The analysis of texts using diverse methods of investigations is a long established practice in the pursuit of academia (McQuail 1977). It is widely used in media research because it is an effective technique of analysing media content (Wimmer and Dominick 1983). Over a period of seventeen months, twelve issues of Oz were selected for analysis.
Magazines chosen for analysis include issues 1 – 12 (Sharpe and Neville 1963/1964). The content of the magazines, including the front page and illustrations, were investigated to reveal the wider social and political context of Oz. The following themes were also identified and analysed: political protest, censorship, racism, sex and religion.
In 1963, political protestations and confrontations with the police were at the forefront of Oz’ arsenal of weaponry against the conservative Liberal government. Every issue selected for this analysis revealed a constant stream of political satire and revelations of government misconduct. Police conduct and brutality were also recurrent throughout the publication. In the analysis it was revealed that the majority of the articles had a political slant, followed closely by censorship, racism and religion and articles about sexuality.
Alternative media often see themselves as proponents of the Gramscian notion of counter-hegemony (Atton 2002), and use journalism to rebalance the power structures of society. In this analysis, it became obvious that one of the main political roles of Oz was to challenge hegemony and to provide their audiences with alternatives to mainstream news and commentary in ways that would address contentious social and political issues of the time (Retif 2002).
Griffith University Lecturer Susan Forde considers alternative journalism to be one that is not owned or affiliated to a major political party (Forde 2005). In this respect, this analysis revealed that not only was Oz not affiliated with any political party, it proudly refused to disseminate political propaganda; its chief role in society was to expose the political misconduct of those in power. Each edition of Oz analysed had a regular column to address any political wrongdoing – “Public documents that should have remained private (Sharpe and Neville 1963)”, as well as articles on politicians and public policy. This regular column was included to draw attention to the government’s failings at a time when the counter-culture of the sixties began to breed feelings of discontent, especially among young university students (Neville 1970). The editors of Oz had also found a way to mock politicians who “wanted to wind back the culture clock (Neville 2005)”; satirical political cartoons regularly exposed and ridiculed politicians (Sharpe and Neville 1963 – 1964).
The conduct of the police was also under scrutiny by the staff at Oz. The cover of the July issue displayed a photograph of a policeman whispering conspiratorially to the reader, “Psst...Would you like to meet my sister? (Sharpe and Neville 1963)”. This satirical cover attempted to illustrate to the reader that police are corrupt and devoid of ethical principles. In the same issue a headline also reads, “The Stiff Arm of the Law”, which infers that the police are brutal, unyielding and uncompromising. This is further reiterated in the Christmas/New Year Issue where a mock police report was printed showing an edited police statement about an imagined incident (Sharpe and Neville 1963/1964). The original text read: “On the night before Alf got pissed I was a Phillip Street Station in my homo hunting togs...” By crossing out any offending words, the report was altered to read: “On the night before I left the Phillip Street Station in my plain clothes...” This piece of satire was effective in accusing the police of not only brutality, but also dishonesty.
Another attempt at satirising the police came in early 1964 with a two-page spread of a mock-up of “Coppers’ Snakes and Ladders” game (Sharpe and Neville February 1964). In the snakes and ladder’s grid, player squares included names such as “Refuse a bribe”, “Fails intermediate and joins police force”, “Show sympathy for first offender”, and “Perjure convincingly to obtain a conviction”. This also illustrated the growing public cynicism of the police.
The police were of particular interest to the editors of Oz because it was the Victorian Police who set out to prosecute them over what they described as an obscene photograph of public urination. Sharpe, Neville and Walsh constantly provoked the police in their editorials, especially in response to their first brush with the law. Oz printed a letter addressed to the Victorian Police about the charges of obscenity:
“Dear Vice Squad. A King’s Cross newsagent informed us that you stole 140 issues of Oz from his shop. We appreciate your interest in our little magazine and presume that you seized them to give to your friends at work. However the tactics adopted by your agents do not really conform to the ethics of standards of behaviour one might expect from Her Majesty’s guardians of liberty...(Sharpe and Neville April 1964)”.
Interestingly, the Appeals judge who quashed the convictions of Sharpe and Neville at the time of their trial, stated that:
“Satire is an important part of the literature of protest dating back to ancient Rome and Greece and before, and satirical magazines such as Oz have no doubt been published wherever protest was thought to be necessary (York 2001)”.
The Oz team passionately believed that protest was not only necessary, but also their duty to change what they believed was a society overtaken with consumerism, censorship and hypocrisy (York 2001).
In analysing the twelve magazines, it became evident that Oz was committed to the issue of racism, which was prevalent during the early sixties. A major campaign involved attempting to overturn the country’s White Australia Policy by relentlessly attacking and satirising the government. In the July issue (Sharpe and Neville 1963), page nine displayed an article condemning Australia’s treatment of Indigenous Australians. The article read:
“Overseas subscribers please note – this year again there will be no open aborigine hunting season in Australia. In making this announcement the government has reminded it is illegal to keep aboriginals as pets”.
While today this satirical article would be considered offensive to aboriginals, in its day it served the valuable purpose of publicising the plight of Indigenous peoples.
