School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
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    Will content regulation encourage ISP rationalisation?
    CHEN, PETER (Communications Law Centre, 1999-05)
    Discusses the Commonwealth governments policy debates surround online content regulation and possible effects on industry structure and competition in Australia.
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    Pornography, protection, prevarication: the politics of internet censorship
    CHEN, PETER (University of NSW Law School, 2000-03)
    A short article that discusses the development of internet censorship laws in Australia, the politics surrounding them, and the symbolic nature of this legislative regime.
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    Political Big Brother site masks curious agenda
    CHEN, PETER (australia.internet.com, 2001)
    Outlines some of the interesting characteristics of political campaigning aimed at youth in the 2001 Australian federal election using online webpages.
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    Political big brother site masks curious agenda
    CHEN, PETER (australia.internet.com, 2001-10)
    Outlines some interesting characteristics of the ALPs use of websites in political campaigning.
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    Online regulation: not so ground-breaking
    CHEN, PETER (Communications Law Centre, 1999-06)
    Outlines the core elements of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999.
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    Realtime interviewing using the World Wide Web
    CHEN, PETER ; Hinton, S. M. (Universities of Surrey and Stirling, Sage Publications Ltd. and the British Sociological Association, 1999)
    This paper outlines the adaptation of in-depth interviewing using World Wide Web-based interviewing software between the interviewer and their subject. Through a structured, realtime interviewing process the researcher is able to use the Internet to facilitate communication, recording interviews directly to a file without incurring the costs associated with traditional face-to-face or telephone interviews. The benefits of this approach are the ability of the researcher to conduct inexpensive interviewing over distances and elimination of transcription costs from the research process, allowing the researcher to undertake a wider range of interviews than may be possible on a limited budget. The interview method has problems associated with the depth of material available from this approach, the loss of paralinguistic cues and the limited size of the available sample, limitations that must be accounted for by any researcher considering using the approach
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    Australia: where forward co-regulation?
    CHEN, PETER (NetAlert, 2002)
    Regulation of the online environment has become a common problem for many governments around the world. While the motivations for regulation are diverse, in their desire to censor Internet content, English-speaking countries have tended to focus on the moral implications of unfettered communication between computer users. Issues associated with intellectual property protection, harassment, and criminality following behind initial policy positions aimed, largely, at pornography and other morally-unacceptable forms of communication. In Australia, initial policy debates about Internet content focused almost exclusively on pornography and paedophilia, focusing on conflict between the protection of minors from offensive and morallydegrading material and the freedom of adults to communicate content of interest to them. In 1999, the Federal Government introduced the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act prohibiting the unrestricted distribution of material that would be classified 'R' or greater under the existing film and literature classification regime. In 2000, following public debate about the extent of gambling in the Australian community, the government introduced a moratorium on the expansion of online gambling services in Australia, followed in July 2001 by the Interactive Gambling Act to prohibit the operation of online casinos within Australia. While initial regulatory proposals countenanced the possibility of strict regulation, each law was curtailed to regulatory regimes that would minimise compliance costs for certain established commercial players. (From Introduction)
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    Who's in the joined-up government? Australian elected representatives adaptive responses to network technology
    CHEN, PJ (The University of Melbourne - Centre for Public Policy, 2002)
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    'They're not like us': the de-amalgamation of Delatite Shire
    CHEN, PETER ( 2002)
    The compulsory amalgamation of Victorian local governments under the Kennett government in the mid 1990s led to a major period of upheaval and reform across the entire sector. Forced into 'mega councils' with appointed administrators and cuts to rate income, all councils struggled to merge political and administrative systems and cultures, manage service delivery, and move to new public management principles of contract management and privatisation of council functions. While most municipalities grudgingly accepted the new centrally-determined boundaries, Delatite Shire in North-East Victoria saw ongoing resistance to the amalgamation from its southern community of Mansfield, bitterly opposed to the amalgamation with Benalla and the perceived loss of services and government staff from their region. From the formation of a locally-based residents' association, the first democratically-elected council of the new Shire was largely replaced by one comprised of pro-de-amalgamation representatives, who successfully lobbied the State government for the opportunity to present a case for splitting the Shire. Following ongoing community consultation, the Council has been given the opportunity to split, an administrative exercise that will increase rates and create a new Shire dependent on contracted services from surrounding municipalities. Examining the case, this paper explores the public debate and political strategies employed to advance and realise the de-amalgamation policy, examining the problems associated with forming a community of interest within the new Shire. Overall, the case presents an interesting comparison with other pro-autonomy movements, the theoretical analysis of which is generally confined to ethnic separatism. The paper concludes that, while practical limitations in effective public administration resulted from the ill-considered merger of Benalla and Mansfield, much of the political debate surrounding de-amalgamation were based on the essential premise that separation was the only solution for significant financial and structural problems within the council. Thus political arguments were constrained within this 'pre-framed' debate.
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    Submission to the Review of the Operation of Schedule 5 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992
    Chen, Dr Peter John ( 2002-11)
    A submission made to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in reference to the operations of the Internet content regulation scheme (censorship) in Australia. Contains unpublished research.