power and theories of institutional complementarity, reveals conflictual forms of complementarity between new actors and corporatist unions. Through interacting with new labour actors, corporatist union strategies are seen to change in a ‘spin-off’ form, reforming unions’ traditional power and dominance to (partially) counter previous liberalisation of industrial relations.

Los artículos presentados en este número 28 de la Revista, presentan metodologías o herramientas para la gestión de procesos organizacionales, con miradas de análisis estratégico y de aprendizajes de nuevas asociaciones de networking empresarial, de nuevos diseños de embalaje de productos, competitividad del sector de la educación superior, basados en criterios de innovación como respuesta a la necesidad de un sector o como oportunidad de un nuevo negocio. En este panorama y el contexto de un mundo globalizado vigente, se habla de innovación, apoyados en los rápidos cambios tecnológicos, donde la creatividad tiene respuestas con los procesos de investigación y gestión empresarial, que derivan en emprendimientos de impacto para la sociedad, que los percibe como una solución a grandes necesidades y a la generación de empleo. El concepto de innovación fue acuñado por Schumpeter (1934), con enfoques en: la tecnología, mercado de un nuevo bien, nuevo método de producción, nuevo mercado, nueva fuente de suministro de materia prima, nueva estructura de mercado, mirada como contribución al desarrollo económico. La innovación así planteada, condujo a mejorar la actividad de la producción de los diferentes sectores económicos, y ser un nuevo motor para la generación de nuevas unidades de negocio, fruto de nuevas necesidades o de oportunidades de negocios. Al respecto, en Colombia, se tomó como bandera de desarrollo la Economía creativa o Economía Naranja, con aporte de recursos de 400 mil millones de pesos a 7 años para incentivar la innovación con iniciativas de emprendimiento, hacía empresas creativas relacionadas con la producción de bienes y servicios culturales protegidos con propiedad intelectual, basados en la creatividad, como artesanías, moda, diseño, publicidad, arquitectura, desarrollo de software, turismo, entre otras. Así, la iniciativa emprendedora, se constituye entonces, en la gran impulsora de la innovación, la competitividad y el desarrollo económico y social, haciendo que la innovación y la creatividad se manifiesten con nuevos mercados, o modificando los ya existentes. En estas iniciativas, se contemplan: La creación de industrias culturales (ya mencionadas), que diseñan, producen y distribuyen bienes o servicios relacionados con atributos y fines estéticos; la creación de empresas, basada en la oportunidad de negocio; el emprendimiento social, con actividades que van desde el trabajo comunitario, el voluntariado y las organizaciones públicas, hasta empresas privadas enfocadas al cumplimiento de objetivos sociales; el emprendimiento científico, con empresas establecidas para tal fin, que incluyen Universidades (con las Spin-off universitaria), Centros de estudio e Institutos de investigación; la Startup, como empresa en su etapa temprana; y, el emprendimiento corporativo, donde la gestión de la innovación esta soportada con Incubadoras corporativas, Aceleradoras corporativas, Capital venture corporativo, Socios estratégicos corporativos; y, donde las grandes empresas son las más beneficiadas, contando con la sinergia de los desarrollos tecnológicos. Ahora bien, un aspecto que se ha fortalecido con el desarrollo tecnológico, es el manejo de los modelos de negocio, donde Godin (2017), menciona que la mayoría de las ideas sobre innovación durante las últimas décadas, han tomado la forma para construir modelos de negocios, dándole, asimismo, criterio social al ámbito de la innovación; entre ellos, modelos de escenario, lineales, holísticos, en red, de innovación abierta. En este sentido, la innovación, adquiere relevancia actual con el supuesto de que, para muchas organizaciones, constituye un factor diferencial de competitividad. (Sánchez & Cilleruelo, 2010). Por otro lado, con el fin de valorar las actividades emprendedoras, se muestran algunos indicadores, según datos de la Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM, 2017) para el caso de España, donde la tasa de actividad emprendedora para población entre 18-54 años, fue de 43.1% en 2013, frente al 41.8% en 2017; el perfil de los emprendedores en 2017 fue de 19.2% hombres y 18.2% mujeres (siendo más durable el negocio con mujeres); asimismo, en educación en 2013, se señala: 52.4% con educación superior, frente al 49.3% en 2017; en actividad emprendedora de empresas, 29.8% en 2013, frente al 27.6% de 2017; tasa de actividad emprendedora en 2017: 11.8% global, 18,3% Latinoamérica y Colombia. En relación con las percepciones y capacidades de los emprendedores para Colombia, el miedo al fracaso pasó de 35% (2013) a 28% (2017); Competencias de 58% (2013) a 69% (2017); oportunidad de negocio, de 68% (2013) a 52% (2017)., señalándose disminución en miedo al fracaso, aumento en competencias para el éxito y menores expectativas de negocios. Ahora bien, como indicadores de no continuidad del negocio, se mencionan, según GEM (2017), los siguientes: negocio no era rentable (35%); problemas financieros (16%); razones personales (16%); oportunidad venta negocio (11%); Deserción en proceso (9%); otras oportunidades de negocio o empleo (5%); observándose sobre la importancia de un proceso de investigación efectivo para el éxito del negocio. En cuanto a la actividad investigativa en la gestión empresarial del emprendimiento, se observa que el área de conocimiento es novedosa para el desarrollo de la investigación, manifiesta en el incremento de publicación de libros sobre innovación y emprendimiento a nivel internacional; al igual que Informes sobre dichas temáticas, de organismos internacionales, como la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) y la Comisión Europea, entre otras. A la vez, como producto de investigaciones sobre la temática en cuestión, se han multiplicado significativamente los Artículos académicos y científicos sobre dichos temas, publicados en revistas especializadas como: Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, International Small Business Journal, entre otras, donde se destacan temas sobre emprendimiento en general, el emprendimiento corporativo y la cultura emprendedora. Finalmente, las tesis doctorales internacionales, fuera de casos de emprendimiento general, destacan estudios relacionados con el emprendimiento social. Queda entonces la reflexión y análisis, que los que están realizando la gran tarea de iniciativas de innovación y emprendimiento son las grandes empresas multinacionales, que como entes corporativos han generado el gran negocio, por lo menos en lo que compete al sector industrial, manufacturero y de servicios, quedando las iniciativas de innovación y emprendimiento social para la responsabilidad Estatal en sinergia con las Universidades. Con ello, quedan por resolver preguntas como: ¿Qué pasaría con el empleo, que se derivaría de las iniciativas de innovación y emprendimiento bajo la corporatividad del emprendimiento?, ¿Con el desarrollo de la innovación y emprendimiento corporativo, sería viable financiera, económica y socialmente el emprendimiento de micro y pequeñas empresas?

In a light-speed economy of communication, the only thing that moves faster than information is imagination. And in a time when, more than ever before, information is the currency of global politics, economics, conflict, and conquest what better way to critique and crinkle the global-social than to combine the two - information and imagination - into an hilarious mockery of, and a brief incursion into the vistas of the globalitarian order. This is precisely the reflexive and rhetorical pot-pourri that the group 'the Yes Men' (www.theyesmen.org) have formed. Beginning in 2000, the Yes Men describe themselves as a "network of impostors". Basically, the Yes Men (no they're not all men) fool organisations into believing they are representatives of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and in-turn receive, and accept, invitations to speak (as WTO representatives) at conferences, meetings, seminars, and all manner and locale of corporate pow-wows. At these meetings, the Yes Men deliver their own very special brand of WTO public address. Let's walk through a hypothetical situation. Ashley is organising a conference for a multinational adult entertainment company, at which the management might discuss ways in which it could cut costs from its dildo manufacturing sector by moving production to Indonesia where labour is cheap and tax non-existent (for some), rubber is in abundance, and where the workers hands are slender enough so as to make even the "slimline-tickler" range appear gushingly large in annual report photographs. Ashley decides that a presentation from Supachai Panitchpakdi - head of the WTO body - on the virtues of unrestrained capitalism would be a great way to start the conference, and to build esprit de corps among participants - to summon some good vibrations, if you will. So Ashley jumps on the net. After the obligatory four hours of trying to close the myriad porn site pop-ups that plague internet users of the adult entertainment industry, Ashley comes across the WTO site - or at least what looks like the WTO site - and, via the email link, goes about inviting Supachai Panitchpakdi to speak at the conference. What Ashley doesn't realise is that the site is a mirror site of the actual WTO site. This is not, however, grounds for Ashley's termination because it is only after careful and timely scrutiny that you can tell the difference - and in a hypercapitalist economy who has got time to carefully scrutinize? You see, the Yes Men own the domain name www.gatt.org (GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]being the former, not so formalised and globally sanctioned incarnation of the WTO), so in the higgledy-piggeldy cross-referencing infosphere of the internet, and its economy of keywords, unsuspecting WTO fans often find themselves perusing the Yes Men site. The Yes Men are sirens in both senses of the word. They raise alarm to rampant corporatism; and they sing the tunes of corporatism to lure their victims – they signal and seduce. The Yes Men are pull marketers, as opposed to the push tactics of logo based activism, and this is what takes them beyond logoism and its focus on the brand bullies. During the few years the Yes Men have been operating their ingenious rhetorical realignment of the WTO, they have pulled off some of the most golden moments in tactical media’s short history. In May 2002, after accepting an email invitation from conference organisers, the Yes Men hit an accountancy conference in Sydney. In his keynote speech, yes man Andy Bichlbaum announced that as of that day the WTO had decided to "effect a cessation of all operations, to be accomplished over a period of four months, culminating in September". He announced that "the WTO will reintegrate as a new trade body whose charter will be to ensure that trade benefits the poor" (ref). The shocking news hit a surprisingly receptive audience and even sparked debate in the floor of the Canadian Parliament where questions were asked by MP John Duncan about "what impact this will have on our appeals on lumber, agriculture, and other ongoing trade disputes". The Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) Australia reported that [t]he changes come in response to recent studies which indicate strongly that the current free trade rules and policies have increased poverty, pollution, and inequality, and have eroded democratic principles, with a disproportionatly large negative effect on the poorest countries (CPA: 2002) In another Yes Men assault, this time at a Finnish textiles conference, yes man Hank Hardy Unruh gave a speech (in stead of the then WTO head Mike Moore) arguing that the U.S. civil war (in which slavery became illegal) was a useless waste of time because the system of imported labour (slavery) has been supplanted now by a system of remote labour (sweatshops)- instead of bringing the "labour" to the dildos via ships from Africa, now we can take the dildos to the "labour", or more precisely, the idea of a dildo - or in biblical terms - take the mount'em to Mohammed, Mhemmet, or Ming. Unruh meandered through his speech to the usual complicit audience, happy to accept his bold assertions in the coma-like stride of a conference delegate, that is, until he ripped off his business suit (with help from an accomplice) to reveal a full-body golden leotard replete with a giant golden phallus which he proceeded to inflate with the aid of a small gas canister. He went on to describe to the audience that the suit, dubbed "the management leisure suit", was a new innovation in the remote labour control field. He informed the textiles delegates that located in the end of the phallus was a small video interface through which one could view workers in the Third World and administer, by remote control, electric shocks to those employees not working hard enough. Apparently after the speech only one objection was forwarded and that was from a woman who complained that the phallus device was not appropriate because not only men can oppress workers in the third world. It is from the complicity of their audiences that the Yes Men derive their most virulent critique. They point out that the "aim is to get people to think more seriously about the sort of bullshit they are prepared to swallow, if and when the information comes from a suitably respected authority. By appearing, for example, in the name of the WTO, one could even make out a case for justifying homicide, irrespective of the target audience's training and intellect" (Yes men) Unruh says. And this is the real statement that the Yes Men make, their real-life, real-time theatre hollows-out the signifer of the WTO and injects its own signified to highlight the predominant role of language - rhetoric - in the globalising of the ideas of neo-liberalism. In speaking shit and having people, nay, experts, swallow it comfortably, the Yes Men punctuate that globalisation is as much a movement of ideas across societies as it is a movement of things through societies. It is a movement of ideals - a movement of meanings. Organisations like the WTO propagate these meanings, and propagandise a situation where there is no alternative to initiatives like free trade and the top-down, repressive regime espoused buy neoliberal triumphalists. The Yes Men highlight that the seemingly immutable and inevitable charge of neoliberalism, is in fact simply the dominance of a single way of structuring social life - one dictated by the market. Through their unique brand of semiotic puppetry, the Yes Men show that the project of unelected treaty organisations like the WTO and their push toward the globalisation of neoliberalism is not inevitable, it is not a fait accompli, but rather, that their claims of an inexorable movement toward a neo-liberal capitalism are simply more rhetorical than real. By using the spin and speak of the WTO to suggest ideas like forcing the world's poor to recycle hamburgers to cure world hunger, the Yes Men demonstrate that the power of the WTO lies on the tip of their tongue, and their ability to convince people the world over of the unquestionable legitimacy of that tongue-tip teetering power. But it is that same power that has threatened the future of the Yes Men. In November 2001, the owners of the gatt.org website received a call from the host of its webpage, Verio. The WTO had contacted Verio and asked them to shut down the gatt.org site for copyright violations. But the Yes Men came up with their own response - they developed software that is freely available and which allows the user to mirror any site on the internet easily. Called "Reamweaver", the software allows the user to instantly "funhouse-mirror" anyone's website, copying the real-time "look and feel" but letting the user change any words, images, etc. that they choose. The thought of anyone being able to mimic any site on the internet is perhaps a little scary - especially in terms of e-commerce - imagine that "lizard-tongue belly button tickler" never arriving! Or thinking you had invited a bunch of swingers over to your house via a swingers website, only to find that you'd been duped by a rogue gang of fifteen tax accountants who had come to your house to give you a lecture on the issues associated with the inclusion of pro-forma information in preliminary announcements in East Europe 1955-1958. But seriously, I'm yet to critique the work of the Yes Men. Their brand of protest has come under fire most predictably from the WTO, and least surprisingly from their duped victims. But, really, in an era where the neo-liberal conservative right dominate the high-end operations of sociality, I am reticent to say a bad word about the Yes Men's light, creative, and refreshing style of dissent. I can hear the "free speech" cry coming from those who'd charge the Yes Men with denying their victims the right to freely express their ideas - and I suppose they are correct. But can supra-national institutions like the WTO and their ilk really complain about the Yes Men’s infringement on their rights to a fair communicative playing field when daily they ride rough-shod over the rights of people and the people-defined "rights" of all else with which we share this planet? This is a hazardous junction for the dissent of the Yes Men because it is a point at which personal actions collide head-on with social ethics. The Yes Men’s brand of dissent is a form of direct action, and like direct action, the emphasis is on putting physical bodies between the oppressor and the oppressed – in this case between the subaltern and the supra-national. The Yes Men put their bodies between and within bodies – they penetrate the veneer of the brand to crawl around inside and mess with the mind of the host company body. Messing with anybody’s body is going to be bothersome. But while corporations enjoy the “rights” of embodied