Australian Audiences Research Articles

‘A window of the world’: itinerant silent cinemas in rural Australia

ABSTRACT Moving pictures connected even the most remote corners of the British Empire with its cultural and economic center. Between 1896 and 1916, transnational silent cinema shaped settler-colonial Australia’s relationship to the British Empire in tandem with the colonies’ move toward federation and political autonomy. Traveling exhibitors were key to this process, bringing moving pictures from the UK, Europe, and the US to Australians who lived outside major cities. This paper explores how itinerant silent cinema shows brought not just the pictures to rural Australian audiences, but also a sense of belonging to an imagined transnational community, through films from the UK, US, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Between 1896 and 1905, exhibitors like Maurice Sestier and Wybert Reeve were instrumental in introducing cinema technology, while entertainers like J. C. Williamson, T.J. West, the Marvellous Corricks, and Ettie Wilmott helped maintain the popularity of the cinema in the mid-1900s, in part by incorporating films into variety shows. From around 1910, when permanent cinemas had been established in larger Australian towns, until at least 1914 but in some cases for much longer, itinerant exhibitors and vaudeville shows like Wilmott’s Electric Pictures kept remote rural communities supplied, albeit intermittently, with cinema experiences that connected them to a wider imagined community.

‘The Event of the Age’: Appraising the Sousa Band’s 1911 Australasian Tour

This article argues for the significance and impact of the Sousa Band’s 1911 Australasian tour on local musical practice, through the lenses of cultural dynamics, reception, and legacy. Set against growing nationalism in the years preceding the Great War, the Sousa Band’s thirteen-week tour was enthusiastically welcomed by Australian audiences and underscored by the band’s alignment with the growing popularity of ragtime music, itself a point of negotiation between Anglo-Celtic and US American cultural influence in Australia. The majority-woodwind instrumentation of the Sousa Band is contextualized within the shifting favours of the time, given Australian audiences’ greater familiarity with British-inspired all-brass band models, within which the Sousa Band’s use of saxophones presaged certain changes in local musical practice that would unfold over subsequent decades. The influence of John Philip Sousa’s concert programming and statements as a public intellectual are also examined to contend that, while never quite ‘highbrow,’ an underlying theme of cultural uplift contributed towards the tour’s enduring impression on a new generation of Australian musicians.

“Psychic Poisons” or Emerging Medicines: A Thematic Analysis of Cannabis Representations in Australian Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

This interdisciplinary study investigates representations of cannabis in 386 Australian newspaper reports from the latter-part of the nineteenth century. During this time, periodicals were the primary means of information circulation, and the Australian press shared much of its reporting with other jurisdictions. Using a reflexive thematic analysis, this research reveals that in this period, in which cannabis was being introduced into colonial pharmacopeias but had not yet been regulated in Australia, periodicals were at the heart of communicating cannabis to Australian audiences. These newspapers represented cannabis as both a dangerous recreational drug and a legitimate medicine, with these very distinct representations largely siloed from one another. These discourses, facilitated and perpetuated by mass media, were representative of a patchwork of influences, including international anxieties of drug use. Therefore, such reporting both legitimized and de-legitimized cannabis, influencing popular understandings of cannabis in nineteenth-century Australia at a pivotal time in the drug's history.

The forgotten history of the Australian film musical: tracking the production and development of the genre in Australia

ABSTRACT While Australian film studies has located various genres, including horror, comedy, action/adventure, science fiction, and crime within the broader ‘Ozploitation’ discourse and the increase in Australian genre production in the 2010s, there has been little discussion of how a variety of song- and music-based Australian cinema operates in dialogue with the classical Hollywood musical and the global musical genre. Existing scholarship on the Austrlian musical has largely focused on singular well-known examples, including Strictly Ballroom (1992), The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (1994), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2009) and The Sapphires (2012). Specific film studies on successful musicals, particularly on Moulin Rouge! and The Sapphires, are often framed in popular and academic circles as ‘reviving’ the genre for Australian audiences, due in large part to their box office success. This does not account for the long history of Australian musical films, and their popularity. This article posits a theoretical re-evaluation of the Australian film musical genre through its unusual variations and lesser-known examples, including dance films, animations, and musical biopics. It traces the Australian film musical genre in detail, considering its rich history, numerous subgenres, and its interconnections with Australian national cinema and the global musical genre.

Unpacking and validating the "cell-cell communication" core concept of physiology by an Australian team.

