Putting commitment on the scale: Online activism vs. Offline activism

 

Originally published on June 4, 2014

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Is racism still alive and well in the UK and Australian media?

“Racism on the rise in Australia”, a Sydney Morning Herald article cites the data on higher year-on-year percentage of Australians being discriminated (19%). Meanwhile, the Independent (2014) quotes a poll findings that four out of five people in the UK think the media coverage of ethnic minorities is racist. The British and the Australian press are seen to fall under the Liberal model as classified by Hallin and Mancini (2004), with strong professionalisation and low instrumentalisation. Nonetheless, when it comes to covering issues related to race and ethnic minorities, the media seems to fail short of its social responsibility, one of the famous four normative theories of the press (Siebert, Peterson, Schramm, 1956). 

In this analysis, I will discuss the evidence of racism in the two countries’ journalistic practices with regard to framing and discourse. I will also incorporate two variables of Hallin and Mancini’s media system – professionalism and political parallelism in understanding the dynamics behind such racist coverage.

Firstly, although there have been positive changes in news reporting, e.g. fewer explicit racist messages, a new form of racism seems to have emerged (Barker, 1981) in which there is denial of such attitude.  News, through its discourse, has become the main “information centre” about ethnic minorities, for reasons such as most white people have few daily experiences with minorities and negative opinions about them are in the interest of most whites (van Dijk, 2000).

In the UK, news about ethnic minorities seem to revolve around certain topics and issues, as pointed out by Law (2002) and van Dijk (2000): crime, work, asylum seekers, immigration, political response, racial attitudes, threats etc. However, the frame in which ethnic minorities are depicted is usually the “problem frame”. These are “episodic frames” which focus on “describing single events and occurrences, which tend to involve the use of negative stereotypes” (Papacharissi & Oliveira, 2008).

Through such framing, the media has given an unfair portrayal of a group of people who might have a genuine purpose of escaping threat by making them seen as the threat (Bailey, Harindranath, 2005). Nonetheless, in three-quarters of news, the British media puts on a great “anti-racism show” (Law, 2002). A prominent example pointed out by Law (2002) is the case of Stephen Lawrence in 1997, when the Daily Mail actively contributed to raising the issue of racial injustice, the front page: “White justice failed my son”.

Concurring with other scholars, Law (2002) painted a trend in anti-racist rhetoric, where headlines were about “exposing the stupidity of racism” rather than marginalising minority groups. As such, the media shook hands with politicians, referring to their racist comments as “gaffes” instead of adopting a critical function, as described in the representative liberal or social responsibility theories (Benson, 2008).

This leads us to the spread of “us-them” binaries. As Hall (1990) and Van Dijk (2000) argued, racism has become normalised, through linguistic use of disclaimers: positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. Although the media may say they are actually performing their “social responsibility” by preserving the “Britishness”, they cannot explain the decline in the quantity of race-related items since the mid-1980s (Law, 2002).

Zooming into specific discourse, Gabrielatos and Baker (2008) analysed newspaper coverage of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, and migrants (RASIM) over a period of 9 years. They noted the majority of the UK press did not attempt to follow the social responsibility normative theory, which, as noted by Benson (2008), means upholding objectivity, diverse viewpoints and open debate. Instead, British newspapers, especially tabloids and right-wing, made known their stance using both explicit and subtle ways.

Through negative keywords and even non-sensical terms (e.g. illegal refugees), the UK press is seen to have political parallelism regarding race coverage, although broadsheets tend to adopt thematic frames and more balanced argumentation (Gabrielatos and Baker, 2008).

In Australia, the situation is not better. The Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB) in 2004 identified seeking newsworthiness as a journalistic practice that made conflict reporting a prime choice. In this country, race is used by the media as “the reference point, the cause or the catalyst for change or problems”.

The ADB pointed out the advent of “common sense racism”, somewhat as the direct result of applying episodic frames over a period of time. This is how targeting and blaming marginalised groups become normalised through the media discourse and reasoning on a daily basis. For Australia, asylum seekers have always been the most prominent example of racialised coverage. Politicians, and in turn, the media, focused on the means of arrival (boat) rather than the reasons for seeking asylum. “We only want those prepared to be like us”, a politician wrote in an opinion piece to the Australian in 2001.

