Sick Pits and Filthy Barrels: Riding the Ideological Wave of Australia's Contemporary Surfing Print Media.

Paul Scott, Department of Communication and Media Arts, The University of Newcastle

Paul.Scott@newcastle.edu.au

1993 research found that 11% of Australians regularly participated in some type of surfcraft riding. This degree of participation has fueled the Australian surf media sector's growth and subsequent diversification and fragmentation into niche market publications. The 1998 Hunter Region Surfing Industry Feasibility Study estimated that "when combined, the surfing publications turnover is in excess of $6 million". The same study estimated that the number of readers per issue ranged from 120 000 for Waves through to 280 000 for Riptide. Older magazines like Tracks and Australia's Surfing World have had their market dominance eroded by publications such as Underground Surf and Australia's Surfing Life.

These competitive publications target the interests of those who utilise some of their leisure time riding surfcraft in the ocean alongside those who seek an identity nexus with surfing through clothing, accessories and other consumer commodities. Despite diverse publications such as Surf Chick and Longboard Magazine Australia targeting different sectors of the surfcraft riding market, this paper will posit that they largely assume an ideologically cohesive readership and promote an identifiable worldview intrinsically linked to brand consumption. The paper will achieve this by analysing the fragmentation of the Australian surfing print media and the identities and ideologies promoted in targeting the different audience niches that have become an operational feature of market segmentation prevalent in advanced capitalist society.