Academic literature on the topic 'Australian Broadcasting Commission'

During the first decade of television in Australia, a cohort of female broadcasters used their hard-won positions at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) to challenge the social and cultural complacencies of post-war society. Counteracting the assumption that women were largely absent in post-war broadcasting, this research discusses how two of these producers used their roles as public broadcasters to enact their own version of feminism, a social and cultural activism framed through active citizenship. Critiquing race, gender and national identity in their programmes, they partnered with Indigenous Australian activists and worked to amplify the voices of minorities. Referring to documentaries produced in Australian television’s formative years, this article describes how ABC producers Therése Denny and Joyce Belfrage worked to disrupt programming cultures that privileged homogeneous Anglo-Australian perspectives. As a consequence, documentaries like A Changing Race (1964) presented empathetic and evocative content that challenged xenophobic stereotypes and encouraged cross-cultural understandings.

Thomas Laby, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Melbourne 1915–1942, was an outspoken proponent of science broadcasting during the years when broadcast radio was developing in Australia. While earlier biographical studies have paid some attention to Laby's role in public affairs, there has been no discussion of his sustained advocacy for radio as a means of public education. This article shows how his position was supported by, and in turn enriched, his imperial politics as well as his commitment to scientific research; it draws on a range of archival materials from public hearings, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and Australian universities. It shows Laby's remarkable grasp of a medium in its formative years, as well as his belief in the need for scientists to participate in social debate.

This article revisits historical rivalries between established and emerging media, namely the press and broadcasting, during the first half of the twentieth century. To this end, the author constructs a dialogue between Neville Petersen's broadcasting research and his own press research over a similar period. In his major work, News Not Views: The ABC, Press and Politics (1932–1947), Petersen (1993) elaborates in detail the ongoing constraints imposed by Australian newspaper proprietors on the fledgling Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in their ultimately unsuccessful struggle to restrict its news supply and influence. Drawing on subsequent press research based on international forums, the author revisits this rivalry, particularly Petersen's thesis that Australian press proprietors exercised disproportionate influence over the national broadcaster when compared with other English-speaking countries, such as Britain and Canada.

This article examines the pervasive mechanisms of discrimination in Australian public broadcasting in the 1950s and 1960s and considers how concepts of femininity were engaged to maintain the sexual division of labour within one of Australia’s leading cultural institutions, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). Constructing a collective biography of female producers who challenged gendered work practices, it discusses the obstacles that confronted women in production and considers the social, economic and industrial factors that allowed certain women to become producers when many failed to escape the ABC’s typing pool. Referring to case studies derived from biographical memory sources and industrial documentation, this article historicises the careers of radio and television producers and contextualises their histories against data found in the 1977 Women in the ABC report, to re-imagine the nature of women’s work in Australian broadcasting in the post-war era.

This article considers the radio programme for kindergarten-aged children that the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) launched during the Second World War and continued to broadcast until 1985. Kindergarten of the Air, thought to be the ‘first of its kind in the world’, was to inspire interest from, and similar programmes throughout, the British empire and beyond. The article examines the imperial and international broadcasting networks that enabled the exchange of ideas and initiatives within the field of educational broadcasting, and the export of one of Australia’s most successful radio initiatives, while also considering the willingness of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to be influenced by a dominion broadcaster.

This article outlines impulses toward internationalism in women's programming during the twentieth century at two public service broadcasters: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Canada and the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in Australia. These case studies show common patterns as well as key differences in the establishment of an international frame for the modern domestic sphere. Research conducted in paper and audio recording archives relating to nonfiction programming for women demonstrates pervasive tensions between women's international versus national solidarities. The article argues that these contradictions must be highlighted—rather than papered over in a simplistic understanding of such programming as reflecting a binary domestic ideology of private versus public, home versus world—to fully understand media history and cultural memory from a gendered perspective.

In 1945, as Australians unknowingly entered the last year of the Second World War, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in Queensland undertook a unique radio history project that ran for two years. The original intention of the programme, as suggested by its title The Q Story, appears to have been propagandist and thus in keeping with official policy: to provide morale-boosting entertainment with a nationalist theme in the context of wartime. As the programme progressed, however, it appears to have developed an alternative legitimacy in response to public demand.

