Volume 4, Issue 2: 2010
Editorial
GMJ/AU is pleased to release Volume 4 #2 issue for 2010 — Interventions and Intersections:
Papers from the School of Communication Arts Postgraduate Conference June 2010
Editor
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Volume 4 # 2 of Global Media Journal/Australian Edition. As GMJ/AU is hosted on servers belonging to the School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney, it is fitting that this special issue of Global Media Journal – Australian Edition is based on the 2010 School of Communication Arts Postgraduate Conference ‘Interventions & Intersections’. The papers collected have been selected to reflect the diverse range of contributions made by invited keynote speakers and the School’s Higher Degree Research and Honours students.
I would like to acknowledge the tireless work of Dr. Rachel Morley who has guest edited this issue, the support provided by Lisa Kaufmann our editorial assistant as well as the work of the editorial management team in the planning and execution of the issue. Thanks as well to those members of the editorial advisory board who have responded to our referee requests. Sustaining the quality of GMJ/AU depends on your willingness to review our submissions in a timely fashion.
We are dedicating this issue to Neville Petersen who passed away in December, 2010. Neville was a strong supporter of the journal and part-time lecturer in the School of Communication Arts, UWS for many years. A short obituary is found below in this issue.
Guest Editor: Dr. Rachel Morley
When I was a PhD student in 2004 I encountered an essay that still resonates with me. ‘Monstrous Knowledge: Doing PhDs in the New Humanities’, by Professor Bob Hodge, argues that universities have been slow to embrace transdisciplinary methods and modes of enquiry. In making the claim Hodge suggests this reluctance puts a particular cost on emerging researchers who may find that innovative approaches to intellectual and textual production are discouraged because the system and its arbiters are ill-equipped to deal with discursive practices that ‘rupture’ epistemological systems.
What I found (and still find) galvanising was the pitch Hodge makes to postgraduate students. In a short passage that could form the makings of a manifesto, he urges them to forge ahead with their ‘transformative’ work in spite of (and in response to) pressures to conform to old epistemological orders, to be open to ‘monstrous knowledge-making’, to explore the shadowy places of knowledge production:
Be open to the monstrous - take especially seriously those problems, beliefs and experiences that are annulled by a dominant discipline, whether they be intractably personal or contaminated by the disreputable demotic or popular, by passion or anger or delight, by the desire to change the world or to dream a new one (1998: 120)
While Hodge recognises the pedagogical framing of the postgraduate encounter, he also acknowledges that tradition can sometimes be counter-intuitive to knowledge production. ‘Original’ scholarship happens when disciplinary boundaries are contested, when the shadowlands are exposed, when lost or marginalised voices are reclaimed, when emerging scholars take risks and intervene in cultures of knowing.
This special issue of Global Media Journal – Australian Edition (4.2) operates within the transdisciplinary circuits of ‘rupture’ proposed by Hodge. Comprised of select papers from the 2010 School of Communications Arts ‘Interventions + Intersections Postgraduate Conference’, held at the University of Western Sydney, the issue includes contributions from the conference’s four keynote speakers – Helen Armstrong, John Napier, Tim Schwab and Catherine Summerhayes – and from the School of Communication Art’s Honours and Higher Degree Research students who work in and around the disciplines of communications, music, film, design and media.
Practice-led and practice-based research is a key focus here, as is genre and media intervention. Many of the papers engage in a hybrid blend of narrative scholarship – a composite of essay, image, fiction, fieldnotes, film and sound. Kellie Green’s article, which won the Best HDR paper at the conference, expertly moves between theoretical intervention, personal narrative, fiction and image. The article is a haunting exploration of the systems of silence that surround the former Magdalene Laundry in Ireland. Netane Siuhengalu’s essay, which won Best Honours paper, takes the form of an essayistic artist’s notebook to explore the potential of the graphic novel as a means for representing Tongan myths and legends. Paul Smith’s essay charts the composer’s experience of translating the design, movement, characterisation and voice acting of Japanese anime into musical expression. The early notes of these compositions are included here. Tim Schwab’s essay, meanwhile, takes an autobiographical approach to tracing the development of documentary film production in North America and the English-speaking world. This essay includes clips from Tim’s documentary film works.