citizens, they are spared from the consequences citizens must endure. Take Worldcom’s fraudulent accounting (the biggest in US history) for instance, surely such a monumental deception necessitates more than a USD500 million fine. When will “capital punishment” be introduced to apply to corporations? As in “killing off” the corporation and all its articles of association? Such inconsistencies in the citizenry praxis of corporations paint a pedestrian crossing at the junction where “body” activism meets the ethic (right?) of unequivocal free-speech for all – and when we factor-in crippling policies like structural adjustment, the ethically hazardous junction becomes shadowed by a glorious pedestrian overpass! Where logocentric activism literally concentrates on the apparel – the branded surface - the focus of groups like the Yes Men is on the body beneath – both corporate and corporeal. But are the tactics of the Yes Men enough? Does this step beyond logocentric focused activism wade into the territory of substantive change? Of course the answer is a resounding no. The Yes Men are culture jammers - and culture jamming exists in the realm of ephemera. It asks a question, for a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of struggle, and then fades away. Fetishising the tactics of the Yes Men risks steering dissent into a form of entertainment - much like the entertainmentised politics it opposes. What the Yes Men do is creative and skilful, but it does not express the depth of commitment displayed by those activists working tirelessly on myriad - less-glamorous - campaigns such as the free West Papua movement, and other broader issues of social activism like indigenous rights. If politics is entertainment, then the politics of the Yes Men celebrates the actor while ignoring the hard work of the production team. But having said that, I believe the Yes Men serve an important function in the complex mechanics of dissent. They are but one tactic - they cannot be expected to work with history, they exist in the moment, a transitory trance of reason. And provided the Yes Men continue to use their staged opportunities as platforms to suggest BETTER IDEAS, while also acknowledging the depth and complexity of the subject matter with which they deal, then their brand of protest is valid and effective. The Yes Men ride the cusp of a new style of contemporary social protest, and the more people who likewise use imagination to counter the globalitarian regime and its commodity logic, the better. Through intelligent satire and deft use of communication technologies, the Yes Men lay bare the internal illogic (in terms of human and ecological wellbeing) of the fetishistic charge to cut costs at all costs. Thank-Gatt for the Yes Men, the chastisers of the global eco-social pimps. Works Cited CPA. (2002). World Trade Organisation to Redefine Charter. http://theyesmen.org/tro/cpa.html Yes Men: http://theyesmen.org/ * And thanks to Phil Graham for the “capital punishment” idea. Links http://theyesmen.org/ http://theyesmen.org/tro/cpa.html http://www.gatt.org http://www.theyesmen.org/ Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Pace, John. "The Yes Men" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/05-yesmen.php>. APA Style Pace, J. (2003, Jun 19). The Yes Men. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/05-yesmen.php>

Proponents of the free culture movement argue that contemporary, “over-zealous” copyright laws have an adverse affect on the freedoms of consumers and creators to make use of copyrighted materials. Lessig, McLeod, Vaidhyanathan, Demers, and Coombe, to name but a few, detail instances where creativity and consumer use have been hindered by copyright laws. The “intellectual land-grab” (Boyle, “Politics” 94), instigated by the increasing value of intangibles in the information age, has forced copyright owners to seek maximal protection for copyrighted materials. A propertarian approach seeks to imbue copyrighted materials with the same inalienable rights as real property, yet copyright is not a property right, because “the copyright owner … holds no ordinary chattel” (Dowling v. United States 473 US 207, 216 [1985]). A fundamental difference resides in the exclusivity of use: “If you eat my apple, then I cannot” but “if you “take” my idea, I still have it. If I tell you an idea, you have not deprived me of it. An unavoidable feature of intellectual property is that its consumption is non-rivalrous” (Lessig, Code 131). It is, as James Boyle notes, “different” to real property (Shamans 174). Vaidhyanathan observes, “copyright in the American tradition was not meant to be a “property right” as the public generally understands property. It was originally a narrow federal policy that granted a limited trade monopoly in exchange for universal use and access” (11). This paper explores the ways in which “property talk” has infiltrated copyright discourse and endangered the utility of the law in fostering free and diverse forms of creative expression. The possessiveness and exclusion that accompany “property talk” are difficult to reconcile with the utilitarian foundations of copyright. Transformative uses of copyrighted materials such as mashing, sampling and appropriative art are incompatible with a propertarian approach, subjecting freedom of creativity to arbitary licensing fees that often extend beyond the budget of creators (Collins). “Property talk” risks making transformative works an elitist form of creativity, available only to those with the financial resources necessary to meet the demands for licences. There is a wealth of decisions throughout American and English case law that sustain Vaidhyanathan’s argument (see for example, Donaldson v. Becket 17 Cobbett Parliamentary History, col. 953; Wheaton v. Peters 33 US 591 [1834]; Fox Film Corporation v. Doyal 286 US 123 [1932]; US v. Paramount Pictures 334 US 131 [1948]; Mazer v. Stein 347 US 201, 219 [1954]; Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aitken 422 U.S. 151 [1975]; Aronson v. Quick Point Pencil Co. 440 US 257 [1979]; Dowling v. United States 473 US 207 [1985]; Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises 471 U.S. 539 [1985]; Luther R. Campbell a.k.a. Luke Skyywalker, et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. 510 U.S 569 [1994].). As Lemley states, however, “Congress, the courts and commentators increasingly treat intellectual property as simply a species of real property rather than as a unique form of legal protection designed to deal with public goods problems” (1-2). Although section 106 of the Copyright Act 1976 grants exclusive rights, sections 107 to 112 provide freedoms beyond the control of the copyright owner, undermining the exclusivity of s.106. Australian law similarly grants exceptions to the exclusive rights granted in section 31. Exclusivity was a principal objective of the eighteenth century Stationers’ argument for a literary property right. Sir William Blackstone, largely responsible for many Anglo-American concepts concerning the construction of property law, defined property in absolutist terms as “that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the whole universe” (2). On the topic of reprints he staunchly argued an author “has clearly a right to dispose of that identical work as he pleases, and any attempt to take it from him, or vary the disposition he has made of it, is an invasion of his right of property” (405-6). Blackstonian copyright advanced an exclusive and perpetual property right. Blackstone’s interpretation of Lockean property theory argued for a copyright that extended beyond the author’s expression and encompassed the very “style” and “sentiments” held therein. (Tonson v. Collins [1760] 96 ER 189.) According to Locke, every Man has a Property in his own Person . . . The Labour of his Body and the Work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. (287-8) Blackstone’s inventive interpretation of Locke “analogised ideas, thoughts, and opinions with tangible objects to which title may be taken by occupancy under English common law” (Travis 783). Locke’s labour theory, however, is not easily applied to intangibles because occupancy or use is non-rivalrous. The appropriate extent of an author’s proprietary right in a work led Locke himself to a philosophical impasse (Bowrey 324). Although Blackstonian copyright was suppressed by the House of Lords in the eighteenth century (Donaldson v. Becket [1774] 17 Cobbett Parliamentary History, col. 953) and by the Supreme Court sixty years later (Wheaton v. Peters 33 US 591 [1834]), it has never wholly vacated copyright discourse. “Property talk” is undesirable in copyright discourse because it implicates totalitarian notions such as exclusion and inalienable private rights of ownership with no room for freedom of creativity or to use copyrighted materials for non-piracy related purposes. The notion that intellectual property is a species of property akin with real property is circulated by media companies seeking greater control over copyrighted materials, but the extent to which “property talk” has been adopted by the courts and scholars is troubling. Lemley (3-5) and Bell speculate whether the term “intellectual property” carries any responsibility for the propertisation of intangibles. A survey of federal court decisions between 1943 and 2003 reveals an exponential increase in the usage of the term. As noted by Samuelson (398) and Cohen (379), within the spheres of industry, culture, law, and politics the word “property” implies a broader scope of rights than those associated with a grant of limited monopoly. Music United claims “unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted music is JUST AS ILLEGAL AS SHOPLIFTING A CD”. James Brown argues sampling from his records is tantamount to theft: “Anything they take off my record is mine . . . Can I take a button off your shirt and put it on mine? Can I take a toenail off your foot – is that all right with you?” (Miller 1). Equating unauthorised copying with theft seeks to socially demonise activities occurring outside of the permission culture currently being fostered by inventive interpretations of the law. Increasing propagation of copyright as the personal property of the creator and/or copyright owner is instrumental in efforts to secure further legislative or judicial protection: Since 1909, courts and corporations have exploited public concern for rewarding established authors by steadily limiting the rights of readers, consumers, and emerging artists. All along, the author was deployed as a straw man in the debate. The unrewarded authorial genius was used as a rhetorical distraction that appealed to the American romantic individualism. (Vaidhyanathan 11) The “unrewarded authorial genius” was certainly tactically deployed in the eighteenth century in order to generate sympathy in pleas for further protection (Feather 71). Supporting the RIAA, artists including Britney Spears ask “Would you go into a CD store and steal a CD? It’s the same thing – people going into the computers and logging on and stealing our music”. The presence of a notable celebrity claiming file-sharing is equivalent to stealing their personal property is a more publicly acceptable spin on the major labels’ attempts to maintain a monopoly over music distribution. In 1997, Congress enacted the No Electronic Theft Act which extended copyright protection into the digital realm and introduced stricter penalties for electronic reproduction. The use of “theft” in the title clearly aligns the statute with a propertarian portrayal of intangibles. Most movie fans will have witnessed anti-piracy propaganda in the cinema and on DVDs. Analogies between stealing a bag and downloading movies blur fundamental distinctions in the rivalrous/non-rivalrous nature of tangibles and intangibles (Lessig Code, 131). Of critical significance is the infiltration of “property talk” into the courtrooms. In 1990 Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote: Patents give a right to exclude, just as the law of trespass does with real property … Old rhetoric about intellectual property equating to monopoly seemed to have vanished, replaced by a recognition that a right to exclude in intellectual property is no different in principle from the right to exclude in physical property … Except in the rarest case, we should treat intellectual and physical property identically in the law – which is where the broader currents are taking us. (109, 112, 118) Although Easterbrook refers to patents, his endorsement of “property talk” is cause for concern given the similarity with which patents and copyrights have been historically treated (Ou 41). In Grand Upright v. Warner Bros. Judge Kevin Duffy commenced his judgment with the admonishment “Thou shalt not steal”. Similarly, in Jarvis v. A&M Records the court stated “there can be no more brazen stealing of music than digital sampling”. This move towards a propertarian approach is misguided. It runs contrary to the utilitarian principles underpinning copyright ideology and marginalises freedoms protected by the fair use doctrine, hence Justice Blackman’s warning that “interference with copyright does not easily equate with” interference with real property (Dowling v. United States 473 US 207, 216 [1985]). The framing of copyright in terms of real property privileges private monopoly over, and to the detriment of, the public interest in free and diverse creativity as well as freedoms of personal use. It is paramount that when dealing with copyright cases, the courts remain aware that their decisions involve not pure economic regulation, but regulation of expression, and what may count as rational where economic regulation is at issue is not necessarily rational where we focus on expression – in a Nation constitutionally dedicated to the free dissemination of speech, information, learning and culture. (Eldred v. Ashcroft 537 US 186 [2003] [J. Breyer dissenting]). Copyright is the prize in a contest of property vs. policy. As Justice Blackman observed, an infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud. (Dowling v. United States 473 US 207, 217-218 [1985]). Copyright policy places a great deal of control and cultural determinism in the hands of the creative industries. Without balance, oppressive monopolies form on the back of rights granted for the welfare of society in general. If a society wants to be independent and rich in diverse forms of cultural production and free expression, then the courts cannot continue to apply the law from within a propertarian paradigm. The question of whether culture should be determined by control or freedom in the interests of a free society is one that rapidly requires close attention – “it’s no longer a philosophical question but a practical one”. References Bayat, Asef. “Un-Civil Society: The Politics of the ‘Informal People.’” Third World Quarterly 18.1 (1997): 53-72. Bell, T. W. “Author’s Welfare: Copyright as a Statutory Mechanism for Redistributing Rights.” Brooklyn Law Review 69 (2003): 229. Blackstone, W. Commentaries on the Laws of England: Volume II. New York: Garland Publishing, 1978. (Reprint of 1783 edition.) Boyle, J. Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. Boyle, J. “A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?” Duke Law Journal 47 (1997): 87. Bowrey, K. “Who’s Writing Copyright’s History?” European Intellectual Property Review 18.6 (1996): 322. Cohen, J. “Overcoming Property: Does Copyright Trump Privacy?” University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy 375 (2002). Collins, S. “Good Copy, Bad Copy.” (2005) M/C Journal 8.3 (2006). http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/02-collins.php>. Coombe, R. The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Demers, J. Steal This Music. Athens, Georgia: U of Georgia P, 2006. Easterbrook, F. H. “Intellectual Property Is Still Property.” (1990) Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 13 (1990): 108. Feather, J. Publishing, Piracy and Politics: An Historical Study of Copyright in Britain. London: Mansell, 1994. Lemley, M. “Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding.” Texas Law Review 83 (2005): 1031. Lessig, L. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Lessing, L. The Future of Ideas. New York: Random House, 2001. Lessig, L. Free Culture. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. Locke, J. Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1988. McLeod, K. “How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop: An Interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hank Shocklee.” Stay Free (2002). 14 June 2006 http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html>. McLeod, K. “Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright Activist-Academic.” Popular Music & Society 28 (2005): 79. McLeod, K. Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. United States: Doubleday Books, 2005. Miller, M.W. “Creativity Furor: High-Tech Alteration of Sights and Sounds Divides the Art World.” Wall Street Journal (1987): 1. Ou, T. “From Wheaton v. Peters to Eldred v. Reno: An Originalist Interpretation of the Copyright Clause.” Berkman Center for Internet & Society (2000). 14 June 2006 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvashcroft/cyber/OuEldred.pdf>. Samuelson, P. “Information as Property: Do Ruckelshaus and Carpenter Signal a Changing Direction in Intellectual Property Law?” Catholic University Law Review 38 (1989): 365. Travis, H. “Pirates of the Information Infrastructure: Blackstonian Copyright and the First Amendment.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal 15 (2000): 777. Vaidhyanathan, S. Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. New York: New York UP, 2003. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Collins, Steve. "‘Property Talk’ and the Revival of Blackstonian Copyright." M/C Journal 9.4 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0609/5-collins.php>. APA Style Collins, S. (Sep. 2006) "‘Property Talk’ and the Revival of Blackstonian Copyright," M/C Journal, 9(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0609/5-collins.php>.

