'This special issue addresses notions of fakery in our contemporary media environment, from fake news to the deepfake. While all media contains elements of creative fabrication, we define ‘media fakery’ as an attempt to conceal the origins of information that must contain a degree of human intentionality to be considered ‘fake’. Fakery is no longer limited to news media or any particular mode of communication; as tools for manipulating digital content are more readily available to all, the reach of fakery in media is increasingly broad. The essays in the special issue address varying definitions of ‘fakery’ in different forms of media production and consumption. They interrogate both the authentic and the fake and expand dichotomous understandings of media fakery as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.' (Wyatt Moss-Wellington, Celia Lam, Filippo Gilardi : Introduction : Media and Fakery introduction)
'On 25 September 2020, the ABC released a documentary film to mark the twentieth anniversary of Cathy Freeman’s gold medal victory in the women’s 400 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Media interest in Freeman’s victory still erupts periodically, most recently, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary. This article revisits Cathy Freeman’s historic gold-medal-winning performance in order to ponder the lost promise of reconciliation. At the time, and still today, Freeman’s victory is overwhelmingly celebrated as more than just an athletic feat; it is also lauded as a victory for reconciliation. Rather than trying to determine the extent to which Freeman’s race did bolster reconciliation, or even whether it contributed to reconciliation at all, this article instead analyses the metaphors, rhetoric and images through which Freeman’s victory was represented as an act of reconciliation, and what this tells us about how reconciliation plays out in the Australian context. In particular, it argues that the complex ways in which Freeman’s victory were represented, and continue to be understood, reveal a widespread desire to be free from the burdens of history by projecting the work of reconciliation onto Freeman herself.' (Publication abstract)