Censorship has had a long tradition in Australia, affecting books, films, theatre and artworks. In the 1930s, opposition to it began to be organized: this was initially a reaction to the banning of imported print material on the grounds of ‘indecency’ or sedition, but it was followed by protests against the political interference of radio broadcasts. These campaigns for freedom of expression on the air and in print invoked similar principles, as well as sharing leadership and tactics; while newspapers alerted the public to the issue of censorship, such commentary was also deployed to influence perceptions of the changing media landscape brought about by the development of public broadcasting. This article argues that 1930s activism over censorship prepared the ground for the expectation of impartial news reporting by the public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission. It also demonstrates the advantage of considering diverse forms of media in tandem and sheds additional light on the role of the public in pursuit of the right of Australian citizens to hear opinion free from government interference and proprietorial diktat.

This thesis sheds light on the ways in which audiences are made through the relationships between organisational policy and news production practice. It explores the relationships between news practitioners� perceptions and definitions of audiences, production, and organisational policies, using the radio news service of the Australian national public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In so doing, the thesis demonstrates that production, in its institutional context, is a crucial site for the creation of audiences in the study of news journalism. In the process, it illuminates the role of public service broadcasting, in a world of digital media The conceptual framework utilises a new approach to framing analysis. Framing has been used to examine the news "agenda" and to identify the salient aspects of news events. This thesis demonstrates ways in which framing can be used to research important processes in news production at different levels, from policy level to that of professional culture, and generate insights to the relationship between them. The accumulated evidence of the bulletin analysis - using structural and rhetorical frames of news - field observation and interviews, shows that a specific and coherent audience can be constructed as a result of newsroom work practices in combination with organisational policies. The thesis has increased knowledge and understanding both of how news workers create images of their audiences and what the institutional factors are that influence the manufacture of audiences as they appear in the text of news bulletins.