Introduction: Doctor Who's “Wilderness Years”1989 saw the cancellation of the BBC's long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who (1965 -). The 1990s were largely bereft of original Doctor Who television content, leading fans to characterise that decade as the “wilderness years” for the franchise (McNaughton 194). From another perspective, though, the 1990s was an unprecedented time of production for Doctor Who media. From 1991 to 1997, Virgin Publishing was licensed by the BBC's merchandising division to publish a series of original Doctor Who novels, which they produced and marketed as a continuation of the television series (Gulyas 46). This series of novels, Doctor Who: The New Adventures (commonly referred to as “the Virgin New Adventures” by fans) proved popular enough to support a monthly release schedule, and from 1994 onwards, a secondary "Missing Adventures" series.Despite their central role in the 1990s, however, many fans have argued that the Doctor Who novels format makes them either less "canonical" than the television series, or completely "apocryphal" (Gulyas 48). This fits with a general trend in transmedia properties, where print-based expansions or spin-offs are generally considered less official or authentic than those that are screen-based (Hills 223). This article argues that the openness of the series to contributions from fan writers – and also some of the techniques and approaches prioritised in fan fiction - resulted in the Virgin range of Doctor Who novels having an unusually significant impact on the development and evolution of the franchise as a whole when compared to the print-based transmedia extensions of other popular series’. The article also argues that the tonal and stylistic influence of the New Adventures novels on the revived Doctor Who television series offers an interesting counter-example to the usually strict hierarchies of content that are implied in Henry Jenkins's influential model of transmedia storytelling. Transmedia StorytellingJenkins uses the term “transmedia storytelling” to describe the ways in which media franchises frequently expand beyond the format they originate with, potentially encompassing television series, films, games, toys, comics and more (Jenkins “Transmedia 202”). In discussing this paradigm, Jenkins notes the ways in which contemporary productions increasingly prioritise “integration and coordination” between the different forms of media (Jenkins Convergence Culture 105). As Jenkins argues, “most discussions of transmedia place a high emphasis on continuity – assuming that transmedia requires a high level of coordination and creative control and that all of the pieces have to cohere into a consistent narrative or world” (Jenkins “Transmedia 202”). Due to this increased emphasis on continuity, the ability to decide which media will be considered as “canonical” within the story-world of the franchise becomes an important one. Where previously questions of canon had been largely confined to fan discussions, debates and interpretive readings of media texts (Jenkins Textual Poachers 102-104), the proprietors of franchises in a transmedia economy have an interest in proactively defining and policing the canon. Designating a particular piece of media as a “canonical” expansion or spinoff of its parent text can be a useful marketing tool, as it creates the expectation that it will provide an important contribution. Correspondingly, declaring that a particular set of media texts is no longer canonical can make the franchise more accessible and allow the authors of new material more creative freedom (Proctor and Freeman 238-9).While Jenkins argues that a reliance on “one single source or ur-text” (“Transmedia 101”) is counter to the spirit of transmedia storytelling, Pillai notes that his emphasis on cohesiveness across diverse media tends to implicitly prioritise the parent text over its various offshoots (103-4). As the parent text establishes continuity and canon, any transmedia supplements are obligated to remain consistent with it, but this is often a one-sided and hierarchical relationship. For example, in the Star Wars transmedia franchise, the film series is considered crucial in establishing the canon; and transmedia supplements are obliged to remain consistent with it in order to be recognised as authentic. The filmmakers, however, are largely free to ignore or contradict the contributions of spin-off books.Hills notes that the components of transmedia franchises are often arranged into “transmedial hierarchies” (223), where screen-based media like films, television series and video games are assigned dominance over print-based productions like comics and novels. This hierarchy means that print-based works typically have a less secure place within the canon of transmedia franchises, despite often contributing a disproportionately large quantity of narratives and concepts (Guynes 143). Using the Star Wars Expanded Universe as an example, he notes a tendency whereby “franchise novels” are generally considered as disposable, and are easily erased or decanonised despite significantly long, carefully interwoven and coordinated periods of storytelling (143-5). Doctor Who as a Transmedia FranchiseWhile questions of canon are frequently debated and discussed among Doctor Who fans, it is less easy to make absolutist distinctions between canonical and apocryphal texts in Doctor Who than it is in other popular transmedia franchises. Unlike comparable transmedia productions, Doctor Who has traditionally lacked a singular authority over questions of canon and consistency in the manner that Jenkins argues for in his implicitly hierarchical conception of transmedia storytelling (Convergence Culture 106). Where franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek or The X-Files have been guided by creator-figures who either exert direct control over their various iterations or oblige them to remain broadly consistent with their original vision, Doctor Who has generally avoided this focus; creative control has passed between various showrunners and production teams, who have been largely free to establish their own style and tone.Furthermore, the franchise has traditionally favoured a largely self-contained and episodic style of storytelling; and different storylines and periods from its long history often contradict one another. For these reasons, Booth suggests that the largely retroactive attempts on the part of fans and critics to read the entire series as the type of transmedia production that Jenkins advocates for (i.e. an internally consistent narrative of connected stories) are counter-productive. He argues that Doctor Who is perhaps best understood not as a continuing series but as a long-running anthology, where largely autonomous stories and serials can be grouped into distinct “periods” of resemblance in terms of style and subject matter (198-206).As Britton argues, when appreciating Doctor Who as franchise, there is no particular need to assign primary importance to the parent media. Since its first season in 1965, the Doctor Who television series has been regularly supplemented by other media in the form of comics, annuals, films, stage-plays, audio-dramas, and novelisations. Britton maintains that as the transmedia works follow the same loosely connected, episodic structure as the television series, they operate as equally valid or equally disposable components within its metanarrative (1-9). Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell argues that given the accommodating nature of the show’s time-travel premise (which can easily accommodate the inconsistencies that Jenkins argues should be avoided in transmedia storytelling), and in the absence of a singular revered creator-figure or authority, absolutist pronouncements on canon from any source are unnecessary and exclusionary, either delegitimising texts that the audience may value, or insisting on familiarity with a particular text in order for an experience of the media to be considered “legitimate”. The Transmedia Legacy of the Virgin New AdventuresAs the Virgin Doctor Who novels are not necessarily diminished by either their lack of a clear canonical status or their placement as a print work within a screen-focused property, they can arguably be understood as constituting their own distinct “period” of Doctor Who in the manner defined by Booth. This claim is supported by the ways in which the New Adventures distinguish themselves from the typically secondary or supplemental transmedia extensions of most other television franchises.In contrast with the one-sided and hierarchical relationship that typically exists between the parent text and its transmedia extensions (Pillai 103-4), the New Adventures range did not attempt to signal their authenticity through stylistic and narrative consistency with their source material. Virgin had already published a long series of novelisations of story serials from the original television series under its children’s imprint, Target, but from their inception the New Adventures were aimed at a more mature audience. The editor of the range, Peter Darvill-Evans, observed that by the 1990s, Doctor Who’s dedicated fan base largely consisted of adults who had grown up with the series in the 1970s and 1980s rather than the children that both the television series and the novelisations had traditionally targeted (Perryman 23). The New Adventures were initially marketed as being “too broad and deep for the small screen” (Gulyas 46), positioning them as an improvement or evolution rather than an attempt to imitate the parent media or to compensate for its absence.By comparison, most other 1990s print-based supplements to popular screen franchises tended to closely mimic the style, tone and storytelling structure of their source material. For example, the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" series of novels (which began in 1991) were subject to strict editorial oversight to ensure they remained consistent with the films and were initially marketed as "film-like events" as a way of emphasising their equivalence to the original media (Proctor and Freeman 226). The Virgin New Adventures were also distinctive due to their open submission policy (which actively encouraged submissions from fan writers who had not previously achieved conventional commercial publication) alongside work from "professional" authors (Perryman 24). This policy began because Darvill-Evans noted the ability, high motivation and deep understanding of Doctor Who possessed by fan writers (Bishop) and it proved essential in establishing the more mature approach that the series was aiming for. After three indifferently received novels from professional authors, the first work from a fan author, Paul Cornell’s Timewyrm: Revelation (1991) became highly popular, due to its more grounded, serious and complex exploration of the character of the Doctor and their human companion. Following the success of Cornell’s novel, the series began to establish its own distinctive tone, emphasising gritty urban settings, character development and interpersonal drama, and the exploration of moral ambiguities and social and political issues that would have not been permissible in the original television series (Gulyas 46-8).Works by previously unpublished fan authors came to dominate the range to such an extent that the New Adventures has been described as “licensing professionally produced fan fiction” (Perryman 23). This trajectory established the New Adventures as an unusual hybrid text, combining the sanction of an official license with the usually unofficial phenomenon of fan custodianship. The cancellation of a television series (as experienced by Doctor Who in 1989) often allows its fan community to take custodianship of it in a variety of ways (McNoughton 194). While a series is being broadcast, fans are often constructed as elite but essentially ”powerless” readers, whose interpretations and desires can easily be contradicted or ignored by the series creators (Tulloch and Jenkins 141). With cancellation and a diminishing mass audience, fans become the custodians of the series and its memory. Their interpretations can no longer be overwritten, and they become the principle market for official merchandise and transmedia extensions (McNoughton 194-6).Also, fans can explore and fulfil their desires for the narrative direction and tone of the series, through the “cottage industries” of fan-created merchandise (196) and “gift economies” of fan fiction (Flegal and Roth 258), without being impeded or overruled by official developments in the parent media. This movement towards fan custodianship and production became more visible during the 1990s, as digital technology allowed for rapid communication, connection and exchange (Coppa 53). The Virgin New Adventures range arguably operated as a meeting point between officially sanctioned commercial spin-off media and the fan-centric industries of production that work to prolong the life and memory of a cancelled television series. Indeed, the direct inclusion of fan authors and the techniques and approaches associated with fan fiction likely helped to establish the deeper, more mature interpretation of Doctor Who offered by the New Adventures.As Stein and Busse observe, a recurring feature of fan fiction has been a focus on exploring the inner lives of the characters from its source media, and adding depth and complexity to their relationships (196-8). Furthermore, the successful New Adventures fan authors tended to offer support and encouragement to each other via their informal networks, which affected the development of the series as a transmedia production (Perryman 24). Flegal and Roth note that in contrast to often solitary and individualistic forms of “professional” and “literary” writing, the composition of fan fiction emerges out of collegial, supportive and reciprocal communities (265-8). The meeting point that the Virgin New Adventures provided between professional writing practice and the attitudes and approaches common to the types of fan fiction that were becoming more prominent in the nineties (Coppa 53-5) helped to shape the evolution of Doctor Who as a franchise.Where previous Doctor Who stories (regardless of the media or medium) had been largely isolated from each other, the informal fan networks that connected the New Adventures authors allowed and encouraged them to collaborate more closely, ensuring consistency between the instalments and plotting out multi-volume story-arcs and character development. Where the Star Wars Expanded Universe series of novels ensured consistency through extensive and often intrusive top-down editorial control (Proctor and Freeman 226-7), the New Adventures developed this consistency through horizontal relationships between authors. While Doctor Who has always been a transmedia franchise, the Virgin New Adventures may be the first point where it began to fully engage with the possibilities of the coordinated and consistent transmedia storytelling discussed by Jenkins (Perryman 24-6). It is notable that this largely developed out of the collaborative and reciprocal relationships common to communities of fan-creators rather than through the singular and centralised control that Jenkins advocates.While the Virgin range of Doctor Who novels ended long before the revival of the television series in 2005, its influence on the style, tone and subject matter of the new series has been noted. As Perryman argues, the emphasis on more cohesive story-arcs and character development between episodes has been inherited from the New Adventures (24). The 2005 series also followed the Virgin novels in presenting the Doctor’s companions with detailed backgrounds and having their relationships shift and evolve, rather than remaining static like they did in the original series. The more distinctly urban focus of the new series was also likely shaped by the success of the New Adventures (Haslop 217); its well-publicised emphasis on inclusiveness and diversity was likewise prefigured by the Virgin novels, which were the first Doctor Who media to include non-Anglo and LGBQT companions (McKee "How to tell the difference" 181-2). It is highly unusual for a print-based transmedia extension to have this level of impact. Indeed, one of the most visible and profitable transmedia initiatives that began in the 1990s, the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels (which like the New Adventures was presented as an officially sanctioned continuation of the original media), was unceremoniously decanonised in 2014, and the interpretations of Star Wars characters and themes that it had developed over more than a decade of storytelling were almost entirely disregarded by the new films (Proctor and Freeman 235-7). The comparably large influence that the New Adventures had on the development of its franchise indicates the success of its fan-centric approach in developing a more relationship-driven and character-focused interpretation of its parent media.The influence of the New Adventures is also felt more directly through the continuing careers of its authors. A number of the fan writers who achieved their first commercial publication with the New Adventures (e.g. Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss) went on to write scripts for the new series. The first showrunner, Russell T. Davies, was the author of the later novels, Damaged Goods (1997), and the second, Steven Moffat, had been an active member of Doctor Who fan communities that discussed and promoted the Virgin books (Bishop). As the former New Adventures author Kate Orman notes, this movement from writing usually secondary franchise novels to working on and having authority over the parent media is almost unheard of (McKee “Interview with Kate Orman” 138), and speaks to the success of the combination of fan authorship and official licensing and support found in the New Adventures. As Hadas notes, the chief difference between the new series of Doctor Who and its classic version is that former and long-term fans of the series are now directly involved in its production, thus complicating Tullouch and Jenkin’s assessment of Doctor Who fans as a “powerless elite” (141). ConclusionThe continuing influence of the nineties New Adventures novels can still be detected in the contemporary series. These novels operate with regard to the themes, preoccupations and styles of storytelling that this range pioneered within the Doctor Who franchise, and which developed directly out of its innovative and unusual strategy of giving official sanction and editorial support to typically obscured and subcultural modes of fan writing. The reductive and exclusionary question of canon can be avoided when considering the above novels. These transmedia productions are important to the evolution and development of the media franchise as a whole. In this respect, the Virgin New Adventures operate as their own distinctive, legitimate and influential "period" within Doctor Who, demonstrating the creative potential of an approach to transmedia storytelling that deemphasises strict hierarchies of content and control and can readily include the contributions of fan producers.ReferencesBishop, David. “Four Writers, One Discussion: Andy Lane, Paul Cornell, Steven Moffat and David Bishop.” Time Space Visualiser 43 (March 1995). 