Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Friday 09 October
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
There are a number of ways in which the worlds of journalism and academia overlap. Our team of ‘hackademics’ – journalists slash academics – discuss how the conclusions of their research can inform the direction of the media industry at a time of great uncertainty.
They’ll also outline how journalism and media studies can influence research in other disciplines. As well as researching, our hackademics teach skills to the next generation of journalists. They’ll discuss the benefits and challenges of a world where university courses are replacing traditional cadetships as pathways into mainstream media organisations.
Hosted by Andrew Dodd with Sally Young, Scott Wright, David Nolan, Jock Given and Margaret Simons.
Featuring
Andrew Dodd
Andrew Dodd is the director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years, working in radio, TV, print and online.
He was a broadcaster at ABC Radio National, where he presented many of the network’s programs and founded the Media Report. He was a national reporter at ABC TV’s 7.30 Report and a business and media reporter at the Australian newspaper. He is co-host of the Media Files podcast for the Conversation.
Margaret Simons
Margaret Simons is Associate Professor in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University. In 2015, she won the Walkley Award for Social Equity Journalism. Her recent books include Six Square Metres, Self-Made Man: The Kerry Stokes Story, What's Next in Journalism?, Journalism at the Crossroads and Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, co-written with former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser. The latter won both the Book of the Year and the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2011.
In addition to her academic work, Margaret regularly writes for the Saturday Paper, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Griffith Review, the Monthly and other publications.
Sally Young
Sally Young is an Associate Professor in Political Science and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely in the areas of Australian politics, Australian media, political communication and journalism studies, including as the author of How Australia Decides: Election Reporting and the Media (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and The Persuaders (Pluto Press, 2004), and the editor of Government Communication in Australia (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Sally is currently writing a book on press power in Australia since the 1920s. Sally is a regular media commentator on Australian politics and elections and has written a monthly column for the Age since 2013.
David Nolan
David Nolan is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications. His work focuses on journalism studies and the changing role played by media in social and political relations. He recently led a Centre for Advancing Journalism research project focussing on the question of how media representations of Sudanese Australians might be improved.
His work has been published in numerous leading international journals, and he is also on the editorial board of the journal Communication, Politics and Culture.
Among his current research projects is work that focuses on the problem of understanding contemporary change in journalism in an historical light; critical analysis of media transformation in contemporary China; and the role performed by media in the politics and practice of contemporary humanitarianism.
Jock Given
Jock Given researches, writes and teaches about media and communications policy, business, law and history. He writes regularly for Inside Story and his radio documentaries 'Crawfords: Television for the People' and 'Empire State: Ernest Fisk and the World Wide Wireless' were broadcast by ABC Radio National's Hindsight program in 2014 and 2012. Since 2007 he has been professor of media and communications at Swinburne University’s Institute for Social Research where he teaches Media Law and is managing an ARC Discovery Project about radiofrequency spectrum management.
His work has been published in Australian Journalism Review, Business History, Telecommunications Policy, Studies in Australasian Cinema and the Historical Records of Australian Science. Jock previously worked as Director of the Communications Law Centre, Policy Advisor at the Australian Film Commission and Director, Legislation and Industry Economics in the federal Department of Transport and Communications.
Scott Wright
Scott Wright is Senior Lecturer in Political Communication and a former Mid-Career Fellow of the British Academy. His research interests include everyday political talk, below the line comment fields and data journalism. Scott has published widely in leading international journals including Political Communication, International Journal of Press/Politics, New Media & Society, Journal of Computer Mediated-Communication, Information, Communication and Society, and the European Journal of Communication. He is currently undertaking a longitudinal analysis of journalists commenting below the line at the Guardian, and how comment fields impact journalism practice.