I haven't read this properly yet, however I thought I'd draw your attention to the collaborative effort on Twitter to write an opera libretto. http://twitter.com/youropera although it's easy to understand here: http://royaloperahouse.wordpress.com/
To answer your question about 'what Twitter is' - it seems to be a very clever marketing tool for some; a spammers paradise; or for the not so savvy another means of boring updates. Think it has far more interesting possibilities than FaceBook as it's easy to follow organizations, journals, music companies etc etc on what they are doing.

The solution is to turn off the internet and read your book. We're a transitional generation discovering all these marvelous ways to read but already I see my Gen Zs (u 16s) picking up their books after deliberately turning off their computers. The book is part of the ritual of bedtime or quiet-time. Maybe we have lost our rituals or changed them to our detriment. To reply to Sophiec, we probably do multitasking and expect quick responses to all our tangential thoughts. Perhaps we have look at the instrinsically addictive aspect of new technologies and just say 'no'

Complex questions require thoughtful debate. First of all, reviewing means different things in different contexts. A blog may be an expressive, creative, informative response to a book. Academic criticism is probably going to remain in Journals that give academics/writers credence for their efforts including specialized publications like The London Review of Books.
That said, some newspapers do no more than some blogs and that is, offer not much more than a marketing appraisal - a good read, or a not so worthy read. Reviewing is a middle of the road approach to reaching the general public, to hopefully inspire some intelligent debate or thoughts that ultimately help the sale of books. Some previewing masquerades as reviewing, which is not helpful for debate but it is helpful for marketing.
Literary criticism generally, is found lurking nowhere near the sports pages and attempts an insightful, academic look at a book. With The Australian, I have noticed a decided rise in postmodern framework as the rationale in criticism. Sometimes, this is cloying because there can be biases that just overlook the basic aspects of book as entertainment, book as Art, but book as justifier of current fashions in postmodernism. I’m in the same position with a book review for an academic journal now – I feel like I’m checking off, Queer Theory (done), Post-Colonialism (done), psycho-analytic theory (done – cursory from reading Wikipedia) etc., etc., To me this is truly dismal. It is as if the qualities of imagination cannot be freed from pre-conceived frameworks which were supposed to free the critic from subjective appraisal.
Returning to the self made blog, the main advantage of print form is the still incontrovertible fact that print, whether, preview marketing, review or criticism still holds the advantage of a misconceived sense of authority. The blog – no matter how genuinely more adventurous and thoughtful in the best of hands – is still viewed by many with great suspicion. Certainly this is my experience from tutoring older post-grad writers.
It’s a great subject to explore but I don’t think that there are any real answers as yet.

Yesterday's news but... One of the oddities of the program was the lack of a delay button - I had always assumed that live radio went to air with a seven second delay to stop such comments airing. The only place I've noticed a comment about this was is a New Ltd article by Marcus Casey ( I can't access the ABC material suggested by sophiec, so do forgive is similar is raised there). His explanation was provided by a former exec at the station who said it was the only live program that didn't use a 'dump' button due to a certain person's out-of-control ego - I'd call it celebrity narcissism that borders on sociopathic behaviour. With regard to the Cambodian incident, this is exploitation at its worst. Meanwhile, the presenters are paid obscene 7 figure salaries and bonuses: 'the entire culture of the station is extremely problematic' should probably be changed to 'the entire culture of greed...'. Would they do it for an average wage?

I seem to remember the rather benign Jon Faine copping some flack awhile back (forget the circumstances) - maybe Melbourne audiences, collectively, must be more intolerant of poor public manners.
What I find inexcusable, is the mother willingly subjecting her child to public humiliation. What sort of conscience do the producers and ultimately all complicit in such acts, have? I don't know how we teach civic responsibility and reciprocal rights when we let (tolerate) celebrity driven media create a culture of Colosseum sport out of the vulnerable.

Hours of fun! http://www.filmsite.org/afi100posters.html

Persists in films too. Mrs Henderson Presents with Dame Judi Dench. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm797808128/tt0413015
Also Stanley Kubrick declared that his nudes were not obscene (weird, maybe). In The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut nudes are often present tableau vivant - his little joke obviously.
As for posters, just probably a part of cinematic trope that has persisted.

Here's something about pickled chameleon - I thought it was like onions and wondered why on earth anyone would pickle them!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/17/formalde...

The Schlock of the Gnu (Robert Hughes)

Cephalopods Might Fly (Emily Rodda)

The [Mysterious Incident of the] Regurgitated Shoes of the Calamari Fisherman (Morris West)

I would have thought that before commencing a PhD with a title of ‘Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains’ you'd have to go through the University ethics criteria regarding interviewing people etc. before it was accepted. QUT should have accepted responisbility if the procedures were 'fuzzy' allowing it to go through.
On the last point about filming the disabled, it might go down to whether it's informed consent. I have a son who is Asperger's and is totally hilarious, he knows he's quirky, disorganized and he doesn't see himself as disabled - nor is he. I taunt him about the fact his room looks like Bernard Black's shop in Black Books - he thinks it's great. I also have a younger daughter who is passive Autistic and has an intellectual disability. She would never understand the idea of self-mockery and thus her dignity would be very much assailed by those knowing better. So what is endearing banter with my son, would be cruelty to her.
The question may not be about right and left politics but about what or why something is or is not ethical - that's philosophy.