ANZCA keynote july 2018

CRICOS No. 00213Ja university for the worldreal
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Queensland University of Technology
CRICOS No. 00213J
Digital Communication, the Crisis
of Trust and the Post-Global
Terry Flew
Professor of Media and Communication
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
Keynote address to Multiple Realities,
ANZCA 2018 Annual Conference,
University of Auckland, New Zealand

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• “It may not be good for America, but it's
damn good for CBS … Most of the ads are
not about issues. They're sort of like the
debates … Man, who would have expected
the ride we're all having right now? ... The
money's rolling in and this is fun … I've
never seen anything like this, and this going
to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a
terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald.
Keep going.”
• CBS President Les Moonves, presentation to
Morgan Stanley Telecom, Media & Technology
Conference, April 2016

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• “There is that natural tension that exists
between the press and the people we were
covering, but it was never like this. We were
never called “fake news.” We were never called
“the enemy of the people,” and that just
created a totally different climate and
environment that we are all trying to make
sense of and trying to figure out: How do we
cover the news in that kind of toxic
environment?”
• Jim Acosta, CNN White House Correspondent, quoted in
“Johnson, T. (2018). Inside the Intense, Combative World
of Covering the Trump White House”, Variety, April 2018

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Fake news past and present

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Drivers of ‘fake news’ on the internet
1. The costs of producing and distributing news content
online have fallen dramatically, which shifts the
strategic balance between ‘clickbait’ and long-term
brand-building as a trusted news source;
2. The formats of social media, particularly when
accessed in small slices on mobile media platforms,
can make it difficult to identify an article’s veracity;
3. Practices of sharing, liking and commenting build upon
established friend/follower networks may lead to the
formation of ‘filter bubbles’.
Allcott & Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in
the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(2).

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Social News Uptake in the US

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Uptake of Social News by Age across six
countries

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Social News uptake by Australians
Source: Digital News Report, 2017

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The Crisis of Institutional Trust
Percentage of those surveyed who have a
great deal or quite a lot of trust in …
1973 1986 1996 2005 2010 2017
Churches and organized religion 65 57 57 53 48 41
The Supreme Court 45 54 45 41 36 40
Congress 42 41 20 22 11 12
The Presidency 39 44 36 32
The military 63 66 74 76 72
Big business 26 28 21 22 19 21
Banks 49 43 49 23 32
Organized labor 30 29 26 24 28 20
Newspapers 39 37 30 28 25 27
Television news 36 28 22 24
News on the internet 16
Source: Gallup Confidence in Institutions survey, 2018.

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Distrust of Media (Edelman Trust
Barometer 2018)

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Journalists and Digital Platforms
Source: Edelman Trust Barometer, 2018

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The growth in digital news subscriptions
Source: Roy Morgan Research, various.

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• “I think quality journalism is a scarce
commodity these days and I think the
discerning readers reward places that are
making stories that mean something … We are
in a moment of national fracturing, and our
expansion allows us to do a lot more of the
kind of work that really is in our DNA … We can
double down on our coverage of Washington
and this administration. We can double down
on publishing the best and most interesting
and thought-provoking ideas about the
American future.”
• Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic

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World trade as % of Global GDP 1960-
2015 (World Bank)
OPEC oil shocks
End of Bretton Woods
system
Fall of Berlin Wall
Deng’s “Southern Tour”
High point of
economic globalization
GFC
Slight fall
in 2010s

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The crisis of globalisation
• “Public sentiment about globalization
has taken a sharp turn. The election
of Donald Trump, Brexit, and the rise
of ultra-right parties in Europe are all
signs of growing popular displeasure
with the free movement of trade,
capital, people, and information. Even
among business leaders, doubts
about the benefits of global
interconnectedness surfaced during
the 2008 financial meltdown and
haven’t fully receded.”
• Adi Ignatius, ‘The Truth About
Globalization’, Harvard Business
Review July 2017)

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Competing visions of globalisation
• “Global cooperation, dealing with other countries, getting along with
other countries is good, it's very important. But there is no such thing
as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag. This is the
United States of America that I'm representing. I'm not representing
the globe, I'm representing your country.” (Donald Trump, speech to
Conservative Political Action Committee, February 2017)
• “Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that
you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital,
technologies, products, industries and people between economies,
and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and
creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical
trend.” (Xi Jinping, presentation to World Economic Forum, Jan.
2017)

ANZCA keynote july 2018

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