Discovery Project:
The Media and ASEAN Transitions: Defamation Law, Journalism and Public Debate in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore
2006-2009

This project will examine defamation law, journalism and public debate in three core ASEAN members: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. It will focus on a legal issue, defamation, which is central to the Australian and regional media’s potential for improving public and private sector governance, and promoting domestic and regional understanding. In the context of political, economic and social transitions, media content is diversifying in ASAEN countries and journalists and civil society groups appear to be challenging defamation law’s limits on speech. This project will combine legal research, media content analysis, and qualitative interviews to analyse how defamation risks are negotiated in print, broadcast and internet journalism in each of the three countries, and how local, Australian and international journalists and civil society organisations are mobilising a range of strategies to broaden media content and promote public debate. When risks of transnational defamation liability are increasing, it will assist the Australian media’s coverage of three pivotal countries in the region and substantially develop the academic understanding of defamation law’s effects on media content.

Chief Investigators: Andrew Kenyon, Tim Lindsey (Asian Law Centre), Tim Marjoribanks (Sociology Program, University of Melbourne), Amanda Whiting (Asian Law Centre).

Research Fellow: Naomita Royan