The Annual History Lecture launches History Week each year. Traditionally held at Government House, the lecture is delivered by an eminent speaker on a topic or theme of general and historical interest, showing how an appreciation of the past may inform our understanding of current issues. The lecture is also published as a monograph.

Annual History Lecture 2010: Voices from the Street

John Laws, arguably Australia’s longest-serving and most successful commercial radio talkback host, labelled his program and his genre ‘dial-in democracy’. If biography, and history from below, are about faces in the street, the Australian media is at least in part about voices from the street. Amongst the mellifluous tones of Laws and ‘Andrea’, the gravelly rasps of Brian White and Derryn Hinch, and the impatient injunctions of Alan Jones and Howard Sattler have been the voices of countless ‘ordinary’ Australians. This lecture considers how voices of ‘the people’ have been heard in Australian print media outlets, led by the Bulletin, since the nineteenth century, and on Australian radio since the 1920s. It moves from letters to the editor to confessional magazines, community singing to radio clubs, programs like Voice of the People to Australia’s Amateur Hour, and, of course, talkback radio. Along the way, it reflects on issues such as the flow of ideas and influences between Britain, the United States and Australia; the ways notions of the public and the community have been deployed by commercial radio managements and interpreted by broadcasting regulators; and how listeners and callers, like some regular writers of letters to the editor, can emerge as media identities in their own right. It suggests that participatory media in Australia began long before the emergence of reality television and the spread of the Internet.

Associate Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley is an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and the Director of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University. Late last year her major new book, Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio, was published. Widely recognised as Australia’s leading media historian, she is also the author of The House of Packer (1999), Sir Frank Packer (2000) and Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal (2003). She is now working on A Companion to the Australian Media, and serves on the Library Council of NSW and the NSW Working Party of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

When:  Friday 3 September 2010, 6:00pm - 8:30pm            

Where:  Government House, Macquarie Street, Sydney

Contact:  9252 8715, admin@historycouncilnsw.org.au             

Cost:  $50.00 general, $45.00 HCNSW, HHT members and concession. Bookings essential. Download the booking form in the right hand column.

Previous Lectures

2009 James Spigelman AC The Macquarie Bicentennial

2008 Joy Damousi Elocution Lessons

2007 Iain McCalman Historical Re-enactments

2006 Hilary Golder Evidence and Accountability

2005 Bruce Scates The Ghosts of Gallipoli

2004 Peter Read A Haunted Land No Longer?

2003 Raelene Frances ‘White Slaves’ and White Australia

2002 Tim Bowden Shaping History Through Personal Stories

2001 Ien Ang Intertwining Histories

2000 Shirley Fitzgerald History? You Must be Joking

1999 Don Watson The Politics of History

1998 Jill Roe History for the People

1996 Stuart Macintyre The Necessity of History

Podcasts of previous lectures are available at ABC Hindsight >>>