Australian media history

This article considers the world for children created by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and its predecessors between the 1920s and the 1970s. Beginning with the ‘Aunts’ and ‘Uncles’ of early radio, it looks at the ABC’s endeavours in the areas of children’s and educational broadcasting, focusing particularly on the Argonauts Club, Kindergarten of the Air and Let’s Join In. It also explores the work of ABC identities including composer Bernard Heinze and eurhythmics teacher
Heather Gell, and a succession of innovative and committed programmers. But it goes beyond on-air programming to consider the extracurricular world created for young listeners by Australia’s public service broadcaster. The article points to the interactivity of Australian broadcasting, examining how a mass medium sought to build communities of young listeners across Australia, and the role of ABC
programmes and associated activities in children’s lives.

In 1974, Melbourne teenager Jennifer Sketchley started keeping a daily diary. It continued until 1985, describing everyday life as a schoolgirl, leaving school at the age of 16, studying by correspondence and entering the workforce. She was happiest watching films and television, with her diary recording what she watched from morning to night. Sketchley's diaries provide an intimate insight into the television habits and preferences of one Australian. This girl-centred article frames this unique record within the context of her family circumstances and within the field of girls' media studies. It examines the everyday practice of an active television consumer and fan, engaging with programmes (especially Star Trek) and television periodicals, and seeking comfort and community.

The sexism inherent in media representations of Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has been well acknowledged. These discourses implied that women’s bodies were out of place in leadership roles, making Gillard’s attempts to address gender-related issues appear politically manipulative. As the media played a role in making gender divisive, it is important to consider the role of the media and the significance of media products - including newspaper, online sources, television programs and social media - in the perpetuation of sexist political representations. However, new understandings of this phenomenon can be drawn from thinking about the media paradigm, and its ‘post-feminist’ vision of
society, into which such representations were circulated. Within this ‘post-feminist’ paradigm, the media questioned Gillard’s apparent failure to fundamentally change Australian politics at the same time as perpetuating a focus on gender, rather than policy, as the characterising element of her leadership.

Radio's history has been one of survival, resilience, expansion and continuing re-invention. While in the present no less than in the past, radio's innate flexibility and adaptability to new technology will ensure its ongoing relevance as a medium, this article considers the particular significance of specialist traditions and production cultures unique to a public service broadcasting " form " such as ABC Radio National (RN). Drawing on rich seams of historical and comparative research, and on past investigations of " cultural radio " developments and forms since the 1930s, the article examines the particular ecology of RN, and the role and legacy of journalists, producer-broadcasters, " creatives " and engineers who contribute to re-invention and innovation in media forms, radiophonic expression and content. In doing so it also reveals the historical tensions between information and culture in the national broadcaster, and in the mix between creative and more narrowly defined journalistic practices.

From the moment Caroline Dexter (nee Harper 1819-1884) set foot on Australian shores, she set about placing herself at the centre of public life through her writing and avocation of dress reform. With her artist husband William Dexter at her side, the couple quickly became celebrities in the new colony. She was steadfast in her endeavours despite negative publicity and fought against hard line colonial opinion. Her time in Australia found her initially ridiculed but eventually gained some support and respect through her articulate lectures and dedication to promoting the rights of women, health and libertarian principles. The Journey of the Bloomer from America to Britain and eventually to Australia would not have been possible without Caroline and her bravery (Morgan, 1999).

Frank Clune (1893–1971) was a prolific author and the most popular
Australian historian of the first half of the twentieth century. This article
surveys Clune’s relationships with his ghost-writer, P R Stephensen, and
with a later mentor, Justice J V Barry, along with Clune’s role as a press
and radio personality in mid-century Australia. In doing so, it reflects on
Clune’s mission to popularise Australian history and open up sources for
its study, touching on Clune’s occasional reflections on indigenous history,
and the critical reception of his work.

The article investigates afresh the circumstances surrounding the "anti-Chinese uprising" in the Australian Goldfields town of Clunes in 1873. 
Beginning with historical interpretations of events, it notes that scholars have heavily relied on one colonial newspaper report as their primary source (some scholars use two other sources, but many use only this single document).
The article then points that there are several primary sources which have never been cited or used by historians; and identifies 5 key overlapping documents.  Some of these colonial sources include recorded interviews by participants taken the following day after the troubles.  It then plots out the course of events as shown by all corroborating sources - and it is surprising to find there was no wild mass uprising, the troubles seeming to comprise of a rowdy 20 minute confrontation halted by police.
The article then surveys contemporaneous newspaper reports of the day at Clunes, showing the different viewpoints and perspectives taken by colonial publications according to political disposition.  It also plots how accounts were changed, dramatised and embellished as news travelled from country to city, and from newspaper to newspaper across the colonies. 
The article finishes by posing serious questions on how accounts in historical newspapers need to be more carefully cross-checked and contextualised to verify reported "news".
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In 1903, 2 years after federation, Australia’s six capital cities had between them 21
daily newspapers. These newspapers were owned by 17 different proprietaries. By
the time Murdoch began spreading his wings overseas in the late 1960s, the Australian
news media was dominated by three families—the Murdoch, Fairfax and Packer
dynasties. When the century drew to a close, the Murdoch and Packer empires controlled
most of the nation’s major print and electronic media outlets. This article explores the
history of the Australian media in the twentieth century through the history of its
ownership and control. The business history of the Australian media is a complicated
story of acquisitions and sales, mergers and closures, the decline of competition and
diversity, the emergence of newspaper and television empires, and political patronage
and political suspicion.

