Diary of a television viewer

678081 MIA0010.1177/1329878X16678081Media International AustraliaGriffen-Foley research-article2016 Article Diary of a television viewer Media International Australia 2017, Vol. 162(1) 33–48 © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1329878X16678081 journals.sagepub.com/home/mia Bridget Griffen-Foley Macquarie University, Australia Abstract In 1974, Melbourne teenager Jennifer Sketchley started keeping a daily diary. It continued until 1985, describing everyday life as a schoolgirl, leaving school at the age of 16, studying by correspondence and entering the workforce. She was happiest watching films and television, with her diary recording what she watched from morning to night. Sketchley’s diaries provide an intimate insight into the television habits and preferences of one Australian. This girl-centred article frames this unique record within the context of her family circumstances and within the field of girls’ media studies. It examines the everyday practice of an active television consumer and fan, engaging with programmes (especially Star Trek) and television periodicals, and seeking comfort and community. Keywords audiences, Australian television, girlhood, Star Trek, television viewers Introduction In 1974, 14-year-old Melbourne girl Jennifer Anne Sketchley started keeping a daily diary. It continued until 1985, describing her everyday life as a schoolgirl, leaving school at the age of 16, studying by correspondence, working at various temporary jobs and then with the Health Commission. The diaries also documented her television viewing by day and by night. In 2012, I applied to the Australian Research Council for funding for ‘Switched-on audiences: Australian listeners and viewers’, a history of radio listening and television viewing in Australia from the 1920s to the present day. I considered the relative ease with which media historians could research programmes and productions, compared with the actual consumption habits of listeners and viewers. I indicated that I would attempt to uncover the voices of Australian broadcast audiences through complaints files,1 fan mail,2 the records of broadcasting clubs,3 letters to broadcasting periodicals, the records of ABC Listening Groups,4 regulatory and industry research, formal ratings research, and photographs and cartoons. I also noted that I hoped to find Australian Corresponding author: Bridget Griffen-Foley, Centre for Media History, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University, Building Y3A, Room 148, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia. Email: b.foley@mq.edu.au 34 Media International Australia 162(1) Figure 1. Cover of 1977 diary. equivalents to the ‘wireless log’ kept by a 16-year-old male BBC listener in 1922–1923 which was donated to the British Library on the 90th anniversary of the BBC (British Library Sound and Vision Blog, 2012). Jenny Sketchley’s diaries, now in the State Library of Victoria,5 constitute a unique insight into the television habits of one Australian (Figure 1). Some of the other records I am accessing – such as fan mail kept by broadcasters and letters of complaint to the Australian Broadcasting Control Board and its successors – are almost as intimate, but much of what has survived is framed by broadcasting stations and regulators, broadcasting periodicals and of course audience research firms. The Sketchley box is the only manuscript collection I have found to date created by an actual Australian viewer or listener. What follows is a historical study of how the electronic media operated in the life of a young Australian girl from a middle-class family in the suburb of Nunawading who, in 1959, was born into a world in which television was present from the start (Drotner and Livingstone, 2008: 18; Gunter and McAleer, 1997: 4). As Drotner and Livingstone (2008) have observed, studies of children’s relation to media are ‘almost as old as media themselves’ (p. 10). For decades, there have been urgent debates over the regulation and governance of both media and childhood (Drotner and Livingstone, 2008: 3). On the advent of television, the most clearly voiced concern was that it would alter the habits of domestic life (Cullingford, 1984: 18). The introduction of television to Australia in 1956 was surrounded by anxiety about the effect of television on family relationships and a desire to preserve childhood innocence (Arrow, 2009: 30–33). In an early study on television and the Australian adolescent, education lecturer W. J. Campbell (1962) articulated these concerns: ‘What will happen to homework? Will we lose touch with our neighbours? Will family values and controls disintegrate? Will our teenagers follow new idols?’ (p. 9). Griffen-Foley 35 ‘Screen theory’, a dominant paradigm in media studies in the 1970s, was almost exclusively interested in texts rather than audiences (Buckingham, 1993: 16–17). Since the 1980s, audience studies, particularly approaches stressing an active and interpretative audience, have explored children in the context of television in the family and home (Drotner and Livingstone, 2008: 11). My study of Sketchley’s television viewing in the 1970s and 1980s is framed within the context of her family circumstances. It is influenced by Morley’s (1986) well-known book, Family Television (p. 13), which argued that patterns of television viewing could only be understood in the overall context of family leisure activity. At the same time, this article is ‘girl-centred’, foregrounding Sketchley’s experiences and using them to help shed light on girl culture and media consumption, and attempting to give her a voice (Mitchell and Reid-Walsh, 2008: 18–19; Kearney, 2011: 11). While girls’ media studies, which has girls’ media culture as its overarching object of study, have grown since the 1990s (Kearney, 2011: 1), the paucity of sources left behind by children and youth in order to recover girls’ agency continues to be lamented by scholars (e.g. Helgren and Vasconcellos, 2010: 3–4). For Australian scholars, the Sketchley diary is thus unique. It is used in this