The Australian media regulatory body is set to start using social media, having appointed a former newspaper editor to create its social media strategy.

Tom Burton, former executive editor of broadsheet newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald, has been appointed to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to oversee its government 2.0 and social engagement strategies.

Burton was previously working in the US as the Communications and On-Line Director of The Center for American Progress. His role involved implementing web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 practices, that is, changing how the government used social networking sites, blogs, video sharing sites and wikis to interact with the public. He has also worked as a ministerial adviser to a former Australian Minister for Communications.

"I look forward to helping lift the ACMA's communications and media engagement, but also building a strategy to open up as many channels to the ACMA for genuine dialogue," Burton said in a press release.

"The first thing to do is an audit," he told media and marketing website Mumbrella. "It already has a relatively sophisticated website and we'll be looking at how we can apply modern tool sets and ask how we can engage and open up government processes. So it's not a token or band aid approach but about creating openness and transparency."

Media commentator Margaret Simons pointed out that while the ACMA has a wide range of responsibilities, it is not always effective. "ACMA's powers are limited, and the dictates of administrative law are hobbling," she wrote on news website Crikey. "In this environment, naming and shaming are key "social" powers that can be used to make sure standards are kept even when the law falls short."

"But ACMA has had a low profile, has been slow in issuing findings on complaints and legalistic in its language," she added. "ACMA's media release about Burton's appointment suggests this may be about to change, and be replaced by a more dynamic and fluid interaction with both the industry and the broader public."

Social media editors are becoming commonplace at newspapers around the world, but appointing one to a regulatory body is something quite different. So how will this change media regulation in Australia?

To take one example, in November last year, David Evans, director of Fairfax Media, publisher of broadsheets The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, resigned. This was in response to an ACMA ruling that he could not serve on the boards of both Fairfax Media and Village Roadshow Ltd. Although the ACMA does not directly regulate newspapers, and is instead responsible for broadcasting, the internet and telecommunications, Australian media ownership is tightly concentrated, meaning the press is not excluded from its decisions, as this example shows.

After a social media strategy is implemented, it will be interesting to see if news of this kind of ruling is distributed any more widely or through different channels. This kind of investigation could be more often sparked by audience feedback, and the body's deliberations on the matter could be made more public. It will also be interesting to see if the self-regulatory body of the print media, the Australian Press Council, makes any moves to follow suit.

It's easy to throw around words like 'engagement', 'openness' and 'transparency', but harder to create cultural change within large institutions. The appointment of someone with this kind of experience to do the job is reason to be optimistic about the possibilities for change.

Sources: ACMA, Mumbrella, Crikey