Jess Rodgers

In response to a call for criminologists to consider the impact of former President Donald Trump’s presumed criminality, we analyze verbal-textual hostility (VTH) in Trump’s campaign speeches. Politicians have particular power and reach with their speech and their use of VTH is an important part of the trifecta of violence. Using a framework informed by linguistic theory and previous analysis of hate speech in recorded hate crimes, we present the categories of deprecation and denigration, and discuss their relationship to domination. In context, these forms of VTH enhance and serve as precursors to more violent speech and acts.

The experiences of academics with disability have received modest but growing attention internationally, but virtually none in the Australian context. This article outlines research findings from a study examining their experiences at a large Australian university. The article uses a materialist framework to demonstrate how capitalist social relations shape and demarcate an ‘ideal university worker’, how disabled workers find it difficult to meet this norm, and the limited assistance to do so provided by managers and labour relations policy frameworks. The research findings point to a profound policy gap between employer and government disability policy inclusion frameworks and the workplace experience of academics. This breach requires further investigation and, potentially, the development of alternate strategies for workplace management of disabilities if there are to be inroads towards equity. JEL codes: Z13

Within Australian universities, neoliberalism has transformed education into a marketplace and product, where academic employees are regulated and controlled through metrics, productivity, and pressure to maintain and increase 'value'. In this environment, disabled academics face increasing barriers to workplace participation and meaningful inclusion. To explore the lived experiences of disabled academics, this article draws upon qualitative survey and interview data collected from disabled academics to consider the ways that the academy excludes and disables them. Specifically, we argue that the way time is regulated and managed within the neoliberal university is ableist, and fails to account for the crip temporalities by which disabled academics live their lives. The concept of crip and cripping time in relation to disabled academics opens up new ways of thinking, doing, and being that 2 are not constrained by normative (clock) time that marginalises disabled subjects. While we focus on an Australian context, the near-universalising 'logics' of normative time and neoliberal-ableism inherent to universities and societies more generally has implications for everyone. We argue that it is incumbent upon universities to rethink prevailing notions of time that currently elide the experiences and capacities of disabled academics.

Policing outside of the metropole is unlike what we have come to know about policing. The rural, regional and remote (RRR) policing environment is shaped by environmental, organisational, community and criminality contexts that produce unique safety and security issues. This article examines these issues for RRR police and their families in Tasmania, Australia. Drawing on interviews with eight officers and observations of five officers in two districts, we find that both distance and isolation, and closeness (or propinquity), shapes the safety and security of RRR police. This article documents the individual strategies deployed by RRR officers to ensure their and their family's safety, the gaps in policy and practice, and the necessary changes to the work conditions, station security, and housing arrangements of RRR officers. Addressing a gap at the juncture of RRR policing and police safety and security, this research considers what can be done to enhance the capacity of RRR officers to remain in RRR deployments.

There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind giving communities in Tasmania a voice. This study considers the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.

There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind Interviews were conducted with nine community members and 21 stakeholder participants. This paper summarises stakeholder perspectives on the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.

There is an absence of Tasmania-specific data around sexual violence, evidence critical to obtain funding for local service provision. To address this gap, Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) based in southern Tasmania—in partnership with the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES)—have conducted the first Tasmanian study of its kind. Interviews were conducted with nine community members and 21 stakeholder participants. between April and June 2022. This paper summarises community member perspectives on the scale of sexual violence, its nature, barriers to seeking help, and potential solutions.

Women’s police stations that are designed to receive victims of gender-based violence first emerged in Latin America in the 1980s. In Argentina, these stations have unique aspects like multidisciplinary staffing that could guide responses elsewhere. Police responses to domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia have continually failed victims and require much improvement. Responses combining police and other services are not completely alien to Australia, and are not too dissimilar from women’s police stations. We undertook a survey of Australian police (n = 78) to assess which aspects of Argentina’s stations could inform new approaches to DFV policing. Our survey finds that Australian police support some aspects of this approach to policing DFV, such as multidisciplinary stations (74%). There was significantly less support for stations staffed predominantly by women (19%). Combined with review of evaluations of Australian co-locational responses, research implications for practice suggest a broader trial of co-locational responses in Australia.