article, to the extent that it is possible, to reconstruct her girlhood and the place of television within it. This article attempts to address the ‘reality’ of one girl’s media experiences, against what Gunter and McAleer (1997: xi–xiii) would call the ‘myths’ of the assumptions and stereotypes of many works and commentaries about children and media. Where an interview – with questions almost inevitably posed by adults – may not yield honest opinions about real-world television viewing (Palmer, 1986: 28), Sketchley’s diary presents her views of the television she watched in the 1970s and 1980s. The diary presents her views of the television she watched in the 1970s and 1980s, unlike an interview would, with questions almost inevitably posted by adults (Palmer, 1986: 28). This article’s primary research base is Jenny Sketchley’s diaries, which years later she was encouraged to deposit in the State Library of Victoria by her father-in-law, a history teacher. Unlike recent studies of Australian television viewing, her richly detailed diaries constitute a contemporaneous account, not filtered by memory from the distance of decades (see, for example, DarianSmith and Turnbull, 2012; Turnbull and Hanson, 2015). Patricia Gillard (2002: 66) has noted how in the 1970s, surveys of children – or more often their parents – would quantify hours watched and categorise types of programmes, but very little notice was taken of the viewing environment or children’s own interactions and experiences. In writing this article, I have spoken and corresponded with Sketchley to clarify facts and context, but I have chosen not to formally interview her at this point due to the very large volume of material in her diaries and the different types of historical evidence constituted by oral testimony. The diary Fourteen-year-old Jenny Sketchley was given a diary by her mother, Lois, as a Christmas present in 1973 and continued to receive one each year. Lois Sketchley apparently hoped that her daughter, to whom she was close, would be able to use it as an outlet for her feelings. One of Jenny’s two older brothers had died, and her parents were unhappily married, with her father (a senior accountant) drinking too much, and her mother unwell. However, Jenny avoided putting any ‘Dear Diary “rubbish”’ into her diaries, partly in case her brother, Stephen, older by 2 years, read them (personal communication). The first volumes, in 1974–1975, set a pattern. They indicated that television determined the routine of Sketchley’s day. Sketchley chose to watch television on the family’s set in the 36 Media International Australia 162(1) Figure 2. From 1976 diary. lounge-room, meaning she was often prevented from watching her preferred programmes (personal communication). Palmer (1986: 48) documents how television gave children structure to the hours they spent at home and, as we shall see, this was a large proportion of Sketchley’s time, as she often watched television for hours on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as after school. The diaries listed the birthdays of prominent entertainers, including Elvis Presley, Elton John and Robert Redford (Figure 2). Happily, Sketchley’s own birthday coincided with that of Ringo Starr (7 July) (State Library of Victoria, 1975). The diaries documented the birthday of her favourite film star, Tony Curtis, the anniversary of his marriage to Janet Leigh and the many movies featuring him that Sketchley watched on television (15 and 17 August 1974; 21 and 23 September 1974; 11 October 1974; 25 November 1974; 3 June 1975). The deaths of prominent performers – Jack Benny, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Johnny O’Keefe and John Lennon – were noted (27 December 1975; 17 August and 15 October 1977; 6 October 1978; 9 December 1980). Most volumes contained a list at the end of the movies she had watched throughout the year (Figure 3). Her diaries also recorded the purchase of entertainment equipment, beginning with her brother’s acquisition of a television set (6 August 1974). Stephen used television to help exert his power over Jenny, refusing to allow her use his set, even when he wasn’t at home (personal communication). Movies on television Throughout 1974, Sketchley appears to have watched mainly movies – invariably from overseas – on television, especially during prime-time on Sunday nights. In 1962, a Senate Select Committee investigated ways to encourage Australian television production, which was considerably more Griffen-Foley 37 Figure 3. From 1975 diary. expensive than imported content. Despite new local content requirements (Arrow, 2009: 92–93), most movies shown on Australian television continued to be from overseas, particularly the United States. As David Stratton (1980: 1) notes, by the 1970s, the Australian film industry was at its lowest ebb. Television provided Sketchley with a refuge, not just from unhappy home-life but also from boredom at school. On Sunday 20 October 1974, her diary read simply, ‘RELAXED ALL DAY & WATCHED T.V.’.6 She noted on 9 December that she ‘DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT SCHOOL’; the following day, she stayed home ‘BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING TO DO AT 38 Media International Australia 162(1) SCHOOL’ (9–10 December 1974). The curriculum had essentially finished for the year, with the final weeks of classes dragging out. Sketchley’s malaise was arrested on 11 December when her mother bought her a tiny JVC television set for Christmas (11 December 1974; personal communication). Lois Sketchley finished paying it off in July 1976 (2 July 1976). In Australia, there had been a rapid uptake of television. In an account of her country childhood, Catherine Driscoll (2011: 137) recalls most of the children at her school having televisions by 1973. However, early viewing was typically communal and familial (Arrow, 2009: 29). For between 73% and 80% of children studied by Edgar and Callus (1979: 13), television viewing was still a family experience. When Palmer (1986) surveyed Sydney households in the mid-1980s, she found that