'Catastrophic Failure' Theories and Disaster Journalism: Evaluating Media Explanations of the Black Saturday Bushfires

In recent decades, academic researchers of natural disasters and emergency management have developed a canonical literature on 'catastrophe failure' theories such as disaster responses from from US emergency management services (Drabek, 2010; Quarantelli, 1998) and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (Perrow, 1999). This article examines six influential theories from this field in an attempt to explore why Victoria's disaster and emergency management response systems failed during Australia's Black Saturday bushfires. How well, if at all, are these theories understood by journalists, disaster and emergency management planners, and policy-makers? On examining the Country Fire Authority's response to the fires, as well as the media's reportage of them, we use the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires as a theory-testing case study of failures in emergency management, preparation and planning. We conclude that journalists can learn important lessons from academics' specialist knowledge about disaster and emergency management responses

By a long shot:power, devaluation and discrimination in a toxic cultural workforce

Drawing on data collected for a comprehensive workforce survey of the audio-visual camera profession in Australia (n = 582), this article investigates discrimination and devaluation in screen industry workplaces. Employing a mixed method approach, we analyse the intersection of gender, sexuality and ethnicity to show that group differences play an important role in understanding workplace cultures defined by power imbalances. To address the problem of these toxic workplaces, we propose the importance of attending to job precarity and suggest the need for policymakers, guilds and trade unions to work collaboratively to set and enforce standards of workplace equality and respect.<br/

By a long shot: Power, devaluation and discrimination in a toxic cultural workforce

Drawing on data collected for a comprehensive workforce survey of the audio-visual camera profession in Australia (n = 582), this article investigates discrimination and devaluation in screen industry workplaces. Employing a mixed method approach, we analyse the intersection of gender, sexuality and ethnicity to show that group differences play an important role in understanding workplace cultures defined by power imbalances. To address the problem of these toxic workplaces, we propose the importance of attending to job precarity and suggest the need for policymakers, guilds and trade unions to work collaboratively to set and enforce standards of workplace equality and respect. JEL Classification: Z1

Sowing the Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind? The Effect of Wind Turbines on Residential Well-Being

This paper investigates the effect of wind turbines on residential well-being in Germany, using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a unique, novel data set on wind turbines for the time period between 2000 and 2012. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS), it calculates the distance from households to the nearest wind turbines to determine whether an individual is affected by disamenities, e.g. through visual pollution. The depth of our unique, novel data set on wind turbines, which has been collected at the regional level and which includes, besides their exact geographical coordinates, their construction dates, allows estimating the causal effect of wind turbines on residential well-being, using difference-in-difference propensity-score and spatial matching techniques. We demonstrate that the construction of a new wind turbine in a treatment area of 4000 metres around households has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction. Moreover, this effect is found to be of transitory nature. Contrasting the implicit monetary valuation with the damage through CO2 emissions avoided by wind turbines, wind power turns out to be a favorable technology despite robust evidence for negative externalities

Toward a polycentric low-carbon transition: the roles of community-based energy initiatives in enhancing the resilience of energy systems

An understanding of the resilience of energy systems is critical in order to tackle forthcoming challenges. This chapter proposes that the polycentric governance perspective, developed by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, may be highly relevant in formulating policies to enhance the resilience of future energy systems. Polycentric governance systems involve the coexistence of many self-organized centers of decision making at multiple levels that are formally independent of each other, but operate under an overarching set of rules. Given this polycentric approach, this chapter studies the roles of community-based energy initiatives and, in particular, of renewable energy cooperatives, in enhancing the institutional resilience of energy systems. In this perspective, the chapter identifies three major socio-institutional obstacles, which undermine this resilience capacity: the collective action problem arising from the diffusion of sustainable energy technologies and practices, the lack of public trust in established energy actors and the existence of strong vested interests in favor of the status quo. Then, it shows why the development of community-based energy initiatives and renewable energy cooperatives may offer effective responses to these obstacles, relying on many empirical illustrations. More specifically, it is argued that community-based energy initiatives present institutional features encouraging the activation of social norms and a high trust capital, therefore enabling them to offer effective solutions to avoid free riding and enhance trust in energy institutions and organizations. The creation of federated polycentric structures may also offer a partial response to the existence of vested interests in favor of the status quo. Finally, some recommendations for policymakers are derived from this analysis

Boom and Bust in Australian Screen Policy: 10BA, the Film Finance Corporation, and Hollywood's 'Race to the Bottom'

In recent years, a narrative has emerged in the Australian popular media about the box office "unpopularity" of Australian feature films and the "failure" of the domestic screen industry. This article explores the recent history of Australian screen policy with particular reference to: 1) the "10BA" tax incentive of the 1980s; 2) the Film Finance Corporation of Australia (FFC), a government screen agency established in 1988 to bring investment bank-style portfolio management to Australia's screen industry, and 3) local production incentive policies pursed by Australian state governments in a chase for Hollywood's runaway production. We argue the 10BA incentive catalysed an unsustainable bubble in Australian production, while its policy successor, the FFC, fundamentally failed in its stated mission of "commercial" screen financing (over its 20-year lifespan, the FFC invested $AUD1.345 billion for$AUD274.2 million recouped: a cumulative return of negative 80 per cent). For their part, private investors in Australian films discovered the screen production process involved high levels of risk (Goldman 1984, Malkiel 2007). Foreign-financed production also proved highly volatile, due to the vagaries of trade exposure, currency fluctuations, and tax arbitrage. The result of these macro- and micro-economic factors – often structural and cross-border in nature – was that Australia's screen industry failed to develop the local investment infrastructure required to finance a sustainable (non-subsidised) local sector