The public outcomes of the Listening In project are now available via the project website: https://www.listeninginproject.org/.
As the resurgent #BlackLivesMatter movement has prompted a ‘cultural reckoning’ on racism and media in Australia (Thomas et al. 2020) and beyond, the Listening In report seeks to contribute to these vital debates with a focus on community and alternative media, and on institutional listening in response to self-determined voice in media.
The Listening In report is co-authored by Media Futures Hub co-director Tanja Dreher and Media Futures Hub member Poppy de Souza. It is a major outcome of Dreher’s Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT140100515 (2015 - 2020).
It provides a snapshot of sovereign and self-determined voice in community media, with a focus on First Nations voices, refugee and asylum seeker voices, women of colour, migrant diaspora communities, and intersectional voices. It presents results of our research on ‘institutional listening’ among policymakers and mainstream journalists. It discusses key challenges to the core values and key functions of community broadcasting in the context of digital disruption, with particular attention to competition for value from social media, and the conflicting values of corporate digital platforms.
Key findings include:
· A diverse and dynamic First Nations media sector
· Contained / constrained racialised voices
· Limited institutional listening
· Social media competition and conflicting values
Based on these findings, we call for an increased focus on the pressing challenges of shifting white supremacy and on securing community media values in the context of increasingly influential commercial social media platforms.
Future directions include:
· Further research is required to understand the persistence of white dominance in a community media sector that is celebrated for diversity.
· Further research is needed to examine the implications of platforms as infrastructures and ideologies within the media field, rather than simply as tools that can be used in service of community media values
Resources include:
· A directory of select sovereign and self-determined voice in community media
· A directory of select ‘media on media’
· ‘For an Indigenous perspective on ‘Australia Day’, here’s a quick guide to First Nations media platforms’ (with Professor Bronwyn Carlson) - published in The Conversation.