Articles de revues sur le sujet « France Government ownership »

On 5 February 2018, the Belgian government submitted a draft bill to the Chamber of Representatives for a Law containing various provisions on civil law and amending the Judicial Code in view of promoting alternative forms of dispute resolution. This bill, referred to hereafter as the ‘Law of 18 June 2018’ was approved by the Belgian Parliament on 7 June 2018 and published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 2 July 2018 (Law containing various provisions on civil law and amending the Judicial Code in view of promoting alternative forms of dispute resolution, 18 June 2018, Belgian Official Gazette, 2 July 2018, p 53455.). The Law of 18 June 2018 has introduced numerous changes to the Belgian Civil Code (BCC), in particular to the section on apartment co-ownership (Arts 577-3 to 577- 14 BCC). Most of these amendments came into force on 1 January 2019 (For the transitional provisions, see Art. 179 Law of 18 June 2018.). In France, the Apartment Ownership Law of 10 July 1965 has also recently been amended by the Law Loi portant Evolution du Logement, de l'Aménagement et du Numérique (ELAN) of 23 November 2018 (Law ‘ELAN’ on the evolution of housing, development and digital technology, 23 November 2018, French Official Gazette, 24 November 2018.). Meanwhile, the French Ministry of Justice has been planning a structural reform of the regime for apartment co-ownership by resolution (‘par ordonnance’) since 2017. As a result, the French government now faces a very complex legislative situation, since in the next few months, it intends to carry out a major reform of the apartment co-ownership regime while at the same time having to amend the existing Apartment Ownership Act in order to implement the ELAN Law (D. TOMASIN, ‘Les dispositions de la loi ELAN relatives à la copropriété’, (1) AJDI 2019, p 40.). Finally, the Dutch apartment legislation has also been subject to some interesting modifications in the last few years, such as the obligation for apartment owners to contribute a fixed amount to the reserve fund (Law amending Book 5 of the Civil Code in connection with improving the functioning of owners’ associations, 29 May 2017, Stb. 2017, p 241.). By no means is this contribution intended as an exhaustive analysis of the recent changes to these three different legislations. The main objective of this publication is to give a general overview of some interesting developments regarding apartment co-ownership legislation in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, using the recent Belgian reform as a starting point for the comparative analysis.

Introduction. Unfortunately, municipal property, like private property in Ukraine, is not a reliable source of stable local budget revenues because, mainly, the form of ownership is not the leading factor in the high efficiency of the economic system, and the conditions in which it can be created to any of the forms of ownership, including municipal, could reveal its own potential, which will increase the economic efficiency of business entities and improve the living standards of community members.The aim of the article is to clarify the essence of municipal property and to establish tools for municipal property management in Ukraine and some countries around the world for comparison and improvement.Research methods. In the process of research to achieve the goal of the article used a number of methods of scientific knowledge (analysis, induction, deduction, synthesis, generalization, comparison of systems and tools of municipal property management in Ukraine and some countries).Results. In the scientific literature, there is mainly a classification of world-famous models of municipal government organization, which provide for the formation of relations between local governments and relevant authorities in the center. According to this approach, it is expedient to distinguish three such fundamental models of local self-government, as: Anglo-Saxon (classical), continental and mixed. The Anglo-Saxon (classical) model is common, mainly in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, India and others, where the eponymous legal system. The continental (or French) model of local government organization is quite different, common not only in European countries, including France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, but also in many Latin American countries, the Middle East, and France. It is clear that the analysis of the current state of affairs abroad can play a leading role in solving the problems of improving the management of Ukrainian municipal property. Generalization and popularization of the positive practice of individual countries with developed democracies in the subject area studied by us is expedient for the improvement of the Ukrainian legislation of Ukraine. For example, in order to form several sources of financial resources that are objects of the current municipal property of any country.Discussion. The analysis of the positive practice of local self-government in Ukraine and some countries of the world allows to draw a number of conclusions: granting local governments some state powers increases the authority of these bodies, promotes their “merging” and mutual enrichment; There is a need to develop the necessary future steps to develop the system and tools of local self-government of Ukraine and consolidate them at the regulatory level, taking into account the different types and forms of business entities, and subject to new laws continue to work in, lack of sufficient necessary financial and economic base, incomplete economic and legal regulation. We should not expect a one-time creation of the basis of local self-government throughout Ukraine, but move in this direction step by step and so on.Perspectives. In the future, more attention should be paid to the study of the principles and methods of collecting and disseminating positive experience in municipal property management both in Ukraine and in some countries around the world, which were discussed in this publication. It would also be worthwhile to deepen research on areas for improving the efficiency of operational management of municipal property and indicators of its evaluation.

Abstract:This paper applies the principles of organization economics (an offshoot of organization theory and a cousin of the New Institutional Economics) to a variety of organizations, mainly public ones. Organization economics seeks to understand and improve the ways in which organizations overcome agency costs, information costs, and other obstacles to efficiency. The private organization discussed in the paper is the modern publicly held (that is, dispersed ownership) business corporation, and the particular problem on which I focus is excessive executive compensation as a symptom of weaknesses in corporate governance. I then discuss two public organizations involved in national security – the US intelligence ‘community’ (a kind of mega-organization) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its role as the nation's principal domestic intelligence service. Both exhibit significant dysfunction that organization economics can help us to understand and overcome. I then discuss two types of public organization that have been more successful in overcoming obstacles to organizational efficiency: the judiciary of common law nations, such as the United States, and the very differently structured judiciary of civil law nations, such as France, Germany, and Japan.

The article aims at analyzing the Ukrainian market of domestic government bonds (IGLBs) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; determining its state, problems and development perspectives. The development of the domestic government bonds market during the coronavirus crisis is considered; the essence and purpose of IGLBs in Ukraine are revealed; IGLBs are classified by type of use. The differences between domestic and external government bonds are determined, and the advantages of the former are indicated; peculiarities of purchasing such securities by individuals and legal entities are revealed; requirements for issuing IGLBs by issuers are indicated, and the most reliable banks engaged in this activity are enumerated; the state of the government bond market during 2018–2020 is studied; the amount of ownership, the share of buyers of securities and the purpose of their purchase for each of the entities are given; the rate and yield of domestic government bonds in Ukraine are analyzed and compared with other countries, such as the United States, Germany, France and others. The study identifies the following problems: the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the inadequate legal framework on IGLBs, the low level of public awareness of these securities, and others. To overcome these problems, the following actions are suggested: counteracting the coronavirus crisis by combining the efforts of the state and local authorities, business, and the population; directing most of the financial resources in this direction; spreading economic education among the population; introducing a simplified procedure for purchasing IGLBs; and working with banks to increase the availability of bonds purchasing. Statistical data obtained from the official website of the National Bank of Ukraine make up the basis for the study.

The purpose of this issue is to explore the possible political futures of parties and movements of the “democratic left” in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, Poland, and Russia. The task could not proceed without clear definition, or definitions, of the “democratic left” because of national variations. There is “liberalism” or “progressivism” in the United States of many hues, but with no “social democracy” or politically viable socialism to the left. Socialism, in the old sense, of ownership of the means of production, has died in Britain, and the present government of “New Labour” refers to itself as the “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism. But there is much controversy at home whether “social democracy” has been also jettisoned in favor of a kind of “neoliberalism” that has embraced markets and trimmed social security. The large, democratic parties of the left in France and Germany derive from traditions of “social democracy” that have challenged many capitalist values and institutions, whether from Marxist or non-Marxist perspectives, and sought to establish a state and society organized around principles of social justice. These parties may win national elections but are torn between old left politics and the need to form larger coalitions in order to win. One might ask, Why include Poland and Russia? The purpose was to ask if new democratic forms of “social democracy” could be discerned in the ashes of defunct communist systems that might bear some resemblance to the politics of Western Europe.

Purpose This paper aims to present structural changes and trade competitiveness in Indian pharmaceutical industry in pre and post product patent regime. The study shows the impact of product patent on market structure, ownership, trade, revealed comparative advantage, R&D and mergers and acquisitions. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on secondary data and extensive relevant conceptual and empirical literature review. Findings The study finds that this oligopoly Indian dominant pharmaceutical industry has many challenges ahead such as in R&D expenditure, patent expiration of many major drugs manufactured in Ireland, growing competition in generic global market, bulk drugs dependence on China, rise in the number of M&As, rising costs of new drug discovery and tightening safety and efficacy testing requirements. The smaller firms are likely to act as the contract manufacturers for medium and bigger companies at a lower value chain. The Normalised Revealed Comparative Advantage (NRCA) index was calculated for top exporters of pharmaceutical. It was found that NRCA index of IPI has shown deterioration from 1996 to 2005 and thereafter, improvement except in the year 2009. Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland are the top three countries in NRCA index, which are followed by Germany, the UK and France. Originality/value It attempts to capture recent trends in market structure, comparative advantage indices, R&D, trade, M&A and ownership, especially in new IPR regime. There is a dearth of studies providing detailed analyses of India’s comparative advantage vis-a-vis other leading exporters of pharmaceutical products in the world. The paper would be of value to practitioners and scholars interested in structural changes of IPI, especially in product patent regime. The findings have significant implications for managers and government for future policymaking.

The article examines the initial period of the mandate administration of Iraq by Great Britain, the anti-British uprising of 1920. The chronological framework covers the period from May 1916 to October 1921 and includes an analysis of events in the Middle East from May 1916, when the secret agreement on the division of the territories of the Ottoman Empire after the end of World War I (the Sykes-Picot agreement) was concluded before the proclamation of Faisal as king of Iraq and from the formation of the country՚s government. This period is a key one in the Iraqi-British relations at the turn of the 10-20s of the ХХ century. The author focuses on the Anglo-French negotiations during the First World War, on the eve and during the Paris Peace Conference on the division of the territory of the Ottoman Empire and the ownership of the territories in the Arab zone. During these negotiations, it was decided to transfer the mandates for Syria (with Lebanon) to the France, and Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Great Britain. The British in Iraq immediately faced strong opposition from both Sunnis and Shiites, resulting in an anti-English uprising in 1920. The author describes the causes, course and consequences of this uprising.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present the economic situation of two publicly listed companies: GKS Katowice (Poland) and Olympique Lyonnais (France). Both enterprises have different ownership models: Olympique Lyonnnais is a privately owned club, and GKS Katowice belongs to a municipal government. However, both clubs operate in the realities of different market economic system (Poland and France) and also at a different level of economic development. It is common that football companies function under uncertainty and risk. This is heightened by additional characteristic factors for this type of activity such as uncertainty of outcome in sports competition. The adoption of professional sport activities also automatically runs to the risk, but this is not the only problem that the company has to face. In addition, both clubs had to deal with new challenges: COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. The paper presented the functioning of both football companies during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Methodology: The first part of this research study discusses some particular points of the business strategy and risk management in the context of football companies’ management. The economic and financial situation of two football companies is presented, namely: Olympique Lyonnais and GKS Katowice. The focus is on sports, economic and financial criteria to assess the standing of football companies. This paper combines the conclusions from secondary data analysis, content analysis of web­sites as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis. The study also employs a comparative analysis. Research and practical limitations: Football companies are in the need to take several actions: a) continuously search for new sources of financing and diversification of activities, b) conclude long sponsorship agreements. Building a solid financial foundation and looking into the future can help football companies get through times of various crises and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The author of the article has outlined the problem of finding the most optimal model of the state for of government, because the necessary condition for stable development of society and effective functioning of the state is to ensure the balance between national interests and the interests of the population of regions and territorial communities. The preconditions, political history and periods of the formation of decentralized power in most European medieval states, scientific positions of national and foreign legal scholars on the expediency of implementing decentralization have been analyzed. It has been found out that the vast majority of Western European countries abdicate the unitary state model by introducing decentralization. The leading idea of reforming is to move the center of solving local issues to the local and, in particular regional level that is achieved by optimizing relations between different levels of territorial organization of power. National traditions, formation and functioning of public agencie in the past, specific features of administrative and territorial structure of the state, existence of autonomous territories, multiethnic population have a significant influence on the formation of the constitutional system on the basis of decentralization in the EU countries. The positive experience Poland, France, Italy, Latvia, Germany and Denmark has been studied. The author has theoretically substantiated that the principle of decentralization has been successfully implemented in the practice of the European Union countries. It has been indicated that the prerequisite for the successful implementation of decentralization processes to create an effective model of governance within the system of decentralized government of Ukraine is: the establishment of the rule of law principle; recognition and guarantees of local self-government; equal legal protection of all forms of ownership; democratic and effective electoral legislation; independence, efficiency, accessibility and transparency of the judicial system, functioning of administrative justice institutions; perfect budget process and high financial discipline; availability of adequate social standards; developed public sector and stable tendency towards its development.

Democracy in America has greatly influenced not only how political scientists think of democratic government, political equality, and liberalism in general, but also how we think of the United States as a whole. This article questions Tocqueville's interpretations of Americans’ habits and beliefs, given how little time Tocqueville actually spent in the South and the near West and given that he all but ignored the founding of Virginia and the other colonies not settled by the Puritans and for religious reasons. Contrary to Tocqueville's emphasis on the Puritan “point of departure,” I use historical evidence from the U.S. Census, state constitutions, and historical scholarship on slave ownership, tenant farming, political participation, and the American colonies and the early United States to show the existence of hierarchy among white Americans, rather than the ubiquitous social and political equality among European Americans described by Tocqueville. His writings actually indicate an awareness of another American culture in the South and near West—one that disregards education, condones coarse manners, tolerates aggressive behavior, and exhibits unrestrained greed—but Tocqueville does not integrate these observations into his larger conclusions about Americans’ mœurs and institutions. Because of the existence of these important, non-Puritan habits, the political institutions Tocqueville sees as facilitating democracy in America and hopes to apply to France and Europe may not have the effects he believes they will have.

Background and objectivesPresymptomatic testing is available for early diagnosis of hereditary autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). However, the complex ethical and psychosocial implications can make decision-making challenging and require an understanding of patients’ values, goals and priorities. This study aims to describe patient and caregiver beliefs and expectations regarding presymptomatic testing for ADPKD.Design, setting and participants154 participants (120 patients and 34 caregivers) aged 18 years and over from eight centres in Australia, France and Korea participated in 17 focus groups. Transcripts were analysed thematically.ResultsWe identified five themes: avoiding financial disadvantage (insecurity in the inability to obtain life insurance, limited work opportunities, financial burden); futility in uncertainty (erratic and diverse manifestations of disease limiting utility, taking preventive actions in vain, daunted by perplexity of results, unaware of risk of inheriting ADPKD); lacking autonomy and support in decisions (overwhelmed by ambiguous information, medicalising family planning, family pressures); seizing control of well-being (gaining confidence in early detection, allowing preparation for the future, reassurance in family resilience); and anticipating impact on quality of life (reassured by lack of symptoms, judging value of life with ADPKD).ConclusionsFor patients with ADPKD, presymptomatic testing provides an opportunity to take ownership of their health through family planning and preventive measures. However, these decisions can be wrought with tensions and uncertainty about prognostic implications, and the psychosocial and financial burden of testing. Healthcare professionals should focus on genetic counselling, mental health and providing education to patients’ families to support informed decision-making. Policymakers should consider the cost burden and risk of discrimination when informing government policies. Finally, patients are recommended to focus on self-care from an early age.

In late 1999, the German government made a surprise announcement that it would repeal the large and long-standing capital gains tax on sales of corporate crossholdings effective in 2002. The repeal has been hailed as a revolutionary step toward breaking up the extensive web of crossholdings among German companies. The lock-in effect from the large corporate capital gains tax was said to act as a barrier to efficient acquisition and divestiture of German firms and divisions. Many observers predicted that once the lock-in effect was removed, Germany would experience a flurry of acquisition and divestiture activity. Several other industrialized countries were poised to follow suit, with similar proposals pending in France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. This paper provides evidence of the economic impact of the repeal by examining its effect on the market values of German firms. While event studies of tax legislation can be difficult, our study is aided by the fact that the repeal was both a surprise and was announced separately from other tax reform proposals. In addition, we provide cross-sectional evidence on the economic magnitude of the repeal, assess the likely beneficiaries from the repeal, and predict which sectors are most likely to experience a surge in acquisition and divestiture activity following the repeal. Our results suggest that the economic effects are highly concentrated. We find a positive association between firms' event period abnormal returns and the extent of their crossholdings, consistent with taxes acting as a barrier to efficient allocation of ownership. However, the reaction is limited to the six largest banks and insurers and their extensive minority holdings in industrial firms. These six large firms have a combined market capitalization equal to 22 percent of all 394 firms in this study. We also find evidence of a positive stock price response to the announcement for industrial companies held by these financial firms, consistent with shareholders in those firms benefiting from the likely reduction in investor-level tax burdens and expected increased efficiency following the tax law change.

The article is devoted to the coverage of one of the most important problems of our time - the process of major privatization. As a result of the analysis of legislation defined that the privatization of state or municipal property - a paid alienation of property in state or municipal ownership, in favor of individuals and legal entities, and also established that the attribution of property to objects of major privatization is based on their value, which should exceed 250 million hryvnia. The main purpose of privatization is to accelerate economic growth, attract foreign and domestic investment, reduce the share of state or municipal property in the structure of the Ukrainian economy by selling privatization objects to the effective private owner. However, it is pointed out that the very procedure of privatization is to fill the country’s budget by transferring the share of state or municipal property in the structure of the economy of Ukraine to a more efficient private management, so the purpose enshrined in the Law requires clarification taking into account the purpose and result that is inherent in privatization. It is pointed out that the privatization process is carried out in accordance with a set of procedures established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, enshrined in the decree «On Approval of the Sale of Large Objects of State Property Privatization. In addition, it is noted that to ensure effective results from the implementation of privatization requires compliance with the basic principles of privatization defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Based on the analysis of the experience of the legal basis of privatization in the UK, Spain, Poland and France, it is found that privatization in these countries is carried out by a clear regulatory consolidation of the procedure for privatization and under increased control of the relevant government agencies. It is suggested to introduce the impartial control of officials of the State Property Fund of Ukraine at each stage of privatization and control by the state over the privatized objects in a given post-privatization period.

Purpose This paper aims to identify drivers of efficiency and their influence on airline performances in South Africa. Unfortunately, the methods currently used to measure airline efficiency fail to address the heterogeneity problem, which blurs inefficiency. Design/methodology/approach To remedy the heterogeneity problem, this paper adopts the meta-frontier framework to identify drivers of efficiency. The interesting feature of the model is that it ensures that heterogeneous airlines are compared based on one homogeneous technology. The model is tested using a panel data sample of nine South African airlines, which operated from 2015 to 2018. Findings The paper demonstrates that structural drivers, namely, “aircraft size”, and “airline ownership” and one executional driver, namely, “the cost structure” significantly influence (p < 0.05) airline efficiency thereby corroborating evidence from some prior studies. Research limitations/implications First, because of the small size of the industry, fewer airlines and a lack of detailed data, the study could not consider other important factors such as optimal routing and network structure. Second, a more rigorous analysis over a period of time would yield better understanding about the growth of the industry in South Africa and recognise the variation in the influence of drivers of efficiency on airline performances over time. Practical implications The results have potential policy implications. First, as the market in South Africa is too small to operate with a smaller aircraft probably, for airlines that operate with smaller aircraft to operate efficiently they should first identify niche markets where they can have a route monopoly. Second, while all state-owned airlines are perfect statehood symbols that define and represent countries, most state carriers in South Africa are highly inefficient. The researcher recommends policymakers to privatise state airlines or seek equity partners. Many nationalised airlines have turned losses to profits in the run-up to privatisation. British Airways, once a large burden on the British taxpayer, is now one of the world’s most efficient airlines. After the privatisation of Air France and Iberia, all two turned from loss-making concerns into profitable airlines. It, therefore, makes no sense for the South African government to expect state carriers to pursue a commercial mandate with such political interference. The very notion of efficiency itself is at risk. Originality/value This paper is a first attempt to identify drivers of operational efficiency using a bootstrapped meta-frontier approach in the airline industry in South Africa. By applying the meta-frontier approach the paper ensures that all heterogeneous airlines are assessed based on their distance from a common and identical frontier.