In this thesis I address the research question: 'How has the Internet delivered pluralism by promoting structural diversity and/or content diversity in Australia's newspaper industry?' Structural diversity is defined here as diversity in newspaper ownership and content diversity as the diversity of views published by individual newspapers. Central to the thesis is the notion of pluralism, the belief that the news media should provide a range of views and opinions, contradictory as well as complementary, to allow informed citizens to effectively take part in the democratic process. The newspaper industry in this country, however, is controlled by a powerful press oligopoly across a range of markets, a situation believed to greatly limit pluralism. A review of newspaper ownership and circulation from 1986 to 2002 shows that, as at 2002, four newspaper owners are the sole occupants of Australia's national and capital city newspaper market. Seven owners are predominant in Australia's regional daily newspaper market, although just three owners controlled 69 per cent of the market's circulation in 2002. Two owners controlled 69 per cent of Australia's suburban newspaper market in 2002. Similar trends were seen in the country's Saturday newspaper and Sunday newspaper markets. In all markets except the regional daily newspaper market, News Limited is the dominant newspaper owner. Australian Provincial News and Media is the dominant owner in the regional daily newspaper market with a 27 per cent share of circulation in 2002. Australia's concentrated newspaper ownership structure has led to a number of formal inquiries into diversity in the industry since 1980. In this thesis I review two of these inquiries, the 1991-92 House of Representatives Select Committee on the Print Media (the Print Media Inquiry) and the 2000 Productivity Commission Inquiry into Broadcasting, to determine (among other things) the nature of and the relationship between structural and content diversity as they apply to Australia's newspapers. (By virtue of major media groups' involvement in the Productivity Commission's inquiry - particularly News Limited, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and, to a lesser extent, Rural Press - this inquiry, although broadcast-oriented, considered Australia's newspaper industry at length.) This review shows both inquiries were clear on how they saw this relationship - structural diversity is necessary for content diversity. However, the Print Media Inquiry suggested it was almost impossible to guarantee structural diversity in the nation's newspaper industry. The Productivity Commission, meanwhile, said that while it accepted content diversity was not inconsistent with media ownership concentration, it was more likely to be achieved where there was diverse ownership. With the relationship between structural and content diversity in mind, and the Print Media Inquiry's and the Productivity Commission's beliefs that new entrants in the newspaper industry were unlikely in the short term, I examine the suggestion that the Internet has the potential to increase structural diversity in Australia's newspaper industry by allowing new players to efficiently enter the industry via the World Wide Web. The extent to which this might occur is determined by a study of 18 Australian newspaper websites with one argument being that if established newspapers find the transition online relatively easy, then independent online-only news sites might be similarly established. Mings and White's four online news business models - a subscription model, advertising model, e commerce-based transactional model and partnership-based model - are used as a framework to examine the study's results. The study shows Australia's experience mirrors international experience in terms of the growth of newspapers online and in terms of their lack of profitability. It shows that 28 per cent of the newspapers surveyed maintained their circulation while offering free online news content, while a further 33 per cent registered circulation increases. Advertising revenue increased for seven of the nine newspaper websites containing advertising, suggesting that, for some Australian newspapers at least, gaining online advertising (as opposed to gaining overall profitability) has proved successful. And while the survey shows little evidence of Australian newspapers using the transactional model in any real sense, it does show that Australian newspapers are forming local online partnerships with other media and non-media businesses to facilitate their online activities. The study's key finding is that of the 18 newspapers surveyed, just two websites were profitable. This finding is consistent with literature that highlights a lack of commercially viable independent online news ventures both in Australia and internationally. While considerable hopes were held that the Internet would introduce more structural diversity into Australia's newspaper industry, I argue that the Internet's commercial imperatives, as they apply to newspapers, have to a large extent precluded it from adding structural diversity in the industry. In these circumstances, it may be that the only viable way of increasing content diversity in the nation's newspaper industry is to increase the availability of diverse information sources to journalists. I propose that one way to do this is via the Internet. The extent to which this is occurring is determined by a survey of Australian journalists' Internet use, the survey results showing that 97.4 per cent of the journalists who responded now use the Internet regularly, including 97.5 per cent of newspaper journalists. But most journalists who responded use the Internet as a preliminary research tool and as a way to check facts rather than as a means of accessing diverse news sources. The respondents' top five Internet uses, for example, are to e-mail work colleagues, to undertake preliminary research, to access media releases from websites, to verify facts and to search other news organisations' websites. They access major news organisation websites most frequently, followed by government websites, university/research institution websites and corporate/company websites. The least frequently accessed websites are those that could conceivably provide the alternate views demanded by pluralism: online news and current affairs discussion groups and websites set up by private individuals. The survey shows the types of websites Australian journalists most frequently access are linked to the credibility they give to information contained on those websites. Major news organisation websites are seen as providing the most credible information, followed by university/research institution websites and government websites. Websites perceived as providing the least credible information were those that host online news and current affairs discussion groups and websites set up by private individuals. The survey also shows Australian journalists have not embraced online reader interaction to any extent, lessening the likelihood that readers will be able to provide journalists with more diverse news sources. Less than 20 per cent of journalists interact with readers via the Internet and less than 10 per cent use this interaction to create or follow up news stories. The survey does provide results that support source diversity, however. It shows that almost a third of Australian journalists have obtained additional news sources via the Internet. The Internet has also allowed more than 40 per cent of journalists to access individuals or groups that they would not otherwise have accessed. The survey also shows that journalists who have had experience working in the online media environment consistently use the Internet more productively, in terms of diversity, than other journalists. It is these journalists that interact online with readers more, that participate in online discussion groups more and that appear more willing to seek online information from non-traditional sources such as independent news websites and the websites of private individuals or groups. Journalists with online media experience also represent the group that has most sought training in online journalism and online media practice and that most believes the Internet will play an increasingly important role for journalists and news consumers in the future. At present, the survey suggests, journalists with this online media experience comprise just 19 per cent of Australian journalists. But as the number of journalists with online media experience increases in the workforce, these journalists' greater acceptance of the Internet may then assist in greater source diversity leading to greater content diversity in Australia's news media. The studies of newspaper websites and journalists' Internet use suggest and support differing diversity models. In this thesis I propose two models for diversity, the first drawn from views espoused by the Print Media Inquiry and the Productivity Commission's Inquiry into Broadcasting. This model (below) sees a one-to-one correspondence between structural and content diversity and assumes that to increase the diversity of views available to the public, the number of media outlets must similarly be increased. The argument that the Internet can provide media pluralism by permitting new players to enter the media market relatively easily, an argument tested by my study of Australian newspaper websites, is commensurate with this model. The second model is based on my inquiries into journalists' Internet use and proposes a method of increasing content diversity within a fixed media ownership structure. This model (below) acknowledges that journalists produce content mostly via traditional news sources, but proposes this content can be increased and/or changed, with an emphasis on more diverse information, via non-traditional news sources obtained via the Internet. The success of this model, however, is predicated on journalists' acceptance of online information as a viable news source. The implication for journalism is that established journalistic norms and practices, which can limit online-supported content diversity, need to be overcome. Overall, the results of my inquiries suggest the answer to the research question is that the Internet has so far delivered little in terms of structural and content diversity in Australia's newspaper industry. However, the Internet's potential to do so remains, particularly if independent online-based media ventures find ways to become commercially viable and if journalists adopt the technology as a means of finding more diverse news sources.

