Introduction

In this volume, we speak to the making of publics. One of the ways that publics are made is through research, where the researcher defines the inclusion and exclusion of different individuals and groups when creating their sample. Audience research makes publics in two ways: the researcher defines the target population, and from within that population, individuals come together to identify as audience members. This necessarily complicates the process of determining how different audiences engage with different types of media products, as the views, behaviours and responses of those who are either excluded by the researcher, or who exclude themselves, are not represented in the research process. An ongoing issue in primary qualitative research, engaging with members of an audience — however nebulous or fractured that audience might be — without inconveniencing the participants of the research process has been facilitated in recent decades by access to online forums, discussion boards and social media streams, where collected views and behaviours can be studied ‘in the wild’. Although these spaces are used by only a fraction of the viewers of any particular film, television show or concert, the ability for researchers to make a ‘public’ of these viewers gives us new ways to engage with audience research.

In this chapter, I present the preliminary results of an investigation into the way audience members of fictional television shows engage with actors and characters via Twitter. I propose that Twitter use by audience members makes visible an everyday practice that has yet to be fully acknowledged by research — that is, the way that we hold both the actor and the character in our heads while watching television, simultaneously acknowledging the ‘realness’ of both. To illustrate this proposal, I am using data collected during the first broadcast of the television drama Love Child, Season Two, on the Channel Nine network in Australia.

This project was designed to test a personal observation of Twitter user behaviour during the final season of True Blood (HBO). While following the live tweets of fans during the broadcast of the show in the United States, I realised that Twitter users were not only tagging the characters’ official Twitter feeds1, but often the actors’ personal Twitter handles as well.

When Professor Anna Chur-Hansen invited Ted Nettelbeck and me to edit a book on the history of the University of Adelaide School of Psychology (formerly the Department of Psychology) in 2014, we were delighted and we both agreed. Since then, we have discussed the project further and agreed that it would be a good idea to broaden the scope so as to include the history of the Schools of Psychology at the other two universities in South Australia: Flinders University and the University of South Australia (UniSA). This involved inviting other people to contribute, and we have been fortunate to obtain the agreement of Professor Malcolm Jeeves, the foundation professor of Psychology at Adelaide, Professor Norm Feather, the foundation professor of Psychology at Flinders, and Professor Jacques Metzer, the founder of the school at UniSA. In addition, the three current heads of school — Professor Anna Chur-Hansen (Adelaide), Professor Tracey Wade (Flinders) and Professor Kurt Lushington (UniSA) — have agreed to assume overall responsibility for their respective chapters. Consequently, rather than assume the roles of authors, Ted Nettelbeck and I have agreed to be co-editors.

South Australia is fortunate in having three university schools of psychology that are all strong in research. The most recent Excellence in Research [ERA] ratings by the Australian Research Council awarded 4 (out of 5) to all three, indicating that their research is better than world-class.

Psychology has been defined as ‘the study of mind and behaviour’, but it is a profession as well as an academic discipline. As an academic discipline, there are various branches of the discipline, including experimental psychology, social psychology, physiological psychology, and abnormal psychology. Since the introduction of the Psychological Practices Act in 1973, there has been an increased focus on the professional training of psychologists along with increased regulation of the profession. The regulation of the profession has involved the Psychological Board of South Australia, since replaced by the Psychological Board of Australia [PBA], the Australian Psychological Society [APS], the Heads of Departments and Schools of Psychology Association [HODSPA] and the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council [APAC], established in 2009.

Introduction

Health and behaviours are determined above all by social conditions (Sheiham et al. 2014) and for this reason social conditions in which people live have been considered as the cause of causes of diseases and health disorders (Braveman & Gottlieb 2014).

Differences in levels of oral health that disproportionally affect socially disadvantaged members of society and that are avoidable, unfair and unjust are defined as oral health inequalities. It is not only the difference between the rich and the poor but a consistent gradient across the social economic ladder that exists and is universally found (Watt et al. 2016). The huge extent of contemporary health inequalities has led to be termed as the plague of our era (Farmer 2001). Therefore, it is important to document and understand oral health inequalities in order to allow the implementation of the most appropriate oral health interventions.

There are several individual and area-based measures of socioeconomic position. This chapter presents Australia's child oral health outcomes according to parents’ educational level, household income, Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) and Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA).

Among several individual measures of socioeconomic position, income and education are most widely used. Education usually results from an individual's schooling until the beginning of the third decade of life, and has little variation from then on. Its impact can occur either in the increase of knowledge and ability to take on healthy habits or in their insertion in the job market, in better positions and with higher incomes (Lynch & Kaplan 2000).

