[csaa-forum] McLelland/Internet Regulation & Imagination/USyd/Fri 13 May, 2-4pm

Gerard Goggin gerard.goggin at sydney.edu.au
Mon May 2 11:00:06 CST 2011


Media at Sydney presents

ŒAustralia's Child-Abuse Materials Legislation, Internet Regulation and the
Juridification of the Imagination¹
a seminar by Associate Professor Mark McLelland (Wollongong)

2-4pm, Friday 13 May, 2011
Rogers Room, Woolley Building (A20) -- see map:
http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?location=12E

Abstract: 

This seminar investigates the implications of Australia¹s blanket
prohibition of Œchild-abuse material¹ (including cartoons, animation,
drawings, digitally manipulated photographs, and text) for Australian fan
communities of animation, comics and gaming (ACG) and slash fiction.
ACG/slash fan groups in Australia and elsewhere routinely consume, produce
and disseminate material that contains content that would be Œrefused
classification¹ (i.e. featuring fictitious Œunder-age¹ characters in violent
and sexual scenarios).   Two lines of argument are advanced in the seminar
to show that current legislation is seriously out of synch with the new
communicative environment brought about by the Internet. Firstly, Henry
Jenkins¹s analysis of participatory fan culture is engaged to demonstrate
that (i) a large portion of the fans producing and trading in these images
are themselves minors and young people and (ii) legislators have failed to
comprehend the manner in which the Internet is facilitating the development
of new literacies, including sexual literacies. Habermas¹s analysis of the
conflict between instrumental and communicative rationality is then deployed
to demonstrate that legislators have misrecognised the nature of the
communicative practices that take place within the Œlifeworlds¹ of these fan
communities resulting in an unjust Œjuridification¹ of their creative
practices. Drawing on Japanese research into the overwhelmingly female
fandom surrounding ŒBoys Love¹ (BL) manga, it is argued that current
Australian legislation not only forecloses the fantasy lives of young
Australian fans but also harms them by mistakenly aligning them with
paedophile networks and threatening them with arrest, prosecution, and a
lifetime on the sex offenders¹ list. Finally, drawing upon Jean Cohen¹s
paradigm of Œreflexive law¹ the seminar considers a possible way forward
that opens up channels of communication between regulators, fans, domain
host administrators and media studies professionals that would encourage a
more nuanced approach to legislation as well as a greater awareness of the
need for self-regulation among fan communities.

About the presenter:

Associate Professor Mark McLelland is in the School of Social Sciences,
Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong. He is a sociologist
and cultural historian of Japan specialising in the history of sexuality,
gender theory and new media. His recent publications have focused on the
postwar history of Japanese cultures of sexuality and the development of the
Internet in Japan, especially the use of the Internet and other new media by
minority communities in Japan and throughout Asia.

McLelland is currently engaged in two ARC-funded projects. 'Sexuality and
Social Transformation in Japan¹ looks at how global movements of people and
knowledge are impacting upon Japanese constructs of sexuality and gender.
The latest publication from this project, the book Love, Sex and Democracy
in Japan during the American Occupation will be published by Palgrave
Macmillan in 2012. ŒInternet History in Australia and the Asia-Pacific¹
compares the development and uses of the Internet in Australia, with those
of China, Korea, and Japan.

Mark was the 2007/08 Toyota Visiting Professor of Japanese at the Center for
Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan.

Media @ Sydney is presented by the Department of Media and Communications,
University of Sydney: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/home/.
For further information, contact Gerard Goggin: gerard.goggin at sydney.edu.au

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Gerard Goggin
Professor of Media and Communications
Department of Media and Communications
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Sydney
e: gerard.goggin at sydney.edu.au
p: +61 2 9114 1218
m: +61 428 66 88 24
w: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/staff/ggoggin

Address: 
Level 2, room 206
Holme Building (A09a)
Footbridge terrace entrance
University of Sydney NSW 2006
 



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