Alan McKee | University of Technology Sydney (original) (raw)
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This book challenges received mainstream and scholarly ideas about how and why child abuse occurs... more This book challenges received mainstream and scholarly ideas about how and why child abuse occurs and offers fresh ideas about understanding how we can enhance young people's agency and can make a difference to their lives by ensuring they ...
Cult television, Jan 1, 2004
From a study of entertainment history it is possible to identify a number of characteristics in t... more From a study of entertainment history it is possible to identify a number of characteristics in the aesthetic system of entertainment. Good entertainment is vulgar. It has a story. Seriality is valued, as is adaptation. Good entertainment has a happy ending. It is interactive, fast, loud and spectacular. It provokes a strong emotional response in the consumer. And it is fun. I discuss all of these points in detail below.
‘Community standards’ is an important concept in the regulation of pornography in the offline wor... more ‘Community standards’ is an important concept in the regulation of pornography in the offline world but it translates awkwardly to an online pornosphere where communities are not geographically bound and can exist in reference to a sexual lifestyle, orientation or fetishism. Nevertheless we find substantial ‘community’ agreement across most liberal democracies in favour of the prohibition of non-consensual sexual materials, especially child sexual abuse materials. However in relation to materials where various communities disagree about their acceptability – for example, BDSM – we suggest that government attempts to prevent access always fail. Better approaches are improved education and signposting.
This chapter reports on eleven interviews with Pro-Am archivists of Australian television which a... more This chapter reports on eleven interviews with Pro-Am archivists of Australian television which aimed to find out how they decide what materials are important enough to archive. Interviewees mostly choose to collect materials in which they have a personal interest. But they are also aware of the relationship between their own favourites and wider accounts of Australian television history, and negotiate between these two positions. Most interviewees acknowledged Australian television’s links with British and American programming, but also felt that Australian television is distinctive. They argued that Australian television history is ignored in a way that isn’t true for the UK or the US. Several also argued that Australian television has had a ‘naïve’ nature that has allowed it to be more experimental.
Who watches pornography in Australia? If you listen to public debates about the genre the answer ... more Who watches pornography in Australia? If you listen to public debates about the genre the answer is clear – it’s children. Children are accessing pornography on smartphones (Murray and Tin 2011). Children are taking ‘lewd’ photographs of themselves, creating their own pornography (Nelligan and Etheridge 2011). Indigenous Australian children must be protected by banning pornography (the Age 2011). Pornographic magazines are placed where children can see them (O'Rourke 2011). Exposure to pornography is damaging children (Sundstrom 2011). The Australian Government insists that the Internet must be filtered to protect children from pornography (Collerton 2010). And if indeed any adults are watching pornography in Australia, then it’s child pornography (MacDonald 2011; Ralston and Howden 2011).
In story after story, public debate about pornography focuses on children as its audience. There is no suggestion that children are numerically the largest audience of pornography in Australia. But emphatically the suggestion is that children are the most important audience to be taken into account when thinking about the genre.