Previous studies have demonstrated that physical activity (PA) promotes health and reduces risk for non-communicable diseases. However, 55% of Australian women did not meet the recommended levels of PA in 2018-19. There remains a gap in knowledge regarding the individual, household, and neighbourhood barriers to physical activity between women from high and low socioeconomic suburbs. We conducted a mixed-methods study to ascertain subjective accounts of the socioecological reasons for different daily logistics, travel, and PA between these groups. In addition to daily mobility data collated from GIS iPhone apps, in-depth interviews were held with 16 women from the high (Ashgrove) and low (Durack) SEP suburbs in Brisbane. Interview data was analysed at the individual, social, and environmental levels to unearth resistance to PA via these thematic strata. Individual psychological barriers to being active that were unique to low SE suburbs included the 'lack of enjoyment' gaine...

Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. This chapter explores the findings of interviews with eight queer student in which they discuss their understandings of queer student activism and the way they see the university setting shaping the production queer student media. The findings draw out two themes: visibility and access and participation. These discussions illustrate how the intersections of queer, student, activism, and their associated contexts, create a particular type of activism. This chapter thus contributes to queer history by demonstrating how one specific cultural subset does queer activism.

Queer student activists are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. Institutionally there are a number of organisations and tools representing and serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and ‘otherwise queer identifying’ (GLBTIQ) students. ‘Queer’ is a contentious term with meanings ranging from a complex deconstructive academic theory to a term for ‘gay’. Despite the institutional applications, the definition remains unclear and under debate. In this thesis I examine queer student activists’ production of print media, a previously under-researched area. In queer communities, print media provides crucial grounding for a model of queer. Central to identity formation and activism, this media is a site of textuality for the construction and circulation of discourses of queer student media. Thus, I investigate the various ways Australian queer student activists construct queer, queer identity, and queer activism in their print media. I use discourse analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews to enable a thorough investigation of both the process and the products of queer student media. My findings demonstrate that queer student activists’ politics are grounded in a range of ideologies drawing from Marxism, Feminism, Gay Liberation, Anti-assimilation and Queer Theory. Grounded in queer theoretical perspectives of performativity this research makes relatively new links between Queer Theory and Media Studies in its study of the production contexts of queer student media. In doing so, I show how the university context informs student articulations of queer, proving the necessity to locate research within its social-cultural setting. My research reveals that, much like Queer Theory, these representations of queer are rich with paradox. I argue that queer student activists are actually theorising queer. I call for a reconceptualisation of Queer Theory and question the current barriers between who is considered a ‘theorist’ of queer and who is an ‘activist’. If we can think about ‘theory’ as encompassing the work of activists, what implications might this have for politics and analysis?

In its earliest and simplest form queer theory proposes that sexual identity is not essential, but socially constructed, and understandings of identity, gender and sexuality are constructed differently at different times and in different places. Queer theory aims to ...

Women’s entry into policing, a traditionally masculine occupation, has been theorized almost entirely through a liberal feminist theoretical lens where equality with men is the end target. From this theoretical viewpoint, women’s police stations in the Global South established specifically to respond to gender violence have been conceptualized as relics from the past. We argue that this approach is based on a global epistemology that privileges the Global North as the normative benchmark from which to define progress. Framed by southern criminology, we offer an alternative way of theorizing the progress of women in policing using women’s police stations that emerged in Latin America in the 1980s, specifically those in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Responding to domestic and family violence (DFV) requires multi-agency integrated response and police acknowledge it is not something they can address alone (Mundy and Seuffert 2021; Reuland et al. 2006), yet it is task taking a considerable portion of police time. National and international evidence shows integrating specialist DFV workers into police stations to support victims and provide connection to services while working alongside police can improve the quality of police response, and potentially save lives.

