Our Group: “Exploring issues of gender and diversity within the current Australian media landscape”.

Within: Film, TV, Experimental & Documentary.

Rose NG|Grace Hardy|Daina Anderson|Fabiana Weiner

MEDIA 6

Annotated Bibliography

Fabiana Weiner 3550495

1. French, L 2014, ‘Gender then, gender now: surveying women’s participation in Australian film and television industries’, Volume 28, Issue 2

• There are a lack of women occupying key creative roles in Australian audio-visual industries. French calls for the representation of woman within the film and television industry to be addressed.
• She includes in this article a survey that she undertook in 2012 of the Australian audio visual industries based in Victoria. The issues examined in the survey include “barriers to progression, representation by job type, and workplace or organizational cultures”. The last major survey of this kind was taken in 1992, so it has been over 20 years since the issues for women within the industries were addressed. This article outlines the importance of gender equality for this industry and the contribution and value of women to these industries.
• There is a significant gap in the research and inquiry into this area of women’s status in the Australian audio-visual industries. This article aims to address this. If there was any success for women to be had, it was more likely to happen within the television industry where it can be already seen, women starting to take on key creative roles.
• French outlines that despite government policy implemented to make sure that company’s with over 100 employees had to lodge reports on gender equality indicators, it doesn’t really make much difference because most industry company’s are small and most people who work within the industry are freelancers or contractors. A production company for example will keep hiring over and over, the same people making it difficult for newbies to break into the industry. The females are outnumbered by the amount of men so that decreases their chances of work even more. Despite this, the article points out that this is a significant acknowledgment by the government to try and implement changes in this area.
• The article covers a number or tasks to improve women’s participation in Australian audio-visual industries-to get gender on the agenda as an issue. It also outlines the disadvantages the industry faces by not having more women in key creative roles.
• This article outlines some of the figures and stats of women in key creative roles whose films have been in the highest grossing bracket. The article goes onto discuss that they prove they have business potential so therefore the industry is doing itself a disservice by rejecting the idea of more females in KCR. It would be helpful to understand how women have achieved their positions within the television industry as that’s the focus on my research & annotations. Diversity in key creative roles in current Australian television stations. I’d like to know if there has been a study or collection of stats on this. Perhaps it is difficult to do a ‘general’ diversity statistic data pull without being focused on either race, religion, disability or gender etc.
• Overall it is a informative study of where women have been more successful in certain areas of the industry. Because there are no personal accounts, I don’t know how useful it is in understanding the real causes and concerns of some of these women dealing with issues of discrimination. Understandably, this article focus’ on one particular kind of diversity – gender. It Doesn’t offer any other forms of discrimination based on disability for example, religion, ethnicity etc. Within the bigger picture, this article does provide a good referenced starting point but I wouldn’t use it as a centre-point in the formation of an argument.

 

2. Bailey, J (1999), Reel Woman Working in Film & Television, Australian Film, Television and Radio School, NSW

• The first point Jane’s chapter on television begins with is that the film crew environment is very different than a TV station environment. Our research group has been specific in assigning each member a different area of the industry to focus on because we believe that without distinguishing the different sections, our research and study will be too general.
• There may be different kinds of diversity issues predominant for each industry sector. Women might have more difficulty attaining key roles in film as opposed to television. There might be ethnicity issues prevalent in radio as opposed to television. This is a specific and insightful chapter because the book looks at different case studies of women who have worked within the industry and achieved a level of success within the Australian Television Industry.
• This article outlines the practical reasons why women are less likely to attain certain jobs within television or find it more difficult to climb the ladder. It outlines how the industry works as a “who you know” process. It also describes the kind of training that happens once someone comes straight from school. They learn the skills on the job and then they are next in line in 10 years for a senior role. This makes it extremely difficult for women to include themselves in what is a “boys club” or lads culture. Again this book is helpful to understanding the issues women face, but in terms of other ‘diversity’ related issues, it doesn’t touch on these.
• One of the issues our group is interested in exploring is the less diversity among key creative roles in all areas of the industry, the less diversity is authentically represented in the media. We know that this is a well known fact, however we would just like to hone in and focus on some of the specifics of certain sectors and how this might effect young people coming into the industry. What can they do to better prepare themselves for the workplace?

 

3. Blonski, A 1999, ‘Shared Visions Women in Television’, M2 Presswire, Oct 21, 1999, p.1

• This book is a series of interviews of successful women working in the Australian Television Industry. The particular chapter/case study I’d like to annotate is focused on Jacqui Culliton, General Manager Network Production, Network 10.
• This chapter provides some insight into what it was like working in the industry in the late 60’s early 70’s for a female learning skills on the job. What it was like for her as a single mother and divorcee returning to the industry and trying to negotiate equal pay as women were getting paid 75% of what the men were and often working double shifts.
• Culliton’s mother got her into network television at 17 and she has been working in the industry ever since.
• She outlines the different areas of television production for example her difficult shift from technical to production. She describes it as from blue collar to white collar essentially.
• It’s extremely valuable to understand the different pathways of the top tear female production roles. How did they get to where they are and what did they have to do? Many women who have fought hard to get where they are believe that younger women wont have the same problems because once the men who grew up believing the women’s role belongs in the home, will be gone soon and the generations will take over who are used to women working for a living. This is a really exciting prospect that women in the work place wont feel as much divide as they once did.
• This entire chapter is suitable for our research assignment, if we can find other accounts like these but from people dealing with different diversity related issues, then we can begin to focus and start defining what “Diversity” is going to mean for us for this particular study.
• This book was published in 1999. While it does provide good personal accounts of what the TV industry used to be like, I think we need to address much more current studies.

 

4. ‘Screen Australia Announces Diversity in Drama Study’, 2016, viewed 2^nd August 2016 <http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/newsroom/news/2016/na-160317-diversity-aussie-tv-drama-study>

• With issues such as diversity, it’s helpful to know where Screen Australia (say they) stand on the issue. This section on their website is in response to a notable lack of diversity in Australian television content. While the actors themselves may have different colour skin, often they don’t actually represent a different culture. They might be born in Australia and are no different from a white Australian other than the colour of their skin. They are brought up on the same food, music, education, sports.
• This article is a good example of how the industry cope with the publics call for diversity on our screens (in all areas of difference not just one stream). The public call for wider representations of themselves, the coloured communities, the religious, queer, gay and lesbian communities. But the responses usually address the issues of representation. The people in key creative roles need to have an agenda, to explore representation of diversity on screen. A conscious effort needs to be made to address this issue so that it starts to become a regular part of our consuming television in the home.
• Australia is a multicultural and diverse country and that should be reflected through our media.
• Screen Australia’s information and surveys are always a great starting point for understanding where the industry is focusing its attention in regards to research, development and funding etc. Screen Australia’s survey’s and statistics on women working in the industry are also helpful. They also include discussions and research on indigenous people working within the industry. Screen Australia are known for holding back information, however this website is a good starting point for a research journey like ours.

Topic : Gender diversity in Australia in media. Key creatives/ decision makers, policy and regulation.