Australian Popular Culture, 1993
The Resurgence of Racism: Hanson, Howard and the Race Debate, 1997
Twin Peeks: Australian and New Zealand Feature Films, 1999
The Australian TV Book, 2000
Australian Cinema in the 1900s, 2001
Heartland is a thirteen episode, fifteen hour miniseries starring Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo. I... more Heartland is a thirteen episode, fifteen hour miniseries starring Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo. It was produced by and broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994. Ross Warneke in the daily Melbourne newspaper the Age, headlines his review of the series 'Worthy "Heartland" must also be good television'. He goes on to worry that the program is likely to be too 'worthy' and informed by 'political correctness'. 'This is an important and worthy series. Not before time, it puts Aborigines and some elements of their culture at centre stage …' 1. A similar approach is taken by Sue Turnbull and Rick Thompson in their review, where they suggest that they tried to force themselves to watch the program, but gave up and (guiltily) watched an American show on another channel 2. Both of these articles place Heartland within a strong tradition of television programs and films representing indigeneity in Australia. Such texts are often seen to be worthy, serious, important; they demand spectatorship which is committed, socially aware and dutiful. They are not about entertainment or pleasure. Aboriginal representation in Australia-indeed, Aboriginality in the public sphere more generally-is often offered for consumption in such a way. It is presented as duty, as burdenand as guilt. Christos Tsiolkas notes that: 'Aboriginality in Australian film has been largely defined within the documentary and the social realist genres' 3 (Tsiolkas, 1994: 22). Indigeneity 4 in the Australian mediasphere 5 has been placed in genres such as these, rather than in those which claim to entertain. Indigeneity has been offered as something about which people should be informed-as a kind of civic duty. Recent moves in the Australian public sphere have emphasised the links between indigeneity and guilt; and in very unpleasant ways. After the report in 1997 of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report into the forcible removal of indigenous children from their families, Prime Minister John Howard refused to make an apology to indigenous people (as the report recommended), on the grounds that contemporary Australians had no need to feel guilt for the acts of their ancestors. This debate disseminated throughout the Australian public sphere, and became a general call from Reconciliation page 3 many nonindigenous Australians to be freed from the demand to feel guilt about indigenous issues. The irony is that no such demand is being made of nonindigenous Australians. There is indeed a call to acknowledge the events of Australian history 6. However, the conversion of this into a demand to be guilty is made not by advocates for indigenous rights in Australia, but by right wing politicians who wish to insists that history should not be acknowledged (John Howard specifically came out in 1997 against what he termed 'Black Armband history'). The rhetorical move by which calls for an awareness of history are made to seem like demands for guilt are easily made in the contemporary Australian public sphere. Such an articulation seems to make sense, for indigeneity has traditionally been associated with the 'worthy', with 'duty'-and thus, with guilt. Media representations continue to carry these associations-they should be watched, although they may not offer pleasure in watching. However, it seems to me that in the case of Heartland, Warneke, Turnbull and Thompson are bringing these structures of interpretation to bear on a program which simply does not require it. For Heartland as a series-and, in particular, as a series starring Ernie Dingodoes not demand such responses. Dingo, in fact, offers a quite different form of Aboriginality in the Australian public sphere-and one whose distinctiveness is well worth exploring. Ernie Dingo is … Ernie Dingo is probably the best known Aboriginal actor in Australia today. Indeed, he may well vie with Cathy Freeman for the title of best known Aboriginal person in the continent. The actor's output is prodigious. At one point in mid-1994, Dingo was appearing regularly three times a week on Australian television: starring in the ABC's detective mini-series, Heartland; presenting a lifestyle/travel show, The Great Outdoors 7 ; and appearing in repeats of the children's drama series Dolphin Cove 8. Dingo originally appeared on television as a comedian, working as a regular member of the comedy-sketch program Fast Forward 9. He appears in other children's programs than Dolphin Cove: A Waltz Through the Hills 10 is a series about a brother and sister who go cross country when their mother dies, and Dingo plays the bushie who looks after them; Clowning Around and Clowning Around 2 11 present him as a friend of the central (white) Reconciliation page 4 child, this time a boy wanting to learn circus skills; on Dolphin Cove, Dingo is a friend of a (nonindigenous) family. The actor has also made guest appearances in GP, as an Aboriginal doctor confused about his cultural identity 12 ; The Flying Doctors, as an Aboriginal father caught in a cultural clash over the medicines of different races 13 ; Heartbreak High 14 , as a media studies teacher and basketball coach. He has further appeared in Relative Merits 15 ; Cowra Breakout 16 ; No Sugar 17 ; Dirtwater Dynasty 18 ; Dreaming of Lords 19 ; Archer 20 ; Off the Dish 21 ; Rafferty's Rules 22 ; Joe Wilson 23 ; The Saint in Australia 24 ; and Dearest Enemy 25. He has played roles in feature films such as The Fringe Dwellers, Crocodile Dundee II, Tudawali, Until the End of the World, Blue Lightning and Cappuccino. He appears as himself on a variety of entertainment
The Media and Communications in Australia, 2002
Popular Quality Television, 2002
The Body, Queer and Politic, 2003
Virtual Nation: the Internet in Australia, 2004
The Ideas Market: an alternative take on Australia’s intellectual life, 2004
This book challenges received mainstream and scholarly ideas about how and why child abuse occurs... more This book challenges received mainstream and scholarly ideas about how and why child abuse occurs and offers fresh ideas about understanding how we can enhance young people's agency and can make a difference to their lives by ensuring they ...