This article surveys American influences on the development of commercial radio
in Australia. This article will provide a brief overview of the emergence of a dual broadcasting system in Australia, and the role of advertising agencies and networks in Australian commercial radio. It will explore listeners’ debates about the merits of the two
sectors, including discussion of British and American accents on Australian radio, and
the study trips of Australian broadcasting executives. While a comprehensive
treatment of the influence of the US on Australian commercial radio programming is
beyond the scope of this article, it will touch on some aspects of this from the 1920s
to the 1980s. Along the way, the BBC’s concerns about American influences on
Australian commercial radio will be traced, and the complicated Australian and
imperial negotiations in the 1940s for news services for Australian radio will be
considered.

A biographical and cultural reflection on current and historical media landscapes and policy in Australia. The essay documents working at the Postmaster General’s Department in Melbourne in 1969, where I was employed as the first “humanist”working on projects with a leading team of engineers and telecommunication planners. The aim was to assess the feasibility of cable television.

Peter Carrodus was a major community figure as manager of 2CA commercial radio station and a decisive player in the formation and survival of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Socially he will be remembered by old-time residents for his marriage in 1953 to Rosalind Evatt, daughter of major national politician and world figure, Dr H.V. Evatt, and his wife, artist and supporter of modern art, Mary Alice Evatt.

This chapter outlines the publishing history of The Phantom, an American comic-strip character, in Australia and the Oceanic region. It focuses on the character's appearance in "Wantok", a Catholic newspaper published in Papua New Guinea (PNG), printed in Tok Pisin, a widely-spoken indigenous dialect that is one of PNG's three official languages. The chapter examines how The Phantom became a unique cultural phenomenon in PNG, which saw the character used in government information programs, and become a significant motif in tribal art, especially on ceremonial war shields crafted by local artists in the Western Highlands of PNG

As a political journalist in Canberra representing the Herald, Keith Murdoch's powerful Melbourne daily, from 1929 to 1944, Joe Alexander was credited with making and unmaking prime ministers.
From 1944 to 1947, he served as First Secretary at the Australian Legation in Moscow, a time described in his book, In the Shadow: Three Years in Moscow.
Joe Alexander is remembered in Canberra as a generous benefactor of the Canberra and District Historical Society and of the local Russian Orthodox Church.  Narra

This article explores Triple J's evolution from radical Sydney radio station to 'National Youth Network'. In particular, it discusses Triple J's successful construction of a 'national youth
audience', according to Thornton's (1994, 1995) definitions of subcultural capital'.

Article in Australian Media History, no. 157, November 2015.
This article discusses the impact of 'The Australian' on Canberra. It covers the acquisition of 'The Territorial'; the change of ownership of Federal Capital Press to the Fairfax organisation; the battle with the 'Canberra Times' for dominance in the local market and the impact of the influx of journalists on a previously static news scene, Press Gallery reporting and of more penetrating reporting on the Public Service.

In 2009 Australia’s leading Italian-language newspaper II Globo marks 50 years of publication. II Globo began in Melbourne as a weekly broadsheet on 4 November 1959 under the leadership of Tarcisio Valmorbida and Ubaldo Larobina. At the time, few expected the paper to have the longevity it has so far achieved. II Globo has been at the forefront of the heights and the challenges of Italian post-war migration to Australia, often through Nino Randazzo’s editorial commentary. More than a newspaper, II Globo has been viewed as a leading community institution making its presence felt on Italian related issues.

This address considers the development of media history as a field of research in Australia. It takes the form of a historiographical excursion, beginning with a focus on the press, and then extending to broadcasting, and touching on the work of KS Inglis as a through line. After considering what I identify as a historiographical blossoming since the 1980s, I extend my gaze to the tools and institutions for media history that have emerged, including online resources, a conference series and a research centre. Finally, I use my own 1990s research into the Packer empire to illustrate how some of the techniques for doing media history have changed in the past 20 years. In doing so, I reflect on both the benefits, and the limitations, of digital tools and techniques for Australian media historians.

