ABSTRACT In June 2015, the BBC historical series Banished arrived on Australian television screens amid major controversy. Written by the celebrated British screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, Banished dramatised life in the British penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788. When the series first premiered in Britain, it developed a strong following among British viewers despite mixed reviews from critics. In Australia, however, local criticism of the series began before it had even aired on the cable TV network Foxtel, and this criticism—from critics and audiences alike—far outweighed viewer interest. In this article, we look closely at the distinct ways that Banished appeared on British and Australian screens at the time of its release. We are particularly interested in the way that what had seemed to McGovern, his filmmakers and British audiences to be a fresh and revealing story of British colonisation quickly became a deeply problematic story of erasure and concealment when it landed in Australia. These very different viewings of Banished in Britain and Australia offer an intriguing insight into the contrasting understandings of the history of British settler colonialism in the former metropole and colony in 2015.

This practice-led research examines how virtual production represents a circular return to scenographic practice, reactivating integrated modes of spatial authorship that have long underpinned screen storytelling but were obscured by industrial fragmentation. Drawing on a single-day intensive workshop at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS), the study analyses how spatial authorship emerged through embodied, collaborative engagement with an LED volume environment. Grounded in scenographic theory and concepts of distributed cognition and situated authorship, the article reframes virtual production as a condition that renders pre-digital, collaborative modes of making visible within contemporary screen production. The LED volume functions simultaneously as scenic environment, lighting instrument, and compositional partner, requiring participants to negotiate space, light, movement, and camera as a unified spatial event. Analysis identifies how scenographic understanding emerged through virtual scouting, world-responsive storytelling, physical-digital integration, and embodied realisation. The findings extend production design theory by challenging ocular-centric models of mise-en-scène and positioning scenographic integration as screen practice—an epistemic mode of enacting through collective, materially grounded spatial experimentation. While situated within an educational context, the study points to broader implications for how spatial authorship and collective practice are understood in contemporary screen production.

We examine a year of political debate in a modern town hall to understand the following: when does moral talk turn to talk about action? For which ideological groupings do specific moral foundations matter and in the context of which issues? We analysed 210,170 tweets about the Australian television programme Q&A – a panel show with synchronous live and online audiences. We examined the topics, prevalence of different moralities and how these moralities explain talk of collective action for different ideological groups. Across all issues and ideological groups, talk of action was most often associated with talk of authority but ideological differences between left- and right-leaning participants emerged. Among left-leaning people, action was motivated by a range of moral foundations, but among right-leaning people action was primarily motivated by authority. Our findings map the ideological diversity found within modern town halls and confirm the critical role of these settings in contemporary socio-political life.

ABSTRACT This paper argues that Everymind’s Mindframe guidelines for depicting lived experience of mental ill health require review. This is based on an analysis of the literature surrounding the efficacy of such programmes and the ways in which the guidelines play out in a televisual example, SBS’ two-part series How ‘Mad’ Are You? (2018). While the Mindframe goals of attempting to reduce the stigma associated with mental ill health are well-intentioned, their recommendations are not always aligned with achieving such a goal. Mindframe’s approach primarily addresses stigma in terms of public attitudes rather than the more nuanced, multifaceted approach seen as crucial to engaging with such a complex problem. The Mindframe guidelines also do not sufficiently account for how representations can have potentially differential impacts on public-stigma and self-stigma. The specific aspects of the guidelines analysed in terms of How Mad Are You? are the focus on mental health literacy, the emphasis on recovery, and the avoidance of ‘myths.’ This article not only questions whether the Mindframe guidelines represent best practice in terms of anti-stigma media interventions but also argues that systematically applying the guidelines can potentially cause harm by increasing self-stigma.

In recent years, an expectation has emerged in Australian television production culture to include an out queer positionality as a key creative when developing gender and sexually diverse stories. However, the hidden labour of out queer writers, producers and commissioners has long been part of these processes. This paper illuminates how queer labour is a significant contributor to these stories appearing in Australian scripted television. It draws new insights through analysis of my interviews with 10 out lesbian, gay and bisexual television professionals. It argues interviewing queer television professionals offers specific insights for production culture research about how these representations make it onscreen. Through examining my interviews with publicly out television professionals, this paper argues the value of their positionality in researching production culture. It reveals how their positionality faced challenges and supported opportunities as they sought to advocate queer stories in Australian scripted television.

