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Memory, Migration and Television: National Stories of the Small Screen

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Book cover Remembering Migration

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

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Abstract

The introduction of television into Australia in 1956 coincided with the nation’s socially transformative post-World War II migration scheme. Drawing upon a national project that traces the conjoined histories of television and cultural diversity in Australia, this chapter examines the significance of television to the experiences of migration as reflected in oral histories and memoirs. First, it examines the ways migrants to Australia reflect on the place of television in their experiences of settlement, and how the imported and local programming contributed to a sense of belonging. Second, it explores the little-known history of migrant producers in the 1970s and 1980s, and variety programmes they made in languages other than English for migrant audiences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Kate Darian-Smith and Sue Turnbull eds, Remembering Television: Histories, Technologies, Memories (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012); Mottie Neiger, Oren Meyers and Eyal Zandberg eds, On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Susan Bye, “TV Memories, the Daily Telegraph and TCN: ‘First in Australia’,” Media International Australia, no. 121 (2006) 159–73; Bridget Griffen-Foley, “Diary of a Television Viewer,” Media International Australia, no. 162 (2017): 33–48.

  2. 2.

    Alan McKee, Australian Television: A Genealogy of Great Moments (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001); Nigel Giles, Number 96: Australian TV’s Most Notorious Address (Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2017); Brendan Horgan, Radio with Pictures: 50 Years of Australian Television (Sydney: Lothian Books, 2006); and Nick Place and Michael Roberts eds, 50 Years of Television in Australia (Prahran, VIC: Hardie Grant, 2006).

  3. 3.

    Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, “Part of the Family: Australian Histories of Television, Migration and Memory,” in Kate Darian-Smith and Sue Turnbull eds, Remembering Television: Histories, Technologies, Memories (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 44–45.

  4. 4.

    This work is funded by the Australian Research Council: LP150100202 “Migration, Cultural Diversity and Television: Reflecting Modern Australia”: Kate Darian-Smith (lead), Sukhmani Khorana, Sue Turnbull, Kyle Harvey, with Moya McFadzean and Michael Reason at Museums Victoria and Helen Simondson at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

  5. 5.

    McKee, Australian Television, 6.

  6. 6.

    Darian-Smith and Hamilton, “Part of the Family,” 38–41; Derham Groves, TV Houses: Television’s Influence on the Australian Home (Carlton North, VIC: Black Jack Press, 2004).

  7. 7.

    Tom O’Regan and Stuart Cunningham, “Marginalised Audiences,” in Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham eds, The Australian TV Book (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2000), 201.

  8. 8.

    Some early examples include Helen Carmichael ed., Seeing Is Believing: Scriptwriting in a Multicultural Society: Report to the Office of Multicultural Affairs (Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, 1991); Bronwyn Coupe, Andrew Jakubowicz and Lois Randall, Nextdoor Neighbours: A Report for the Office of Multicultural Affairs on Ethnic Group Discussions of the Australian Media (Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, 1993); and Stephen Nugent, Milica Loncar and Kate Aisbett, The People We See on TV: Cultural Diversity on Television (North Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, 1993).

  9. 9.

    Andrew Jakubowicz et al., Racism, Ethnicity and the Media (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1994), Chapter 14.

  10. 10.

    These interviews were undertaken for a project funded by the Australian Research Council LP150100202, and cover histories and memories of migration, television viewing and work in the television industry. They are supplemented by interviews held at the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) and National Library of Australia (NLA).

  11. 11.

    Vincent Report, 1963, quoted in Franco Papandrea, “Television Stations’ Compliance with Australian Content Regulation,” Agenda 2, no. 4 (1995): 468.

  12. 12.

    Papandrea, “Television Stations’ Compliance,” 468.

  13. 13.

    James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, 2nd edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 83–86.

  14. 14.

    Adriaan van der Weel, “Subtitling and the SBS Audience,” Media Information Australia, no. 56 (1990): 22–26.

  15. 15.

    Gay Hawkins, “SBS: Minority Television,” Culture and Policy 7, no. 1 (1996): 47.

  16. 16.

    David Bednall, Media and Immigrant Settlement (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1992), 31–32.

  17. 17.

    Jonathan Bollen, “Here from There—Travel, Television and Touring Revues: Internationalism as Entertainment in the 1950s and 1960s,” Popular Entertainment Studies 4, no. 1 (2013): 64–81; McKee, Australian Television, Chapter 1.

  18. 18.

    Pamela Williams, “Commercial TV Productions,” Media Information Australia, no. 15 (1980): 49.

  19. 19.

    Frances Bonner, Ordinary Television: Analyzing Popular TV (London: Sage, 2003); John Fiske, “Everyday Quizzes, Everyday Life,” in John Tulloch and Graeme Turner eds, Australian Television: Programs, Pleasures & Politics (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989).

  20. 20.

    Dmetri Kakmi, “Night of the Living Wog,” in Kent McCarter and Ali Lemer eds, Joyful Strains: Making Australia Home (Melbourne: Affirm Press, 2013), 22.

  21. 21.

    On the familiar aspects of viewing Skippy as an Anglo-Australian child, see Mark Gibson, “Tchk, Tchk, Tchk: Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and the Question of Australian Seriousness,” Continuum 28, no. 5 (2014): 574–75.

  22. 22.

    Rita Price, “The Cafe at the Edge of the Bay,” in Barbara Walsh ed., Growing up Italian in Australia: Eleven Young Australian Women Talk About Their Childhood (Sydney: State Library of New South Wales Press, 1993), 39.

