A single regulator would have primary responsibility for regulating the new scheme. In the context of media convergence, the ALRC has identified advantages in having one regulator responsible for all forms of content regulation, including classification matters.
A consistent national approach to media classification is recommended by the ALRC that focuses regulation on restricting access to adult content and dealing with Prohibited content, while enabling greater industry content classification, but subject to regulatory oversight of key responsibilities. In this way, the overall regulatory burden on media content industries can be reduced, while maintaining a classification scheme that meets community expectations and safeguards community standards.
With consistent rules applied to media content in all of its forms, through a framework that is sufficiently flexible to be adaptive to technological change, the challenges of convergence for media classification can be met through innovative regulatory approaches that will benefit Australians for the next 20 years.
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Terry Flew was Commissioner in charge of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of the National Classification Scheme. He is Professor of Media and Communication at the Queensland University of Technology.
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About the Author
Terry Flew is Professor of Media and Communications at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is the author of Understanding Global Media (Palgrave 2007) and New Media: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008). From 2006 to 2009, he has headed a project into citizen journalism in Australia through the Australian Research Council’s Linkage-Projects program, and The National Forum (publishers of On Line Opinion) have been participants in that project.
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