Reviews
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded
Simon Winchester
Penguin Books, 2004, London
Reviewer: Mike Danaher
This international best-selling, and tirelessly researched, book is much more than a chronicle of the eruption on August 26-27 1883 of the volcano located between Java and Sumatra called Krakatoa, and its geological, biological, political and social aftermaths. Winchester explores the notion of this paroxysmal eruption as the world’s first major catastrophe to have taken place in the aftermath of the invention of the submarine telegraph. This event, along with subsequential tsunamis and over 36,000 people killed, was ‘instantly’ world news, and in 1883 it meant to many that the world might be coming to an end. It was also, in this sense, the day that the global village was born.
Winchester draws in a number of events that closely, or more remotely, relate to Krakatoa. He places this volcano in the context of Western colonialism by detailing the exploits of the Dutch colonisers in the vicinity of Krakatoa, both leading up to its cataclysmic 1883 explosion, and other lesser eruptions centuries before, thereby exploring the volcano’s identity within the colonial mind. Winchester makes a connection between Krakatoa and Alfred Wallace’s curious biogeographical findings that culminated in the 1863 Wallace Line, an imaginary line that separated two very distinct biological regions and which ran close to where Krakatoa exists. This stark division in types of fauna and flora was caused by plate tectonics/continental shift, which at the time of Wallace was hitherto undiscovered, but which later was revealed to scientists by events like the demise and rebirth of Krakatoa. In describing how the Krakatoa volcano was created, Winchester also explains earthquakes and the tsunamis.
Furthermore, Winchester postulates that the eruption of Krakatoa was interpreted and propagandised by Muslim evangelists as a sign of displeasure from Allah towards the Javanese for their subservience to the Dutch, and this had implications for future Muslim relations with the West. Winchester believes that this connection triggered a major transformation in orthodox Islam in Java - a wave of anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims. This is debatable, but Winchester also notes that these Muslims were becoming increasingly restless with their colonial Christian masters for many other reasons as well.
This book is lashed with weaving stories and digressions, most of which are scientifically and historically based, that explore the significance of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. It is an intriguing read to say the least, and the attention to historical detail is refreshing.
Remote Control: New Media, New Ethics
Catharine Lumby and Elspeth Probyn (eds)
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003
Reviewer: Geoff Danaher
This book considers the role of media ethics in a landscape in Australia characterised by new genres and new technologies. Rather than conceive of a code of ethics of media practice that appeals to universal values based around the right to privacy, the disclosure of vested interest, the importance of rationality and so forth, the contributors consider how emerging genres and technologies transform what we understand as the public sphere and its distinction from the private, on the one hand, and impact on the working lives and ethical decision-making of media practitioners, on the other. Accordingly, along with pieces by well known media studies academics such as Graeme Turner and John Hartley, the book features interviews with journalists and media personalities such as Maxine McKew and John Safran. And as many of the featured academics, including the editors, are themselves frequent columnists and commentators within the media, they have a working knowledge of the ethical challenges and dilemmas confronting practitioners in this environment.
Recognising that the relationship between the media and ethics is dynamic rather than fixed, and that the relationship between audiences and media products and technologies is interactive, the book seeks to engage the conversations and debates that enable parties to live with the disagreements they have concerning the connection between ethics and the public sphere. So while one side might see reality television as engaging a certain ethical training with which audiences might connect, and another regard the genre as abhorrent in its displays of narcissism and vulgarity, both positions acknowledge that this form of programming has had a significant impact on the way in which Australian television engages its audiences.
The book is useful in highlighting the ways in which emerging media technologies and genres transform the way in which audiences engage in practices such as sport, eating, sexuality and politics. The focus on electronic and popular media such as the Internet, television and radio, however, means that other media forms such as books, music, language and even natural media such as water and wind are ignored. Yet it is these other media and cultural experiences that provide a perspective for a range of ethical gestures towards the electronic and popular media, from indifference to resistance, to distaste, to limited engagement. For example, people who are attracted to gardening as an enduring activity that is attuned to evolution over time might have an ethical reaction to the ‘instant makeover’ approach to landscape adopted in programs like Backyard Blitz. Any consideration of media ethics cannot be limited to particular genre, audience and technological features; it has to account for wider contextual issues and socioeconomic forces and cultural transformations. That account is lacking in some of the chapters in Remote Control. That said, the book contributes in a lively manner to some significant recent and current debates about the role of the media in Australian culture.
