Queensland's Queer Press
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600006644Keywords:
Gay and lesbian press, GLBTIQ, queer community of Queensland, 'Queensland Pride', 'Q News'Abstract
Since the 1970s, there has been a strong and active gay and lesbian press in the southern parts of Australia. This press emerged later in Queensland than in the southern states but today it reaches many queer Queenslanders and performs a vital and multifaceted role. While this press provides essential representation and visibility for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) population of Queensland, it also embodies a number of tensions inherent in this community. This article charts the development and history of the print media run by and for the queer community of Queensland, particularly focusing on the two major GLBTIQ periodicals currently available in Queensland. These are Queensland Pride, published monthly, and Q News, published fortnightly. The article explores the conflicts that exist in that queer print media, arguing that Queensland's queer press has struggled to adequately represent what has become an increasingly multifarious and diverse GLBTIQ ‘community’.
References
The term ‘queer’ has been used throughout this article as it is the inclusive term commonly used by Queensland GLTBIQ community newspapers to refer to GLTBIQ individuals and the GLTBIQ community. Furthermore, the use of the word ‘queer’ is a political act which aims to subvert its previously negative connotations. See Teresa de Laurentis, ‘Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities — an Introduction’, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3(2) (1991): 296–316.
Moore, Clive, Sunshine and Rainbows: The Development of Gay and Lesbian Culture in Queensland (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2001).
Moore, Clive, ‘Behaving Outrageously: Contemporary Gay Masculinity’, Journal of Australian Studies 56 (1998): 158–68; Clive Moore, ‘From Beats to Cyber-sex: Australian Gay Male Appropriation of Public Space’, in Russell, Lynette, ed., Boundary Writing: An Exploration of Race, Culture, and Gender Binaries in Contemporary Australia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), 18–42.
Grace, Felicity, ‘Sexuality Sells: Reading Personal Advertising within Australian Gay and Lesbian Newspapers’, Queensland Review 11(2) (2004): 89–105.
Smaal, Yorick, Body Politic to Body Beautiful: Constructing and Imaging Gay Male Identity in 1990s Australia, BA Hons thesis, University of Queensland, 2001.
See Martyn Goddard, ‘The Whole Truth: Limits on Gay and Lesbian Journalism’, in Wotherspoon, Garry, ed., Gay and Lesbian Perspectives III: Essays in Australian Culture (Sydney: Department of Economic History, University of Sydney, 1996), 1–16; Scahill, Anne, ‘Queer(ed) Media’, in Johnston, Craig and van Reyk, Paul, eds, Queer City: Gay and Lesbian Politics in Sydney (Sydney: Pluto Press, 2001), 179–92.
Altman, Denis, The Americanization of the Homosexual (New York: St Martin's Press, 1982), 164.
‘Greg Weir Papers’, Vol. 2, ‘Gay and Lesbian Issues 1974–1975’. Greg Weir Archives (UQFL249), Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
Grace, ‘Sexuality Sells’: 89.
Evolution Publishing, ‘Australia's Leading Gay and Lesbian Media’, 1 June 2007: 3, www.evolutionpublishing.com.au/media_kit_2007.pdf.
Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 2000: 11.
Clacher, Iain, ‘Silence is Where the Hare Grows: Gay Teenagers and Frightening Final Solution’, Campaign, Sydney, September 1997: 27.
Advertisements featured in Queensland Pride, June 2007: 236.
Advertisements featured in Q News, 8 June 2007: 170.
Looker, Samantha, email to author, 1 June 2007.
Gross, Larry, ‘Minorities, Majorities and the Media’, in Tamara Lieges and James Curran, eds, Media, Ritual and Identity (London: Routledge, 1998), 90.
Queensland Pride, 233 (March 2007): 14.
For more on the reliability and methodology of content analysis, see particularly Kimberly A. Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002); and Klaus Krippendorf, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004).
All statistics and observations are based on content analysis conducted by author. For further information on results, categories used and editions catalogued, consult author.
Queensland Pride, 233, March 2007: 28–29.
Donmag, Clive, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Queensland Pride, January 2005: 8.
Liz, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Queensland Pride, February 2005: 8.
Q News, 137, 3 March 2006: 31.
Q News, 138, 17 March 2006: 32.
Grace, ‘Sexuality Sells’: 97.
For an excellent survey of mainstream recognition of the gay and lesbian consumer, see Daniel L. Warlow, Gays, Lesbians and Consumer Behavior: Theory, Practice, and Research Issues in Marketing (New York: Haworth Press, 1996).
Johns, Merryn, email to author, 9 March 2007.
Scahill, ‘Queer(ed) Media’, 180.
Lumby, Catharine, Bad Girls: The Media, Sex and Feminism in the ‘90s (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997), 86.
ibid., 92.
Queensland Pride, 236, June 2007: 38.
Willett, Graham, Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000), 238–65.
Cover, ‘Engaging Sexualities’: 127.
Scahill, ‘Queer(ed) Media’, 179.
Moore, ‘From Beats to Cyber-sex’, 29.
See particularly Moore, ‘Behaving Outrageously’, 158–68; and Moore, ‘From Beats to Cyber-sex’, 18–42.
Sunday Mail, 9 October 2006: 1.
Clacher, Iain, ‘School Exercise Deserves Support’, Queensland Pride, 229, October 2006: 14.
See, for example, Queensland Pride, 225, July 2006: 4; and Q News, 137, 3 March 2006: 6.
Q News, 137, 3 March 2006: 6.
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 24–25.
This topic is discussed further in Rob Cover, ‘Engaging Sexualities: Lesbian/Gay Print Journalism, Community, Belonging, Social Space and Physical Place’, Pacific Journalism Review 11(1) (2005), 113–32.
Streitmatter, Rodger, Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America (London: Faber and Faber, 1989), xiii.
Queensland Pride, 229, November 2006: 27.
Gross, ‘Minorities, Majorities and the Media’, 91.