An Australia-wide consensus was reached on seven core concepts of physiology, one of which was cell-cell communication. Three physiology educators from a "core concepts" Delphi task force "unpacked" this core concept into seven different themes and 60 subthemes. Cell-cell communication, previously unpacked and validated, was modified for an Australian audience to include emerging knowledge and adapted to increase student accessibility. The unpacked hierarchical framework for this core concept was rated by 24 physiology educators from separate Australian universities, using a five-point scale for level of importance for student understanding (ranging from 1 = Essential to 5 = Not Important) and level of difficulty (ranging from 1 = Very Difficult to 5 = Not Difficult). Data were analyzed with the Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn's multiple comparison test. The seven themes were rated within a narrow range of importance (1.13-2.4), with ratings of Essential or Important, and statistically significant differences between the themes (P < 0.0001, n = 7). The variance for the difficulty rating was higher than for importance, ranging from 2.15 (Difficult) to 3.45 (between Moderately Difficult and Slightly Difficult). Qualitatively, it was suggested that some subthemes were similar and that these could be grouped. However, all themes and subthemes were ranked as Important, validating this framework. Once finalized and adopted across Australian universities, the unpacked core concept for cell-cell communication will enable the generation of tools and resources for physiology educators and improvements in consistency across curricula.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Seven core concepts, including cell-cell communication, were identified by an Australian Delphi task force of physiology educators. The previously "unpacked" concept was adapted for Australian educators and students to develop a framework with seven themes and 60 subthemes. The framework was successfully validated by the original Delphi panel of educators and will provide a valuable resource for teaching and learning in Australian universities.

Some differences but all at risk: Improving farm safety for young people-An Australian experience.

A significant portion of on-farm deaths and injuries in Australia occur among young people working on the farm. Since most Australian farms are still family owned and operated, young people are an integral part of everyday operations and the farm is a place where these young people live, work and play. This paper describes how the international Gear Up for Ag Health and Safety™ program, originally developed in North America, was further developed for a younger Australian audience (ages 12-19) enrolled in agricultural programs at secondary or vocational schools. In addition, we share insight on demographics, self-reported farm safety behaviours, and the most common farm tasks being performed by program participants utilising a pre-survey originally developed for program customisation. Of particular importance were the most common farming tasks reported by this group. The most common tasks performed on Australian farms included a large variety of vehicle use (farm vehicles, motorbikes, and quadbikes) and handling livestock. Females reported operating vehicles and other farm equipment at the same rates as males. Males were more likely to be working with large heavy machinery and driving trucks, while females were more likely to be working with livestock and using horses for stockwork. Both males and females reported low use of PPE and poor safety habits. In future Australian programs, it will be important to address the conspicuous use of motor vehicles, quadbikes, motor bikes and machinery at early ages, and to target gender-specific tasks to reduce risks on the farm.

Australians’ shifting concerns about mis- and disinformation

ABSTRACT Prior to COVID-19, trust in news was low, and Australian audiences were most concerned about mis- and disinformation from Australian political actors, followed closely by news outlets. Twelve months on trust in news had risen, and concern about misinformation from journalists and politicians had fallen dramatically. This shift followed increased news consumption and high satisfaction with the way governments managed the pandemic – prior to the immunisation roll out. This paper draws on data from five national Australian surveys conducted by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. The data show that changes in news consumption, trust in news, and concern about mis- and disinformation coincided with a rally-round-the-flag effect in politician approval, but this varied depending on the political orientation and age of audiences. The findings suggest that a range of media-related factors may be possible contributors to political rallying effects and warrant further investigation.

Getting the Joke: Self -Deprecating Humor in Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee

Self-deprecating humor, the comedic act of making oneself the butt of the joke, is a staple of the Australian comedy industry and part of Australia’s national self-concept. Vietnamese Australian Anh Do is one of Australia’s most famous migrant comedians and performs self-deprecating humor while drawing on sometimes traumatic experiences from his personal life as part of his stand-up comedy sets. This essay examines how Do’s style of self-deprecating comedy extends from his stand-up comedy to his national bestselling memoir The Happiest Refugee (2010). The author argues that Do’s self-deprecating humor smuggles trauma to Australian audiences through laughs, and she explores the ambiguity in Do’s ability to occupy opposing identities of the “Other” and the “Aussie kid|bogan” simultaneously. Additionally, the author discusses how Do’s use of humor in his life narrative negotiates model-minority expectations leveled against Asian Australians to turn, in a subtle way, what appears to be a joke on him into a joke about the audience.

The Belt and Road Initiative in Australian mainstream media: why did its narratives shift from 2013 to 2021?

