National

OHA Media Award

About the awards

Oral History Australia introduced its Book Award and Media Award for the first time in 2019 to encourage innovative and excellent applications of oral history.

Like the Hazel de Berg Award for Excellence in Oral History, these two awards are generally timed to coincide with the OHA Biennial Conference.

In 2021 when the biennial conference was postponed for 12 months due to COVID-19 restrictions, the OHA decided to proceed with the 2021 book and media awards but postpone the Hazel de Berg Award until the conference in 2022.

Applications for the OHA Media Award are not being accepted at this time. The next awards will be held in 2026 in conjunction with the OHA Biennial Conference in Adelaide, South Australia.

Quick links – awards

Media Award recipients

2024 Joint winners

The Centre for Multicultural Youth: 35 Years of Shaping Culture

Creator: Jennifer Rose  / Centre for Multicultural Youth (additional research by Soo-Lin Quek and Fran Linardi)

Online information: https://history.cmy.net.au/

Brief Description: This project is a purpose -built website dedicated to the history of the Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY) in Melbourne, presented as an interactive timeline that features oral history excerpts and vignettes alongside archival resources and audio-visual material.

Judges’ comments

This project tells an organisation’s history but also successfully contextualises this within broader histories of multiculturalism, social justice and advocacy, and diversity and inclusion in Australia. The creator and CMY have really thought about their target audience of younger people, giving them a fun, immersive way to explore the history of CMY in a way that connects with current issues and contemporary needs. The site clearly communicates their core values which are based on a human rights approach.

The interface provides a range of entry points to the timeline, depending on interest, and allows the user to explore at their own pace. This website contains an enormous depth of material and is also a valuable resource for historical research. Oral history is used throughout and results in the website being an effective and respectful medium of communication.

This project demonstrates innovative use of oral history in a way that is ethical, hopeful and positive.

Connection to Quandamooka Country: Goompi Foreshore

Creators: Tegan Burns and Goompi Give and Grow Ltd

Online Information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk54Wy4BU20&t=17s

Brief Description: ‘Connection to Quantamooka Country’ is a short film shown in the North Stradbroke Island Museum on Minjerribah. It uses multi-generational oral history videos to explore Indigenous connection to Country in one particular part of Stradbroke Island.

Judges’ comments

‘Connection to Quantamooka Country’ is an evocative film and a powerful, accessible educational resource that centres First Nations perspectives on their own Country. The film makes innovative use of different generational perspectives including young people whose life histories and experiences are honoured alongside older participants. These oral histories, layered along with visually stunning imagery, incorporate Country as a narrator in this story.

This project celebrates intergenerational transmission of First Nations knowledge, culture and stories, and is a beautiful example of the power of place-based storytelling.

Commendations

Don’t be too polite girls

Creators: Richard Lowenstein and Martie Lowenstein Nash

Online Information: https://vimeo.com/ghostpics/wkl and https://www.wendylowenstein.com/

Brief Description and Comments: This short film makes use of the oral history recordings and personal archive for Wendy Lowenstein, one of Australia’s oral history pioneers. Beginning with Wendy’s teenage involvement in New Theatre, this inspiring film follows her pioneering 1969 field trip to record the oral history and folk history of Australia. This important work presents a remarkable life story, tells Wendy Lowenstein’s story through a historical lens, and centres her work within an important turning point for social history in Australia. Lowenstein’s remarkable work should be better known and this film makes a significant contribution to helping to achieve that.

Women, Conscription, War

Creator: Alexandra Pierce

Online Information: https://www.womenconscriptionwar.com/

Brief Description and Comments: This 15-episode podcast tells the story of the Melbourne women who opposed the Vietnam War and the National Service Act from 1965-1972. Episodes weave together thematic narratives from 58 oral history interviews conducted for the project. This podcast is an inspiring example of the power of oral history to allow historical actors to make sense of their experiences, and to bring us along with them on that journey of understanding. Created as a response to a gap in the historical record, this podcast series fills that gap and then some. The podcast approach makes the material accessible to a wide audience. The fact that this was produced by a solo oral historian completely without institutional support is truly inspirational.

Creator: Jeannine Baker

Project title: The Women Who Made Australian Television

Online information: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/women-who-made-australian-television-1-beginnings-television

Brief Description: The Women Who Made Australian Television is a series of five online multimedia articles researched and written by Jeannine Baker, hosted by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).

Judges’ comments

This five-part multimedia series is a deeply engaging, accessible and immersive introduction to women’s experiences of working in early Australian television production. Each article highlights a different theme of women’s work in television. Baker uses both audio interviews and video oral histories to illuminate the experiences of several women who worked in the industry. The series features extracts from interviews conducted by different interviewers, including Baker, recorded at various points across the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. The oral histories offer rich personal insights into the opportunities, joys, demands, and barriers that interviewees encountered while working in the industry, and explain some of the technical aspects of the creation of early television in Australia.

The oral histories are contextualised within an impressive array of other evocative sources including archival footage of old television programs, photographs, and letters. The series also increases awareness of the NFSA’s oral history collection, as the project involved digitalising analogue audio interviews (which are showcased in the series) and providing the NFSA with accompanying transcripts for future research.

Stories of Strength

The winner is: Stories of Strength: Songs and Stories from Anne Street Reserve 2021.

Using material from the Anne St Reserve Oral History and Concert Project, Stories of Strength was a concert that was produced by Big MAMA Productions, and performed in Broome in May 2021.

View the video – https://vimeo.com/570108673.

Joint winners

A City Responds to Crisis: Volunteers and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sydney 1980s-1990s

The Making of Mardi Gras

Find out more about these projects and the judges comments.

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