In December 1873 the Victorian goldmining town of Clunes, about thirty kilometres north of Ballarat, was the scene for what is remembered as a major uprising against Chinese miners. This event is cited in assorted histories of Australian society in the nineteenth century, often being placed in terms of size and violence close behind the riots at Lambing Flat in 1861 and Buckland River in 1857.

Situated at the intersection of history, gender and media studies, this is an integrated, transnational study of the careers of Australia’s leading female public broadcasters from the post-war era. This labour history uses group biography to resuscitate women's contributions to public broadcasting and contextualises their strategic responses to the constraints of the post-war media industry.

investigative journalism Investigative journalism in Australia has its antecedents in Britain and the United States. In the second half of the 20th century, it was influenced by a social responsibility model of journalism that gained momentum following the Watergate scandal. While there are earlier examples in the Australian press, it was more likely to be labelled as muckraking.
One reason was that Australia’s colonial newspapers were under government control until 1824. Generally, Australia’s formative editors deferred to the authorities, with noteworthy exceptions such as the editor of Hobart’s Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, Henry Melville, who was imprisoned after challenging the harsh treatment of prisoners in the 1830s and exposing widespread bribery in Hobart’s public houses.
The definition of investigative journalism is contested, yet there is broad agreement that it has a watchdog role, and takes time and effort to reveal public-interest information that might otherwise remain hidden.

This article explores the roles of some of the key women producers, broadcasters and writers who were able to work within the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from their foundational periods to the 1950s. Despite the predominantly male culture of radio broadcasting from the 1920s to the 1970s, this article considers the significance and long-term impacts of some of these overlooked female pioneers at the forefront of developing a range of new reality and ‘talk’ forms and techniques. While the article draws on primary BBC research, it also aims to address these openings, cultures and roles as they existed historically for women in the ABC. How did the ABC compare in its foundational period? Significantly, this paper contrasts the two organisations in the light of their approaches to modernity, arguing that BBC features, the department it engendered, and the traditions it influenced, had far reaching impacts; one of these relating to...

Among the thousands of magic lantern slides offered up for sale on auction sites every year, there are always hundreds of chromolithographic transfer slides. They are often of hackneyed fairy tales or cliched subjects, so they are not highly sought after. But the fact that they are so readily available, 120 years after they were first produced, indicates that they must have played an important role in the visual culture of the period. One of the biggest producers of these slides was the British firm W. Butcher & Sons. In November 1900 the magic lantern trade journal announced that they were: ... at present making a special feature of lithographic slides pertaining to the Boer war. Of course slides made by this process cannot for a moment compare with photographic slides, but all things considered they are good of their kind, and with, say, an oil light, will look very well when projected on a screen. These sets of slides are known as the Junior Lecturers' series, and are sold at a low priced Like many British magic lantern firms, Butcher was vertically integrated. They imported and manufactured apparatusthe 'device'-and also produced the imagery which their lanterns would projectthe 'content'. They gave the series their existing brand name 'Primus' (Fig.1). The Primus series brought together several different industrial processes and emerging social developments into the one package. The slides themselves were an offshoot of the massive chromolithography industry which had been growing in popularity throughout the 19th century. The image was drawn in separate colours onto multiple stones, ___________ Ttrf. Bfii'it Laittm Mil PliQlagntfiik Eolwijw, *. n>us' New W. BUTCHER SONS, Blnokhealh, Landon, kkw I iiMiTV-n ujw:ir mkiiIN C*T*I HWir W* it iTr« The Octltil Manic Liabarn Journal and PhrOtoiH'ftpbic EnJHigw. PRICE per 5ei B Sfidea <i>i Hr*' ib? 2*. Cd., nmpJse THE fiOER WAR OF 1900. IkJfii * ■wnpklr ICHHOi or IlM Wur, uilh picirnu id ih» bmi licfflclni. ctct.-!k Cuatanrf ri 4" S-lidcS Ud iriWipd In j chictcrs Of I ildci.uih bjrh ws u cnspkic with i:a iridic*.

The Australian debut of "Superman All Color Comic" in 1947 electrified children’s imagination, while its commercial success galvanized Australia’s nascent comic-book industry – just as the
“Man of Steel” had done nearly a decade beforehand in the United States, following his first appearance in Action Comics in 1938. For countless Australian children, these new American style comic books were an exciting fusion of text and image, and were the ideal vehicle for the truly fantastic superheroes that came to symbolize this bold new medium. But if the comic book itself signaled a new form of visual storytelling, the superheroes that burst forth from their pages
symbolized both the wonder and terrors of the atomic age. Little wonder, then, that they captivated children and alarmed adults in near-equal measure, a dichotomous response which reflected the cultural anxieties confronting Australia at the outset of the Cold War era.