Clearly, the elites have adopted the language of “othering” and went on further to restrict access by the media to stories regarding asylum seekers. The ADB (2004) pointed out criticism of the media’s failure to act as a government watchdog. The “children overboard” incident (2001) serves as a glaring example of how the media was too quick to adopt government lines. Nonetheless, the media can also find themselves attacked by the government if interrogation into asylum seeker polices is made. Apart from cases back in 2004 cited by ADB, the latest incident involves the Australian government’s accusation of the ABC on bias grounds (2014).

In a study on the marginalisation of Vietnamese immigrants into Australia by the media, Jakubowicz et al. (1994) used the “political economy” to illustrate the “systematic exclusion” of voices other than those of media owners/controllers, unless they are “bizarre” or “sensational”. As such, the degree of autonomy, a dimension or professionalisation (Hallin and Mancini, 2004) is deemed to be low. Interestingly, findings of the Worlds of Journalism Study (2011) indicate very high perceived autonomy of journalists in Australia. The study also indicates low perceived influence of the government (political) and advertisers (economy) on journalistic practices. Perhaps there is still gap between the ideals and actual practice.

Another aspect of racialised coverage is that of Indigenous Australians. McCallum, K. and Blood, R. W. (2007) noted the media represented this social group “in routine and predictable ways that reinforce their image as a threat to the existing order and a source of conflict”. This is consistent with Iyengar (1991)’s explanation of episodic framing, which attributes failures to individual rather than societal responsibilities.

In conclusion, the UK and Australian media share many similarities in their coverage of ethnic minorities, with regard to episodic framing and other discursive elements. Racialised coverage seems to be less severe in the British press thanks to the “anti-racism show”. However, this still does not indicate high professionalisation in all dimensions, as the UK media may simply be following the government’s change in tone towards racism.

Some of the evidence discussed dates back to more than a decade ago, yet the current situation only indicates slow improvement. In Australia, proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act are argued to permeate the thinking “it’s OK to be racist” (Marriner, 2014). In the UK, although the public, including white people, have started to recognise the racist nature of media coverage, the percentage of racism-fuelled reporting is overwhelmingly high (Burrell, 2014).

References
Allan S. (1999). News Culture, Great Britain: Biddles Limited, Guildford and Kings Lynn.
Anti-Discrimination Board of New South Wales. (2003). Race for the headlines: racism and media discourse. 
Bailey, O.G. and Harindranath, R. (2005). Racialised 'othering': the representation of asylum seekers in the news media. In: Allan, S., Journalism: Critical Issues. England: Open University Press, 274-278.
Benson, R. (2008). Normative Theories of Journalism. The Blackwell International Encyclopedia of Communication (Wolfgang Donsbach, ed.): 2591-2597.
Burrell, I. (2014). Media coverage of ethnic minority Britons 'promotes racism'. The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/media-coverage-of-ethnic-minority-britons-promotes-racism-9049849.html.
Gabrielatos, C. and Baker, P. (2008). Fleeing, Sneaking, Flooding: A Corpus Analysis of Discursive Constructions of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press, 1996-2005. Journal of English Linguistics. 36, 5-38.
Hallin, D & Mancini (2004). Comparing media systems in D. Hallin & P. Mancini (eds.) Comparing media systems: three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 21-45.
Hanitzsch, T. (2012). Worlds of Journalism Study
Law, I. (2002). Race In The News, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: PALGRAVE.
Marriner, C. (2014). Racism on the rise in Australia: migrants report cultural shift. Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/national/racism-on-the-rise-in-australia-migrants-report-cultural-shift-20140405-365a5.html#ixzz2y6fvoku7.
McCallum, K. and Blood, R. W. (2007). Local Talk and Media Portrayals of Indigenous Issues in Australia: Implications for Journalism Practice. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco. 
Papacharissi, Z., & Oliveira, M. (2008). News frames terrorism: A comparative analysis of frames employed in terrorism coverage in U.S. and U.K. newspapers. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 13(1), 52-74.
Teo, P. (2000). Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers, Discourse Society, 11 (7)
Van Dijk, T.A. (2000). New(S) racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach. In: Cottle, S., Ethnic Minorities And The Media. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 33-50.

