I was riding my bike towards East Richmond Railway Station when I went past a stunning portrait of an Indigenous boy in a Hawthorn jumper. I put on the breaks and wheeled around to study the image further. He’s barefoot, standing on red earth, holding a yellow Sherrin, and has a determined gaze that exudes dignity.

The photo is part of a photographic exhibition called “Red Earth Footy”, featuring images taken by local photographer Adam Haddrick. I walked into the gallery and see images of grown Indigenous men playing Australian Rules football. There are action shots, portraits and some quite evocative close-ups.

One image shows a long shot of a group of footy players. They’re scrambling for the ball in a cloud of dust at sunset. The plumes of red dust, and the setting sun create an illusion that could just as easily be described as a company of graceful dancers, carefully choreographed around a roaring fire. Very similar to Bangarra Dance Theatre.

A man introduced himself as Adam the photographer. He told me that he took the photos about 300ks west of Alice Springs. It was originally for a newspaper shoot, but he has returned many times since, and is now working on a book. Adam told me that the footy plays a vital role in the Indigenous community he visited; the different teams travelled vast distances to meet, camp, socialise and compete. He said that the rivalry between these teams equals that of any AFL team, and that the brand of footy they play is very rough, and the ground they play on is even harder.

In the background Adam had an ambient soundscape playing on loop, which he recorded it with his phone. It sounds fantastic and really adds to the atmosphere. You can hear a footy crowd enjoying the game, the players running and kicking and the constant hum of a generator that I didn’t think to ask what it was powering. All of this gave me some ideas for my own group project, which is focusing on modes of attention and AFL;

With that in mind, I asked Adam how he felt going to the MCG after experiencing footy in such a remote part of the world. He said that the players and spectators aren’t that different; there are hard men, thrilled kids and proud mums. The only thing he says that is blatantly different is the level of commercialism in the AFL. But these leagues in outback Australia are supported financially by the AFL, so he thinks that’s money well spent.

In this week’s lectorial, Ramon Lobato from RMIT gave the class a brief history of broadcast television in Australia and the changes that have occurred over the years. Ramon asked what programs we have recently watched and what platform we watched it on. It became very clear that most of the class watched programs on demand and traditional broadcast TV was reserved for live ‘event’ programs like live sport. In the days of five terrrestrial TV stations there was a form of programming called a “re-run”. A re-run was a television program that had previously been shown and was a very cost effective method to fill up a schedule. Viewers were treated to endless re-runs of “Get Smart”, “The Goodies” and “Kingswood Country”. It wasn’t just movies and sitcoms that had the re-run treatment; game shows used to have repeated showings as well! What this meant was that two generations had a strong point of reference to entertainment from a bygone era. Kids who watched “The Brady Bunch” in it’s original run could easily chat to a child 20 years later about whether Bobby Brady dyed his hair or not. Today we have too many TV stations to count and digitally curated viewing lists which means we watch all killer and no filler. On the one hand this level of choice is wonderful. However, it arguably also means that generations of viewers will have no idea what the previous was into. Whatever will they talk about now?!

Many people believe that radio is struggling in the digital age. Certainly it is true that people are leaving commercial radio in droves in favour of curated playlists on music apps like Spotify and Apple Music, while downloadable podcasts are rapidly taking the place of talk radio.

It’s not all bad news though. As I write this, my favourite community radio station PBS is going hammer and tongs to increase its membership base with its annual drive. This years’ theme is “One Small Step”, and the station is asking its listeners to take a small step and support the station that supports little heard music. PBS receives no government funding and all announcers are volunteers who deliver their weekly shows out of a love of radio and music, but it has survived for over 30 years.

Perhaps declining commercial radio stations could learn a thing or two about passion for art from the community stations, for example playing songs in a foreign language? Maybe they’ll be inspired by this year’s beautiful and unexpected Portuguese Eurovision winner, who exclaimed “We live in a world of disposable music; fast food music without any content. I think this could be a victory for music with people who make music that actually means something. Music is not fireworks; music is feeling. So let’s try to change this and bring music back.” Over on PBS, that feeling has never left.

Sometimes a play on words can be all that is needed to effect a change. For example, last Thursday May the 4th was Star Wars Day. This is because “May the 4^th” sounds like the beginning of the phrase “may the Force be with you…”, first uttered by Obi-Wan Kenobi in “A New Hope” (1977). Star Wars Day started out as a joke on social media, but in only a few years has grown into a day on which fans celebrate George Lucas’ much-loved space saga. This year I went to a Star Wars trivia night with fellow nerds and enjoyed some “Wookie Cookies” and blue-milk with Kahlua.

Recently there has been a push on social media to change Australia’s national day to May 8th, a similar play on words to May the 4th as it sounds like “MAAATE”.  An amusing video titled Change Australia Day to May 8, Maaaaate went viral on social media and put forward a very compelling case for changing the date. While this video itself is light-hearted, it comes from an increasing movement in Australian society that is uncomfortable with our current national day. Many see January the 26th as problematic as it coincides with the date that the traditional owners of Australia were effectively robbed of their land – not really something worth celebrating. Whether we see a change of our national day any time soon remains to be seen, but the May 8th play on words will no doubt provide a rallying cry and provoke some very interesting conversations around our barbecues, cantinas and the Galaxy.