1 Nov. 2018 <http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/tsv43/onediscussion.html>.Booth, Paul. “Periodising Doctor Who.” Science Fiction Film and Television 7.2 (2014). 195-215.Britton, Piers D. TARDISbound: Navigating the Universes of Doctor Who. London: I.B. Tauris and Company, 2011.Coppa, Francesca. “A Brief History of Media Fandom.” Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. Eds. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse. Jefferson NC: McFarland and Company, 2009. 41-59.Cornell, Paul. “Canonicity in Doctor Who”. PaulConell.com. 10 Feb. 2007. 30 Nov. 2018 <https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/>.Doctor Who. British Broadcasting Corporation, 1965 to present.Flegal, Monica, and Jenny Roth. “Writing a New Text: the Role of Cyberculture in Fanfiction Writers’ Transition to ‘Legitimate’ Publishing.” Contemporary Women’s Writing 10.2 (2016): 253-270.Gulyas, Aaron. “Don’t Call It a Comeback.” Doctor Who in Time and Space: Essays on Themes, Characters, History and Fandom, 1963-2012. Ed. Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan. Jefferson NC: McFarland and Company, 2013. 44-63.Guynes, Sean. “Publishing the New Jedi Order: Media Industries Collaboration and the Franchise Novel.” Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling. Eds. Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2017. 143-154.Hadas, Leora. “Running the Asylum? Doctor Who’s Ascended Fan-Showrunners.” Deletion. 23 June 2014. 30 Nov. 2018 <http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-5/running-asylum-doctor-whos-ascended-fan-showrunners/>.Haslop, Craig. “Bringing Doctor Who Back for the Masses: Regenerating Cult, Commodifying Class.” Science Fiction Film and Television 9.2 (2016): 209-297.Hills, Matt. “From Transmedia Storytelling to Transmedia Experience: Star Wars Celebration as a Crossover/Hierarchical Space.” Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling. Eds. Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2017. 213-224.Jenkins III, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. 1992.———. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006.———. “Transmedia Storytelling 101.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan. 22 Mar. 2007. 30 Nov. 2018 <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html>.———. “Transmedia Storytelling 202: Further Reflections.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan. 1 Aug. 2011. 30 Nov. 2018 <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html>.McKee, Alan. "How to Tell the Difference between Production and Consumption: A Case Study in Doctor Who Fandom." Cult Television. Eds. Sara Gwenllian-Jones and Richard M. Pearson. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2004: 167-186.———. “Interview with Kate Orman: Dr Who Author.” Continuum 19.1 (2005): 127-139. McNaughton, Douglas. “Regeneration of a Brand: The Fan Audience and the 2005 Doctor Who Revival.” Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who. Ed. Christopher J. Hansen. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 192-208.Perryman, Neil. “Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media: A Case Study in ‘Transmedia Storytelling’.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14.1 (2008): 21-39.Pillai, Nicolas. “’What Am I Looking at, Mulder?’ Licensed Comics and the Freedoms of Transmedia Storytelling.” Science Fiction Film and Television 6.1 (2013): 101-117.Porter, Lynnette. The Doctor Who Franchise: American Influence, Fan Culture, and the Spinoffs. Jefferson NC: McFarland and Company, 2018.Procter, William, and Matthew Freeman. “’The First Step into a Smaller World’: The Transmedia Economy of Star Wars.” Revisiting Imaginary Worlds: A Subcreation Studies Anthology. Ed. Mark J.P. Wolf. New York: Routledge. 2016. 223-245.Stein, Louisa, and Kristina Busse. “Limit Play: Fan Authorship between Source Text, Intertext, and Context.” Popular Communication 7.4 (2009): 192-207.Tullouch, John, and Henry Jenkins III. Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Star Trek and Doctor Who. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen argue that in “contemporary Western visualization central composition is relatively uncommon” (Reading Images 203). In fact, “most compositions polarise elements as Given and New and/or Ideal and Real” (Reading Images 203). This is the regular situation on the front pages of Australia’s national and capital city dailies; but not on May 28. Rather than the favoured front page structures of left (Given) and right (New) and/or top (Ideal) and bottom (Real), on this morning the layouts in the newspapers centralised the Schapelle Corby judgment. While this is not unprecedented, it is the type of coverage usually kept for major issues such as 9/11 or the Bali Bombing. Even the recent release of Douglas Wood, which was arguably as, if not more, important for the Australian public in terms of the issues it raised about Australia’s involvement in the war in Iraq, did not receive the same type of treatment. Although further study needs to be undertaken, I believe this centralising of issues, that is the running of one story only, on front pages is a growing trend, particularly among the tabloids. The effect of this centralising layout structure is to reduce the news choice for the reader on front pages that they would normally approach with an attitude of scanning and selecting. While this approach could still be taken across the whole paper, the front-page choices are minimised. This essay will examine the coverage of the Corby verdict in the tabloids The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, The Advertiser, The Mercury, and The West Australian, because it is here that the greatest impact of centralisation on the encoded reading paths can be found. Although the broadsheets The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Courier-Mail, and The Canberra Times also centralised the issue, there is not room here to cover them in detail. May 28 was the peak of the media frenzy in the Corby coverage, or at least one of the peaks. As the story is ongoing—turning into something of a soap opera in its call to readers and television news viewers to tune in and see the latest bizarre development, such as the chief lawyer admitting he’s a crook—it could peak again, particularly if on appeal a heavier sentence is handed down. On May 28, the focus moved from Corby’s guilt or innocence to the horror of the twenty-year sentence. In each category—broadsheet and tabloid—the layouts were remarkably similar. At a glance, three of the tabloids are so similar that side-by-side on a newsstand they could have been mistaken for the same. Apart from the fact that Corby’s beauty gave her cultural salience, it is not clear why the Australian media was so taken with her story in the first instance when there are and have been many Australians on drug charges in Asia. My interest here is not so much why or how she became news—that’s an issue for another time—but that once she had captured the attention of the Australian print media, how did they visually treat the material and what are the implications of that treatment. I will argue that the treatment elevated her story, giving it the same weight as the war on terror coverage since 9/11. One of the first elements that draws the eye on any newspaper page is the photograph. Tim Harrower suggests photographs “give a page motion and emotion” (28), arguing however that it is the headline “that leaps out, that grabs you” (37). In reality, it is most likely a combination of both that draws a reader’s attention. Both encode the importance of a story with a dominating photograph or a large headline signalling a story’s significance. The varying size of headlines and photographs and their placement signal the page designer’s order of importance. Six of the ten major Australian newspapers chose the same photograph for their front pages on May 28: a picture of Corby with her head held in her left hand and a look of despair on her face. Four of them—The Daily Telegraph, The Mercury, The Advertiser, and the Herald Sun—used the full photograph, while it was heavily cropped into a horizontal picture on the front pages of The West Australian and The Age. The Australian’s choice was similar but the photograph was taken from a slightly different angle. Only one of these newspapers, The West Australian, acknowledged that Corby did not just hang her head in her hand in despair but rather was slapping her head and sobbing as the verdict was read. The television footage gives a different impression of this moment than the still photograph run in the newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Courier-Mail, in contrast, chose a photograph of Corby struggling with the courtroom police. The Sydney Morning Herald more closely cropped their version so that the emphasis is on Corby. More of the struggle is depicted in The Courier-Mail. The only newspaper making a substantially different choice was The Canberra Times. In this publication, the central vertical photograph was a close up of Corby with tears in her eyes. Her mien is more composed than in the photographs on the other front pages. The source for the photographs, with the exception of The Australian’s choice from Associated Press, was Reuters. Given that the event was in Indonesia and in a crowded courtroom, the array of photographs may have been limited. Of interest was the use of the photograph. The Daily Telegraph, The Mercury, and the Herald Sun ran it full-page, like a poster shot, with the mastheads and headlines over the top. In contrast, The Advertiser maintained a white background for their masthead with the photograph underneath enclosed in a heavy frame and the headlines imposed on top. The other newspapers ran the photograph to the edge of the page without an added frame. The Advertiser, The Mercury, and the Herald Sun chose to forgo their normal front-page teasers. This restricted the scan and select for the reader. Normally readers would have at least two stories, sometimes three, as well as two to three teasers or pointers (usually across the top of the page under the masthead) to scan and select their reading matter. On May 28, however, Corby was centralised with a similar reading path encoded for each of these newspapers. The photograph is the most salient element and the eye moves from this to the main headline at the bottom of the page. As the masthead is known and familiar, unless the reader is selecting the newspaper from a newsstand rather than picking it up from their front yard, it is likely they would only subconsciously register it. These layouts, with a reading path from photograph to headlines down the page, are closer to linear in design, than the normal non-linear format and more interactive front pages. Therefore, the coding is for reading “left to right and from top to bottom, line by line” (Kress and van Leeuwen 218). Newspapers are not normally read in a linear way, but “selectively and partially . . . Their composition sets up particular hierarchies of the movement of the hypothetical reader within and across their different elements. Such reading paths begin with the most salient element, from there move to the next most salient element and so on.” (218) There is also sameness in the headlines and their implications. The Mercury, the most unadorned of the layouts, has “20 Years” in block capitals with a subhead and pointer reading “Corby’s Nightmare Sentence, pages 2-6”. The implication is clear, Corby’s sentence is 20 years in jail and it is pronounced a “nightmare”. The Herald Sun also chose “20 Years” with a subheading of “Shock and tears over jail sentence”. Consolidating this notion of “shock and tears” were three smaller photographs across the bottom of the page depicting crying and sobbing women. No male sympathy was depicted, thus tapping into and reinforcing Australian cultural stereotypes that it is the Australian women rather than the men who cry. The Advertiser’s main headline declared “20 Years in Hell”. Beside this was a smaller underlined headline and pointer “Guilty Corby, sent to jail, Australians react in anger Pages 8-15”. There are slight distinctions in these three pages but essentially the encoded reading path and message is the same. That is not to say that some people may read the pages in a different order. As Kress and van Leeuwen argue “newspaper pages can be read in more than one way” (“Front Page” 205), however, the choice on these pages is limited. The Daily Telegraph uses headlines with different emphasis and includes text from the main story imposed over the photograph. Pointers square-off the pages at the bottom. A kicker head at the top of the page, below the masthead, and set against a photograph of Abu Bakir Bashir, declares: “This terrorist planned the murder of 88 Australians and got two years. Yesterday Schapelle Corby got 20”. This comparison does not appear on the already examined pages. Towards the bottom of the page, the main headline set over two lines reads “Nation’s Fury”. To the right of the “Nation” is a smaller headline, which says “20 years in hell and prosecutor’s still demand life”. The story begins beside the second line “Fury”. The message on this page is more strident than the others and was analysed by the ABC TV show Media Watch on May 30. Media Watch declared the “spin on the verdict” used by The Daily Telegraph as “truly a disgrace”. The criticism was made because Bashir was not convicted in court of masterminding the bombing therefore the word “planned” is problematic and misleading. As the Media Watch report points out, the three Indonesians convicted of masterminding the bombing are on death row and will face the firing squad. The final tabloid, The West Australian, presented a similar message to The Daily Telegraph with a headline of “Bomb plotter: 2½ years / Dope smuggler: 20 years”. The visual impact of this page, however, is not as striking as the other pages. The visual designs of The Advertiser, The Daily Telegraph, The Mercury, and the Herald Sun make it immediately clear that the Corby verdict is the central issue in the news and that all other stories are so marginal they are off the page. In contrast, The West Australian ran its normal teasers just below the masthead, offering four choices for the reader as well as weather and home delivery details at the bottom. The heavily cropped central photograph of Corby leaves in only her wrist and central facial features; it is not even immediately apparent that the photograph is of Corby. The story runs in an L-shape around it. Although Corby is central, the reading path is not as clear. The reader’s eye will most likely be drawn from photograph to caption and to headline or headline, photograph, caption. Whatever the path, the story text is always read last, that is, if the reader chooses this story at all (Kress and van Leeuwen, “Front Pages” 205). The story opens by announcing that Corby’s lawyers want the Australian authorities to “launch an investigation” into the case and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has offered the help of two Australian QCs in preparing an appeal. This introduction does not support the headline. The comparison with Bashir comes in paragraph three. While Corby still has salience, the inclusion of teasers on the front of The West Australian brings back the choice for the reader, albeit in a small way. Kress and van Leeuwen argue that newspapers “are the first point of ‘address’ for the readers” presenting “the most significant events and issues of the day for the paper and its readers” (“Front Page” 229). In the Corby coverage on May 28, the newspapers presented the court verdict as the most important of all stories on offer and her image became the most salient element, the “nucleus” of the front pages. All newspapers make choices for their readers in their capacity as gatekeepers (see David Manning White and Glen Bleske), but not, I would argue, to the extent that it appeared in the Corby case. A centralising approach to news can be understood with stories such as 9/11 or the Bali Bombing but does one woman’s plight over drug charges in Bali truly deserve such coverage? As a single event maybe not, but the Corby verdict again raised the issue of Australia’s uneasiness about the laws and culture of its Asian neighbours, feelings amplified in the wake of the Bali Bombing. The rhetoric used in the front pages of The Daily Telegraph and The West Australian clearly state this when they compare Corby’s sentence to Bashir’s. They demonstrate a paranoia about the treatment of “our girl” in a foreign judicial system which appears to deal more leniently with terrorists. Thus, one girl’s story is transformed into part of a much larger issue, a fact reinforced through the visual treatment of the material. There remain some questions. What does it say about the newspaper’s attitude to their readers when they centralise issues so strongly that reader choice is removed? Is this part of the “dumbing down” of the Australian media, where news organisations move towards more clearly dictating views to their reading public? Is it attributable to media ownership, after all four of these tabloids belong to News Corporation? These questions and others about the trend towards the centralising of issues are for a bigger study. For now, we watch to see how much longer Corby remains in the nucleus of the news and for further indication of a growing trend towards centralising issues. References Bleske, Glen K. “Mrs Gates Takes Over: An Updated Version of a 1949 Case Study.” Social Meanings of News. Ed. Dan Berkowitz. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997. Harrower, Tim. The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. “Front Page: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout.” Approaches to Media Discourse. Ed. Allan Bell and Peter Garrett. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2003. Media Watch. May 30, 2005. http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1380398.htm>. Sellers, Leslie. The Simple Subs Book. Oxford: Permagon Press, 1968. White, David Manning. “The ‘Gate Keeper’: A Case Study in the Selection of News.” Social Meanings of News. Ed. Dan Berkowitz. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Delaney, Elizabeth. "Scanning the Front Pages: The Schapelle Corby Judgment." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/08-delaney.php>. APA Style Delaney, E. (Aug. 2005) "Scanning the Front Pages: The Schapelle Corby Judgment," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/08-delaney.php>.