Where would your next venture be? A trio encounter

A Canadian of Indian roots found a way to express himself through business ventures as much as art. A man of Iranian origin founded and helped other start-ups in Australia. A British entrepreneur settled in Vietnam as the national director of a MNC. Representing three major regions for entrepreneurship – North America, Oceania and Asia, they take a moment to reflect on their journeys.

The first man steered Voodoo PC, a company co-founded with his brother, from a niche player to a global high-end brand which was eventually acquired by HP in 2006. During his tenure as CEO of Voodoo PC, Ravi Sood also earned the “Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Exporter of the Year” awards by two banks in Canada.

Seeing the Internet’s potential back in 1995, R (who wishes to remain anonymous) set up his own online research firm www.consult in Australia, which was integrated into ACNielsen following an acquisition deal in 2000. He now sits on several boards of funding and investment companies helping entrepreneurs. 

Rick Yvanovich, a British national, was the 32^nd foreigner granted living and working rights in Vietnam back in 1990 as the country opened up after the war. He is a serial entrepreneur and now managing two of his most successful IT consulting ventures, with a client base of around 70 countries.   

Formal assessments of business environment

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released a report on entrepreneurial ecosystem in January this year. Entrepreneurs around the globe rated the “eight pillars” making up such ecosystems in their regions and not surprisingly, places such as North America were considered more conducive to setting up new ventures, followed by Australia/New Zealand and Asia.

A separate study from the same source lets us see how countries stack up against each other in terms of competitiveness. Following the same logic, the rankings of the countries in question are: Canada at 14^th, Australia at 21^st and Vietnam at 70^th.

Whilst these rankings tell one story, our three entrepreneurs may have something different to say.

The man who combines art and business in Canada

“If that new venture is going to be in the energy or resource sector, Canada is a great place to be”, Ravi Sood says, highlighting the fact that like Russia, Canada is a resource economy which makes it hard for entrepreneurs in other industries. Meanwhile, in many countries where wealth does not simply come from “digging”, people are “forced to innovate”. That said, Ravi has managed three successful ventures in Canada with his business philosophy of being disruptive.

Raised as the second generation of immigrants from India, the Canadian entrepreneur is an artist at heart. The typical Asian family’s push for business, coupled with Ravi’s uncle who urged him to learn accounting, got the artist into strange territories of numbers, or the maths behind businesses. He struggled at first in accounting but was mentored by an instructor/hockey coach who was able to clear the “clouds always hanging over” his head.

Citing Steve Jobs as his idol, Ravi emphasises the importance of controlling creativity as a process from beginning to end: “Group thinking will kill creativity and innovation.” Ravi who often does strategy brainstorming on a wooden easel, highly values creative skillsets. “If I was to weigh a strong academic sense vs. strong creative sense, I would want my kids to be stronger on the creative side. Because everything is so competitive, especially with emerging economies."

And he wants to head exactly towards the heat. When asked where his next venture or adventure would be, Ravi mentions Hong Kong and China: “Emerging economies and big vibrant cities where there is capital and there is risk taking and there are people working around the clock.”

Asia as the new home of British entrepreneur

After coming to Vietnam as part of the job with BP, Rick Yvanovich decided to stay and became one of the earliest foreign entrepreneurs in the country. While it may not be so high on the global ranking system, Vietnam was the headquarters of Rick’s five notable ventures, not to mention a whole bunch of smaller ones.

“Entrepreneur culture is strong in Vietnam and the infrastructure to support it is growing quickly. It’s not the best but it’s not the worst and there is no reason why Vietnam can’t end up being one of the best places,” he says. Like many other nations in Asia, one of the downsides of Vietnam’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is the regulations and red tape, which can be “enough to put a lot of people off”.

