Rabelais Student Media is a student newspaper

Student newspaper

A student newspaper is a newspaper run by students of a university, high school, middle school, or other school. These papers traditionally cover local and, primarily, school or university news....

 at La Trobe University

La Trobe University

La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...

, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, named for French Renaissance writer François Rabelais

François Rabelais

François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...

.

From its founding in 1967, Rabelais Student Media has been run as a department of the La Trobe University Student Representative Council (now the La Trobe Student Union). The paper is funded by a combination of advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 revenue and a student levy

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

. Editors are elected annually and serve for a single year.

Rabelais has a notorious history in the Australian legal world. The July 1995 edition of the magazine published an article which allegedly incited readers to shoplift as a means of surviving student poverty. This edition was subsequently banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the editors of the magazine charged with publishing, distributing and depositing an objectionable publication. In this instance an objectional publication was defined as one that allegedly incited criminal activity. The editors lodged an appeal, which led to a protracted four-year court case. The appeal was eventually defeated by the full bench of the Federal Court, who refused the editors application to appeal to the High Court of Australia. The criminal charges were dropped in March 1999. On campus, the paper is known for casting a critical eye over the actions of the Union and the University at large.

After many different formats and regime changes over the years, Rabelais is published monthly during the school year (March to November) and has a circulation of approx 9,000. This year (2011) the publication has adopted a more informal magazine style, while still keeping the format of a newspaper. There is more content about music, movies, books, student life and fashion.

Editors of Rabelais

1967 - Michael Lawrence

1968 - Michael Lawrence

1969 - Rod Bishop and Keith Robertson

1970 - Grant Evans

1971 -

1972 -

1973 -

1974 -

1975 - Andrew Stein & Bruce Sims

1976 - Jo Williams (Calluy) & Lazlo Harmathy

1977 - Bill Bowman & Neil McCarthy

1978 -

1979 - Phillip Bain

1980 -

1981 -

1982 -

1983 -

1984 -

1985 -

1986 -

1987 -

1988 -

1989 -

1990 -

1991 -

1992 -

1993 - Beverley Jefferson, Sarah Lowe & Anita Langford

1994 -

1995 - Michael Brown, Melita Berndt, Ben Ross & Valentina Srpcanska

1996 -

1997 -

1998 - Sonia Popp

1999 -

2000 - Jake Wilson

2001 - Leigh Milward, Brendan Meilak, Claire Leveridge & Nic Townsend

2002 - Steven Brown & Megan McIntyre

2003 - Leigh Milward, Samuel Palmer, Abram DeBruyn, Misha

2004 - Lefa Singleton, Tim Norton & Samuel Palmer

2005 - Lefa Singleton, Tim Norton & Brad Lacey

2006 - Paul D'Agostino

2007 - Nerissa Symon

2008 - Robert Kelly & Dylan Mraz

2009 - Leticia Quintana

2010 - Michael Nolan

2011 - Jessica Fichera

2012 - Darryl Ephraums & Elizabeth King

Rabelais Women's Editions

This year (2011) will be the first year since 2007 that Rabelais has published a Women's Edition by the 2011 Women's Officer, Clare Keyes-Liley.

Student media at La Trobe

Between 1979 and 1995, the Bendigo Student Association produced a newspaper called Third Degree. At the time of the paper's establishment, the Bendigo campus was a College of Advanced Education

College of Advanced Education

The College of Advanced Education was a class of Australian tertiary education institution that existed from 1967 until the early 1990s. They ranked below universities, but above Colleges of Technical and Further Education which offer trade qualification...

, from 1994, it was a campus of La Trobe University. Third Degree was operating in around 2005, but is no longer published.

External links

• Rabelais Student Media

• La Trobe Uni SRC

For full details regarding the controversy surrounding Rabelais see archived pages of the Rabelais Defence Committee. This site provides archived links to third party citations including press clippings, media releases and court judgements.

• Rabelais Defence Campaign

• Christopher van Opstal: The art of censorship