School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications
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ItemChildren’s reading and screen media use before, during and after the pandemic: Australian parent perspectives(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024)This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s mediascape through a repeated cross-sectional study involving primary caregivers of children aged 7–13 in Australia. Survey 1 was conducted as COVID-19 lockdowns ended in 2021, to examine how extended lockdowns had affected children’s reading habits and screen media usage and how parents had adapted their media supervision and guidance strategies. Survey 2 was carried out one year later to gain insights from the post-pandemic period. The data revealed that the pandemic and lockdowns had led to a substantial increase in children’s ownership and usage of digital devices. In contrast, children’s personal ownership of traditional books and e-book readers had declined, and digital books were less popular than other digital content. Parents, who expanded their involvement in active mediation and media co-use during the pandemic, largely reverted to monitoring and restricting their children’s media activities after it.
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ItemCan ChatGPT Edit Fiction? 4 professional editors asked AI to do their job – and it ruined their short story(The Conversation Media Group, 2024-02-13)Writers have been using AI tools for years – from Microsoft Word’s spellcheck (which often makes unwanted corrections) to the passive-aggressive Grammarly. But ChatGPT is different. ChatGPT’s natural language processing enables a dialogue, much like a conversation – albeit with a slightly odd acquaintance. And it can generate vast amounts of copy, quickly, in response to queries posed in ordinary, everyday language. This suggests, at least superficially, it can do some of the work a book editor does. We are professional editors, with extensive experience in the Australian book publishing industry, who wanted to know how ChatGPT would perform when compared to a human editor. To find out, we decided to ask it to edit a short story that had already been worked on by human editors – and we compared the results.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableChildren's Digital Picture Books: Readers and Publishers(Routledge, 2024-04-01)During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, children’s media use increased (Mesce et al. 2021) while a decrease in print-book reading was observed (Nolan et al. 2022). An increase in tablet use suggests that when children were reading, it was mostly online in the form of ePub3 pdf files for illustrated works and prescribed school texts, while smartphone use was linked to apps and games. (Susilowati et al. 2021) For many years now, children’s publishers have experimented with digital picture-book formats but have regarded the genre as not suitable for digitisation. This book documents the findings of a one-year research project engaging the children’s publishing sector for feedback on reading trends and digital publishing in picture-book genres. The research assesses the plight of picture books in the current climate and considers how picture-book publishers cater to diverse readerships and new reading platforms post Covid-19 lockdowns and into the digital age. Written by an academic and editor with over 15 years industry experience, this book offers a nuanced response to children’s picture book publishing and reception for librarians, teachers, publishers and international scholars in the fields of publishing studies, library studies, early childhood studies, early education and childhood psychology.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableRising Stars on AI( 2023-11-22)How do the publishing industry’s rising stars feel about AI? Editors Rose Michael, Sharon Mullins, Renée Otmar and Katherine Day are interested in how AI tools might work, or be made to work, for editorial, wondering if ‘perhaps editors are situated to be necessary gatekeepers for how we will use and detect AI in the publishing workflow into the future’. They spoke to 2022 APA Rising Star winner Emily Hart, a former commissioning editor at Hardie Grant, now freelance, and Bianca Jafari, development editor at Thames & Hudson, who was shortlisted for the Rising Star award in 2021, about how they approach AI.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDeference and Diplomacy: Navigating Authors' Moral Rights in a Converged Literary Landscape(Common Ground Research Networks, 2023)Authors’ moral rights throughout history have been protected in various degrees across the globe: French law honors authors’ rights to their particular individual creative expression as supreme and perpetual; German law considers an author’s moral rights and economic rights in equal measure; in Australia, moral rights, though only recently codified, are not transferrable as they can be in the UK if waived. While the overarching Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works promises to protect the personality and reputation of authors, the literary landscape is now more diverse, with cross-platform entertainment streams expanding subsidiary rights opportunities in ways not anticipated even a decade ago. This paper explores how publishers and authors are currently navigating the publishing process post contract negotiations. Do authors defer to having their work manipulated to increase exposure or sales? Are publishers and editors successful negotiators and mediators of multiple uses of creative content and the authors who are inextricably tied to the work? Ultimately, where are the lines drawn when considering moral rights and opportunities in a converged literary landscape?
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAI: the next, best editorial tool?( 2023-11-22)Editors Rose Michael, Sharon Mullins, Renée Otmar and Katherine Day ask how AI tools might work, or be made to work, for editorial.
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ItemHachette has withdrawn a policeman’s memoir due to accuracy concerns. Should publishers do more fact checking?(The Conversation, 2023-07-11)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAfter Years of Austerity, Revive Writes the Next Chapter in Australian Literary Culture(Melbourne, 2023-01-30)
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePublishing Contracts and the Post Negotiation Space(Routledge, 2023)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableBook Contracts and the Post Negotiation Space: lifting the lid on publishing's black box of aspirations, laws and money( 2021)The utilitarian underpinnings of Australian copyright law create a tension between the publishing contract as a sanction and an ideology. The sanctioning properties of the contract focus on its utilitarian qualities, which encompass financial return to which the publisher is most attuned. In contrast, the ideological properties of the contract are initially of most importance to the author because the contract can be seen as an endorsement of the work and as a gesture of support from the publisher. The perception that this tension can be negotiated (Simensky et al. 2003, 152) has proven problematic, particularly when balancing financial and legal interests within the highly subjective territory of cultural production. Because of their economic power and their crucial role in traditional book production, publishers have been criticised for dictating the contract’s terms and tailoring it towards the pecuniary rights of the author (Alexander 2010, 23). But industry developments have also forced publishers to reassess their position in the contemporary publishing field and approach this legally binding transaction anew. Likewise, a changing landscape for both publishers and writers has potentially shifted perceptions of what the publishing contract represents for each. This dissertation argues that the contract is a cultural artefact capable of reflecting the industry’s changing landscape and proving to be flexible within this landscape. Additionally, the larger framework of relational contract theory provides possibilities for future publishing negotiations post contract, and a unique investigation of the author–publisher relationship. Drawing on the disciplines of cultural studies, law, publishing studies and cultural sociology, this dissertation captures the perspectives of publishing professionals and authors within publishing negotiations and presents the editor as being fundamental to the formation and application of contractual terms in the post negotiation space.