Professor Terry Flew

Biography

Background Terry Flew is an international recognised leader in media and communications, with research interests in digital media, global media, media policy, creative industries, media economics, and the future of journalism. He is the author of Australia’s leading new media textbook, New Media: An Introduction, which has sold over 15,000 copies over four editions (2002, 2005, 2008, 2014). He is also the author of Understanding Global Media (Palgrave, 2018 - second edition), Media Economics (Palgrave, 2015), Global Creative Industries (Polity, 2013), Creative Industries, Culture and Policy (Sage, 2012), Key Concepts in Creative Industries (Sage, 2013). He has edited Willing Collaborators: Refashioning Content for the Chinese Media Market (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, with Michale Keane and Brian Yecies). Global Media and National Policies: The Return of the State (Palgrave, 2016, with Petros Iosifidis and Jeanette Steemers), and Creative Industries and Urban Development: Creative Cities in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2012).

 

His work has been published in leading international media, communications and cultural studies journals including Media, Culture and Society, Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism, Global Media and China, International Journal of Communication, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Television and New Media, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and International Journal of Cultural Studies. His work has been translated into Chinese, Arabic, Polish and Turkish.

 

In 2011-12 he was seconded from QUT to become a Commissioner with the Australian Law Reform Commission, chairing the National Classification Scheme Review, commissioned to lead this review by the Attorney-General of Australia. The Final Report, Classification – Content Regulation and Convergent Media (ALRC Report 118) was tabled in the Australian Federal parliament in March 2012.

 

He has also advised policy makers and policy communities in Australia and internationally, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), New America Foundation, Australian Communications and Media Authority, Media Development Authority of Singapore, Russian Association of Electronic Communication, Productivity Commission, Gilbert + Tobin, and the Special Minister of State of the Australian Federal government.

 

He is an internationally recognised leading scholar in media and communications, having undertaken keynote presentations to conferences and symposia in Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Jakarta, Bandung, Tokyo, Seoul, Washington, DC, Boulder, CO, Los Angeles, London, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tainan, and Auckland, as well as 18 Australian universities.   He is an Executive Board member of the International Communications Association (ICA), and has been Chair of the Global Communications and Social Change Division from 2015-17. He previously served as member-at-large representing Oceania and Africa from 2012-14. In 2014, he hosted a major ICA Regional Conference held at QUT in Brisbane.

 

He has been engaged with research projects that have received $7.3 million in funding. He is currently, or has recently been, a Chief Investigator on the following projects:

• The Platform Governance Project: Rethinking Internet Regulation as Media Policy, ARC Discovery with Assoc. Prof. Nicolas Suzor (QUT), Dr. Fiona Martin (Sydney) and Assoc. Prof. Tim Dwyer (Sydney).
• Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis, ARC Linkage with researchers from QUT and the University of Newcastle, and with industry partners including Arts Queensland, Creative Victoria, Arts NSW, Arts South Australia and Department of Culture and the Arts, WA.
• Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia: Public and Producer Perceptions of the Political Public Sphere, ARC Discovery with Professor Brian McNair (QUT) and Dr. Stephen Harrington (QUT).
• Willing Collaborators: Negotiating Change in East Asian Media Production, with Professor Michael Keane (Curtin), Dr. Brian Yecies (Wollongong), Professor Anthony Fung (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Professor Michael Curtin (University of California Santa Barbara).

He has been actively involved in three major collaborative projects that have been among the first of their kind in the arts and humanities in Australia: the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, the ARC Cultural Research Network, and the Smart Services Co-operative Research Centre.

 

He has been First Chief Investigator on: Investigating Innovative Applications of Digital Media for Participatory Journalism and Citizen Engagement in Australian Public Communication: ARC Linkage 2006-2009, with the Special Broadcasting Service, Cisco Systems and On Line Opinion. The project web site you decide 2007, developed for the 2007 Australian Federal election, was identified by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy as an exemplar of community engagement in the digital economy. Creative Suburbia: A Critical Evaluation of the Scope for Creative Cultural Development in Australia’s Suburban and Peri-Urban Communities: ARC Discovery 2008-2010. Outputs from this project included special issues of the journals International Journal of Cultural Studies, The Information Society and M/C.

 

He has been Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), and was a member of the Smart Services Co-operative Research Centre, and the Cultural Research Network during 2005-2009. He has also been a Chief Investigator on an ARC Linkage grant with Kids Help Line to develop interactive web-based counselling for young people, and an ARC Discovery grant on creative industries in China post-WTO accession.   He was also  a co-author of two Evaluations and Investigations Program reports for the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, New Media and Borderless Education (1997) and The Business of Borderless Education (2000).

 

Professor Flew has supervised 21 PhD theses and five research Masters theses to completion, and have supervised students from China, Taiwan, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait and Singapore.   He has also supervised students in collaborative projects with industry partners including the Special Broadcasting Service. He currently supervises PhD theses on: social media and political campaigning in Indonesia; media reporting of China's Belt & Road Initiative in Australia and Russia; and a comparative analysis of Brisbane and Shenzhen as creative industries hotspots.  He has assessed 18 PhD theses, from universities in Australia, Jamaica and Pakistan.