This paper elucidates the changing ownership of Public owned airports to Privatisation. The analysis is envisioned towards the passengers’ interest in availing air transport which are likely to become more efficient. The improvisation of regional connectivity would yield more people to opt for air transport. A series of efforts were taken before making the questionnaires that were placed in the survey including the psychological aspects when deciding about the choice of airports which are getting privatized. The collected inputs from the passengers vary from seldom travelers to frequent travelers across the country are analyzed using the linear programming technique such as the DEA[1] which depicts the effective views of the travelers to go for Privatisation. The questionnaire was carefully framed such that all the aspects covering ergonomics level, including the ease of navigation, the reach of supporting staff. The airports would get diversified with their services without the intervention of Government. In India, a total of 137 airports which include 23 International airports (3 Civil Enclaves), 10 Customs Airports (4 Civil Enclaves) having custom and immigration facilities for limited international operations and 104 Domestic airports (23 Civil Enclaves) are administered by the Airport Authority of India (AAI).[10] The USA has 14,549 Private airports (74%) within the total 19,636 airports. Many countries like the USA, Russia, China, U. K, France have a larger number of Privately-owned airports helping their countries in getting economically strengthened. IATA forecasts a growth of 6.8% per annum for India. The usage of No frill airports would reduce the cost of capital investment in making an airport to start functioning and help the nation to grow in the economy. In addition, Six AAI airports are operated, managed, and developed under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) namely, Guwahati, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and Lucknow. At Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Ahmedabad, Performance Based Navigation (PBN) arrival and departure procedures have been implemented and for Hyderabad airport, it is in progress and Space-based, Final Operational Phase (FOP) of (GAGAN), GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation[10] is under implementation which is not airport-based and will be available for use at all of the country's airports. Enhancing the prediction of outcomes through feature selection, the Data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is used for the analytics questionnaire. This is a function whose form is based on the efficiency of the scrutinized evaluations. It's an approach for measuring the performance efficiency of global public airports through varied contemplations of results of the survey. This technique aims to measure how efficiently a DEA uses the resources available to generate a group of outputs along with feature section models that are then analyzed after that to evaluate the contributing factors for airport operation and privatization.

Prior to the beginning of the Cold War, exploration of outer space by explorers was majorly for scientific discoveries of new planets. But as time went by, governments and private entities began to explore further for natural resources that could be beneficial to the existence of man on earth. Such minerals that could be found in asteroids include iron, iridium, nickel, magnesium, gold, platinum, and palladium, among others. Although every nation of the world is believed to have equal right to outer space and the resources discovered therein, the commercialisation of space mining activities have seemingly restricted the control of these resources to world leading governments such as, the United State, China, Russia, Japan, France and some private enterprises who have the financial power for such activities. The goal of the article was to examine commercialisation, property rights and contemporary legal issues concerning outer space mining. Can private or non-governmental entities operate in the outer space without governmental authorisation and continuing supervision? How best could ensuing space mining disputes and environmental concerns be addressed? Doctrinal research method was adopted for this study to discuss fundamental issues and resolve questions raised by the article. This entailed the examination of available literature in the area plus existing international and domestic laws regulating outer space mining activities in order to give in-depth analysis of the subject matter and to support the position reached in the article. In concluding the article, the authors proffered some suggestions on the identified contemporary issues.

This article gives an overview of the major developments on the European Union aviation scene between 1 July 2008 and 30 November 2008. In particular: – The consolidation drive continued unabated. In addition to the alliance arrangements between Continental Airlines, United Airlines, and a number of other Star Alliance carriers announced in June 2008, American Airlines, British Airways, and Iberia made public in August 2008 that they had also applied for an antitrust immunity of their proposed alliance. The European Commission opened ex officio investigations into both alliance arrangements. During the period under review, the European Commission also cleared the Delta Airlines/Northwest Airlines merger, started an investigation into Lufthansa’s proposed acquisition of a 45% stake in SN Holding, the parent company of Brussels Airlines, and decided to open an in–depth investigation into the KLM/Martinair merger. Other transactions that were mentioned in the press include Lufthansa’s acquisition of a majority ownership of bmi British Midland, and its intention to acquire control of Austrian Airlines, which is being privatized by the Austrian Government. British Airways is in merger negotiations with Iberia and it is rumored that Air France/KLM may still end up acquiring a (majority) stake in Alitalia. – There have been major developments in the State aid field during the period under review. The European Commission and the European Court of First Instance adopted important decisions with regard to Alitalia, and there have been further developments in the Olympic State aid matter.The European Commission also adopted State aid measures in a number of other aviation–related cases – There were a number of noteworthy regulatory developments during the period under review, most importantly the publication in the Official Journal of the new regulation on the internal market for air transport, which brings together in one single legal instrument the three 1992 regulations that hitherto formed the pillars of the internal aviation market and that controlled (1) the licensing of air carriers, (2) the access of European Union carriers to intra–European Union routes, and (3) the fares and rates for air services. There were also further developments regarding the proposal for a new CRS (computerized reservation system) Code of Conduct. In addition, a Directive extending the European Union Emission Trading Scheme to aviation was finally adopted, and the European Court of Justice adopted a ruling on the interpretation of the concept of ‘flight’ for the purposes of the application of Regulation 261/2004 on compensation and assistance in the event of denied boarding, cancellation, and long delay – Finally, with regard to the European Union external aviation policy, the European Commission published a report on its progress toward the creation of a Common Aviation Area (CAA) with the neighbouring countries by 2010. There were also further developments regarding the negotiation or conclusion of horizontal air services agreements with third countries. Each of these points will be examined in greater detail in the sections below.

So-called project operators such as the State, local governments, Land and Housing Corporation, and Urban Development Corporation implement public projects based on the Land Compensation Act, the Urban Development Act, the Housing Site Development Promotion Act, etc., tourism complexes, logistics complexes, etc. are being developed or constructed. Recently, public service projects have been delayed due to the increase in expropriation decisions, objection rulings, and administrative lawsuits filed by project operators regarding the compensation for losses from public service projects. In addition, despite the increasing number of lands of unknown ownership due to the impact of low birth rate and population aging and the decrease in land use desire due to movement from non-urban areas to urban areas, there are limitations in promoting smooth public projects by temporarily applying the Act on Special Measures for Registration of Ownership Transfer. , the economic cost is increasing. To clarify that capital gains tax, business income tax, other income tax, corporate tax, value-added tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, etc. are imposed according to the concept of transfer following the expropriation of land, etc. A special taxation system under the Restriction Act will be considered. By comparatively examining legislative cases in the United States, France, Canada, Japan, etc. on the special taxation system based on public expropriation, we present Korea's tax improvement points. In the case of land, etc., when a purchase by agreement is concluded within 6 months from the date of request for the purchase by agreement or real estate is transferred for public service use within 2 years due to alternative acquisition through land expropriation, a special limit of KRW 100 million per year is limited to KRW 300 million for 5 years A deduction system should be introduced. In addition, as the promotion of public utility projects is delayed due to the land of unknown owner and a lot of administrative expenses are required, the Act on Special Measures for the Use of Unknown Owner is enacted and special taxation system for land of unknown owner as in Japanese legislation. should be institutionalized. In addition, if the inmate files an objection or an administrative litigation when the project operator expropriates land, etc. for public works, the amount of compensation for losses is increased by adding the management principle while maintaining the principle of determination of the timing of attributing income and expenses. In such cases, it shall be the date of final judgment or final judgment of the objection, and if the amount of compensation for loss has not changed or has been reduced, it shall be regarded as the date on which the project operator deposits according to the judgment of expropriation.

So-called project operators such as the State, local governments, Land and Housing Corporation, and Urban Development Corporation implement public projects based on the Land Compensation Act, the Urban Development Act, the Housing Site Development Promotion Act, etc., tourism complexes, logistics complexes, etc. are being developed or constructed. Recently, public service projects have been delayed due to the increase in expropriation decisions, objection rulings, and administrative lawsuits filed by project operators regarding the compensation for losses from public service projects. In addition, despite the increasing number of lands of unknown ownership due to the impact of low birth rate and population aging and the decrease in land use desire due to movement from non-urban areas to urban areas, there are limitations in promoting smooth public projects by temporarily applying the Act on Special Measures for Registration of Ownership Transfer. , the economic cost is increasing. To clarify that capital gains tax, business income tax, other income tax, corporate tax, value-added tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, etc. are imposed according to the concept of transfer following the expropriation of land, etc. A special taxation system under the Restriction Act will be considered. By comparatively examining legislative cases in the United States, France, Canada, Japan, etc. on the special taxation system based on public expropriation, we present Korea's tax improvement points. In the case of land, etc., when a purchase by agreement is concluded within 6 months from the date of request for the purchase by agreement or real estate is transferred for public service use within 2 years due to alternative acquisition through land expropriation, a special limit of KRW 100 million per year is limited to KRW 300 million for 5 years A deduction system should be introduced. In addition, as the promotion of public utility projects is delayed due to the land of unknown owner and a lot of administrative expenses are required, the Act on Special Measures for the Use of Unknown Owner is enacted and special taxation system for land of unknown owner as in Japanese legislation. should be institutionalized. In addition, if the inmate files an objection or an administrative litigation when the project operator expropriates land, etc. for public works, the amount of compensation for losses is increased by adding the management principle while maintaining the principle of determination of the timing of attributing income and expenses. In such cases, it shall be the date of final judgment or final judgment of the objection, and if the amount of compensation for loss has not changed or has been reduced, it shall be regarded as the date on which the project operator deposits according to the judgment of expropriation.

Abstract In 1790, the Revolutionary government expropriated most property owned by the Church and its entities, and sold it by auction. This effectively ended the centuries-old participation of the Church in wine production in France. Focusing on Burgundy, this article sketches the contours of the sale of vineyards and other wine-related property owned by the Church. It shows that auctions fetched prices well above the assessed value of the properties that were sold and speculates on the reasons.

The article was sanctified to research of European experience of appropriation of informatively-digital intellectual product. A variant of integration method was used for achieving of aim of the research. On the achievements of European experience of realization of appropriation of informatively-digital intellectual product was accented. The prospects of implementation of partial conditions of appropriation of informatively-digital intellectual product in France to realities of national economics of Ukraine were circumscribe. The analysis of international level of interaction of actors of appropriation of informatively-digital intellectual product in the spectrum of its elements, attributes and conditions was conducted. To research of specific of exteriorization of appropriation of informativelydigital intellectual product in France was spared the special attention. On the exert of appropriation mainly not own the created legitimate of informatively-digital of intellectual product in the conditions of intensifying of action of tendency of associating of small private ownership and its transforming at the largest into the economy of France was accented. The functional of appropriation not own the created legitimate informatively-digital intellectual product in the socio-economic clusters of its actors was detected. This functional in the system of equalizations was formalized. The means of diminishing of barriers of reproduction of appropriation of not own the created legitimate informatively-digital intellectual product in the socio-economic clusters of its actors were severed in next parts: government financial stimulus of development of knowledge in part of improvement of competence, skills and creation of "breach" of technologies (in the cluster of creators); patenting and licensing how the facts of "exhausting of rights" with domination of large appropriator above relatively of small (in the cluster of producers); government budgetary programs of stimulation of investment-innovative activity of private sector (in the cluster of mediatorsentrepreneurs). At the maximization of actualized of the belonging of intellectual product and minimization of latent of the belonging of intellectual product was proposed the formalizing of functional of appropriation not own the created legitimate intellectual product in foreshortening of European experience. Practical importance of the paper was represented in an availability for government regulation of use of European experience of development of local types of industrial activity in Ukraine, and also them scientific accompaniment.

AbstractUnderstanding what lies behind actual COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamental to help policy makers increase vaccination rates and reach herd immunity. We use June 2021 data from the COME-HERE survey to explore the predictors of actual vaccine hesitancy in France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden. We estimate a linear-probability model with a rich set of covariates and address issues of common-method variance. 13% of our sample say they do not plan to be vaccinated. Post-Secondary education, home-ownership, having an underlying health condition, and one standard-deviation higher age or income are all associated with lower vaccine hesitancy of 2–4.5% points. Conservative-leaning political attitudes and a one standard-deviation lower degree of confidence in the government increase this probability by 3 and 6% points respectively. Vaccine hesitancy in Spain and Sweden is significantly lower than in the other countries.

A growing number of countries are putting transboundary climate risks on their national adaptation policy agenda. The designation of subnational governments as key actors in climate change adaptation policy appears to be appropriate when the risks associated with climate change are defined as “local.” In this study we have investigated whether local authorities can plausibly play an equally central role when it comes to transboundary climate risks. Three cases have been studied: Paris in France and the topic of migration and integration, Klepp in Norway and the topic of agriculture and livestock production, and the river harbors in the Upper Rhine region of France and the topic of freight transportation and river regulation. Even if the sub-national actors involved in the three cases showed strong interest in analyzing and addressing transboundary climate risks, it remains an open question whether such authorities can and should play an equally central role in addressing transboundary climate risks as they do in the case of local climate risks. On the other hand, assigning responsibility for managing transboundary climate risks exclusively to national authorities may increase the risk of conflicts between measures to reduce local climate risks (frequently developed and implemented by sub-national authorities) and transboundary climate risks. The authors of this paper therefore advocate a strong partnership between the different levels of governance, and between public and private-sector stakeholders, in adaptation to transboundary climate risk. It is therefore crucial that national governments explicitly account for transboundary climate risks in their national adaptation agendas and, as part of their process in determining “ownership” of such risks, decide on the role sub-national authorities should play. This choice will also affect the role of local authorities in managing local climate risks due to the interlinkages between them.

Preface In the last twelve years of following copyright developments, I have witnessed an accelerating growth in the agitation over its application and increasing cries for reform. This was triggered by a mounting corporate hysteria for strengthening copyright which seems to mask other anxieties and other issues of bad faith beside the one at hand. This is in contrast with the more reasonable stance of the U.S. government in the 1980s when Congress refused to regulate video rentals and the Courts refused to cite the video recorder for ‘contributory infringement.’ In the 1990s, the Republican-controlled Congress passed several pieces of legislation extending copyright and punishing reverse engineering. Congressional giveaways and corporate shrillness has inspired a progressive movement to defend the intellectual ‘commons.’ The reality is that intellectual property is not owned by intellectuals, and so people are realising that further extensions of copyright no longer benefits the sciences and useful arts. Developments in copyright are driven by the challenges of new technologies of communication. This is a problem for the law, which does not like surprises and certainly proceeds by analogising new situations to old ones in order to build continuity. Case law (which is law that is developed by judges’ decisions and interpretations) proceeds by precedent. Yet old technologies are not the accurate precedents for new technology and this is particularly the situation today. The new technologies have a particular impact on the situation since they change not just one variable in the earlier balance of copyright, but all the variables. While the courts and the corporations have concentrated on the one variable of easy reproduction of content, we should also pay attention to how the new technologies have changed the very balance between the so-called ‘real world’ and cultural expression. The material world is now composed to a significant extent by cultural expression. We walk through physical landscapes dominated by billboards and other totems of the marketplace, while our mentalscapes are filled with trademarks and other commodity bits. This was not the case as copyright law developed; it is the case now, and the various underpinnings of copyright law have become embarrassingly ineffective in this new world. Edelman Bernard Edelman pushes back to find the moment of embarrassment. He finds it in photography. As Paul Hirst points out, ‘[Edelman’s title] Le Droit saisi par la photographie puns on the law being seized or caught by photography, surprised or caught out by it. Photography, a technical innovation developing independently of law, contradicts the existing formulations of property right in representations of things’ (Hirst 1-2). Prior to photography, representation inherently had stamps of personality that allowed such representation (painting, drawing, engraving et alia) to be easily and significantly distinguished from that part of the material world it was representing, as well as from other artistic representations (even of the same referent). The earliest French legal pronouncements on photography were reluctant to grant it copyright protection, precisely because it was thought to have no personality and to be a mechanical copy of nature. When the court did extend copyright protection to photography and admitted its personality, it was faced with how to distinguish it from the natural. The camera could no longer be interpreting as transparently reproducing the real. Edelman calls this the subjectivisation of the machine. The camera can no longer be both a transparent reproducer of the real; it has been found always to invest the real with the personality of its subject (the photographer). This has resulted in a number of ad hoc decisions to prevent ‘over-appropriation’ of the real. Anglo-American versus French Law Anglo-American writing about copyright has never wasted much time on subjectivisation of the machine. The basis of British copyright was pragmatic and economic to begin with, having originated with the Tudors’ desire to encourage printing by granting monopoly rights to printers, and to control and censor printing. The relocation of copyright ownership from printer to author in the 18th century was also an economically driven consideration reflecting the new spirit of competitive capitalism. Certainly the language of the U.S. Constitution that authorised the federal prerogative in setting copyright law was very pragmatic in its emphasis on promoting the progress of science and the ‘useful’ arts (Article 1 Section 8). The French tradition, which is somewhat paralleled by the German and those of other continental nations, was born out of a more courtly regard for the rights of genius. Although France recognised that works ‘made for hire’ were owned by the employer, it vested certain inalienable moral privileges in the real person of the artist. This legal doctrine is known as droit d’auteur. (see Ginsburg) Idea/Expression Yet the American tradition is not totally pragmatic. The balance between copyright and the First Amendment commitment to an absolute freedom of speech calls for a certain degree of abstraction. It was Thomas Jefferson who cautioned about the chilling effect copyright law might have with the spread of ideas. Fortunately in written language it was rather easy to work out that the way to protect ideas from property claims was to distinguish between the expression, which can be copyrighted, and the idea, which cannot. Siva Vaidhyanathan (109-15) goes over Judge Learned Hand’s development of the test to distinguish the idea from the expression in the 1920s and 1930s as particularly instructive for striking the balance. In Nichols v. Universal (1929), Hand develops the theme of ‘patterns of increasing generality’ as more incident is left out. At some point the abstraction is too great to be protected, since it now is more in the realm of idea then of particular expression. (45 F.2d 120) But Edelman’s work poses the question whether this works, as we move from machines of writing to machines of visual reproduction. Doesn’t Apply to Mechanical Mimetic Reproduction Photographs can be taken of the imaginary world and indeed the subjectivisation model holds that every photograph is determined by the imagination of the author. But it is commonsensical that photographs begin as traces of the material world. This is not analogous to the written word. The structural nature of language removes the written word from a direct relationship with its physical referent. Indeed, the entire linguistic turn in post-war philosophy is premised on the lack of any transparent or even determined relationship between language and things. Even in pre-war jurisprudence it was this lack of coincidence that allowed the easy split of the idea from its expression. As the expression floats above the idea, the word floats above the physical. Vincent Porter argues that in contrast to language, visual and audio recordings do not have this split, they do not float above the physical. He noted sound/image recordings have presented a problem in that they are speech acts without a language system, or in a distinction borrowed from Saussure ‘a series of paroles without a langue.’ (Porter 12) After all does a photograph fit into a grammar of images? Are there photographs that are ‘patterns of increasing generality?’ Where is the photograph that is the same idea as another photograph without being the same photograph? Is there a photograph that can do the same work as the word ‘mother?’ No. Every photograph will be of a particular mother of a particular age and particular ethnic group and the same difficulty applies even if we photograph a group of mothers or edit a montage of mothers. This has the effect of making the idea the same as the expression. If you protect one you have protected the other. At this point I was not certain how decisive an intervention these concepts could make in the current copyright ferment. Certainly the most exciting argument was the one mounted at the Berkman Institute at Harvard by several lawyers and argued before the Supreme Court by Lawrence Lessig in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003). This presented the argument that the government had strayed from the original Constitutional mandate to allow exclusive rights only for a limited time. But as I read Lessig’s Free Culture and as I re-read Edelman, it strikes me that the idea/expression test does not adequately help the First Amendment rights of technologies of mimetic reproduction (film, audio recordings). It is that these technologies allow reproductions to easily re-enter the material world. When these reproductions do re-enter they will naturally become part of the domain of creative expression. Our artists must be allowed to freely comment on the world in which we live and the world in which we live is now visually and aurally full of copyrighted material. This image came to mind forcefully when Lessig explained the difficulties of documentarians when they film their subjects watching TV and then have to edit out the TV image rather than deal with the risk of being sued for infringement (Aufderheide and Jaszi 95-8). This image also comes to mind when reading of farmers who are not allowed to harvest their seed because they come from patented plants. But I will defer to patent philosophers on that apparent travesty of natural rights. I wish to stay focused on the argument that is the corollary of Edelman’s subjectivisation of the camera. The camera records the physical world and in turn that recording enters that world. This is to say that the genius of copyright is in the literary domain because written language never re-enters the material world. When copyright was extended beyond the literary, policy makers should have noticed that earlier tests were no longer capable of maintaining balance between our divine right to express our lives and the practical right to own our own expressions (for a limited time). The new test is almost already present in the law: it is the protection of parody from copyright infringement violation. The courts recognise that parody positions the original expression as an artifact of the world in order to comment on it. If only the policy makers could extend that view to documentarians and others who film the world and include in their film the physical fact of other videos being displayed in the world. Just as in parody they ought to consider the intent of the video makers is to comment on the original, not to plagiarise it. References Aufderheide, P., and P. Jaszi. Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers. 2004. 25 April 2005 http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/rock/index.htm>. Edelman, B. Ownership of the Image: Elements for a Marxist Theory of Law. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. Eldred v. Ashcroft, Attorney General. United States Supreme Court decision, 15 January 2003. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/01-618.pdf>. Ginsburg, J. C. “A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America.” Tulane Law Review 64.5 (1990): 991-1032. Hirst, P. Q. “Introduction.” In Bernard Edelman, Ownership of the Image: Elements for a Marxist Theory of Law. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. Lessig, L. Free Culture. 2004. 8 April 2005 http://free-culture.org/get-it>. Porter, V. “Copyright: The New Protectionism.” InterMedia 17.1 (1989): 10-7. Vaidhyanathan, S. Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. New York: NYU Press, 2001. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Wasser, Frederick. "When Did They Copyright the World Without Us Noticing?." M/C Journal 8.3 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/05-wasser.php>. APA Style Wasser, F. (Jul. 2005) "When Did They Copyright the World Without Us Noticing?," M/C Journal, 8(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/05-wasser.php>.