Compared with similar research mainly focusing on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Australian mainstream media using discourse analysis, this paper explores the reasons for the narrative shift by conducting semi-structured interviews with leading and well-known Australian narrative producers. This paper takes two conditions as a given. Firstly, the BRI narratives in Australian mainstream media shifted in tone from mostly positive to highly critical. Secondly, the Australian mainstream media's increasingly negative attitudes towards the BRI are essentially not just about the BRI but the Chinese government. Based on my analysis and interviews, this paper makes contributions by filling in the gap of finding out reasons to explain this narrative shift. More concretely, this paper finds out that while mainstream media is influential in many areas of national policy making, mainstream media reporting on foreign affairs is less so. By comparison, the Australian government's BRI or China policy has a significant impact on Australian mainstream media reporting. This narrative shift has been driven by international politics and Australia's China policy, influenced by Australian audiences’ preference of local news and their local position, and its democratic responsibilities. Meanwhile, the vagueness and constant changing characteristics of the BRI do not help the understanding of the BRI in Australian media.

Compassion and person-centred care: Survey development for aged care workers.

With a growing emphasis on personalised care, there is a need for effective workforce training to enable person-centred care (PCC) in aged care practice. The Australian aged care workforce is very diverse; thus, tools to evaluate compassion and PCC training need to reflect an understanding of these concepts relevant to the Australian context. There are currently no tools validated for use in aged care settings in Australia. Two existing compassion and PCC questionnaires were modified for an Australian audience using cognitive interviews with aged care workers. The reliability of the modified questionnaires was assessed. The modified questionnaires were found to have acceptable inter-reliability and test-retest intra-class correlation for the subscales and overall. However, the investigation also found low Cohen's kappa values between the test and retest responses for the individual items, subscales and overall, and had low inter-class correlation for individual items, indicating poor inter-rater agreement. High inter-item correlation scores also suggest the questions encapsulate overly similar constructs. While further investigation of the psychometric properties of the new items is needed, these modified questionnaires may offer a method of assessing and re-assessing compassion and PCC using language that is understandable to the Australian aged care workforce. Tools to accurately measure Australian aged care staff perceptions of compassion and their ability to deliver PCC are important to improve the quality of care provided in aged care and facilitate the delivery of PCC in aged care settings.

Our Town, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane, Australia

<i>Our Town</i>, Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane, Australia

Illiberal Media in a Liberal Democracy: Examining Identity in Australia’s Mandarin Language News

The regime of censorship in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) extends beyond its borders through the extraterritorial application of its media regulations to popular social media platforms like WeChat. This research investigates the effects of the PRC’s extraterritorial control of online content on the identity narratives and norms communicated by comparing Australia’s Special Broadcast Service (SBS) Mandarin language news and the news targeting Australian audiences published on popular WeChat Official Accounts (OAs). We find significant differences in the news content between these two platforms: SBS provides more political content and a focus on political and cultural integration, while WeChat pages tend to avoid political topics that are not otherwise press releases from the PRC and they encourage strong cultural ties with Mainland China. Finally, SBS tends to both inform and cultivate democratic political identities and identification with the Australian political system, whereas WeChat tends to differentiate the Chinese diaspora from the wider Australian community. We situate these findings within a wider understanding of PRC’s national security strategies and doctrine. Whether by requirement or practice, not only the WeChat OAs in Australia implement PRC’s communication controls, but the content on these pages also challenges the liberal democratic practices and norms and supports foreign influence and espionage in Australia.

Tomar conciencia del siglo XXI: nuevas lecturas de Las Troyanas de Eurípides

ABSTRACT Greek tragedy as a genre is subject to continuous reinterpretation by contemporary authors who make use of myth to interpret the present. In recent decades in Europe and Australia, Euripides’s play Women of Troy (5th Century BCE), has been adapted on numerous occasions to comment on armed conflict, refugeeism and victimhood in the Gulf War, the Syrian conflict and others. In 2002 a play written by Michel Vinaver and translated into Catalan had its worldwide premiere in Barcelona. This play established links between Euripides’s original and the Twin Towers attack in New York on September 11 2001. In 2004, Rosalba Clemente and Dawn Langman adapted and staged Women of Troy with the attack in mind, for an Australian audience. The new millennium starts amidst victims. Both versions highlight the complexities and ambiguities that inspire war and its split between winners and losers as another way to define the Other.

**Wenz Reinvented: The Making and Remaking of a French-Australian Transnational Writer**

This paper analyses the work of Paul Wenz (1869–1939). Born in Reims, France, Wenz moved to Australia in the 1890s, settling in New South Wales and establishing himself as a grazier. Beginning in 1900, he published several short stories and novels set in Australia. He wrote nearly all of his texts in the French language. Although he was part of literary circles in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s, his writing was little known there and his few works in English garnered little attention. Interestingly, however, his writing has recently found a new audience. First in the mid-1980s to 1990s, then in the 2000s and 2010s, Wenz’s work has been recouped: retranslated, republished and redisseminated – both for a French audience and especially for a contemporary Australian audience. In this article, we examine the different ways in which Wenz’s work has been repackaged, focusing on the paratextual elements in each stage: from Wenz’s initial writing in the early twentieth-century, to its reedition in the mid-1980s and 1990s, through to its retranslation in the early twenty-first century. We chart the stages of the reception of Wenz’s work and its successive translations in order to understand the changing profile of Australian literary studies and of French-Australian cultural connections.

