AustLit

'This special issue is dedicated to the memory and work of Brian Shoesmith and Tom O’Regan, the founding editors of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, who sadly passed away within months of each other in 2020. At the time of his passing, Brian Shoesmith was Adjunct Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Perth, Australia, where he is credited with developing the media department where he had worked for more than thirty years. In more recent years, he was also appointed as Dean for Academic Development and as Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning, Board of Trustees of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). Tom O’Regan was Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Previously, Tom had held Australian leadership positions at Murdoch University and Griffith University. Tom was Australia’s UNESCO Professor of Communication from 2001 to 2003. Both Brian and Tom had held senior leadership roles. Both had been Heads of School, Deans, and significantly are widely commended as being pioneers in the field. This special memorial issue brings together a range of notable academics that share their recollections, critical insights and engaging tributes to these pioneering scholars and mentors.' (Panizza Allmark : Continuum and the legacy of Brian Shoesmith and Tom O’Regan: a memorial issue,  Introduction)

'Once accused for the inertia of Chinese feudalism in responding to Western modernity, Confucianism has been attributed to the resurgence of East Asian economies a century later. From the proposition of ‘Asian Values’ by then Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in the 1990s to the establishment of Confucius Institutes globally since 2004 by ironically the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the notions of deference to paternal authority, educational emphasis and family values, have been coined under the umbrella of Confucianism. Within the mediascapes, such notions are often used casually to explain the differences between ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ media. This topic has been receiving scattered scholarly attention with discussions on the ideological relevance and presence of the discourses of Confucianism within the dramatic television texts (Zhu 2008; Kang and Kim 2011; Liew 2011; Dissanayake 2012). Such culturalist explanations still pervade despite the evolution of more complex media industries, communicative technologies and diverse audiences.' (Jocelyn Yi-Hsuan Lai and Liew Kai Khiun, Introduction)

'In the communicative spaces of digital media with their expanded base of user participation, emotions or the social circulation of feelings play a crucial role in the manner in which political positions are articulated and everyday negotiations with politics are performed. The articles in this Special Issue stem from an international workshop held in July 2017 at the University of Amsterdam titled ‘Emotions, political work and participatory media’, where participants working on diverse regions spoke about social media and the role of affect and emotions in the facilitation of politically engaged publics. In this Special Issue, politics emerges in community networks as well as in networks based on an abiding interest in matters of national interests. Both kinds of networks are affective (bound by sentiments of solidarity and belonging) and do deeply political work, in that their performances and interactions concern matters of community building but also identity formation.' (Introduction)

'When the alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolous toured Australia in late 2017, he attacked familiar targets – Muslims, feminists and much of the mainstream media – as well as ridiculing Aboriginal art as ‘crap’ and ‘really shit’. Demonstrating the transnational scope and ubiquity of contemporary racisms, the UK-born, US-based and internationally-known ‘free speech’ advocate had little difficulty in identifying the key targets of vilification in Australia. This theme issue identifies the deep limitations and the violent consequences of the longstanding and constantly developing ‘free speech debates’ typical of so many contexts in the West, and explores the possibilities to combat racism when liberal values are ‘weaponized’ to target racialized communities.'  ( Tanja Dreher & Michael Griffiths Introduction)

'The articles in this themed section report on aspects of the survey component of the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery project Australian Cultural Fields: National and Transnational Dynamics (DP140101970). Critically engaging with Bourdieusian field theory, this project investigated the shaping of, and relations between, art, literary, media, sport, music and heritage fields. It considered the effects on these fields of national and transnational factors including cultural policy-making, digitization and globalization probing, in particular, the role of cultural capital in mediating the relationship between education and occupational class. Particular attention was also paid to the multicultural composition of Australia’s population and the distinctive position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders both within and across the six cultural fields encompassed by the project.' (Deborah Stevenson, Tony Bennett:  'Australian cultural fields: social relations and dynamics' Editorial)

'This special issue aims to generate new ways of theorizing social movement histories, using the critical lens of remediation. An interdisciplinary concept, remediation offers an ideal approach for considering social movement histories because it allows insights into the complex ebbs and flows of social and political change, in ways that avoid overly simplistic narratives of progress, loss, return, backlash, or cooptation. Remediation lets us think about the ways in which media production emerging out of identity-based social movements is a form of activism and, as such, as Bolter and Grusin put it, help shape and reform reality (56). The contributors to this special issue examine media ranging from print (life writing; novels; magazines; letters; newsletters; and other ephemera) to visual and audiovisual (music; movies; and television) to digital materials (BBS; online archives), arguing that these media forms, in the hands of activist media makers and/or members of marginalized identity groups, play a key role in helping to shape and document social movements, build coalitions and create interventions into wider social spheres often unsympathetic to the issues faced by people who face discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, ability, carceral status and/or HIV status. The essays in this volume productively expand upon, extend and critique understandings of remediation as elaborated within media and cultural studies.. (Introduction)