Cult television, Jan 1, 2004
From a study of entertainment history it is possible to identify a number of characteristics in t... more From a study of entertainment history it is possible to identify a number of characteristics in the aesthetic system of entertainment. Good entertainment is vulgar. It has a story. Seriality is valued, as is adaptation. Good entertainment has a happy ending. It is interactive, fast, loud and spectacular. It provokes a strong emotional response in the consumer. And it is fun. I discuss all of these points in detail below.
‘Community standards’ is an important concept in the regulation of pornography in the offline wor... more ‘Community standards’ is an important concept in the regulation of pornography in the offline world but it translates awkwardly to an online pornosphere where communities are not geographically bound and can exist in reference to a sexual lifestyle, orientation or fetishism. Nevertheless we find substantial ‘community’ agreement across most liberal democracies in favour of the prohibition of non-consensual sexual materials, especially child sexual abuse materials. However in relation to materials where various communities disagree about their acceptability – for example, BDSM – we suggest that government attempts to prevent access always fail. Better approaches are improved education and signposting.
This chapter reports on eleven interviews with Pro-Am archivists of Australian television which a... more This chapter reports on eleven interviews with Pro-Am archivists of Australian television which aimed to find out how they decide what materials are important enough to archive. Interviewees mostly choose to collect materials in which they have a personal interest. But they are also aware of the relationship between their own favourites and wider accounts of Australian television history, and negotiate between these two positions. Most interviewees acknowledged Australian television’s links with British and American programming, but also felt that Australian television is distinctive. They argued that Australian television history is ignored in a way that isn’t true for the UK or the US. Several also argued that Australian television has had a ‘naïve’ nature that has allowed it to be more experimental.
Who watches pornography in Australia? If you listen to public debates about the genre the answer ... more Who watches pornography in Australia? If you listen to public debates about the genre the answer is clear – it’s children. Children are accessing pornography on smartphones (Murray and Tin 2011). Children are taking ‘lewd’ photographs of themselves, creating their own pornography (Nelligan and Etheridge 2011). Indigenous Australian children must be protected by banning pornography (the Age 2011). Pornographic magazines are placed where children can see them (O'Rourke 2011). Exposure to pornography is damaging children (Sundstrom 2011). The Australian Government insists that the Internet must be filtered to protect children from pornography (Collerton 2010). And if indeed any adults are watching pornography in Australia, then it’s child pornography (MacDonald 2011; Ralston and Howden 2011).
In story after story, public debate about pornography focuses on children as its audience. There is no suggestion that children are numerically the largest audience of pornography in Australia. But emphatically the suggestion is that children are the most important audience to be taken into account when thinking about the genre.