A Study in Anxiety of the Dark

A Study in Anxiety of the Dark

Picturing destruction at home and abroad: a comparative visual analysis of icons and news values during disaster

This study uses news photographs and interviews with journalists to explore how Australia’s unprecedented 2019–2020 bushfire season was depicted for Australian and non-Australian audiences in order to extend transnational understanding of iconicity’s tenets and how news values vary across contexts. It does so first by examining the Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage over 3 months and then by contrasting this with international coverage that began in early 2020 once the issue spilled onto the world stage. Australia’s coverage focused intensely on human actors involved in the disaster while the vast numbers of affected animals were virtually absent. In contrast, international media visually depicted the disaster as an environmental and ecological issue with global consequences. The results suggest a need for a definition of iconicity that is inclusive to non-human actors and to inanimate forces that are personified. It also extends our cross-cultural understanding of the visual expression of news values.

Producing local content in international waters: the case of Netflix’s Tidelands

ABSTRACT Netflix’s supernatural crime series Tidelands (2019) was the subscription video service’s first commissioned original series to be produced in Australia. Shot in tropical Queensland with a diverse cast of local and international stars, Tidelands exemplifies the complex challenges involved in Netflix’s attempts to be a global producer creating content for national markets. This article builds on a tradition of research into international television production to locate Tidelands within its industrial and cultural contexts. Combining textual and industry analysis, and drawing on an interview with executive producer Nathan Mayfield, we show how Tidelands negotiates a strategic dual orientationin its use of locations, casting and genre, addressing both Australian and international audiences simultaneously. We conclude that internationally oriented Australian subscription video-on-demand originals such as Tidelands rehearse but also reformulate longstanding tensions regarding the interaction between the national and the global in screen culture.

Philip Goad, Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, Harriet Edquist and Isabel Wünsche (eds.), Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education Through Art, Design and Architecture,

This interesting volume faces simultaneously in two directions. It informs the Australian audience about the precepts of the Bauhaus school of art and design, which flourished in Germany in the 1920s, while at the same time interrogating the development in Australia of a modernist art pedagogy. Rather strangely, given the universal repute and global influence of the Bauhaus, the authors of the book’s Introduction suggest that “the Bauhaus story itself is arguably well known”. The argument is ...

Stepping to the fore: The promotion of Irish dance in Australia

This article contributes to scant literature on Irish dance praxis in Australia by demonstrating how the confluence of global and local factors have permitted Irish dance in Australia to step to the fore. Irish step dance is a globally recognizable genre that has dispersed through, first, the migration of Irish people throughout the world and, more recently, through itinerant theatrical troupes. In Australia, a significant node of the Irish diaspora, Irish step dance has managed to achieve unusual prominence in a dance landscape that has traditionally been dominated by genres from within the Western concert dance canon. Drawing on both extant literature and ethnographic data, this article examines three threads from the narrative of Irish dance in Australia. First, the general choreographic landscape of the nation is described, showing that the preferences of Australian dance audiences have been shaped to privilege styles that are popular onstage and on-screen, with the resulting marginalization of culturally-specific genera. Second, localized effects of the global contagion instigated by the development of the stage show Riverdance are explored. Here, the domains of aesthetics and decisive marketing strategies are discussed, showing how engagement with Australian audiences was achieved. Finally, the article introduces an idiosyncratic localized influence, the children’s musical group The Wiggles, which was conceived independently but which also promoted interest and enthusiasm for Irish dance in Australia by engaging with young children and presenting propriety of Irish dance as available to all, regardless of cultural ancestry.

Home and Away vs Netflix: Inter-generational and Intersectional Asian Australian Viewing Patterns

ABSTRACT This article presents findings from interviews conducted with first and second-generation Asian Australian audience members as part of a project on the histories of television and migration in Australia. The data presented here is (a) testament to the agency of migrants in choosing what to watch beyond what might be expected on the basis of primordial markers such as ethnicity, and shows that factors such as generation of migration and education status play a significant role; and (b) differences in patterns, as well as influences between generations within a family unit. This means that the influence of cultural elements from parents or grandparents’ generations, as well as the impact of technology on younger viewers appears to be more marked. Additionally, in the case of the first generation, there is a noticeable desire to watch mainstream Australian content (such as Home and Away), where this usually changes to a longing to be ‘represented’ for subsequent generations. These trends, while not based on a representative sample, give us an indicative glimpse into shifts in migrant media cultures, and reinforce the need for an intersectional approach to audience studies. What this analysis contributes is the importance of foregrounding the relationality of viewing practices, especially in a migrant family setting.