The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s unique history in Western Australia is the focus of a public talk to be held this month.
Eminent media historian Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley, a visiting Fellow at The University of Western Australia’s Institute of Advanced Studies, will deliver the lecture on Thursday 24 July.
The ABC in the West will examine how the State’s time difference from the east coast shaped local content, innovative programming and memorable broadcasts with a focus on radio and television from the 1930s to the 1980s.
The talk will reintroduce audiences to local broadcasting identities including ABC radio broadcaster and executive Basil Kirke and Catherine King, a UWA graduate (BA, 1927) who became a broadcaster and community leader.
It will put the spotlight on popular programs such as Kindergarten of the Air, a national radio show that was initially launched in Perth to fill an education gap during WWII after kindergartens in WA were closed due to fears of air raids by Japanese forces, and the evening current affairs news television program This Day Tonight.
“This is a chance to learn about the communities these shows created and the responses they elicited from Western Australian audiences,” Professor Griffen-Foley said.
Professor Griffen-Foley, who founded the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University and is leading the Australian Research Council Linkage Project The ABC, its Archives and its Audiences, edited A Companion to the Australian Media (2014), is also New South Wales chair of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
She is author of The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire (1999), Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal (2003) and Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio (2009) and served as historical consultant to the television mini-series Power Games: The Packer–Murdoch Story (2013).
As part of her fellowship Professor Griffen-Foley will also conduct a masterclass for researchers on Doing Media History at UWA’s Institute of Advanced Studies on Wednesday 23 July.
Her visit is supported by the Media and Communication and History disciplines, UWA’s Institute of Advanced Studies and the Forrest Research Foundation.
The public talk will be held on Thursday 24 July from 11am to 12 noon, at the National Archives of Australia Western Australia office in Northbridge. To register for this event click here.