Problem setting. The peculiarities of the foreign experience are considered regarding the land resourses management of the territorial community. The role of the country in ensuring the rational use of land resources of the territorial community is shown. The main guarantees of effective management and rational use of land resources are pointed out. It is proposed on the basis of the analyzed international experience to form a unified national land management system that combines successful foreign experience, which will make it possible to guarantee the socio-economic development of the territorial community.Recent research and publications analysis. The problems of land resources management in the context of decentralization have been studied by the following scientists as V. Horlachuk, O. Dorosh, I. Drobot, I. Zalutsky, O. Klimenko, V. Kozhurina, R. Taratula and others. The study of foreign experience in land management was carried out by the scientists as O. Bihunenko, T. Zinchuk, N. Krasiuk, O. Suprun, Y. Khvesyk, V. Chuvpylo, O. Shkuropat and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Despite the significant amount of the foreign experience study in land resourses study, it is urgent to develop new grounds for mechanism formation of the efficient land resources management in nowadays conditions of the state power decentralization based on the examined international experience considering the national peculiarities ensuring social-economic development of the territorial communities.Paper main body. Today, at the stage of land decentralization completion, the issues of land resources management in the territorial community are extremely acute at the national level. The land for the territorial communities is an important resource, which their economic and social development depends on. Efficient and rational use of land has become possible after the expansion of the territorial communities authorities in the field of land management, which in turn made it necessary to ensure the control and supervision function of the country in accordance with the delegated powers of the territorial communities. The issue of rational use of land resourses becomes increasingly important in the system of decentralization. The modern reformation of the land relations in UKraine is due to the solution of the rational land use tasks as the most important resourse of the territorial community.Three-level system of land resource management is peculiar for the vast majority of the countries: governmental, regional, local (municpal). But at the same time a uniform model of land relations regulation does not exist, each country in this respect is unique. Management in the sphere of land regulation and land transactions in European countries differs depending on the territorial structure and system of public administration. The system of land regulation in the federal countries is much more diverse, since many issues on land use is given to the jurisdiction of individual territories. All countries have special governmental, public or private structures engaged in regulation and management of land resources.The article examines and analyzes the experience of the old members of the European Union of Germany, Italy, France and new EU members – Poland and Latvia, as well as China, a country where the main form of land ownership is state.The entire territory of the federal state of Germany is divided into communities. Only territories owned by the state do not belong to the territories of communities, for example, military airfields, highways, and governmental forests. Within the territory of the community, the primacy of planning within land plans belongs exclusively to the community.An important aspect of the Italy's experience for Ukraine is land for those who are engaged in its processing, assistance from the state in the form of affordable credit and control by the state for effective use through forced leasing, namely the transfer of the right of use to a more efficient user.French legislation is aimed at preserving the purpose of agricultural land and developing farming. It is forbidden to buy and sell particularly fertile land for non-agricultural use, the owner must not leave agricultural land without cultivation for more than five years, otherwise the land may be transferred to other persons.The goal of the land reform in Poland was to move to market-based principles of economic development, increase agricultural productivity, and improve the standard of living and social-economic development of rural areas.The negative experience of Latvia, where agricultural land was in free circulation after independence, should be a warning factor for Ukraine in order to prevent a similar situation from occurring.The experience of China shows that in order to effectively manage the land resources, which will lead to the social-economic development of the territorial community, it is necessary to provide affordable credit to the farmers and avoid mass land sales.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Summarizing, we can conclude that the world integration processes in the sphere of land management have proven to mankind that land is one of the main sources of economic well-being, which needs to be organized for rational use and protection. Land resources management directly influences upon the social-economic development of the territorial communities. The modern state of land resources management requires new approaches aiming to increase management efficiency and ensure rational use. The foreign experience demonstrates us that from the perspective of national interests and national security there should be control and limitations on the part of the government considering the agreements implementation as to the right to own, use and dispose the land resources.The international experience makes it possible to point out the principal guarantees of efficient management and rational use of the land resources, in particular:– determination of legislation restriction as for the foreigner-buyers;– granting preferential right to purchase agricultural land plots to persons who are associated with agricultural activities and have appropriate education, as well as to take into account the availability of production means and required capital;– fullness of the state land cadastre and continuous updating of data;– establishment of the State Land Bank Institute for long-term lending to the agricultural sector;– state control over effective use through compulsory leasing, in particular, transfer of the right of use to a more efficient user.The promising areas for further research are development of substantive proposals for improving modern land management based on the foreign experience and recommendations for their practical application.

