Public Sociology, An Introduction to Australian Society


Case studies	Video clips	Weblinks	Further reading	Podcasts

Case Study 1

The Facebook privacy controversy
Facebook, the social networking site with more than 400 million active users in 2010, has, since its launch in 2004, been the subject of heavy criticism. The networking site, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates and fellow computer science students, has been accused of breaching privacy laws in a range of ways. Criticisms have included the fact that it is too hard for users to control their privacy settings and that they may, as a consequence, inadvertently share their details with third-party websites; that Facebook has surreptitiously shared users' data with advertisers; and that it is almost impossible actually to delete a Facebook account. Further, several changes to the Terms of Use have led to a variety of privacy issues, which have affected the handling of user information, even for deleted content. A great concern has been that Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy settings, sometimes even allowing information users had chosen to set to 'private' to be defaulted to 'public' without informing users.

There have been several responses to this very public debate, among them the QuitFacebookDay.com campaign, which encouraged users to leave; announcements of new privacy settings by Facebook management; and Facebook users leaving the networking site. Other than these concerns, a range of issues have been brought to the fore by social critics, Facebook users, and the media, including the following:

Employers have been known to browse job applicants' Facebook pages, and as such the fact that users cannot control what pictures other people upload has been flagged as a major issue: prospective employers accessing, for example, photographs from parties, and users' views and opinions, or even tastes in music or TV programs, may change their opinion about an applicant.
In terms of child protection, there is concern that paedophiles and other malevolent people may exploit Facebook's lack of privacy to access information about future victims. In 2010, a young Australian woman was murdered by two men she had met through Facebook, one of whom had set up a false profile. This event sparked new concerns, both as to what information young people may be sharing online, and also regarding the ease with which a false identity may be formed online and the consequences this can bring.

In brief, much of the debate regarding privacy is that the onus has fallen on the users to make sure their privacy settings are indeed private, which means some users may not even know how much of their personal information is available to the world. The default changes made by Facebook, and the lack of information to users about how their information is stored, what is being displayed, and with whom their information is being shared, creates questions not only in terms of legality, but is fertile ground for sociological discussion.

References
Breen, G. and staff 2010, 'Teen's murder sparks Facebook privacy plea', ABC News Online, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/17/2901537.htm (Accessed 8 June 2010).
Jackson, S. 2010, 'Facebook, you've been sent a message... angry users quit over privacy fears', The Australian, May 31, p. 27.
BBC News 2010, 'Facebook opens profiles to public', BBC News Online, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6980454.stm (Accessed 8 June 2010).

Discussion questions

Have you got a Facebook or other social-networking site account? Why? Why not? If you do, what would be the consequences of deleting it?
Have you experienced a breach of privacy in that your information has been shared without your knowledge on Facebook or another social networking site?
Would you be comfortable with a prospective employer seeing all the information on your social networking account, including your photographs? Why? Why not?

Case Study 2

Kids, junk food, and TV ads
In recent years, various groups and health professionals have advocated a ban on junk food advertising to children in Australia as one method of combating rising obesity rates. The Australian Divisions of General Practice study (2003) found that during summer holidays children are exposed to:

An average of 68 food advertisements a week (2.5 hours of TV per day),
The 99 per cent of food advertisements that were for 'junk foods' (the mains ones being, in descending order: fast food such as hamburgers; pizza; fried chicken; soft drink; ice cream; and chocolate).

Because children get such a distorted message about food, the ADGP proposed a ban on junk-food adverts during children's TV programs.

Morton and colleagues (2005) studied food industry compliance with the Australian Broadcasting Association's (ABA) Children's TV Standards (CTS) and found that:

During 'C' classified programs (for ages 6–13): 41 per cent of adverts were for food, 36 per cent of which focused on 'premium' offers (free toys, etc.), contravening section 20.2a of the CTS.
Australia has one of the highest numbers of food adverts during children's TV viewing times.

