Radio Wars: Truth, Propaganda and the Struggle for Radio Australia

by Errol Hodge

Overview

Radio Australia - the multilingual overseas radio service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - is little known in Australia, but is heard by millions of listeners in the Asia-Pacific region and others throughout the world. Radio Wars, first published in 1995, was the first book to tell the story of this important but unexplored aspect of Australia's international presence. Launched in 1939 as a propaganda tool, the service was for three decades caught uncomfortably between those who would use it as an instrument of foreign policy and those who would have it an icon of journalistic integrity. But the author argues that by the time of the Dili massacre, propaganda had given way to forthright and factual reporting. Spiced with anecdotal detail, Radio Wars traces a struggle that ranges from personal pettiness to events with significant political ramifications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521479271
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/19/1994
Series:	Truth, Propaganda and the Struggle for Radio Australia
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

1. Radio Australia at war, 1939–49; 2. A Cold War weapon, 1950–3; 3. Moses: 'a gutless wonder', 1953–64; 4. Hasluck's push for power, 1965–72; 5. News commentaries: a Cold War battleground, 1950–72; 6. Vietnam: 'one of the chief agencies for radio propaganda', 1956–73; 7. The coming of detente, 1970–91; 8. Indonesian honeymoon, 1945–74; 9. Collision with Indonesia, 1975–88; 10. Indonesian massacre, 1991–3; 11. Voice of Australia; 12. A future for Radio Australia?; 13. The new wave: international television, 1985–94.