IntroductionIn the wine world, authenticity is not just desired, it is actively required. That demand comes from a complex of producers, distributors and consumers, and other interested parties. Consequently, the authenticity of wine is constantly created, reworked, presented, performed, argued over, contested and appreciated.At one level, such processes have clear economic elements. A wine deemed to be an authentic “expression” of something—the soil and micro-climate in which it was grown, the environment and culture of the region from which it hails, the genius of the wine-maker who nurtured and brought it into being, the quintessential characteristics of the grape variety it is made from—will likely make much more money than one deemed inauthentic. In wine, as in other spheres, perceived authenticity is a means to garner profits, both economic and symbolic (Beverland).At another level, wine animates a complicated intertwining of human tastes, aesthetics, pleasures and identities. Discussions as to the authenticity, or otherwise, of a wine often involve a search by the discussants for meaning and purpose in their lives (Grahm). To discover and appreciate a wine felt to “speak” profoundly of the place from whence it came possibly involves a sense of superiority over others: I drink “real” wine, while you drink mass-market trash (Bourdieu). It can also create reassuring senses of ontological security: in discovering an authentic wine, expressive of a certain aesthetic and locational purity (Zolberg and Cherbo), I have found a cherishable object which can be reliably traced to one particular place on Earth, therefore possessing integrity, honesty and virtue (Fine). Appreciation of wine’s authenticity licenses the self-perception that I am sophisticated and sensitive (Vannini and Williams). My judgement of the wine is also a judgement upon my own aesthetic capacities (Hennion).In wine drinking, and the production, distribution and marketing processes underpinning it, much is at stake as regards authenticity. The social system of the wine world requires the category of authenticity in order to keep operating. This paper examines how and why this has come to be so. It considers the crafting of authenticity in long-term historical perspective. Demand for authentic wine by drinkers goes back many centuries. Self-conscious performances of authenticity by producers is of more recent provenance, and was elaborated above all in France. French innovations then spread to other parts of Europe and the world. The paper reviews these developments, showing that wine authenticity is constituted by an elaborate complex of environmental, cultural, legal, political and commercial factors. The paper both draws upon the social science literature concerning the construction of authenticity and also points out its limitations as regards understanding wine authenticity.The History of AuthenticityIt is conventional in the social science literature (Peterson, Authenticity) to claim that authenticity as a folk category (Lu and Fine), and actors’ desires for authentic things, are wholly “modern,” being unknown in pre-modern contexts (Cohen). Consideration of wine shows that such a view is historically uninformed. Demands by consumers for ‘authentic’ wine, in the sense that it really came from the location it was sold as being from, can be found in the West well before the 19th century, having ancient roots (Wengrow). In ancient Rome, there was demand by elites for wine that was both really from the location it was billed as being from, and was verifiably of a certain vintage (Robertson and Inglis). More recently, demand has existed in Western Europe for “real” Tokaji (sweet wine from Hungary), Port and Bordeaux wines since at least the 17th century (Marks).Conventional social science (Peterson, Authenticity) is on solider ground when demonstrating how a great deal of social energies goes into constructing people’s perceptions—not just of consumers, but of wine producers and sellers too—that particular wines are somehow authentic expressions of the places where they were made. The creation of perceived authenticity by producers and sales-people has a long historical pedigree, beginning in early modernity.For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, wine-makers in Bordeaux could not compete on price grounds with burgeoning Spanish, Portuguese and Italian production areas, so they began to compete with them on the grounds of perceived quality. Multiple small plots were reorganised into much bigger vineyards. The latter were now associated with a chateau in the neighbourhood, giving the wines connotations of aristocratic gravity and dignity (Ulin). Product-makers in other fields have used the assertion of long-standing family lineages as apparent guarantors of tradition and quality in production (Peterson, Authenticity). The early modern Bordelaise did the same, augmenting their wines’ value by calling upon aristocratic accoutrements like chateaux, coats-of-arms, alleged long-term family ownership of vineyards, and suchlike.Such early modern entrepreneurial efforts remain the foundations of the very high prestige and prices associated with elite wine-making in the region today, with Chinese companies and consumers particularly keen on the grand crus of the region. Globalization of the wine world today is strongly rooted in forms of authenticity performance invented several hundred years ago.Enter the StateAnother notable issue is the long-term role that governments and legislation have played, both in the construction and presentation of authenticity to publics, and in attempts to guarantee—through regulative measures and taxation systems—that what is sold really has come from where it purports to be from. The west European State has a long history of being concerned with the fraudulent selling of “fake” wines (Anderson, Norman, and Wittwer). Thus Cosimo III, Medici Grand Duke of Florence, was responsible for an edict of 1716 which drew up legal boundaries for Tuscan wine-producing regions, restricting the use of regional names like Chianti to wine that actually came from there (Duguid).These 18th century Tuscan regulations are the distant ancestors of quality-control rules centred upon the need to guarantee the authenticity of wines from particular geographical regions and sub-regions, which are today now ubiquitous, especially in the European Union (DeSoucey). But more direct progenitors of today’s Geographical Indicators (GIs)—enforced by the GATT international treaties—and Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs)—promulgated and monitored by the EU—are French in origin (Barham). The famous 1855 quality-level classification of Bordeaux vineyards and their wines was the first attempt in the world explicitly to proclaim that the quality of a wine was a direct consequence of its defined place of origin. This move significantly helped to create the later highly influential notion that place of origin is the essence of a wine’s authenticity. This innovation was initially wholly commercial, rather than governmental, being carried out by wine-brokers to promote Bordeaux wines at the Paris Exposition Universelle, but was later elaborated by State officials.In Champagne, another luxury wine-producing area, small-scale growers of grapes worried that national and international perceptions of their wine were becoming wholly determined by big brands such as Dom Perignon, which advertised the wine as a luxury product, but made no reference to the grapes, the soil, or the (supposedly) traditional methods of production used by growers (Guy). The latter turned to the idea of “locality,” which implied that the character of the wine was an essential expression of the Champagne region itself—something ignored in brand advertising—and that the soil itself was the marker of locality. The idea of “terroir”—referring to the alleged properties of soil and micro-climate, and their apparent expression in the grapes—was mobilised by one group, smaller growers, against another, the large commercial houses (Guy). The terroir notion was a means of constructing authenticity, and denouncing de-localised, homogenizing inauthenticity, a strategy favouring some types of actors over others. The relatively highly industrialized wine-making process was later represented for public consumption as being consonant with both tradition and nature.The interplay of commerce, government, law, and the presentation of authenticity, also appeared in Burgundy. In that region between WWI and WWII, the wine world was transformed by two new factors: the development of tourism and the rise of an ideology of “regionalism” (Laferté). The latter was invented circa WWI by metropolitan intellectuals who believed that each of the French regions possessed an intrinsic cultural “soul,” particularly expressed through its characteristic forms of food and drink. Previously despised peasant cuisine was reconstructed as culturally worthy and true expression of place. Small-scale artisanal wine production was no longer seen as an embarrassment, producing wines far more “rough” than those of Bordeaux and Champagne. Instead, such production was taken as ground and guarantor of authenticity (Laferté). Location, at regional, village and vineyard level, was taken as the primary quality indicator.For tourists lured to the French regions by the newly-established Guide Michelin, and for influential national and foreign journalists, an array of new promotional devices were created, such as gastronomic festivals and folkloric brotherhoods devoted to celebrations of particular foodstuffs and agricultural events like the wine-harvest (Laferté). The figure of the wine-grower was presented as an exemplary custodian of tradition, relatively free of modern capitalist exchange relations. These are the beginnings of an important facet of later wine companies’ promotional literatures worldwide—the “decoupling” of their supposed commitments to tradition, and their “passion” for wine-making beyond material interests, from everyday contexts of industrial production and profit-motives (Beverland). Yet the work of making the wine-maker and their wines authentically “of the soil” was originally stimulated in response to international wine markets and the tourist industry (Laferté).Against this background, in 1935 the French government enacted legislation which created theInstitut National des Appellations d’Origine (INAO) and its Appelation d’Origine Controlle (AOC) system (Barham). Its goal was, and is, to protect what it defines as terroir, encompassing both natural and human elements. This legislation went well beyond previous laws, as it did more than indicate that wine must be honestly labelled as deriving from a given place of origin, for it included guarantees of authenticity too. An authentic wine was defined as one which truly “expresses” the terroir from which it comes, where terroir means both soil and micro-climate (nature) and wine-making techniques “traditionally” associated with that area. Thus French law came to enshrine a relatively recently invented cultural assumption: that places create distinctive tastes, the value of this state of affairs requiring strong State protection. Terroir must be protected from the untrammelled free market. Land and wine, symbiotically connected, are de-commodified (Kopytoff). Wine is embedded in land; land is embedded in what is regarded as regional culture; the latter is embedded in national history (Polanyi).But in line with the fact that the cultural underpinnings of the INAO/AOC system were strongly commercially oriented, at a more subterranean level the de-commodified product also has economic value added to it. A wine worthy of AOC protection must, it is assumed, be special relative to wines un-deserving of that classification. The wine is taken out of the market, attributed special status, and released, economically enhanced, back onto the market. Consequently, State-guaranteed forms of authenticity embody ambivalent but ultimately efficacious economic processes. Wine pioneered this Janus-faced situation, the AOC system in the 1990s being generalized to all types of agricultural product in France. A huge bureaucratic apparatus underpins and makes possible the AOC system. For a region and product to gain AOC protection, much energy is expended by collectives of producers and other interested parties like regional development and tourism officials. The French State employs a wide range of expert—oenological, anthropological, climatological, etc.—who police the AOC classificatory mechanisms (Barham).Terroirisation ProcessesFrench forms of legal classification, and the broader cultural classifications which underpin them and generated them, very much influenced the EU’s PDO system. The latter uses a language of authenticity rooted in place first developed in France (DeSoucey). The French model has been generalized, both from wine to other foodstuffs, and around many parts of Europe and the world. An Old World idea has spread to the New World—paradoxically so, because it was the perceived threat posed by the ‘placeless’ wines and decontextualized grapes of the New World which stimulated much of the European legislative measures to protect terroir (Marks).Paxson shows how artisanal cheese-makers in the US, appropriate the idea of terroir to represent places of production, and by extension the cheeses made there, that have no prior history of being constructed as terroir areas. Here terroir is invented at the same time as it is naturalised, made to seem as if it simply points to how physical place is directly expressed in a manufactured product. By defining wine or cheese as a natural product, claims to authenticity are themselves naturalised (Ulin). Successful terroirisation brings commercial benefits for those who engage in it, creating brand distinctiveness (no-one else can claim their product expresses that particularlocation), a value-enhancing aura around the product which, and promotion of food tourism (Murray and Overton).Terroirisation can also render producers into virtuous custodians of the land who are opposed to the depredations of the industrial food and agriculture systems, the categories associated with terroir classifying the world through a binary opposition: traditional, small-scale production on the virtuous side, and large-scale, “modern” harvesting methods on the other. Such a situation has prompted large-scale, industrial wine-makers to adopt marketing imagery that implies the “place-based” nature of their offerings, even when the grapes can come from radically different areas within a region or from other regions (Smith Maguire). Like smaller producers, large companies also decouple the advertised imagery of terroir from the mundane realities of industry and profit-margins (Beverland).The global transportability of the terroir concept—ironic, given the rhetorical stress on the uniqueness of place—depends on its flexibility and ambiguity. In the French context before WWII, the phrase referred specifically to soil and micro-climate of vineyards. Slowly it started mean to a markedly wider symbolic complex involving persons and personalities, techniques and knowhow, traditions, community, and expressions of local and regional heritage (Smith Maguire). Over the course of the 20th century, terroir became an ever broader concept “encompassing the physical characteristics of the land (its soil, climate, topography) and its human dimensions (culture, history, technology)” (Overton 753). It is thought to be both natural and cultural, both physical and human, the potentially contradictory ramifications of such understanding necessitating subtle distinctions to ward off confusion or paradox. Thus human intervention on the land and the vines is often represented as simply “letting the grapes speak for themselves” and “allowing the land to express itself,” as if the wine-maker were midwife rather than fabricator. Terroir talk operates with an awkward verbal balancing act: wine-makers’ “signature” styles are expressions of their cultural authenticity (e.g. using what are claimed as ‘traditional’ methods), yet their stylistic capacities do not interfere with the soil and micro-climate’s natural tendencies (i.e. the terroir’sphysical authenticity).The wine-making process is a case par excellence of a network of humans and objects, or human and non-human actants (Latour). The concept of terroir today both acknowledges that fact, but occludes it at the same time. It glosses over the highly problematic nature of what is “real,” “true,” “natural.” The roles of human agents and technologies are sequestered, ignoring the inevitably changing nature of knowledges and technologies over time, recognition of which jeopardises claims about an unchanging physical, social and technical order. Harvesting by machine production is representationally disavowed, yet often pragmatically embraced. The role of “foreign” experts acting as advisors —so-called “flying wine-makers,” often from New World production cultures —has to be treated gingerly or covered up. Because of the effects of climate change on micro-climates and growing conditions, the taste of wines from a particular terroir changes over time, but the terroir imaginary cannot recognise that, being based on projections of timelessness (Brabazon).The authenticity referred to, and constructed, by terroir imagery must constantly be performed to diverse audiences, convincing them that time stands still in the terroir. If consumers are to continue perceiving authenticity in a wine or winery, then a wide range of cultural intermediaries—critics, journalists and other self-proclaiming experts must continue telling convincing stories about provenance. Effective authenticity story-telling rests on the perceived sincerity and knowledgeability of the teller. Such tales stress romantic imagery and colourful, highly personalised accounts of the quirks of particular wine-makers, omitting mundane details of production and commercial activities (Smith Maguire). Such intermediaries must seek to interest their audience in undiscovered regions and “quirky” styles, demonstrating their insider knowledge. But once such regions and styles start to become more well-known, their rarity value is lost, and intermediaries must find ever newer forms of authenticity, which in turn will lose their burnished aura when they become objects of mundane consumption. An endless cycle of discovering and undermining authenticity is constantly enacted.ConclusionAuthenticity is a category held by different sorts of actors in the wine world, and is the means by which that world is held together. This situation has developed over a long time-frame and is now globalized. Yet I will end this paper on a volte face. Authenticity in the wine world can never be regarded as wholly and simply a social construction. One cannot directly import into the analysis of that world assumptions—about the wholly socially constructed nature of phenomena—which social scientific studies of other domains, most notably culture industries, work with (Peterson, Authenticity). Ways of thinking which are indeed useful for understanding the construction of authenticity in some specific contexts, cannot just be applied in simplistic manners to the wine world. When they are applied in direct and unsophisticated ways, such an operation misses the specificities and particularities of wine-making processes. These are always simultaneously “social” and “natural”, involving multiple forms of complex intertwining of human actions, environmental and climatological conditions, and the characteristics of the vines themselves—a situation markedly beyond beyond any straightforward notion of “social construction.”The wine world has many socially constructed objects. But wine is not just like any other product. Its authenticity cannot be fabricated in the manner of, say, country music (Peterson, Country). Wine is never in itself only a social construction, nor is its authenticity, because the taste, texture and chemical elements of wine derive from complex human interactions with the physical environment. Wine is partly about packaging, branding and advertising—phenomena standard social science accounts of authenticity focus on—but its organic properties are irreducible to those factors. Terroir is an invention, a label put on to certain things, meaning they are perceived to be authentic. But the things that label refers to—ranging from the slope of a vineyard and the play of sunshine on it, to how grapes grow and when they are picked—are entwined with human semiotics but not completely created by them. 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Introduction Where children’s television once ruled supreme as a vehicle for sales of kids’ brands, the marketing of children’s toys now often hinges on having the right social media influencer, many of them children themselves (Verdon). As Forbes reported in 2021, the pandemic saw an increase in children spending more time online, many following their favourite influencers on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The importance of tapping into partnering with the right influencer grew, as did sales in toys for children isolated at home. We detail, through a case study approach and visual narrative analysis of two Australian influencer siblings’ Instagram accounts, the nature of toy marketing to children in 2023. Findings point to the continued gendered nature of toys and the concurrent promotion of aspirational adult ‘toys’ (for example, cars, high-end cosmetics) and leisure pursuits that blur the line between what we considered to be children’s playthings and adult objects of desire. To Market, to Market Toys are a huge business worldwide. In 2021, the global toys market was projected to grow from $141.08 billion to $230.64 billion by 2028. During COVID-19, toy sales increased (Fortune Business Insights). The rise of the Internet alongside media and digital technologies has given toy marketers new opportunities to reach children directly, as well as producing new forms of digitally enabled play, with marketers potentially having access to children 24/7, way beyond the previous limits of children’s programming on television (Hains and Jennings). Children’s digital content has also extended to digital games alongside digital devices and Internet-connected toys. Children’s personal tablet ownership rose from less than 1 per cent in 2011 to 42 per cent in 2017 (Rideout), and continues to grow. Children’s value for brands and marketers has increased over time (Cunningham). The nexus between physical toys and the entertainment industry has grown stronger, first with the Disney company and then with the stand-out success of the Star Wars franchise (now owned by Disney) from the late 1970s (Hains and Jennings). The concept of transmedia storytelling and selling, with toys as the vehicle for children to play out the stories they saw on television, in comics, books, movies, and online, proved to be a lucrative one for the entertainment company franchises and the toy manufacturers (Bainbridge). All major toy brands now recognise the power of linking toy brands and entertaining transmedia children’s texts, including online content, with Disney, LEGO and Barbie being obvious examples. Gender and Toys: Boys and Girls Come Out to Play Alongside the growth of the children’s market, the gendering of children’s toys has also continued and increased, with concerns that traditional gender roles are still strongly promoted via children’s toys (Fine and Rush). Research shows that girls’ toys are socialising them for caring roles, shopping, and concern with beauty, while toys aimed at boys (including transportation and construction toys, action figures, and weapons) may promote physicality, aggression, construction, and action (Fine and Rush). As Blakemore and Center (632) suggested, then, if children learn from toy-play “by playing with strongly stereotyped toys, girls can be expected to learn that appearance and attractiveness are central to their worth, and that nurturance and domestic skills are important to be developed. Boys can be expected to learn that aggression, violence, and competition are fun, and that their toys are exciting and risky”. Recently there has been some pushback by consumers, and some toy brands have responded, with LEGO committing to less gendered toy marketing (Russell). YouTube: The World’s Most Popular Babysitter? One business executive has described YouTube as the most popular babysitter in the world (Capitalism.com). The use of children as influencers on YouTube to market toys through toy review videos is now a common practice (Feller and Burroughs; De Veirman et al.). These ‘reviews’ are not critical in the traditional sense of reviews in an institutional or legacy media context. Instead, the genre is a mash-up, which blurs the lines between three major genres: review, branded content, and entertainment (Jaakkola). Concerns have been raised about advertising disguised as entertainment for children, and calls have been made for nuanced regulatory approaches (Craig and Cunningham). The most popular toy review channels have millions of subscribers, and their hosts constitute some of YouTube’s top earners (Hunting). Toy review videos have become an important force in children’s media – in terms of economics, culture, and for brands (Hunting). Concurrently, surprise toys have risen as a popular type of toy, thanks in part to the popularity of the unboxing toy review genre (Nicoll and Nansen). Ryan’s World is probably the best-known in this genre, with conservative estimates putting 10-year-old Ryan Kanji’s family earnings at $25 million annually (Kang). Ryan’s World, formerly Ryan’s Toy Review, now has 10 YouTube channels and the star has his own show on Nic Junior as well as across other media, including books and video games (Capitalism.com). Marsh, through her case study of one child, showed the way children interact with online content, including unboxing videos, as ‘cyberflaneurs’. YouTube is the medium of choice for most children (now more so than television; Auxier et al.). However, Instagram is also a site where a significant number of children and teens spend time. Australian data from the e-Safety Commission in 2018 showed that while YouTube was the most popular platform, with 80 per cent of children 8-12 and 86 per cent of teens using the site, 24 per cent of children used Instagram, and 70 per cent of teens 13-17 (e-Safety Commissioner). Given the rise in social media, phone, and tablet use in the last five years, including among younger children, these statistics are now likely to be higher. A report from US-based Business Insider in 2021 stated that 40 per cent of children under 13 already use Instagram (Canales). This is despite the platform ostensibly only being for people aged 13 and over. Ofcom (the UK’s regulator for communications services) has discussed the rise of ‘Tik-Tots’ – young children defying age restrictions to be on social media – and the increase of young people consuming rather than sharing on social media (Ofcom). Insta-Kidfluencers on the Rise Marketers are now tapping into the selling power of children as social media influencers (or kidfluencers) to promote children’s toys, and in some cases, parents are happy to act as their children’s agents and managers for these pint-size prosumers. Abidin ("Micromicrocelebrity") was the first to discuss what she termed ‘micro-microcelebrities’, children of social media influencers (usually mothers) who have become, through their parents’ mediation, paid social media influencers themselves, often through Instagram. As Abidin noted: “their digital presence is deliberately commercial, framed and staged by Influencer mothers in order to maximize their advertorial potential, and are often postured to market even non-baby/parenting products such as fast food and vehicles”. Since that time, and with children now a growing audience on Instagram, some micro-microcelebrities have begun to promote toys alongside other brands which appeal to both children and adults. While initially these human ‘brand extensions’ of their mothers (Archer) appealed to adults, their sponsored content has evolved as they have aged, and their audience has grown and broadened to include children. Given the rise of Instagram as a site for the marketing of toys to children, through children themselves as social media influencers, and the lack of academic research on this phenomenon, our research looks at a case study of prominent child social media influencers on Instagram in Australia, who are managed by their mother, and who regularly promote toys. Within the case study, visual narrative analysis is used, to analyse the Instagram accounts of two high-profile child social media influencers, eleven-year-old Australian Pixie Curtis and her eight-year-old brother, Hunter Curtis, both of whom are managed by their entrepreneur and ‘PR queen’ mother, Roxy Jacenko. We analysed the posts from each child from March to July 2022 inclusive. Posts were recorded in a spreadsheet, with the content described, hashtags or handles recorded, and any brand or toy mentions noted. We used related media reports to supplement the analysis. We have considered ethical implications of our research and have made the decision to identify both children, as their accounts are public, with large follower numbers, promote commercial interests, and have the blue Instagram ‘tick’ that identifies their accounts as verified and ‘celebrity’ or brand accounts, and the children are regularly featured in mainstream media. The children’s mother, Jacenko, often discusses the children on television and has discussed using Pixie’s parties as events to gain publicity for the toy business. We have followed the lead of Abidin and Leaver, considered experts in the field, who have identified children and families in ethnographic research when the children or families have large numbers of followers (see Abidin, "#Familygoals"; Leaver and Abidin). We do acknowledge that other researchers have chosen not to identify influencer children (e.g., Ågren) with smaller numbers of followers. The research questions are as follows: RQ1: What are the toys featured on the two social media influencer children’s sites? RQ2: Are the toys traditionally gendered and if so, what are the main gender-based toys? RQ3: Do the children promote products that are traditionally aimed at adults? If so, how are these ‘toys’ presented, and what are they? Analysis The two child influencers and toy promoters, sister and brother Pixie (11) and Hunter (8) Curtis, are the children of celebrity, entrepreneur and public relations ‘maven’, Roxy Jacenko. Jacenko’s first business was a public relations firm, Sweaty Betty, one she ran successfully but has recently closed to focus on her influencer talent agency business, the Ministry of Talent, and the two businesses related to her children, Pixie’s Pix (an online toy store named after her daughter) and Pixie’s Bows, a line of fashion bows aimed at girls (Madigan). Pixie Curtis grew up with her own Instagram account, with her first Instagram post on 18 June 2013, before turning two, and featuring a promotion of an online subscription service for toys, with the hashtag #babblebox. At time of writing, Pixie has 120,000 Instagram followers; her ‘bio’ describes her account as ‘shopping and retail’ and as managed by Jacenko. Pixie is also described as the ‘founder of Pixie’s Pix Toy Store’. Her brother Hunter’s account began on 6 May 2015, with the first post to celebrate his first birthday. Hunter’s page has 20,000 followers with his profile stating that it is managed by his mother and her talent and influencer agency. RQ1: What are the toys featured on the two children’s Instagram sites? The two children feature toy promotions regularly, mostly from Pixie’s online toy shop, with the site tagged @pixiespixonline. These toys are often demonstrated by Pixie and Hunter in short video format, following the now-established genre of the toy unboxing or toy review. Toys that are shown on Pixie’s site (tagged to her toy store) include air-clay (clay designed to be used to create clay sculptures); a Scruff-a-Luv soft toy that mimics a rescue pet that needs to be bathed in water, dried, and groomed to become a ‘lovable’ soft toy pet; toy slime; kinetic sand; Hatchimals (flying fairy/pixie dolls that come out of plastic eggs); LOL OMG dolls and Mermaze (both with accentuated female/made up features). LOL OMG (short for Outrageous Millennial Girls) are described as “fierce, fashionable, fabulous” and their name taps into common language used to communicate while texting. Mermaze are also fashion and hair styling dolls, with a mermaid’s tail that changes colour in water. While predominantly promoting toys on Pixie’s Pix, Pixie posts promotions of other items on her Website aimed at children. This includes practical items such as lunch boxes, but also beauty products including a skin care headband and scented body scrubs. Toys shown on Hunter’s Instagram site are often promotions of his sister’s toy store offerings, but generally fall into the traditional ‘boys’ toys’ categories. The posts that tag the Pixie’s Pix store feature photos or video demonstrations by Hunter of toys, including trucks, slime, ‘Splat balls’ (squish balls), Pokémon cards, Zuru toys’ ‘Smashers’ (dinosaur eggs that are smashed to reveal a dinosaur toy), a Bubblegum simulator for Roblox (a social media platform and game), Needoh Stickums, water bombs, and Hot Wheels. RQ2: Are the toys traditionally gendered and if so, what are the main gender-based toys? Although both children promote gender-neutral sensory toys such as slime and splat balls, they do promote strongly gendered toys from Pixie’s Pix. Hunter also promotes gendered toys that are not tagged to Pixie’s Pix, including Jurassic World dinosaur toys (tying into the film release). One post by Hunter features a (paid) cross-promotion of PlayStation 5 themed Donut King donuts (with a competition to win a PlayStation 5 by buying the donuts). In contrast, Pixie posts a paid promotion of a high-tea event to promote My Little Ponies. Hunter’s posts of toys and leisure items that do not tag Pixie’s toyshop include him on a go-kart, buying rugby gear, and with an ‘airtasker’ (paid assistant) helping him sort his Nerf gun collection. There are posts of both children playing and doing ‘regular’ children’s activities, including sport (Pixie plays netball, Hunter rugby), with their dog, ice-skating, and swimming (albeit often at expensive resorts), while Hunter and Pixie both wear, unbox, and tag some high-end children’s clothes brands such as Balmain and promote department store Myer. RQ3: Do the children promote products that are traditionally aimed at adults? If so, how are these ‘toys’ presented, and what are they? The Cambridge dictionary provides the following two definitions of toys, with one showing that ‘toys’ may also be considered as objects of pleasure for adults. A toy is “an object for children to play with” while it can also be “an object that is used by an adult for pleasure rather than for serious use”. The very meaning of the word toys shows the crossover between the adult and children’s world. The more ‘adult’ products promoted by Pixie are highly gendered, with expensive bags, clothes, make-up, and skin care regularly featured on her account. These are arguably toys but also teen or adult objects of aspiration, with Pixie’s collection of handbags featured and the brand tagged. The bag collection includes brightly coloured bags by Australian designer Poppy Lissiman. Other female-focussed brands include a hairdryer brand, with photos and videos posted of Pixie ‘playing’ at dressing up and ‘getting ready’, using skincare, make-up, and hair products. These toys cater to age demographics older than Pixie. Hunter is pictured in posts on a jet-ski, and in others with a mobile and tablet, or washing a Tesla car and with a helicopter. The gendered tropes of girls being concerned with their appearance, and boys interested in vehicles, action, and competitive (video) games appear to be borne out in the posts from the two children. Discussion and Conclusion As an entrepreneur, Jacenko has capitalised on her daughter’s and son’s personal brands that she has co-created by launching and promoting a toyshop named after her daughter, following the success of her children’s promotion of toys for other companies and Pixie’s successful hairbow line. The toy shop arose out of Pixie promoting sales of fidget spinners during the pandemic lockdowns where toy sales rose sharply across the world. The children are also now on TikTok, and while they have a toy review channel on YouTube it has not been posted on for three years. Therefore, it is safe to assume that Instagram is one of the main channels for the children to promote the toyshop. In an online newspaper article describing the success of Pixie’s toyshop and the purchase of an expensive Mercedes car, Jacenko said that the children work hard, and the car was their “reward” (Scanlan). “The help both her brother and her [Pixie] give me on the buying (every night we work on new style selections and argue over it), the packing, the restocking, goes well beyond their years”, Jacenko is quoted as saying. “We’ve made a pact, we must keep going, work harder. Next, it’s a Rolls Royce.” Analysis of the children’s Instagram pages shows highly gendered promotion of toys. The children also promote a variety of high-end, aspirational tween, teen, and adult ‘toys’, including clothes, make-up, and skincare (Pixie) and expensive cars (Hunter and Pixie). Gender stereotyping has been found in adult influencer content (see, for example, Jorge et al.) and researchers have also pointed to sexualisation of young girl influencers on Instagram (Llovet et al.). Our research potentially echoes these findings. Posts from the children regularly include aspirational commodities that blur the lines between adult and child items of desire. Concerns have been raised in other academic articles (and in government reports) regarding the possible exploitation of children’s labour by parents and marketers to promote brands, including toys, on social media (see, for example, Ågren; De Veirman et al.; House of Commons; Masterson). The French government is believed to be the only government to have moved to regulate regarding the labour of children as social media influencers, and the same government at time of writing was debating laws to enshrine children’s right to privacy on social media, to stop the practice of ‘sharenting’ or parents sharing their children’s images and other content on social media without their children’s consent (Rieffel). Mainstream media including Teen Vogue (Fortesa), and some influencers themselves, have also started to raise issues relevant to ‘kidfluencers’. In the state of Utah, USA, the government has introduced laws to stop children under 18 having access to social media without parents’ consent, although some view this as potentially having some negative impacts (Singer). The ethics and impact of toy advertorials on children by social media influencers, with little or no disclosure of the posts being advertisements, have also been discussed elsewhere (see, for example, House of Commons; Jaakkola), with Rahali and Livingstone offering suggestions aimed key stakeholders. It has been found that beyond the marketing of toys and adult ‘luxuries’ to kids, other products that potentially harm children (for example, junk food and e-cigarettes) are also commonly seen in sponsored content on Instagram and YouTube aimed at children (Fleming‐Milici, Phaneuf, and Harris; Smith et al.). Indeed, it could be argued that e-cigarettes have been positioned as playthings and are appealing to children. While we may bemoan the loss of innocence of children, with the children in this analysis posed by their entrepreneurial mother as purveyors of material goods including toys, it is useful to remember that perhaps it has always been a conundrum, given the purpose of toy marketing is to make commercial sales. Children’s toys have always reflected and shaped society’s culture, often with surprisingly sinister and adult overtones, including the origins of Barbie as a male ‘sex’ toy (Bainbridge) and the blatant promotion of guns and other weapons to boys (for example the famous Mattel ‘burp’ gun of the 50s and 60s), through advertising and sponsorship of television (Hains and Jennings). Recently, fashion house Balenciaga promoted its range of adult bags using children as models via Instagram – the bags are teddy bears dressed in bondage outfits and the marketing stunt caused considerable backlash, with the sexually dressed bears and use of children raising outrage (Deguara). Were these teddy bags framed as children’s toys for adults or adult toys for children? The line was blurred. This research has limitations as it is focussed on a case study in one country (but with global reach through Instagram). However, the current analysis is believed to be one of the first to focus on children’s promotion of toys through Instagram, by two children’s influencers, a relatively new marketing approach aimed at children. As the article was being finalised, the children’s mother announced that as Pixie was transitioning into high school and wanted to focus on her studies rather than running a business, the toy business would conclude but Pixie’s Bows would continue (Madigan). In the UK, recent research by Livingstone et al. for the Digital Futures Commission potentially offers a way forward related to this phenomenon, when viewed alongside the analysis of our case study. Their final report (following research with children) suggests a Playful by Design Tool that would be useful for designers and brands, but also children, parents, regulators, and other stakeholders. Principles such as adopting ethical commercial models, being age-appropriate and ensuring safety, make sense when applied to kidfluencers and those that stand to benefit from their playbour. It appears that governments, society, some academics, and the media are starting to question the current generally unrestricted frameworks related to social media in general (see, for example, the ACCC’s ongoing enquiry) and toy and other marketing by kids to kids on social media specifically (House of Commons). We argue that more frameworks, and potentially laws, are required in this mostly unregulated space. Through our case study we have highlighted key areas of concern on one of the world’s most popular platforms for children and teens, including privacy issues, commodification, and gendered and ‘stealth’ marketing of toys through ‘advertorials’. We also acknowledge that children do gain playful and social benefits and entertainment from seeing influencers online. Given that it has been shown that gendered marketing of toys (and increased focus on appearance for girls through Instagram) could be potentially harmful to children’s self-esteem, and with related concerns on the continued commodification of childhood, further research is also needed to discover the responses and views of children to these advertorials masquerading as cute content. References Abidin, Crystal. "Micromicrocelebrity: Branding Babies on the Internet." M/C Journal 18.5 (2015). <https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1022>. ———. "#Familygoals: Family Influencers, Calibrated Amateurism, and Justifying Young Digital Labor." 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"Influencer Culture: Lights, Camera, Inaction?" 2022. <https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/28742/documents/173531/default/>. Hunting, Kyra. "Unwrapping Toy TV: Ryan’s World and the Toy Review Genre’s Impact on Children’s Culture." The Marketing of Children’s Toys: Critical Perspectives on Children’s Consumer Culture. Eds. Rebecca C. Hains and Nancy A. Jennings. Cham: Springer International, 2021. 105-24. Jaakkola, Maarit. "From Vernacularized Commercialism to Kidbait: Toy Review Videos on Youtube and the Problematics of the Mash-Up Genre." Journal of Children and Media 14.2 (2020): 237-54. Jorge, Ana, et al. "Parenting on Celebrities’ and Influencers’ Social Media: Revamping Traditional Gender Portrayals." Journalism and Media 4.1 (2023): 105-17. Kang, Jay Caspian. "The Boy King of YouTube." The New York Times Magazine 2022. <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/magazine/ryan-kaji-youtube.html>. Latifi, Fortesa. 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"Living Our Lives Online – Top Trends from Ofcom’s Latest Research." 2022. <https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2022/living-our-lives-online>. Rahali, Miriam, and Sonia Livingstone. "#SponsoredAds: Monitoring Influencer Marketing to Young Audiences." Media Policy Brief 23. London: Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Sciences, 2022. <https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113644/7/Sponsoredads_policy_brief.pdf>. Rieffel, Ysé. "French MPs Examine Bill on Children's Right to Privacy on Social Media." Le Monde 5 Mar. 2023. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/03/05/french-mp-proposes-bill-to-protect-children-s-privacy-on-social-media_6018268_7.html> Rideout, Victoria. "The Commonsense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight." 2017. <https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/csm_zerotoeight_fullreport_release_2.pdf>. Russell, Helen. "Lego to Remove Gender Bias from Its Toys after Findings of Child Survey." The Guardian 11 Oct. 2021. <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/11/lego-to-remove-gender-bias-after-survey-shows-impact-on-children-stereotypes>. Scanlan, Rebekah. "Roxy Jacenko Buys Daughter, 9, $270,000 Car as Toy Business Booms." News.com.au 3 Aug. 2021. <https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/roxy-jacenko-buys-daughter-9-270000-car-as-toy-business-booms/news-story/14bd181e6a24235f85276f16596d359a>. Singer, Natasha. "A Sweeping Plan to Protect Kids from Social Media." New York Times The Daily Podcast. Ed. Michael Barbaro. 2023. <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/podcasts/the-daily/social-media-instagram-tiktok-utah-ban.html>. Smith, Marissa J., et al. "User-Generated Content and Influencer Marketing Involving E-Cigarettes on Social Media: A Scoping Review and Content Analysis of YouTube and Instagram." BMC Public Health 23.1 (2023): 530. Verdon, Joan. "Santa’s Top Toy Sellers This Year Are Influencers." Forbes 14 Nov. 2021. <https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2021/11/14/santas-top-toy-sellers-this-year-are-influencers/?sh=67621a7b1235>.