In this thesis I address the research question: 'How has the Internet delivered pluralism by promoting structural diversity and/or content diversity in Australia's newspaper industry?' Structural diversity is defined here as diversity in newspaper ownership and content diversity as the diversity of views published by individual newspapers. Central to the thesis is the notion of pluralism, the belief that the news media should provide a range of views and opinions, contradictory as well as complementary, to allow informed citizens to effectively take part in the democratic process. The newspaper industry in this country, however, is controlled by a powerful press oligopoly across a range of markets, a situation believed to greatly limit pluralism. A review of newspaper ownership and circulation from 1986 to 2002 shows that, as at 2002, four newspaper owners are the sole occupants of Australia's national and capital city newspaper market. Seven owners are predominant in Australia's regional daily newspaper market, although just three owners controlled 69 per cent of the market's circulation in 2002. Two owners controlled 69 per cent of Australia's suburban newspaper market in 2002. Similar trends were seen in the country's Saturday newspaper and Sunday newspaper markets. In all markets except the regional daily newspaper market, News Limited is the dominant newspaper owner. Australian Provincial News and Media is the dominant owner in the regional daily newspaper market with a 27 per cent share of circulation in 2002. Australia's concentrated newspaper ownership structure has led to a number of formal inquiries into diversity in the industry since 1980. In this thesis I review two of these inquiries, the 1991-92 House of Representatives Select Committee on the Print Media (the Print Media Inquiry) and the 2000 Productivity Commission Inquiry into Broadcasting, to determine (among other things) the nature of and the relationship between structural and content diversity as they apply to Australia's newspapers. (By virtue of major media groups' involvement in the Productivity Commission's inquiry - particularly News Limited, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and, to a lesser extent, Rural Press - this inquiry, although broadcast-oriented, considered Australia's newspaper industry at length.) This review shows both inquiries were clear on how they saw this relationship - structural diversity is necessary for content diversity. However, the Print Media Inquiry suggested it was almost impossible to guarantee structural diversity in the nation's newspaper industry. The Productivity Commission, meanwhile, said that while it accepted content diversity was not inconsistent with media ownership concentration, it was more likely to be achieved where there was diverse ownership. With the relationship between structural and content diversity in mind, and the Print Media Inquiry's and the Productivity Commission's beliefs that new entrants in the newspaper industry were unlikely in the short term, I examine the suggestion that the Internet has the potential to increase structural diversity in Australia's newspaper industry by allowing new players to efficiently enter the industry via the World Wide Web. The extent to which this might occur is determined by a study of 18 Australian newspaper websites with one argument being that if established newspapers find the transition online relatively easy, then independent online-only news sites might be similarly established. Mings and White's four online news business models - a subscription model, advertising model, e commerce-based transactional model and partnership-based model - are used as a framework to examine the study's results. The study shows Australia's experience mirrors international experience in terms of the growth of newspapers online and in terms of their lack of profitability. It shows that 28 per cent of the newspapers surveyed maintained their circulation while offering free online news content, while a further 33 per cent registered circulation increases. Advertising revenue increased for seven of the nine newspaper websites containing advertising, suggesting that, for some Australian newspapers at least, gaining online advertising (as opposed to gaining overall profitability) has proved successful. And while the survey shows little evidence of Australian newspapers using the transactional model in any real sense, it does show that Australian newspapers are forming local online partnerships with other media and non-media businesses to facilitate their online activities. The study's key finding is that of the 18 newspapers surveyed, just two websites were profitable. This finding is consistent with literature that highlights a lack of commercially viable independent online news ventures both in Australia and internationally. While considerable hopes were held that the Internet would introduce more structural diversity into Australia's newspaper industry, I argue that the Internet's commercial imperatives, as they apply to newspapers, have to a large extent precluded it from adding structural diversity in the industry. In these circumstances, it may be that the only viable way of increasing content diversity in the nation's newspaper industry is to increase the availability of diverse information sources to journalists. I propose that one way to do this is via the Internet. The extent to which this is occurring is determined by a survey of Australian journalists' Internet use, the survey results showing that 97.4 per cent of the journalists who responded now use the Internet regularly, including 97.5 per cent of newspaper journalists. But most journalists who responded use the Internet as a preliminary research tool and as a way to check facts rather than as a means of accessing diverse news sources. The respondents' top five Internet uses, for example, are to e-mail work colleagues, to undertake preliminary research, to access media releases from websites, to verify facts and to search other news organisations' websites. They access major news organisation websites most frequently, followed by government websites, university/research institution websites and corporate/company websites. The least frequently accessed websites are those that could conceivably provide the alternate views demanded by pluralism: online news and current affairs discussion groups and websites set up by private individuals. The survey shows the types of websites Australian journalists most frequently access are linked to the credibility they give to information contained on those websites. Major news organisation websites are seen as providing the most credible information, followed by university/research institution websites and government websites. Websites perceived as providing the least credible information were those that host online news and current affairs discussion groups and websites set up by private individuals. The survey also shows Australian journalists have not embraced online reader interaction to any extent, lessening the likelihood that readers will be able to provide journalists with more diverse news sources. Less than 20 per cent of journalists interact with readers via the Internet and less than 10 per cent use this interaction to create or follow up news stories. The survey does provide results that support source diversity, however. It shows that almost a third of Australian journalists have obtained additional news sources via the Internet. The Internet has also allowed more than 40 per cent of journalists to access individuals or groups that they would not otherwise have accessed. The survey also shows that journalists who have had experience working in the online media environment consistently use the Internet more productively, in terms of diversity, than other journalists. It is these journalists that interact online with readers more, that participate in online discussion groups more and that appear more willing to seek online information from non-traditional sources such as independent news websites and the websites of private individuals or groups. Journalists with online media experience also represent the group that has most sought training in online journalism and online media practice and that most believes the Internet will play an increasingly important role for journalists and news consumers in the future. At present, the survey suggests, journalists with this online media experience comprise just 19 per cent of Australian journalists. But as the number of journalists with online media experience increases in the workforce, these journalists' greater acceptance of the Internet may then assist in greater source diversity leading to greater content diversity in Australia's news media. The studies of newspaper websites and journalists' Internet use suggest and support differing diversity models. In this thesis I propose two models for diversity, the first drawn from views espoused by the Print Media Inquiry and the Productivity Commission's Inquiry into Broadcasting. This model (below) sees a one-to-one correspondence between structural and content diversity and assumes that to increase the diversity of views available to the public, the number of media outlets must similarly be increased. The argument that the Internet can provide media pluralism by permitting new players to enter the media market relatively easily, an argument tested by my study of Australian newspaper websites, is commensurate with this model. The second model is based on my inquiries into journalists' Internet use and proposes a method of increasing content diversity within a fixed media ownership structure. This model (below) acknowledges that journalists produce content mostly via traditional news sources, but proposes this content can be increased and/or changed, with an emphasis on more diverse information, via non-traditional news sources obtained via the Internet. The success of this model, however, is predicated on journalists' acceptance of online information as a viable news source. The implication for journalism is that established journalistic norms and practices, which can limit online-supported content diversity, need to be overcome. Overall, the results of my inquiries suggest the answer to the research question is that the Internet has so far delivered little in terms of structural and content diversity in Australia's newspaper industry. However, the Internet's potential to do so remains, particularly if independent online-based media ventures find ways to become commercially viable and if journalists adopt the technology as a means of finding more diverse news sources.