The detective or private investigator of gothic crime is a complex figure with his origins in nineteenth-century literature. Either bumbling and naïve, or uncannily insightful, these usually single men relentlessly pursue a mystery event or encounter until the crime is solved and narrative resolution is achieved. In doing so, the stolid pursuit of the independent sleuth, who is typically a socially isolated observer, reveals the gothic’s twofold response to the law as both a set of rules to be enforced in the pursuit of justice and as a system to be criticized or mocked. This article explores the representation of the gothic detective in contemporary Australian film, television and true crime, and examines four archetypes of the detective as they appear in contemporary Australian media: the lone detective, the larrikin detective, the apathetic detective and the armchair detective.

ABSTRACT This article offers a linguistic perspective on Australian television series that include significant involvement by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander screen creatives, and that centre on Aboriginal characters. We analyze transcripts from 16 television series from 2012 to 2021, which come from both comedy and drama genres. We highlight some of the ways in which language is used in these television series to bring different types of representation to viewers’ attention – representations which may often be missing or backgrounded in other types of series. Using both corpus linguistics and discourse analysis we discuss four different types of representation in the corpus: (1) representations of Aboriginal English; (2) representations of culture(s); (3) representations of ignorance/racism; and (4) representations of colonization. We provide both quantitative and qualitative information about these representations and give examples for each type of representation. Our conclusion draws out the possible implications for education.

ABSTRACT The television writers’ room is a major site of screen production that brings writers together for funded periods of development for series ideas with potential, and the script development processes for series in production. Maloney and Burne have described Australian television writers’ rooms as, ‘a place where story developers, script editors, script writers and script producers gather to create stories, devise character arcs and plot episodes’ [2021, So Much Drama, So Little Time: Writers’ Rooms in Australian Television Drama Production.” In Script Development. Critical Approaches, Creative Practices, International Perspectives, edited by Craig Batty and Stayci Taylor, 185–204. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan]. Television production in Australia, and many other countries, has a history of creative hierarchies and script departments, isolated from the rest of production, with highly systemised creative processes [Maloney and Burne 2021] [O’Meara 2022, “Scriptwriting on the Inside: The Streamlined System of Prisoner and the Collaborative Community of Wentworth.” In TV Transformations and Transgressive Women: From Prisoner: Cell Block H to Wentworth, edited by Radha O’Meara, Tessa Dwyer, Stayci Taylor, and Craig Batty, 63–80. London: Peter Lang]. This article considers Australia’s evolving writers’ room dynamics and hierarchies by way of an observational study of a ‘training’ writers’ room. The ‘trainees’, a new generation of writers, were more diverse than the typical writers’ room demographic. The point of the simulation was to educate the 10 new writers in the norms of behaviour expected in writers’ rooms and the values of ‘good’ television storytelling. A senior writer in Australian television drama led the writers in developing a hypothetical second series of an existing drama. The room was run according to industry standards, with some exceptions. The room explicitly practised inclusivity, and as a training exercise, common roles, expectations and values – often tacitly accepted in professional settings – were explicitly questioned and discussed. One of the authors, Radha O’Meara, participated in the room. From this fieldwork, the authors are able to make a study of the possibilities for disrupting power dynamics and unproductive hierarchies, building on other observational studies of television production [Born 2005; Hartzheim 2024. “Crafting Consensus in Anime’s Writer’s Room: Uchiawase as Script Development.” Mechademia 16 (2): 75–98; Phalen and Osellame 2012. “Writing Hollywood: Rooms with a Point of View.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56 (1): 3–20; Redvall 2013. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark: From The Kingdom to The Killing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan].

