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This paper proposes a basis for progress in the development of the conceptual framework (CF) as a foundation for developing accounting standards. This topic has gained increased prominence following the IASB's (2013) release of its Review of the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (RCFFR) proposing changes to the CF. In this paper the broad socio-economic environment is seen as determining the primary purpose of General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFR), which, in turn, establishes the high-level properties of a CF suitable to meet that primary purpose. This is to support market stability and efficiency through the provision of an account of the financial position and performance of an entity that accords with economic reality.The case is made that the primary purpose of a CF is to provide the principles for the development of accounting standards that will result in GPFR that is useful. This requires theoretical coherence. The CF should drive the standards and if standards depart from the CF principles, such departures should be justified. This proposal is consistent with the position adopted in the RCFFR. However, in contrast to the RCFFR, this paper accents the purposive approach and links the formation of standards directly to the CF. This approach implies that standards are subordinate to CF principles; therefore compliance with standards should not provide a basis for compromising the faithful representation of economic reality. From the purpose identified for GPFR, the paper argues for a default presumption in favour of Fair Value Accounting, a retreat from the asset/ liability approach, and a re-casting of the income statement to focus on operational flows.

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Medium specificity arguments have had a long history in film theory. Forged primarily in studies seeking to locate the differences between cinema and theatre,1 or cinema and literature,2 such arguments have a much earlier history in the idea that art forms can be differentiated from one another on the basis of their means of imitation. Medium specificity theories generally concern themselves with the idea that different media have 'essential' and unique characteristics that form the basis of how they can and should be used. Within Film Studies, interest in both the idea of a 'cinematic apparatus' and the formative period of early cinema can be viewed as reactions emerging from a long period of engagement with medium specificity theories. Curiously, while it is common practice to use cinema as an analogy for multimedia, 3 there is little direct discussion of the relevance, or irrelevance, of medium specificity arguments in the broader space of 'new media' theory. 4 Our intent in this article is not to revive medium specificity arguments as these have already been problematised, but rather to establish them as a concern for new media theory, and also to extract from them a concept of specificity that can account for the different characteristics of established and emergent media.