Here are my 8 references for the Media Industries Annotated Bibliography:

Web E-Briefs:

1. Jackson, K, 2013, ‘Censorship and Classification in Australia – Parliament of Australia’, Web E-brief, Australia [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/censorshipebrief. [Viewed 10 April 2013].

 This article covers information regarding the Censorship system in Australia and it’s changes and current forms. It also provides many links for further research on specific laws, commissions, acts, classifications, boards and departments covering media censorship and regulation in Australia. It uses textual evidence in the form of laws as well as case studies around the debate of the ‘X’ category and Internet Censorship.

 This article is aimed towards an audience of the Australian public, people involved or interested in media making in Australia and people who need to know the laws of Australian Censorship to know what is legally allowed to be aired on Australian Television and screen. It is also aimed at people who are opposed to censorship in Australia, and even goes as far to provide links for readers who want more information on anti-censorship groups and sites. It is a descriptive text as it lists and describes the many laws and regulations that are currently in place in Australia.  This brief is an example of a more informative piece of academia as it doesn’t really have an argument or opinion.

 This article is useful for our group project as it provides valuable information and links on the censorship situation in Australia, as this is a topic we will be covering. It also provides a link to a paper written by the then current Attorney-General Hon. D.R Williams AM QC ‘From Censorship to Classification’. We can also access the anti-censorship sites linked in this article to hear a different opinion on the topic to cover.

Journal Articles:

1.    Brown, A, 1999 ‘Controlling interests- censorship laws on Internet content in Australia’, New Statesman, Vol. 128 Issue 4445, p42

 This article is a response to a new Australian Censorship law which entails Internet Providers being responsible for the discontinuing access to illegal internet sites. It also notes that while censorship may be something that people consider bad or detrimental to success are wrong, and states that many organizations who work under strict conditions on what they are allowed to say or do are quite successful. It argues that few other countries are as repressive as the modern American corporation. He argues that there is so much content available on the internet that no one can possibly be aware of it all.

 This article is aimed at Australian media academics, the general public who are interested in media laws, and other scholars. It could also be aimed at Government officials. It is descriptive, drawing examples from other countries such as Russia to compare with Australian censorship. The article can take on an aggressive tone as the author states that understanding the technology does not give anyone the right to enforce censorship laws on the rest of the world (aimed at Berkeley, California).

 This article is useful to our research as looks at the debate of laws around Censorship in Australia. It looks roughly at a case study on Russia and the KGB after 1989.

2. MacKinnon, R “China’s “Networked Authoritarianism”.” Journal of Democracy 22.2 (2011): 32-46. Project MUSE. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

This article states that Chinese Government and authorities are adapting to the internet. The author describes the idea of ‘networked authoritarianism’- the idea that authority figures and regimes adjusts to the changing digital technologies it’s people use. Chinese netizens are able to voice their opinions on social problems and government policies, however individual rights and freedom is not guaranteed. It also looks at the idea that while Chinese netizens live under heavily censored internet , it is still a place for debate. It also lists the different ways the government control the content on the internet and what is posted; tactics such as cyber-attacks, device and network controls, domain-name controls, localized disconnection and restriction, surveillence, classic monitoring, law-enforcement compliance and astro-turfing and public outreach. It employs the use of case studies and expert opinions.

 The audience that this article is aimed at are internet users in other countries apart from China, the general public or people interested in how authoritarian regimes adapt to netizens finding ways to voice their opinion, and media academics and researchers. It is analytical as it looks at the different methods used to combat this. It is trying to inform the audience about how these government and netizens work around each other, and argues that even though there are new technologies that netizens can use to get around the censorship barriers, the government will be able to adapt.

 This article is useful as it lists the different methods the Chinese government uses to enforce censorship on its Internet. It also links to other case studies that we can do further research on.

Web Documents:

1. Ng, J.Q, 2013. How China gets the Internet to censor itself – Waging Nonviolence, Web Document, United States of America, viewed 10 April, 2013, <http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/how-china-gets-the-internet-to-censor-itself/>

 The argument of this article is that Chinese netizens, despite Government and companies employing strategies to censor the Internet, will always find loopholes to voice their opinion online due to the heavily published information on how censorship on the Chinese Internet is carried out. The author uses case studies such as one on Weibo, and his own research conducted through using a computer script to discover a thousand banned words on the Chinese Internet. He also writes about an academic study that was conducted on global Internet censorship. He also argues that visual reminders of censorship that netizens come across may be a form of intimidation. He also discusses multiple layers of censorship; government mandated blacklists (censorship), self-censorship by content providers and self-censorship by users.

 This article is aimed at an audience of internet activists, scholars and people interested in censorship and free speech in China. It is fairly descriptive as it explains how censorship is conducted using Weibo as an example, but it also analytical, showing evidence of research conducted to explore how the Chinese Government uses different tactics to censor the Internet.

 This article will be helpful to our research as it has a lot of information on Weibo and how that site is used by Chinese netizens whilst being heavily censored. It also supplies a list of some of the banned words and lists content that will be censored. There are also many helpful links to other sited we are interested in looking at that will be helpful to our research.