  23. 23.

    Anna Maria Dell’Oso, “White Man’s Dreaming,” in David Watson and Denise Corrigan eds, TV Times: 35 Years of Watching Television in Australia (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991), 20–21.

  24. 24.

    Dell’Oso, “White Man’s Dreaming,” 21.

  25. 25.

    Salim Noorzai, interviewed by Sukhmani Khorana, 30 October 2016, Sydney, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  26. 26.

    Salim Noorzai, interview, 30 October 2016.

  27. 27.

    Cuc Lam, Tuyet Lam, David Demant and Tatek Menji, interviewed by Kyle Harvey and Kate Darian-Smith, 23 November 2016, Melbourne, digital recording in interviewers’ possession.

  28. 28.

    Cuc Lam, Tuyet Lam, David Demant and Tatek Menji, interview, 23 November 2016.

  29. 29.

    Cuc Lam, Tuyet Lam, David Demant and Tatek Menji, interview, 23 November 2016.

  30. 30.

    Sofija Stefanovic, Miss Ex-Yugoslavia (Melbourne: Viking, 2018), 65.

  31. 31.

    Dell’Oso, “White Man’s Dreaming,” 21.

  32. 32.

    Wanning and Erica Sun, interviewed by Sukhmani Khorana, 20 December 2016, Sydney, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  33. 33.

    Barry York, interviewed by Sukhmani Khorana, 3 November 2017, by telephone, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  34. 34.

    Maria Doganieri, interviewed by Kyle Harvey, 27 April 2018, Melbourne, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  35. 35.

    See, for example, “Week-end TV,” listings, The Age, 1 June 1968, 15.

  36. 36.

    Rita Price, Marina De Stefanis, Michelina D’Urbano, and Ninette Cilia, interviewed by Kyle Harvey and Kate Darian-Smith, 23 April 2017, Melbourne, digital recording in interviewers’ possession.

  37. 37.

    Simon Palomares, interviewed by Kyle Harvey, 30 January 2018, Melbourne, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  38. 38.

    David M. Reimers, Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the American People (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 183, 214, 248, 290.

  39. 39.

    Email to Kyle Harvey, 18 April 2018.

  40. 40.

    Maria Doganieri, interview, 27 April 2018.

  41. 41.

    See Rozzi Bazzani, Hector (North Melbourne: Arcadia, 2015).

  42. 42.

    Michael Clyne, Multilingual Australia (Melbourne: River Seine, 1982), 12.

  43. 43.

    See K. W. Strahan and A. J. Williams, Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Australia: A Report to the Office of Multicultural Affairs (Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, 1988), 4–5, 13.

  44. 44.

    Antonio Luciano, interviewed by Kyle Harvey, 13 September 2017, Sydney, digital recording in interviewer’s possession; “Tonight Show with Italian Flavour,” Sun-Herald, 13 August 1972, 136.

  45. 45.

    Antonio Luciano, interview, 13 September 2017.

  46. 46.

    Antonio Luciano, interview, 13 September 2017.

  47. 47.

    Harry Michaels, interviewed by Kyle Harvey, 15 September 2017, Sydney, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  48. 48.

    Ted Jobbins, interviewed by Nigel Giles, 8 February 2007, Wentworth Falls, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Tape 3, Title 720837.

  49. 49.

    Theo Skalkos, “The Differences of the Archdiocese with the Greek Herald,” Greek Herald, 1 May 1991, 1, 8–9. English translation in Folder “Stylianos Harkianakis,” Box 3810, DAHD 05913, Dardalis Archives of Hellenic Diaspora, La Trobe University, Melbourne.

  50. 50.

    Theo Skalkos, interviewed by Frank Heimans, 9 March 2000, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 3996; Helen Zerefos, interviewed by Kyle Harvey, 20 August 2018, Sydney, digital recording in interviewer’s possession.

  51. 51.

    Tim Barnett, informal conversation with Kyle Harvey, 28 February 2018, Melbourne; Episode of Grecian Scene, 28 November 1979, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Title 57587.

  52. 52.

    Deborah Parsons, interviewed by Kyle Harvey and Kate Darian-Smith, 15 November 2017, Melbourne, digital recording in interviewers’ possession.

  53. 53.

    Antonio Luciano, interview, 13 September 2017; Harry Michaels, interview, 15 September 2017.

  54. 54.

    Coupe, Jakubowicz and Randall, Nextdoor Neighbours, 29–30; Philip Bell, Multicultural Australia in the Media: A Report to the Office of Multicultural Affairs (Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, 1993), 59–60; Santina Bertone, Clare Keating and Jenny Mullaly, The Taxidriver, the Cook and the Greengrocer: The Representation of Non-English Speaking Background People in Theatre, Film and Television (Surry Hills, NSW: Australian Council for the Arts, 2000).

  55. 55.

    Screen Australia, Seeing Ourselves: Reflections on Diversity in Australian TV Drama (2016), 2, http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/reports-and-key-issues/reports-and-discussion-papers/seeing-ourselves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Kate Darian-Smith & Kyle Harvey

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  1. Kate Darian-Smith
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Correspondence to Kate Darian-Smith .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Kate Darian-Smith

  2. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Paula Hamilton

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Darian-Smith, K., Harvey, K. (2019). Memory, Migration and Television: National Stories of the Small Screen. In: Darian-Smith, K., Hamilton, P. (eds) Remembering Migration. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17751-5_6

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