only 7% of children did most of their viewing in their own bedrooms (p. 51). This figure was almost certainly even lower a decade earlier, when Stephen Sketchley bought his own set and Jenny was given one. Occasionally, Sketchley went to the cinema with her family, seeing movies including The Towering Inferno and The Odd Couple (which had inspired the television series of the same name) (25 May, 15 June and 1 November 1975; 4 February 1978). She resented it when school and other activities caused her to miss movies on television she wanted to see; in the second half of the year, she documented missing three Curtis movies when she was ‘AT CAMP’ (6 August and 1 December 1974). There was no option for recording, or what we now know as ‘time-shifting’, in the 1970s; if a movie or an episode was missed, it was missed completely. Television periodicals Sketchley frequently bought copies of TV Week magazine and sometimes bought its principal rival, TV Times, together, occasionally with movie magazines (see, for example, 21 January and 24 May 1975; 1 April 1976; 9 and 16 July and 6 and 13 August 1977; 3 December 1977; 15 May 1978). TV Week had been launched by Southdown Press in 1958, and by now looked superior to TV Times, with glossy colour pages and a cleaner layout (Keating, 2014: 468). Sketchley’s purchases were augmented by trips to the local library as both her parents loved to read, as she did herself (4 February 1975; personal communication). There were occasional bursts of generosity from her father: ‘Dad bought T.V. Week & bottle of coke’ ran her entry for 25 January 1975. Sketchley read the television and movie magazines closely, especially during school holidays, and used them to help plan her viewing. After walking up the street to buy TV Week and Movie Mirror (a monthly American magazine) at 2:00 p.m. on 21 January, she read them until 6:00 p.m. (1975). Sketchley traced the activities of Tony Curtis and anticipated when his next movies were to be screened (22 March and 19 April 1975). Although Curtis had experienced greatest popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, it seems that many of his movies were repeated on Australian television in ensuing decades, and he also made numerous appearances in television programmes. To Sketchley, he was simply ‘flat out gorgeous’ (personal communication). Although Sketchley did not use TV Week to vote in the Logie Awards, she sometimes entered competitions for prizes. For instance, in May 1975, she submitted five entries to win a book about Western movies (personal communication; 12 May 1975). She put up posters of her favourite performers, such as Robert Redford and Elton John, on her bedroom walls (8 December 1974; 10, 13 and 24 May, 7 June and 5 July 1975; personal communication). She also pasted television and film news cuttings into scrapbooks (see, for example, 1, 13, 21 and 25 June and 11 November 1975; 4 April 1978), as well as ticket stubs for every movie and play she saw (personal communication). A television of her own From 1975, with her own set in her bedroom, Sketchley started watching television series as well as movies. There were American series, such as The Streets of San Francisco and MASH, several Griffen-Foley 39 of which were re-runs, including My Favorite Martian and Gomer Pyle, UMSC (21 and 24 January, 29 April, 10 and 20 June and 28 October 1975; 1 June 1976). Her Australian viewing included Hey Hey, It’s Saturday, initially a children’s cartoon and comedy magazine programme aired on Saturday mornings on GTV9 (15 March 1975). Accounts of ‘bedroom culture’ began to emerge from discussions of girl culture in the 1970s (Driscoll, 2011: 142). Driscoll (2002: 257–258) surveys the representation of girls as especially determined by a domestic subspace (bedrooms, houses and shopping centres), aligned with the private or domestic field and materialised in opposition to the public field of youth culture. She also explains how bedroom culture can be a form of isolation from or resistance to family authority. Although Sketchley seems not to have been a particularly rebellious teenager, her diary suggests that she watched television in her bedroom to escape from uncomfortable family dynamics: ‘it was my refuge from the whirlwind of my family’, as she now puts it (personal communication). Sketchley frequently went to bed late – around 11:00 p.m. – and her light entertainment tastes extended to more adult programmes. On the night of 21 January 1975, she saw the year’s first episode of The Ernie Sigley Show on Nine, noting that Kirri Adams’ performance of the ‘beautiful’ song The Way We Were ‘brought tears to my eyes’. She regularly watched its replacement, The Don Lane Show, noting guests of interest (12 and 13 May and 2 June 1975; 19 April 1976). Sketchley watched the last few months of the controversial variety programme Graham Kennedy Show in 1975 (3 January and 12 March 1975), also on Nine, followed by Blankety Blanks, the often smutty game show Kennedy hosted on Ten in 1977–1978 (see 26 and 28 September, 3, 7, 10 and 20 October, 2, 10 and 15 November, and 2, 7 and 15 December 1977; 13, 20 and 31 January, 10 and 16 February, 1, 13 and 22 March, 19 and 25 April, 3 and 18 May and 9 June 1978). While it is tempting to think of children going to bed early on weeknights in preparation for their next day at school, Cullingford’s (1984) survey of 5000 English children showed that most of their favourite programmes appeared in the later part of the evening, generally after 7:30 p.m. and sometimes much later (pp. 14–15). In 1975, Sketchley started watching Number 96, ‘the most notorious televisual exploration of the sexual revolution’ (Arrow, 2009: 117), on Ten (21 and 24 January 1975). By then in its fourth year, the weeknight soap opera helped to entrench the production model of 2.5 hours of prime-time television soap per week. The serial had been for some time the most popular television programme in Australia and had a large teenage following, despite its Adults-Only classification (Number 96, 1972–1977). Driscoll (2011: 138) saw the serial, set in a city apartment