Culture

The milieu through which we swim

A black woman crouches to speak to a kneeling white man, both in late Victorian costume..

Friday Hoyden: Paulina in The Winter’s Tale

By Anna on 2012-09-21 • ( 4 )

Paulina is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known, but most vibrant and admirable mouthy women.

Moral panic stifles useful dialogue on social media “trolling”

By Guest Poster on 2012-09-21 • ( 7 )

From work I’ve been doing for a forthcoming book on new media and Australian politics, I have some useful data that may partially inform this discussion in the form of Facebook wallposts from 600 Australians collected before this recent debate took off (late 2011). In recent days I’ve reanalysed this dataset to shed some light on the treatment of women in the social media space.

Photo of Australian Parliament House (APH) in Canberra

Media Circus: out of step

By tigtog on 2012-09-21 • ( 7 )

Our leaders are cynically dodging behind parliamentary procedure to avoid properly representing their electorates, while another damning Aboriginal death in custody report raises scarcely a blip on the national radar. As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue.

Line drawing portrait of a Chinese woman in 19th century military dress.

Ahoy, ye scurvy knaves!

By Anna on 2012-09-19 • ( 5 )

It be annual Talk Like a Pirate Day.

A fluffy Himalayan cat lles on a pink chair looking moderately perturbed by the rasher of bacon taped to its flank

Scalzi on being a good commentor

By tigtog on 2012-09-19 • ( 7 )

John Scalzi at Whatever asks 10 useful questions we should all be asking ourselves about our commenting habits.

A movie-style poster in Wild West fashion for *A Town Called Mercy* - everything is rendered in a dusty overlay. We see a pair of trousered and booted legs in gunfighter wide stance, but the arm hanging beside where we expect to see a gun holster is instead some sort of cyber-cannon. Through the legs we see the Doctor, Amy and Rory staring the gunfighter down.

Doctor Who: S7 Ep3 – A Town Called Mercy

By tigtog on 2012-09-17 • ( 4 )

SPOILERS!

So the theme for this season now seems more clear:

A picture paints a thousand words

By Mindy on 2012-09-16 • ( 12 )

Who decides what 1000 words are told by a picture?

a red/white/blue poster done in the style of the Barack Obama "Audacity of Hope" posters. The image is of Tony Abbott, and in block letters underneath, it says "NOPE"

Surprise, surprise – Lindsay Foyle reports threats from Tony Abbott too

By tigtog on 2012-09-14 • ( 11 )

This late-1970s attempt at intimidation was witnessed by a bunch of other journalists working for The Bulletin at the time. Yeah, the idea that Abbott could have punched the wall beside a woman’s head to intimidate her as his political rival just seems soooo unlikely, amirite?

Deveny! Deveny! Deveny!

By tigtog on 2012-09-14 • ( 11 )

According to the angriest keyboard pounders in the Twitterverse, Catherine Deveny rudely interrupted & talked loudly over the top of everybody else on Q&A on Monday night, and was especially disrespectful to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen. What a frightfully boorish display that would be if it were true.

Media Circus: “trolling” panic swamps drug law reform debate

By tigtog on 2012-09-13 • ( 8 )

How unsurprising. As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue.