The finished product

Not especially happy with it.  I conducted my interview two days before the assignment was due, which wasn't very smart in hindsight.  Indeed, not much time, but all I really needed to do was a bit of editing and cutting and pasting. However, for the second time this week, I experienced equipment malfunction. This time it was the microphone, and I didn’t realise the problem until after the interview, which was mighty helpful.

I spent a good few hours playing around with Audacity, trying to bring up the sound through manipulating (ie amplifying) the recording. It’s not my best effort by a long shot, but it's done now.

Getting talent / the pressures of student journalism

Getting talent

I started my talent search earlier than I did for the first interview; however I am further behind now than I was last time at this point. A few weeks ago I emailed the ACT Police with a request for an interview on youth crime and the importance of the home environment . They returned my email saying they were not able to comment on the precursors of youth crime, but suggested I try youth justice organisations or the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC). I emailed the AIC and they told me they focus exclusively on national research, and the best people to talk to would be the ACT Police. And round and round we go.

The pressures of journalism

I am starting to understand why some journalists are heavy drinkers! One week to go until the last assessment of BJ1 is due and my interview fell through. The talent didn’t pull out, I didn’t pull out, the edirol pulled out!! Well, it didn’t work, at any rate. Whenever I pick up an edirol from the university, I always sit in my car and double check that it works. Just in case. Today I needed to rush back to work, so I figured it would be okay because it's always okay. Well, it wasn’t okay today! The side dial was not working. Half an hour before my interview I noticed this malfunction, and contacted the talent to rearrange another time, which fortunately he agreed to.

A POSTSCRIPT:

Have now figured out the side dial on the edirol is not vital in this instance because it is set up correctly by the previous student who borrowed it. Darn it! Now I have to return this edirol on Tuesday, go back to uni on Wednesday morning to get another one, do my interview on Wednesday night, then return the edirol on Thursday morning. Oh, this is very tedious trying to get away from work during the day.

Have I started yet? Have I started yet? No

So far, I am doing okay in BJ1. Which is remarkable, given my lack of confidence in broadcast journalism. I love the writing process of journalism, but not the interviewing part, and definitely not the "perform live" part. Just my personality I guess. But I digress.

In my time-honoured tradition, I have not started researching for assessment 3. In my first assessment, I spoke to the ACT Scouts Arts Convener, who told me a new Arts Centre is slated to open in the Tuggeranong Valley in the next few months. It is designed to encourage young people to learn new skills in a safe environment, presumably where they will stay out of trouble. The Scouts are a great organisation, but I can't help thinking it's nothing but a bandaid solution.

For me, the obvious other side of the debate is talking to the other people who are trying to stop the youth crime wave, like the police. Although I could speak to local community groups or businesses who have been victims and are powerless to stop the problem. Data from the Bureau of Statistics show that youth crime in Canberra is high. So ultimately, I need to talk to someone who admits there is a big problem, and they don't know what to do about it.

The finished Product

This assignment has caused me alot of stress! There are just too many things that can go wrong. But I've learnt a few things that I will take to the next assignment. The list is by no means exhaustive:

* plug the mircophone into the correct socket of the Edirol.
* Arrange an interview MUCH EARLIER.
* Have 1 or 2 back-up interviews in place for when the first one inevitably pulls out, or changes the interview time at the last minute etc.
* I sound like I'm trying to hard when I try to hard - just try and relax when taping.
* Make sure I tee up an Edirol when I actually have an interview in place.

My main problem is that I didn't give myself enough time. I can easily blame fulltime work, but really it is about my lack of time management, in this case.

I'm not overly excited with the finished product, but I've learnt that I need to give myself more time to dig for a good story and edit the final product.

My voice

Of most benefit were the breathing exercises, although I dislike my voice at the best of times. It sounds deep and monotone, and I really can’t stand hearing it, to be honest. Fortunately, I have no plans to unleash my voice onto the general public as a radio newsperson. It's probably best for everyone.

The talent, Audacity

Getting the talent

One week before my assessment 2 radio interview is due for completion, and I decide to change my story. Well, not so much as a change of mind; more a case of a better story with a stronger news angle coming along.

