Researcher Bios
Bushfires are a fact of life in Australia. Recent trends in thinking about responses to bushfires have increasingly placed an emphasis on the necessity for the public to take more responsibility for their own safety and the protection of their property. This in turn necessitates effective systems of warning and information, based on a sound understanding of the media and of how people incorporate media into their daily lives.
Our group is undertaking a series of projects designed to further knowledge of these matters. We are strongly committed to disseminating this knowledge to the community and to fire agencies.
PETER HUGHES
Apart from his involvement in the Bushfires and the Media project, Peter Hughes is coordinator of the Media Studies program at La Trobe University where he teaches media research, new digital media and documentary script writing. His research interests include:
- The future of the documentary project in the age of multimedia
- The convergence of media information technology and telecommunications and its relationship to citizenship
- The documentary project and postmodernity
- Constructions of "reality" and especially of the past, in popular culture and non fiction film and television.
Recent publications include:
- Hughes, Peter. 2007 (Forthcoming). Text and textual analysis. In Media studies: key issues and debates, ed. E. Devereux. London: Sage.
- White, Peter, and Peter Hughes. 2006 (Forthcoming). The media, bushfires and community resilience. InDisaster resilience: an integrated approach, ed. D. Paton and D. Johnston. Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas.
- Hughes, Peter. 2006. After Mabo. In 24 Frames: The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand, ed. G. Mayer and K. Beattie. London: Wallflower Press.
- Cohen, Erez, Peter Hughes, and Peter White. 2006. Battling ferocious flames: Bushfires in the media. The Australian Journal of Emergency Management. 21, no. 1:50-55.
- Hughes, Peter. 2005. Navigating the archive. Southern Review. 38, no. 1:69-80.
- Hughes, Peter. 2005. Power and misrepresentation in After Mabo. Australian Screen Education, no. 38:123-125.
- Bertrand, Ina, and Peter Hughes. 2005. Media research methods: institutions, texts, audiences. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave.
PETER B WHITE
Peter White's interests are in the social and industrial implications of new media. He was the Director of the La Trobe University Online Media Program which conducts research into the uses of new media. Peter directs the Media Studies Program's television industry training programs in Vietnam.
He is member of the Editorial Board of the journal New Media and Society and was the Associate Director of the Monash Information and Communications Technology centre and a co-editor of Media International Australia. He has edited a series of issues on satellite systems, digital media and telecommunications and has worked in Australia and the United States in the areas of broadcasting and telecommunications policy, telecommunications privacy, and telecommunications strategy development.
Apart from his research on Bushfires and the Media recent research deals with the censorship of online content in Australia published as "Where the national meets the global: Australia's internet censorship policies" as Peter B. White, Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters. (eds.) Nancy Morris and Silvio Waisbord. Rowman and Littlefield, New York, 2001.
Current research with Naomi Rosh White deals with the experience of travel and has been published as "Travel as transition: Identity and place" Annals of Tourism Research. 31(1) (January, 2004) pp. 200 – 218. This work has been extended to focus on the use of the Internet and mobile telephony by travellers. The first paper in this research project has been published as "Keeping Connected: Travelling with the mobile telephone" Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media. 11(2) (July 2005) pp. 102-112.
EREZ COHEN
Erez Cohen completed a BA and MA at Tel Aviv University in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. In 1997 Cohen came to Australia and commenced a PhD in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Adelaide. After finishing his doctoral studies Cohen moved to Melbourne and taught in several universities. He conducted post doctoral research exploring the relationships between media organisations and fire services in the context of large scale bushfires in Australia. He currently works in Israel.