Research in the School of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies
Supervision of Research Degrees (PhD and Masters)
Our academic staff offer supervision of research projects in the following areas:
- Australian governance and public policy
- Australian literary and historical studies
- Australian urban and regional studies
- Communications, media studies and new technologies
- Biography and biographical studies
- Journalism and the law
- Journalism and the environment
- Tourism and mobility
- Sport and society
- Publishing studies
- War and memory
Research Strengths
Our research strengths lie in the areas of:
- media practice
- journalism and democratic practice
- Australian studies
- investigative journalism
- communications, media studies and new technologies
- biography and biographical studies
- tourism and mobility
- sport and society
- the growth of consumerism
- publishing studies and media reporting of climate change
- war and memory
Research Projects
Examples of research funded by the Australian Research Council and other competitive grants include:
A Land Fit for Heroes: A Social, Cultural and Environmental History of Soldier Settlement in NSW, 1916–1939
This project involves the first extended study of soldier settlement in New South Wales, which ‘opened up’ vast tracts of the state in the aftermath of the Great War. ‘A Land Fit for Heroes’ involves collaboration with Department of Veterans’ Affairs and State Records NSW. Based on recently opened archives it will address emerging themes in transnational and environmental history, enrich regional/community histories and recover the largely forgotten experience of soldier settlers and their families as they battled with the land.
Gough Whitlam: A Living Democracy
This project is the second volume in a two-volume political biography of the former Australian Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. It focuses on Whitlam’s time in office 1972-1975 including the unprecedented and controversial dismissal of his government by the Governor-General, Whitlam’s life after politics and as Australia’s Ambassador to UNESCO. This is a collaborative project that involves the National Library of Australia and the National Archives of Australia and explores previously unexamined archival and manuscript holdings. The biography draws on unprecedented access to archival material, interviews with family and colleagues and exclusive interviews with Gough Whitlam himself and examines Australian political and cultural developments in the twentieth century through the life of one of its most significant public figures.
Revisiting Australia’s War: International Perspectives on Heritage, Memory and ANZAC Pilgrimages to the Cemeteries, Sites and Battlefields of World War 2
War has assumed an iconographic status in Australia and New Zealand; for many the spirit of Anzac defines the values of both nations. A study of WW2 pilgrimage will explore ways the Anzac legend has been revisited, reinvented and revitalised by successive generations. This project will retrieve the memory of war from those who suffered it, empower communities of mourners on both sides of the Tasman and help to explain why the Anzac mythology captivates such a diverse cross section of society. It will explore a neglected dimension of Australasia’s relationship with the world and the Asia/Pacific region in particular.