The purpose of this collaborative project between Domestic Violence Action Centre (DVAC), Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was to conduct an evaluation of an innovative pilot to improve the policing of DFV, through the co-location of a Domestic Violence Specialist (DVS) worker at Queensland Police station, Toowoomba. This report will assess how this co-location model between DVAC and the QPS host station meets DVAC co-location objectives, and recommendations 76 and 78 from the Not Now, Not Ever report (Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland 2015: 226, 233). The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce (2021: 585) recommendations also noted the importance of evaluating new responses to DFV, such as these.

Given the import and impact of political campaign promises, this study systematically analyzed Donald Trump’s campaign and rally speeches using a typology of verbal-textual hostility (V.T.H.) developed by Asquith (2013) from criminal hate incidents in the United Kingdom. Trump used all forms of V.T.H. previously identified by Asquith, except for sexualization, and new forms that may be specific to the political context. Analysis of speeches from 2015–2018 revealed that expatriation, criminalization, and domination were the most frequently used forms of V.T.H. deployed by Trump, which we consider in relation to the historical, social, and political context and consequences.

Queer university student print media often represents capitalism in a framework which could be classified as Marxism. However, at the same time, queer student media extensively publishes ideas which could be classified as academic queer theory. This chapter features analysis of these representations from the 2003, 2004 and 2006 editions of national queer student publication, Querelle, and from a sample of queer student media from four Australian universities. The perspectives of Marxism and academic queer theory are often argued to be contradictory (See for example, Hennessy 1994; Morton 1996b; Kirsch 2007), and thus the students’ application of these theories in tandem could be considered problematic. McKee asks ‘Who gets to be an intellectual?’ (2004) and suggests that the intellectualising undertaken by mainstream and alternative cultural creators is just as valid as that undertaken by university academics. He also raises concerns that the concept of theory is seen to be kept separate from everyday culture (McKee 2002). This chapter argues that in the construction and representation of their politics in this manner the queer student activists are creating their own version of queer theory. This analysis of queer student media contributes to research on queer communities and queer theory, demonstrating how one specific cultural subset theorises queerness and queer politics, thereby contributing to the genealogy of queer.

Gay community media functions as a system with three nodes, in which the flows of information and capital theoretically benefit all parties: the gay community gains a sense of cohesion and citizenship through media; the gay media outlets profit from advertisers’ capital; and advertisers recoup their investments in lucrative ‘pink dollar’ revenue. But if a necessary corollary of all communication systems is error or noise, where—and what—are the errors in this system? In this paper we argue that the ‘error’ in the gay media system is Queerness, and that the gay media system ejects (in a process of Kristevan abjection) these Queer identities in order to function successfully. We examine the ways in which Queer identities are excluded from representation in such media through a discourse and content analysis of The Sydney Star Observer (Australia’s largest gay and lesbian paper). First, we analyse the way Queer bodies are excluded from the discourses that construct and reinforce both the ideal gay male body and the notions of homosexual essence required for that body to be meaningful. We then argue that abject Queerness returns in the SSO’s discourses of public health through the conspicuous absence of the AIDS-inflicted body (which we read as the epitome of the abject Queer), since this absence paradoxically conjures up a trace of that which the system tries to expel. We conclude by arguing that because the ‘Queer error’ is integral to the SSO, gay community media should practise a politics of Queer inclusion rather than exclusion.

... “Queer” … does not have a uniform : articulations of queer identity in Australian queer student activist media. Rodgers, Jessica (2009) “Queer” … does not have a uniform : articulations of queer identity in Australian queer student activist media. ...

This special issue explores the nuances of graduate creative work, the kinds of value that creative graduates add through work of various types, graduate employability issues for creative graduates, emerging and developing creative career identities and the implications for educators who are tasked with developing a capable creative workforce. Extant literature tends to characterise creative careers as either ‘precarious’ and insecure, or as the engine room of the creative economy. However, in actuality, the creative workforce is far more heterogeneous than either of these positions suggest, and creative careers are far more complex and diverse than previously thought. The task of creative educators is also much more challenging than previously supposed.

