Some past and future challenges for publishing Australian cultural content

Continuity of experience is important but make no mistake we are in times of great change.

The historian, Eric Hobsbawm, writing about the US role in Iraq has argued that the present world situation is without precedent:

"The present state of globalization is unprecedented in its integration, its technology and its politics. We live in a world so integrated, where ordinary operations are so geared to each other that there are immediate global consequences to any interruption - SARS, for instance, which within days became a global phenomenon starting from an unknown source somewhere in China. The disruption of the world transport system, international meetings, and institutions, global markets, and even whole economies, happened with the speed unthinkable in any previous period."

There are two pillars of our rapidly changing world - convergence and globalisation. The former can be described as the coming together of telecommunications, the print and the electronic media, computer content and book publishing as a result of merging technologies. The latter arises when new companies and alliances that result from convergence cross international borders.

The epitome of both convergence and globalisation, of course, is Rupert Murdoch's International News Limited. Even in my time in publishing in the 80s, a pattern of company takeovers, the merging of large and small, national and international publishing houses was occurring. Interestingly, these mergers were frequently followed by companies re-forming in new incarnations.

Conglomerates are not always the best places for creative energy, originality and risk taking - essential qualities of a vibrant publishing house. Three major issues arise from the convergence and globalization: the culture of change, public policy and, above all, the national benefits in social and cultural terms that flow from new ways, new partnerships. But the important idea is that content would drive change. In other words, people would take up new technology provided it was a means of being informed and entertained.

Time passes frighteningly quickly in this information age. But continuity and experience remain of critical importance because in many ways the information revolution is as evolutionary as much as it is revolutionary. In fact the traditional media will continue to provide the oxygen for the new media.

The electronic media and film and print as well as book publishing will supply much of the content necessary to give the new forms of media momentum. This will be achieved by drawing on business and organisational skills as well as financial and creative resources of established companies to help provide the thrust for innovation.

In terms of continuity, let's not be mesmerized into believing that using labels like convergence and globalisation obliterates past practice and experience. There has long been a convergence of content. Fifty per cent of Hollywood films are adaptations of books and plays.

The book-publishing industry has long been a rich well of ideas and of choice. A good book shop has some 32000 individual titles. Book buyers have been confronting wide choices long before the multiple channels of television.

There are, also, wider issues in this environment of change, which need to be recognized if we are to take early advantage of the possibilities open to us. Note the early advantage. The tragedy of not keeping up is that in falling behind we will repeat the mistakes of the past in at least one vital regard - the failure to create our own Australian content. We are losing time.

The recent controversy about bias in the ABC has been a political blind by the Minister. You may need reminding that Senator Alston's fresh onslaught against the ABC of the grounds of its alleged bias in reporting the war in Iraq followed the ABC's Managing Director, Russell Balding's decision to discontinue the ABC's two digital channels because of lack of funds.