A few weeks earlier I had tried unsuccessfully to contact a man from the ACT Scouts who was opening a new Arts facility for young people in the Tuggeranong Valley. I had heard about it through a church group. Days before my other interview was due to take place, the man from Scouts contacted me to say he was happy to talk to me about the facility.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that Canberra has a young population, and it also has the highest rate of youth crime in Australia, so a new community arts facility for young people run by the ACT Scouts seemed like a good path to a newsworthy story.

The Interview

The interview was quite stressful and uncomfortable for me, even though I kept saying to myself just do the best you can; we’ll, the best I can do with zero experience in broadcast journalism! I learnt that it is hard to maintain your composure and dignity when you are obsessively checking your equipment for malfunction; when you are trying intently to listen to the answers so you can ask an intelligent and probing question in your umm and ahh free “radio voice”; when you are trying to emphasise key words, but end up sounding like a kid whose voice has just broken.

That same night, I watched Tracey Grimshaw conduct a difficult and confronting interview on A Current Affair and discovered a new appreciation for live interview broadcasting.

Editing

As far as uni assessments go, I am quite enjoying the process of editing my radio interview. Although, I started to cull pauses and umms and ahhs without realising they provide important context in various parts of the interview. My talent may have been pausing for a reason, I thought to myself. I imagine it can become a bit like botox – once you start primping and culling and cropping, you can’t stop until it is completely unrecognisable from the original product. So I started again…

NB: Very happy that I can use Audacity from the comfort of my own laptop.

Pre-interview concerns - of which there are many

Pre-interview concerns - with Edirol, the editing process, and with the technology in general!

The technology

I'm more of a print media kind of girl, but I'm quite enjoying radio journalism. But the technology in BJ1 has me all stressed out. I've never been much of a first responder in an IT emergency. I mostly learn what I need to know through an exhaustive stressful process, particularly for the poor sucker who has to explain it to me. My laptop and I get along for the most part, even though we speak different languages and have diverse views on the meaning of ‘logic’ and ‘practical’.

Edirol

As a general rule, I know that any piece of technology that comes with two pages of instructions is going to give me a headache. However, I find the edirols fairly easy to negotiate. I haven’t interviewed my talent yet, but am playing around with my voice on the edirol so I can look/sound a little bit accomplished when I’m in the hot seat. For example, practicing cutting out the umms and aghs and, in my naivety, trying to sound like an ABC reporter. Then, I download onto Audacity and I can’t understand how to manipulate it! If only we had to do a high-pitched, quick tempo interview in reverse English, then I’d be fine. Note to self: Must develop the voice box of Elmer Fudd so no-one will be the wiser…

The editing process

Resistance is futile, but so enticing. As is throwing my computer out the window. I have never been so frustrated with information technology as I have become today. How is this Audacity audio equipment so technical and complicated? Any why can’t I be of the Y Generation and/or a computer passionista to figure it out? I desperately need an instruction booklet, or a USEFUL help manual, other than that American ‘Audacity Guy’, who I found through Google. He is of no help. I need practical help, like “if you need to do this, you should perhaps use this tool, or this tool”. I want to be able to edit my radio interview to within an inch of perfection (pending my hideous radio voice) but I don’t know how to! I will need to contact the audio guys at UC on Monday. They know stuff.

Researching for Assign No. 2

Researching my topic for assignment 2 – what have I learnt?

I was going to do a story on a new soup kitchen starting up in Kambah. Then I thought about the lack of car parking in the Woden Town Centre. Then I happened upon a roller skater from the Canberra Roller Derby League (CRDL). As with many good stories you come across, I found out about the CRDL via a conversation in the kitchen at work. I tossed around a couple of news angles. CRDL have a bout coming up; a new report released says the overall cost to the taxpayer to manage obesity is $5 billion a year. That’s $5 billion. What better way to get fit and stay lean that roller skating round a rink? Surely you’d be too terrified of being pushed to the ground to worry about whether you’ve burnt off enough calories?

