ASSESSING THE KNOWLEDGE ECOLOGIES OF MEDIA POLICY: THE CASE OF CONTENT CLASSIFICATION Paper presented to Cultivating Knowledge Ecologies: Contexts, Complexities, Powers, People, Institute for Culture and Society, Parramatta, University of Western Sydney, March 25-27, 2014 Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology

1. ASSESSING THE KNOWLEDGE
ECOLOGIES OF MEDIA POLICY: THE
CASE OF CONTENT CLASSIFICATION
Paper presented to Cultivating Knowledge Ecologies:
Contexts, Complexities, Powers, People, Institute for
Culture and Society, Parramatta, University of Western
Sydney, March 25-27, 2014
Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication,
Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of
Technology

2. Australian Law Reform Commission Final
Report: Classification—Content
Regulation and Convergent Media
• Completed Feb 2012
• 57 recommendations
for a new National
Classification Scheme
• About 1/3 of these
currently in process of
being implemented
2

3. The ALRC approach to Law Reform
• Building an evidence base
• Bias towards public
consultation
• Role of Advisory Committees
• Economic impact
• ‘Law reform is too important
to be left to the experts’
(Justice Michael Kirby, first
Chair of ALRC)
3

4. The ALRC Review Process
4

5. Context of media policy reform: from
industry ‘silos’ to convergence
5

6. Different approaches to law reform in
Westminster systems
1. Law Reform Commissions
2. Commissions of Inquiry
1. Departmental inquiries (e.g. Convergence Review,
Finkelstein Review)
2. Royal Commissions
3. Parliamentary Committees

7. Different approaches to law reform in
Westminster systems
• Law Reform Commissions ‘are more cost effective, have
the opportunity to establish greater visibility and
credibility than their ad hoc counterparts, and can build
long term relationships with interest groups that might
otherwise develop submission fatigue’ (Laura Barnett,
‘The Promise of Law Reform: Conditions for Success’,
Federal Law Review, v. 39, 2011: 192).

8. Criteria for effective and responsive law
reform (Barnett)
1. Appropriate triggers/terms of reference
2. Real consultation
3. Quality of evidence base
4. Timeliness
5. Practicality/innovativeness of recommendations

9. Benchmarks for effective
consultation/knowledge brokering
1. Balancing engagement with ‘usual suspects’ in a field, with engaging
less established, less well resourced, or less vocal stakeholders;
2. Being sufficiently credible and displaying sufficient transparency and
accountability to be able to engage in informal information-gathering;
3. Making effective use of all forms of media, and particularly social
media and online communication tools, to maximize community
awareness of issues and provide multiple ‘touchpoints’ for public
participation;
4. Getting the timing right by providing public information and
opportunities to comment at appropriate moments in the review
process, without allowing inquiry to drag on;
5. Awareness of the ‘social facts’ that underpin the inquiry, and being
able to challenge various forms of ‘received wisdom’, and self-
interested presentation of information that stakeholders may bring to
the process.

10. • Informed advice ‘requires a methodology that is not
only consultative in as inclusive a manner as possible,
but also capable of assessing representative and
expert opinion in a scientific manner. This includes,
where relevant, the use of empirical techniques and
the rigorous analysis and interpretation of data … it is
the perception that the advice is informed in this
sense that is often the crucial factor’ (Michael Tilbury,
‘Law Reform Commissions: A Deconstruction and
Stakeholder Analysis from an Australian Perspective’,
Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 2005, p. 334).