Connecting I’ve moved house on the weekend, closer to the centre of an Australian capital city. I had recently signed up for broadband, with a major Australian Internet company (my first contact, cf. Turner). Now I am the proud owner of a larger modem than I have ever owned: a white cable modem. I gaze out into our new street: two thick black cables cosseted in silver wire. I am relieved. My new home is located in one of those streets, double-cabled by Telstra and Optus in the data-rush of the mid-1990s. Otherwise, I’d be moth-balling the cable modem, and the thrill of my data percolating down coaxial cable. And it would be off to the computer supermarket to buy an ASDL modem, then to pick a provider, to squeeze some twenty-first century connectivity out of old copper (the phone network our grandparents and great-grandparents built). If I still lived in the country, or the outskirts of the city, or anywhere else more than four kilometres from the phone exchange, and somewhere that cable pay TV will never reach, it would be a dish for me — satellite. Our digital lives are premised upon infrastructure, the networks through which we shape what we do, fashion the meanings of our customs and practices, and exchange signs with others. Infrastructure is not simply the material or the technical (Lamberton), but it is the dense, fibrous knotting together of social visions, cultural resources, individual desires, and connections. No more can one easily discern between ‘society’ and ‘technology’, ‘carriage’ and ‘content’, ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’, or ‘infrastructure’ and ‘applications’ (or ‘services’ or ‘content’). To understand telecommunications in action, or the vectors of fibre, we need to consider the long and heterogeneous list of links among different human and non-human actors — the long networks, to take Bruno Latour’s evocative concept, that confect our broadband networks (Latour). The co-ordinates of our infrastructure still build on a century-long history of telecommunications networks, on the nineteenth-century centrality of telegraphy preceding this, and on the histories of the public and private so inscribed. Yet we are in the midst of a long, slow dismantling of the posts-telegraph-telephone (PTT) model of the monopoly carrier for each nation that dominated the twentieth century, with its deep colonial foundations. Instead our New World Information and Communication Order is not the decolonising UNESCO vision of the late 1970s and early 1980s (MacBride, Maitland). Rather it is the neoliberal, free trade, market access model, its symbol the 1984 US judicial decision to require the break-up of AT&T and the UK legislation in the same year that underpinned the Thatcherite twin move to privatize British Telecom and introduce telecommunications competition. Between 1984 and 1999, 110 telecommunications companies were privatized, and the ‘acquisition of privatized PTOs [public telecommunications operators] by European and American operators does follow colonial lines’ (Winseck 396; see also Mody, Bauer & Straubhaar). The competitive market has now been uneasily installed as the paradigm for convergent communications networks, not least with the World Trade Organisation’s 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services and Annex on Telecommunications. As the citizen is recast as consumer and customer (Goggin, ‘Citizens and Beyond’), we rethink our cultural and political axioms as well as the axes that orient our understandings in this area. Information might travel close to the speed of light, and we might fantasise about optical fibre to the home (or pillow), but our terrain, our band where the struggle lies today, is narrower than we wish. Begging for broadband, it seems, is a long way from warchalking for WiFi. Policy Circuits The dreary everyday business of getting connected plugs the individual netizen into a tangled mess of policy circuits, as much as tricky network negotiations. Broadband in mid-2003 in Australia is a curious chimera, welded together from a patchwork of technologies, old and newer communications industries, emerging economies and patterns of use. Broadband conjures up grander visions, however, of communication and cultural cornucopia. Broadband is high-speed, high-bandwidth, ‘always-on’, networked communications. People can send and receive video, engage in multimedia exchanges of all sorts, make the most of online education, realise the vision of home-based work and trading, have access to telemedicine, and entertainment. Broadband really entered the lexicon with the mass takeup of the Internet in the early to mid-1990s, and with the debates about something called the ‘information superhighway’. The rise of the Internet, the deregulation of telecommunications, and the involuted convergence of communications and media technologies saw broadband positioned at the centre of policy debates nearly a decade ago. In 1993-1994, Australia had its Broadband Services Expert Group (BSEG), established by the then Labor government. The BSEG was charged with inquiring into ‘issues relating to the delivery of broadband services to homes, schools and businesses’. Stung by criticisms of elite composition (a narrow membership, with only one woman among its twelve members, and no consumer or citizen group representation), the BSEG was prompted into wider public discussion and consultation (Goggin & Newell). The then Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE), since transmogrified into the Communications Research Unit of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), conducted its large-scale Communications Futures Project (BTCE and Luck). The BSEG Final report posed the question starkly: As a society we have choices to make. If we ignore the opportunities we run the risk of being left behind as other countries introduce new services and make themselves more competitive: we will become consumers of other countries’ content, culture and technologies rather than our own. Or we could adopt new technologies at any cost…This report puts forward a different approach, one based on developing a new, user-oriented strategy for communications. The emphasis will be on communication among people... (BSEG v) The BSEG proposed a ‘National Strategy for New Communications Networks’ based on three aspects: education and community access, industry development, and the role of government (BSEG x). Ironically, while the nation, or at least its policy elites, pondered the weighty question of broadband, Australia’s two largest telcos were doing it. The commercial decision of Telstra/Foxtel and Optus Vision, and their various television partners, was to nail their colours (black) to the mast, or rather telegraph pole, and to lay cable in the major capital cities. In fact, they duplicated the infrastructure in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, then deciding it would not be profitable to cable up even regional centres, let alone small country towns or settlements. As Terry Flew and Christina Spurgeon observe: This wasteful duplication contrasted with many other parts of the country that would never have access to this infrastructure, or to the social and economic benefits that it was perceived to deliver. (Flew & Spurgeon 72) The implications of this decision for Australia’s telecommunications and television were profound, but there was little, if any, public input into this. Then Minister Michael Lee was very proud of his anti-siphoning list of programs, such as national sporting events, that would remain on free-to-air television rather than screen on pay, but was unwilling, or unable, to develop policy on broadband and pay TV cable infrastructure (on the ironies of Australia’s television history, see Given’s masterly account). During this period also, it may be remembered, Australia’s Internet was being passed into private hands, with the tendering out of AARNET (see Spurgeon for discussion). No such national strategy on broadband really emerged in the intervening years, nor has the market provided integrated, accessible broadband services. In 1997, landmark telecommunications legislation was enacted that provided a comprehensive framework for competition in telecommunications, as well as consolidating and extending consumer protection, universal service, customer service standards, and other reforms (CLC). Carrier and reseller competition had commenced in 1991, and the 1997 legislation gave it further impetus. Effective competition is now well established in long distance telephone markets, and in mobiles. Rivalrous competition exists in the market for local-call services, though viable alternatives to Telstra’s dominance are still few (Fels). Broadband too is an area where there is symbolic rivalry rather than effective competition. This is most visible in advertised ADSL offerings in large cities, yet most of the infrastructure for these services is comprised by Telstra’s copper, fixed-line network. Facilities-based duopoly competition exists principally where Telstra/Foxtel and Optus cable networks have been laid, though there are quite a number of ventures underway by regional telcos, power companies, and, most substantial perhaps, the ACT government’s TransACT broadband network. Policymakers and industry have been greatly concerned about what they see as slow takeup of broadband, compared to other countries, and by barriers to broadband competition and access to ‘bottleneck’ facilities (such as Telstra or Optus’s networks) by potential competitors. The government has alternated between trying to talk up broadband benefits and rates of take up and recognising the real difficulties Australia faces as a large country with a relative small and dispersed population. In March 2003, Minister Alston directed the ACCC to implement new monitoring and reporting arrangements on competition in the broadband industry. A key site for discussion of these matters has been the competition policy institution, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and its various inquiries, reports, and considerations (consult ACCC’s telecommunications homepage at http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm). Another key site has been the Productivity Commission (http://www.pc.gov.au), while a third is the National Office on the Information Economy (NOIE - http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm). Others have questioned whether even the most perfectly competitive market in broadband will actually provide access to citizens and consumers. A great deal of work on this issue has been undertaken by DCITA, NOIE, the regulators, and industry bodies, not to mention consumer and public interest groups. Since 1997, there have been a number of governmental inquiries undertaken or in progress concerning the takeup of broadband and networked new media (for example, a House of Representatives Wireless Broadband Inquiry), as well as important inquiries into the still most strategically important of Australia’s companies in this area, Telstra. Much of this effort on an ersatz broadband policy has been piecemeal and fragmented. There are fundamental difficulties with the large size of the Australian continent and its harsh terrain, the small size of the Australian market, the number of providers, and the dominant position effectively still held by Telstra, as well as Singtel Optus (Optus’s previous overseas investors included Cable & Wireless and Bell South), and the larger telecommunications and Internet companies (such as Ozemail). Many consumers living in metropolitan Australia still face real difficulties in realising the slogan ‘bandwidth for all’, but the situation in parts of rural Australia is far worse. Satellite ‘broadband’ solutions are available, through Telstra Countrywide or other providers, but these offer limited two-way interactivity. Data can be received at reasonable speeds (though at far lower data rates than how ‘broadband’ used to be defined), but can only be sent at far slower rates (Goggin, Rural Communities Online). The cultural implications of these digital constraints may well be considerable. Computer gamers, for instance, are frustrated by slow return paths. In this light, the final report of the January 2003 Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) is very timely. The BAG report opens with a broadband rhapsody: Broadband communications technologies can deliver substantial economic and social benefits to Australia…As well as producing productivity gains in traditional and new industries, advanced connectivity can enrich community life, particularly in rural and regional areas. It provides the basis for integration of remote communities into national economic, cultural and social life. (BAG 1, 7) Its prescriptions include: Australia will be a world leader in the availability and effective use of broadband...and to capture the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity...Broadband should be available to all Australians at fair and reasonable prices…Market arrangements should be pro-competitive and encourage investment...The Government should adopt a National Broadband Strategy (BAG 1) And, like its predecessor nine years earlier, the BAG report does make reference to a national broadband strategy aiming to maximise “choice in work and recreation activities available to all Australians independent of location, background, age or interests” (17). However, the idea of a national broadband strategy is not something the BAG really comes to grips with. The final report is keen on encouraging broadband adoption, but not explicit on how barriers to broadband can be addressed. Perhaps this is not surprising given that the membership of the BAG, dominated by representatives of large corporations and senior bureaucrats was even less representative than its BSEG predecessor. Some months after the BAG report, the Federal government did declare a broadband strategy. It did so, intriguingly enough, under the rubric of its response to the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry report (Estens), the second inquiry responsible for reassuring citizens nervous about the full-privatisation of Telstra (the first inquiry being Besley). The government’s grand $142.8 million National Broadband Strategy focusses on the ‘broadband needs of regional Australians, in partnership with all levels of government’ (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’). Among other things, the government claims that the Strategy will result in “improved outcomes in terms of services and prices for regional broadband access; [and] the development of national broadband infrastructure assets.” (Alston, ‘National Broadband Strategy’) At the same time, the government announced an overall response to the Estens Inquiry, with specific safeguards for Telstra’s role in regional communications — a preliminary to the full Telstra sale (Alston, ‘Future Proofing’). Less publicised was the government’s further initiative in indigenous telecommunications, complementing its Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities (DCITA). Indigenous people, it can be argued, were never really contemplated as citizens with the ken of the universal service policy taken to underpin the twentieth-century government monopoly PTT project. In Australia during the deregulatory and re-regulatory 1990s, there was a great reluctance on the part of Labor and Coalition Federal governments, Telstra and other industry participants, even to research issues of access to and use of telecommunications by indigenous communicators. Telstra, and to a lesser extent Optus (who had purchased AUSSAT as part of their licence arrangements), shrouded the issue of indigenous communications in mystery that policymakers were very reluctant to uncover, let alone systematically address. Then regulator, the Australian Telecommunications Authority (AUSTEL), had raised grave concerns about indigenous telecommunications access in its 1991 Rural Communications inquiry. However, there was no government consideration of, nor research upon, these issues until Alston commissioned a study in 2001 — the basis for the TAPRIC strategy (DCITA). The elision of indigenous telecommunications from mainstream industry and government policy is all the more puzzling, if one considers the extraordinarily varied and significant experiments by indigenous Australians in telecommunications and Internet (not least in the early work of the Tanami community, made famous in media and cultural studies by the writings of anthropologist Eric Michaels). While the government’s mid-2003 moves on a ‘National Broadband Strategy’ attend to some details of the broadband predicament, they fall well short of an integrated framework that grasps the shortcomings of the neoliberal communications model. The funding offered is a token amount. The view from the seat of government is a glance from the rear-view mirror: taking a snapshot of rural communications in the years 2000-2002 and projecting this tableau into a safety-net ‘future proofing’ for the inevitable turning away of a fully-privately-owned Telstra from its previously universal, ‘carrier of last resort’ responsibilities. In this aetiolated, residualist policy gaze, citizens remain constructed as consumers in a very narrow sense in this incremental, quietist version of state securing of market arrangements. What is missing is any more expansive notion of citizens, their varied needs, expectations, uses, and cultural imaginings of ‘always on’ broadband networks. Hybrid Networks “Most people on earth will eventually have access to networks that are all switched, interactive, and broadband”, wrote Frances Cairncross in 1998. ‘Eventually’ is a very appropriate word to describe the parlous state of broadband technology implementation. Broadband is in a slow state of evolution and invention. The story of broadband so far underscores the predicament for Australian access to bandwidth, when we lack any comprehensive, integrated, effective, and fair policy in communications and information technology. We have only begun to experiment with broadband technologies and understand their evolving uses, cultural forms, and the sense in which they rework us as subjects. Our communications networks are not superhighways, to invoke an enduring artefact from an older technology. Nor any longer are they a single ‘public’ switched telecommunications network, like those presided over by the post-telegraph-telephone monopolies of old. Like roads themselves, or the nascent postal system of the sixteenth century, broadband is a patchwork quilt. The ‘fibre’ of our communications networks is hybrid. To be sure, powerful corporations dominate, like the Tassis or Taxis who served as postmasters to the Habsburg emperors (Briggs & Burke 25). Activating broadband today provides a perspective on the path dependency of technology history, and how we can open up new threads of a communications fabric. Our options for transforming our multitudinous networked lives emerge as much from everyday tactics and strategies as they do from grander schemes and unifying policies. We may care to reflect on the waning potential for nation-building technology, in the wake of globalisation. We no longer gather our imagined community around a Community Telephone Plan as it was called in 1960 (Barr, Moyal, and PMG). Yet we do require national and international strategies to get and stay connected (Barr), ideas and funding that concretely address the wider dimensions of access and use. We do need to debate the respective roles of Telstra, the state, community initiatives, and industry competition in fair telecommunications futures. Networks have global reach and require global and national integration. Here vision, co-ordination, and resources are urgently required for our commonweal and moral fibre. To feel the width of the band we desire, we need to plug into and activate the policy circuits. Thanks to Grayson Cooke, Patrick Lichty, Ned Rossiter, John Pace, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. Works Cited Alston, Richard. ‘ “Future Proofing” Regional Communications.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.php> —. ‘A National Broadband Strategy.’ Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.php>. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Broadband Services Report March 2003. Canberra: ACCC, 2003. 17 July 2003 <http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm>. —. Emerging Market Structures in the Communications Sector. 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Many Voices, One World: Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. Paris: Kegan Page, London. UNESCO, 1980. Maitland Commission (Independent Commission on Worldwide Telecommunications Development). The Missing Link. Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1985. Michaels, Eric. Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media, and Technological Horizons. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Mody, Bella, Bauer, Johannes M., and Straubhaar, Joseph D., eds. Telecommunications Politics: Ownership and Control of the Information Highway in Developing Countries. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. Moyal, Ann. Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1984. Post-Master General’s Department (PMG). Community Telephone Plan for Australia. Melbourne: PMG, 1960. Productivity Commission (PC). Telecommunications Competition Regulation: Inquiry Report. Report No. 16. Melbourne: Productivity Commission, 2001. <http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/>, accessed 17 July 2003. Spurgeon, Christina. ‘National Culture, Communications and the Information Economy.’ Media International Australia 87 (1998): 23-34. Turner, Graeme. ‘First Contact: coming to terms with the cable guy.’ UTS Review 3 (1997): 109-21. Winseck, Dwayne. ‘Wired Cities and Transnational Communications: New Forms of Governance for Telecommunications and the New Media’. In The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, ed. Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone. London: Sage, 2002. 393-409. World Trade Organisation. General Agreement on Trade in Services: Annex on Telecommunications. Geneva: World Trade Organisation, 1994. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm>. —. Fourth protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Geneva: World Trade Organisation. 17 July 2003 <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm>. Links http://www.accc.gov.au/pubs/publications/utilities/telecommunications/Emerg_mar_struc.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/speeches/2003/Fels_ATUG_6March03.doc http://www.accc.gov.au/telco/fs-telecom.htm http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/cita/Wbt/report.htm http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115485,00.html http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_1-2_3-4_115486,00.html http://www.noie.gov.au/projects/access/access/broadband1.htm http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/BAG/report/index.htm http://www.pc.gov.au http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/telecommunications/finalreport/ http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/final_report.html http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/rti-report.html http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/12-tel_e.htm http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/4prote_e.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Goggin, Gerard. "Broadband" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. (2003, Aug 26). Broadband. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/02-featurebroadband.php>