Engagement in any capacity with mainstream media since mid-2001 has meant immersion in the cross-platform, multimedia phenomenon of Harry Potter: Muggle outcast; boy wizard; corporate franchise. Consumers even casually perusing contemporary popular culture could be forgiven for suspecting they have entered a MÃbius loop in which Harry Potter-related media products and merchandise are ubiquitous: books; magazine cover stories; newspaper articles; websites; television specials; hastily assembled author biographies; advertisements on broadcast and pay television; children's merchandising; and theme park attractions. Each of these media commodities has been anchored in and cross-promoted by America Online-Time Warner's (AOL-TW) first instalment in a projected seven-film sequence—Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.1 The marketing campaign has gradually escalated in the three years elapsing between AOL-TW subsidiary Warner Bros' purchase from J.K. Rowling of the film and merchandising rights to the first two Harry Potter books, and the November 2001 world premiere of the film (Sherber 55). As current AOL-TW CEO Richard Parsons accurately forecast, "You're not going to be able to go anywhere without knowing about it. This could be a bigger franchise than Star Wars" (Auletta 50). Yet, AOL-TW's promotional strategy did not limit itself to creating mere awareness of the film's release. Rather, its tactic was to create an all-encompassing environment structured around the immense value of the Harry Potter brand—a "brand cocoon" which consumers do not so much enter and exit as choose to exist within (Klein 2002). In twenty-first-century mass marketing, the art is to target affluent consumers willing to direct their informational, entertainment, and consumption practices increasingly within the "walled garden" of a single conglomerate's content offerings (Auletta 55). Such an idealised modern consumer avidly samples the diversified product range of the parent conglomerate, but does so specifically by consuming multiple products derived from essentially the same content reservoir. Provided a match between consumer desire and brand can be achieved with sufficient accuracy and demographic breadth, the commercial returns are obvious: branded consumers pay multiple times for only marginally differentiated products. The Brand-Conglomerate Nexus Recyclable content has always been embraced by media industries, as cultural commodities such as early films of stage variety acts, Hollywood studio-era literary adaptations, and movie soundtrack LPs attest. For much of the twentieth century, the governing dynamic of content recycling was sequential, in that a content package (be it a novel, stage production or film) would succeed in its home medium and then, depending upon its success and potential for translation across formats, could be repackaged in a subsequent medium. Successful content repackaging may re-energise demand for earlier formatting of the same content (as film adaptations of literary bestsellers reliably increase sales of the originating novel). Yet the cultural industries providing risk capital to back content repackaging formerly required solid evidence that content had achieved immense success in its first medium before contemplating reformulations into new media. The cultural industries radically restructured in the last decades of the twentieth century to produce the multi-format phenomenon of which Harry Potter is the current apotheosis: multiple product lines in numerous corporate divisions are promoted simultaneously, the synchronicity of product release being crucial to the success of the franchise as a whole. The release of individual products may be staggered, but the goal is for products to be available simultaneously so that they work in aggregate to drive consumer awareness of the umbrella brand. Such streaming of content across parallel media formats is in many ways the logical culmination of broader late-twentieth-century developments. Digital technology has functionally integrated what were once discrete media operating platforms, and major media conglomerates have acquired subsidiaries in virtually all media formats on a global scale. Nevertheless, it remains true that the commercial risks inherent in producing, distributing and promoting a cross-format media phenomenon are vastly greater than the formerly dominant sequential approach, massively escalating financial losses should the elusive consumer-brand fit fail to materialise. A key to media corporations' seemingly quixotic willingness to expose themselves to such risk is perhaps best provided by Michael Harkavy, Warner Bros' vice-president of worldwide licensing, in his comments on Warner Music Group's soundtrack for the first Harry Potter film: It will be music for the child in us all, something we hope to take around the world that will take us to the next level of synergy between consumer products, the [AOL-TW cable channel] Cartoon Network, our music, film, and home video groups—building a longtime franchise for Harry as a team effort. (Traiman 51) The relationship between AOL-TW and the superbrand Harry Potter is essentially symbiotic. AOL-TW, as the world's largest media conglomerate, has the resources to exploit fully economies of scale in production and distribution of products in the vast Harry Potter franchise. Similarly, AOL-TW is pre-eminently placed to exploit the economies of scope afforded by its substantial holdings in every form of content delivery, allowing cross-subsidisation of the various divisions and, crucially, cross-promotion of the Harry Potter brand in an endless web of corporate self-referentiality. Yet it is less frequently acknowledged that AOL-TW needs the Harry Potter brand as much as the global commercialisation of Harry Potter requires AOL-TW. The conglomerate seeks a commercially protean megabrand capable of streaming across all its media formats to drive operating synergies between what have historically been distinct commercial divisions ("Welcome"; Pulley; Auletta 55). In light of AOL-TW's record US$54.2b losses in the first quarter of 2002, the long-term viability of the Harry Potter franchise is, if anything, still more crucial to the conglomerate's health than was envisaged at the time of its dot.com-fuelled January 2000 merger (Goldberg 23; "AOL" 35). AOL-TW's Richard Parsons conceptualises Harry Potter specifically as an asset "driving synergy both ways", neatly encapsulating the symbiotic interdependence between AOL-TW and its star franchise: "we use the different platforms to drive the movie, and the movie to drive business across the platforms" ("Harry Potter" 61). Characteristics of the Harry Potter Brand AOL-TW's enthusiasm to mesh its corporate identity with the Harry Potter brand stems in the first instance from demonstrated consumer loyalty to the Harry Potter character: J.K. Rowling's four books have sold in excess of 100m copies in 47 countries and have been translated into 47 languages.2 In addition, the brand has shown a promising tendency towards demographic bracket-creep, attracting loyal adult readers in sufficient numbers to prompt UK publisher Bloomsbury to diversify into adult-targeted editions. As alluring for AOL-TW as this synchronic brand growth is, the real goldmine inheres in the brand's potential for diachronic growth. From her first outlines of the concept, Rowling conceived of the Potter story as a seven-part series, which from a marketing perspective ensures the broadscale re-promotion of the Harry Potter brand on an almost annual basis throughout the current decade. This moreover assists re-release of the first film on an approximately five-year basis to new audiences previously too young to fall within its demographic catchment—the exact strategy of "classic" rebranding which has underwritten rival studio Disney's fortunes.3 Complementing this brand extension is the potential to grow child consumers through the brand as Harry Potter sequels are produced. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone director Chris Columbus spruiks enthusiastically that "the beauty of making these books into films is that with each one, Harry is a year older, so [child actor] Daniel [Radcliffe] can remain Harry as long as we keep making them" (Manelis 111). Such comments suggest the benefits of luring child consumers through the brand as they mature, harnessing their intense loyalty to the child cast and, through the cast, to the brand itself. The over-riding need to be everything to everyone—exciting to new consumers entering the brand for the first time, comfortingly familiar to already seasoned consumers returning for a repeat hit—helps explain the retro-futuristic feel of the first film's production design. Part 1950s suburban Hitchcock, Part Dickensian London, part Cluny-tapestry medievalism, part public school high-Victorianism, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone strives for a commercially serviceable timelessness, in so doing reinforcing just how very twenty-first-century its conception actually is. In franchise terms, this conscious drive towards retro-futurism fuels Harry Potter's "toyetic potential" (Siegel, "Toys" 19). The ease with which the books' complex plots and mise-en-scene lend themselves to subsidiary rights sales and licensed merchandising in part explains Harry Potter's appeal to commercial media. AOL-TW executives in their public comments have consistently stayed on-message in emphasising "magic" as the brand's key aspirational characteristic, and certainly scenes such as the arrival at Hogwarts, the Quidditch match, the hatching of Hagrid's dragon and the final hunt through the school's dungeons serve as brilliant advertisements for AOL-TW's visual effects divisions. Yet the film exploits many of these "magic" scenes to introduce key tropes of its merchandising programme—Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, chocolate frogs, Hogwarts house colours, the sorting hat, Scabbers the rat, Hedwig, the Remembrall—such that it resembles a series of home shopping advertisements with unusually high production values. It is this railroading of the film's narrative into opportunities for consumerist display which leads film critic Cynthia Fuchs to dub the Diagon Alley shopping scene "the film's cagiest moment, at once a familiar activity for school kid viewers and an apt metaphor for what this movie is all about—consumption, of everything in sight." More telling than the normalising of shopping as filmic activity in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the eclipse of the book's checks on commodity fetishism: its very British sensitivity to class snubs for the large and impecunious Weasley family; the puzzled contempt Hogwarts initiates display for Muggle money; the gentle ribbing at children's obsession with branded sports goods. The casual browser in the Warner Bros store confronted with a plastic, light-up version of the Nimbus 2000 Quidditch broomstick understands that even the most avid authorial commitment to delimiting spin-off merchandise can try the media conglomerate's hand only so far. Constructing the Harry Potter Franchise The film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone constitutes the indispensable brand anchor for AOL-TW's intricate publicity and sales strategy around Harry Potter. Because content recycling within global media conglomerates is increasingly lead by film studio divisions, the opening weekend box office taking for a brand-anchoring film is crucial to the success of the broader franchise and, by extension, to the corporation as a whole. Critic Thomas Schatz's observation that the film's opening serves as "the "launch site" for its franchise development, establishing its value in all other media markets" (83) highlights the precariousness of such multi-party financial investment all hinging upon first weekend takings. The fact that Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone broke (then standing) box office records with its 16 November 2001 three-day weekend openings in the US and the UK, garnering US$93.2m and GBP16m respectively, constituted the crucial first stage in AOL-TW's brand strategy (Collins 9; Fierman and Jensen 26). But it formed only an initial phase, as subsequent content recycling and cross-promotion was then structured to radiate outwards from this commercial epicentre. Three categories of recycled AOL-TW Harry Potter content are discernible, although they are frequently overlapping and not necessarily sequential. The first category, most closely tied to the film itself, are instances of reused digital content, specifically in the advance publicity trailer viewable on the official website, and downloads of movie clips, film stills and music samples from the film and its soundtrack.4 Secondly, at one remove from the film itself, is AOL-TW's licensing of film "characters, names and related indicia" to secondary manufacturers, creating tie-in merchandise designed to cross-promote the Harry Potter brand and stoke consumer investment (both emotional and financial) in the phenomenon.5 This campaign phase was itself tactically designed with two waves of merchandising release: a September 2000 launch of book-related merchandise (with no use of film-related Harry Potter indicia permitted); and a second, better selling February 2001 release of ancillary products sporting Harry Potter film logos and visual branding which coincided with and reinforced the marketing push specifically around the film's forthcoming release (Sherber 55; Siegel, "From Hype" 24; Lyman and Barnes C1; Martin 5). Finally, and most crucial to the long-term strategy of the parent conglomerate, Harry Potter branding was used to drive consumer take up of AOL-TW products not generally associated with the Harry Potter brand, as a means of luring consumers out of their established technological or informational comfort zones. Hence, the official Harry Potter website is laced with far from accidental offers to trial Internet service provider AOL; TimeWarner magazines Entertainment Weekly, People, and Time ran extensive taster stories about the film and its loyal fan culture (Jensen 56-57; Fierman and Jensen 26-28; "Magic Kingdom" 132-36; Corliss 136; Dickinson 115); AOL-TW's Moviefone bookings service advertised pre-release Harry Potter tickets on its website; and Warner Bros Movie World theme park on the Gold Coast in Australia heavily promoted its Harry Potter Movie Magic Experience. Investment in a content brand on the scale of AOL-TW's outlay of US$1.4m for Harry Potter must not only drive substantial business across every platform of the converged media conglomerate by providing premium content (Grover 66). It must, crucially for the long run, also drive take up and on-going subscriptions to the delivery services owned by the parent corporation. Energising such all-encompassing strategising is the corporate nirvana of seamless synergy: between content and distribution; between the Harry Potter and AOL-TW brands; between conglomerate and consumer. Notes 1. The film, like the first of J.K. Rowling's books, is titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the "metaphysics-averse" US ("Harry Potter" 61). 2. Publishing statistics sourced from Horn and Jones (59), Manelis (110) and Bloomsbury Publishing's Harry Potter website: http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/harryp.... 3. Interestingly, Disney tangentially acknowledged the extent to which AOL-TW has appropriated Disney's own content recycling strategies. In a film trailer for the Pixar/Disney animated collaboration Monsters, Inc. which screened in Australia and the US before Harry Potter sessions, two monsters play a game of charades to which the answer is transparently "Harry Potter." In the way of such homages from one media giant to another, it nevertheless subtly directs the audience to the Disney product screening in an adjacent cinema. 4. The official Harry Potter film website is http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com. The official site for the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone is: http://www.harrypottersoundtrack.com. 5. J.K. Rowling." A page and a half of non-negotiable "Harry Potter Terms of Use" further spells out prohibitions on use or modification of site content without the explicit (and unlikely) consent of AOL-TW (refer: http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/cmp/te...). References "AOL losses 'sort of a deep disappointment'." Weekend Australian 18-19 May 2002: 35. Auletta, Ken. "Leviathan." New Yorker 29 Oct. 2001: 50-56, 58-61. Collins, Luke. "Harry Potter's Magical $178m Opening." Australian Financial Review 20 Nov. 2001: 9. Corliss, Richard. "Wizardry without Magic." Time 19 Nov. 2001: 136. Dickinson, Amy. "Why Movies make Readers." Time 10 Dec. 2001: 115. Fierman, Daniel, and Jeff Jensen. "Potter of Gold: J.K. Rowling's Beloved Wiz Kid hits Screensand Breaks Records." Entertainment Weekly 30 Nov. 2001: 26-28. Fuchs, Cynthia. "The Harry Hype." PopPolitics.com 19 Nov. 2001: n.pag. Online. Internet. 8 Mar. 2002. Available <http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2001-11-19-harry.shtml>. Goldberg, Andy. "Time Will Tell." Sydney Morning Herald 27-28 Apr. 2002: 23. Grover, Ronald. "Harry Potter and the Marketer's Millstone." Business Week 15 Oct. 2001: 66. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Dir. Chris Columbus. Screenplay by Steve Kloves. Warner Bros, 2001. "Harry Potter and the Synergy Test." Economist 10 Nov. 2001: 61-62. Herman, Edward S., and Robert W. McChesney. The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. London: Cassell, 1997. Horn, John, and Malcolm Jones. "The Bubble with Harry." The Bulletin/Newsweek 13 Nov. 2001: 58-59. Jensen, Jeff. "Holiday Movie Preview: Potter's Field." Entertainment Weekly 16 Nov. 2001: 56-57. Klein, Naomi. "Naomi KleinNo Logo." The Media Report. ABC Radio National webtranscript. Broadcast in Sydney, 17 Jan. 2002. Online. Internet. 19 Feb. 2002. Available <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8:30/mediarpt/stories/s445871.htm>. Lyman, Rick, and Julian E. Barnes. "The Toy War for Holiday Movies is a Battle Among 3 Heavyweights." New York Times 12 Nov. 2001: C1. "Magic Kingdom." People Weekly 14 Jan. 2002: 132-36. Manelis, Michele. "Potter Gold." Bulletin 27 Nov. 2001: 110-11. Martin, Peter. "Rowling Stock." Weekend Australian 24-25 Nov. 2001: Review, 1, 4-5. Pulley, Brett. "Morning After." Forbes 7 Feb. 2000: 54-56. Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997. Schatz, Thomas. "The Return of the Hollywood Studio System." Conglomerates and the Media. Erik Barnouw et al. New York: New Press, 1997. 73-106. Sherber, Anne. "Licensing 2000 Showcases Harry Potter, Rudolph for Kids." Billboard 8 Jul. 2000: 55. Siegel, Seth M. "Toys & Movies: Always? Never? Sometimes!" Brandweek 12 Feb. 2001: 19. ---. "From Hype to Hope." Brandweek 11 Jun. 2001: 24. Traiman, Steve. "Harry Potter, Powerpuff Girls on A-list at Licensing 2000." Billboard 1 Jul. 2000: 51, 53. "Welcome to the 21st Century." Business Week 24 Jan. 2000: 32-34, 36-38. Links http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/harrypotter/muggles http://www.harrypottersoundtrack.com http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2001-11-19-harry.shtml http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8:30/mediarpt/stories/s445871.htm http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/cmp/terms.html Citation reference for this article MLA Style Murray, Simone. "Harry Potter, Inc." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.4 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/recycling.php>. Chicago Style Murray, Simone, "Harry Potter, Inc." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 4 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/recycling.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Murray, Simone. (2002) Harry Potter, Inc.. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(4). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/recycling.php> ([your date of access]).