building, representing a more sophisticated Australian-ness than the everyday lives she witnessed in Armidale in rural New South Wales. A hastily shot Number 96 feature film, allowing storylines to be shown in colour, was released during the May 1974 school holidays. The box-office hype helped to draw Sketchley to the actual series. The film, which yielded a huge profit after an investment of just AUD100,000, was still showing at the drive-in in January 1975 when she went to see it with her friend Lindy and Lindy’s mother (24 January 1975; Stratton, 1980: 269; personal communication). Sketchley also occasionally watched The Benny Hill Show, which was full of double entendres, and watched the weekly episodes of another British sketch comedy programme, The Two Ronnies (see, 26 June 1975; 30 September 1976; 30 June, 7, 14, 21 and 28 July, 4, 10, 11, 18 and 25 August, 20 October and 10 November 1977). Seeing Torn Curtain, the 1966 political thriller starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, in 1975, she wrote, ‘In one part they’re supposed to be in bed together, but I didn’t see it because they broke that section of film’ (29 June 1975). In the privacy of her bedroom, Sketchley was free to watch programmes and movies of her choice. Politicians and regulators have historically tried to control content on television and film (Critcher, 2008: 101), while some commentators, such as producer Godfrey Phillips (in Mayer, 1980: 32), have tried to insist on the need for ‘correct’ and engaged parental supervision. 40 Media International Australia 162(1) However, the question of parental responsibility is complex. A study of children and the media in the context of home and family found that the ways in which parental mediation strategies are worked out are far from consistent (Hoover and Clark, 2008: 118). In England, Cullingford (1984: 15–16, 137–138) was struck by how little parents actually controlled the hours that children watched, or the programmes that they imbibed, and commented on the ‘casual’ family attitude to the medium. Colour television Sketchley excitedly noted the arrival of colour television in February 1975 (also noting, in December, ‘Had T.V. for exactly 1 year today’) and recorded visits to friends’ places to watch programmes in colour (26 and 28 February, 1 and 15 March and 11 December 1975; 29 May 1976). On a family holiday to Queensland in September, Sketchley’s mother was captivated by seeing a field of yellow in a margarine advertisement. On their return home, the family hired a colour set and then, in December, bought a new one: ‘It’s a NATIONAL & very beautiful. Watched DINAH in colour … Everything looks great in colour’ (personal communication; 13 September and 3–4 December 1976). Australian audiences rapidly took up colour television, with only 10% of Australian households still watching black-and-white by 1980 (Arrow, 2009: 137). Sketchley regularly watched Countdown (9 and 23 March and 8 June 1975), the live music programme that appeared briefly on the ABC in late 1974 and was re-launched to coincide with the introduction of colour, with glittery acts showcasing its possibilities (Arrow, 2009: 131–132). The programme attracted some 2 million viewers, perhaps half of them under 17 (Inglis, 1983: 356, 437–438). Driscoll (2011: 142) observes that like the pop music chart scene more generally, Countdown especially appealed to girls. In August 1975, Sketchley saw the ‘best’ episode of Countdown, hosted by Daryl Braithwaite and featuring the Bay City Rollers; in September, she was excited to note that Countdown was giving away T-shirts for AUD4 with the autographs of pop stars including Elton John (31 August and 7 September 1975). She and her friend Debbie sometimes visited each other’s homes so that they could watch the programme together live on Sunday evenings, or repeated on Saturdays (27 March and 22 August 1976; 2 July 1977). While Sketchley consumed most television on her own, she often created opportunities to watch with her friends. Edgar and Callus (1979: 14) have shown that discussion about television was an important part of teenager life, with subsequent international scholarship suggesting that children and young people increasingly focus on horizontal and peer networks rather than traditional hierarchies of authority and value centred on adults (Drotner and Livingstone, 2008: 3). Before some episodes of Countdown, Sketchley would play music cassettes or listen to ‘American Top 40’ (21 September 1975; 30 July and 6 August 1977). She seems not to have spent a great deal of time listening to radio, although her diary does record listening to music on commercial stations 3DB and 3XY (see 12 May, 8 July and 25 October 1975; 20 July and 17 October 1976; 21 January 1980). She tended to do so ‘because there wasn’t anything on T.V.’ (19 November 1976). One early study has indicated that children with access to television did not tend to listen to the radio, ‘although some mass-media addicts would turn to sound if, for some reason, television programs were not available’ (Campbell, 1962: 38). Routine and disruption By February 1975, Sketchley’s diarised accounts of her viewing, from morning to night, included the refrain ‘WATCHED THE USUAL THINGS ON T.V’. Variations from programme guides were resented, as when a documentary about Winston Churchill replaced a 1965 bedroom comedy, Griffen-Foley 41 Boeing Boeing, starring Curtis: ‘I was very upset about that’ (29 April 1975). On 15 April 1975, she confided, If I could just stay home, & not have to go to work or school, I’d feel good, & probably wouldn’t have all these problems about school. I may have to go back to school because people keep telling me I haven’t got any qualifications. What I’d really like to do is stay home, but that is not possible. I’m going to have to make a decision soon. A study by Edgar (1977: 2) at this time suggested that teenagers with low self-esteem were among the heaviest users of television, with 27.4% viewing for more than 40 hours a week. Sketchley’s diary records viewing award ceremonies, usually live but sometimes on