While surveillance is usually understood as the purposeful monitoring of individuals by those in authority, ‘participatory surveillance’ is a type of surveillance where people willingly keep watch on each other through social media. An anonymous focus group and online survey of 81 Australians categorized as part of the Millennial Generation investigated their experience of both authority and participatory surveillance on Facebook, that is, their awareness of the level of surveillance they themselves are under and their surveillance of others. The results reveal that this group is generally concerned about privacy and security for their personal information, though not always sure what they should do to ensure it, and that they are willing to access and distribute the personal information of others. They generally feel that protecting their information from individuals and from the government is a greater concern than ensuring privacy from commercial entities. However this group believe that a reduction in privacy, on and off line, is part of contemporary life, and giving up some information is necessary to participate in the online environment. Social media’s participatory surveillance appears to be preparing young people for a lifetime of being watched, by helping to re-define understandings of privacy.

A number of studies have examined why students choose to study journalism at university, but overall, this area is still relatively underexplored. Yet, understanding why students choose journalism, and what career expectations they hold, is important not only for educators but also for wider society and public debates about the future of journalism and the value of tertiary journalism education. This article examines the motivations of 1884 Australian journalism students enrolled across 10 universities. It finds that hopes for a varied lifestyle and opportunities to express their creativity are the most dominant motivations among students. Public service ideals are somewhat less important, while financial concerns and fame are least important. These motivations also find expression in students’ preferred areas of specialisation (referred to in Australia as rounds): lifestyle rounds are far more popular than politics and business rounds or science and development rounds.

This article reports on findings from a research project that is examining alternative paths for media producers. The researcher has interviewed media producers in the digital space, including bloggers, online magazine producers, broadcasters and website producers, to discover what skills are required to work in a digital space, what business models are successful and what technologies are being employed. One of the questions asked of each of the respondents was “Do you consider what you are doing journalism?” Responses have shown that there is often a particular view of journalism and what it is and who can be called a journalist: those who have worked as journalists in traditional media still call themselves journalists while others who have come into the space via other professions are cautious about using the term. The article draws on the respondents’ comments from the research in an attempt to further understand how such definitions around journalism and journalist are informing media producers and their understanding of these terms in a splintering media epoch.

Success and failure in the creative and media industries are not polar opposites. In a predominantly neoliberal world, with its consuming emphasis on winning at all costs, success is not only easy to identify but is valorised, particularly for individuals, while failure is often hidden or perceived as negative. We argue that the relationship between success and failure is deeply symbiotic and should be examined from a systemic rather than an individual view. Creative practice emerges out of a system where an individual is placed in a relationship to social and cultural factors that enable and constrain creative opportunities. An examination that explains the close relationship between failure and success and how they are managed by players in the media and creative industries, is the foundation for this paper. A theoretical discussion will illustrate the relationship between risk, failure and success and the proposition being presented is that the media industries, operating through SMEs have become highly constrained and, as such, create conditions that restrict creative opportunities. We conclude that further research is needed about the relationship between creative failures and successes and how these are treated by both employers and those seeking to work in the creative industries.

Print journalism, particularly hard news, is a form of writing that is seldom thought of as a creative practice. This situation may result from the idea that the cultural and social structures within which journalists work are often seen as constraints on their professional practice. Despite this common understanding, if a rationalist approach to creativity is used, it can be demonstrated that the structures of journalism practice and the knowledge of these structures not only constrain but also enable journalists to produce their work. Using the systems model of creativity developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, this paper provides evidence that by investigating print journalism within a rationalist framework, print journalists of any genre can be seen to be producers of creative cultural texts. Analysis of the literature demonstrates that by marrying theories and definitions from creativity research with literature from the domain of print journalism, creativity can be identified within the print journalism domain. Analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with print journalists in Australia and observation carried out in Australian newsrooms demonstrates that journalists are very aware of the devices used, and the requirements of the field, to produce texts in their professional practice that are novel and appropriate, or creative.

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that independent magazines, also known as ‘independents’, are thriving in Australia’s print media industry. As ‘maverick’ editors, owners and publishers focus more on the design and aesthetic aspects of their publications in response to changing reader expectations, there appears to be a demand for independents among female readers. In particular, young adult female readers are choosing to engage with independent women’s magazines in Australia, placing particular emphasis on the aesthetic reading experience offered by the hard-copy format. To explore this phenomenon, a survey and focus group were conducted among women aged 18–24 years, using Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory as the theoretical framework. The initial survey garnered findings from 300 respondents, while the focus group consisted of six participants. One key aspect of the results is that aesthetics is central to understanding the continued appeal and use of such a medium. Other aspects include quality of content, entertainment, escape, collection and habit, and ease of use. In an age where ‘digital’ is often regarded as the norm, young adult female readers are seeking inspiration and expression from independent women’s magazines.