For the past twenty years, academics and other social commentators have, by and large, shared the view that the phase of modernity through which we are currently passing is defined by two interrelated catalysts of change: the physical movement of people and the virtual movement of information around the globe. As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, it is certainly a timely moment to reflect upon the ways in which the prognoses of the scholars and scientists writing in the late twentieth century have come to pass, especially since—during the time this special issue has been in press—the revolutions that are gathering pace in the Arab world appear to be realising the theoretical prediction that the ever-increasing “flows” of people and information would ultimately bring about the end of the nation-state and herald an era of transnationalism (Appadurai, Urry). For writers like Arjun Appadurai, moreover, the concept of diaspora was key to grasping how this new world order would take shape, and how it would operate: Diasporic public spheres, diverse amongst themselves, are the crucibles of a postnational political order. The engines of their discourse are mass media (both interactive and expressive) and the movement of refugees, activists, students, laborers. It may be that the emergent postnational order proves not to be a system of homogeneous units (as with the current system of nation-states) but a system based on relations between heterogeneous units (some social movements, some interest groups, some professional bodies, some non-governmental organizations, some armed constabularies, some judicial bodies) ... In the short run, as we can see already, it is likely to be a world of increased incivility and violence. In the longer run, free from the constraints of the nation form, we may find that cultural freedom and sustainable justice in the world do not presuppose the uniform and general existence of the nation-state. This unsettling possibility could be the most exciting dividend of living in modernity at large. (23) In this editorial, we would like to return to the “here and now” of the late 1990s in which theorists like Arjun Appaduri, Ulrich Beck, John Urry, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Robertson and others were “imagining” the consequences of both globalisation and glocalisation for the twenty-first century in order that we may better assess what is, indeed, coming to pass. While most of their prognoses for this “second modernity” have proven remarkably accurate, it is their—self-confessed—inability to forecast either the nature or the extent of the digital revolution that most vividly captures the distance between the mid-1990s and now; and it is precisely the consequences of this extraordinary technological revolution on the twin concepts of “glocality” and “diaspora” that the research featured in this special issue seeks to capture. Glocal Imaginaries Appadurai’s endeavours to show how globalisation was rapidly making itself felt as a “structure of feeling” (Williams in Appadurai 189) as well as a material “fact” was also implicit in our conceptualisation of the conference, “Glocal Imaginaries: Writing/Migration/Place,” which gave rise to this special issue. This conference, which was the culmination of the AHRC-funded project “Moving Manchester: Literature/Migration/Place (2006-10)”, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on urgent and topical debates concerning mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century and the strand “Networked Diasporas” was one of the best represented on the program. Attracting papers on broadcast media as well as the new digital technologies, the strand was strikingly international in terms of the speakers’ countries of origin, as is this special issue which brings together research from six European countries, Australia and the Indian subcontinent. The “case-studies” represented in these articles may therefore be seen to constitute something of a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of how Appadurai’s “glocal imaginary” is being lived out across the globe in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this respect, the collection proves that his hunch with regards to the signal importance of the “mass-media” in redefining our spatial and temporal coordinates of being and belonging was correct: The third and final factor to be addressed here is the role of the mass-media, especially in its electronic forms, in creating new sorts of disjuncture between spatial and virtual neighborhoods. This disjuncture has both utopian and dystopian potentials, and there is no easy way to tell how these may play themselves out in the future of the production of locality. (194) The articles collected here certainly do serve as testament to the “bewildering plethora of changes in ... media environments” (195) that Appadurai envisaged, and yet it can clearly also be argued that this agent of glocalisation has not yet brought about the demise of the nation-state in the way (or at the speed) that many commentators predicted. Digital Diasporas in a Transnational World Reviewing the work of the leading social science theorists working in the field during the late 1990s, it quickly becomes evident that: (a) the belief that globalisation presented a threat to the nation-state was widely held; and (b) that the “jury” was undecided as to whether this would prove a good or bad thing in the years to come. While the commentators concerned did their best to complexify both their analysis of the present and their view of the future, it is interesting to observe, in retrospect, how the rhetoric of both utopia and dystopia invaded their discourse in almost equal measure. We have already seen how Appadurai, in his 1996 publication, Modernity at Large, looks beyond the “increased incivility and violence” of the “short term” to a world “free from the constraints of the nation form,” while Roger Bromley, following Agamben and Deleuze as well as Appadurai, typifies a generation of literary and cultural critics who have paid tribute to the way in which the arts (and, in particular, storytelling) have enabled subjects to break free from their national (af)filiations (Pearce, Devolving 17) and discover new “de-territorialised” (Deleuze and Guattari) modes of being and belonging. Alongside this “hope,” however, the forces and agents of globalisation were also regarded with a good deal of suspicion and fear, as is evidenced in Ulrich Beck’s What is Globalization? In his overview of the theorists who were then perceived to be leading the debate, Beck draws distinctions between what was perceived to be the “engine” of globalisation (31), but is clearly most exercised by the manner in which the transformation has taken shape: Without a revolution, without even any change in laws or constitutions, an attack has been launched “in the normal course of business”, as it were, upon the material lifelines of modern national societies. First, the transnational corporations are to export jobs to parts of the world where labour costs and workplace obligations are lowest. Second, the computer-generation of worldwide proximity enables them to break down and disperse goods and services, and produce them through a division of labour in different parts of the world, so that national and corporate labels inevitably become illusory. (3; italics in the original) Beck’s concern is clearly that all these changes have taken place without the nation-states of the world being directly involved in any way: transnational corporations began to take advantage of the new “mobility” available to them without having to secure the agreement of any government (“Companies can produce in one country, pay taxes in another and demand state infrastructural spending in yet another”; 4-5); the export of the labour market through the use of digital communications (stereotypically, call centres in India) was similarly unregulated; and the world economy, as a consequence, was in the process of becoming detached from the processes of either production or consumption (“capitalism without labour”; 5-7). Vis-à-vis the dystopian endgame of this effective “bypassing” of the nation-state, Beck is especially troubled about the fate of the human rights legislation that nation-states around the world have developed, with immense effort and over time (e.g. employment law, trade unions, universal welfare provision) and cites Zygmunt Bauman’s caution that globalisation will, at worst, result in widespread “global wealth” and “local poverty” (31). Further, he ends his book with a fully apocalyptic vision, “the Brazilianization of Europe” (161-3), which unapologetically calls upon the conventions of science fiction to imagine a worst-case scenario for a Europe without nations. While fourteen or fifteen years is evidently not enough time to put Beck’s prognosis to the test, most readers would probably agree that we are still some way away from such a Europe. Although the material wealth and presence of the transnational corporations strikes a chord, especially if we include the world banks and finance organisations in their number, the financial crisis that has rocked the world for the past three years, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of Al-Qaida (all things yet to happen when Beck was writing in 1997), has arguably resulted in the nations of Europe reinforcing their (respective and collective) legal, fiscal, and political might through rigorous new policing of their physical borders and regulation of their citizens through “austerity measures” of an order not seen since World War Two. In other words, while the processes of globalisation have clearly been instrumental in creating the financial crisis that Europe is presently grappling with and does, indeed, expose the extent to which the world economy now operates outside the control of the nation-state, the nation-state still exists very palpably for all its citizens (whether permanent or migrant) as an agent of control, welfare, and social justice. This may, indeed, cause us to conclude that Bauman’s vision of a world in which globalisation would make itself felt very differently for some groups than others came closest to what is taking shape: true, the transnationals have seized significant political and economic power from the nation-state, but this has not meant the end of the nation-state; rather, the change is being experienced as a re-trenching of whatever power the nation-state still has (and this, of course, is considerable) over its citizens in their “local”, everyday lives (Bauman 55). If we now turn to the portrait of Europe painted by the articles that constitute this special issue, we see further evidence of transglobal processes and practices operating in a realm oblivious to local (including national) concerns. While our authors are generally more concerned with the flows of information and “identity” than business or finance (Appaduri’s “ethnoscapes,” “technoscapes,” and “ideoscapes”: 33-7), there is the same impression that this “circulation” (Latour) is effectively bypassing the state at one level (the virtual), whilst remaining very materially bound by it at another. In other words, and following Bauman, we would suggest that it is quite possible for contemporary subjects to be both the agents and subjects of globalisation: a paradox that, as we shall go on to demonstrate, is given particularly vivid expression in the case of diasporic and/or migrant peoples who may be able to bypass the state in the manufacture of their “virtual” identities/communities) but who (Cohen) remain very much its subjects (or, indeed, “non-subjects”) when attempting movement in the material realm. Two of the articles in the collection (Leurs & Ponzanesi and Marcheva) deal directly with the exponential growth of “digital diasporas” (sometimes referred to as “e-diasporas”) since the inception of Facebook in 2004, and both provide specific illustrations of the way in which the nation-state both has, and has not, been transcended. First, it quickly becomes clear that for the (largely) “youthful” (Leurs & Ponzanesi) participants of nationally inscribed networking sites (e.g. “discovernikkei” (Japan), “Hyves” (Netherlands), “Bulgarians in the UK” (Bulgaria)), shared national identity is a means and not an end. In other words, although the participants of these sites might share in and actively produce a fond and nostalgic image of their “homeland” (Marcheva), they are rarely concerned with it as a material or political entity and an expression of their national identities is rapidly supplemented by the sharing of other (global) identity markers. Leurs & Ponzanesi invoke Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the “rhizome” to describe the way in which social networkers “weave” a “rhizomatic path” to identity, gradually accumulating a hybrid set of affiliations. Indeed, the extent to which the “nation” disappears on such sites can be remarkable as was also observed in our investigation of the digital storytelling site, “Capture Wales” (BBC) (Pearce, "Writing"). Although this BBC site was set up to capture the voices of the Welsh nation in the early twenty-first century through a collection of (largely) autobiographical stories, very few of the participants mention either Wales or their “Welshness” in the stories that they tell. Further, where the “home” nation is (re)imagined, it is generally in an idealised, or highly personalised, form (e.g. stories about one’s own family) or through a sharing of (perceived and actual) cultural idiosyncrasies (Marcheva on “You know you’re a Bulgarian when …”) rather than an engagement with the nation-state per se. As Leurs & Ponzanesi observe: “We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets obscured as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties initiate subcultures and offer resistance to mainstream cultural forms.” Both the articles just discussed also note the shading of the “national” into the “transnational” on the social networking sites they discuss, and “transnationalism”—in the sense of many different nations and their diasporas being united through a common interest or cause—is also a focus of Pikner’s article on “collective actions” in Europe (notably, “EuroMayDay” and “My Estonia”) and Harb’s highly topical account of the role of both broadcast media (principally, Al-Jazeera) and social media in the revolutions and uprisings currently sweeping through the Arab world (spring 2011). On this point, it should be noted that Harb identifies this as the moment when Facebook’s erstwhile predominantly social function was displaced by a manifestly political one. From this we must conclude that both transnationalism and social media sites can be put to very different ends: while young people in relatively privileged democratic countries might embrace transnationalism as an expression of their desire to “rise above” national politics, the youth of the Arab world have engaged it as a means of generating solidarity for nationalist insurgency and liberation. Another instance of “g/local” digital solidarity exceeding national borders is to be found in Johanna Sumiala’s article on the circulatory power of the Internet in the Kauhajoki school shooting which took place Finland in 2008. As well as using the Internet to “stage manage” his rampage, the Kauhajoki shooter (whose name the author chose to withhold for ethical reasons) was subsequently found to have been a member of numerous Web-based “hate groups”, many of them originating in the United States and, as a consequence, may be understood to have committed his crime on behalf of a transnational community: what Sumiala has defined as a “networked community of destruction.” It must also be noted, however, that the school shootings were experienced as a very local tragedy in Finland itself and, although the shooter may have been psychically located in a transnational hyper-reality when he undertook the killings, it is his nation-state that has had to deal with the trauma and shame in the long term. Woodward and Brown & Rutherford, meanwhile, show that it remains the tendency of public broadcast media to uphold the raison d’être of the nation-state at the same time as embracing change. Woodward’s feature article (which reports on the AHRC-sponsored “Tuning In” project which has researched the BBC World Service) shows how the representation of national and diasporic “voices” from around the world, either in opposition to or in dialogue with the BBC’s own reporting, is key to the way in which the Commission has changed and modernised in recent times; however, she is also clear that many of the objectives that defined the service in its early days—such as its commitment to a distinctly “English” brand of education—still remain. Similarly, Brown & Rutherford’s article on the innovative Australian ABC children’s television series, My Place (which has combined traditional broadcasting with online, interactive websites) may be seen to be positively promoting the Australian nation by making visible its commitment to multiculturalism. Both articles nevertheless reveal the extent to which these public service broadcasters have recognised the need to respond to their nations’ changing demographics and, in particular, the fact that “diaspora” is a concept that refers not only to their English and Australian audiences abroad but also to their now manifestly multicultural audiences at home. When it comes to commercial satellite television, however, the relationship between broadcasting and national and global politics is rather harder to pin down. Subramanian exposes a complex interplay of national and global interests through her analysis of the Malayalee “reality television” series, Idea Star Singer. Exported globally to the Indian diaspora, the show is shamelessly exploitative in the way in which it combines residual and emergent ideologies (i.e. nostalgia for a traditional Keralayan way of life vs aspirational “western lifestyles”) in pursuit of its (massive) audience ratings. Further, while the ISS series is ostensibly a g/local phenomenon (the export of Kerala to the rest of the world rather than “India” per se), Subramanian passionately laments all the progressive national initiatives (most notably, the campaign for “women’s rights”) that the show is happy to ignore: an illustration of one of the negative consequences of globalisation predicted by Beck (31) noted at the start of this editorial. Harb, meanwhile, reflects upon a rather different set of political concerns with regards to commercial satellite broadcasting in her account of the role of Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya in the recent (2011) Arab revolutions. Despite Al-Jazeera’s reputation for “two-sided” news coverage, recent events have exposed its complicity with the Qatari government; further, the uprisings have revealed the speed with which social media—in particular Facebook and Twitter—are replacing broadcast media. It is now possible for “the people” to bypass both governments and news corporations (public and private) in relaying the news. Taken together, then, what our articles would seem to indicate is that, while the power of the nation-state has notionally been transcended via a range of new networking practices, this has yet to undermine its material power in any guaranteed way (witness recent counter-insurgencies in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria).True, the Internet may be used to facilitate transnational “actions” against the nation-state (individual or collective) through a variety of non-violent or violent actions, but nation-states around the world, and especially in Western Europe, are currently wielding immense power over their subjects through aggressive “austerity measures” which have the capacity to severely compromise the freedom and agency of the citizens concerned through widespread unemployment and cuts in social welfare provision. This said, several of our articles provide evidence that Appadurai’s more utopian prognoses are also taking shape. Alongside the troubling possibility that globalisation, and the technologies that support it, is effectively eroding “difference” (be this national or individual), there are the ever-increasing (and widely reported) instances of how digital technology is actively supporting local communities and actions around the world in ways that bypass the state. These range from the relatively modest collective action, “My Estonia”, featured in Pikner’s article, to the ways in which the Libyan diaspora in Manchester have made use of social media to publicise and support public protests in Tripoli (Harb). In other words, there is compelling material evidence that the heterogeneity that Appadurai predicted and hoped for has come to pass through the people’s active participation in (and partial ownership of) media practices. Citizens are now able to “interfere” in the representation of their lives as never before and, through the digital revolution, communicate with one another in ways that circumvent state-controlled broadcasting. We are therefore pleased to present the articles that follow as a lively, interdisciplinary and international “state-of-the-art” commentary on how the ongoing revolution in media and communication is responding to, and bringing into being, the processes and practices of globalisation predicted by Appadurai, Beck, Bauman, and others in the 1990s. The articles also speak to the changing nature of the world’s “diasporas” during this fifteen year time frame (1996-2011) and, we trust, will activate further debate (following Cohen) on the conceptual tensions that now manifestly exist between “virtual” and “material” diasporas and also between the “transnational” diasporas whose objective is to transcend the nation-state altogether and those that deploy social media for specifically local or national/ist ends. Acknowledgements With thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) for their generous funding of the “Moving Manchester” project (2006-10). Special thanks to Dr Kate Horsley (Lancaster University) for her invaluable assistance as ‘Web Editor’ in the production of this special issue (we could not have managed without you!) and also to Gail Ferguson (our copy-editor) for her expertise in the preparation of the final typescript. References Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization. Cambridge: Polity, 1998. Beck, Ulrich. What is Globalization? Trans. Patrick Camiller. Cambridge: Polity, 2000 (1997). Bromley, Roger. Narratives for a New Belonging: Diasporic Cultural Fictions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. Pearce, Lynne, ed. Devolving Identities: Feminist Readings in Home and Belonging. London: Ashgate, 2000. Pearce, Lynne. “‘Writing’ and ‘Region’ in the Twenty-First Century: Epistemological Reflections on Regionally Located Art and Literature in the Wake of the Digital Revolution.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 13.1 (2010): 27-41. Robertson, Robert. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992. Urry, John. Sociology beyond Societies. London: Routledge, 1999. Williams, Raymond. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