There is currently a wide range of research into the recent introduction of student response systems in higher education and tertiary settings (Banks 2006; Kay and Le Sange, 2009; Beatty and Gerace 2009; Lantz 2010; Sprague and Dahl 2009). However, most of this pedagogical literature has generated ‘how to’ approaches regarding the use of ‘clickers’, keypads, and similar response technologies. There are currently no systematic reviews on the effectiveness of ‘GoSoapBox’ – a more recent, and increasingly popular student response system – for its capacity to enhance critical thinking, and achieve sustained learning outcomes. With rapid developments in teaching and learning technologies across all undergraduate disciplines, there is a need to obtain comprehensive, evidence-based advice on these types of technologies, their uses, and overall efficacy. This paper addresses this current gap in knowledge. Our teaching team, in an undergraduate Sociology and Public Health unit at the Queensl...

Contents: 1. Creative Work Beyond the Creative Industries: An introduction PART I: MEASUREMENT AND ITS ISSUES 2. Creative Labour and its Discontents Stuart Cunningham 3. London's Creative Workforce Alan Freeman 4. Compensating Differentials in Creative Industries and Occupations: Some Evidence from HILDA Jason Potts and Tarecq Shehadeh 5. Digital Creative Services in Education, Mining and Manufacturing: Pursuing Innovation through Interoperability Dan Swan and Greg Hearn PART II: CASE STUDIES OF EMBEDDED CREATIVE EMPLOYMENT 6. Embedded Creatives in Australian Healthcare - An Update Janet Pagan and Jess Rodgers 7. Embedded Creatives in the Australian Manufacturing Industry Jess Rodgers 8. Embedded Digital Creatives Ben Goldsmith 9. Embedded Digital Creative Workers and Creative Services in Banking Ben Goldsmith 10. Looking Inside the Portfolio to Understand the Work of Creative Workers: A Study of Creatives in Perth Dawn Bennett, Jane Coffey, Scott Fitzgerald, Peter Petocz and Al...

Scholarly discussions of the creative workforce invariably take one of two seemingly incompatible positions. First, cultural studies scholars have spent considerable time describing the ongoing employment insecurity of those involved in creative work, and the antecedents and effects of this employment ‘precarity’. In striking contrast to this position is a significant body of policy and large scale empirical work that demonstrates the importance of creative work and workers to the innovation economy and economic growth. These two positions are typically presented as incompatible with one another, and remarkably few attempts have been made to achieve any kind of rapprochement between the two. However, recent investigations propose that the creative workforce is much more heterogeneous than either of these positions suggest: that creative workers are found throughout the economy and not just within the creative and cultural sectors; that certain creative activities, industry segments ...

When domestic violence was criminalised in countries like Australia, United States and United Kingdom, many saw this as a victory, as the state taking responsibility for violence against women. The problem was that its policing was delegated to a masculinised police force ill-equipped to respond to survivors of gender violence. Latin America took a different pathway, establishing women-led police stations designed specifically to respond to the survivors of gender violence. Our research team looked for inspiration to reimagine the policing of gender violence in the twenty-first century from the victim-centred women-led police stations that emerged in Argentina in the 1980s. By emphasising a preventative over a punitive approach, multi-disciplinary teams of police, social workers, psychologists and lawyers offer survivors a gateway to support, instead of just funnelling them into the criminal justice system. Surveying gender violence sector workers and members of the general public, ...

This paper reports on a teaching and learning project designed to contextualize learning for a diverse student population. The project addressed institutional priorities and requirements for embedding diversity in the classroom. The project aims were fourfold; first, to acknowledge the range of diverse backgrounds characterising students in the course; second, to raise awareness of diversity and to open up discourse about diversity, discrimination and associated issues; third, to develop course materials that will speak to the range of diverse student backgrounds as a way of better communicating the subject content to those students; and finally, to discuss ways in which curriculum can operate to embed a range of perspectives. This paper reports the findings from one subject in which Indigenous perspectives were embedded. The outcomes for curriculum and pedagogy reported were positive and inspiring.