Like the controversy over exposure to violence on TV and video games, the influence of junk food advertising raises a number of important sociological issues, especially notions of structure and agency, in terms of the extent to which TV influences our behaviour, particularly the socialisation of children.

References
Australian Divisions of General Practice (ADGP) 2003, What are we Feeding our Children? A Junk Food Advertising Audit, ADGP, Canberra.
Morton, H., Stanton, R., Zuppa, R. & Mehta, K. 2005, 'Food advertising and broadcasting legislation: A case of system failure?', Nutrition & Dietetics, 62, 1: 26–32.

Discussion questions

Would you support a junk food ban during children's TV?
What other influences on children's eating habits may be at work?
To what extent is our behaviour, especially of children, influenced by the social structure (such as the media) compared to that of parents, peers, and an individual's agency (including that of a child)?
As parents buy most of the food in a household, do you think that buying junk food is due to children's 'pestering power' or do you think that the parents do not know about the health hazards of junk food?

Mass media timeline

1827: First still photograph taken using glass plate technology
1839: Photographs based on negatives on paper invented
Mid-1800s: Daily newspapers become common
1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
1877: Thomas Edison patents the 'phonograph' and replayable records
1890s: Moving pictures (cinema) become increasingly available
1900: Marconi patents the first wireless telegraph and radio becomes widespread by the 1920s
1956: First television programs (black and white) aired in Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, consisting of two commercial and one government-owned station (ABCTV). The first TV program was a news broadcast by Bruce Gyngell on the September 16, 1956, which began: 'Hello, everyone, and welcome to television'
1960s: By the middle of the 1960s, television was available to most of Australia
1969: Rudimentary internet launched by US military
1972: First domestic communications satellite launched by Canada; global satellite communication becomes common by the end of the 1970s
1975: Colour television introduced in Australia
1980: Almost 80 per cent of Australian homes had a colour television set
1980: SBS (Special Broadcasting Service), the second government TV station, launched\
1985: TV coverage extended to remote areas via a new satellite
1987: New legislation allowed larger TV ownership groups
1989–90: Australian Academic & Research Network (AARNet), comprising universities and the CSIRO, launched the first internet in Australia that allowed email and file transfer
1991: World Wide Web launched (developed by Tim Berners Lee)
1995: Pay TV introduced in Australia
1995: AARNet control and infrastructure transferred to Telstra
1995: First DVDs appear on the market
1995: Internet becomes commercialised
1997: Over 1.5 million internet users in Australia (500,000 in educational institutions, 650,000 dial-up customers, 450,000 business and government users) (Clarke 2004)
2000: Mobile phone usage rapidly expands as they become multi-media capable
2001: Digital television services launched
2006: Around 6 million internet subscribers in Australia
2006: Video streaming of TV programs via the internet becomes widely available
2008: Freeview digital TV channels launched run by the free-to-view broadcasters (ABC, SBS, Network Seven, Nine Network, Network Ten, Prime, WIN and Southern Cross)
2008: 72 per cent of households had internet access; 62 per cent had a broadband connection (ABS 2009)
2010–13 Staged shutdown of Australia's analogue network begins in 2010 and is due to be completely replaced by digital television by 2013

Sources
ABS 2009, Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2008–09, Cat;. No. 8146.0, ABS, Canberra, http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8146.0/ (Accessed June 7, 2010).
History of Australian Television, FreeTV Australia website, http://www.freetv.com.au/Content_Common/pg-Inside-The-Industry.seo#History%20of%20Australian%20Television, (Accessed October 13, 2006).
Macionis, J. & Plummer, K. 2005, Sociology: A Global Introduction, 3rd edition, Pearson Education, Essex.
Early Cinema Website 2006, http://www.earlycinema.com/timeline/index.html (Accessed October 13, 2006)
Clarke, C. 2004, 'Origins and Nature of the Internet in Australia', http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/OzI04.html (Accessed October 13, 2006).

Public Sociology links

Case Study 1

Case Study 2

Mass media timeline