Income is a useful measure of socioeconomic position because it is related directly to the material circumstances that may influence health and health-related behaviours (Lynch & Kaplan 2000).

The IRSAD summarises information about the economic and social conditions of people and households within an area, including both relative advantage and disadvantage measures. The average IRSAD value is 1000. A lower score indicates that an area is relatively disadvantaged compared to an area with a higher score (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014).

The ICSEA is an index which combines students’ characteristics (such as parental occupation and level of education) and school's area characteristics such as proportion of Indigenous children and geographical location. The lower the ICSEA value, the lower the level of educational advantage of students who attend this school.

INTRODUCTION

How do academics and activists obtain their knowledge of the experiences of women and then utilise that knowledge to frame debates about the rights and interests of those who have been subjected to violence? As scholars, we engage in debates about the framing of legal rules and we critique and perhaps help to create the systems that claim to be responsive to the rights and interests of women. Although Emeritus Professor Judith Gardam [Professor Gardam] would describe herself as a scholar, it is possible to argue that she, like many others, by opening up areas of debate and challenging our conceptions about the structure of the law, fits into the category of individuals sometimes described as ‘transboundary actors’. Such individuals engage with international law and international politics, sometimes directly, sometimes through organisations and, it could be argued, through their publications. Scholarship has the capacity to influence the manner in which issues are debated nationally and internationally.

International law and international relations scholars have focused on the role of non-state actors in the formulation of legal rules and in the delivery of services connected to development, human rights and gender equality. Some authors have considered the manner in which groups and individuals who might be referred to as transboundary actors have challenged the state-centric ethos that has permeated international law and international institutions. In part, these individuals and groups seek to participate in what might be termed international governance. However, many also recognise and discuss the negative power of the law, both in terms of its content and the manner in which the language of the law shapes our understanding of world events and the experiences of individuals. Academics are one of the groups that have contributed to, and will continue to develop, the content of international law and its application by international institutions. The work of academics often contains challenges to the structure of the law, while at the same time demonstrating mastery of its rules.

Through her writing on international humanitarian law (IHL), Professor Gardam has continuously worked to demonstrate both the failure of the present rules to protect and foster the interests of women and the attitudes that influence the manner in which those rules are interpreted and implemented.

Oral health is an integral part of general health and shares a number of common determinants with general health. Those common determinants are mostly related to diet. General health behaviours that affect child oral health centre largely on consumption of water and of drinks and foods containing sugar.

Water consumption can affect oral health in two ways. First, water is a ‘tooth friendly’ drink. Water contains no decay-causing sugar and is generally in the range of acidity that is safe for teeth. Second, water is the main way in which fluoride is accessible to the whole community, irrespective of their individual oral hygiene behaviours. Multiple studies from more than 20 countries have shown that fluoridation reduces dental caries (National Health and Medical Research Council 2007; Rugg-Gunn and Do 2012; Iheozor- Ejiofor et al. 2015), which explains the high priority given to water fluoridation by public health authorities. Water fluoridation provides the greatest benefit to those who can least afford professional dental care (Slade et al. 1995b; Burt 2002). This chapter examines children's consumption of mains and tap water as well as bottled water to assess the extent to which children are likely to receive the benefits to their oral health than can be gained from the fluoridation of reticulated water.

Consumption of sugar is a key risk factor for dental caries (Moynihan and Kelly 2014; Sheiham and James 2014). The impact of sugar on oral health depends in large part on the type, quantity and pattern of consumption. For oral health purposes, sugar that does not occur naturally in milk or in whole fruit or vegetables can contribute to a child's risk of experiencing tooth decay. These sugars are known as ‘free sugars’ and are defined as ‘monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods and beverages by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates’ (Rosenberg et al. 2005). Dietary guidelines for Australia recommend that Australians ‘Limit intake of foods and drinks containing added sugars such as confectionary, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and cordials, fruit drinks, vitamin waters, energy and sports drinks’ (National Health and Medical Research Council 2013).

Part 1: The birth and development of the School of Psychology (1994-2005)

The birth of the School of Psychology at the University of South Australia on 1 January 1994 was the formal result of some four years of intensive political efforts by a small group of highly dedicated academic individuals. Lobbying to establish a home for psychology commenced even before the agreement to merge two precursor higher education institutions — the South Australian Institute of Technology [SAIT] and some campuses of the South Australian College of Advanced Education [SACAE] — was signed and then ratified by the State Parliament to create the University of South Australia Act 1990 (SA). The university commenced on 1 January 1991.