I became intrigued about the punk-style, third wave feminism take on the 60s craze that is roller derby, with its alliterations to pop culture and the double entendre stage names that are used by its competitors. Is this a sport or is this sports entertainment? Do we have Jerry Springer type entertainment on our hands? The roller derby has taken off in the States again; with all-women, self managed leagues cropping up all over the place. And if attendance figures at the previous two bouts in Canberra are any indication, it will be taking Canberra by storm. So what has happened to nice quiet Canberra with its Brumby-loving football fans? I decided to delve into the world to find out, through an interviewer with Bullseye Betty, President of the CRDL.

Baby e-steps

This is practically my first blog ever.  I have become a blogger because I have to. Which is good. I think. In order to complete my Jounalism Major, I am required to create a 'reflective blog' as part of my assessment for the unit of Broadcast Journalism. And so I will reflect, and then reflect some more... Although, I must admit I am not comfortable with the idea of a cyber-diary, and I approach the e-journal world with a degree of trepidation. I mean, aren't diaries supposed to be hidden under the bed?

And the whole idea that you can protect your blogged privates is of little comfort. What happens if the internet is hacked by balaclava-clad nerds intent on exposing my thoughts to the world?  On second thoughts, I think I'll be okay if that's the worst that can happen. Why can't I possess the self-conceit of that Generation Y - happy to share their deepest, darkest thoughts and endless snapshots of drunken escapades with multiple 'friends' and strangers alike? I guess I'm self-aware enough to know that no-one really cares what I write because most people online are too busy with their own blogged, facebooked lives to care.

I always thought that blogs are for extroverts and the 'me, me, me generation' with their hallmark narcissistic tendencies - everyone should read about me because I am endlessly fascinating etc. Sure, I am on Facebook, replete with friends, some with origins unknown, but only because everyone else is.  I was starting to feel like I was being left behind at a random bus stop on a dark night in the middle of nowhere on the information superhighway.

What can I say, the e-pressure got the best of me, so I jumped on the band-width wagon. Now I have many friends, from the past and present, and am left wondering what the facebook generation will do when they realise that some people are meant to be left in the past. I suppose deleting them from a friends list is no different, and perhaps easier, than promising each other you'll catch up soon.

I'm done, until next time I reflect.....

Three little baby fluffs



Very, very tired after their morning flying lesson -
which involved much crash landing



The cultural left's aversion to Cirque

It must have been traumatising for Quentin Letts to have to review a performance of Cirque du Soleil, in this case the incredible Varekai.  Cirque does not really meet the criteria of ‘suffering’ for the arts that is important to be considered ‘art’ in the view of the cultural left.

They tend to have an aversion to anything with deep pockets & no doubt see Cirque as nothing more than an evil, capitalist cash cow. Because being a successful business in the arts field is EVIL. You have to suffer for your art or it not really art. Something along those lines, I don’t understand how their stupid little brains work.

Although it seems to me that Varekai would appeal to the cultural left. It definitely has one of the hallmarks of their precious postmodernism; like a fairly incomprehensible narrative! Not in a negative way, but in the sense that it is open to interpretation, which is a good thing.

I imagine Quentin sat there for the entire show, biting his nails, trying to find some plausible neo-feminist angle in the storyline on which to base his critique, the pompous twat. But he didn’t find one, so he denied there was any narrative (Cirque’s version wasn’t “intellectual” enough for him). Because fascinating, “intellectual” types like Quentin don’t do “spectacle”, they only do “art”.

Space and Military technology in safe hands

Imagine a laser beam so powerful and precise that it could push space debris the size of a pin head out of the path of a satellite. Or a war-zone hotshot being defended by a remote controlled system, mitigating the risk of casualties. While these fictitious ‘star wars’ settings belong in a Hollywood movie, the concepts make good business sense for Canberra-based business Optic Electro Systems (EOS). Their laser technology products are hot property and have the attention of the biggest players in the global space and military sectors.

An unremarkable brown brick building in Griffith is home to EOS, a quarter of a billion dollar success story and a world leader in the niche field of laser imagery technology. While the nearby dirt car park belies their success, the building interior is sleek, polished and minimalist, befitting a company whose key business partners include NASA and the U.S. Military.