Now leading his main venture - TRG International, a business IT consulting firm - Rick encourages innovation through incremental changes: “I follow Kaizen for constant never-ending improvement of the business and also of self.” He would have Innovative awards for staff, encourage a book club within the company and collect employee input for new ideas or projects.

The father of two also regards helping others as his business as well as life philosophy: “Pay it forward, always be giving as what goes around comes around, so do not wait to reciprocate, just go ahead and do it.”

Australian businessman thinks it’s time to give back

Sharing the “helping others” tenet is R, who refuses to be called an entrepreneur. After moving from Iran to Italy, France and finally the Down Under, he founded and sold two businesses. Since then, R has been investing in more than a dozen start-ups.

“The external environment in Australia is extremely conducive to setting up businesses,” R says, adding the debate about what can be done to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem here is “misdirected” because the Silicon Valley cannot be replicated anywhere else.

As the man who sits on a range of investment boards, R points out the main difference between Australia and places such as the US being there are more angel investors and less venture capital in the former.

At the age of 50, he thinks it is the time to help start-ups financially and give guidance. The number one advice he would give to entrepreneurs is: “You need to know it is for you. If someone doesn’t feel extremely passionate, enough to drop everything else they’re doing, they shouldn’t do it. Secondly, you should know what your use-by date is.”

The formula of success to him is one-third “innovation”, one-third “management”, and the last piece shared between luck and other factors. As much as he is regarded as the web/Internet guru, R thinks “being a father” is the achievement he is most proud of. “It’s a completely different world to what I thought it would be.”

Location is good, passion is indispensable

These entrepreneurs are either first or second generation immigrants who built and steered their businesses in three different economic regions. At the end of the day, it is the burning fire inside that gets you started and going. Entrepreneurship is not just about setting up a small company like others, it is about being innovative and disruptive, as the great economic Joseph Schumpeter would say. So have you got “the dream and will to found a private kingdom”?

Oz startups need Silicon Valley culture

Entrepreneurs in Australia are not seeing the country as startup-friendly with only 29 per cent saying “cultural support” is available.

A new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) scored Australia the lowest for “cultural support”, which includes risk tolerance, successful role models, innovation and so on.

Vivek Sood, managing director of Global Supply Chain Group, said Australia lacked a Silicon Valley culture: “Even today Aussies who have an innovative streak prefer to go overseas to Silicon Valley type of eco-spheres that bring out the best in them.” 

Mr Sood, who started his business in Sydney 14 years ago, said although innovation was clear at policy making level, allocated funding had not yielded desirable results due to misapplications or what he described as a bureaucratic nightmare.

The WEF found that as part of the “cultural support” component, Australia’s tolerance for risk and failure was rated particularly low, even though all Australia/New Zealand respondents considered it an important factor to startups’ growth.

Professor Ron Johnston, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Innovation (ACIIC) recognised that risk management techniques were reasonably well developed; and that the application of risk management techniques in government departments usually led them to avoiding risks.

“It is not so much [about] risk management techniques, it is attitude towards risks,” he said.

Only 50 per cent of respondents in the WEF study thought Australia had an available research culture, while the local Freelancer.com said the country lacked graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Professor Johnston said: “Australia’s production of scientists and engineers is proportionate to its population, of course while way behind the US and now China.”

The WEF asked startup businesses to rank countries on eight factors with Australia scoring an overall ranking of 53 per cent, well behind countries such as the US, UK, Switzerland and Singapore.

Mr Sood said more should be done: “All I ask is that startups should get fair hearing in the board rooms when they rock up to present their offerings in competition with the established players.”

Marketing Plan Report for Shine - The next generation of activity tracker (excerpt)

Executive summary

As technology evolves, people can become dependent on it and turn into slaves rather than masters. Being hooked on technology is blamed for a range of illnesses both mentally and physically. However, a breed of products born to motivate people to stay fit has been trying to reverse that negative notion. Activity trackers are there to encourage and complement a healthier lifestyle. 

