This is the first academic examination of the place and history of works produced by
Go-Set Publications in studies of contemporary Australian teenage culture.
Go-Set (Go-Set Publications, Melbourne) is perhaps the single most significant musicbased
newspaper in the history of Australian teenage popular culture. Go-Set reflected
the teenage culture of the period 1966 to 1974, helping create a dynamic
independently thriving Australian rock music scene from 1969. It was independently
owned and operated, set its own agendas and defined its own place in Australian
teenage society.
Go-Set's history is given as a biography (following van Zuilen (1977) in distinct
stages from birth till death, highlighting the important landmarks of its life. In
particular Go-Set led culturally by developing the first National Top-40 song chart. It
provided musicians and non-musicians with weekly updates on the nature of the
Australia's teenage music-based societal culture. It led in the development of a
teenage counter-culture by keeping readers informed about alternative thinking and
ideologies through the views of pop/rock stars, and later, more editorially directly,
through its radical sister publication Revolution.
Go-Set survived because readers continued to support it. It both entertained and
informed. It gave young Australians the necessary knowledge, instruction, and advice
to keep them up-to-date in a changing social scene
To explain why Go-Set was so important to its readers, this thesis postulates a series
of six speculative models describing how readers might have used the newspaper.
These models suggest a process of usage relevant to teenage socialisation, by defining
the criteria for acceptance of Go-Set's content as sets of instructions, or codes, of
particular social relevance, namely the codes of personal life, music, fashion, and
alternative lifestyle. The models postulate some sociological and psychological
reasons for reading Go-Set, and suggest why the magazine was so successful during a
period when other, similar, magazines failed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218703 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Kent, David Martin, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Professional Communication |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright David Martin Kent |
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