Introduction Since December 2010 the dramatic spectacle of the spread of mass uprisings, civil unrest, and protest across North Africa and the Middle East have been chronicled daily on mainstream media and new media. Broadly speaking, the Arab Spring—as it came to be known—is challenging repressive, corrupt governments and calling for democracy and human rights. The convulsive events linked with these debates have been striking not only because of the rapid spread of historically momentous mass protests but also because of the ways in which the media “have become inextricably infused inside them” enabling the global media ecology to perform “an integral part in building and mobilizing support, co-ordinating and defining the protests within different Arab societies as well as trans-nationalizing them” (Cottle 295). Images of mass protests have been juxtaposed against those of individuals prepared to self-destruct for political ends. Video clips and photographs of the individual suffering of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation and the Bahraini Abdulhad al-Khawaja’s emaciated body foreground, in very graphic ways, political struggles that larger events would mask or render invisible. Highlighting broad commonalties does not assume uniformity in patterns of protest and media coverage across the region. There has been considerable variation in the global media coverage and nature of the protests in North Africa and the Middle East (Cottle). In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen uprisings overthrew regimes and leaders. In Syria it has led the country to the brink of civil war. In Bahrain, the regime and its militia violently suppressed peaceful protests. As a wave of protests spread across the Middle East and one government after another toppled in front of 24/7 global media coverage, Bahrain became the “Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West … forgotten by the world,” and largely ignored by the global media (Al-Jazeera English). Per capita the protests have been among the largest of the Arab Spring (Human Rights First) and the crackdown as brutal as elsewhere. International organizations have condemned the use of military courts to trial protestors, the detaining of medical staff who had treated the injured, and the use of torture, including the torture of children (Fisher). Bahraini and international human rights organizations have been systematically chronicling these violations of human rights, and posting on Websites distressing images of tortured bodies often with warnings about the graphic depictions viewers are about to see. It was in this context of brutal suppression, global media silence, and the reluctance of the international community to intervene, that the Bahraini-Danish human rights activist Abdulhad al-Khawaja launched his “death or freedom” hunger strike. Even this radical action initially failed to interest international editors who were more focused on Egypt, Libya, and Syria, but media attention rose in response to the Bahrain Formula 1 race in April 2012. Pro-democracy activists pledged “days of rage” to coincide with the race in order to highlight continuing human rights abuses in the kingdom (Turner). As Al Khawaja’s health deteriorated the Bahraini government resisted calls for his release (Article 19) from the Danish government who requested that Al Khawaja be extradited there on “humanitarian grounds” for hospital treatment (Fisk). This article does not explore the geo-politics of the Bahraini struggle or the possible reasons why the international community—in contrast to Syria and Egypt—has been largely silent and reluctant to debate the issues. Important as they are, those remain questions for Middle Eastern specialists to address. In this article I am concerned with the overlapping and interpenetration of two ecologies. The first ecology is the ethical framing of a prison hunger strike as a corporeal-environmental act of (self) destruction intended to achieve political ends. The second ecology is the operation of global media where international inaction inadvertently foregrounds the political struggles that larger events and discourses surrounding Egypt, Libya, and Syria overshadow. What connects these two ecologies is the body of the hunger striker, turned into a spectacle and mediated via a politics of affect that invites a global public to empathise and so enter into his suffering. The connection between the two lies in the emaciated body of the hunger striker. An Ecological Humanities Approach This exploration of two ecologies draws on the ecological humanities and its central premise of connectivity. The ecological humanities critique the traditional binaries in Western thinking between nature and culture; the political and social; them and us; the collective and the individual; mind, body and emotion (Rose & Robin, Rieber). Such binaries create artificial hierarchies, divisions, and conflicts that ultimately impede the ability to respond to crises. Crises are major changes that are “out of control” driven—primarily but not exclusively—by social, political, and cultural forces that unleash “runaway systems with their own dynamics” (Rose & Robin 1). The ecological humanities response to crises is premised on the recognition of the all-inclusive connectivity of organisms, systems, and environments and an ethical commitment to action from within this entanglement. A founding premise of connectivity, first articulated by anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson, is that the “unit of survival is not the individual or the species, but the organism-and-its-environment” (Rose & Robin 2). This highlights a dialectic in which an organism is shaped by and shapes the context in which it finds itself. Or, as Harries-Jones puts it, relations are recursive as “events continually enter into, become entangled with, and then re-enter the universe they describe” (3). This ensures constantly evolving ecosystems but it also means any organism that “deteriorates its environment commits suicide” (Rose & Robin 2) with implications for the others in the eco-system. Bateson’s central premise is that organisms are simultaneously independent, as separate beings, but also interdependent. Interactions are not seen purely as exchanges but as dynamic, dialectical, dialogical, and mutually constitutive. Thus, it is presumed that the destruction or protection of others has consequences for oneself. Another dimension of interactions is multi-modality, which implies that human communication cannot be reduced to a single mode such as words, actions, or images but needs to be understood in the complexity of inter-relations between these (see Rieber 16). Nor can dissemination be reduced to a single technological platform whether this is print, television, Internet, or other media (see Cottle). The final point is that interactions are “biologically grounded but not determined” in that the “cognitive, emotional and volitional processes” underpinning face-to-face or mediated communication are “essentially indivisible” and any attempt to separate them by privileging emotion at the expense of thought, or vice versa, is likely to be unhealthy (Rieber 17). This is most graphically demonstrated in a politically-motivated hunger strike where emotion and volition over-rides the survivalist instinct. The Ecology of a Prison Hunger Strike The radical nature of a hunger strike inevitably gives rise to medico-ethical debates. Hunger strikes entail the voluntary refusal of sustenance by an individual and, when prolonged, such deprivation sets off a chain reaction as the less important components in the internal body systems shut down to protect the brain until even that can no longer be protected (see Basoglu et al). This extreme form of protest—essentially an act of self-destruction—raises ethical issues over whether or not doctors or the state should intervene to save a life for humanitarian or political reasons. In 1975 and 1991, the World Medical Association (WMA) sought to negotiate this by distinguishing between, on the one hand, the mentally/psychological impaired individual who chooses a “voluntary fast” and, on the other hand, the hunger striker who chooses a form of protest action to secure an explicit political goal fully aware of fatal consequences of prolonged action (see Annas, Reyes). This binary enables the WMA to label the action of the mentally impaired suicide while claiming that to do so for political protesters would be a “misconception” because the “striker … does not want to die” but to “live better” by obtaining certain political goals for himself, his group or his country. “If necessary he is willing to sacrifice his life for his case, but the aim is certainly not suicide” (Reyes 11). In practice, the boundaries between suicide and political protest are likely to be much more blurred than this but the medico-ethical binary is important because it informs discourses about what form of intervention is ethically appropriate. In the case of the “suicidal” the WMA legitimises force-feeding by a doctor as a life-saving act. In the case of the political protestor, it is de-legitimised in discourses of an infringement of freedom of expression and an act of torture because of the pain involved (see Annas, Reyes). Philosopher Michel Foucault argued that prison is a key site where the embodied subject is explicitly governed and where the exercising of state power in the act of incarceration means the body of the imprisoned no longer solely belongs to the individual. It is also where the “body’s range of significations” is curtailed, “shaped and invested by the very forces that detain and imprison it” (Pugliese 2). Thus, prison creates the circumstances in which the incarcerated is denied the “usual forms of protest and judicial safeguards” available outside its confines. The consequence is that when presented with conditions that violate core beliefs he/she may view acts of self-destruction—such as hunger strikes or lip sewing—as one of the few “means of protesting against, or demanding attention” or achieving political ends still available to them (Reyes 11; Pugliese). The hunger strike implicates the state, which, in the act of imprisoning, has assumed a measure of power and responsibility for the body of the individual. If a protest action is labelled suicidal by medical professionals—for instance at Guantanamo—then the force-feeding of prisoners can be legitimised within the WMA guidelines (Annas). There is considerable political temptation to do so particularly when the hunger striker has become an icon of resistance to the state, the knowledge of his/her action has transcended prison confines, and the alienating conditions that prompted the action are being widely debated in the media. This poses a two-fold danger for the state. On the one hand, there is the possibility that the slow emaciation and death while imprisoned, if covered by the media, may become a spectacle able to mobilise further resistance that can destabilise the polity. On the other hand, there is the fear that in the act of dying, and the spectacle surrounding death, the hunger striker would have secured the public attention to the very cause they are championing. Central to this is whether or not the act of self-destruction is mediated. It is far from inevitable that the media will cover a hunger strike or do so in ways that enable the hunger striker’s appeal to the emotions of others. However, when it does, the international scrutiny and condemnation that follows may undermine the credibility of the state—as happened with the death of the IRA member Bobby Sands in Northern Ireland (Russell). The Media Ecology and the Bahrain Arab Spring The IRA’s use of an “ancient tactic ... to make a blunt appeal to sympathy and emotion” in the form of the Sands hunger strike was seen as “spectacularly successful in gaining worldwide publicity” (Willis 1). Media ecology has evolved dramatically since then. Over the past 20 years communication flows between the local and the global, traditional media formations (broadcast and print), and new communication media (Internet and mobile phones) have escalated. The interactions of the traditional media have historically shaped and been shaped by more “top-down” “politics of representation” in which the primary relationship is between journalists and competing public relations professionals servicing rival politicians, business or NGOs desire for media attention and framing issues in a way that is favourable or sympathetic to their cause. However, rapidly evolving new media platforms offer bottom up, user-generated content, a politics of connectivity, and mobilization of ordinary people (Cottle 31). However, this distinction has increasingly been seen as offering too rigid a binary to capture the complexity of the interactions between traditional and new media as well as the events they capture. The evolution of both meant their content increasingly overlaps and interpenetrates (see Bennett). New media technologies “add new communicative ingredients into the media ecology mix” (Cottle 31) as well as new forms of political protests and new ways of mobilizing dispersed networks of activists (Juris). Despite their pervasiveness, new media technologies are “unlikely to displace the necessity for coverage in mainstream media”; a feature noted by activist groups who have evolved their own “carnivalesque” tactics (Cottle 32) capable of creating the spectacle that meets television demands for action-driven visuals (Juris). New media provide these groups with the tools to publicise their actions pre- and post-event thereby increasing the possibility that mainstream media might cover their protests. However there is no guarantee that traditional and new media content will overlap and interpenetrate as initial coverage of the Bahrain Arab Spring highlights. Peaceful protests began in February 2011 but were violently quelled often by Saudi, Qatari and UAE militia on behalf of the Bahraini government. Mass arrests were made including that of children and medical personnel who had treated those wounded during the suppression of the protests. What followed were a long series of detentions without trial, military court rulings on civilians, and frequent use of torture in prisons (Human Rights Watch 2012). By the end of 2011, the country had the highest number of political prisoners per capita of any country in the world (Amiri) but received little coverage in the US. The Libyan uprising was afforded the most broadcast time (700 minutes) followed by Egypt (500 minutes), Syria (143), and Bahrain (34) (Lobe). Year-end round-ups of the Arab Spring on the American Broadcasting Corporation ignored Bahrain altogether or mentioned it once in a 21-page feature (Cavell). This was not due to a lack of information because a steady stream has flowed from mobile phones, Internet sites and Twitter as NGOs—Bahraini and international—chronicled in images and first-hand accounts the abuses. However, little of this coverage was picked up by the US-dominated global media. It was in this context that the Bahraini-Danish human rights activist Abdulhad Al Khawaja launched his “freedom or death” hunger strike in protest against the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations, the treatment of prisoners, and the conduct of the trials. Even this radical action failed to persuade international editors to cover the Bahrain Arab Spring or Al Khawaja’s deteriorating health despite being “one of the most important stories to emerge over the Arab Spring” (Nallu). This began to change in April 2012 as a number of things converged. Formula 1 pressed ahead with the Bahrain Grand Prix, and pro-democracy activists pledged “days of rage” over human rights abuses. As these were violently suppressed, editors on global news desks increasingly questioned the government and Formula 1 “spin” that all was well in the kingdom (see BBC; Turner). Claims by the drivers—many of who were sponsored by the Bahraini government—that this was a sports event, not a political one, were met with derision and journalists more familiar with interviewing superstars were diverted into covering protests because their political counterparts had been denied entry to the country (Fisk). This combination of media events and responses created the attention, interest, and space in which Al Khawaja’s deteriorating condition could become a media spectacle. The Mediated Spectacle of Al Khawaja’s Hunger Strike Journalists who had previously struggled to interest editors in Bahrain and Al Khawaja’s plight found that in the weeks leading up to the Grand Prix and since “his condition rapidly deteriorated”’ and there were “daily updates with stories from CNN to the Hindustan Times” (Nulla). Much of this mainstream news was derived from interviews and tweets from Al Khawaja’s family after each visit or phone call. What emerged was an unprecedented composite—a diary of witnesses to a hunger strike interspersed with the family’s struggles with the authorities to get access to him and their almost tangible fear that the Bahraini government would not relent and he would die. As these fears intensified 48 human rights NGOs called for his release from prison (Article 19) and the Danish government formally requested his extradition for hospital treatment on “humanitarian grounds”. Both were rejected. As if to provide evidence of Al Khawaja’s tenuous hold on life, his family released an image of his emaciated body onto Twitter. This graphic depiction of the corporeal-environmental act of (self) destruction was re-tweeted and posted on countless NGO and news Websites (see Al-Jazeera). It was also juxtaposed against images of multi-million dollar cars circling a race-track, funded by similarly large advertising deals and watched by millions of people around the world on satellite channels. Spectator sport had become a grotesque parody of one man’s struggle to speak of what was going on in Bahrain. In an attempt to silence the criticism the Bahraini government imposed a de facto news blackout denying all access to Al Khawaja in hospital where he had been sent after collapsing. The family’s tweets while he was held incommunicado speak of their raw pain, their desperation to find out if he was still alive, and their grief. They also provided a new source of information, and the refrain “where is alkhawaja,” reverberated on Twitter and in global news outlets (see for instance Der Spiegel, Al-Jazeera). In the days immediately after the race the Danish prime minister called for the release of Al Khawaja, saying he is in a “very critical condition” (Guardian), as did the UN’s Ban-Ki Moon (UN News and Media). The silencing of Al Khawaja had become a discourse of callousness and as global media pressure built Bahraini ministers felt compelled to challenge this on non-Arabic media, claiming Al Khawaja was “eating” and “well”. The Bahraini Prime Minister gave one of his first interviews to the Western media in years in which he denied “AlKhawaja’s health is ‘as bad’ as you say. According to the doctors attending to him on a daily basis, he takes liquids” (Der Spiegel Online). Then, after six days of silence, the family was allowed to visit. They tweeted that while incommunicado he had been restrained and force-fed against his will (Almousawi), a statement almost immediately denied by the military hospital (Lebanon Now). The discourses of silence and callousness were replaced with discourses of “torture” through force-feeding. A month later Al Khawaja’s wife announced he was ending his hunger strike because he was being force-fed by two doctors at the prison, family and friends had urged him to eat again, and he felt the strike had achieved its goal of drawing the world’s attention to Bahrain government’s response to pro-democracy protests (Ahlul Bayt News Agency). Conclusion This article has sought to explore two ecologies. The first is of medico-ethical discourses which construct a prison hunger strike as a corporeal-environmental act of (self) destruction to achieve particular political ends. The second is of shifting engagement within media ecology and the struggle to facilitate interpenetration of content and discourses between mainstream news formations and new media flows of information. I have argued that what connects the two is the body of the hunger striker turned into a spectacle, mediated via a politics of affect which invites empathy and anger to mobilise behind the cause of the hunger striker. The body of the hunger striker is thereby (re)produced as a feature of the twin ecologies of the media environment and the self-environment relationship. References Ahlul Bayt News Agency. “Bahrain: Abdulhadi Alkhawaja’s Statement about Ending his Hunger Strike.” (29 May 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=318439›. Al-Akhbar. “Family Concerned Al-Khawaja May Be Being Force Fed.” Al-Akhbar English. (27 April 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/family-concerned-al-khawaja-may-be-being-force-fed›. Al-Jazeera. “Shouting in the Dark.” Al-Jazeera English. (3 April 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/08/201184144547798162.html› ——-. “Bahrain Says Hunger Striker in Good Health.” Al-Jazeera English. (27 April 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/2012425182261808.html> Almousawi, Khadija. (@Tublani 2010). “Sad cus I had to listen to dear Hadi telling me how he was drugged, restrained, force fed and kept incommunicado for five days.” (30 April 2012). 