ISSN: 1329-878X

Henry Mayer Lecture

In 1993 the inaugural Henry Mayer lecture was presented by Bruce Gyngell at the Sydney Opera House. This was an event organised by the Henry Mayer Trust, a body established following Professor Mayer's death to provide funding for the journal. The second lecture at the Opera House was presented by Brian Johns, then head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, but without dedicated institutional support the idea of an annual lecture lapsed. In 2005, Professor Tom O'Regan, then publisher of MIA and Professor Graeme Turner, director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, revived the plan for an annual memorial lecture jointly presented by MIA and the Centre. The Henry Mayer Lecture is now an annual event, commemorating Professor Mayer, whose energy and passion guided the journal through its first fifteen years, and giving it the impetus to become one of Australia's premier academic journals dealing with the media industries.

2009 Henry Mayer Lecture

From Dallas to SBS: The Popular, the Global and the Diverse on Television, Distinguished Professor Ien Ang, University of Western Sydney

Thursday 12 March 2009
5:30pm - 6:30pm
The University of Queensland Art Museum – St Lucia UQ [see map]

Abstract

Looking back on her own work as a media and cultural researcher in the past 30 years, Ien Ang will reflect on what has  changed in television culture in our increasingly globalised world.

Biography

Distinguished Professor Ien Ang is Professor of Cultural Studies and the founding Director of the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney. She is currently an Australian Research Council Australian Professorial Fellow. She is one of the leaders in media and cultural studies worldwide and the author of some classic books on television culture, These include Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination (1985), Desperately Seeking the Audience (1991) and  Living Room Wars (1996). Her most recent book, co-authored with Gay Hawkins and Lamia Dabboussy, is The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural Diversity (2008).

Ien grew up in Indonesia and the Netherlands before relocating to Australia in the early 1990s. As a multiple migrant she has personally experienced the importance, but also the frustrations, of broadcast television as a medium for national belonging and engagement with the world. In this light, her work has always put the understanding of the media within the context of cultural diversity, its pleasures and discontents.   

The lecture series aims to promote the dynamic research culture of the arts and humanities, in addition to showcasing the diversity of research currently being undertaken within the fields of critical and cultural studies.

This lecture will be chaired by Professor Mike Bromley, Head of the School of Journalism and Communication.

Members of the public are invited to attend these free lectures, after which light refreshments will be served.

Past Lectures

2008: Professor Rodney Tiffen, professor of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney
2007: Mr Peter Manning, Adjunct Professor, University of Technology, Sydney
2006: Dr Jane Roscoe, Programme Executive, SBS Television
2005: Mr Graeme Samuel, AO, Chairman, ACCC
1995: Mr Brian Johns, Chairman, ABA
1993: Mr Bruce Gyngell