The company is split into a space and military division, with offices in the United States and Europe. Although it began in more humble surroundings, in the industrial sector in Queanbeyan. EOS Group General Manager Ron Thompson says Queanbeyan’s appeal was the cheap rent and handy facilities, but the choice of location was also strategic. “No-one in Australia, let alone Washington, knows where Queanbeyan is”, says Mr Thompson.  The close proximity to Canberra means an assimilation with funding by an arm of the Federal Government.

The company was created in 1986 by current CEO, Dr Ben Greene. At the time, the United States President Ronald Reagan was espousing a new defence initiative, known as 'star wars'.  One of the roles of this initiative involved shooting down missiles in space. The Australian Government was opposed to this application of technology and abandoned its support.

“Space debris is the reason our Government of the day moved away from supporting star wars”, Mr Thompson explains. Dr Greene was a Commonwealth employee, working in aerospace, and saw a unique opportunity to take the technology that had been created in the government environment and turn it into a private enterprise. He predicted space debris would pose a big problem in the future.

Twenty years on, while experts around the globe are challenged by the environmental degradation on earth, EOS are confronting the issue in space. “We are working hand over fist to correct the mess in space”, says Mr Thompson. The company’s technology will enable them to locate space debris, catalogue it and, in the long term, to demonstrate the ability to move debris out of its current orbit and into the earth’s atmosphere where it will burn up.

In a star wars analogy, Mr Thompson explains, “the laser will give a glancing blow; it’s like pushing someone in the shoulder, it pushes you off track. You don’t need to use a lot of energy”.

It is a very advanced and costly program, but one EOS say is necessary. “We have environmentally screwed space”, Mr Thompson said. referring to the estimated 30 million pieces of man made debris that NASA say are orbiting earth, ranging from 1 millimetre to metres in size.

And the recently exploding Chinese satellite created an estimated 2 million pieces. “Space is now more valuable real estate than anything on earth. And unless we can do something about it (debris), then the demise of earth will only happen quicker”, says Mr Thompson.

Today, the approval process to launch a satellite is stricter than the cold war days. “Every satellite has to be launched into a particular orbit and there are treaties that impact, affect and control all of space; we all work in a very controlled environment”, says Mr Thompson. He believes that the data will invariably be of more interest to the insurance industry, as a risk mitigate, than it might be to other nations.

The military division of EOS is also heavily involved in global technological developments. Last year, the company earned wide recognition after winning a contract to supply the Australian Army with forty-four remote control weapon systems to support Australian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The product, called CROWS (Common Remote Operated Weapon Station) allows the operator to locate and identify the enemy and fire the weapon from a protected environment, not unlike a playstation.

The ADF wanted them because the U.S. had them and gave rave reviews. “They are so common with the US, there is commonality of operational training. They have the ability to understand the product of the other party quite well”, said Mr Thompson.

The company’s relations with the U.S. military began when the U.S. discovered EOS’ weapon systems research and wanted to test it in Iraq. “The U.S. troop carriers were armour plated and protected from underground explosion, but when they had people jumping out from behind a tree with a granade launcher, they had no defence mechanism for protecting themselves”, says Mr Thompson, and adds, “mobile granade launchers are now a real threat to people in conflict zones as they can be hoisted over the shoulder”.

EOS have designed and will soon test an anti-granade launcher weapon system. As the enemy gets smarter, the defence mechanisms need to be just as clever to counteract. And EOS knows, as well as any Government, that maintaining credibility with the customer means keeping troops out of harms way.

If the military world stopped fighting tomorrow, the world’s money would be focused again on space research, and EOS has that side of the game covered. “Our core technology is lasers and they are applied in two environments where they will always be in demand, space and military, although one maybe more so than the other”, Mr Thompson said.

While EOS compete for contracts with U.S. technology giants, part of the company’s appeal is its nimbleness. “We can change quickly to suit the end users needs, and we are usually aware of the need before they know that they have one”, says Mr Thompson.

