Media & Speaking

Jo Coghlan contributes to public scholarship and media commentary on popular culture, screen media, environmental narratives, and contemporary cultural politics. Her work translates academic research into accessible public conversation, offering cultural analysis that connects everyday media to broader questions of power, identity, environment, labour, and social change.

Jo is a regular contributor to The Conversation and has provided commentary and interviews for outlets including ABC Radio and News, SBS, Radio New Zealand, and international media. Her writing and media work span film, television, music, fashion, monarchy, crime fiction, environmental communication, and cultural memory, bringing critical insight into how popular culture shapes public understanding and everyday life.

She is available for media commentary, public lectures, festivals, academic keynotes, panels, workshops, and collaborative research events.

Areas of Media Expertise

  • Film and television analysis

    Close reading of narrative form, visual style, genre, and cultural meaning across contemporary and historical screen texts.

  • Australian screen culture

    Analysis of how film and television construct place, memory, and political imagination within Australian cultural life.

  • Popular culture and everyday politics

    Examination of how everyday media shapes public values, social norms, power relations, and political feeling.

  • Gender, masculinity, and girlhood

    Research on how screen media produces, contests, and transforms gendered identities, power, care, and vulnerability.

  • Fandom, romance, and crime genres of film and television

    Study of audience cultures, affective attachment, genre conventions, and the cultural politics of pleasure and fear.

  • Environmental narratives and climate communication

    Analysis of how media represents ecological crisis, environmental ethics, and multispecies futures across genres.

  • Cultural memory, heritage, collective memory and nostalgia

    Exploration of how media shapes memory, historical imagination, heritage narratives, and affective attachments to the past.

  • Ethics, witnessing, and public accountability in media

    Investigation of how media structures visibility, evidence, credibility and moral judgement in contemporary society.

Contact Me

Selected Media and Public Writing

 

  • Coghlan, J. AC/DC Then and Now, interview, ABC Tamworth, 19 Nov.
    Coghlan, J. “How AC/DC’s 1975 debut shocked Australian culture”, The Conversation, 12 Nov.
    Coghlan, J. et al. “Over-the-top melodrama, a platonic rom-com and retirement village murders: what to watch in September”, The Conversation, 1 Sept.
    Coghlan, J. “Mr Squiggle entertained Australia’s children for 40 years. Now, he’s back in the spotlight”, The Conversation, 27 Aug.
    Coghlan, J. “Picnic at Hanging Rock is just as unsettling and relevant 50 years on”, ABC News, 10 Aug.
    Coghlan, J. “Rewatching Picnic at Hanging Rock at 50: An unsettling portrayal of place, silence and disappearance”, The Conversation, 8 Aug.
    Hackett, L. and Coghlan, J. “My bloody valentine: Why women read crime novels”, The Conversation, 13 Feb.

  • Hackett, L., Nolan, H., and Coghlan, J. “Calf’s head consommé with truffle quenelles: a history of what the royals ate for Christmas, from the exotic to the everyday”, The Conversation, 18 Dec.
    Hackett, L. and Coghlan, J. “Bridgerton is a progressive fantasy about the past. Do romance readers care about its historical accuracy?”, The Conversation, 17 May.
    Hackett, L., Nolan, H., and Coghlan, J. “The royals have historically been tight-lipped about their health – but that never stopped the gossip”, The Conversation, 6 Feb.
    Hackett, L. and Coghlan, J. “A Queensland woman allegedly stole 70 wedding dresses. Here’s why the white gown is worth much more than its price tag”, The Conversation, 19 Jan.
    Hackett, L. and Coghlan, J. “Here’s why the white gown is worth much more than its price tag”, TexFash (reprint).

  • Coghlan, J. “Stop the votes: the seats where the asylum issue resonates most”, The Conversation, 5 Sept 2013.
    Coghlan, J. et al. “Election 2013 results and the future: experts respond”, The Conversation, 8 Sept 2013.
    Coghlan, J. “Greenwashing: can you trust that label?”, The Conversation, 12 July 2011.
    Coghlan, J. “A country in search of a policy: the case for an Australian population target”, The Conversation, 31 May 2011.
    On Line Opinion – Various contributions, 2012–2017.

    A short curated selection of recent media appearances and writing is featured here. A full list is available on request.

 

Speaking and Collaboration

I am available for:

  • Academic keynotes and conference panels

  • Public lectures, festivals, and cultural programs

  • Media commentary and interviews

  • Research collaborations and workshops

  • Industry and policy roundtables

She welcomes enquiries from journalists, producers, festival programmers, academic organisers, and research partners.

Contact Me