3h. Tweet. 1 June 2012. Amiri, Ranni. “Bahrain by the Numbers.” CounterPunch. (December 30-31). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/30/bahrain-by-the-numbers›. Annas, George. “Prison Hunger Strikes—Why the Motive Matters.” Hastings Centre Report. 12.6 (1982): 21-22. ——-. “Hunger Strikes at Guantanamo—Medical Ethics and Human Rights in a ‘Legal Black Hole.’” The New England Journal of Medicine 355 (2006): 1377-92. 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(2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5181/how-the-media-failed-abdulhadi›. Plunkett, John. “The Voice Pips Britain's Got Talent as Ratings War Takes New Twist.” Guardian. (23 April 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/23/the-voice-britains-got-talent›. Pugliese, Joseph. “Penal Asylum: Refugees, Ethics, Hospitality.” Borderlands. 1.1 (2002). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol1no1_2002/pugliese.html›. Reuters. “Protests over Bahrain F1.” (19 April 2012). 1 June 2012 ‹http://uk.reuters.com/video/2012/04/19/protests-over-bahrain-f?videoId=233581507›. Reyes, Hernan. “Medical and Ethical Aspects of Hunger Strikes in Custody and the Issue of Torture.” Research in Legal Medicine 19.1 (1998). 1 June 2012 ‹http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/article/other/health-article-010198.htm›. Rieber, Robert. Ed. The Individual, Communication and Society: Essays in Memory of Gregory Bateson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 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IntroductionWe five friends clinked glasses in our favourite wine and cocktail bar, and considered our next collaborative writing project. We had seen M/C Journal’s call for articles for a special issue on ‘regional’ and when one of us mentioned the television program, Escape from the City, we began our critique:“They haven’t featured Armidale yet, but wouldn’t it be great if they did?”“Really? I mean, some say any publicity is good publicity but the few early episodes I’ve viewed seem to give little or no screen time to the sorts of lifestyle features I most value in our town.”“Well, seeing as we all moved here from the city ages ago, let’s talk about what made us stay?”We had found our next project.A currently popular lifestyle television show (Escape from the City) on Australia’s national public service broadcaster, the ABC, highlights the limitations of popular cultural representations of life in a regional centre. The program is targeted at viewers interested in relocating to regional Australia. As Raymond Boyle and Lisa Kelly note, popular television is an important entry point into the construction of public knowledge as well as a launching point for viewers as they seek additional information (65). In their capacity to construct popular perceptions of ‘reality’, televisual texts offer a significant insight into our understandings and expectations of what is going on around us. Similar to the concerns raised by Esther Peeren and Irina Souch in their analysis of the popular TV show Farmer Wants a Wife (a version set in the Netherlands from 2004–present), we worry that these shows “prevent important aspects of contemporary rural life from being seen and understood” (37) by the viewers, and do a disservice to regional communities.For the purposes of this article, we interrogate the episodes of Escape from the City screened to date in terms of the impact they may have on promoting regional Australia and speculate on how satisfied (or otherwise) we would be should the producers direct their lens onto our regional community—Armidale, in northern NSW. We start with a brief précis of Escape from the City and then, applying an autoethnographic approach (Butz and Besio) focusing on our subjective experiences, we share our reflections on living in Armidale. We blend our academic knowledge and knowledge of everyday life (Klevan et al.) to argue there is greater cultural diversity, complexity, and value in being in the natural landscape in regional areas than is portrayed in these representations of country life that largely focus on cheaper real estate and a five-minute commute.We employ an autoethnographic approach because it emphasises the socially and politically constituted nature of knowledge claims and allows us to focus on our own lives as a way of understanding larger social phenomena. We recognise there is a vast literature on lifestyle programs and there are many different approaches scholars can take to these. Some focus on the intention of the program, for example “the promotion of neoliberal citizenship through home investment” (White 578), while others focus on the supposed effect on audiences (Tsay-Vogel and Krakowiak). Here we only assert the effects on ourselves. We have chosen to blend our voices (Gilmore et al.) in developing our arguments, highlighting our single voices where our individual experiences are drawn on, as we argue for an alternative representation of regional life than currently portrayed in the regional ‘escapes’ of this mainstream lifestyle television program.Lifestyle TelevisionEscape from the City is one of the ‘lifestyle’ series listed on the ABC iview website under the category of ‘Regional Australia’. Promotional details describe Escape from the City as a lifestyle series of 56-minute episodes in which home seekers are guided through “the trials and tribulations of their life-changing decision to escape the city” (iview).Escape from the City is an example of format television, a term used to describe programs that retain the structure and style of those produced in another country but change the circumstances to suit the new cultural context. The original BBC format is entitled Escape to the Country and has been running since 2002. The reach of lifestyle television is extensive, with the number of programs growing rapidly since 2000, not just in the United Kingdom, but internationally (Hill; Collins). In Australia, they have completed, but not yet screened, 60 episodes of Escape from the City. However, with such popularity comes great potential to influence audiences and we argue this program warrants critical attention.Like House Hunters, the United States lifestyle television show (running since 1997), Escape from the City follows “a strict formula” (Loof 168). Each episode uses the same narrative format, beginning with an introduction to the team of experts, then introducing the prospective house buyers, briefly characterising their reasons for leaving the city and what they are looking for in their new life. After this, we are shown a map of the region and the program follows the ‘escapees’ as they view four pre-selected houses. As we leave each property, the cost and features are reiterated in the written template on the screen. We, the audience, wait in anticipation for their final decision.The focus of Escape from the City is the buying of the house: the program’s team of experts is there to help the potential ‘escapees’ find the real estate gem. Real estate value for money emerges as the primary concern, while the promise of finding a ‘life less ordinary’ as highlighted in the opening credits of the program each week, seems to fall by the wayside. Indeed, the representation of regional centres is not nuanced but limited by the emphasis placed on economics over the social and cultural.The intended move of the ‘escapees’ is invariably portrayed as motivated by disenchantment with city life. Clearly a bigger house and a smaller mortgage also has its hedonistic side. In her study of Western society represented in lifestyle shows, Lyn Thomas lists some of the negative aspects of city life as “high speed, work-dominated, consumerist” (680), along with pollution and other associated health risks. While these are mentioned in Escape from the City, Thomas’s list of the pleasures afforded by a simpler country life including space for human connection and spirituality, is not explored to any satisfying extent. Further, as a launching point for viewers in the city (Boyle and Kelly), we fear the singular focus on the price of real estate reinforces a sense of the rural as devoid of creative arts and cultural diversity with a focus on the productive, rather than the natural, landscape. Such a focus does not encourage a desire to find out more and undersells the richness of our (regional) lives.As Australian regional centres strive to circumvent or halt the negative impacts of the drift in population to the cities (Chan), lifestyle programs are important ‘make or break’ narratives, shaping the appeal and bolstering—or not—a decision to relocate. With their focus on cheaper real estate prices and the freeing up of the assets of the ‘escapees’ that a move to the country may entail, the representation is so focused on the economics that it is almost placeless. While the format includes a map of the regional location, there is little sense of being in the place. Such a limited representation does not do justice to the richness of regional lives as we have experienced them.Our TownLike so many regional centres, Armidale has much to offer and is seeking to grow (Armidale Regional Council). The challenges regional communities face in sustaining their communities is well captured in Gabriele Chan’s account of the city-country divide (Chan) and Armidale, with its population of about 25,000, is no exception. Escape from the City fails to emphasise cultural diversity and richness, yet this is what characterises our experience of our regional city. As long-term and satisfied residents of Armidale, who are keenly aware of the persuasive power of popular cultural representations (O’Sullivan and Sheridan; Sheridan and O’Sullivan), we are concerned about the trivialising or reductive manner in which regional Australia is portrayed.While we acknowledge there has not been an episode of Escape from the City featuring Armidale, if the characterisation of another, although larger, regional centre, Toowoomba, is anything to go by, our worst fears may be realised if our town is to feature in the future. Toowoomba is depicted as rural landscapes, ‘elegant’ buildings, a garden festival (the “Carnival of the Flowers”) and the town’s history as home of the Southern Cross windmill and the iconic lamington sponge. The episode features an old shearing shed and a stock whip demonstration, but makes no mention of the arts, or of the University that has been there since 1967. Summing up Toowoomba, the voiceover describes it as “an understated and peaceful place to live,” and provides “an attractive alternative” to city life, substantiated by a favourable comparison of median real estate prices.Below we share our individual responses to the question raised in our opening conversation about the limitations of Escape from the City: What have we come to value about our own town since escaping from city life?Jane: The aspects of life in Armidale I most enjoy are, at least in part, associated with or influenced by the fact that this is a centre for education and a ‘university town’. As such, there is access to an academic library and an excellent town library. The presence of the University of New England, along with independent and public schools, and TAFE, makes education a major employer, attracting a significant student population, and is a major factor in Armidale being one of the first towns in the roll-out of the NBN/high-speed broadband. University staff and students may also account for the thriving cafe culture, along with designer breweries/bars, art house cinema screenings, and a lively classical and popular music scene. Surely the presence of a university and associated spin-offs would deserve coverage in a prospective episode about Armidale.Alison: Having grown up in the city, and now having lived more than half my life in an inner-regional country town, I don’t feel I am missing out ‘culturally’ from this decision. Within our town, there is a vibrant arts community, with the regional gallery and two local galleries holding regular art exhibitions, theatre at a range of venues, and book launches at our lively local book store. And when my children were younger, there was no shortage of sporting events they could be involved with. Encountering friends and familiar faces regularly at these events adds to my sense of belonging to my community. The richness of this life does not make it to the television screen in episodes of Escape from the City.Kerry: I greatly value the Armidale community’s strong social conscience. There are many examples of successful programs to support diverse groups. Armidale Sanctuary and Humanitarian Settlement sponsored South Sudanese refugees for many years and is currently assisting Ezidi refugees. In addition to the core Sanctuary committee, many in the local community help families with developing English skills, negotiating daily life, such as reading and responding to school notes and medical questionnaires. The Backtrack program assists troubled Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth. The program helps kids “to navigate their relationships, deal with personal trauma, take responsibility […] gain skills […] so they can eventually create a sustainable future for themselves.” The documentary film Backtrack Boys shows what can be achieved by individuals with the support of the community. Missing from Escape from the City is recognition of the indigenous experience and history in regional communities, unlike the BBC’s ‘original’ program in which medieval history and Vikings often get a ‘guernsey’. The 1838 Myall Creek massacre of 28 Wirrayaraay people, led to the first prosecution and conviction of a European for killing Aboriginals. Members of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community in Armidale are now active in acknowledging the past wrongs and beginning the process of reconciliation.Josie: About 10am on a recent Saturday morning I was walking from the car park to the shopping complex. Coming down the escalator and in the vestibule, there were about thirty people and it occurred to me that there were at least six nationalities represented, with some of the people wearing traditional dress. It also struck me that this is not unusual—we are a diverse community as a result of our history and being a ‘university city’. The Armidale Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place was established in 1988 and is being extended in 2019. Diversity is apparent in cultural activities such as an international film festival held annually and many of the regular musical events and stalls at the farmers’ market increasingly reflect the cultural mix of our town. As a long-term resident, I appreciate the lifestyle here.Wendy: It is early morning and I am walking in a forest of tall trees, with just the sounds of cattle and black cockatoos. I travel along winding pathways with mossy boulders and creeks dry with drought. My dog barks at rabbits and ‘roos, and noses through the nooks and crannies of the hillside. In this public park on the outskirts of town, I can walk for two hours without seeing another person, or I can be part of a dog-walking pack. The light is grey and misty now, the ranges blue and dark green, but I feel peaceful and content. I came here from the city 30 years ago and hated it at first! But now I relish the way I can be at home in 10 minutes after starting the day in the midst of nature and feeling part of the landscape, not just a tourist—never a possibility in the city. I can watch the seasons and the animals as they come and go and be part of a community which is part of the landscape too. For me, the first verse of South of My Days, written by a ‘local’ describing our New England environment, captures this well:South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country,rises that tableland, high delicate outlineof bony slopes wincing under the winter,low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced,willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapplebranching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;and the old cottage lurches in for shelter. (Wright 20)Whilst our autoethnographic reflections may not reach the heady heights of Judith Wright, they nevertheless reflect the experience of living in, not just escaping to the country. We are disappointed that the breadth of cultural activities and the sense of diversity and community that our stories evoke are absent from the representations of regional communities in Escape from the City.Kate Oakley and Jonathon Ward argue that ‘visions of the good life’, in particular cultural life in the regions, need to be supported by policy which encourages a sustainable prosperity characterised by both economic and cultural development. Escape from the City, however, dwells on the material aspects of consumption—good house prices and the possibility of a private enterprise—almost to the exclusion of any coverage of the creative cultural features.We recognise that the lifestyle genre requires simplification for viewers to digest. What we are challenging is the sense that emerges from the repetitive format week after week whereby differences between places are lost (White 580). Instead what is conveyed in Escape from the City is that regions are homogenous and monocultural. We would like to see more screen time devoted to the social and cultural aspects of the individual locations.ConclusionWe believe coverage of a far richer and more complex nature of rural life would provide a more ‘realistic’ preview of what could be ahead for the ‘escapees’ and perhaps swing the decision to relocate. Certainly, there is some evidence that viewers gain information from lifestyle programs (Hill 106). We are concerned that a lifestyle television program that purports to provide expert advice on the benefits and possible pitfalls of a possible move to the country should be as accurate and all-encompassing as possible within the constraints of the length of the program and the genre.So, returning to what may appear to have been a light-hearted exchange between us at our local bar, and given the above discussion, we argue that television is a powerful medium. We conclude that a popular lifestyle television program such as Escape from the City has an impact on a large viewing audience. For those city-based viewers watching, the message is that moving to the country is an economic ‘no brainer’, whereas the social and cultural dimensions of regional communities, which we posit have sustained our lives, are overlooked. Such texts influence viewers’ perceptions and expectations of what escaping to the country may entail. Escape from the City exploits regional towns as subject matter for a lifestyle program but does not significantly challenge stereotypical representations of country life or does not fully flesh out what escaping to the country may achieve.ReferencesArmidale Regional Council. Community Strategic Plan 2017–2027. Armidale: Armidale Regional Council, 2017.“Backtrack Boys.” Dir. Catherine Scott. Sydney: Umbrella Entertainment, 2018.Boyle, Raymond, and Lisa W. 