Ethical labelling and the web

• Ellie Rennie, Antony Funnell
• The Media Report, ABC Radio National

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07 November 2008You've heard of 'fair trade' coffee. Well what about 'fair trade' media. Is it possible to develop a labelling system that would give people confidence in the ethical values of the sites they view?

Ellie Rennie, Research Fellow at CCI and Swinburne University's Institute for Social Research says, "In the new media environment there are lots of websites, which allow us to participate and provide access and allow communities to publish their content on them. But we don't actually know easily what kind of organisations they may be. For instance, You Tube is a privately-owned company and My Space is owned by Newscorp. At the same time, there are a number of organisations out there which are grassroots community-based organisations, and they are dedicated to ensuring that when we go to their site, our privacy will not be infringed, that the source code will remain open, that we will have a chance perhaps even to participate in the governance of that organisataion. So it's kind of getting behind that fa?ade of participation and access, and thinking, Well, what kind of media environment do I want to be participating in? And how can I find it?"