'Continuum has been at the forefront of Cultural Studies for 30 years. Continuum had its beginnings in Perth, Western Australia and many of the early supporters were part of the dynamic 1980s Perth Cultural Studies scene. Jon Stratton’s analysis of the rise of Perth cultural studies places the history of Continuum in this context. He states that ‘the key themes of Perth Cultural Studies was the emphasis on text, the move to visual mass media, the use of semiotics’ and culture.  The emphasis on visual culture is still evidenced in the ever-changing cover image for the journal, which is overseen by Continuum’s Photography Editor...'  (Editorial abstract)

'This special issue of Continuum seeks to provide a cross-cultural investigation of the current phenomenon of transnational television remakes. Assembling an international team of scholars (from Australia, Germany, Israel, the UK and the USA), this edition draws upon ideas from transnational media and cultural studies to offer an understanding of global cultural borrowings and format translation that extends beyond those approaches that seek to reduce the phenomenon of television remakes simply to one of economic pragmatism. While recognizing the commercial logic of television formats that animates and provides background to these remakes, the collection develops a framework of ‘critical transculturalism’ to describe the traffic in transnational television remakes not as a unitary one-way process of cultural homogenization but rather as an interstitial process through which cultures borrow from and interact with one another. More specifically, the essays attend to recent debates around the transnational flows of local and global media cultures to focus on questions in the televisual realm, where issues of serialization and distribution are prevalent. What happens when a series is remade from one national television system to another? How is cultural translation handled across series and seasons of differing length and scope? What are the narrative and dramaturgical proximities and differences between local and other versions? How does the ready availability of original, foreign series (on services such as Netflix Instant and Sky Arts) shape an audience's reception of a local remake? How does the rhetoric of ‘Quality TV’ impact on how these remakes are understood and valued? In answering these and other questions, this volume at once acknowledges the historical antecedents to transnational trade in broadcast culture – for example, the case of Till Death Us Do Part (UK 1962–1974), All in the Family (USA 1972–1977), and Ein Herz und eine Seele (DE 1973–1976) – but also recognizes the global explosion in, and cultural significance of, transnational television remakes since the beginning of the twenty-first century.' (Editorial introduction)

'The year 2014 was a very productive year for Continuum. Our academic community contributed to the journal in many ways, such as guest editorships and transnational collections that introduced, developed and/or expanded knowledge in the area of political landscapes, contemporary media, post-feminist inflections, media space and international perspectives on Australian films and television. The journal also published selected papers from the 2012 CSAA conference on ‘Materialities, Economics, Empiricism and Things’. Over the year we have published a diverse range of papers on a variety of topics, from pop culture and social media to commentary on the neoliberal agenda that is prevalent in our cultural climate. I envisage further debate on this will continue within Cultural Studies and I welcome continued discussion on this topic.' (Editorial introduction)

'Thank you for your readership in 2015. Also a special thanks to the reviewers for Continuum, who have graciously provided advice, support and their time to the journal. The success of Continuum is also attributed to the senior Editorial team. Over the last seven years, Greg Noble has been an editor for Continuum. He has worked tirelessly and contributed immensely to Continuum. His editorial support and guidance for the journal has been remarkable. He has brought an amazing amount of energy and critical insights for the journal. Greg is a wonderful colleague, and has gained the respect and admiration of all who have worked with him. Greg has decided to step down as Editor and will be part of the Editorial board. I am sure he will continue to be a highly valuable member of Continuum. Thank you Greg, it is wonderful to work with you! I would also like to welcome John Tebbutt to the Editorial team. John has had 20 years experience in academia, hence, he comes to us with a wealth of experience. I am sure Continuum will benefit from his expertise.' (Editorial introduction)

'The following papers were first presented in December 2012 at the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia conference on ‘Materialities: Economies, Empiricism and Things’, hosted by the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. The theme for the conference was based on a renewed interest in questions of materiality, linking back to a long materialist tradition in Cultural Studies, and in methodological questions about how Cultural Studies should approach and understand cultural objects, institutions and practices. The renewal of this interest in the last 10 years has been furthered by attention to how human and non-human interactions are being transformed in a time of global economic and environmental change.' (Editorial introduction)