Racism featured regularly in the magazines, often highlighting Australian’s intolerance and fear of other cultures. A particularly effective send up of xenophobia in Australian society occurred in the third issue of Oz (Sharpe and Neville June 1963). This time the focus was not on Aboriginals, but Indonesians. In the 1960s, Indonesia was perceived to be a security threat with the country’s links to communism (McAllister 2004). The heading “What to do when the Indonesian’s come”, was followed by a tongue-in-cheek set of instructions on how to deal with Indonesians:
“What is Indonesia? How will I know when the Indonesian’s have arrived? What will they look like? How will they spend their first day? How can I do my bit to make them feel welcome? Indonesian’s are rarely toilet trained... What will we feed them on? (Sharpe and Neville June 1963)”.
When Oz was charged with obscenity during 1963, the issue of censorship could not have played a more important role in both garnering support from the public for their trial and bringing the issue to the forefront of socio-political discourse. Every issue of Oz selected for analysis covered the censorship issue, especially after the first charges of obscenity were laid. Oz Magazine fervently challenged proponents of censorship on a regular basis and in the May issue, the editors asked the important question:
“Why are Australian’s so incredibly soft that material which is freely available in other countries is presumed to corrupt our citizens? (Sharpe and Neville 1963)”.
In the same issue, page twelve discusses censorship in relation to the banned books of Henry Miller: “Most of [his] books are banned in Australia, and one of the worst things about banned books is the furtive queuing for them (Sharpe and Neville 1963)”. In the following months, the lads from Oz did not ease up on the censorship debate, with headlines such as “Riding the banned wagon (Sharpe and Neville July 1963)”, “This month in censorship (Sharpe and Neville February 1964 1963)” and in the following year, “Banned any good books lately? (Sharpe and Neville April 1964)” and “Obscene book to be burnt (Sharpe and Neville August 1964)”. Articles on the topic of censorship were often written in direct retaliation of the police and government. The March issue warned Australians that:
“One should not mention urination or the R.S.L or God or do anything else that might conceivably cause the least embarrassment to any single person. Soldiers have died for such freedom. May their souls rest in peace (Sharpe and Neville 1964)”.
This article was written in response to an obscenity charge for publishing a photograph of three men standing against a public monument, pretending to urinate.
The editors of Oz regularly set out to test the moral tolerance of Australian society (Neville 1970). It seemed that in Australia:
“One may not read about, write about or think about sex. In fact, one may only practice is in so far as it is necessary to keep population figures respectable (Sharpe and Neville March 1964)”.
An article about chastity belts in the first issue of Oz sent tongues wagging and opened the doors to discussion about sex in ways that were guaranteed to offend the older generation (Sharpe and Neville April 1963). Articles on sex and nudity (Sharpe and Neville May 1963) were common throughout the twelve issues. As sex was a taboo subject in the early part of the decade, the editors of Oz had great pleasure in devoting an entire issue to the female breast (Sharpe and Neville July 1963). A naked Mona Lisa graced the front cover and joining her within the pages of the magazine were a semi naked nun, schoolgirl and policeman with breasts. Oz strove to challenge the Victorian values left over from the fifties by flouting the rules of propriety at every opportunity.
For the conservative Australian public, Oz’ constant religious satire was not always popularly received (Neville 1970). Such headings as “Oz talks to God (Sharpe and Neville April 1963)” and “God is in his heaven, is all well down there? (Sharpe and Neville May 1963), were not always accepted with good humour. Letters of protest to the magazine were frequently published, however the editors usually responded with a witty or sarcastic retort.
In a send up of both religion and censorship, the editors rewrote the Ten Commandments in the fourth issue of Oz. It altered the original commandments to read:
“Thou shalt have no other gods than Canberra; Honour thy censor and Big
Brother; Neither shalt though commit originality; and neither shalt thou have any liberty (Sharpe and Neville July 1963)”.
For the group of undergraduates in control of Oz, it was an opportunity to right the wrongs of their generation and to help create a more secular society.
From an Australian perspective, the birth of alternative journalism in the 1960s was the catalyst for societal change during this notoriously defiant decade. It was a time when the basic world-view of capitalist society came under challenge by an increasingly discontented populous. When the satirical Oz Magazine was born in 1963, it boldly set out to challenge the social and political conservatism that had overtaken the country’s citizens and institutions. By challenging the mores and values, Oz set out to offer their readers a controversial and alternative path to freedom of expression. This essay analysed twelve issues of Oz from 1963 and 1964, in order to discover the social and political role of the magazine during this socially and politically significant era in Australia. Commencing its journey, this essay began with a brief history of Australia in the 1960s. Further to this discussion, this essay continued with the chronological events that surrounded the birth of Oz in 1963. Consequently this essay explained the methodologies used to analyse Oz, followed by an analysis of the selected magazines. By studying Oz, this essay revealed the social and political role of the magazine in terms of the historically significant events that surrounded the magazine at the time. After analysing the magazine, it became apparent that the main role of Oz during the 1960s was to challenge hegemony and to provide Australians with an outlet to voice their discontent on a range of social issues such as censorship, racism, politics, sex and religion to name a few. For the young editors of Oz, the launch of the magazine was seen as an opportunity for young and old dissenters to band together to challenge not only the Australian way of life, but also the Australian way of thinking. While the magazine only enjoyed success in Australia for a short time, the impact of their courageous fight for social change and freedom of expression continued to be felt throughout the succeeding decades. Oz Magazine was the product of a distinctive time in Australian history, but ultimately it epitomised the changing face of a society on the threshold of liberation.
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