I miss the ferry to San Pietro, so after a long bus trip winding through the southern Sardinian rocky terrain past gum trees, shrubs, caper plants, and sheep, I take refuge from the rain in a bar at the port. While I order a beer and panini, the owner, a man in his early sixties, begins to chat asking me why I’m heading to the island. For the tuna, I say, to research cultural practices and changes surrounding the ancient tuna trap la tonnara, and for the Girotonno international tuna festival, which coincides with the migration of the Northern Bluefin Tuna and the harvest season. This year the slogan of the festival reads Dal Sulcis a Sushi ("From Sulcis to Sushi"), a sign of the diverse tastes to come. Tuna here is the best in the world, he exclaims, a sentiment I hear many times over whilst doing fieldwork in southern Italy. He excitedly gestures for me to follow. We walk into the kitchen and on a long steel bench sits a basin covered with cloth. He uncovers it, and proudly poised, waits for my reaction. A large pinkish-brown loin of cooked tuna sits in brine. I have never tasted tuna in this way, so to share in his enthusiasm I conjure my interest in the rich tuna gastronomy found in this area of Sardinia called Sulcis. I’m more familiar with the clean taste of sashimi or lightly seared tuna. As I later experience, traditional tuna preparations in San Pietro are far from this. The most notable characteristic is that the tuna is thoroughly cooked or the flesh or organs are preserved with salt by brining or drying. A tuna steak cooked in the oven is robust and more like meat from the land than the sea in its flavours, colour, and texture. This article is about taste: the taste of, and tastes for, tuna in a traditional fishing community. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork and is part of a wider inquiry into the place of tradition and culture in seafood sustainability discourses and practices. In this article I use the notion of a taste network to explore the relationship between macro forces—international markets, stock decline and marine regulations—and transformations within local cultures of tuna production and consumption. Taste networks frame the connections between taste in a gustatory sense, tastes as an aesthetic preference and tasting as a way of learning about and attuning to modes and meanings surrounding tuna. As Antoine Hennion asserts, taste is more than a connoisseurship of an object, taste represents a cultural activity that concerns a wide range of practices, exchanges and attachments. Elspeth Probyn suggests that taste “acts as a connector between history, place, things, and people” (65) and “can also come to form communities: local places that are entangled in the global” (62). Within this framework, taste moves away from Bourdieu’s notion of taste as a social distinction towards an understanding of taste as created through a network of entities—social, biological, technological, and so forth. It turns attention to the mundane activities and objects of tuna production and consumption, the components of a taste network, and the everyday spaces where tradition and transformation are negotiated. For taste to change requires a transformation of the network (or components of that network) that bring such tastes into existence. These networks and their elements form the very meaning, matter, and moments of tradition and culture. As Hennion reminds us through his idea of “reservoir(s) of difference” (100), there are a range of diverse tastes that can materialise from the interactions of humans with objects, in this case tuna. Yet, taste networks can also be rendered obsolete. When a highly valued and endangered species like Bluefin is at the centre of such networks, there are material, ethical, and even political limitations to some tastes. In a study that follows three scientists as they attempt to address scallop decline in Brest and St Brieuc Bay, Michael Callon advocates for “the abandonment of all prior distinction between the natural and the social” (1). He draws attention to networks of actors and significant moments, rather than pre-existing categories, to figure the contours of power. This approach is particularly useful for social research that involves science, technology and the “natural” world. In my own research in San Pietro, the list of human and non-human actors is long and spans the local to the global: Bluefin (in its various meanings and as an entity with its own agency), tonnara owners, fishermen, technologies, fish shops and restaurants, scientific observers, policy (local, regional, national, European and international), university researchers, the sea, weather, community members, Japanese and Spanish buyers, and markets. Local discourses surrounding tuna and taste articulate human and non-human entanglements in quite particular ways. In San Pietro, as with much of Italy, notions of place, environment, identity, quality, and authenticity are central to the culture of tuna production and consumption. Food products are connected to place through ecological, cultural and technological dimensions. In Morgan, Marsden, and Murdoch’s terms this frames food and tastes in relation to a spatial dimension (its place of origin), a social dimension (its methods of production and distribution), and a cultural dimension (its perceived qualities and reputation). The place name labelling of canned tuna from San Pietro is an example of a product that represents the notion of provenance. The practice of protecting traditional products is well established in Italy through appellation programs, much like the practice of protecting terroir products in France. It is no wonder that the eco-gastronomic movement Slow Food developed in Italy as a movement to protect traditional foods, production methods, and biodiversity. Such discourses and movements like Slow Food create local/global frameworks and develop in relation to the phenomenon and ideas like globalisation, industrialization, and homogenisation. This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in San Pietro over the 2013 tuna season. This included interviews with some thirty participants (fishers, shop keepers, locals, restaurateurs, and tonnara owners), secondary research into international markets, marine regulations, and environmental movements, and—of course—a gustatory experience of tuna. Walking down the main street the traditions of the tonnara and tuna are palpable. On a first impression there’s something about the streets and piazzas that is akin to Zukin’s notion of “vernacular spaces”, “sources of identity and belonging, affective qualities that the idea of intangible culture expresses, refines and sustains” (282). At the centre is the tonnara, which refers to the trap (a labyrinth of underwater nets) as well as the technique of tuna fishing and land based processing activities. For centuries, tuna and the tonnara have been at the centre of community life, providing employment, food security, and trade opportunities, and generating a wealth of ecological knowledge, a rich gastronomy based on preserved tuna, and cultural traditions like the famous harvest ritual la mattanza (the massacre). Just about every organ is preserved by salting and drying. The most common is the female ovary sac, which becomes bottarga. Grated onto pasta it has a strong metallic offal flavour combined with the salty tang of the sea. There is also the male equivalent lusciami, a softer consistency and flavour, as well as dried heart and lungs. There is canned tuna, a continuation of the tradition of brining and barrelling, but these are no ordinary cans. Each part of the tuna is divided into parts corresponding loosely to anatomy but more closely to quality based on textures, colour, and taste. There is the ventresca from the belly, the most prized cut because of its high fat content. Canned in olive oil or brine, a single can of this cut sells for around 30 Euros. Both the canned variety or freshly grilled ventresca is a sumptuous experience, soft and rich. Change is not new to San Pietro. In the long history of the tonnara there have been numerous transformations resulting from trade, occupation, and dominant economic systems. As Stefano Longo describes, with the development of capitalism and industrialization, the socio-economic structure of the tonnara changed and there was a dramatic decline in tonnare (plural) throughout the 1800s. The tonnare also went through different phases of ownership. In 1587 King Philip II formally established the Sardinian tonnare (Emery). Phillip IV then sold a tonnara to a Genovese man in 1654 and, from the late 18th century until today, the tonnara has remained in the Greco family from Genova. There were also changes to fishing and preservation technologies, such as the replacement of barrels after the invention of the can in the early 1800s, and innovations to recipes, as for example in the addition of olive oil. Yet, compared to recent changes, the process of harvesting, breaking down and sorting flesh and organs, and preserving tuna, has remained relatively stable. The locus of change in recent years concerns the harvest, the mattanza. For locals this process seems to be framed with concepts of before, and after, the Japanese arrived on the island. Owner Giuliano Greco, a man in his early fifties who took over the management of the tonnara from his father when it reopened in the late 1990s, describes these changes: We have two ages—before the Japanese and after. Before the Japanese, yes, the tuna was damaged. It was very violent in the mattanza. In the age before the pollution, there was a crew of 120 people divided in a little team named the stellati. The more expert and more important at the centre of the boat, the others at the side because at the centre there was more tuna. When there was mattanza it was like a race, a game, because if they caught more tuna they had more entrails, which was good money for them, because before, part of the wage was in nature, part of the tuna, and for this game the tuna was damaged because they opened it with a knife, the heart, the eggs etc. And for this method it was very violent because they wanted to get the tuna entrails first. The tuna remained on the boat without ice, with blood everywhere. The tonnara operated within clear social hierarchies made up of tonnarotti (tuna fishermen) under the guidance of the Rais (captain of tonnara) whose skills, charisma and knowledge set him apart. The Rais liaised with the tonnarotti, the owners, and the local community, recruiting men and women to augment the workforce in the mattanza period. Goliardo Rivano, a tonnarotto (singular) since 1999 recalls “all the town would be called on for the mattanza. Not only men but women too would work in the cannery, cutting, cleaning, and canning the tuna.” The mattanza was the starting point of supply and consumption networks. From the mattanza the tuna was broken down, the flesh boiled and brined for local and foreign markets, and the organs salted and dried for the (mainly) local market. Part of the land-based activities of tonnarotti involved cleaning, salting, pressing and drying the organs, which supplemented their wage. As Giuliano described, the mattanza was a bloody affair because of the practice of retrieving the organs; but since the tuna was boiled and then preserved in brine, it was not important whether the flesh was damaged. At the end of the 1970s the tonnara closed. According to locals and reportage, pollution from a nearby factory had caused a drastic drop in tuna. It remained closed until the mid 1990s when Japanese buyers came to inquire about tuna from the trap. Global tastes for tuna had changed during the time the tonnara was closed. An increase in western appetites for sushi had been growing since the early 1970s (Bestore). As Theadore Bestore describes in detail, this coincided with a significant transformation of the Japanese fishing industry’s international role. In the 1980s, the Japanese government began to restructure its fleets in response to restricted access to overseas fishing grounds, which the declaration of Excusive Economic Zones enforced (Barclay and Koh). At this time, Japan turned to foreign suppliers for tuna (Bestore). Kate Barclay and Sun-Hui Koh describe how quantity was no longer a national food security issue like it had been in post war Japan and “consumers started to demand high-quality high-value products” (145). In the late 1990s, the Greco family reopened the tonnara and the majority of the tuna went to Japan leaving a smaller portion for the business of canning. The way mattanza was practiced underwent profound changes and particular notions of quality emerged. This was also the beginning of new relationships and a widening of the taste network to include international stakeholders: Japanese buyers and markets became part of the network. Giuliano refers to the period as the “Japanese Age”. A temporal framing that is iterated by restaurant and fish shop owners who talk about a time when Japanese began to come to the island and have the first pick of the tuna. Giuliano recalls “there was still blood but there was not the system of opening tuna, in total, like before. Now the tuna is opened on the land. The only operation we do on the boat is blooding and chilling.” Here he references the Japanese technique of ikejime. Over several years the technicians taught Giuliano and some of the crew about killing the tuna faster and bleeding it to maintain colour and freshness. New notions of quality and taste for raw or lightly cooked tuna entered San Pietro. According to Rais Luigi “the tuna is of higher quality, because we treat it in a particular way, with ice.” Giuliano describes the importance of quality. “Before they used the stellati and it took five people, each one with a harpoon to haul the tuna. Now they only use one hook, in the mouth and use a chain, by hand. On board there is bleeding, and there is blood, but now we must keep the quality of the meat at its best.” In addition to the influence of Japanese tastes, the international Girotonno tuna festival had its inauguration in 2003, and, along with growing tourism, brought cosmopolitan and international tastes to San Pietro. The impact of a global taste for tuna has had devastating effects on their biomass. The international response to the sharp decline was the expansion of the role of inter-governmental monitoring bodies like International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the introduction of quotas, and an increase in the presence of marine authorities on fleets, scientific research and environmental campaigns. In San Pietro, international relationships further widened and so did the configuration of taste networks, this time to include marine regulators, a quota on Bluefin, a Spanish company, and tuna ranches in Malta. The mattanza again was at the centre of change and became a point of contention within the community. This time because as a practice it is endangered, occurring only once or twice a year, “for the sake of tradition, culture” as Giuliano stated. The harvest now takes place in ranches in Malta because for the last three years the Greco family have supplied the tonnara’s entire quota (excluding tuna from mattanza or those that die in the net) to a major Spanish seafood company Riccardo Fuentes e Hijos, which transports them live to Malta where they are fattened and slaughtered, predominantly for a Japanese market. The majority of tuna now leave the island whole, which has profoundly transformed the distribution networks and local taste culture, and mainly the production and trade in tuna organs and canned tuna. In 2012, ICCAT and the European Union further tightened the quotas, which along with competition with industrial fisheries for both quota and markets, has placed enormous pressure on the tonnara. In 2013, it was allocated a quota that was well under what is financially sustainable. Add to the mix the additional expense of financing the obligatory scientific observers, and the tonnara has had to modify its operations. In the last few years there has been a growing antagonism between marine regulations, global markets, and traditional practices. This is exemplified in the limitations to the tuna organ tradition. It is now more common to find dried tuna organs in vacuum packs from Sicily rather than local products. As the restaurateur Secondo Borghero of Tonno della Corsa says “the tonnara made a choice to sell the live tuna to the Spanish. It’s a big problem. The tuna is not just the flesh but also the interior—the stomach, the heart, the eggs—and now we don’t have the quantity of these and the quality around is also not great.” In addition, even though preserved organs are available for consumption, local preserving activities have almost ceased along with supplementary income. The social structures and the types of actors that are a part of the tonnara have also changed. New kinds of relationships, bodies, and knowledge are situated side by side because of the mandate that there be scientific observers present at certain moments in the season. In addition, there are coast guards and, at various stages of the season, university staff contracted by ICCAT take samples and tag the tuna to generate data. The changes have also introduced new types of knowledge, activities, and institutional affiliations based on scientific ideas and discourses of marine biology, conservation, and sustainability. These are applied through marine management activities and regimes like quotas and administered through state and global institutions. This is not to say that the knowledge informing the Rais’s decisions has been done away with but as Gisli Palsson has previously argued, there is a new knowledge hierarchy, which places a significant focus on the notion of expert knowledge. This has the potential to create unequal power dynamics between the marine scientists and the fishers. Today in San Pietro tuna tastes are diverse. Tuna is delicate, smooth, and rich ventresca, raw tartare clean on the palate, novel at the Girotono, hearty tuna al forno, and salty dry bottarga. Tasting tuna in San Pietro offers a material and affective starting point to follow the socio-cultural, political, and ecological contours and contentions that are part of tuna traditions and their transformations. By thinking of gustatory and aesthetic tastes as part of wider taste networks, which involve human and non-human entities, we can begin to unpack and detail better what these changes encompass and figure forms and moments of power and agency. At the centre of tastes and transformation in San Pietro are the tonnara and the mattanza. Although in its long existence the tonnara has endured many changes, those in the past 15 years are unprecedented. Several major global events have provided conditions for change and widened the network from its once mainly local setting to its current global span. First, Japanese and global tastes set a demand for tuna and introduced different tuna production and preparation techniques and new styles of serving tuna raw or lightly cooked tuna. Later, the decline of Bluefin stocks and the increasing involvement of European and international monitoring bodies introduced catch limitations along with new processes and types of knowledge and authorities. Coinciding with this was the development of relationships with middle companies, which again introduced new techniques and technologies, namely the gabbie (cage) and ranches, to the taste network. In the cultural setting of Italy where the conservation of tradition is of particular importance, as I have explained earlier through the notion of provenance, the management of a highly regulated endangered marine species is a complex project that causes much conflict. Because of the dire state of the stocks and continual rise in global demand, solutions are complex. Yet it would seem useful to recognise that tuna tastes are situated within a network of knowledge, know-how, technology, and practices that are not simple modes of production and consumption but also ways of stewarding the sea and its species. Ethics Approval Original names have been used when participants gave consent on the official consent form to being identified in publications relating to the study. This is in accordance with ethics approval granted through the University of Sydney on 21 March 2013. Project number 2012/2825. References Barclay, Kate, and Koh Sun-Hui “Neo-liberal Reforms in Japan’s Tuna Fisheries? A History of Government-business Relations in a Food-producing Sector.” Japan Forum 20.2 (2008): 139–170. Bestor, Theadore “Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World.” Foreign Policy 121 (2000): 54–63. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Harvard UP, 1984. Callon, Michael “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay” Power, Action, Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? Ed. John Law. London: Routledge, 1986. 196–223. Emery, Katherine “Tonnare in Italy: Science, History and Culture of Sardinian Tuna Fishing.” Californian Italian Studies 1 (2010): 1–40. Hennion, Antoine “Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology” Cultural Sociology 1 (2007): 97–114. Longo, Stefano “Global Sushi: A Socio-Ecological Analysis of The Sicilian Bluefin Tuna Fishery.” Dissertation. Oregon: University of Oregon, 2009. Morgan, Kevin, Marsden, Terry, and Johathan Murdoch. Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and provenance in the Food Chain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Palsson, Gisli. Coastal Economies, Cultural Accounts: Human Ecology and Icelandic Discourse. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1991. Probyn, Elspeth “In the Interests of Taste & Place: Economies of Attachment.” The Global Intimate. Eds. G. Pratt and V. Rosner. New York: Columbia UP (2012). Zukin, Sharon “The Social Production of Urban Cultural Heritage: Identity and Ecosystem on an Amsterdam Shopping Street.” City, Culture and Society 3 (2012): 281–291.

