What is the Soapbox website project?
The Soapbox website project is led by Dr Sally Young, Senior Lecturer in the Media and Communications Program in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne with research assistance provided by Stephanie Younane and Mary Helen McIlroy. The website was designed and developed in collaboration with Educational Technology Services at the University of Melbourne.
The Soapbox is a unique Australian political archive, bringing together key historical documents and vibrant audio-visual material, and making them available to students, researchers, journalists and the general public.
This research was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery projects funding scheme (project number DP0663208).
This site draws largely on the private collection of political advertisements collected by Sally Young from 2000 to now. It also uses images from the ephemera collection of the National Library of Australia which were published in Sally’s book: From Banners to Broadcasts published by the National Library in 2005. Sally’s collection is ongoing but it is, at present, heavily focused on the Liberal and Labor parties. In the future, we hope to add material from other parties. If you wish to donate any material, please send it to Dr Sally Young, School of Culture and Communication, the University of Melbourne VIC 3010 and include your name if you wish your contribution to be acknowledged on the site. We are particularly interested in television/cinema/radio ads or copies of policy speeches that we do not have.
For further enquiries contact:
Dr Sally Young, Project Coordinator, s.young@unimelb.edu.au
Stephanie Younane, Research Assistant and Site Editor, younanes@unimelb.edu.au
Mary Helen McIlroy, Research Assistant and Site Editor, mcilroym@unimelb.edu.au
