Imagining rural audiences in remote Western Australia
Document Type
Journal Article
Keywords
Media, rurality, radio, satellite broadcasting, Australia
Publisher
Linköping University Electronic Press
Faculty
Faculty of Education and Arts
School
School of Communication and Arts / Centre for Research in Entertainment, Arts, Technology, Education and Communications
RAS ID
10127
Abstract
In 1979, Australia’s then-Communication Minister Tony Staley commented that the introduction of satellite communications to the bush would “dispel the dis-tance – mental as well as geographical – between urban and regional dwellers, between the haves and the have-nots in a communication society” (Staley 1979: 2225, 2228-9). In saying this, Staley imagined a marginalised and disadvantaged audience of “have-nots”, paying for their isolation in terms of their mental dis-tance from the networked communications of the core. This paper uses ethnographic audience studies surveys and interviews (1986-9) to examine the validity of Staley’s imaginations in terms of four communication technologies: the telephone, broadcast radio, 2-way radio and the satellite. The notion of a mental difference is highly problematic for the remote audience. Inso-far as a perception of lack and of difference is accepted, it is taken to reflect the perspective and the product of the urban policy-maker. Far from accepting the “distance” promulgated from the core, remote audiences see such statements as indicating an ignorance of the complexity and sophistica-tion of communications in an environment where the stakes are higher and the options fewer. This is not to say that remote people were not keen to acquire satel-lite services – they were – it is to say that when they imagined such services it was in terms of equity and interconnections, rather than the “dispelling of distance”.
Access Rights
free_to_read
Comments
Green, L. R. (2010). Imagining rural audiences in remote Western Australia. Culture Unbound: journal of current cultural research, 2, 131-152. Available here.