repeat. She watched the 1975 Logies telecast at her friend Therese’s place, and in 1977 was disappointed to come home late and miss the first 45 minutes (9 March 1975). She noted the appearances of celebrity imports (Burt Lancaster in 1977) and the winners of the Gold Logie, including Don Lane, and the antics of his popular sidekick, Bert Newton, who she called simply ‘Bert’ (26 July 1976; 25 March 1977). She anticipated the announcement of nominations for the Academy Awards and watched preview shows and the ceremony itself (9 April 1975; 17 February and 26 and 29 March 1977; 4 April 1978). She used television to plan visits to the cinema, watching the 1977 Christmas movie preview presented by Ivan Hutchinson, HSV7’s movie presenter and critic (7 December 1977). Her diary entries of holidays with family and then girlfriends record a range of activities, such as reading the mystery short story collection, More Tales of the Black Widowers, by one of her favourites, the classic science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, and going to drive-ins (11–12 and 15 August, 1 and 26 September and 15 November 1977; 4 January 1981). But she kept buying TV Week while away and noted some of the programmes she managed to see, such as Dave Allen (10 September 1976). While in Queensland on 13 September 1975, she waited until the rest of her family went to sleep to watch a Tony Curtis movie (13–15 September 1974). News and current affairs The diaries occasionally mentioned major external events, often juxtaposed with the day’s television viewing. The entry for 11 November 1975 reads, MR WHITLAM WAS SACKED AT 1.55 (5 to 2.). MR FRASER IS CARETAKER PRIME MINISTER. THERE WILL BE A DOUBLE DISSOLUTION. AUSTRALIA WILL GO TO THE POLLS IN DECEMBER. MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN POLITICAL HISTORY. Watched Dinah … Watched the usual things. At 8.30 I watched The New Perry Mason … On 17 November (a school night), she went to bed after midnight ‘because of Politics on T.V.’. Sketchley sometimes watched television news bulletins while continuing to be drawn most to entertainment programmes. This is in keeping with Morley’s (1986) British study of television viewing among families from different cultural backgrounds, which seemed to confirm that masculinity was primarily identified with a strong preference for news, current affairs and documentaries and femininity identified with a preference for fictional programmes (p. 162). On 13 December 1975, Sketchley saw fit to record that not only was it election day, but the day when the host of The Mike Walsh Show left for the United States: ‘Watched 1¼ hrs of THE ELECTION & then went to bed. THE LIBS HAVE GOT IT’. Her diary entry for 17 February 1976 noted both the opening of the 30th Parliament and the announcement of nominations for the Academy Awards. As previously 42 Media International Australia 162(1) noted, her diary was a straightforward account of each day, rather than an outlet for deep emotion or reflection. She was sufficiently moved by the Victorian election of August 1977 to enrol to vote, writing ‘Next election I’ll be able to vote’ (16 August 1977). In the federal election of 10 December, she voted for ‘[Don] Chipp’s Democrats’ and watched Countdown ‘& then Election ’77 for several hours’. Politics was discussed in her household and taken seriously, and Sketchley valued the fight women had had to secure the vote (personal communication). Of the Granville train crash in 1977, she wrote, THIS MORNING WAS THE GREATEST RAIL DISASTER IN AUSTRALIA’S HISTORY. Hundreds were injured, killed or so forth. Very bad & gory. Watched Laverne & Shirley … Viewing news coverage the following day, she noted that the estimated death toll of 80 people was ‘[v]ery shocking’ (18–19 January 1977). Star Trek Jenny Sketchley’s passion was Star Trek, the American science fiction series originally aired from 1966 to 1969. Star Trek gained new visibility in the early 1970s, with the first Star Trek convention held in New York in 1972, and widespread syndication (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 10–11). In Australia, the series was reintroduced in 1975 with the launch of colour television (Maxwell, n.d.). There was also Star Trek: The Animated Series, first seen in the United States in 1973–1974. The top of some of Sketchley’s earliest diary entries recorded, in capital letters, significant episodes (see 10 May and 7 and 14 June 1975), with further details of the actual episodes in some entries (see 24 May, 21 and 28 June and 5, 15 and 22 July 1977). When ‘The Conscience of the King’ (from season 1) screened in August 1977, she remarked that the episode had a ‘terrific “Macbeth” flavour’ to it (5 August 1977). Later that month, she noted of ‘The Galileo Seven’ (also from season 1): ‘Kirk tries to get Spock to admit that he’s human. Everyone laughed. Beautiful ending’ (19 August 1977). Sketchley loved ‘the optimistic storylines that presented the future in such a hopeful way’ (personal communication). In August 1975, she wrote of her reluctant viewing of a movie: ‘I feel kind of hateful towards Born Free because they took of [sic] Star Trek’ (30 August 1975). Reading TV Week in January 1977, she was ‘very unhappy’ to learn the series was to be replaced by The World at War, an acclaimed British documentary series (8 and 16 January 1977). While waiting for Star Trek to return to air, she decorated her bedroom with posters for the series (19 February 1977; 4 April 1978). She was unhappy again in June, when the episode she was anticipating (‘Naked Time’) was replaced with ‘some dumb movie’ (‘It’s just not fair & I am deeply disappointed’). Her diary entry for 14 April 1978, headed ‘STAR TREK WASN’T ON’, concluded, ‘I could have screamed’. Despite her ire, and what we shall see was a very active engagement with the series, Sketchley did not graduate to being a viewer activist, the figure celebrated by the writer and producer Gene Roddenberry, challenging the networks, writing letters of complaint and lobbying on behalf of the creative producer (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 