Most pedagogical literature has generated “how to” approaches regarding the use of student response systems (SRS). There are currently no systematic reviews on the effectiveness of SRS, for its capacity to enhance critical thinking, and achieve sustained learning outcomes. This paper addresses this current gap in knowledge. Our teaching team introduced GoSoapBox (an interactive online SRS) in an undergraduate sociology and public health subject, as a mechanism for discussing controversial topics, such as sexuality, gender, economics, religion, and politics, to allow students to interact with each other and to generate discussions and debates during lectures. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) was applied to investigate the effectiveness of GoSoapBox for improving learning experiences. We produced a theoretical model via an iterative analytical process between SLT and our data. This model has implications for all academics considering the use of SRS to improve the learning experi...

More creatives work outside the creative industries than inside them. Recent Australian Census data shows that 52 per cent of creatives work outside of the core creative industries. These embedded creatives make up 2 per cent of manufacturing industry employees. There is little qualitative research into embedded creatives. This article aims to address this by exploring the contribution of creative skills to manufacturing in Australia. Through four case-studies of designers and marketing staff in lighting and car seat manufacturing companies, this article demonstrates some of the work that embedded creatives undertake in the manufacturing industry and some of the ways that they contribute to innovation. The article also considers perspectives embedded creatives bring to manufacturing and challenges involved in being a creative worker in a non-creative industry. This research is important to economic development issues demonstrating some of the roles of key innovators in an important industry. This work also informs the education of creative industries students who will go on to contribute in a variety of industries. Further, this research exemplifies one industry where employment is available to creatives outside of the creative industries.

According to 2011 Australian Census figures, embedded creative employees (creative employees not working in the core Creative Industries) make up 2 per cent (17 635) of manufacturing industry employees. The average for all industries is 1.6 per cent. In the 2011–2012 financial year the manufacturing industry formed 7.3 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP), contributing approximately AU$106.5 billion to the economy (Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education 2013). Manufacturing is central to innovation, accounting for over one quarter of all business expenditure in research and development in 2010–2011, representing around AU$4.8 billion invested in research and development (Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education 2013). Facing challenges, such as sustainability concerns,  ever-increasing offshore production and the global financial crisis, the Australian manufacturing industry needs to remain relevant and competitive to succeed. Innovation is one way to do this. Given the contribution of the manufacturing industry to the Australian economy, and the above average portion of embedded creatives in manufacturing, it is important to consider what exactly embedded creatives add to the industry. This chapter, inspired by the Getting Creative in Healthcare report (Pagan, Higgs, Cunningham 2008), examines the contribution of embedded creatives to innovation in the Manufacturing industry via case studies and  supplemental data.

There is little qualitative research into embedded creatives (Vinodrai 2005; Kirby 2007; Pagan, Cunningham and Higgs 2008; Donald 2009; Bryson and Rusten 2011;
Laaksonen and Gardener 2012). There is some qualitative research external to the Creative Industries field which looks at this topic (Getz, Andersson and Larson 2007;
Male, Bower and Aritua 2007; Jacobs and Hackett 2008), but – given the differences in disciplinarity and definitions – it is difficult to apply this research to the Creative
Industries. This chapter aims to address this dearth.

In this chapter, interview data inform case studies that demonstrate exactly what embedded creatives do, how they contribute to innovation and what challenges they face. This is further explored with additional examples from other interviewees. These discussions provide a snapshot of embedded creatives in manufacturing. This research, demonstrating some of the roles of key innovators in a crucial industry, is important to  Australia’s economic development. This research also informs the education of Creative Industries students who will go on to contribute to a variety of industries.

