Paul Jones is senior lecturer in sociology at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and the author of Raymond Williams’s Sociology of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming, January 2004). An essay co-written with Michael Pusey, “Class and Media Influence in Australia”, in D. Heider (ed) News and Class (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), builds on the argument in this article.

Recent articles

Australia is often cited as an exemplar of the failure of media policy to guarantee the quality and independence of broadcasting. But in its development of arguments about ‘freedom of communication’, this outpost of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire offers a surprising lesson in the significance of local experience in promoting a culture of informed citizenship.