Generated by All in One SEO v4.9.7.2, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # Graeme Turner Tales from the quadrangle and beyond ## Sitemaps - [XML Sitemap](https://graemeturner.org/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website. ## Posts - [Shit-posting your way to power: Facebook, Trump and the new normal in political debate](https://graemeturner.org/2025/10/23/shit-posting-your-way-to-power-facebook-trump-and-the-new-normal-in-political-debate/) - A bit of holiday reading I’ve been reading Sarah Wynne-Williams’ alarming insider account of working at Facebook up to and during the 2016 election in the US (Careless People: A story of where I used to work). Before reading it, I had assumed that the Facebook algorithm settings which privileged outrage, anger, hate-speech and the - [Our universities’ ‘rotten culture’, recalcitrant VCs, and a resignation.](https://graemeturner.org/2025/09/22/our-universities-rotten-culture-recalcitrant-vcs-and-a-resignation/) - Another week of universities in crisis. Last week ended with two embattled VCs unrepentantly defending their business models against criticisms from academic staff and the media. The tide, however, was turning. This week, the Senate enquiry into university governance delivered a scathing report on what they describe as the universities’ ‘rotten culture’, that is failing - [The March for Australia: How 'slow politics' is taking us backwards](https://graemeturner.org/2025/09/02/the-march-for-australia-how-slow-politics-is-taking-us-backwards/) - The March for Australia last weekend reminds us that, among other things, there are consequences for the gradualism and pragmatism of the Albanese government. Their risk-averse tweaking of the status quo has left open a space for political actions that are more aggressive in their behaviour and worryingly regressive in their ideology. In the absence - [A Shrinking Nation views its options, and its not a pretty sight.](https://graemeturner.org/2025/03/31/a-shrinking-nation-views-its-options-and-its-not-a-pretty-sight/) - It is hard to remember a federal election which offered less hope for change, less political ambition, and a less inspiring pair of leaders for the major parties. It’s going to be a long five weeks but let’s start with my top five disgraceful, depressing, worrying and just plain weird things the election campaign - [University blues: the hits are getting bigger.](https://graemeturner.org/2025/08/18/university-blues-the-hits-are-getting-bigger/) - More course closures, more staff cuts, bullying and intimidation – but don't panic. UTS has set up a ‘wellbeing hub’. Seriously. As the crisis in higher education rolls on, catastrophe is becoming the order of the day. Thousands of university staff face the loss of their jobs, similar numbers of students will soon find their preferred - [Why do they hate us? That's the question academics in the humanities are asking.](https://graemeturner.org/2025/07/20/why-do-they-hate-the-humanities-academics-are-asking/) - This is the question I was asked last week. Why are government, the media, even university administrations, so carelessly participating in the gradual demolition of one of the foundation stones of our knowledge infrastructure: an education in the humanities? It came at the tail end of one of my launch events for Broken: Universities, politics Why are government, the media, even university administrations, so carelessly participating in the gradual demolition of one of the foundation stones of our knowledge infrastructure: an education in the humanities? - [Broken: Universities, politics and the public good](https://graemeturner.org/2025/06/10/broken-universities-politics-and-the-public-good/) - This is my new (very) little book about a big issue -- the crisis in our universities. This is how the blurb goes: A strong higher education system is fundamental to civil society. The building of knowledge and the dissemination of information is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. At the economic level, - [Don't ask, don't tell: The latest trend in university governance](https://graemeturner.org/2025/05/28/dont-ask-dont-tell-the-latest-trend-in-university-governance/) - Recent reports point towards the rise of a disturbing tendency in the management of Australian universities. First, you reduce the involvement of academic staff in strategic decision-making. Then you tell them as little as possible about what you plan to do, or even what you have done already. The result? The hot mess that university - [Out of touch: The mainstream news media and the mood of the nation](https://graemeturner.org/2025/05/07/out-of-touch-the-mainstream-news-media-and-the-mood-of-the-nation/) - One thing this election has made clear. The mainstream news media’s positioning of their election coverage revealed just how out of touch with their community they have become. Most, if not all, entirely misread the mood of the electorate. Most, if