Last year, EOS was recognised by the ACT Government as the Top Exporter of the Year, for their unique expertise in defence technology. “Not only has the company contributed millions of export dollars to the ACT economy, but through its Washington office it has also supported other Canberra businesses looking to break into the American market,” Chief Minister John Stanhope said. The future and security of international space and military technology is in safe hands.

For more information on Electro Optic Systems (EOS) go to http://www.eos-aus.com/.

Public service broadcasting - its relevance

There is agreement in the literature of the role Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) should play in society and that it should be judged on the way it manages that role. Both the ABC and the BBC, arguably the most influential public broadcaster in the world, take measures in programming to justify their existence. Some commentators see this as a justification for PSB, there is also criticism PSB lacks consumer sovereignty, is no more relevant to society than commercial broadcasting, and its programming is prone to bias and interference by the government.

While government intervention into PSB can be seen as an economic success, one commentator highlights the need for governments to take care to avoid PSB failures, and there is call for PSB to adapt to the new technological era of endless choice for the consumer to avoid becoming irrelevant.  PSB includes television and radio that receive funding direct from the government, from a specific tax (eg. a television licence fee) or from public donations.

There is mostly agreement in the literature I read of the role that public service broadcasting should play. According to Burns (2008: 868), a public service broadcaster should be universally available, have universal appeal, have provisions for minorities, should educate the public, should remain distant from vested interests and have freedom from the programme maker.

Jacka (2006: 344) discusses the vision of the BBC’s founder, Lord John Reith, to see public broadcasting as a new way of forming public opinion; a ‘public service’ that would act as a “moral and educative force”. The Reithian ideals can be summarised as the access to fine culture for all and the key role it should play in informing the public, reaffirming that high quality content continues to be a defence for the existence of PSB.

According to Oesterlen (2008: 34) public service broadcasters assert their value and cultural credentials by broadcasting high culture to prove they are still culturally relevant and beneficial to the taxpayer. Oesterlen (2008) discusses BBC's global broadcast of the Shakespeare play King Lear as an attempt to assert power in determining cultural content in the new competitive media landscape of the twenty-first century.

The ABC Charter (ABC Online) maintains the ABC is valuable to society. Its core functions include keeping the public informed through programs that contribute to a sense of national identity, that educate and entertain and that reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. Also, to transmit internationally to encourage an awareness of Australia and enable expatriate or travelling Australians to be aware of what's going on at home. The Charter also says the ABC has an awareness of the multicultural nature of the Australian community, and has an understanding of its responsibility to provide a balance of popular programs with those of special interest.

But what about what happens to the taxpayer’s dollars? According to Doyle (2002: 61), PSB is valuable to society from an economic perspective. The author discusses this value in terms of its ‘public good’ characteristics; which are its non-excludability, meaning the consumption of the good by a viewer does not reduce its availability for anyone else, and its non-exhaustibility, meaning no-one is excluded from accessing the good.

But Doyle (2002: 64) also explores public broadcasting as a market failure, due to the fact the price and quantity of the goods are not determined by supply and demand, so there is no mechanism for direct revenue from the consumer. This is relevant because PSB is funded by the public. The author (2002: 66) discusses the idea that governments produce PSB because it is thought the market does not supply the values that are need to maintain a civil society, and the people are not capable of judging what is in their own best interests. Cooper (2007: 2) says governments know that television is engrained in modern life, and will seek to control what may be broadcast, as a form of social control.

But according to Williams (1996: 103), public service broadcasters are “running smack” into television’s basic law, which is “give people more choice, they use it”. Williams (1996) also found that the public don’t really want to be educated by television. In a study, the author looked at the most popular television programs in 1995, even before the internet had really caught on, and found consumers want popular, commercial television, not specialised PSB. The top programs from the ABC didn’t even rate in the top 100.

Other literature says commercial television is just as relevant as PSB in terms of keeping the public informed on important issues. Krajina (2007: 198) thinks popular commercial television is as useful as PSB, and should not be condemned as “mere profit-motivated irrational pleasures”; because consumers are involved in “rational deliberation” as active citizens. The author (2007: 199) looked at the power of “democratic entertainment”, through an assessment of a game/talk show “The Pyramid”, which involved informed discussions on important national issues with an audience, celebrities and politicians.