While much has been written on the Australian film and television industry, little has been presented by actual producers, filmmakers and technicians of their time and experiences within that same industry. Similarly, with historical documentaries, it has been academics rather than filmmakers who have led the debate. This thesis addresses this shortcoming and bridges the gap between practitioner experience and intellectual discussion, synthesising the debate and providing an important contribution from a filmmaker-academic, in its own way unique and insightful. The thesis is presented in two voices. First, my voice, the voice of memoir and recollected experience of my screen adventures over 38 years within the Australian industry, mainly producing historical documentaries for the ABC and the SBS. This is represented in italics. The second half and the alternate chapters provide the industry framework in which I worked with particular emphasis on documentaries and how this evolved and developed over a 40-year period, from 1970 to 2010. Within these two voices are three layers against which this history is reviewed and presented. Forming the base of the pyramid is the broad Australian film industry made up of feature films, documentary, television drama, animation and other types and styles of production. Above this is the genre documentary within this broad industry, and making up the small top tip of the pyramid, the sub-genre of historical documentary. These form the vertical structure within which industry issues are discussed. Threading through it are the duel determinants of production: ‘the market’ and ‘funding’. Underpinning the industry is the involvement of government, both state and federal, forming the three dimensional matrix for the thesis. For over 100 years the Australian film industry has depended on government support through subsidy, funding mechanisms, development assistance, broadcast policy and legislative provisions. This thesis aims to weave together these industry layers, binding them with the determinants of the market and funding, and immersing them beneath layers of government legislation and policy to present a new view of the Australian film industry.