not all, were blindsided by the extent of the electorate’s rejection of the Coalition’s - [So, the Leaders' Debate](https://graemeturner.org/2025/04/18/so-the-leaders-debate/) - Overall, a bit of a struggle, really. Albo was focused on defence as he worked hard at proving his government had actually done things, while Dutton had to be restrained from turning every answer into a political attack on what Labour had done, didn’t do, or would probably do if elected. Sadly for the rest - [Killing the ABC](https://graemeturner.org/2025/02/20/killing-the-abc/) - The Murdoch media makes its move Now, the gloves are off. With the ABC buffeted by the consequences of their calamitous responses to political pressure, the Murdoch media appears to have seized the moment to move into full campaign mode against them. Stephen Drill is leading the charge. His opinion pieces attacking the ABC have - [Have our universities lost their social licence?](https://graemeturner.org/2025/02/12/have-our-universities-lost-their-social-licence/) - A shorter (and less opinionated) version of this was published in The Conversation today. No problem with the modifications required to make it suitable for their audience, but I still like this version better. The erosion of our universities’ social licence, we are told, is lining up as 2025’s ‘hottest topic’ for higher - [Tasmanian parliamentary review defends university's core functions against corporatisation.](https://graemeturner.org/2025/01/20/tasmanian-parliamentary-review-defends-universitys-core-functions-against-corporatisation/) - Finally. Someone in government gets it. The Tasmanian Parliament’s Select Committee’s report on the operation of the University of Tasmania is both scathing and historic. Dropped carefully on December 23 2024, the report’s implications have gone largely unremarked outside the state. That needs to be corrected, and this is why. The report directly repudiates the - [Two types of authenticity, and a new twist to Albo's tale](https://graemeturner.org/2025/01/07/two-types-of-authenticity-and-a-new-twist-to-albos-tale/) - # - [Imagined Communities 2.0: Media, information and a diminished political culture](https://graemeturner.org/2024/11/28/imagined-communities-2-0-media-information-and-a-diminished-political-culture/) - The Lucky Country is perhaps the most iconic of our catalogue of ‘state of the nation’ books. More than any other, it has become a part of the thing it described. Over the years, its opinions and observations have been used both to challenge and to reproduce some of the established assumptions and mythologies about - [From the Lucky Country to the Shrinking Nation](https://graemeturner.org/2024/10/27/from-the-lucky-country-to-the-shrinking-nation/) - Quite a journey This year is the 60th anniversary of the publication of Donald Horne’s iconic study of Australian culture, The Lucky Country. The Australian Academy of the Humanities are honouring that anniversary by using its 2024 Symposium, ‘Ideas and Ideals of Australia’, as an opportunity to consider a contemporary equivalent of Horne’s account of - [Finding a scapegoat: What was the cap on international enrolments really about?](https://graemeturner.org/2024/09/14/finding-a-scapegoat-what-was-the-cap-on-international-enrolments-really-about/) - The nominated purpose of the federal government’s legislated cuts to international student enrolments in Australian universities took only a day to fall over. So, what is really going on? Where to begin? Maybe, way back in 1987, when the Dawkins reforms savagely cut the funding per student and instructed universities that they needed to operate? - [Is this the most disappointing government ever?](https://graemeturner.org/2024/08/15/is-this-the-most-disappointing-government-ever/) - Doing nothing, not much, or just not enough If you follow the shifts in the consensus of opinion within the political commentariat, you may have noticed that a new narrative is developing around the Albanese government. From peaking at an acceptable level of mediocrity well before the Voice referendum, the downward trajectory in recent months - [Universities Australia grows a spine](https://graemeturner.org/2024/07/30/universities-australia-grows-a-spine/) - ATEC discussion paper gets a resounding smackdown. In recent years, the university sector has behaved as if it had little choice but to nip around the edges of poor government policy. Consequently, it has had to wear bad ideas like the Job-ready Graduates funding package in the vain hope that cooperation on that might result - [The traditional university is on its deathbed. Should we care?](https://graemeturner.org/2024/07/12/the-traditional-university-is-on-its-deathbed-should-we-care/) - There can’t have been many worse times for taking on the task of defending the public value of universities. The steady drip of bad news stories has been endless. Just over this last month or so we have been told that universities are