Australian Popular Culture, 1993
The Resurgence of Racism: Hanson, Howard and the Race Debate, 1997
Twin Peeks: Australian and New Zealand Feature Films, 1999
The Australian TV Book, 2000
Australian Cinema in the 1900s, 2001
Heartland is a thirteen episode, fifteen hour miniseries starring Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo. I... more Heartland is a thirteen episode, fifteen hour miniseries starring Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo. It was produced by and broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994. Ross Warneke in the daily Melbourne newspaper the Age, headlines his review of the series 'Worthy "Heartland" must also be good television'. He goes on to worry that the program is likely to be too 'worthy' and informed by 'political correctness'. 'This is an important and worthy series. Not before time, it puts Aborigines and some elements of their culture at centre stage …' 1. A similar approach is taken by Sue Turnbull and Rick Thompson in their review, where they suggest that they tried to force themselves to watch the program, but gave up and (guiltily) watched an American show on another channel 2. Both of these articles place Heartland within a strong tradition of television programs and films representing indigeneity in Australia. Such texts are often seen to be worthy, serious, important; they demand spectatorship which is committed, socially aware and dutiful. They are not about entertainment or pleasure. Aboriginal representation in Australia-indeed, Aboriginality in the public sphere more generally-is often offered for consumption in such a way. It is presented as duty, as burdenand as guilt. Christos Tsiolkas notes that: 'Aboriginality in Australian film has been largely defined within the documentary and the social realist genres' 3 (Tsiolkas, 1994: 22). Indigeneity 4 in the Australian mediasphere 5 has been placed in genres such as these, rather than in those which claim to entertain. Indigeneity has been offered as something about which people should be informed-as a kind of civic duty. Recent moves in the Australian public sphere have emphasised the links between indigeneity and guilt; and in very unpleasant ways. After the report in 1997 of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report into the forcible removal of indigenous children from their families, Prime Minister John Howard refused to make an apology to indigenous people (as the report recommended), on the grounds that contemporary Australians had no need to feel guilt for the acts of their ancestors. This debate disseminated throughout the Australian public sphere, and became a general call from Reconciliation page 3 many nonindigenous Australians to be freed from the demand to feel guilt about indigenous issues. The irony is that no such demand is being made of nonindigenous Australians. There is indeed a call to acknowledge the events of Australian history 6. However, the conversion of this into a demand to be guilty is made not by advocates for indigenous rights in Australia, but by right wing politicians who wish to insists that history should not be acknowledged (John Howard specifically came out in 1997 against what he termed 'Black Armband history'). The rhetorical move by which calls for an awareness of history are made to seem like demands for guilt are easily made in the contemporary Australian public sphere. Such an articulation seems to make sense, for indigeneity has traditionally been associated with the 'worthy', with 'duty'-and thus, with guilt. Media representations continue to carry these associations-they should be watched, although they may not offer pleasure in watching. However, it seems to me that in the case of Heartland, Warneke, Turnbull and Thompson are bringing these structures of interpretation to bear on a program which simply does not require it. For Heartland as a series-and, in particular, as a series starring Ernie Dingodoes not demand such responses. Dingo, in fact, offers a quite different form of Aboriginality in the Australian public sphere-and one whose distinctiveness is well worth exploring. Ernie Dingo is … Ernie Dingo is probably the best known Aboriginal actor in Australia today. Indeed, he may well vie with Cathy Freeman for the title of best known Aboriginal person in the continent. The actor's output is prodigious. At one point in mid-1994, Dingo was appearing regularly three times a week on Australian television: starring in the ABC's detective mini-series, Heartland; presenting a lifestyle/travel show, The Great Outdoors 7 ; and appearing in repeats of the children's drama series Dolphin Cove 8. Dingo originally appeared on television as a comedian, working as a regular member of the comedy-sketch program Fast