Dr Tony Moore

Dr Tony Moore joined the Communications and Media Studies Program as a Lecturer in February 2009, following careers in book publishing and as a program maker at ABC Television. Tony completed his doctorate in Australian cultural history at the University of Sydney, and writes regularly on communications, history and politics in the press and scholarly publications. Through his journalism and publishing projects Tony maintains close industry links with professionals working in the media and policy sectors, which are drawn upon to enhance the vocational depth of the Communications and Media Studies Postgraduate program.
 
Tony has taught at the University of NSW and the University of Sydney. He believes that postgraduate coursework in communications should equip students with the skills and knowledge to think critically and creatively throughout their professional careers.
 
Tony’s research interests include cinema, independent media and creative industries, public broadcasting, popular music, radical political movements and their use of media, youth subcultures and artistic bohemia. Tony’s doctoral thesis examined Australia’s bohemian tradition, a century-long history of creative iconoclasts spanning Marcus Clarke to Nick Cave, Dulcie Deamer to Germaine Greer. His first book, The Barry McKenzie Movies, analysed the cultural significance of the ‘Ocker’ cinema genre of the 1970s. In 2007 Tony was awarded the NSW History Fellowship to research and write Death or Liberty, a history of political prisoners transported to the Australian colonies in the convict era, to be published in 2010. Tony’s scholarly articles have been published in the Journal of Australian Studies, History Australia and Meanjin.
 
Tony’s professional engagement with the media extends back to the mid 1980s when he was NSW community representative on the ABC National Advisory Council. In nine years as an ABC program-maker he worked on seminal feature length documentaries as a researcher, writer, associate producer and later a producer/director. His documentary credits include Nobody’s Children, The Devil You Know, Lost In Space, So Help Me God and Bohemian Rhapsody. As a journalist producer in ABC Current Affairs Tony worked at Four Corners, 7.30 Report and Foreign Correspondent. Combining his journalistic skills and scholarly research Tony is a commentator in the print and electronic media, including the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC Radio.
 
For over a decade from the late 1990s Tony was publisher for Pluto Press, where he commissioned titles in the areas of political science, history, economics, cultural studies and media. These include important works by scholars such as Ghassan Hage, McKenzie Wark and Judith Brett, and by policy leaders such as Lindsay Tanner. He has been especially committed to working with young emerging writers and postgraduates to get their research published. Most recently Tony was academic Commissioning Editor for Cambridge University Press, for whom he edits an issues series.
 
Tony is committed to channelling innovative research and theory through a variety of media to challenge orthodox thinking, stimulate creative public debate, and provide evidence for policy reform. This notion of ‘ideas entrepreneurship’ connects his careers in academia, broadcasting, journalism and publishing. As an historian he believes knowledge of our cultural traditions enables critical engagement with present problems and opportunities.

Publications

Books

Death or Liberty - Rebels in Exile, Pier Nine (Murdoch), 2010 (forthcoming)

The Barry McKenzie Movies, Australian Screen Classics Series, Currency Press/Australian Film Commission, Strawberry Hills, Sydney, 2005

Articles:

‘Does the Left Need a Sense of Humour?’, The Sydney Papers, Volume 19 Number 3, Winter, 2007
 
‘Urban Iconoclast. New Light on Marcus Clarke’, Meanjin, Carlton, Vol. 64, Nos 1-2, 2005
 
'Australia's Bohemian Carnival', History Australia, Vol 2, No. 1, Dec., 2004
 
'Re-imagining Aunty: Remodelling the ABC', Arena Magazine, Number 73, Oct-Nov 2004

‘Romancing the City – Australia’s Bohemian Tradition, Take One’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 57, 1998

‘Romancing the City – Australia’s Bohemian Tradition’, Take One’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 58, 1998

Book chapters:

‘The Art of Risk in an Age of Anxiety’, in K. Oakley & L. Anderson, eds, Making Meaning, Making Money.  Directions for the Arts and Cultural Industries in the Creative Age, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009.