continuing to engage in wage theft on an industrial scale, that domestic - [The Accumulation of Misery and Zombie Economics](https://graemeturner.org/2024/06/04/the-accumulation-of-misery-and-zombie-economics/) - It is telling that complexity scientist, Peter Turchin, has to go back to the deep socio-political divisions of the nineteenth century to come up with a phrase for our times. ‘Popular immiseration’ doesn’t roll easily off the tongue, but the idea of immiseration has been around since Marx, and it refers to the ‘accumulation of - [Dutton Rising. The power of constant attack](https://graemeturner.org/2024/05/03/dutton-rising-the-power-of-constant-attack/) - Dutton's rise demonstrates the power of aggression in today's politics - [Not Waiting for Albo: Brisbane's 'Greenslide' has ALP voters moving on](https://graemeturner.org/2024/03/19/not-waiting-for-albo-brisbanes-greenslide-has-alp-voters-moving-on/) - In the weekend’s council elections in Brisbane, the vote in my electoral ward was split almost equally between the LNP and the Greens. As counting continues, both parties are polling around 40% each, while the Labor vote has plummeted to 13%. This, in a comfortable middle class suburban ward only sparsely sprinkled with those the In the weekend’s council elections in Brisbane, the vote in my electoral ward was split almost equally between the LNP and the Greens. As counting continues, both parties are polling around 40% each, while the Labor vote has plummeted to 13%. This, in a comfortable middle class suburban ward only sparsely sprinkled with those the The 'Greenslide' in the Brisbane elections on the weekend: ALP voters have tired of waiting for action from the Albanese government. - [The Accord has landed and now everyone agrees: our university system is broken](https://graemeturner.org/2024/02/29/the-accord-has-landed-and-now-everyone-agrees-our-university-system-is-broken/) - The Final Report from the Accord review of Australia’s universities has landed, with 47 recommendations emerging from its damning assessment of the dysfunctional condition of our ‘unified national system’. The document responds thoughtfully to a great many of the issues the sector has been calling for, so the review panel has certainly ‘listened’. Positive The Final Report from the Accord review of Australia’s universities has landed, with 47 recommendations from its damning assessment of our dysfunctional ‘unified national system'. - [Amazon just recommended I buy a book I wrote myself](https://graemeturner.org/2024/02/21/amazon-just-recommended-i-buy-a-book-i-wrote-myself/) - Amazon just recommended that I buy The Shrinking Nation, in response to ‘my recent activity’. This is the second time that has happened lately: on the other occasion, Amazon told me to check out Ending the Affair: The decline of Australian current affairs television, which I published in 2005. I guess it shows that Amazon just recommended I buy a book I wrote myself. So, really, what else should I be reading? There isn't that much to choose from. - [Back in the USA: After COVID and Trump, it's down but not out.](https://graemeturner.org/2023/11/07/back-in-the-usa-after-covid-and-trump/) - Returning to the US after a four year break in which so much had happened -- COVID, the January 6 insurrection, floods, wildfires, economic depression -- it was hard to predict just what might have changed. Donald Trump’s hold on something like 30% of the population must have had some effect on day-to-day life - [The nation’s not just shrinking, it’s splintering: social cohesion the worst since 2007](https://graemeturner.org/2023/12/02/the-nations-not-just-shrinking-its-splintering-social-cohesion-the-worst-since-2007/) - #post_contentWhile the Scanlon report tells us about the fall in social cohesion, it doesn't tell us how tightly this has been tied to a toxic and divisive political and media culture. While inequality and financial stress have played their part, there are other social and cultural factors in play as wellSocial cohesion survey records all-time low The Scanlon Institute’s sobering 2023 report on social cohesion landed last week. It caused a temporary ripple in the media before being pushed under the surface by Canberra’s hysterical reaction to the High Court’s ruling on the legality of the continued detention of refugees. Australians should be concerned about - [Farnham and the Voice: Too little, too late?](https://graemeturner.org/2023/09/12/farnham-and-the-voice-too-little-too-late/) - The selection of John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’ as the soundtrack for the ‘Yes’ campaign promised to change the ‘whole vibe of the thing’. So far, however, the polls are not encouraging. Initially, many hoped, this would be the point at which the Yes vote regained some momentum. Furthermore, anchoring their television campaign to Australia’s - [We Don't Need No Education! Arts degrees and the repurposing of higher