There is agreement in the literature that consumer sovereignty is important to viewers; they like to engage and have some say in a medium they are paying for. According to some commentators, PSB consumers do not get to dictate what is produced, so there is a lack of consumer sovereignty. Doyle (2002) argues that in a normal market, public service broadcasters would need to meet the preferences of their consumers if they wished to remain in business.

Others argue consumer sovereignty is a myth that is perpetuated by the media to defend its programming (Pauwels & Bauwens, 2007, 149). Pauwels & Bauwens (2007) argue TV viewers have a choice of programmes, but it is merely a reflection of the consumers’ personal socio-economic conditions and relations, and a choice only from what is on offer, which is not to say it is what they really want.

To this end, the extent consumers come into contact with different forms of cultural expression can be limited. The authors also explore the “interiorisation of consumer sovereignty” (2007: 58), the idea that viewers blame themselves when they can’t choose a program they like, and in doing so, they actively contribute to their own powerlessness, by actively reproducing the myth of consumer sovereignty.

According to Ferguson (2007: 182), the democratic ideals of access and participation are critically important in defending the existence of PSB in today's environment of endless programme choice and mediums. Particularly so in an era where governments are cutting back on PSB funding and commercial and pay television broadcasting are rapidly expanding.

Richards (2005) discusses this as a “gentle, gradual, evolving, historic act of liberation” for consumers. That is, the liberty to determine what they watch and what they listen to, on their own schedule.

So, what of the future for PSB, particularly in Australia? Curran (1981: 324) discusses the growing disparity in revenue between the commercial broadcasters and PSB which means outlets like the ABC will continue to be vulnerable to political pressure, as long as it relies on government funding. And Dempster (2000: 56) points to the ongoing accusations of bias against the ABC generated from both sides of politics.

One commentator gave a description of the failure of the PSB model in New Zealand, as an example for governments to avoid. Cocker (2008: 40) gives an insight into the several eras of bad policies from New Zealand governments, including the early restrictive regulation of television and an unwillingness to give public service broadcasters political independence or adequate funding. According to Cocker (2008: 42), the New Zealand model has never met public expectations and needs and has not measured up to the ideals of a public service broadcaster in a democracy.

The literature was reviewed in relation to the role, value and future of PSB. There is agreement among commentators that PSB should be judged on how it manages its role. One commentator highlights how public service broadcasters take measures to justify their existence, and there exists criticism over its lack of consumer sovereignty, whether it is any more relevant for society than commercial broadcasting, and the issue of bias and interference by the government. One commentator argues PSB can be viewed as an economic success, another warns of a PSB failure. Further, there is commentary regarding the future relevance of public service broadcasters in the new technological era of endless choice and mediums for consumers.


REFERENCE LIST

ABC Online (2008) ABC Charter 1983, About the ABC. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/ABCcharter.htm Accessed 9 April 2009.

Burns (2008) Public Service Broadcasting meets the Internet at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 22, 6, pp. 867-881.

Cocker, A. (2008) Broadcasting in New Zealand: A story of public policy failure. Australia Journal of Communication, 35, 2, pp. 39-55.

Cooper, C. (2007) Television on the Internet: Regulating News Ways of Viewing. Information & Communications Technology Law, 16, 1, pp. 1-16.

Curran, J. (1981) The Impact of Advertising on the British Mass Media. Media, Culture & Society, 3, 1, pp. 43-69.

Dempster, Q. (2000) Death Struggle. Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, NSW.

Doyle, G. (2002) Understanding Media Economics, First Edition, Sage: University of Glasgow.

Ferguson (2007) Locking out the Mother Corp: Nationalism and Popular Imaginings of Public Service Broadcasting in the Print News Media, Canadian Journal of Communication, 32, 2, pp. 181-200.

Jacka, E. (Edited by Cunningham, S. & Turner, G.) (1997) The Media and Communications in Australia. Allen & Unwin: Sydney.

Krajina, Z. (2007) Democratic Potentials of Media Entertainment: Reading ‘The Pyramid’. Political Thought: Croatian Political Science Review, 16, 5, pp. 179-202.