Healthcare is a particularly interesting context within which examine creative engagement in economic activity. It entails the provision of knowledge- and information-intensive goods and services in a complex web of many types of interacting public and private service providers, government and other funders, and various regulatory and supporting mechanisms. It is one of Australia’s largest and most rapidly expanding industries. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2012), Australian expenditure on healthcare was AU$121.4 billion in 2009–2010, that is 9.4 per cent of gross domestic product, up from 7.9 per cent a decade earlier. This expenditure is projected to increase significantly, reflecting pressures from an ageing population, along with increasing demand for high quality health services, reliable information and access to new technologies (Secretariat Australia 2012; Segal and Bolton 2009). Additional cost pressures have arisen over the last decade as equity has assumed greater prominence in health policy, driven by community expectations that services and health outcomes should be of similar high quality for remote and/or Indigenous Australians to those provided to city dwellers. Additionally, greater attention is being paid to addressing mental health and some lifestyle issues with long term ill health implications. Caught between these changes and the budget constraints imposed by their major government funders, healthcare providers are under considerable pressure to change while balancing the objectives of cost containment and healthcare quality. Innovation is seen as key to dealing with this squeeze (Angus 2003; Omachonu and Einspruch 2010). However, there is resistance to change, for reasons including the conservatism of time-poor doctors, deficiencies in the technological skills of health providers and their patients and the inherent risks of introducing new products and processes to a system and institutions with complex operations.

The Getting Creative in Healthcare report (Pagan, Higgs, Cunningham 2008) examined the contribution of creative workers to Australian healthcare, using case studies to explore the ways they contribute to the operation of the Australian healthcare system and the development and delivery of services that have proven healthcare benefits. The number of creative workers embedded (employed in creative occupations within the healthcare sector) in healthcare was also quantified through extraction of data from the 2001 and 2006 Australian Census. The proportion of embedded creatives within modern Australian healthcare was found to be just 0.5 per cent of the total healthcare workforce. This appears to be low compared with most other industries and it is a stark contrast with the 2 per cent observed in manufacturing, for example. It is a surprising result in view of the historically long association of creativity with healthcare and the widespread use of creative skills identified throughout the healthcare sector. Getting Creative in Healthcare found that creative contributions occur in other ways that are not captured in the available statistics, such as external creative services and cultural production contracted by the healthcare sector, and volunteers and creative skills deployed by medical and other non-creative specialists in healthcare.

In line with the thematic emphasis of this book on embedded creatives, this chapter uses data from the 2006 and 2011 Australian Census to provide an update from the earlier report, Getting Creative in Healthcare, on the employment of creatives employed in healthcare against the backdrop of industry and technology shifts that have occurred in the intervening period. Further analysis of earlier case studies is also undertaken to explore facets of the healthcare system shaping demand for embedded creative skills. Additional perspectives have been added from literature to update areas of creative contributions that have emerged or grown since the report.

Creative workers are employed in sectors outside the creative industries often in greater numbers than within the creative field. This is the first book to explore the phenomena of the embedded creative and creative services through a range of sectors, disciplines, and perspectives.

Despite the emergence of the creative worker, there is very little known about the work life of these "creatives", and why companies seek to employ them. This book asks: how does creative work actually “embed” into a service or product supply chain? What are creative services? Which industries are they working in? This collection explores these questions in relation to innovation, employment and education, using various methods and theoretical approaches, in order to examine the value of the embedded creative and to discover the implications of education and training for creative workers.

This book will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders in the creative industries, in particular digital media, application development, design, journalism, media and communication. It will also appeal to academics and scholars of innovation, cultural studies, business management and labour studies.

This paper reports on a teaching and learning project designed to contextualize learning for a diverse student population. The project addressed institutional priorities and requirements for embedding diversity in the classroom. The project aims were fourfold; first, to acknowledge the range of diverse backgrounds characterising students in the course; second, to raise awareness of diversity and to open up discourse about diversity, discrimination and associated issues; third, to develop course materials that will speak to the range of diverse student backgrounds as a way of better communicating the subject content to those students; and finally, to discuss ways in which curriculum can operate to embed a range of perspectives. This paper reports the findings from one subject in which Indigenous perspectives were embedded. The outcomes for curriculum and pedagogy reported were positive and inspiring.