Background

Prior to 1989, although a number of psychology-educated lecturing staff had been working, teaching students and researching in the precursor institutions, the main problem was that psychology was regarded as a ‘captive’ discipline. It existed in these institutions only to ‘service’ other professions, such as social work, teaching, business, communication, physiotherapy and other health science professions. As a consequence, many lecturers interested in advancing knowledge in the discipline found their academic, teaching and research activities stifled and even prevented by the requirements of the institutions’ academic units, which were often multidisciplinary and professional schools. Much of the time, there were non-psychology academics who determined what areas of psychology should be considered and taught, assessed and researched, all justified ostensibly by the requirements of whatever professions were taught by that school.

There were two exceptions to this. First, at the Magill and Salisbury campuses of SACAE, over the years there had developed two psychology ‘majors’ within undergraduate degrees in teaching, communication and liberal studies, primarily through the efforts of psychology academics Colin Parsons, Russell Hawkins, Gary Childs and several others — although neither of these majors had ever been eligible for accreditation by the Australian Psychological Society [APS]. In 1994, these majors were to become the basis for the new School of Psychology's accredited sequence in a ‘named’ undergraduate psychology degree.

A perfect storm of opportunity

Digital, mobile and social technologies are transforming the possibilities for place-based engagement and interaction. The rapid informating of public places and spaces offers many new ways to change how we encounter, explore and respond to place. A cluster of technology-based innovations — including smart phones, wireless connectivity, high speed broadband, GPS, cloudbased computing, mobile applications and social media platforms — bring into play many new potential combinations of content, interactivity and context of use. The emergence and co-mingling of these technologies create the conditions for a perfect storm of radical innovation, a step change in the relationship between people and place. For organisations and individuals interested in the interpretation of place, this creates vast opportunities and a complex conundrum of choices. The experience of place can now be mediated through a bewildering variety of digital content, devices and interactions that have enormous potential to change perceptions, interest and involvement.

For those with a commitment to the conservation of urban environments and their social and historical associations, the idea of heritage has been a guiding concept for advocating and promoting the preservation of our built and natural environments. Heritage and heritage places may be defined in different ways, but generally what distinguishes them in the environment is their recognised significance as sites of aesthetic, cultural, historical, scientific or technical interest. More simply, heritage may be defined broadly as those things that we preserve from the past for the future. For more than 120 years, organisations such as the National Trust have sought to raise awareness of the natural and built environment around us and to encourage an interest in conserving the physical fabric, natural systems, stories and cultural values of heritage places. The recent emergence and confluence of digital technologies and their rapid uptake present a unique opportunity to promote heritage conservation in the digital age.

Signifying significance

The recognition and documentation of places deemed to hold heritage significance is an ancient practice. In promoting significant places, we have also transcribed the stories of the past onto the landscape with memorials, monuments, markers and signage.

Introduction

In 2009, the Australian federal government decided to fund the construction of the National Broadband Network, or NBN. At a total projected cost of A$44 billion, it was the largest engineering and public infrastructure project in Australia's history, with the intention of laying 200 000 km of fibre optic cable to the doors of 93 per cent of Australian premises. For the remaining 7 per cent of people, who lived in rural and remote areas, wireless and satellite would replace fibre. However, in 2013, this fibre-tothe- premises [FttP] model was subsequently replaced by a much slower, hybrid model that used a mix of optic-fibre, co-axial cable and copper infrastructures alongside wireless and satellite in regional and remote areas (see Arnold et al. 2014 for installation history).

One of the stated key goals of the various plans for high speed broadband networks in Australia is to overcome the challenges of distance and the concomitant difficulties for transport implicit in distance. For example, in the initial scheme, the then Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, signalled broadband-enabled benefits relating to social inclusion, economic productivity and geographic connectivity. He stated that ‘every person and business in Australia, nomatter [sic] where they are located, will have access to affordable, fast broadband at their fingertips’, and that high speed broadband [HSB] ‘will help drive Australia's productivity, improve education and health service delivery and connect our big cities and regional centres’ (2009). Australian geography has had a major impact on the history of telecommunications in the nation (see, for example, Given 2010). The National Broadband Network [NBN] has been promoted as a way of overcoming the ‘tyranny of distance’ experienced by people in remote and rural regions (Swan & Conroy 2011).

In this chapter, we seek to examine the dynamics of this process, exploring what high speed broadband infrastructure means for overcoming (or ameliorating the effects of) the ‘tyranny of distance’ for those living in regional and remote areas, and what HSB means for the social and material significance of these places.

