Warwick Blood (1947-2022): A Journey in Communication Research

Presented by Professor Kerry McCallum (News & Media Research Centre, UC) and Emeritus Professor Peter Putnis (News & Media Research Centre, UC)

Friday August 12, 2022
12.30pm - 1.30pm
Face-to-face and online (Zoom)

Abstract

Warwick Blood (1947-2022) was a leading Australian researcher in the field of Communication and Media Studies.  This seminar provides an opportunity for friends and former colleagues to reflect on and celebrate Warwick’s academic contribution to the University of Canberra and to the discipline. His research focused on the role of the news media in framing public understanding of major social issues such as fear of crime, suicide and mental illness and community perceptions of risk. The presentation will traverse Warwick’s research career from his 1981 PhD on agenda setting from Syracuse University, New York, to his later qualitative research using news frame analysis and ethnomethodology. Positioned within the history of the fields of Communication and Media Studies in Australia, we argue Warwick’s work had a major impact on the practice of journalism and on the study of health communication. His legacy was to forge a path in impactful, collaborative social research in communication and media studies that has enabled the flowering of applied media studies and health communication research at a time of critical urgency in both public health and the media industries.

Biographies

Kerry McCallum is a Professor of Communication and the Director of the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on the impacts of the changing media on public policy, the media practices of citizens and policymakers, and Indigenous news and media. Warwick Blood was her PhD supervisor.

Peter Putnis, Emeritus Professor of Communication at the University of Canberra, has published over 100 articles and books across the fields of Communication and Media Studies. He is best known internationally for his research in media history, particularly on the historical development of international news agencies, such as Reuters, and their role in international news distribution. From 2017 till 2020 he was Chair of the University of Canberra’s Research Ethics Committee.