Oesterlen, E. (2008) Lend me your 84 million ears: Exploring a special radio event – Shakespeare’s King Lear on BBC World Radio Service. The Radio Journal, 6, 1, pp. 33-44.

Pauwels, C. & Bauwens, J. (2007) ‘Power to the People’? The myth of television consumer sovereignty revisited. International Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 3, 2, pp. 149-165.

Richards, E. (2005) OFCOM Annual Lecture: Trends in Television, Radio and Telecoms, 20 July. Available online at: www.ofcom.org.uk/media/speeches/2005/07/

Williams, R. (1996) Normal Service won’t be resumed. Allen & Unwin: St Leonard’s , NSW.

Why is sport so important in Australia?

Sport is an important social institution in Australia and the values that are deemed most important in Australian society are reflected in sport in Australia. Any meaning and value that is placed on sport in Australia is socially constructed, and reflect the core societal values, which are generally linked to what it means to be Australian. Power is a feature of all social relations, and the dominant group will use the values that are important in society, as a way of maintaining their hegemony. The dominant group will change as society changes.

Sport is an important social institution in Australia that permeates through all sectors of Australian society. In any sport interactions, when there is engagement with other individuals, there will be a degree of regulation or authority, a controlling structure or body that determines the rules of the game, so to speak. In this way, sport can be considered to be like any other social institution.

And like other social or cultural practices, it should be placed into the context of the society in which it occurs (Mewett, 2003: 446). If sport can be said to mirror society, then it will provide a means of understanding the core values in society, and in turn, the core values placed on sport.

The sociologist Max Weber said that societies are constructed by the human beings living in that society (Weber 1938 cited in Sage: 4-5), meaning any value that is placed on sport in Australia is socially constructed. Weber’s theory rests on the assumption that there are no ideas independent of human existence (Sage, 1990: 4).

The importance that is placed on sport in Australia is socially constructed and articulated by the dominant group in society to represent their version of ‘social reality’, thereby expressing it as part of the national identity (Sage, 1990: 21).

Thus, allowing the dominant group in society to legitimise their hegemony. While the dominant group in society will change as society changes (McGregor, 2003: 144), those at the top of the power structure will generally have more power, wealth, possessions, opportunities and more control over their lives than those at the bottom” (McGregor, 2003: 144).

The importance placed on sport during the First World War was class divided, and was a mirror of the class divisions in society at the time. In 1914, there were two distinct views toward what importance should be placed on sport. The dominant group was the middle class, reflecting the hegemony of the middle class in society at the time (McKernan, 1979: 3)

The middle class wanted Australians to stop playing sport until the war was over, with the view that sport was a recreational pursuit and merely a good grounding for the more important things in life, an excellent moral and physical training ground for the “greater game”, which of course meant the war (McKernan, 1979: 2). To this end, they argued that sport was distracting Australians from the war. In their view, sport served a higher, rational purpose than mere entertainment (McKernan. 1979: 2).

The alternate view came from the working class, who held the view that sport was a profession that was primarily a form of entertainment and should not be taken too seriously. They rejected the suggestion that a few hours spent watching a game of football meant that it “induced apathy or indifference to higher struggles or duties” (McKernan,1979: 18). The implication by the middle class being that men who spent time watching sport should instead be fighting the war.

While the level of importance that each class placed on sport was determined by social and economical factors (Horne et al, 1999: 61) (and was also a reflection of the amateur/professional divide of sport at the time).

By 1917, the class conflict was breaking down social cohesiveness necessary for a civil society so, not unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister, W.M. Hughes, intervened and attempted to resolve the issue. In his May 1917 Budget, he said sporting matches should be halted during the war “in order to concentrate the minds of the people on the more serious aspect of war.” (McKernan, 1979: 15).

After waiting for the football finals to be completed, the Government placed restrictions on sport for the duration of the war, particularly the professional codes where large crowds of men would gather, in the hope of encouraging more men to enlist (McKernan, 1979: 14-15).