Forward 9. He appears in other children's programs than Dolphin Cove: A Waltz Through the Hills 10 is a series about a brother and sister who go cross country when their mother dies, and Dingo plays the bushie who looks after them; Clowning Around and Clowning Around 2 11 present him as a friend of the central (white) Reconciliation page 4 child, this time a boy wanting to learn circus skills; on Dolphin Cove, Dingo is a friend of a (nonindigenous) family. The actor has also made guest appearances in GP, as an Aboriginal doctor confused about his cultural identity 12 ; The Flying Doctors, as an Aboriginal father caught in a cultural clash over the medicines of different races 13 ; Heartbreak High 14 , as a media studies teacher and basketball coach. He has further appeared in Relative Merits 15 ; Cowra Breakout 16 ; No Sugar 17 ; Dirtwater Dynasty 18 ; Dreaming of Lords 19 ; Archer 20 ; Off the Dish 21 ; Rafferty's Rules 22 ; Joe Wilson 23 ; The Saint in Australia 24 ; and Dearest Enemy 25. He has played roles in feature films such as The Fringe Dwellers, Crocodile Dundee II, Tudawali, Until the End of the World, Blue Lightning and Cappuccino. He appears as himself on a variety of entertainment
The Media and Communications in Australia, 2002
Popular Quality Television, 2002
The Body, Queer and Politic, 2003
Virtual Nation: the Internet in Australia, 2004
The Ideas Market: an alternative take on Australia’s intellectual life, 2004
Foundation: the Review of Science Fiction, 1993
Social Semiotics, 1996
Roger Horrocks is a middle-aged heterosexual family man coming to terms with his masculinity. Of ... more Roger Horrocks is a middle-aged heterosexual family man coming to terms with his masculinity. Of course, this fact in itself does not provide good reason for criticising his latest book, Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture. One would not wish to be accused of the 'heterophobia' which the author attacks in 'gay and lesbian studies' (13). But as Andy Medhurst has argued, authorship is an issue which poststructuralist critical theory must still take seriously. There is, in his formulation, 'that special thrill' for gay readers in knowing that an author of a favourite text is homosexual (Medhurst, 1991:197). So it may be that there is a concomitantly 'special unthrill' that comes from knowing that an author is a sensitive new age guy determined to defend and reconstruct heterosexual masculinity.
Media International Australia, 1996
The Alternative Law Journal, 1996
Social Semiotics, 1997
This paper challenges recent fairy tales'-]simplistic and reassuring teleological narratives of m... more This paper challenges recent fairy tales'-]simplistic and reassuring teleological narratives of moral change-which move our community from being 'lesbian and gay' to being 'queer'. Through an exploration of one particular 'lesbian and gay'-the textualised 'lesbian and gay community' constructed by community newspapers in Australia-I suggest that such attempts at distinction, in proposing a linear and teleological movement from bad to good practice, in fact essentialise and dehistoricise these terms. The 'lesbian and gay' of the papers' 'lesbian and gay community' proves in fact to exhibit many of the qualities which 'queer' theorists have claimed for the later term. Such a project of tracing the historical textual manifestations of 'lesbian and gay' problematicises the essentialism necessary in making statements in the form, 'lesbian and gay was but queer is. © 1997 Journals Oxford Ltd.
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 1998
Australian Journal of Communication, 2000
Words Worth (Journal of the English Teachers' Association of Queensland), 2001
Australian Journal of Communication, 2002
The Public Sphere, 2004
In this book Alan McKee answers these questions by providing an introduction to the concept of th... more In this book Alan McKee answers these questions by providing an introduction to the concept of the public sphere, the history of the term and the philosophical arguments about its function.
Entertainment Industries, 2012
Pornography: Structures, agency and performance, 2015
Written for a broad audience and grounded in cutting-edge, contemporary scholarship, this volume ... more Written for a broad audience and grounded in cutting-edge, contemporary scholarship, this volume addresses some of the key questions asked about pornography today. What is it? For whom is it produced? What sorts of sexualities does it help produce? Why should we study it, and what should be the most urgent issues when we do? What does it mean when we talk about pornography as violence? What could it mean if we discussed pornography through frameworks of consent, self-determination and performance?
