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Much debate in media and communication studies is based on exaggerated opposition between the digital sublime and the digital abject: overly enthusiastic optimism versus determined pessimism over the potential of new technologies. This inhibits the discipline's claims to provide rigorous insight into industry and social change - which is, after all, continuous. Instead of having to decide one way or the other, we need to ask how we study the process of change. This article examines the impact of online distribution in the film industry, particularly addressing the question of rates of change. Are there genuinely new players disrupting the established oligopoly, and if so with what effect? Is there evidence of disruption to, and innovation in, business models? Has cultural change been forced on the incumbents? Outside mainstream Hollywood, where are the new opportunities and the new players? What is the situation in Australia? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A need has long been expressed for up-to-date information on householder plans for saving, both quantity and type. This article surveys the international work done on ascertaining householder intentions and then proposes a group of nine specific questions to be put to Australian households with the aim of developing a useful Index of Saving Intentions along with information on household asset allocation. Full development can only be accomplished ex post when results can be correlated over time with various savings measures. It is intended that the Index assist in forecasting household behaviour, the allocation of savings across assets and that it will permit more rapid evaluation of the effects of government policy changes in areas such as taxation and superannuation. Results from initial surveys are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]