They didn’t enlist in great numbers, but the restrictions did promote a more cohesive social environment that kept society in check and so legitimated the government intervention. An important point is that the restrictions were delayed until after the football finals, which contradicted the governments’ reason for intervening in the first place.

During the years of the First World War, different class structures in Australia placed varying levels of importance on sport. And through legitimate government intervention, the dominant group in society maintained their hegemony through the restrictions that were placed on certain sports, those which entertained the masses.

In Australian society today, the dominant group has changed, reflecting the changes in society. Class is still an issue, but when it comes to the importance that is placed on sport, the government are the dominant group and are able to influence the importance of sport in Australian society, or at least use the significance of sport to maintain their hegemony.

In October 2005, the Minister for Small Business in Victoria issued a press release that stated the Victorian Government had decided to “delay” the end of day-light savings to coincide with the end of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne (Haermeyer, 2005). The decision “makes things easier for businesses as it minimises any disruption or change during this exciting international event”. The government created certain conditions to benefit the state economically, the Games bringing in more tourists to the State.

By stating the delay of the end of daylight savings will accommodate international viewers and allow Australia to receive maximum international attention, this created a perceived importance around the Games and legitimised the Victorian Government’s desire to generate money into the Victorian economy, which is one of the features of a dominant group, to “preserve the basis of privilege and dominance” (Horne et al, 1999: 123).

Through placing a high level of importance onto sport, the dominant group are able to manipulate the values held in society to maintain their hegemony

Australians learn to conform to the social norms (Horne et al, 1999: 133) to fit into Australian society. They will adhere to the values they are told are distinctly Australian because they are so closely associated with what it means to be Australian; qualities like mateship, courage, teamwork, loyalty, leadership and physical prowess (Australian War Memorial, 2006) are part of Australia’s history. Therefore, the core values of Australian society are expected to be displayed during events of national significance like the Olympic Games by Australian athletes, and anything that does not fit this mould will be rejected as ‘un-Australian’.

In the 2004 Athens Olympics, rower Sally Robbins ‘stopped’ rowing during the final, ‘denying’ the Australian team a chance at a medal. She said her collapse was due to the extreme heat but she was vilified by much of the media and the public (Radcliffe, 2004). BBC Sport called her action “very un-Australian” and that she had disappointed her “sport-mad country” (Radcliffe, 2004). The Australian newspaper compared her to the Australian ‘hero’ Grant Hackett saying “his was the definitive demonstration of heroism - he did everything it took to reach his goal” (Radcliffe, 2004).

The Melbourne Sun headline read “It's eight, mate, pull your weight” (Radcliffe, 2004) and the Sydney Morning Telegraph used the headline "Just Oarful" to demonstrate their views and ran a poll asking readers to vote on whether she had cost the team a medal (Radcliffe, 2004). The response from Australia’s Olympic chief John Coates was that "there have been breaches of our team guidelines which say team members shouldn't talk disparagingly about other team members” (Radcliffe, 2004).

Importantly, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard said “I wasn't there and I can understand the passion and the emotion and the effort that goes into these things and the sense of disappointment people feel - but I'm not taking sides” (Radcliffe, 2004). It is normal for a politician to distance themselves from a controversy that does not involve the government, but his comment can be compared to the situation in 1917, where the Government of the day will intervene as little as possible, particularly when the controversy involves the matter of sport.

This example highlights sport reflecting the wider community, where Australians will judge other Australians by their actions on the sporting field. To this end, many in the Australian community placed more importance on Australian winning another medal than on the welfare of a fellow Australian, with a poll in the Sydney Morning Herald revealing that only 27% of respondents though that she was treated unfairly (Sydney Morning Herald, 2004).

Sport is an important social institution in Australia and the values that are deemed most important in Australian society are reflected in sport in Australia. The value and importance that is placed on sport in Australia is socially constructed, and reflect the core societal values, which are generally linked to what it means to be Australian. They are linked with Australian history, and any move away from these values will be rejected by society. While the dominant group in Australian society has changed as society changes, power remains a feature of all social relations; and the dominant group in society will use these values of Australians is a means of maintaining their hegemony.


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