Rodney Tiffen

Rodney Tiffen FAHA is an Australian political scientist and academic known for his research on media, politics, and journalism. His work examined the relationship between the media and political institutions in Australia and internationally. He is an emeritus professor of political science in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2008.

Career and research

He began his academic career as a lecturer in sociology at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (now part of Monash University), before joining the University of Sydney in 1979. He completed his PhD at Monash University between 1972 and 1976. His doctoral research, Symbolic Processes of Out-Group Politics: The Press, the Public and the Third World, examined Australian press coverage of Asia and public attitudes toward Asia and the Vietnam War. The research contributed to Communications and Politics: The Press, the Public and the Third World (1974). In 1976, he was a research fellow in Australian–Southeast Asian relations in Singapore, where his research on Western foreign correspondents resulted in The News from Southeast Asia: The Sociology of Newsmaking, based partly on interviews with journalists.

In 1980, he received an Australian Research Council grant to study political reporting in Australia, conducting interviews with approximately 220 journalists alongside content analysis and case studies. The research resulted in News and Power (1989). His later work examined the relationship between media, politics and corruption in Scandals: Media, Politics and Corruption in Contemporary Australia (1999), and media coverage of the East Timor crisis in Diplomatic Deceits: Government, Media and East Timor (2001).

He was Visiting Professor in Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo from 1984 to 1986. His experience in Japan contributed to his subsequent teaching and research in comparative democratic politics, political communication and research methods, including the co-authored sourcebooks How Australia Compares.

His later books includeRupert Murdoch: A Re-Assessment (2014) and Disposable Leaders: Media and Leadership Coups from Menzies to Abbott (2017) His most recent book, Australian Newspapers in the Television Age, 1956–2006, is a quantitative study of changes in the Australian newspaper industry from the introduction of television through the early digital era.

Selected publications

References

  1. ↑ Walton, Kate. "Australians fed up with News Corp's climate scepticism". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  2. 1 2 Administrator (6 May 2026). "Murdoch versus Murdoch • Rodney Tiffen". Inside Story. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  3. ↑ Tiffen, Rodney (22 February 2026). "How Vietnam reshaped Murdoch's politics – and The Australian". Pearls and Irritations. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  4. ↑ Samios, Zoe (1 August 2021). "ABC recruits Rodney Tiffen, Chris Masters to review Ghost Train series". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
  5. ↑ "Phone Hacking: New revelations of the Murdoch empire's underbelly, from The Hack's "real-life" journalist – Rodney Tiffen". Inforrm's Blog. 29 September 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  6. ↑ "We can't watch cricket on free-to-air TV, but the regulator doesn't seem interested". The Guardian. 7 November 2018. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  7. 1 2 "The Scandals We Deserve?". APH. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  8. ↑ "Emeritus Professor Rodney Tiffen". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  9. ↑ Charlton, Anne. "Rotary Club of Gosford City welcomes Emeritus Professor in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Rodney Tiffen". Archived from the original on 25 November 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  10. ↑ "Fellow Profile: Rodney Tiffen". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  11. ↑ "Professor Rod Tiffen Interviewed by Associate Professor Michael Hogan - Transcript". University of Sydney Archives. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
  12. ↑ Tiffen, Rodney (1978). The News from Southeast Asia: The Sociology of Newsmaking. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
  13. 1 2 "News and Power". search.sl.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  14. 1 2 Tiffen, Rodney (2001). Diplomatic Deceits: Government, Media, and East Timor. UNSW Press. ISBN 978-0-86840-571-1.
  15. 1 2 Tiffen, Rodney (2017). Disposable leaders: media and leadership coups from Menzies to Abbott. Sydney, N.S.W: NewSouth Publishing. ISBN 9781742235202.
  16. ↑ Ricketson, Matthew (2 January 2026). "Australian Newspapers in the Television Age, 1956–2006: By Rodney Tiffen. London: Anthem Press, 2025. Pp. 160. £80 cloth, £25 ebook". Australian Historical Studies. 57 (1). Routledge: 210–211. doi:10.1080/1031461X.2025.2582677. ISSN 1031-461X.
  17. ↑ Gittin, Ross (8 May 2004). "The myth of egalitarianism". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 29 September 2026.