8–9, 13). By mid-1975, Sketchley, barely 16, had left school, where she had come to be bullied for being independent rather than a ‘sheep’. Her parents were eager for her to study by correspondence, beginning with typing and shorthand, so, in July, Sketchley bought a typing manual (personal communication; 15 July 1975). She quickly gave this away, instead finishing Form 4 by correspondence and then doing likewise with Forms 5–6, with her mother helping to tutor her. She must have excelled at one of her assignments for English (her best subject) in 1978, which entailed writing a television script complete with dialogue (3 May 1978; personal communication)! Griffen-Foley 43 Events in Sketchley’s personal and professional life were interwoven with accounts of her television consumption. For example, her diary entry on 29 July 1977 records that she failed maths, secured 80% in legal studies – and there was ‘No Star Trek because of cricket’. On 12 August, she noted, ‘FAILED MY DRIVING TEST FOR THE 3RD TIME’ (‘The funny thing is I don’t feel bad at all, actually happier; no more pressure’), and that she bought another Star Trek poster book. The following day, she purchased a Star Trek comic, ‘Voodoo’, and TV Week (13 August 1977). Sketchley’s older brother Stephen married early to escape the family situation. On 15 August, the day she was left on her own with her parents, she watched the Super Flying Fun Show, which featured ‘Mudd’s Passion’ from Star Trek: The Animated Series. Sketchley also listened to Star Trek tapes and noted when she heard the theme song played at her local shopping centre (19 December 1976; 4 January, 18 and 23 July and 11 August 1977). On 25 July 1977, she bought the TV Week Star Trek poster book and watched In Search of … UFOs, narrated by Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek. On 4 August 1977, she audio-taped the part of an episode of The Two Ronnies that included a Star Trek sketch. She regularly watched The Animated Series and bought tie-in publications, including I Am Not Spock (‘$1.95’) and Trek or Treat (‘$2.95’), as well as figures of the main characters (18 May and 25 August 1977). Her reading taste extended to fantasy and other science fiction novels (18 May 1977; 22 March, 15 May, 21 and 30 June, 25 July, 1 and 8 August and 30 November 1978; 13 July 1982). Her last diary entry for 1977, on 31 December, records that her parents decided to go to bed rather than celebrate the New Year, and she watched a Two Ronnies special before going to bed at midnight. In 1978, Sketchley began compiling monthly lists: of her principal achievements, of the movies she had seen on television and of any activities related to Star Trek, including watching the series and buying tie-in comics and novels. That year, she also began watching Doctor Who, produced by the BBC since 1963, which she had found too frightening when she was younger (e.g. 29 September 1978; 21 March 1979), although it never displaced Star Trek in her affections. Tulloch and Jenkins (1995: 13) note Roddenberry’s production of a host of spin-off goods by the mid-1970s, including Star Trek scripts, stationery and photographs. On 15 May 1978, Sketchley recorded the death of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, visiting her mother in hospital – and buying the Star Fleet Technical Manual (‘$8.95’). She was not so much interested in mastering the series’ vocabulary and learning about its technologies (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 224) as she was in collecting everything to do with Star Trek (personal communication). During 1978, she became a regular buyer of science fiction fan magazines (see 1 and 10 November 1978). On 15 July 1978, 19-year-old Sketchley joined Austrek, a fan club started by Geoff Allshorn in Melbourne in 1976, and planned to go to see the Star Trek movie (15 July 1978). Each state boasted at least one Star Trek fan club, but Austrek was one of the biggest in Australia and one of the oldest in the world (Maxwell, n.d.). Nervous about attending her first meeting, she assumed the confident pose of Captain Kirk to get through it (personal communication). Sketchley recorded of a club meeting in September: ‘Met some of the Gang! Bought SPOCK 11, STAR TREK POSTER BOOKS, VOYAGES 13, 14, 15 & 16. Had a great time’ (16 September 1978). Writing in 1975 about female media fans in Star Trek Lives!, three active fans, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston, had recorded how fans who had been ‘all alone’ found there were thousands – millions – of people out there like them (in Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 12). By January 1979, Sketchley was part of a group that socialised, while a dedicated few cranked out Austrek’s fanzine, The Captain’s Log (21 January 1979; personal communication). Star Trek fan writing was a predominantly female response to media texts, with the majority of fanzines edited and written by women for a largely female audience (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 197). On 9 March 1979, Sketchley and three friends drove all day and all night to get to Sydney for Aussietrek, the second Star Trek convention held in Australia. Unlike the first one the previous 44 Media International Australia 162(1) year, this was a big affair held at the Menzies Hotel, with delegates from all over Australia and New Zealand. Sketchley managed not only to meet but also to drink champagne with the main overseas guest, George Takei, who played the helmsman of the USS Enterprise (9–11 March 1979; National Library of Australia (NLA), n.d.). A few weeks later, over the Easter weekend in Melbourne, she attended Eastercon, the annual British National Science Fiction Convention that was held in Australia for the first (and only) time, with friends (13 April 1979; personal communication). In 1978, Sketchley finally secured her driver’s licence and began attending art classes at a College of Advanced Education (12 June, 25 July and 1 August 1978). In November, she sat for her Higher School Certificate (HSC). Within days, she had ‘registered