Emeritus Professor Liz Jacka
Senior Researcher, Social and Political Change Group
BA (Auck), BSc (Auck), PhD (Syd)
Email: Liz.Jacka@uts.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9514 2311
Fax: +61 2 9514 2778
Room: CB03.05.43 (map)
Mailing address: PO Box 123,
Broadway NSW 2007,
Australia
Biography
Liz Jacka researches in the areas of broadcasting history and policy. She is presently engaged in two major research projects: the past, present and future of Public Service Broadcasting and the history of Australian television. She has also recently completed projects on the Australian media and the Gulf War and on arts programming on the ABC. She is currently supervising a number of higher degree students who are working on various topics, including the history of Australian cultural organisations, film and classification, media coverage of Islamic issues, aspects of Australian television history and an analysis of the Australian film industry in the global environment.
HSS Profile
Professional
CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES: A cultural history of Australian television
This is a cultural history of Australian television beginning just before the first television broadcast in 1956 and ending in 1992 as mult-channel broadcasting emerged. It will concentrate mainly on commercial television but within a broader media environment. Television contributes to a sense of ourselves as part of a nation, helps to situate us within a globalised world, gives us images by which we interpret the unfamiliar, is an ingredient in democratic discourse and fosters creative expression. Using these terms, the study will attempt to understand the cultural significance of the 'goldeb age' of free to air television in Australia.
The New Services Industry Model: Implications for audio-visual media
This project examines important directions in the understanding of audi-visual media. It seeks to apply a 'services industries' model of policy and regulation to four key problems: the conversion to digital transmission platforms, public broadcasting and its future role, international policy dynamics and the re-evaluation of long-standing domestic social and cultural policy objectives. Liz Jacka is responsible for the module on public service broadcasting. Fellow researchers are Professors Tom O'Regan and Stuart Cunningham and Dr Julian Thomas. This project has been funded by a three year ARC Discovery Grant 2003-5.
ABC Online as a media website
Public service broadcasting is under threat in the digital environment. Like other media organisations the ABC has established an Internet site which aims to provide audiences with new types of information and entertainment, packaged in new ways and involving various levels of interactivity. This study is a comparative examination of a number of media Internet sites in order to discover whether and how they are creating new content, new forms of interactivity and new audiences. This will provide a perspective from which to judge the future relevance of the ABC in a multi-channel environment.
Teaching areas
Media Studies
Research
Research interests
Broadcasting and communications policy
Australian Film and Television: history, industry and policy
Television studies
Globalisation of media and culture
Communications history
Projects
Selected Peer-Assessed Projects
[requires project title] ARC Cultural Research Network
Community Networks: Human Communication as a source of sustainabilty in global Australia
Welcome to Television: A Cultural History of Australian Television 1956-1992
Outside the box, scenarios for Australian television in 2015
Mapping Assessing and Overcoming Digital Divides in Indigenous Australia
The new services industry model: Implications for audio-visual media
A history of Australian Television
ABC Online as a media internet site
Transforming Cultures: Mobilization of narratives of the local in a globalising world
Publications
Research book chapters
Jakubowicz, A.H. & Jacka, E. 2005, 'The Invisible Ally: Marketing Australia's War in Iraq' in Artz, L; Kamalipour, Y (eds), Bring 'Em On - Media and Politics in the Iraq War, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Maryland USA, pp. 101-120.
View/Download from: UTSePress
Jacka, E. 2000, 'Public Service TV: an Endangered Species' in Cunningham, Stuart; Turner, Graeme (eds), Australian TV Book, Allen & Unwin, Sydney Australia, pp. 52-68.
Book chapters (other)
Jacka, E. 2006, 'Australia: The ABC and Public Value - Public Service Broadcaster in the Age of Competition' in Indrajit Banerjee & Kalinga Seneviratne (eds), Public Service Broadcasting in the Age of Globalization, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre & SCI, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, pp. 165-186.
Jacka, E. 2001, 'The future of public service broadcasting' in Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner (eds), The Media and Communications In Australia, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, Australia, pp. 300-343.
Refereed journal articles
Jacka, E. 2006, 'The ABC and the 2006 federal media reforms', Media International Australia, vol. 0, no. 120, pp. 5-9.
View/Download from: UTSePress
Jacka, E. 2005, 'The elephant trap: Bias, balance and government - ABC relations during the second Gulf War', Southern Review, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 8-28.
View/Download from: UTSePress
Jacka, E. 2004, 'Doing the history of television in Australia: Problems and Challenges', Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 27-42.
View/Download from: UTSePress | Publisher's site
Jacka, E. 2003, '"Democracy as Defeat": The Impotence of Arguments for Public Service Broadcasting', Television & New Media, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 177-191.
View/Download from: UTSePress | Publisher's site
Jacka, E. 2000, 'Review of 'An Introductory History of British Broadcasting'', Media International Australia incorporating Culture & Policy, vol. 0, no. 96, pp. 183-184.
Journal articles
Jacka, E., Wilson, H.J. 2004, 'American Empire: Media and international security', Media International Australia, vol. Npv 2004, no. 113, pp. 5-9.
Jacka, E. 2002, 'Digital Space, Public Places', Southern Review, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 1-8.