Queerness (as understood in this book) and queer students are a visible aspect of Australian tertiary communities. Institutionally there are a number of organizations representing and serving Australian LGBTIQ students. There is a National Union of Students (NUS) queer department, two NUS queer officers, an NUS queer mailing list, an annual NUS queer student conference ("Queer Collaborations"), queer departments and officers in student unions across Australia, designated queer spaces in Australian universities, and dozens of queer student publications.
There is an abundance of research into media representations of queer (e.g.  Russo 1981; Gross 1991; Fejes and Petrich 1993; Gibson 2004; Barnhurst 2007). Rob Cover argues that this research primarily targets gay and lesbian representation, stereotyping and visibility in the mainstream mass media (2002: 110). There has been some research into gay and lesbian community media (Cover 2002: 110; Cover 2005: 113), however, queer student activist media is virtually unstudied. This chapter thus attends to Australian queer university student activist media in order to reveal some queer student activists’ theories of oppression through an examination of a sample of such media from 2003 to 2006. Cover argues that minority media is a significant source for information on sex and sexuality for youth (2005: 111). James Carey states that minority media can also be a significant force in social organization and the consumption of this media can contribute to identity development (Carey 1969: 131-132). Queer student media is a clear example of minority media in which a community works to define itself, making it a rich site for the study of community understandings. Queer student media features debates about queer politics and activism, and these debates form an important part of the negotiation of community within queer student activism. This research uses thematic textual analysis, grounded in Foucauldian discourse analysis, to explore representations of queer politics in student media.

One topic covered in Australian queer university student print media is the legalization of same-sex marriage. The legalization of same-sex marriage is currently generating much debate in Western queer communities. This paper explores Australian queer university student activists’ media representation of same-sex marriage, and the debates surrounding its legalization. It uses discourse analysis to examine a selection of queer student media from four metropolitan Australian universities, and the 2003 and 2004 editions of national queer student publication, Querelle.  This paper thus contributes to the history of queer activism, documenting what one group of young people say about the legalization of same-sex marriage, and furthers research on queer perspectives of marriage and same-sex relationships.

Australian queer (GLBTIQ) university student activist media is an important site of self-representation. Community media is a significant site for the development of queer identity, community and a key part of queer politics. This paper reviews my research into queer student media, which is grounded in a queer theoretical perspective. Rob Cover argues that queer theoretical approaches that study media products fail to consider the material contexts that contribute to their construction. I use an ethnographic approach to examine how editors construct queer identity and community in queer student media. My research contributes to queer media scholarship by addressing the gap that Cover identifies, and to the rich scholarship on negotiations of queer community.

Gay community media functions as a system with three nodes, in which the flows of information and capital theoretically benefit all parties: the gay community gains a sense of cohesion and citizenship through media; the gay media outlets profit from advertisers’ capital; and advertisers recoup their investments in lucrative ‘pink dollar’ revenue.  But if a necessary corollary of all communication systems is error or noise, where—and what—are the errors in this system?

In this paper we argue that the ‘error’ in the gay media system is Queerness,  and that the gay media system ejects (in a process of Kristevan abjection ) these Queer identities in order to function successfully. We examine the ways in which Queer identities are excluded from representation in such media through a discourse and content analysis of The Sydney Star Observer (Australia’s largest gay and lesbian paper ). First, we analyse the way Queer bodies are excluded from the discourses that construct and reinforce both the ideal gay male body and the notions of homosexual essence required for that body to be meaningful. We then argue that abject Queerness returns in the SSO’s discourses of public health through the conspicuous absence of the AIDS-inflicted body (which we read as the epitome of the abject Queer), since this absence paradoxically conjures up a trace of that which the system tries to expel.  We conclude by arguing that because the ‘Queer error’ is integral to the SSO, gay community media should practise a politics of Queer inclusion rather than exclusion.

This article explores articulations of queer identity in recent Australian queer student media.  Print media is of particular importance to queer communities because, as Cover argues, it provides a crucial grounding for community development and a model of queer to guide the positioning of identity and activism. This article uses discourse analysis of queer student activists’ media representations of diversity and inclusiveness to investigate the articulations of queer identity in one specific context:  metropolitan Australian universities. This reveals real-life appropriations of this contentious term and contributes to a genealogy of sexuality, documenting one visible moment in history.