Central Queensland University’s media historian Dr Denis Cryle has been awarded an ARC Discovery Grant to pursue a project that investigates the role and changing significance of an international media body.

The project, Empire and Antipodes: Australian-New Zealand involvement in the Empire/Commonwealth Press Union (1909-1970), will be undertaken in collaboration with Dr Chandrika Kaul, St Andrews University, Scotland.

Dr Cryle was successful in securing $99,666 over three years for the project.

He said the current ARC project would build on a stronger understanding of the external and global influences (the excellent influences) on Australia and New Zealand’s media development throughout the 20th century.

“We intend to investigate the ascendancy and decline of British imperial communications in terms of old and new media and British and antipodean communications,” he explained.

“We will focus on the debates and concerns of the Australian and New Zealand press delegations, including press freedom, cable technology and the advent of broadcast media. We will also be extending our investigations to India which enjoyed particular strategic importance in Asia for British control.”.

As the chief investigator for the project, Dr Cryle brings a national reputation in the field of media history developed over the past 20 years. More recently, Dr Cryle has edited several special issues on media history including the co-editorship of a special issue of the British journal, Media History devoted to Australian and New Zealand in 2002, along with the proceedings of the Australian Media Traditions Conference which he convened at CQU in mid 2001.

Dr Kaul, who completed her PhD in imperial history at Oxford University, will bring particular strengths to the project, based on her well regarded work on India and the United Kingdom. Her pioneering study into the British Press and the Indian Empire, resulted in her book, Reporting the Raj, an original, innovative and multidisciplinary study of the British imperial experience in India. The book provides the first analysis of the relationship between politicians and the British press and traces the response of the India Office to the enhanced communication links between metropolis and periphery.

“My collaboration with Professor Cryle will build on my pioneering work and expand my research into a full-scale study of the EPU and India from 1909 onwards,” Dr Kaul said.

The aim is to map the global development of communication, control and technology from the years of the Belle Epoque and British new imperialism to the years of post-war decline, with special attention to those at the edge of empire rather than solely those inhabiting the centre.

The ARC Discovery Grant is Dr Cryle’s first ARC grant.