for the dole’, although she started looking for work (21 and 28 November and 16 December 1978). On 8 January 1979, her diary entry began, ‘Didn’t Get my H.S.C. – Mandy Bought Me a Star Trek 1979 Calendar’. She had sat for only four subjects for the HSC, passing two or three of them, meaning that she completed the equivalent of secondary school but did not get the full HSC (personal communication). Sketchley continued looking for work, in a period of rising unemployment, and secured some job interviews (12, 15 and 21 January and 13 February 1979; ‘Underutilised labour: Long-term unemployment’, ABS). This was a difficult time, with her mother admitting herself to a psychiatric hospital (6 February 1979). Sketchley obtained a temporary job in a bicycle shop, before working in a trial position in data processing at her father’s office, which she hated, and which resulted in the manager suggesting she might be suited to something else (14 June, 5 and 9 July, 5 September and 4 and 12 October 1979; personal communication). On 13 October, her father demanded to know about her plans for the future, threatening to throw a bucket of cold water over her if she didn’t get out of bed. That night, she set off to watch a Star Trek marathon. Her desire for affiliation and community was met in good part by Star Trek (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995: 39), demonstrated by diary entries such as ‘Stella came over & we talked “Trek.” She wants to join Austrek’ (13 October 1979). ‘Star Trek saved me’, she now recalls of the friends she made and the community she became part of (personal communication). On 24 March 1980, Sketchley and a group of friends saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which brought an influx of new fans and a proliferation of clubs and conventions, ‘for the 3rd & Last Time’: ‘It was beautiful. I took pictures and almost cried’ (21 December 1979; 24 March 1980; NLA, n.d.). On Saturday 18 October, she attended the Austrek annual general meeting – and voted in the federal election. That year, encouraged by her mother, she sat for the public service exam. She trained for 6 months with the Soil Conservation Authority and then obtained a job in early childhood education with the Health Commission. When Lois left her husband in 1980, Jenny moved into a flat with her (5, 14, 19 and 27 February, 19 April, 5 and 20 June and 13 October 1980). Together the women watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer: ‘It was very good, & went from 7.30 to 10.30 [p.m.] in its entirety’ (29 July 1981). In 1981, Sketchley commenced studying for a BA at the Caulfield Institute of Technology and moved into a rented share-house (9 December 1980; 23 March and 4 and 7 July 1981). Her interest in Star Trek had grown well beyond watching it at home. In October 1981, she noted that repeats had returned to Channel Seven on Friday nights after an absence of 3 years: ‘I still get a kick out of it strangely enough’ (9 October 1981). In August 1982, Sketchley met up with ‘some of the others’ to see the feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: It was brilliant! I loved it! Bill Shatner was superb & the scene where Spock dies … I cried. Robin howled; & even Tess was teary. Afterwards they served chicken & champagne & I had 4 glasses. We were all so high & excited. We had our ‘TREK’ back at last. (1 August 1982) Sketchley’s diary during her visit to Queensland in 1981 to holiday with her close friend Robin, who had recently married, shows that she was still a very engaged television viewer and fan. Robin Griffen-Foley 45 had started a fan club for viewers of the British science fiction programme Blake’s 7. Sketchley found herself suddenly drafting a script for the fourth series: ‘I dictated & Robin typed it up. She said it was gorgeous, so maybe I have some writing talent after all’ (personal communication; 16 August 1981). The following year, Sketchley won a place in the final of a competition centred on the theme song of The Greatest American Hero, a comedy-drama series about a man with superhuman abilities that had become one of her favourite programmes, largely because of one of the lead actors, Robert Culp. If she had been the ultimate winner, the prize would have been a trip to Los Angeles (3 and 12 May and 23 and 28 June 1982; personal communication). In 1982, Sketchley bought a new ‘beautiful’ National Panasonic colour television, and she had a VCR to record her favourite programmes (see, for example, 15 August 1977; 14 April and 3 May 1982; 4 March and 18 September 1983). On 4 March 1983, she wrote about the purchase of a new, ‘absolutely lovely’ Toshiba VCR and the mechanics of installation during on a scorching hot day: … with a cold drink in hand I unpacked it & started to set it up. I needed a larger antennae lead though, so I zipped up to the hardware & bought a length of it. Then I attached the video to the TV & attempted to tune in the stations. Colin [her boyfriend] arrived at 4.00 & finished tuning in the stations & setting it up. On 5 November 1983, Sketchley and her housemate Tracy watched the much anticipated episode of A Country Practice featuring the wedding of Simon and Vicky while ‘cross-taping’ Magnum PI and A Night on the Town. By this time, Sketchley had paid off her car and travelled to Europe (31 December 1982; 7 January, 26–27 March 1983). Ever so gradually, with all the changes in her personal life, her viewing interests also changed and diminished. On 1 October 1983, she was a little bemused to join friends at a television watching marathon centred on two 1960s American science fiction series, The Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, and not to recognise many of the other audience members: ‘it’s all the new breed that’s come up through the ranks’. On 25 January 1985, she wrote that the episode of T.J. Hooker in which Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock from Star Trek) made a guest appearance ‘was funny because it was bad’. By the late 1970s, several Australian dramas, especially mini-series, were on-air (Driscoll, 2011: 144). A number