This book places the arguments from conservative and radical anti-porn activists against the challenges coming from a new generation of feminist and queer porn performers and educators. Combining sensitive and detailed discussion of case studies with careful attention to the voices of those working in pornography, it provides scholars, activists and those hoping to find new ways of understanding sexuality with the first overview of the histories and futures of pornography
Fun! What the entertainment industries can tell us about living a good life, 2016
The Australian Journal of Communication, 2005
McKee, Alan (2005) The need to bring the voices of pornography consumers into public debates abou... more McKee, Alan (2005) The need to bring the voices of pornography consumers into public debates about the genre and its effects.
Sex Education, Jul 9, 2020
Researchers and media commentators often claim that young people are increasingly learning about ... more Researchers and media commentators often claim that young people are increasingly learning about sex through pornography, but evidence about this is unclear. This article reports on a mixed methods systematic review of research on pornography use for sexual learning. Ten articles were included that explicitly addressed how porn users describe the educational aspects of pornography. Thematic analysis located five key themes about 'porn education' in these articles: learning the mechanics of sex; learning concerning sexual identities and sexualities; inadequate information through pornography; wrong lessons from pornography; and a need for more relevant sex education. No articles attempted to measure or discuss whether people who access pornography have better (or worse) skills and knowledge about sex and sexual health than those who do not. Sex education is only discussed in relation to young people, neglecting attention to lifelong learning about sex and sexuality. According to this dataset, pornography use can offer useful information about the mechanics of sex, and this is particularly pertinent for young gay men. Many articles reveal that young people are often aware of the shortcomings of pornography as a source of information and guidance, and that improvements to sex and relationships education are necessary.
Introduction: Entertainment and Media/Cultural/Communication/Etc Studies Part I: What is Entertai... more Introduction: Entertainment and Media/Cultural/Communication/Etc Studies Part I: What is Entertainment? Chapter 1. The aesthetic system of entertainment: pornography as case study Chapter 2. Crime as entertainment Chapter 3. Toying with culture: the rise of the action figure and the changing face of 'children's' entertainment Chapter 4. Towards an understanding of Australian genre cinema and entertainment: beyond the limitations of 'Ozploitation' discourse Part II: The Institutions of Entertainment Chapter 5. The borders that law sets on entertainment Chapter 6. Music supervisors in the Australian entertainment film industry Chapter 7. Explaining Pathe's global dominance in the pre-Hollywood film industry Part III: Entertainment and Its Audiences Chapter 8. The "good" fans and "bad" consumers of football Chapter 9. Loyalty and the ritualistic consumption of entertainment Part IV: Entertainment Education Chapter 10. Teaching entertainment at Universities Chapter 11. Top Gear, Top Journalism: Three lessons for political journalists from the world's most popular TV show Chapter 12. Transmedia storytelling and entertainment: an annotated syllabus
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Oct 31, 2019
Alternative Law Journal, Feb 1, 1996
What Do We Know About the Effects of Pornography After Fifty Years of Academic Research?
This report outlines the findings from a project that developed and tested an innovative methodol... more This report outlines the findings from a project that developed and tested an innovative methodology for using social media entertainment to reach young men with information about healthy sexual development. The project used an entertainment-education approach, evaluating the use of digitally-distributed comedy videos to reach young men with this information. The research focused on young, straight-identifying men, who are an underserved group in sexual health interventions (McKee, Walsh & Watson, 2014), contributing to efforts to address increasing rates of STIs among young people in Queensland (Queensland Health, 2016).
Both from the point of view of the experiences of different groups of students, and also with res... more Both from the point of view of the experiences of different groups of students, and also with respect to the form that education about sexuality, sex, and relationships should take, education and sexuality raises complex questions and provokes heated―sometimes furious―debate. This four-volume collection offers an authoritative overview of key issues within this rapidly developing field. Under the editorship of Peter Aggleton (editor-in-chief of the international journal, Sex Education), the collection covers a wide range of contemporary issues and concerns, including: the sexualities curriculum; ‘politics and pleasure’; classroom processes and dynamics; sexual and gender diversity in the classroom; gender and sexual violence in schools and colleges; and bullying, victimization and abuse. Special attention is also given to enduring topics, such as the content and context of sexualtiy education; the age at which it should take place; faith and religion; politics and political controve...
