TY - JOUR
T1 - How television moved a nation
T2 - media, change and Indigenous rights
AU - WALLER, Lisa
AU - MCCALLUM, Kerry
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to Magali McDuffie, who assisted with the archival research at the Australian National Film and Sound Archive and the National Archives of Australia. Lisa Waller received financial support for the research in this article through a Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia Award for Research Excellence.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2018/10/1
Y1 - 2018/10/1
N2 - This article examines the role of television in Australia’s 1967 referendum, which is widely believed to have given rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It presents an analysis of archival television footage to identify five stories that moved the nation: Australia’s shame, civil rights and global connections, admirable activists, ‘a fair go’ and consensus. It argues that television shaped the wider culture and opened a channel of communication that allowed Indigenous activists and everyday people to speak directly to non-Indigenous people and other First Nations people throughout the land for the first time. The referendum narrative that television did so much to craft and promote marks the shift from an older form of settler nationalism that simply excluded Indigenous people, to an ongoing project that seeks to recognise, respect and ‘reaccredit’ the nation-state through incorporation of Indigenous narratives. We conclude that whereas television is understood to have ‘united’ the nation in 1967, 50 years later seismic shifts in media and society have made the quest for further constitutional reform on Indigenous rights and recognition more sophisticated, diffuse, complex and challenging.
AB - This article examines the role of television in Australia’s 1967 referendum, which is widely believed to have given rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It presents an analysis of archival television footage to identify five stories that moved the nation: Australia’s shame, civil rights and global connections, admirable activists, ‘a fair go’ and consensus. It argues that television shaped the wider culture and opened a channel of communication that allowed Indigenous activists and everyday people to speak directly to non-Indigenous people and other First Nations people throughout the land for the first time. The referendum narrative that television did so much to craft and promote marks the shift from an older form of settler nationalism that simply excluded Indigenous people, to an ongoing project that seeks to recognise, respect and ‘reaccredit’ the nation-state through incorporation of Indigenous narratives. We conclude that whereas television is understood to have ‘united’ the nation in 1967, 50 years later seismic shifts in media and society have made the quest for further constitutional reform on Indigenous rights and recognition more sophisticated, diffuse, complex and challenging.
KW - Television
KW - 1967 Referendum
KW - television and national narratives
KW - lndigenous rights
KW - media and memory
KW - lndigenous media
KW - Australian television
KW - media and national myths
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046015617&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/television-moved-nation-media-change-indigenous-rights
U2 - 10.1177/0163443718754650
DO - 10.1177/0163443718754650
M3 - Article
C2 - 30270950
SN - 0163-4437
VL - 40
SP - 992
EP - 1007
JO - Media, Culture and Society
JF - Media, Culture and Society
IS - 7
M1 - 3
ER -