Licensed reprints of American titles accounted for the bulk of Australian comic-book publishers’ output throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, some Australian cartoonists successfully
emulated their American rivals by creating superheroes which, in some instances, matched the popularity of Superman. The most successful of these, Captain Atom – whose strength came from nuclear energy – appeared soon after the first wave of American atomic bomb tests took
place on Bikini Atoll. Some characters, such as The Crimson Comet – a winged superhero – inhabited the realms of pure science fiction, while others, such as Catman, utilized futuristic jet aircraft and hi-tech weaponry to thwart earthbound evildoers.

Their exploits mirrored Australia’s embrace of Cold War modernity, invoking the possibilities and perils of new technologies, set amidst the material abundance of post-war consumerist society. Yet none of these superheroes were recognizably Australian; they were ostensibly
conceived as ersatz American superheroes, designed to compete with the likes of Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel. They were low-brow examples of what the Australian architect and commentator Robyn Boyd famously dubbed the “Austerican” culture of the 1950s – a pale,
austere imitation of American culture which he claimed was evident in most facets of post-war Australian society.

This chapter examines how a handful of Australian-drawn superhero comics challenged the post-war commercial dominance of their imported rivals, largely by emulating the conventions
of the American superhero genre. By doing so, it restores these long-forgotten characters to the recorded history of comic books, and add a new dimension to our understanding of how the American superhero genre was adapted to meet the demands of international audiences in the post-war period. Furthermore, this chapter  documents how these pseudo-American superheroes reflected the anxieties of Cold War-era Australia, while underscoring the fragility of avowedly “Australian” popular culture.

Ötekinin inşası sürecinde medya etkisine odaklanan bu çalışmada, I.Dünya Savaşı'nda Osmanlı İmparatorluğuyla, bir başka ifadeyle Türklerle savaşan ANZAC güçleri içerisinde yer alan Avustralyalılar mercek altına alınmıştır. Zorunlu askerliğin olmadığı ülkede Avustralya vatandaşlarını savaşa sevk eden faktörler arasında yer alan bir vaka örnek olay olarak seçilmiş ve ilgili vakanın dönem medyasında haber oluş biçimi incelenmiştir. Konuya dair en yüksek sayıda içerik üreten dönem gazetelerinin örneklem olarak seçildiği çalışma kapsamında haberler içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Ülkenin Yeni Güney Galler bölgesindeki küçük bir madenci kasabasında (Broken Hill), Ortadoğu kökenli iki yerleşimci tarafından gerçekleştirilen silahlı saldırının, siyasi ve bürokratik aktörler ile onlardan beslenen Avustralya basını tarafından Türklere mal edildiği gözlenmiştir. Az sayıda gazetede Avustralya Osmanlı Cemiyeti Başkanı S.J. Attiah'ın eylemin Türklerle alakası olmadığını açıklayan mektubuna yer verilmekle birlikte haberlerde ağırlıklı olarak Türkleri ötekileştirici dil kullanıldığı bulgulanmıştır. Sonuç olarak devlet tarafından "düşman" olarak tanımlanan fakat ilgili dönem Avustralya halkı tarafından tanınmayan Türklerin ötekileştirilmesine hizmet eden haber dilinin doğrudan yada dolaylı olarak savaş dönemi propagandasına katkı sunduğu, 'ülke içine bile sızan' düşmana karşı savaşta gönüllü askerliğe teşvik edici mahiyette olduğu ifade edilebilir.
In this study, which focuses on media influence during the construction of the otherness, the Australians who were a part of the ANZAC forces fighting against the Ottoman Empire, i.e. the Turks, in the First World War are scrutinized. In the country without compulsory military service, a case which is one of the factors that plunged Australian citizens into war is chosen as a case study and how the media covered this incident in that period is examined. In the study, where newspapers with the highest coverage on the topic in the relevant period were chosen, the news underwent content analysis. In a small mining town (Broken Hill) located in the New South Wales region of the country, two settlers of the Middle Eastern origin made an armed attack, which political and bureaucratic players and Australian media supported by such players accused the Turks. A small number of newspapers published the letter penned by S.J. Attiah, the President of the Ottoman Association in Australia, explaining that the Turks had nothing to do with the attack, but it was observed that the language used by newspapers attempted to stigmatize the Turks as the other.
As a result, it may be suggested that the language used by the press directly or indirectly contributed to the propaganda in the relevant war period, serving to construct the image of Turks, who were defined by the state as “enemy” but were not known by the Australian people, as the other and encouraged the voluntary enlistment in the war against the “infiltrating” enemy.