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The dimensions of ‘promotion’, ‘publicity’, and ‘propaganda’ were intrinsic in Grierson and Hawes’s documentary ideas. Lovell and Hillier (1972) argued, ‘Grierson’s particular interest in the cinema as a method of social propaganda made it essential that the films should be seen by as wide an audience as possible’ (p. 15).4 This philosophy deeply influenced the operation of the publicity plans of the Australian government. As illustrated in chapter 3 of this book, the extensive use of non-theatrical films and other media in an integrated communication plan aimed in every aspect to reach a wider audience.
Questions and Methods
Bertrand and Collins (1981) argued, ‘It is impossible to ignore television in a book about film, for one changed the nature of the other’ (p. 121). When television had not yet been invented, theatrical and non-theatrical films such as newsreels and documentary films played an important role in providing information, sound, and images to people. This was especially so in Australia from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. In this period, nearly all of the feature films, television drama, and entertainment programmes shown in Australia were not produced locally. Australian-produced documentary was a dominant medium in the everyday life of Australians. This could probably be seen as the ‘dark age’ of the Australian drama and feature film industry and the era of ‘documentary domination’ in Australia. Weir (1958) pointed out that in the late 1950s there was only one Australian company actively concerned in producing feature film.5 In the 25 years after World War II, only a small number of totally Australian-produced and financed feature films were made. In contrast, the documentary filmmaking industry promoted by the ANFB had been booming since the Australian post-war reconstruction period. In the first decade after television was introduced to Australia in 1956, the top-rating television programmes were almost all American or British imports. For example, only one or two Australian locally produced television programmes were in the list of the Top 10 programme