of Australian shows scored space in Sketchley’s diaries in the early 1980s, including A Country Practice and the major mini-series All the Rivers Run and The Thorn Birds (4 and 18 October and 1 and 9 November 1983). Her entry of 15 January 1985 noted breaking up with her boyfriend Paul, but failed to mention television. Later that month, she was promoted to Assistant Registrar in the Health Commission (29 January 1985). Being busy with work, her flat-mates and her friends meant that Jenny’s viewing of television (live and recorded) was increasingly confined to weekends, when her share-house sometimes held MTV parties (popular with people of their age) that lasted all night (personal communication). On 16 May, at the age of 25, Jenny Sketchley stopped keeping her diary. Conclusion This 11-year diary goes some way towards Michel de Certeau’s (1984) call for the analysis of the images broadcast by television (representation) and of the time spent watching television (behaviour) to be complemented by a study of what the cultural consumer ‘makes’ or ‘does’ during this time and with these images. This particular consumer was an active one, planning her viewing, reading television periodicals, referring to programme guides, buying tie-in publications and memorabilia and engaging in associated events. She was a ‘user’, to invoke the preferred term of de Certeau and later scholars, and also a fan. 46 Media International Australia 162(1) Sketchley’s diaries reveal her to be totally agnostic about the stations she was watching – there is no mention of either the ABC or of advertising on commercial channels, or any suggestion of a favourite channel. However, she appears to have watched mainly commercial television, with the exception of Countdown on the ABC (1978a: 3, 17, 1978b: 3, 4, 17). This is not surprising, as the commercial networks were considerably more popular than the ABC (Arrow, 2009: 34–35). Like the children in Cullingford’s (1984) study (p. 9), she switched readily from one channel to another, loyally following programmes rather than channels. She ranged across genres and seems to have been unconcerned about whether series were imported or locally made. Several of the Australian shows she liked – Hey Hey, It’s Saturday, The Graham Kennedy Show, The Ernie Sigley Show and Countdown – originated in her hometown of Melbourne. While Sketchley was politically engaged, she was considerably less interested in news than in entertainment and was not at all interested in instructional programming on the ABC. For her, television wasn’t just about watching programmes, but about watching movies (rarely new ones and never Australian) and following her favourite film stars. The teenagers and youths of the 1970s and 1980s had far fewer options for entertainment and information than they do today. For Sketchley, television was always significant – it is the main thread through her diary. However, it was particularly significant when the contents had a strong emotional impact and when it initiated an interruption to the ‘norm’ (Turnbull and Hanson, 2015: 147–148). If television provided routine and regularity, so too did her diary, with the words she recorded on the blank page almost every day for 11 years making sense of her viewing and helping to make sense of her young world. Most of all, television for Sketchley provided comfort. As early as 1962, Campbell commented on the ‘palliative’ aspect of television for Australian adolescents. He quoted the German social psychologist Hilde Himmelweit’s contentions about the way television could offer children security and reassurance, excitement and suspense and ‘escape from everyday demands’ (in Campbell, 1962: 46). Sketchley’s diaries build upon some of the insights of the ‘uses and gratifications’ approach to audience research (Morley, 1986: 15). For Sketchley, television functioned not as a cause of conflict – with arguments over what programme to watch or whether the set should be on at all – but as a mechanism for withdrawing from negative family interactions and as an escape from the humdrum of ordinary suburban life (Gunter and McAleer, 1997: 23; Morley, 1986: 29– 30). She imagined what decisions Captain Kirk ‘would make in my decision and I was determined to be brave and do what I could to survive’. Television helped her do this, and through television, she found life-long friends and her husband (personal communication). Acknowledgements I am grateful to Dr Kevin Patrick for research assistance, to the Media International Australia (MIA) referees for their careful engagement with this article and especially to Jennifer McKinlay (née Sketchley) herself for being so open to my research and for approving the publication of this article. Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, FT130101677. Notes 1. Australian Broadcasting Control Board complaints files are held by the National Archives of Australia (NAA). Griffen-Foley 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 47 The phenomenon of fan mail was covered by broadcasting periodicals. For example, Wireless Weekly, 27 January 1928, p. 5; Wireless Weekly, 26 December 1930, p. 6; Radio Pictorial of Australia, 1 December 1935, pp. 15, 36. Fan mail can be found in the collections of broadcasters, including Ellis Blain (MS 8982), Gwen Meredith (MS 6789) and Ruth Cracknell (MS 9848), at the National Library of Australia. For example, television series collectors’ cards, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; 2GB Happiness Club Papers, Eurobodalla Homes Charitable Organisation Records, Newport, NSW; MSS 0194, 7LA Women’s Association Papers, State Library of Tasmania Launceston Reference Library. Held by the NAA. Jennifer Anne Sketchley unpublished diaries, 1974–1985, MS12264, State Library of Victoria. All future dates refer to the diary volumes held in this one box. Sketchley’s diaries were generally written in lower case, but she sometimes recorded what she regarded as important in upper case. Capital letters are used in this article when they appeared in her diary. 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