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Every act of art is able to reveal, balance and revive the relations between a territory and its inhabitants (François Davin, Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue)Introducing the Understory Art in Nature TrailIn February 2015, a colossal wildfire destroyed 98,300 hectares of farm and bushland surrounding the town of Northcliffe, located 365 km south of Perth, Western Australia (WA). As the largest fire in the recorded history of the southwest region (Southern Forest Arts, After the Burn 8), the disaster attracted national attention however the extraordinary contribution of local knowledge in saving a town considered by authorities to be “undefendable” (Kennedy) is yet to be widely appreciated. In accounting for a creative scene that survived the conflagration, this case study sees culture mobilised as a socioeconomic resource for conservation and the healing of community spirit.Northcliffe (population 850) sits on a coastal plain that hosts majestic old-growth forest and lush bushland. In 2006, Southern Forest Arts (SFA) dedicated a Southern Forest Sculpture Walk for creative professionals to develop artworks along a 1.2 km walk trail through pristine native forest. It was re-branded “Understory—Art in Nature” in 2009; then “Understory Art in Nature Trail” in 2015, the understory vegetation layer beneath the canopy being symbolic of Northcliffe’s deeply layered caché of memories, including “the awe, love, fear, and even the hatred that these trees have provoked among the settlers” (Davin in SFA Catalogue). In the words of the SFA Trailguide, “Every place (no matter how small) has ‘understories’—secrets, songs, dreams—that help us connect with the spirit of place.”In the view of forest arts ecologist Kumi Kato, “It is a sense of place that underlies the commitment to a place’s conservation by its community, broadly embracing those who identify with the place for various reasons, both geographical and conceptual” (149). In bioregional terms such communities form a terrain of consciousness (Berg and Dasmann 218), extending responsibility for conservation across cultures, time and space (Kato 150). A sustainable thematic of place must also include livelihood as the third party between culture and nature that establishes the relationship between them (Giblett 240). With these concepts in mind I gauge creative impact on forest as place, and, in turn, (altered) forest’s impact on people. My abstraction of physical place is inclusive of humankind moving in dialogic engagement with forest. A mapping of Understory’s creative activities sheds light on how artists express physical environments in situated creative practices, clusters, and networks. These, it is argued, constitute unique types of community operating within (and beyond) a foundational scene of inspiration and mystification that is metaphorically “rising from the ashes.” In transcending disconnectedness between humankind and landscape, Understory may be understood to both culturalise nature (as an aesthetic system), and naturalise culture (as an ecologically modelled system), to build on a trope introduced by Feld (199). Arguably when the bush is cultured in this way it attracts consumers who may otherwise disconnect from nature.The trail (henceforth Understory) broaches the histories of human relations with Northcliffe’s natural systems of place. Sub-groups of the Noongar nation have inhabited the southwest for an estimated 50,000 years and their association with the Northcliffe region extends back at least 6,000 years (SFA Catalogue; see also Crawford and Crawford). An indigenous sense of the spirit of forest is manifest in Understory sculpture, literature, and—for the purpose of this article—the compilation CD Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (henceforth Canopy, Figure 1).As a cultural and environmental construction of place, Canopy sustains the land with acts of seeing, listening to, and interpreting nature; of remembering indigenous people in the forest; and of recalling the hardships of the early settlers. I acknowledge SFA coordinator and Understory custodian Fiona Sinclair for authorising this investigation; Peter Hill for conservation conversations; Robyn Johnston for her Canopy CD sleeve notes; Della Rae Morrison for permissions; and David Pye for discussions. Figure 1. Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (CD, 2006). Cover image by Raku Pitt, 2002. Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Forest Ecology, Emotion, and ActionEstablished in 1924, Northcliffe’s ill-founded Group Settlement Scheme resulted in frontier hardship and heartbreak, and deforestation of the southwest region for little economic return. An historic forest controversy (1992-2001) attracted media to Northcliffe when protesters attempting to disrupt logging chained themselves to tree trunks and suspended themselves from branches. The signing of the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement in 1999 was followed, in 2001, by deregulation of the dairy industry and a sharp decline in area population.Moved by the gravity of this situation, Fiona Sinclair won her pitch to the Manjimup Council for a sound alternative industry for Northcliffe with projections of jobs: a forest where artists could work collectively and sustainably to reveal the beauty of natural dimensions. A 12-acre pocket of allocated Crown Land adjacent to the town was leased as an A-Class Reserve vested for Education and Recreation, for which SFA secured unified community ownership and grants. Conservation protocols stipulated that no biomass could be removed from the forest and that predominantly raw, natural materials were to be used (F. Sinclair and P. Hill, personal interview, 26 Sep. 2014). With forest as prescribed image (wider than the bounded chunk of earth), Sinclair invited the artists to consider the themes of spirituality, creativity, history, dichotomy, and sensory as a basis for work that was to be “fresh, intimate, and grounded in place.” Her brief encouraged artists to work with humanity and imagination to counteract residual community divisiveness and resentment. Sinclair describes this form of implicit environmentalism as an “around the back” approach that avoids lapsing into political commentary or judgement: “The trail is a love letter from those of us who live here to our visitors, to connect with grace” (F. Sinclair, telephone interview, 6 Apr. 2014). Renewing community connections to local place is essential if our lives and societies are to become more sustainable (Pedelty 128). To define Northcliffe’s new community phase, artists respected differing associations between people and forest. A structure on a karri tree by Indigenous artist Norma MacDonald presents an Aboriginal man standing tall and proud on a rock to become one with the tree and the forest: as it was for thousands of years before European settlement (MacDonald in SFA Catalogue). As Feld observes, “It is the stabilizing persistence of place as a container of experiences that contributes so powerfully to its intrinsic memorability” (201).Adhering to the philosophy that nature should not be used or abused for the sake of art, the works resonate with the biorhythms of the forest, e.g. functional seats and shelters and a cascading retainer that directs rainwater back to the resident fauna. Some sculptures function as receivers for picking up wavelengths of ancient forest. Forest Folk lurk around the understory, while mysterious stone art represents a life-shaping force of planet history. To represent the reality of bushfire, Natalie Williamson’s sculpture wraps itself around a burnt-out stump. The work plays with scale as small native sundew flowers are enlarged and a subtle beauty, easily overlooked, becomes apparent (Figure 2). The sculptor hopes that “spiders will spin their webs about it, incorporating it into the landscape” (SFA Catalogue).Figure 2. Sundew. Sculpture by Natalie Williamson, 2006. Understory Art in Nature Trail, Northcliffe, WA. Image by the author, 2014.Memory is naturally place-oriented or at least place-supported (Feld 201). Topaesthesia (sense of place) denotes movement that connects our biography with our route. This is resonant for the experience of regional character, including the tactile, olfactory, gustatory, visual, and auditory qualities of a place (Ryan 307). By walking, we are in a dialogue with the environment; both literally and figuratively, we re-situate ourselves into our story (Schine 100). For example, during a summer exploration of the trail (5 Jan. 2014), I intuited a personal attachment based on my grandfather’s small bush home being razed by fire, and his struggle to support seven children.Understory’s survival depends on vigilant controlled (cool) burns around its perimeter (Figure 3), organised by volunteer Peter Hill. These burns also hone the forest. On 27 Sept. 2014, the charred vegetation spoke a spring language of opportunity for nature to reassert itself as seedpods burst and continue the cycle; while an autumn walk (17 Mar. 2016) yielded a fresh view of forest colour, patterning, light, shade, and sound.Figure 3. Understory Art in Nature Trail. Map Created by Fiona Sinclair for Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue (2006). Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Understory and the Melody of CanopyForest resilience is celebrated in five MP3 audio tours produced for visitors to dialogue with the trail in sensory contexts of music, poetry, sculptures and stories that name or interpret the setting. The trail starts in heathland and includes three creek crossings. A zone of acacias gives way to stands of the southwest signature trees karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor), jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), and marri (Corymbia calophylla). Following a sheoak grove, a riverine environment re-enters heathland. Birds, insects, mammals, and reptiles reside around and between the sculptures, rendering the earth-embedded art a fusion of human and natural orders (concept after Relph 141). On Audio Tour 3, Songs for the Southern Forests, the musician-composers reflect on their regionally focused items, each having been birthed according to a personal musical concept (the manner in which an individual artist holds the totality of a composition in cultural context). Arguably the music in question, its composers, performers, audiences, and settings, all have a role to play in defining the processes and effects of forest arts ecology. Local musician Ann Rice billeted a cluster of musicians (mostly from Perth) at her Windy Harbour shack. The energy of the production experience was palpable as all participated in on-site forest workshops, and supported each other’s items as a musical collective (A. Rice, telephone interview, 2 Oct. 2014). Collaborating under producer Lee Buddle’s direction, they orchestrated rich timbres (tone colours) to evoke different musical atmospheres (Table 1). Composer/Performer Title of TrackInstrumentation1. Ann RiceMy Placevocals/guitars/accordion 2. David PyeCicadan Rhythmsangklung/violin/cello/woodblocks/temple blocks/clarinet/tapes 3. Mel RobinsonSheltervocal/cello/double bass 4. DjivaNgank Boodjakvocals/acoustic, electric and slide guitars/drums/percussion 5. Cathie TraversLamentaccordion/vocals/guitar/piano/violin/drums/programming 6. Brendon Humphries and Kevin SmithWhen the Wind First Blewvocals/guitars/dobro/drums/piano/percussion 7. Libby HammerThe Gladevocal/guitar/soprano sax/cello/double bass/drums 8. Pete and Dave JeavonsSanctuaryguitars/percussion/talking drum/cowbell/soprano sax 9. Tomás FordWhite Hazevocal/programming/guitar 10. David HyamsAwakening /Shaking the Tree /When the Light Comes guitar/mandolin/dobro/bodhran/rainstick/cello/accordion/flute 11. Bernard CarneyThe Destiny Waltzvocal/guitar/accordion/drums/recording of The Destiny Waltz 12. Joel BarkerSomething for Everyonevocal/guitars/percussion Table 1. Music Composed for Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.Source: CD sleeve and http://www.understory.com.au/art.php. Composing out of their own strengths, the musicians transformed the geographic region into a living myth. As Pedelty has observed of similar musicians, “their sounds resonate because they so profoundly reflect our living sense of place” (83-84). The remainder of this essay evidences the capacity of indigenous song, art music, electronica, folk, and jazz-blues to celebrate, historicise, or re-imagine place. Firstly, two items represent the phenomenological approach of site-specific sensitivity to acoustic, biological, and cultural presence/loss, including the materiality of forest as a living process.“Singing Up the Land”In Aboriginal Australia “there is no place that has not been imaginatively grasped through song, dance and design, no place where traditional owners cannot see the imprint of sacred creation” (Rose 18). Canopy’s part-Noongar language song thus repositions the ancient Murrum-Noongar people within their life-sustaining natural habitat and spiritual landscape.Noongar Yorga woman Della Rae Morrison of the Bibbulmun and Wilman nations co-founded The Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance to campaign against the uranium mining industry threatening Ngank Boodjak (her country, “Mother Earth”) (D.R. Morrison, e-mail, 15 July 2014). In 2004, Morrison formed the duo Djiva (meaning seed power or life force) with Jessie Lloyd, a Murri woman of the Guugu Yimidhirr Nation from North Queensland. After discerning the fundamental qualities of the Understory site, Djiva created the song Ngank Boodjak: “This was inspired by walking the trail […] feeling the energy of the land and the beautiful trees and hearing the birds. When I find a spot that I love, I try to feel out the lay-lines, which feel like vortexes of energy coming out of the ground; it’s pretty amazing” (Morrison in SFA Canopy sleeve) Stanza 1 points to the possibilities of being more fully “in country”:Ssh!Ni dabarkarn kooliny, ngank boodja kookoorninyListen, walk slowly, beautiful Mother EarthThe inclusion of indigenous language powerfully implements an indigenous interpretation of forest: “My elders believe that when we leave this life from our physical bodies that our spirit is earthbound and is living in the rocks or the trees and if you listen carefully you might hear their voices and maybe you will get some answers to your questions” (Morrison in SFA Catalogue).Cicadan Rhythms, by composer David Pye, echoes forest as a lively “more-than-human” world. Pye took his cue from the ambient pulsing of male cicadas communicating in plenum (full assembly) by means of airborne sound. The species were sounding together in tempo with individual rhythm patterns that interlocked to create one fantastic rhythm (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Composer David Pye). The cicada chorus (the loudest known lovesong in the insect world) is the unique summer soundmark (term coined by Truax Handbook, Website) of the southern forests. Pye chased various cicadas through Understory until he was able to notate the rhythms of some individuals in a patch of low-lying scrub.To simulate cicada clicking, the composer set pointillist patterns for Indonesian anklung (joint bamboo tubes suspended within a frame to produce notes when the frame is shaken or tapped). Using instruments made of wood to enhance the rich forest imagery, Pye created all parts using sampled instrumental sounds placed against layers of pre-recorded ambient sounds (D. Pye, telephone interview, 3 Sept. 2014). He takes the listener through a “geographical linear representation” of the trail: “I walked around it with a stopwatch and noted how long it took to get through each section of the forest, and that became the musical timing of the various parts of the work” (Pye in SFA Canopy sleeve). That Understory is a place where reciprocity between nature and culture thrives is, likewise, evident in the remaining tracks.Musicalising Forest History and EnvironmentThree tracks distinguish Canopy as an integrative site for memory. Bernard Carney’s waltz honours the Group Settlers who battled insurmountable terrain without any idea of their destiny, men who, having migrated with a promise of owning their own dairy farms, had to clear trees bare-handedly and build furniture from kerosene tins and gelignite cases. Carney illuminates the culture of Saturday night dancing in the schoolroom to popular tunes like The Destiny Waltz (performed on the Titanic in 1912). His original song fades to strains of the Victor Military Band (1914), to “pay tribute to the era where the inspiration of the song came from” (Carney in SFA Canopy sleeve). Likewise Cathie Travers’s Lament is an evocation of remote settler history that creates a “feeling of being in another location, other timezone, almost like an endless loop” (Travers in SFA Canopy sleeve).An instrumental medley by David Hyams opens with Awakening: the morning sun streaming through tall trees, and the nostalgic sound of an accordion waltz. Shaking the Tree, an Irish jig, recalls humankind’s struggle with forest and the forces of nature. A final title, When the Light Comes, defers to the saying by conservationist John Muir that “The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes the heart of the people is always right” (quoted by Hyams in SFA Canopy sleeve). Local musician Joel Barker wrote Something for Everyone to personify the old-growth karri as a king with a crown, with “wisdom in his bones.”Kevin Smith’s father was born in Northcliffe in 1924. He and Brendon Humphries fantasise the untouchability of a maiden (pre-human) moment in a forest in their song, When the Wind First Blew. In Libby Hammer’s The Glade (a lover’s lament), instrumental timbres project their own affective languages. The jazz singer intended the accompanying double bass to speak resonantly of old-growth forest; the cello to express suppleness and renewal; a soprano saxophone to impersonate a bird; and the drums to imitate the insect community’s polyrhythmic undercurrent (after Hammer in SFA Canopy sleeve).A hybrid aural environment of synthetic and natural forest sounds contrasts collision with harmony in Sanctuary. The Jeavons Brothers sampled rustling wind on nearby Mt Chudalup to absorb into the track’s opening, and crafted a snare groove for the quirky eco-jazz/trip-hop by banging logs together, and banging rocks against logs. This imaginative use of percussive found objects enhanced their portrayal of forest as “a living, breathing entity.”In dealing with recent history in My Place, Ann Rice cameos a happy childhood growing up on a southwest farm, “damming creeks, climbing trees, breaking bones and skinning knees.” The rich string harmonies of Mel Robinson’s Shelter sculpt the shifting environment of a brewing storm, while White Haze by Tomás Ford describes a smoky controlled burn as “a kind of metaphor for the beautiful mystical healing nature of Northcliffe”: Someone’s burning off the scrubSomeone’s making sure it’s safeSomeone’s whiting out the fearSomeone’s letting me breathe clearAs Sinclair illuminates in a post-fire interview with Sharon Kennedy (Website):When your map, your personal map of life involves a place, and then you think that that place might be gone…” Fiona doesn't finish the sentence. “We all had to face the fact that our little place might disappear." Ultimately, only one house was lost. Pasture and fences, sheds and forest are gone. Yet, says Fiona, “We still have our town. As part of SFA’s ongoing commission, forest rhythm workshops explore different sound properties of potential materials for installing sound sculptures mimicking the surrounding flora and fauna. In 2015, SFA mounted After the Burn (a touring photographic exhibition) and Out of the Ashes (paintings and woodwork featuring ash, charcoal, and resin) (SFA, After the Burn 116). The forthcoming community project Rising From the Ashes will commemorate the fire and allow residents to connect and create as they heal and move forward—ten years on from the foundation of Understory.ConclusionThe Understory Art in Nature Trail stimulates curiosity. It clearly illustrates links between place-based social, economic and material conditions and creative practices and products within a forest that has both given shelter and “done people in.” The trail is an experimental field, a transformative locus in which dedicated physical space frees artists to culturalise forest through varied aesthetic modalities. Conversely, forest possesses agency for naturalising art as a symbol of place. Djiva’s song Ngank Boodjak “sings up the land” to revitalise the timelessness of prior occupation, while David Pye’s Cicadan Rhythms foregrounds the seasonal cycle of entomological music.In drawing out the richness and significance of place, the ecologically inspired album Canopy suggests that the community identity of a forested place may be informed by cultural, economic, geographical, and historical factors as well as endemic flora and fauna. Finally, the musical representation of place is not contingent upon blatant forms of environmentalism. The portrayals of Northcliffe respectfully associate Western Australian people and forests, yet as a place, the town has become an enduring icon for the plight of the Universal Old-growth Forest in all its natural glory, diverse human uses, and (real or perceived) abuses.ReferencesAustralian Broadcasting Commission. “Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.” Into the Music. Prod. Robyn Johnston. Radio National, 5 May 2007. 12 Aug. 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/intothemusic/canopy-songs-for-the-southern-forests/3396338>.———. “Composer David Pye.” Interview with Andrew Ford. The Music Show, Radio National, 12 Sep. 2009. 30 Jan. 2015 <http://canadapodcasts.ca/podcasts/MusicShowThe/1225021>.Berg, Peter, and Raymond Dasmann. “Reinhabiting California.” Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California. Ed. Peter Berg. San Francisco: Planet Drum, 1978. 217-20.Crawford, Patricia, and Ian Crawford. Contested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area, Western Australia. Perth: UWA P, 2003.Feld, Steven. 2001. “Lift-Up-Over Sounding.” The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts. Ed. David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2001. 193-206.Giblett, Rod. People and Places of Nature and Culture. Bristol: Intellect, 2011.Kato, Kumi. “Addressing Global Responsibility for Conservation through Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Kodama Forest, a Forest of Tree Spirits.” The Environmentalist 28.2 (2008): 148-54. 15 Apr. 2014 <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-007-9051-6#page-1>.Kennedy, Sharon. “Local Knowledge Builds Vital Support Networks in Emergencies.” ABC South West WA, 10 Mar. 2015. 26 Mar. 2015 <http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/03/09/4193981.htm?site=southwestwa>.Morrison, Della Rae. E-mail. 15 July 2014.Pedelty, Mark. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2012.Pye, David. 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