Other papers provoke reflections into the cultures of media and the arts. John Napier considers themes of resistance and self-identity in the music of the Kodava, a substantial minority in the Kodagu (Coorg) district of South India. Catherine Summerhayes asks whether engagements with the virtually real can produce the experience of compassion through an examination of Google Earth and ‘Crisis in Darfur’, a new media project. Helen Armstrong moves to the edges of critical and creative practice to explore disturbing landscapes – the marginal areas of cities and the blurred spaces of scholarship and creativity. Adam Stapleton examines the controversial topic of the sexualisation of children in the media as it relates to debates around definitions of child pornography and the 'paedophilic gaze', while Hilary Hongjin explores issues of piracy, law and censorship and the “one movie, two versions” phenomenon that exists in Hong Kong and China.
David Cubby, Samantha Ewart and Lisa Dowdall complete the postgraduate section. Their papers move variously across the themes of the shifting ontological status of the photograph, the processes involved in developing interactive music systems for teenagers in hospital, and a critical analysis of the use of biotechnology in science-fiction.
This issue also includes an interview with ‘The Future Makers’ documentary filmmaker Maryella Hatfield, several book reviews, and an update on the latest movements in Australian media in the Media Monitors section by Tim Dwyer.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the delegates, presenters, guest speakers, members of the organising committee, and the student volunteers for their contributions to the 2010 Interventions and Intersections conference. In the preparation of this issue, I would like to give special thanks to Hart Cohen, Milissa Deitz, Antonio Castillo, Roman Goik, Myra Gurney, Frank Davey, Rob Leggo and most especially to Lisa Kaufmann.
On behalf of the Editorial Management team, we hope you enjoy this special issue of Global Media Journal – Australian Edition. The journal now includes a comments box alongside each other for feedback. We would be delighted to hear what you think of the issue. You can also find us on Facebook.
References
Hodge, Bob. (1998), ‘Monstrous knowledges: Doing PhDs in the “New Humanities”’, Postgraduate Studies: Postgraduate Pedagogy, ed. Alison Lee and Bill Green, Sydney: Centre for Language and Literacy, Faculty of Education, UTS, pp 113-128.
VALE Neville Petersen (1934-2010)
We at GMJ/AU wish to mark the passing of Neville Petersen – a strong supporter of the journal as an original member of our Advisory Editorial Board and a contributor (see Volume 3 #1 2009, “A biography of Charles Moses” (to be re-published by the Australian Dictionary of Biography) and “Interview with Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley”, (Director of Macquarie University’s Centre for Media History).
Neville’s contribution to media history scholarship is best represented by his 1993 publication News Not Views: The ABC, the Press and Politics 1932-1947 (Hale & Iremonger, 1993). This was followed in 1999 by a monograph: Whose News? Organisational Conflict in the ABC, 1947-1999 (University of Queensland, 1999).
As a journalist and foreign correspondent for more than 25 years, Neville joined the ABC in 1951 and worked in radio and television, in news and current affairs. In 1961, he was posted to the ABC’s Singapore Bureau as the Assistant Asian Manager. In 1966, he went to Tokyo as the ABC’s first News Representative (correspondent) in that city, and in 1971 became European News Editor, based in London.
Neville returned to Australia in 1974, and while continuing his journalism work, received an ABC postgraduate scholarship and took up media studies at the University of Sydney. He was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1978. That same year he left the ABC and began work in public relations and in 1980 became the first Director of Media and Public Relations at the University of Sydney.
Neville made a substantial contribution to the University of Western Sydney’s media studies teaching program, notably in the media policy units as well as foundation units in communication history and theory. He had the great respect of students and staff, but was prevented from continuing teaching due to ill health.
I was extraordinarily fortunate to have known Neville and spouse Helen more intimately once they moved from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. His knowledge of film, classical music, cricket and League (a lifelong Bulldogs supporter) held me enthralled on many occasions. Those who knew him all attest that he was a true gentleman.
Neville Petersen died in Sydney in December 2010 at the age of 76.
Hart Cohen
