Recently appointed the new Director of the Centre for Media History, Professor John Potts from MCCALL joined Macquarie in 1998 with an interest in all forms of media, media arts, and culture and a speciality in radio and sound. Stepping into his new role late last year, Professor Potts hopes to build research in media history and is currently working on several public events staged by the centre.
1. What is your background and what brought you to Macquarie?
My first degree was in English and classics, and I was about to do Honours when I heard about an exciting new discipline called Media & Communications taught at UTS, drawing on the writing of French cultural theorists like Roland Barthes. So I switched disciplines, did a Masters in Communications at UTS and started teaching there; and later came to Macquarie’s Media department (now part of MCCALL).
2. How did you originally become interested in your area of research, and what keeps you interested in it?
I was interested in all forms of media, media arts, and culture, but specialised in radio and sound. I ended up writing and producing a number of radio productions and audio art works for the ABC in the 1990s; and my first book was Radio in Australia. Later I expanded my research interests to include media history, cultural history and intellectual history, as reflected in my books A History of Charisma; The New Time and Space; and Ideas in Time. I took over as Director of the Centre for Media History late last year and look forward to building research in media history within the centre.
3. Tell us a bit about your current research and what makes it so important?
I conducted research over the last few years into the history of authorship, and the impact on the contemporary author of digital technology and the internet (including illegal downloading and streaming). This all comes together in my book The Near-Death of the Author: Authorship in the Internet Age, which is published this year.
4. What is something you have recently accomplished?
I had a sabbatical in second semester 2020, but of course international travel was banned due to COVID, so I had to stay put. I resolved to use the six distraction-free months to write as much as possible, with the goal of finishing four books. It took another eight months after the OSP, but I finished up with four completed books: the first, Use & Reuse of the Digital Archive (which I edited) was published last year. This year, Science Meets Art (co-authored with the artist Nigel Helyer) is out in July, and The Near-Death of the Author in December. The last book, Images of the Future, will be published next year. In retrospect though, the sustained writing spree was a foolish project, as it led to recurring burnout. When I finished one book and tried to start immediately on the next, I had no idea of the title of the book, or anything about it. I figured this was my brain telling me, ‘Give me a break!’
5. What is the most impressive/useful/advanced piece of equipment you use in your work?
My Rega P3 record player, a beautiful machine with minimal design and a glass platter. The only problem with it is I have to get up every 20 minutes to turn the record over. That’s when I switch to CDs - although, being digital, they don’t sound as good.
6. What do people always ask you when they find out what you do for a living?
What is media studies?
7. What is something you’ve read recently that has had an impact on you?
For every book I write, I read scores of books as research and background. My book Images of the Future is a history of the idea of the future, culminating in contemporary climate change science, which provides our dominant image of the future: one of climate catastrophe. The most powerful book on climate change I’ve read is The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, which presents a chilling image of a ruined environment in the near future – unless carbon emissions are drastically reduced.
8. A bit about where you live and what you like about it?
Across the road from Rushcutters Bay Park, which is ideal as we have an 8 year old son and he has a dog.
9. A personal quality you value in others?
A sense of humour.
10. What would people be surprised to know about you or your work?
I once wrote a regular column for Dolly magazine under the pseudonym Harvey Dent, and a sports column for Real Time magazine under the pen-name Jack Rufus. I also wrote a society column for the Sydney Morning Herald, in which I satirised the so-called high society of the Eastern Suburbs. Sadly, my satire had zero effect on the social set.
11. What is on your agenda for the remainder of 2022?
This is a busy year for the Centre for Media History, as we have a number of events scheduled. The Brian Johns Lecture is held at the State Library on 31 May; this year the lecture is delivered by journalist and author Stan Grant. We will hold another event on press freedom and a symposium to mark the 90th birthday of the ABC this year. Finally, the centre will host a conference at Macquarie in second semester called ‘New Directions in Media History’, and I hope to turn conference papers into an edited book with that title.