 Peer-Reviewed Journals:

1. Feng, G.C & Guo S.Z ‘Tracing the route of China’s Internet censorship: An empirical study’,Telematics and Informatics, Available online 26 September 2012. Peer Reviewed Journal.  

 This article is a research study conducted on Chinese Internet censorship, specifically the process the Chinese Government and companies take to block illegal content. The authors state that the Internet in China poses a major threat to the Chinese government due to the easy accessibility of anti-government web content. It looks at how the Chinese Internet censorship is structured. It found that machines regularly scan the Internet for banned words and phrases. It also notes the difference of Western censorship, which looks to block libel, obscenity, racism, instigation of violence, right-wing extremism and cyber crimes. It also noted that China’s Internet is structured more like an Intranet which is a closed network rather than the Western form of a decentralized network.

 This article is aimed at an audience of cyber professionals, scholars and organizations. It is set out as an empirical study, with an aim to uncover how China’s Internet censorship system is designed and how it works to monitor and filter content. It uses a theoretical framework based on the principals of control theory.

 This article is useful to our study as it provides a more analytical aspect of censorship in China. It provides useful diagrams to help us understand how the censorship is carried out. There is a lot of qualitative and quantitative research for us to look at.

2. Qiang, X, 2011, The Battle for the Chinese Internet’,Journal of Democracy [1045-5736] vol:22, iss: 2 pg: 47-61, Peer Reviewed Journal.

This article looks at the impact of censorship of the Internet in China by it’s Government. The author contends that a dynamic exists between political authorities and netizens using three characters which read ‘feng’ which means to block or censor, ‘shai’ which means to reveal, and ‘huo’ which means to rapidly spread. Through these three characters, the author describes cases where they occur in the context of censorship within China. The article employs the use of case studies such as the event that occurred in January 2011, where on Sina Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) the word ‘Egypt’ was blocked from it’s search engine due to prodemocracy riots that were occurring in Egypt. The author also states that Chinese netizens are constantly finding ways via mediums like blogs to post their thoughts on public affairs, and that the Government is learning to adapt to new technologies which allow this. The author uses a large amount on textual evidence from studies, surveys conducted by Chinese media publications, and expert opinions from Internet experts.

 The perspective of this article is one coming from an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California-Berkeley, who is also a principal investigator at Counter Power Lab, and founder and chief editor of China Digital Times. Therefore he is speaking from experience having been active in the China internet network, encountering censorship by the Chinese Government. This article is addressing Chinese netizens, internet users, Government officials, technological experts and academic people interested in the topic of free speech in other countries. The article itself is very descriptive of the process of censorship in China and also analytical in the sense that it uses many references to support its arguments. The main discourse is that citizens need a better understanding of ‘cyber-politics’, that online public opinion will continue to express itself online, and that while censorship of media and the Internet will continue , the government has a lowered ability to control the spread of information posted by Chinese netizens.

This article will be helpful because it makes it easier to understand the different ways in which the Chinese Internet is censored. There are many links to sites that Chinese netizens use that we can analyse and discuss, as well as links to departments that are in charge of Propaganda, Censorship and further research on the topic. There are also a variety of case studies that we can look at as examples, especially the topic of “Grass Mud Horse” which was an internet sensation and represented information that couldn’t be discussed in the mainstream media.

 Newspaper Article:

1. Fitzgerald, R , 2011, ‘Let us stop pussyfooting around our censorship laws’, The Australian, February 12.  

 This article states that Australian politicians are treating its public like children. The author believes that our Government’s actions towards censoring material such as X-rated videos and R18+ video games do not reflect the wants of the general Australian public. He believes that the current Classification Act is skewed towards religious and right-wing groups and is not an accurate reflection of the morality of the Australian Public. He also states that Americans have freedom of speech as part of their Constitution, and that the reason we don’t have the litigation for freedom of speech is because we don’t have a bill of rights for it. The author uses case studies and statistics to illustrate his point of the views of the Australian public being in favour for certain things the government wants blocked.

 This article is aimed at the general Australian public, especially those who are angered by the actions of the Government in relation to censorship of content that would deem morally acceptable in other Western countries.

 This article is useful as it covers the issues that are surrounding Australian censorship laws and the morality of the public. It has useful links to classification acts and people of interest who we can conduct further research on.

2. Turley, J , 2012, ‘Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech’ The Washington Post, 12 October.

 This article is an opinion piece expressing the idea that freedom of speech is dying in the Western civilization due to people being afraid to express their opinions for fear that they will offend. He states that modern society cannot tolerate intolerance, even though free speech is often about challenging social values. He believes people are focusing too much on the possible reactions to speech. He also lists four ‘rationales’ that threaten free speech; the idea that speech is blasphemous, hateful, discriminatory and deceitful.

 This article is addressing citizens of the Western world, telling them how free speech is dying. It is also addressing Government officials and people interested in media and censorship laws in Western culture. He uses case studies to show how people expressing their opinions have been met with fines or even incarceration.  

 This article is useful to our research because it covers the area of censorship in Western Culture. It lists some case studies we can do further research in and provides an alternate opinion of free speech and censorship.