AMBER VERNETTI WRITES- At a conference in Washington D.C. last week, Australian Attorney General George Brandis announced an $18 million program that will fight pro-terrorist websites by closely observing social media sites that promote terrorist ideals. Following the theme of the summit, “countering violent extremism,” this program, dubbed Combating Terrorist…
VERONICA BANEZ WRITES – Technology is more advanced today than it has ever been. One of the most important advancements has been the concept of streaming – not only for entertainment purposes, but for current events as well. In recent years, there has been a huge outbreak of media streaming…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES- This week Australia celebrated 2015’s Australia Day, a national holiday which commemorates the 1788 arrival of British ships at Port Jackson in New South Wales and the raising of the Flag of Great Britain under Governor Arthur Phillip. In celebration of this day, awards and appointments to…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES– In preparation for the 2014 Group of 20 (G20) Summit held in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland in Australia, Chinese hackers allegedly hacked into Australian media corporations to collect information about the Summit’s possible discussion topics. This group, referred to as Deep Panda, hacks into systems with…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES: China’s influence over outside media outlets is increasing in countries like Australia, analysts report. This ‘soft power’ approach is China’s way of keeping in touch with one million Chinese Australians while censoring what is included in the Chinese language news sources and favoring state-generated content. John Fitzgerald,…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…or perhaps it’s in a box. Bellabox, an Australian beauty subscription service, received over $3 million in backing from Allure Media, digital publisher of PopSugar and Shopstyle. With the help of Allure Media’s funding, bellabox will expand its…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – To thwart digital pirates, the Australian government has put forward a plan to keep websites from hosting copyrighted material. Aussie creative types and the media say ‘Bravo’. The Media, Entertainment, and Arts Alliance (MEAA), a union representing artists, film makers, journalists and other creators, say they…
TOM PLATE WRITES – Among the easiest things on the face of the earth on which one can become quickly aware of is an Australian after-party. That’s because it tends to carry on for so long that with each additional (happy) hour, it gets very audibly happier. But, as a…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – ABC’s Australian Network has landed a deal with the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), allowing various Aussie shows and other media content to be broadcasted in China. As the third Western media group to have broadcasting rights in China, following Britain’s BBC World Service and America’s CNN…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – The Big Bang Theory, dubbed Australia’s favorite comedy by The Sydney Morning Herald, has been approved for three more seasons after a deal was signed between Warner Bros and Chuck Lorre, the show’s creator. This is especially good news for Australian broadcaster Nine Network, which has used the…
E.J. DE LARA WRITES – Unions and the media are not the place to report work related issues. At least that’s the message the Philippines ambassador to New Zealand recently delivered. The New Zealand Scoop reported that during a meeting with Filipino migrants, the Ambassador of the Philippines, Virginia Benavidez, made a controversial statement…
AUSTIN SZABO WRITES: When you want to know the economics of a country, you usually look at its gross domestic product — the amount of wealth it produced over the course of a year. But GDP tells only part of the story; it leaves out how the wealth is distributed.…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES: The Abbott government spent $4.3 million in social media research to measure public opinion concerning its immigration strategies, according to Fairfax Media. Further, the government has doled out over $65,000 to monitor the public’s thoughts regarding the “no boat, no visa” movement that aims at keeping asylum seekers at…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – The government of Prime Minister Tony Abbot hopes to sever the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ties to its international broadcasting service, the Australian Network. As reported in The Guardian, Julie Bishop, the foreign affairs minister, has questioned the overall quality of the Australian Network’s service and contends it may…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – The U.K.’s Daily Mail — surprisingly, the world’s most-read online English-language newspaper — will soon open an Australian edition. The move follows a similar down-under launch by rival The Guardian earlier this year. Mail Online, Daily Mail’s international online publication and the world’s most popular English-language newspaper,…
E.J. DE LARA WRITES – Several reports have criticized New Zealand for its intrusion of privacy. Many have raised concerns over Parliament passing a bill for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – the intelligence agency of the New Zealand government – to spy on people with a search warrant.…