education](https://graemeturner.org/2023/12/16/we-dont-need-no-education-arts-degrees-and-the-repurposing-of-higher-education/) - #We Don’t Need No Education!: Arts degrees and the repurposing of higher education. ‘Terrified’ by the arts degree On the one hand, given the limited effects, it hardly seems worth the trouble. On the other hand, misinformation must be corrected -- apparently, continually. And so, to Professor Sophie Gee’s article in The Sydney Morning Our universities have been transformed from institutions educating our citizens, to institutions which primarily aim to train individuals for the workforce - [RIP The Drum: Now we're stuck with Q&A.](https://graemeturner.org/2024/01/15/rip-the-drum-now-were-stuck-with-qa/) - RIP The Drum: Now we’re stuck with Q&A. Two days before ABC-TV’s The Drum went to air with its final program for 2023, we learnt that this was the end of its run. The Drum would not return in 2024. Quite a surprise for the small but loyal audience it had built over 13 years, The closure of The Drum is one more step in the decline of television current affairs on the ABC - [No way to run a university: ACU butchers the humanities and its own reputation](https://graemeturner.org/2023/11/20/no-way-to-run-a-university-acu-butchers-the-humanities-and-its-own-reputation/) - This time, it's worse Humanities academics are wearily accustomed to attacks on their disciplines from politicians, the media, and increasingly, from their own university administrations. The latest assault from the Australian Catholic University, however, has taken us to a new level. More than 30 high performing and internationally respected academics, primarily in the disciplines of - [Neoliberalism -- the television series: Monstrous capitalism, Trump and Succession](https://graemeturner.org/2023/10/16/neoliberalism-the-television-series-monstrous-capitalism-trump-and-succession/) - The convergences are (as Dame Edna would say) ‘spooky’. Shortly after TV’s drama performer of the year, Succession, came a close, the Murdoch family announced the NewsCorp succession plan. At the same time, Showtime’s Billions, which focused on the legal system’s attempts to hold a charismatic but unscrupulous financier to account, concluded its seventh - [The Sofronoff, Higgins-Lehrmann and Robodebt affairs: Have journalists become part of the story?](https://graemeturner.org/2023/08/14/the-sofronoff-higgins-lehrmann-and-robodebt-affairs-what-happens-to-journalism-when-journalists-become-part-of-the-story/) - The Sofronoff, Higgins-Lehrmann, and Robodebt affairs: What happens to journalism when journalists become part of the story? When journalists behave like players in the political process, they compromise their claim to be independent watchdogs protecting the public interest. Am I imagining this, or has this become more of a problem in recent times? Just last - [The Matildas, popular culture, and television's futures.](https://graemeturner.org/2023/07/31/the-matildas-popular-culture-and-televisions-futures/) - Two very different media reports addressed the future of free-to-air TV in the last week. The contrast between them is especially interesting when read against the massive television audience attracted by the Matildas for their crucial match against Canada. On the one hand, we have Scott Bryan writing for the Guardian in the UK and - [The Shrinking Voice](https://graemeturner.org/2023/07/21/the-shrinking-voice/) - I started work on this book in 2021, completed the final version in April 2023, and it went to press in June 2023. There is inevitably a time lag with book publishing, and very limited opportunities to update once the final ms is submitted. Given the contemporariness and topicality of so much that this book - [Cheering on the decline in humanities degrees](https://graemeturner.org/2023/07/21/cheering-on-the-decline-in-humanities-degrees/) - I spent much of my academic career advocating for appropriate funding for teaching and research in the humanities disciplines, in a policy environment which was not at all sympathetic to a version of higher education that did not prioritise vocational training. While that environment has improved over the last decade, and may well get a ## Pages - [Graeme Turner](https://graemeturner.org/) - Blog A little bit about me An Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, I have been writing about Australian culture, media and society for many years. I have published 30 books and my work has been translated into 11 languages. 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It might say something like this: Hi there! I'm a bike messenger - [Salient Architect About](https://graemeturner.org/salient-architect-about/) - About Salient Team Values Culture COMPANY We are a professional architecture firm based in Philadelphia Meet The TeamWe're an award-winning multidisciplinary team based in Philadelphia with a passion for creating innovative architecture. 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