Sexuality & Culture, 2020
The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in affiliation information... more The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in affiliation information for authors Katerina Litsou and Roger Ingham. Instead of "Katerina Litsou 1 • Roger Ingham 1 ", they should be listed as "Katerina Litsou 3 • Roger Ingham 3 ". The original article has been corrected. Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Sex Education, 2014
Despite rising levels of safe-sex knowledge in Australia, sexually transmitted infection notifica... more Despite rising levels of safe-sex knowledge in Australia, sexually transmitted infection notifications continue to increase. A culture-centred approach suggests it is useful in attempting to reach a target population first to understand their perspective on the issues. Twenty focus groups were conducted with 89 young people between the ages of 14 and 16 years. Key findings suggest that scientific information does not articulate closely with everyday practice, that young people get the message that sex is bad and they should not be preparing for it and that it is not appropriate to talk about sex. Understanding how young people think about these issues is particularly important because the focus groups also found that young people disengage from sources of information that do not match their own experiences.
Sex Education, 2020
As part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust, we held a oneday symposium, bringing together ... more As part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust, we held a oneday symposium, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, to discuss priorities for research on relationships and sex education (RSE) in a world where young people increasingly live, experience, and augment their relationships (whether sexual or not) within digital spaces. The introduction of statutory RSE in schools in England highlights the need to focus on improving understandings of young people and digital intimacies for its own sake, and to inform the development of learning resources. We call for more research that puts young people at its centre; foregrounds inclusivity; and allows a nuanced discussion of pleasures, harms, risks, and rewards, which can be used by those working with young people and those developing policy. Generating such research is likely to be facilitated by participation, collaboration, and communication with beneficiaries, between disciplines and across sectors. Taking such an approach, academic researchers, practitioners, and policymakers agree that we need a better understanding of RSE's place in lifelong learning, which seeks to understand the needs of particular groups, is concerned with non-sexual relationships, and does not see digital intimacies as disconnected from offline everyday 'reality'.
Sex in the Digital Age, 2017
Entertainment Values, 2017
Academics know how to judge a film’s success or failure as a work of art, but how would we judge ... more Academics know how to judge a film’s success or failure as a work of art, but how would we judge its success or failure as a piece of entertainment? Using the case study of Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) this chapter shows that film is great entertainment because no important character or story beat is missing, it is packed with such beats, and it has plenty of satisfying twists. It promotes strong emotional reactions: a continual interplay of suspense, despair and elation. It has an ending that is both happy and satisfying. And it is fun – particularly in its performances. It is important to take Hitchcock seriously as an entertainer – this chapter demonstrates how to value his films for that reason.
This paper intervenes in critical discussions about the representation of homosexuality. Rejectin... more This paper intervenes in critical discussions about the representation of homosexuality. Rejecting the 'manifest content' of films, it turns to cultural history to map those public discourses which close down the ways in which films can be discussed. With relation to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, it examines discussions of the film in Australian newspapers (both queer and mainstream) and finds that while there is disagreement about the interpretation to be made of the film, the terms within which those interpretations can be made are quite rigid. A matrix based on similarity, difference and value provides a series of positions and a vocabulary (transgression, assimilation, positive images and stereotypes) through which to make sense of this film. The article suggests that this matrix, and the idea that similarity and difference provide a suitable axis for making sense of homosexual identity, are problematic in discussing homosexual representation.
Cultural Science Journal, 2008
There has been a tension in Cultural Studies between those authors who see fun as important; and ... more There has been a tension in Cultural Studies between those authors who see fun as important; and those who see it as a distraction. This tension has been played out around the concepts of amusement, distraction, pleasure, celebration, playfulness and desire. I think that fun is important. As we move from Cultural Studies to Cultural Science, I want to retain a focus on fun.