Article republished as ‘Urban Iconoclast’ in R. Dessaix, Best Australian Essays 2005, Black Inc, 2005

'Hawke's Big Tent: Elite Pluralism and the Politics of Inclusion', Chapter in T. Bramston and S. Ryan, eds, The Hawke Government: A Critical Retrospective, Pluto Press, North Melbourne, 2003

‘Unchaining Aunty’, in D. Glover and G. Patmore, eds, Labor Essays 2001, Pluto Press, Annandale, 2001

‘Australia’s Bohemian Tradition’, in R. Nile, The Australian Legend and its Discontents, University of Queensland Press, in Association with the API Network, St. Lucia, 2000

‘To Praise Youth or to Bury It’, New Voices for Social Democracy, Labor Essays, 1999-2000, Pluto Press, Annandale, 1999

‘Triumph in the Labyrinth’, in L. Finch and C. McConville, eds, Gritty Cities, Images of the Urban, Pluto Press, Annandale, 1999

Research reports:

The New Youth Underclass, Developmental Youth Services Association, 1988

 Paper presented as evidence to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Inquiry into Our Homeless Children

 Counting the Costs, Youth Income Transfers, Developmental Youth Services Association, 1988

 Attracting a Youth Audience, ABC National Advisory Council, 1987

 T. Moore and NSW International Youth Year Steering Committee, Youth on Youth Policies, IYY Secretariat, 1986

Youth on Youth: Post Compulsory School Options, NSW Education Commission, 1985

Selected journalism:

Larrikin Streak’ Review, The Weekend Australian, August 16 2008

‘ABC Board Should be Sacked, not Stacked’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 2008
 
 ‘From Culture War to Cultural Democracy: It’s Your ABC’, Insight, March 3 2007, Centre for Policy Development
 
 ‘The Case for a Civic Revolution’, ABC Unleashed, 28 November 2007
 
 ‘Howard is Bad for Business’, ABC Unleashed, 22 November 2007
 
‘True Blue- the Other Film Renaissance’, Review, Weekend Australian, 30 September 2006
 
‘Cultural Cringe Keeps our History Out of the Picture’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August 2004
 
‘The ABC- Managers are Stifling Our Creativity’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 April 2004
 
‘Peter Garrett- Pub Hero Can do the Job’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 June 2004
 
‘When a Bazza Spray had its Day’, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 2003
 
 ‘Want An Australian Republic?: Lets get Rid of the Oligarch’s First’, Age, 3 March 2003
 
‘Our Great land of Victims and Sooks’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 2003
 
‘Vote for the Bananas Republic’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2002
 
‘A Book the Government Wants to Play Hooky’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 2002
 
‘Pity poor Boomers, Hanging on for Dear Life’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 2002
 
‘Its Back to ABC for Aunty’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June 2000

ABC Television: Documetaries and Current Affairs

Producer/Director.  Timeframe series episodes The Door Never Closes and War Against Dissent, 1997

Producer/Director: Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels Of Australian Culture, 1996

Producer: Four Corners East Timor special Shadow Boxing, 1995

Producer: Stories for 7.30 Report, Bottom Line and Foreign Correspondent

Field Producer and Researcher: Four Corners including Fire, ASIS: Code Name Mantra, The Feminist Debate, Bishop’s Move, Hawke, The Big Stack, The Newman Killing, and Gareth The Second Coming, 1994

Associate Producer and Researcher: Hard Lessons – an examination of the institution of secondary school in a rapidly changing economy, 1993

Associate Producer and Researcher: Growing Up Fast, 1993

Associate Producer and Researcher: So Help Me God, 1992

Associate Producer and Researcher: Lost In Space: Australians in their Cities, 1991

Researcher: One Australia? 1990

Writer and Researcher: Nobody’s Children, 1989

Researcher: In Real Life series, 1989

Researcher: The Devil You Know