Are we losing the right to information?

The Case of Australian Web Filters

I have great interest when it comes to issues pertaining to the right of the people. This is why this article caught my eye instantly while I was browsing through the site. The article entitled ‘Australian web filter to block 10,000 internet sites’ was published by the HeraldSun on the 13th of November 2008.

The article was about the Australian Communications and Media Authority setting up a filter to block 10,000 sites containing unwanted content. Communications Minister Senator Conroy revealed details while calling for a live trial of the technology. An ACMA trial of web filter technology showed that it could slow down Internet speeds up to 87 percent. This has sparked a protest from the Electronic Frontiers Australia. One of the members named Colin Jacobs, was concerned over what ACMA deemed as ‘unwanted content’ (Nicholson 2008).

The Issue of Media Restriction

This publication leads us to think about the issue on how media is being restricted by the government. Also, we are able to witness a much more conservative culture compared to more liberal countries such as the United States. According to Banham (2003), press freedom has dropped from 12th to 50th in according to the world rankings published by the international media monitoring organisation, Reporters Without Borders. This shows that the trend of media restrictions is still very tight among Australians.

In addition, a different culture can be seen here compared to other countries. As Shriver (1997, pp.375) suggests, a reader’s knowledge and cultural context plays a role in evaluation of graphics. In this context, Australians interpret the data on Web pages differently from Americans. Their traditionally conservative culture has led them to evaluate the graphics as inappropriate and ‘unwanted’.

In my opinion, it is vital to understand the cultural context when publishing and designing documents on the Web. People from different cultural backgrounds are not expected to view the elements similarly as others do. Also, media freedom should be granted to avoid misunderstandings of any sort and to allow people to understand what is going on in the world.
We can only hope that media freedom and cultural sensitivity will play a role in future publications from document designers around the world.

References

Banham, C 2003, Media restrictions given a black mark, The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 11 November 2008, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/26/1067103270209.html

Nicholson, J. D 2008, Australian web filter to block 10,000 internet sites, Herald Sun, viewed 13 November 2008,http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24645676-5006922,00.html

Shriver, K 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York