TY - JOUR
T1 - From cold war to hot planet
T2 - Australia’s CSIRO film unit*
AU - Hughes, John
N1 - Funding Information:
The Australian Commonwealth’s Science and Industry Research Organisation (CSIRO) closed the doors of its Film and Video Unit in 2014. The Unit had been through many reconfigurations since its establishment in February 1948. The Council for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) established in 1926, was replaced in 1949 by the CSIRO. This supple change in nomenclature dissimulated the ruptures of Cold War intrigue and debate around national security, secrecy, openness and ‘social responsibility’ in scientific research and communications at this time.
Funding Information:
CONTACT John Hughes [email protected] *This paper was prepared with support from the ARC Discovery Project ‘Utilitarian Film in Australia 1945–1980’, University of Canberra. With special thanks to John Evans and Jannifer Blacklaw, and to CSIRO Film Unit people, Nick Alexander, Robert Kerton, Russell Porter and David Tiley. At CSIRO thanks to Tim O’Grady (Records Services Manager), Nick Richard-son at ACMI, at NFSA many thanks to Siobhan Dee and thanks Alex, Cathie and Olympia at AFI Research Collection, RMIT. Thanks to Ross Gibson for editing suggestions, Robert Kerton and Russell Porter for corrections and suggestions at an earlier draft, my colleagues on ‘The Utilitarian Film in Australia (1945-1980)’ ARC Discovery project, and anonymous refer-ees for their critique and suggestions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - The CSIRO Film Unit (1948–2014) made research, educational and public relations films, videos and multi-media on behalf of various Divisions of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Non-theatrical distribution of 16 mm film and video had significant impact in schools, industry and community settings. Dedicated personnel working in the under-examined ‘utilitarian’ sector of film production have contributed substantively to science communications in Australia. The films offer a coherent and accessible body of work amenable to further thematic analysis oriented to discourses of ecology and environmentalism, explanatory idioms of the techno-sciences, film in agricultural extension work and scientific film. An outline of science programing in Australian broadcasting observes a fraught history. Questions around science communications and political ideology, and information, entertainment and critique in the scientific film are raised. It is argued that both ABC and CSIRO films were conditioned by bureaucratic and political conditions influencing their science communications practice.
AB - The CSIRO Film Unit (1948–2014) made research, educational and public relations films, videos and multi-media on behalf of various Divisions of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Non-theatrical distribution of 16 mm film and video had significant impact in schools, industry and community settings. Dedicated personnel working in the under-examined ‘utilitarian’ sector of film production have contributed substantively to science communications in Australia. The films offer a coherent and accessible body of work amenable to further thematic analysis oriented to discourses of ecology and environmentalism, explanatory idioms of the techno-sciences, film in agricultural extension work and scientific film. An outline of science programing in Australian broadcasting observes a fraught history. Questions around science communications and political ideology, and information, entertainment and critique in the scientific film are raised. It is argued that both ABC and CSIRO films were conditioned by bureaucratic and political conditions influencing their science communications practice.
KW - cold war
KW - CSIRO film unit
KW - scientific film
KW - utilitarian film in Australia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041236444&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP160101536
U2 - 10.1080/17503280.2017.1420416
DO - 10.1080/17503280.2017.1420416
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041236444
SN - 1750-3280
VL - 12
SP - 72
EP - 96
JO - Studies in Documentary Film
JF - Studies in Documentary Film
IS - 1
ER -