Interview with John Hartley AM - Make/Believe

Emeritus Professor John Hartley AM, a Fremantle local, is the recently retired research professor in digital media and culture at the University of Sydney. The author of over thirty books and many papers across four continents and five decades, he has served as Head of the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University (Wales), Dean of Creative Industries (QUT), and is John Curtin Distinguished Emeritus Professor at Curtin University.

John has held visiting professorships in the US, China, Germany, and Denmark. John was also founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies and Cultural Science Journal and was ARC Federation Fellow and Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation.

He was awarded the Order of Australia in 2009, is elected fellow of the ICA, the Royal Society of Arts, the Learned Society of Wales, and formerly of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John’s 1978 book, Reading Television, with John Fiske, is often cited as a seminal text in cultural and media studies because it applied semiotics (the study of signs and meaning) to television at a time when TV was often dismissed as trivial mass culture. The Johns argued that television should be “read” like a text, with its own grammar, codes, and conventions that produce meaning.

John Hartley’s latest book, Make/Believe: We and They on a Digital Planet was published earlier this year by Bloomsbury Academic (and you can order it right here). As promised on its cover, it ‘opens with an account of children’s collective activism in an era when their futures are jeopardised by our stories. It goes on to disentangle strategic stories in science, journalism and popular culture, among zombies, aliens, class struggle, policy discourses, aircraft carriers, submarines, truth-warriors, and lifestyle journalism. The take-out message is that culture makes groups, groups make knowledge and knowledge makes enemies.’

With such a book description, how could the editor of Fremantle Shipping News (which we were honoured to discover is mentioned in Make/Believe as a good example of a ‘hyper local news outlet’), Michael Barker not invite John Hartley to join him to make a podcast discussing Make/Believe – and Fremantle. We are so please John accepted the invitation. You will find the podcast below.

By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News

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