The story of Barbie is a tapestry woven with threads of cultural significance, societal shifts, and corporate narratives. It’s a tale that encapsulates the evolution of American post-war capitalism, mirroring the changing tides of social norms, aspirations, and identities. Barbie’s journey from Germany to Los Angeles, along the way becoming a global icon, is a testament to the power of Ruth Handler’s vision and Barbie’s marketing. Barbie embodies and reflects the rise of mass consumption and the early days of television advertising, where one doll could become a household name and shape the dreams of children worldwide. The controversies and criticisms surrounding Barbie – from promoting a ‘thin ideal’ to perpetuating gender and racial stereotypes – highlight the complexities of representation in popular culture. Yet, Barbie’s enduring message, “You can be anything”, continues to inspire and empower, even as it evolves to embrace a more inclusive and diverse portrayals of power, beauty, and potential. Barbie’s story is not just about a doll; it’s about the aspirations she represents, the societal changes she’s witnessed, and the ongoing conversation about her impact on gender roles, body image, and consumer culture. It’s a narrative that continues to unfold, as Barbie adapts to the times and remains a symbol of possibility. Barbie: A Popular Culture Icon “It is impossible to conceive of the toy industry as being anything other than dependent on a popular culture which shapes and structures the meanings carried by toys” (Fleming 40). The relationship between toys and popular culture is symbiotic. While popular culture influences the creation of toys, toys also contribute to the spread and longevity of cultural icons and narratives. Today, one of the most influential, popular, and contested toys of the twentieth century is Mattel’s Barbie doll. Her launch at the New York Toy Fair on 9 March 1959 by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler was a game-changer in the toy industry. Her adult appearance, symbolised by her fashionable swimsuit and ponytail, was a bold move by Mattel. Despite the doubts from the toy industry which thought nobody would want to play with a doll that had breasts (Tamkin) and Mattel’s skepticism of its commercial success (Westenhouser 14), Barbie was a success, selling over 350,000 units in her first year, and she quickly became an iconic figure, paving the way for other male and female adult dolls. For the first time in mid-century America, Barbie meant children could play with a doll that looked like a woman, not a little girl or a baby. In a 1965 interview, Ruth Handler argued that American girls needed a doll with a “teen-age figure and a lot of glorious, imaginative, high-fashion clothes” (cited in Giacomin and Lubinski 3). In a 1993 interview, Handler said it was “important that Barbie allowed play situations that little girls could project themselves into … to imagine, pretend and to fantasize”. Hence Ruth Handler’s Barbie could be an “avatar for girls to project their dreams onto” (Southwell). Barbie hit the market with a “sassy ponytail, heavy eyeliner, a healthy dose of side-eye and a distinctly adult body” (Blackmore). Her arched eyebrows were matched with a coy sideways glance reflecting her sexual origins (Thong). Mattel did not reveal that Ruth Handler’s Barbie was inspired by a German novelty men’s toy, Bild Lilli, which Handler had purchased on a European holiday in 1955. Mattel fought several lawsuits and eventually secured the rights to Bild Lilli in 1964, which required the German maker of the Bild Lilli doll to not make her again. Barbie dolls, both blonde and brunette, changed little until 1967, when Mattel launch the ‘new’ Barbie doll which is the foundation for today’s Stereotypical Barbie. The same size as the original, thanks to Mattel engineer Jack Ryan she could twist and turn at the waist. Her facial features were softened, she had ‘real’ eyelashes’ and took on an ‘outdoor look’. The new 1967 version of Barbie originally retailed for US$3.00. Mattel, assuming consumers may not want to buy a new Barbie when they already had one, offered buyers the new Barbie at US$1.50 if they traded in their old 1950s Barbie. The television advertising campaign for the new Barbie featured Maureen McMormick (who would go on to play Marcia Brady in the TV series The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974). The original #1 Barbie today sells for over US$25,000 (Reinhard). The most expensive Barbie sold to date was a Stefano Canturi-designed Barbie that sold in 2010 for US$302,500 at Christies in New York (Clarendon). Barbie has been described as “the most successful doll in history”, “the most popular toy in history”, the “empress of fashion dolls” (Rogers 86), the “most famous doll in the world” (Ferorelli), the biggest-selling fashion doll in history (Green and Gellene), and is one if the world’s “most commercially successful toys” (Fleming 41). Barbie is both “idealistic and materialistic” and characterises an “American fantasy” (Tamkin). More so, she is a popular culture icon and “a unique indicator of women’s history” (Vander Bent). The inclusion of Barbie in America’s twentieth-century Time Capsule “cemented her status as a true American icon” (Ford), as did Andy Warhol when he iconised Barbie in his 1968 painting of her (Moore). During the 1950s and 1960s, Barbie’s name was licenced to over 100 companies; while a strategic move that expanded Barbie’s brand presence, it also provided Mattel with substantial royalty payments for decades. This approach helped solidify Barbie’s status as a cultural icon and enabled her to become a lucrative asset for Mattel (Rogers). Sixty-five years later, Barbie has 99% global brand awareness. In 2021, Mattel shipped more than 86 million Barbies globally, manufacturing 164 Barbies a minute (Tomkins). In 2022, Barbie generated gross sales of US$1.49 billion (Statista 2023). With this fiscal longevity and brand recognition, the success of the Barbie film is not surprising. The 2023 film, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Australian Margot Robbie as Barbie and Canadian Ryan Gosling as Ken, as of March 2024 has a global box office revenue of US$1.45 billion, making it the 14th most successful movie of all time and the most successful movie directed by a woman (Statista 2024). Contested Barbie Despite her popularity, Barbie has been the subject of controversy. Original Barbie’s proportions have been criticised for promoting an unrealistic body image (Thong). Barbie’s appearance has received numerous critiques for “representing an unrealistic beauty standard through its former limited skin tone and hair combination” (Lopez). The original Barbie’s measurements, if scaled to life-size, would mean Barbie is unusually tall and has a slim figure, with a height of 5 feet 9 inches, a waist of just 18 inches, and hips of approximately 33 inches. Her bust would measure around 32 inches with an under-bust of 22 inches, and her shoulder width would be approximately 28 inches. Original Barbie’s legs, which are proportionally longer than an average human’s, would make up more than half her height (Thong). A 1996 Australian study scaled Barbie and Ken to adult sizes and compared this with the physical proportions of a range of women and men. They found that the likelihood of finding a man of comparable shape to Ken was 1 in 50. Barbie was more problematic. The chance of a woman being the same proportion as Barbie was 1 in 100,000 (Norton et al. 287). In 2011, The Huffington Post’s Galia Slayen built a life-sized Barbie based on Barbie’s body measurements for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Slayen concluded that “if Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions”. One report found that if Barbie’s measurements were those of a real woman her “bones would be so frail, it would be impossible for her to walk, and she would only have half a liver” (Golgowski). A 2006 study found that Barbie is a “possible cause” for young girls’ “body dissatisfaction”. In this study, 162 girls from age 5 to 8 were exposed to images of a thin doll (Barbie), a plus-size doll (US doll Emme, size 16), or no doll, and then completed assessments of body image. Girls exposed to Barbie reported “lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than girls in the other exposure conditions”. The study concluded that “early exposure to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling” (Dittman and Halliwell 283). Another study in 2016 found that “exposure to Barbie” led to “higher thin-ideal internalization”, but found that Barbie had no “impact on body esteem or body dissatisfaction” (Rice et al. 142). In response to such criticism, Mattel slowly introduced a variety of Barbie dolls with more diverse body types, including tall, petite, and curvy models (Tamkin). These changes aim to reflect a broader range of beauty standards and promote a more positive body image. Barbie has always had to accommodate social norms. For this reason, Barbie always must have underpants, and has no nipples. One of the reasons why Ruth Handler’s husband Elliott (also a co-founder of Mattel) was initially against producing the Barbie doll was that she had breasts, reportedly saying mothers would not buy their daughters a doll with breasts (Gerber). Margot Robbie, on playing Barbie, told one news outlet that while Barbie is “sexualized”, she “should never be sexy” (Aguirre). Early prototypes of Barbie made in Japan in the 1950s sexualised her body, leaving her to look like a prostitute. In response, Mattel hired film make-up artist Bud Westmore to redo Barbie’s face and hair with a softer look. Mattel also removed the nipples from the prototypes (Gerber). Barbie’s body and fashion have always seemed to “replicate history and show what was what was happening at the time” (Mowbray), and they also reflect how the female body is continually surveilled. Feminists have had a long history of criticism of Barbie, particularly her projection of the thin ideal. At the 1970 New York Women’s Strike for Equality, feminists shouted “I am not a Barbie doll!” Such debates exemplify the role and impact of toys in shaping and reforming societal norms and expectations. Even the more recent debates regarding the 2023 Barbie film show that Barbie is still a “lightning rod for the messy, knotty contradictions of feminism, sexism, misogyny and body image” (Chappet). Decades of criticism about Barbie, her meaning and influence, have left some to ask “Is Barbie a feminist icon, or a doll which props up the patriarchy?” Of course, she’s both, because “like all real women, Barbie has always been expected to conform to impossible standards” (Chappet). Diversifying Barbie Over the decades Mattel has slowly changed Barbie’s body, including early versions of a black Barbie-like dolls in the 1960s and 1970s such as Francie, Christie, Julia, and Cara. However, it was not until 1980 that Mattel introduced the first black Barbie. African American fashion designer Kitty Black-Perkins, who worked for Mattel from 1971, was the principal designer for black Barbie, saying that “there was a need for the little Black girl to really have something she could play with that looked like her” (cited in Lafond). Black Barbie was marketed as She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite! The following year, Asian Barbie was introduced. She was criticised for her nondescript country of origin and dressed in an “outfit that was a mishmash of Chinese, Korean and Japanese ethnic costumes” (Wong). More recently, the Asian Barbies were again criticised for portraying stereotypes, with a recent Asian Barbie dressed as a veterinarian caring for pandas, and Asian violinist Barbie with accompanying violin props, reflecting typical stereotypes of Asians in the US (Wong). In 2016, Mattel introduced a range of Barbie and Ken dolls with seven body types, including more curvy body shapes, 11 skin tones and 28 hairstyles (Siazon). In 2019, other Barbie body types appeared, with smaller busts, less defined waist, and more defined arms. The 2019 range also included Barbies with permanent physical disabilities, one using a wheelchair and one with a prosthetic leg (Siazon). Wheelchair Barbie comes with a wheelchair, and her body has 22 joints for body movement while sitting in the wheelchair. The Prosthetic Barbie comes with a prosthetic leg which can be removed, and was made in collaboration with Jordan Reeve, a 13-year-old disability activist born without a left forearm. In 2020, a No Hair Barbie and a Barbie with the skin condition vitiligo were introduced, and in 2022, Hearing Aid Barbie was also launched. In 2022 other changes were made to Barbie’s and Ken’s bodies, with bodies that became fuller figured and Kens with smaller chests and less masculine body shapes (Dolan). Down Syndrome Barbie was released in 2023, designed in collaboration with the US National Down Syndrome Society to ensure accurate representation. By 2024, Barbie dolls come in 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles, and nine body types (Mattel 2024). Spanning hundreds of iterations, today the Barbie doll is no longer a homogenous, blond-haired, blue-eyed toy, but rather an evolving social phenomenon, adapting with the times and the markets Mattel expands into. With dolls of numerous ethnicities and body types, Barbie has also embraced inclusivity, catering to the plethora of different consumers across the world (Green and Gellene 1989). Career Barbie While not dismissing Barbie’s problematic place in feminist, gender and racial critiques, Barbie has always been a social influencer. Her early years were marked by a variety of makeovers and modernisations, as have recent changes to Barbie’s body, reflecting the changing social norms of the times. Stereotypical Barbie had her first major makeover in 1961, with her ponytail swapped for a short ‘Bubble Bob’ hairstyle inspired by Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, reflecting women’s emerging social independence (Foreman). In the early 1970s, Barbie’s original demure face with averted eyes was replaced by a new one that “depicted confidence and a forward-facing gaze” (Vander Bent). Her “soft look” was a departure from the mature image of the original 1959 Barbie (Lafond). The ‘soft look’ on Malibu Barbie with her newly sculpted face featured an open smile for the first time, as well as sun-tanned, make-up free skin and sun-kissed blonde hair. The disappearance of Barbie’s coy, sideways glance and the introduction of forward-looking eyes was a development “welcomed by feminists” (Ford). Barbie’s early makeovers, along with her fashion and accessories, including her homes, cars, and pets, contributed to shaping her image as a fashionable and independent woman. Barbie’s various careers and roles have been used to promote ideas of female empowerment. From astronaut to presidential candidate, Barbie has broken barriers in traditionally male-dominated fields. However, the effectiveness of these efforts in promoting female empowerment is a topic of debate. The post-war period in America saw a significant shift in the pattern of living, with a move from urban areas to the suburbs. This was facilitated by a robust post-war economy, favourable government policies like the GI Bill, and increasing urbanisation. The GI Bill played a crucial role by providing low-interest home loans to veterans, making home ownership accessible to a large segment of the population. It was a significant transformation of the American lifestyle and shaped the country’s socio-economic landscape. It is in this context that Barbie’s first Dreamhouse was introduced in the early 1960s, with its mid-century modern décor, hi-fi stereo, and slim-line furniture. This was at a time when most American women could not get a mortgage. Barbie got her first car in 1962, a peach-colored Austin-Healey 3000 MKII convertible, followed short afterwards by a Porsche 911. She has also owned a pink Jaguar XJS, a pink Mustang, a red Ferrari, and a Corvette. Barbie’s car choices of luxurious convertibles spoke to Barbie’s social and economic success. In 1998, Barbie became a NASCAR driver and also signed up to race in a Ferrari in the Formula 1. Barbie’s ‘I Can Be Anything’ range from 2008 was designed to draw kids playing with the dolls toward ambitious careers; one of those careers was as a race car driver (Southwell). While Barbie’s first job as a baby-sitter was not as glamourous or well-paying as her most of her other over 250 careers, it does reflect the cultural landscape Barbie was living in in the 1960s. Babysitter Barbie (1963) featured Barbie wearing a long, pink-striped skirt with ‘babysitter’ emblasoned along the hem and thick-framed glasses. She came with a baby in a crib, a telephone, bottles of soda, and a book. The book was called How to Lose Weight and had only two words of advice, ‘Don’t Eat’. Even though there was a backlash to the extreme dieting advice, Mattel included the book in the 1965 Slumber Party Barbie. Barbie wore pink silk pajamas with a matching robe and came prepared for her sleepover with toiletries, a mirror, the controversial diet book, and a set of scales permanently set at 110 pounds (approx. 50kg), which caused further backlash (Ford). Barbie’s early careers were those either acceptable or accessible to women of the era, such as the Fashion Designer Barbie (1960), Flight Attendant Barbie (1961), and Nurse Barbie (1962). However, in 1965 Barbie went into space, two years after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and four years before the American moon landing. Barbie’s career stagnated in the 1970s, and she spends the decade being sports Barbie, perhaps as a response to her unpopularity among vocal second wave feminists and reflecting the economic downturn of the era. America’s shift to the right in the 1980s saw in the introduction of the Yuppie, the young urban professional who lived in the city, had a high-powered career, and was consumption-driven. More women were entering the workforce than ever before. Barbie also entered the workforce, spending less time doing the passive leisure of her earlier self (Ford). It also signals the beginning of neoliberalism in America, and a shift to individualism and the rise of the free market ethos. In 1985, Day-to-Night Barbie was sold as the first CEO Barbie who “could go from running the boardroom in her pink power suit to a fun night out on the town”. For Mattel she “celebrated the workplace evolution of the era and showed girls they could have it all”. But despite Barbie’s early careers, the focus was on her "emphasized femininity”, meaning that while she was now a career woman, her appearance and demeanor did not reflect her job. Astronaut Barbie (1985) is a good example of Barbie’s ‘emphasised femininity’ in how career Barbies were designed and dressed. Astronaut Barbie is clearly reflecting the fashion and culture trends of the 1980s by going into space in a “shiny, hot pink spacesuit”, comes with a second space outfit, a shiny “peplum miniskirt worn over silver leggings and knee-high pink boots” (Bertschi), and her hair is too big to fit into the helmet. A dark-skinned US Astronaut Barbie was released in 1994, which coincided with the start of the Shuttle-Mir Program, a collaboration between the US and Russia which between 1994 and 1998 would see seven American astronauts spend almost 1,000 days living in orbit with Russian cosmonauts on the Mir space station. Throughout the 1990s, Barbie increasingly takes on careers more typically considered to be male careers. But again, her femininity in design, dressing and packaging takes precedence over her career. Police Officer Barbie (1993), for example, has no gun or handcuffs. Instead, she comes with a "glittery evening dress" to wear to the awards dance where she will get the "Best Police Officer Award for her courageous acts in the community”. Police Office Barbie is pictured on the box "lov[ing] to teach safety tips to children". Barbie thus “feminizes, even maternalises, law enforcement” (Rogers 14). In 1992, Teen Talk Barbie was released. She had a voice box programmed to speak four distinct phrases out of a possible 270. She sold for US$25, and Mattel produced 350,000, expecting its popularity. The phrases included ‘I Love Shopping’ and ‘Math class is tough’. The phrase ‘Math class is tough’ was seen by many as reinforcing harmful stereotypes about girls and math. The National Council of American Teachers of Maths objected, as did the American Association of University Women (NYT 1992). In response to criticisms of the gendered representations of Barbie’s careers, Mattel have more recently featured Barbie in science and technology fields including Paleontologist Barbie (1996 and 2012), Computer Engineer Barbie (2010), Robotics Engineer Barbie (2018), Astrophysicist Barbie (2019), Wildlife Conservationist Barbie, Entomologist Barbie (2019), and Polar Marine Biologist Barbie (all in collaboration with National Geographic), Robotics Engineer Barbie (2018), Zoologist Barbie (2021), and Renewable Energy Barbie (2022), which go some way to providing representations that at least encompass the ideal that ‘Girls Can Do Anything’. Barbie over her lifetime has also taken on swimming, track and field, and has been a gymnast. Barbie was an Olympic gold medallist in the 1970s, with Mattel releasing four Barbie Olympians between 1975 and 1976, arguably cashing in on the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Gold Medal Barbie Doll Skier was dressed in a red, white, and blue ski suit completed with her gold medal. Gold Medal Barbie Doll is an Olympic swimmer wearing a red, white, and blue tricot swimsuit, and again wears an Olympic gold medal around her neck. The doll was also produced as a Canadian Olympian wearing a red and white swimsuit. Gold Medal Barbie Skater looks like Barbie Malibu and is dressed in a long-sleeved, pleated dress in red, white, and blue. The outfit included white ice skates and her gold medal. Mattel also made a Gold Medal P.J. Gymnast Doll who vaulted and somersaulted in a leotard of red, white, and blue tricot. She had a warm-up jacket with white sleeves, red cuffs, white slippers, and a gold medal. Mattel, as part of a licencing agreement with the International Olympic Committee, produced a range of toys for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The collection of five Barbies represented the new sports added to the 2020 Olympics: baseball and softball, sport climbing, karate, skateboarding, and surfing. Each Barbie was dressed in a sport-specific uniform and had a gold medal. Barbie Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Surfer, for example, was dressed in a pink wetsuit top, with an orange surfboard and a Tokyo 2020 jacket. For the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Mattel released a new collection of Barbie dolls featuring among others a para-skiing Barbie who sits on adaptive skis and comes with a championship medal (Douglas). As part of Mattel’s 2023 Barbie Career of the Year doll, the Women in Sports Barbie range shows Barbie in leadership roles in the sports industry, as manager, coach, referee, and sport reporter. General Manager Barbie wears a blue-and-white pinstripe suit accessorised with her staff pass and a smartphone. Coach Barbie has a pink megaphone, playbook, and wears a two-piece pink jacket and athletic shorts. Referee Barbie wears a headset and has a whistle. Sports Reporter Barbie wears a purple, geometric-patterned dress and carries a pink tablet and microphone (Jones). Political Barbie Barbie has run for president in every election year since 1992. The first President Barbie came with an American-themed dress for an inaugural ball and a red suit for her duties in the Oval Office. In 2016, Barbie released an all-female presidential ticket campaign set with a president and vice-president doll. The 2000 President Barbie doll wore a blue pantsuit and featured a short bob cut, red lipstick pearl necklace, and a red gown to change into, “presumably for President Barbie’s inaugural ball” (Lafond). This followed the introduction of UNICEF Ambassador Barbie in 1989. She is packaged as a member of the United States Committee for UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), which is mandated to provide humanitarian and development aid to children worldwide. Rather problematically, and again with a focus on her femininity rather than the importance of the organisation she represents, she wears a glittery white and blue full length ball gown with star patterning and a red sash. While some proceeds did go to the US Committee for UNICEF, the dressing and packaging featuring an American flag overshadows the career and its philanthropic message. The period signalled the end of the Cold War and was also the year the United States invaded Panama, resulting in a humanitarian disaster when US military forces attacked urban areas in order to overthrow the Noriega administration. Military Barbie Barbie has served in every US military branch (Sicard). Barbie joined the US army in 1989, wearing a female officer’s evening uniform, though with no sense of what she did. While it may be thought Barbie would increase female in interest in a military career, at the time more women were already enlisting that in any other period from the early 1970s to 2012 (Stillwell). Barbie rejoined the army for the 1990-1991 Gulf War, wearing a Desert Combat Uniform and the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagle" patch, and serving as a medic. Barbie also joined the Air Force in 1990, three years before Jeannie Leavitt became the first female Air Force fighter pilot. Barbie wore a green flight suit and leather jacket, and gold-trimmed flight cap. She was a fighter pilot and in 1994, she joined the USAF aerial demonstration team, The Thunderbirds. Busy in the 1990s, she also enlisted in the US Navy wearing women's Navy whites. Marine Corps Barbie appeared in 1992, wearing service and conduct medals (Stillwell). All of Barbie’s uniforms were approved by the Pentagon (Military Women’s Memorial). The 2000 Paratrooper Barbie Special Edition was released with the packaging declaring “let’s make a support drop with first aid and food boxes”. She was dressed in undefined military attire which includes a helmet, dog tags, parachute, boots, and hairbrush. Barbie’s Influence In 2014, Barbie became a social media influencer with the launch of the @barbiestyle Instagram account, and in 2015, Barbie launched a vlog on YouTube to talk directly to girls about issues they face. The animated series features Barbie discussing a range of topics including depression, bullying, the health benefits of meditation, and how girls have a habit of apologising when they don’t have anything to be sorry about. The Official @Barbie YouTube channel has over eleven million global subscribers and 23 billion minutes of content watched, making Barbie the #1 girls’ brand on YouTube. Barbie apps average more than 7 million monthly active users and the Instagram count boasts over 2 million followers. The 2023 Barbie film really does attest to Barbie’s influence 70 years after her debut. Barbie, as this article has shown, is more than an influencer and more than a doll, if she ever really was only a doll. She is a popular culture icon, regardless of whether we love her or not. Barbie has sometimes been ahead of the game, and sometimes has been problematically represented, but she has always been influential. Her body, race, ability, careers, independence, and political aspirations have spoken different things to those who play with her. She is fiercely defended, strongly criticised, and shirks from neither. She is also liberating, empowering, straight, and queer. As the articles in this issue reflect, Barbie, it seems, really can be anything. Imagining and Interrogating Barbie in Popular Culture The feature article in this issue outlines how Australian Barbie fans in the 1960s expressed their creativity through the designing and making of their own wardrobes for the doll. Through examining articles from the Australian Women’s Weekly, Donna Lee Brien reveals this rich cultural engagement that was partly driven by thrift, and mostly by enjoyment. Eva Boesenberg examines the social and environmental effects of a plastic doll that is positioned as an ecological ambassador. While there is no doubt that climate change is one of our most pressing social issues, Boesenberg questions the motivations behind Barbie’s eco-crusade: is she an apt role-model to teach children the importance of environmental issues, or is this just a case of corporate greenwashing? Emma Caroll Hudson shifts the focus to entertainment, with an exploration of the marketing of the 2023 blockbuster film Barbie. Here she argues that the marketing campaign was highly successful, utilising a multi-faceted approach centred on fan participation. She highlights key components of the campaign to reveal valuable insights into how marketing can foster a cultural phenomenon. Revna Altiok’s article zooms in on the depiction of Ken in the 2023 film, revealing his characterisation to be that of a ‘manic pixie dream boy’ whose lack of identity propels him on a journey to self-discovery. This positioning, argues Altiok, pulls into focus social questions around gender dynamics and how progress can be truly achieved. Rachel Wang turns the spotlight to Asian identity within the Barbie world, revealing how from early iterations a vague ‘Oriental’ Barbie was accompanied by cultural stereotyping. Despite later, more nuanced interpretations of country-specific Asian dolls, problematic features remained embedded. This, Wang argues, positions Asian Barbies as the racial ‘other’. Kaela Joseph, Tanya Cook, and Alena Karkanias’s article examines how the 2023 Barbie film reflects different forms of fandom. Firstly, Joseph interrogates how the Kens’ patriarchal identity is expressed through acts of collective affirmational fandom. Here, individual fans legitimise their positions within the group by mastering and demonstrating their knowledge of popular culture phenomena. Joseph contrasts this with transformational fandom, which is based upon reimagining the source material to create new forms. The transformation of the titular character of the Barbie movie forms the basis of Eli S’s analysis. S examines how the metaphor of ‘unboxing’ the doll provides an avenue through which to understand Barbie’s metamorphosis from constrained doll to aware human as she journeys from the pink plastic Barbie Land to the Real World. Anna Temel turns her critical gaze to how the 2023 film attempts to reposition Barbie’s image away from gender stereotypes to a symbol of feminist empowerment. Director Greta Gerwig, Temel argues, critiques the ‘ideal woman’ and positions Barbie as a vehicle through which contemporary feminism and womanhood can be interrogated. Temel finds that this is not always successfully articulated in the depiction of Barbie in the film. The reading of the Barbie movie’s Barbie Land as an Asexual Utopia is the focus of Anna Maria Broussard’s article. Here Broussard draws the focus to the harmonious community of dolls who live without social expectations of sexuality. Barbie provides a popular culture reflection of the Asexual experience, expressed through Barbie’s rejection of a heteronormative relationship both in Barbie Land and the Real World. Completing this collection is Daisy McManaman’s article interrogating the multiple iterations of the doll’s embodied femininity. Incorporating an ethnographic study of the author’s relationship with the doll, McManaman uncovers that Barbie serves as a site of queer joy and a role model through which to enjoy and explore femininity and gender. These articles have been both intellectually stimulating to edit, and a joy. We hope you enjoy this collection that brings a new academic lens to the popular cultural phenomenon that is Barbie. References Aguirre, Abby. “Barbiemania! Margot Robbie Opens Up about the Movie Everyone’s Waiting For.” Vogue, 24 May 2023. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://www.vogue.com/article/margot-robbie-barbie-summer-cover-2023-interview>. Bertschi, Jenna. “Barbie: An Astronaut for the Ages.” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 18 Jul. 2023. 11 Mar. 2024 <https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/barbie-astronaut-ages>. Blackmore, Erin. “Barbie’s Secret Sister Was a German Novelty Doll.” History.com, 14 Jul. 2023. 11 mar. 2024 <https://www.history.com/news/barbie-inspiration-bild-lilli>. 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