As with any product, there are different needs and requirements. The majority of existing activity trackers available on the market appeal to dedicated sports or technology fans with an emphasis on functionality and data. Nonetheless, they are not as wearable as they should be.

Seeking to fill this gap, Misfit Wearables, a start-up company based in the US, recently introduced what is deemed the next generation of fitness tracker. “It breaks away the complexity of a highly engineered wearable sensors and presents information to the user in a simple and intuitive way”.

Moving away from a rather established competitive landscape, Misfit Wearables can pursue a market development strategy in Australia. Given a relatively stable economic environment, the Australian market is fit for business growth as consumers continue to value their health and well-being. 

An increase in individual and informal exercising, as well as a trend in monitoring personal health mean there are plenty of opportunities in the Down Under. Moreover, Shine is aimed at different market segments from existing competitors, which increases the chance of making profits. 

Shine is positioned to be a wearable and smart activity tracker, with a particular emphasis on its elegant style. Initial marketing efforts and influence will come from online platforms. 

Introduction

For those who value appearance, wanting to lead a healthy life style or have a fondness for experiencing new technology, Shine would be a proper and suitable product. These consumers are different from hard core sports and technology fans, who require more rigid health metrics. Therefore, the durable, all-metal, coin sized Shine brings the “wearable” back to the wireless wearable technology market. 

Product concept

Shine is a physical activity tracker that can be worn anywhere anytime. It is designed to be wearable and helpful in terms of motivating people to become active. In other words, Shine would appeal to those who are not currently suffering from health problems and would like to take preventive measures by staying active.

In terms of design and material, Shine is the world’s first all-metal wireless fitness device crafted from aircraft-grade aluminium. The overall design is simple, elegant yet appealing, which earns it a Reddot Design Award in 2013. Therefore, Shine provides a nice mix of quality and appearance, a factor that many consumers highly regard. 

Since Shine is aimed to be a wearable product, with its relatively small size compared to other activity trackers, it also carries a great amount of technology inside to permit functionality. Specifically, Shine uses a high precision 3-axis accelerometer (type of sensor) to track activities accurately. 

It also uses wireless data synchronisation technology between the device and smart phones which ensures an easy and fast syncing process without Internet connection or cable. The syncing process, in which users place their Shine on their smartphone screen, can be considered a novel and bonding behaviour that has potential to increase consumer usage. 

In terms of functionality, like other activity tracking devices, Shine tracks bipedal motion: walking, jogging, and running to help users reach their specified goals. It also calculates cycling, swimming, soccer etc. but adds a more weighted value to these activities. 

Adding to Shine’s credibility for accurate tracking, when comparing the level of activity tracked by Shine and Nike+ Fuelband after 8 hours of working at a desk, that of the latter was higher (Jung, 2013). That means users really are working towards a goal to achieve real results. 

As there is no display screen on Shine, the only way to know one’s progress without syncing is by tapping on it. A full circle of dots around the surface means that one has completed their daily goal. Tapping once is to know the progress (for walking and running), twice to know the time, and three times to activate the tracking of special activities (e.g. cycling, swimming, sleeping).

The Shine app (available on iOS) offers an acceptable level of data required by casual exercisers, such as distance, calorie count, steps taken. Moreover, it also gives users an intensity graph to illustrate the activity level over time, and highlights including activities, milestones, sleep. Other tools to motivate personal achievement are award badges, streaks and personal bests.

Shine can be worn as a necklace, wristband, watch or a clip-on “button” anywhere - hip, wrist, neck, chest, waist, shoe, bra, etc. Other products may offer similar wearing options but they are not as lightweight and comfortable to be worn on every occasion. 

Other outstanding features of Shine are its waterproof nature (up to 5 atm) and long battery life (up to 4 months).

Unique selling point: wearable

Points of parity:

·         Category points of parity: tracking a wide range of activities, comes with different wearing options, has an app to display data, fairly priced

·         Competitive points of parity: waterproof, long life battery, wireless sync technology

Points of difference:

• Durable, made of aircraft-grade aluminium
• Light weight, slim, small as a coin
• Minimal user interface with simple data display