Migration, youth, and Australian television

Abstract

This chapter examines how Australian television programs for children and young people reflected the arrival of large numbers of non-English-speaking migrants in the post-war decades. Children and teenagers of migrant backgrounds often developed a more complex relationship with Australian life and culture than their parents, and their media consumption reflected this complexity. These experiences reflect the broader complexities in Australian television policy as it attempted to cater to Australia’s diverse migrant population, and especially as television productions struggled to appeal to youth of varying backgrounds and language abilities. Like adult programming, early children’s shows such as Skippy and the long-running Play School made limited efforts to reflect a culturally diverse viewership. From the 1980s, landmark programs led by migrant writers and producers, such as Five Times Dizzy and Adventures on Kythera, engaged more comprehensively with a culturally diverse youth. These histories of changing standards, production, policy, and viewership reveal a rich interplay between the social and cultural evolution of diversity and the changing notion of ‘Australianness’ in television.