INTRODUCTION

It was not until a tour of duty in Afghanistan as a legal advisor with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that I began to sense a disconnect between the different areas of operational law regarding the significance of women in armed conflict, both as combatants and civilians. On any given day, my rule of law officer, a female lieutenant colonel, and I might be meeting with members of women's rights international and non-governmental organisations. Under the effects-based approach to operations method of operational analysis being used at that time in the headquarters, the legal office had been assigned responsibility for developing an effective and holistic assessment of the progress of the international community's rule of law development efforts, and my rule of law officer had convinced me that metrics regarding the treatment of women in the Afghan judicial and corrections systems could provide a particularly valuable and relevant measure of progress.

On another day, I might find myself engaged in a dynamic targeting situation if the legal advisor who ordinarily provided real-time law of armed conflict (LOAC) advice was otherwise occupied. Not surprisingly, the targets in that theatre were generally individual men, but the civilians who were to be protected during the engagements seemed an amorphous group — civilians are civilians, and the direct effects of a kinetic weapon upon a person are not easily differentiated on the basis of sex or gender. Frankly, although I was aware of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, women's and gender issues had in the past appeared to me to be largely human rights issues even in a combat theatre, and human rights issues seemed to have little to do with core LOAC tasks, such as a commander appropriately assessing proportionality before deciding to engage with armed force. This was a ‘war amongst the people’, however, and I began to sense that we were neglecting half of them.

To sense a disconnect is one thing; to be able to articulate it for one's self in terms of one's experiences and training is often quite another.

Appendix 1: Sociodemographic variables used in the raking ratio estimation procedure

Australian Capital Territory (ACT)

Child's age

1 = ACT& 5 years old (4,665)

2 = ACT& 6 years old (4,365)

3 = ACT& 7 years old (4,235)

4 = ACT& 8 years old (4,175)

5 = ACT& 9 years old (4,007)

6 = ACT& 10 years old (4,128)

7 = ACT& 11 years old (4,197)

8 = ACT& 12 years old (4,248)

9 = ACT& 13 years old (4,172)

10 = ACT& 14 years old (4,236) Child's sex

1 = ACT& male (21,714)

2 = ACT& female (20,714)

Child's Indigenous status

1 = ACT& child non-Indigenous (41,276)

2 = ACT& child Indigenous (1,152)

Parents’/guardians’ country of birth

1 = ACT& neither parent born overseas (27,124)

2 = ACT& either parent born overseas (15,304)

Parents’/guardians’ education level

1 = ACT& neither parent has Bachelor degree or higher (20,543)

2 = ACT& either parent has Bachelor degree or higher (21,885)

Parents’/guardians’ labour force status

1 = ACT& neither parent/guardian employed (3,413)

2 = ACT& either parent/guardian employed (39,015)

Household income

1 = ACT& low income (7,516)

2 = ACT& medium income (12,527)

3 = ACT& high income (22,385)

Family composition of household

1 = ACT& one-parent family (7,769)

2 = ACT& couple family (34,659)

Patterns of toothbrushing practices

Brushing teeth with toothpaste is a widely adopted oral health behaviour in Australia (Slade et al. 2006). There is evidence that more than 90% of Australian children brush their teeth at least once a day (McLellan et al. 1999; Armfield & Spencer 2012) and that almost all children do so with a toothpaste containing fluoride (Armfield & Spencer 2012; Slade et al. 1995). Toothbrushes and fluoride toothpaste are readily available throughout the country and dental and other health authorities recommend brushing.

A great deal of evidence over a number of decades has found that regularly brushing children's teeth with fluoridated toothpaste reduces the risk of dental decay (Marinho et al. 2003a; Walsh et al. 2010). Toothbrushing not only removes plaque, which consists mostly of bacteria and is a risk factor for oral disease, but can be used to apply fluoride to the teeth via the application of toothpaste.

Australia's fluoride guidelines advise that brushing with fluoridated toothpaste commence from the age of 18 months (Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health 2012). Table 7-1 shows the percentages of children who indicated that they had commenced brushing their teeth before the age of 18 months, by both the child's current age and various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The data are based on the recollection of the reporting parent, so parents of older children were having to recall the age of first brushing from further in their past than were parents of younger children. Overall, just over one-third of children commenced brushing with toothpaste before 18 months of age. There was little variation in reported early brushing commencement by child age at the time of the study.

Children were more likely to brush with toothpaste prior to 18 months if their parents were Australian born (36.0%) compared to those with an overseas-born parent (30.3%). In addition, the percentage of children brushing early was higher for those children whose parents had vocational (37.1%) or tertiary education (35.5%) than for those whose parents had no schooling beyond high school (29.2%). There was an income gradient in early-child toothbrushing. The lowest percentage was shown for children from the lowest household incomes (28.7%), followed by children from a medium household income (35.6%), with the highest percentage for children from families with a high household income (38.3%).