Register: Carolyn Birdsall (c.j.birdsall@uva.nl)

In this talk, Jeannine will discuss women’s participation in technical roles in early television, drawing on recent oral history interviews with former TV workers. In New Zealand, the position of technical assistant (or technical operator) was wholly feminised from the launch of television until the 1980s, and women performed a range of duties, including telecine, videotape operator, sound operator, vision switching and camera. Although technical pathways for women were more acceptable in NZ public service broadcasting than at the Australian Broadcasting Commission, power structures were still reinforced in other ways, such as through the separation of male engineers from women technical operators, and differences in career advancement opportunities for women and men technicians.  

Jeannine Baker is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Newcastle (Australia). She is the author of Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam (2015), and with Kate Murphy, curated the '100 Voices That Made the BBC: Pioneering Women’ website. Jeannine co-convenes the International Women’s Broadcasting Histories network, and is a co-editor of the Women’s Broadcasting Histories book series with Exeter University Press. She is the Dr A.M. Hertzberg Fellow (2026) at the State Library of New South Wales for her project ‘Sydney: Australia’s First Media City’.