Two degrees - the temperature rise we need to stay under to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change – is now the catch cry for global warming. Governments and numerous NGOs have eagerly adopted the…
- Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University
Just as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has had to add a new colour to its weather charts to denote extreme heat, the so-called ‘climate wars’ here and around the world are themselves breaking ‘off-the-charts…
Possibly the most poignant irony of the federal election was to see the outskirts of Sydney burn while the votes were still being counted. While no records had been broken in the election itself, we saw…
Now that all Senate seats are looking settled, we are left to ponder what the addition of the five new “accidental” senators means for our parliamentary system. We now have senators representing an odd…
Well, the polls were always going to be right, but they were also completely wrong. The Coalition have seen in a comfortable victory, but with a seat swing not as great as had been predicted, for which…
In one sense, the Australian media did a good job under difficult circumstances in this election. The difficult part was how predictable the campaign was and the increasing inevitability of the outcome…
The polls published in this election campaign may well be Kevin Rudd’s best friend. But to explain what looks like an absurd statement requires some background on the politics of polling itself. Any commentary…
An editorial in yesterday’s Australian entitled Independent and Irrelevant was the latest in a trilogy where it has attacked just about every conceivable competitor to News Corp’s operations in Australia…
Well, what has changed? The Earth’s atmosphere and oceans continue to take in heat equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs per second; humans are forcing climate change 10,000 times faster than orbital forcings…
As journalism professor David Maguire noted at the start of this campaign, prime minister Kevin Rudd has had such limited time in which to develop a social media strategy that he has “parachuted” in some…
Prime minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Tony Abbott faced off tonight for the third time in the 2013 election campaign at the Rooty Hill RSL Club in Sydney’s western suburbs. In the town hall-style…
There has been a change in the front pages of the east coast News Corp tabloids in the last few days. The campaign for the Coalition has become much more homogenous: for the first time, the same images…
Having walked straight into a News Corp net on Wednesday, the assault on Kevin Rudd continues in the tabloids. First, the Courier Mail applauds Tony Abbott’s question of the night, and today, an “exclusive…
In the talk show it is called “the money shot”. That unscripted moment in the show when something genuinely unexpected happens, breaking out from banality, and into genuine confrontation. It is this moment…
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott have met in a “town hall” style leaders’ debate at the Broncos Leagues Club in Brisbane. Abbott and Rudd took questions from an audience of 100 undecided voters on issues from…
It remains to be seen whether this Wednesday’s “people’s forum” will make it to on to free-to-air television. If it doesn’t it will represent an extraordinary closure of access to a debate and a cross-selling…
As we commence week three of the campaign, it is clear that a week is a long time in the polling cycle. The polls had labor diving in marginal seats last week, with a slide from its high of 50% aggregate…
By David Holmes and Brad Farrant As previously observed on this blog, the greatest area of neglect in the mainstream media’s coverage of the election is climate change. The most coverage it has had was…
The planet is building up heat at the equivalent of four Hiroshima bombs worth of energy every second. And 90% of that heat is going into the oceans. Right, now I’ve got your attention. It’s widely acknowledged…
Could the unthinkable be happening? That there is actually a conversation going on about the election, and that it is happening between the Media Panel right here at The Conversation and Col Allan himself…
As my fellow panellist, Sinclair Davidson, filed yesterday, we are still talking about that front page of the Daily Telegraph on August 5. It is now widely viewed as the first shot in not just an election…
Welcome to a new initiative by The Conversation - a “media watch” blog that will bring analysis and accountability to the coverage of this year’s federal election. As the CEOs of all of the major media…
Four months ago, the big media proprietors were fighting proposed federal government press reforms, arguing that “the press” needs freedom if it is to defend the public interest. But these arguments were…
The Climate Commission’s latest report, released recently, and some of the media that arose from it are excellent examples of science and journalists working together to talk about climate change and extreme…
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