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What’s the point of journalism? The answer seems obvious enough.
It’s to share information and keep people reliably informed. But if you dig a little deeper there’s a lot more to it. Why do people need to be reliably informed? Because people use the information and knowledge they gain from the media as the basis for important decisions in their lives.
The most obvious one is who to vote for. In Australia, for example, the High Court has long recognised that democracy requires freedom of political communication. Without it, people have no reliable information on which to decide who should lead them.
But if you drill down, the big political decisions are the tip of an iceberg. As Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook write today, disinformation about climate change has delayed policy responses by decades and hurt democracy. This situation is made worse, Celeste Young and Roger Jones explain, by the way in which cognitive dissonance about climate change tends to prime us for inaction.
And the damage done by poor information isn’t restricted to climate change. We need good information to navigate a pandemic, or work out how much screen time to allow our children, or what we should eat to stay healthy. Good information helps us understand our fellow citizens and the culture in which we live and it is crucial to social cohesion. But, with so much more media now consumed online, attention-seeking has become an end in itself.
The consequence is that everywhere we see the signs of poor decisions, anger and distrust fuelled by misinformation. This is where The Conversation comes in. We produce quality journalism written by academics so our community can be better informed and people can make better decisions in their lives.
We think the calm presentation of the best evidence and research improves social cohesion and enhances our sense of community. That is the impact we want to have and that we are having. If you’d like to know more about what we do please read our most recent impact report to find out how we are sharing good information to contribute to a better-informed world.
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Misha Ketchell
Editor
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Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol; John Cook, The University of Melbourne
When people are pervasively disinformed, the very foundations of democracy can end up on shaky ground.
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Celeste Young, Victoria University; Roger Jones, Victoria University
Climate denial is passe. But why do so many of us know the climate crisis is upon us – and live like it isn’t?
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Helen Bird, Swinburne University of Technology
Embattled Optus chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin who oversaw two network outages in the last year has resigned after admitting her company had no disaster management plan.
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Christine Erbe, Curtin University
Australian navy divers have suffered minor injuries from a sonar pulse by a Chinese navy vessel. Here’s what that means and how underwater sound can hurt divers.
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Denis Muller, The University of Melbourne
Without independent evidence, the ABC is right not to adopt for itself terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’, but equally it is right to report others making such allegations.
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Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, The University of Queensland
David McBride helped bring about a reckoning with the Australian Defence Force, but came at a legal cost. Will it stop others coming forward?
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Many are asking whether Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Australian sailors have been injured by sonar pulses from a Chinese destroyer.
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Toby Walsh, UNSW Sydney
It has been an epic backstabbing scene worthy of the HBO drama Succession.
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C Raina MacIntyre, UNSW Sydney
Wearing a mask at the shops, on public transport and in other crowded settings will improve your chances of a COVID-free Christmas.
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Mina Bakhit, Bond University; Paul Glasziou, Bond University
Developing new antibiotics is important in the fight against antibiotic resistance. But we also need to use the antibiotics we already have much more wisely – GPs play a major role in this.
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Rebecca English, Queensland University of Technology
New data from Queensland shows there has been a 20% increase in homeschooling in the state over the past year.
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Andrea Waling, La Trobe University
The publication 25 years ago of The Ethical Slut shattered social norms and stigma about non-monogamy. It’s now sold over 200,000 copies – and continues to be important.
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Politics + Society
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Allan Beever, Auckland University of Technology
Court decisions based on a judge’s discretion rather than the letter of the law are increasingly common. But this risks undermining some basic liberties.
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Hannah McGlade, Curtin University; Kyllie Cripps, Monash University
A royal commission into sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities is not the way to address abuse against Aboriginal children. Indigenous-led solutions are needed.
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Science + Technology
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Sam Baron, Australian Catholic University
Everybody thinks they know what drugs are, but a clear definition is surprisingly elusive.
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Environment + Energy
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Yolanda Lee Waters, The University of Queensland; Angela Dean, The University of Queensland
Experimenting with climate messaging reveals the best ways to inspire individual action. Here’s how to talk about the Great Barrier Reef this summer.
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Arts + Culture
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Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, University of Adelaide
A new exhibition in Sydney is just the latest in a long, near continuous, list of Egyptian exhibitions in Australia. How much Egypt can we take?
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Books + Ideas
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Susan Sheridan, Flinders University
The narrative of Temperance is built around two disappearances, which traumatically affect the lives of a woman and her children.
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The Conversation AU
Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Full Time
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The Conversation AU
Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Full Time
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The Conversation AU
Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Full Time
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