ABSTRACT Globalization, the internationalizing of the Australian screen industry, is having a strong, negative impact on the production of culturally specific stories. Recently, there has been push-back against this and calls for more ambitious measures to protect and promote Australian content. Lotz and Potter have proposed a ‘place-based’ culture test for projects funded by Australian taxpayers. (Lotz, Amanda, and Anna Potter. 2022. ‘Effective Cultural Policy in the 21st Century: Challenges and Strategies from Australian Television.’ International Journal of Cultural Policy 28 (6): 684–696). This paper considers the efficacy of a ‘place-based’ test in relation to two feature films, Frank and Frank (2023) by Adam Morris and The Rooster (2023) by Mark Leonard Winter. The case studies confirm Lotz and Potter's contention that a ‘place-based’ test will help ensure the production of culturally specific stories. However, the test does not address the question of the form in which the stories are told which also conveys deep cultural values.

Tasmanian writer/producer Victoria Madden has made no secret of the influence of Scandinavian noir (also known as Nordic noir) on her work. After working in the United Kingdom and Ireland on several prestige television productions, Madden moved back to her native Tasmania and created two locally set and shot limited television series: The Kettering Incident (2016) and The Gloaming (2020). These well-received crime series – dubbed ‘Tassie noir’ by the local press – have staked out a place within the wider emerging genre of Australian noir and the perennially popular global television crime market. The Tasmanian landscape lends itself to comparison with Scandi and other European ‘noirs’ (such as Scots noir) due to its climate and topography, as well as for depicting crime narratives set in remote or marginal places. Looming mountains, treacherous coastlines and cold, rainy weather all contribute to their gothic-noir style. This article will examine Madden’s two programmes in comparison with two classic Scandi noir series, Forbrydelsen (The Killing) (2007–12) and Bron | Broen (The Bridge) (2011–18), tracing commonalties in narrative construction, character, mood and the use of landscape.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the popular educational broadcasting of Julius Sumner Miller and its intersections with contemporary science policy and education.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on archival research including resources so far unused by historians of science or of broadcasting and audio-visual resources of Sumner Miller’s broadcasts on Australian, Canadian and American television. It begins by contextualising Sumner Miller as both an academic and broadcaster. The second section interprets the core points of his educational philosophy which he articulated in his written and broadcast works. The final section uses his private papers contextualised by works on the history and philosophy of science to interpret and delineate the disparity between Sumner Miller’s influence as a populariser of science and the prevailing trends in scientific policy and teaching.FindingsThis paper proposes that reconstructing the themes and recurring points he asserted in his broadcasts reveals disjunction between Sumner Miller’s high-profile successes and the contemporary trends in both science policy and science education. This paper interprets the circumstance of an internationally known and influential science populariser who was coterminous with but against the grain of the notion of “big science”. He therefore sought to popularise science precisely as it was developing in ways he disparaged.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper breaks new ground by interpreting the different sources, audio-visual and written, created by and about an influential television broadcaster.Originality/valueAlthough he was widely and internationally known, and the range of his influence on science communication is generally noted, Sumner Miller’s broadcasting and the themes and educational philosophy espoused in it is little researched and contextualised. This paper sharpens understanding of his influence but also his points of intersection and disjunction with scientific culture. Hitherto unused archival resources contribute to this understanding.

Historians of the late British empire often cite the 1960s and 1970s as a turning point in Commonwealth nationalisms, when British sentiment abroad was in major decline. This article investigates one exception to that phenomenon: Australians' continued appreciation for British television, especially British comedy television. While other historians have seen this as a symptom of 'cultural imperialism', this article argues that Australian stations purchased British comedies for complex commercial reasons that extended beyond imperial sentiment. Australian and British television stations worked together to bring British television programmes to Australia. Public and private British stations sold Australians programmes to finance their domestic activities, claiming their products were uniquely 'high quality'. Australian stations borrowed British language of 'high quality' to describe these programmes, a rhetoric which filtered through to how Australian viewers described their television preferences. Combining international business records with viewers' opinions, this article demonstrates the role media firms could play in positively framing consumers' attitudes to Britain even in the post-imperial era.

Over the past few decades, there has been significant industry and scholarly interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion in television. Alongside this, attention has been paid to the politics of queer representation in screen and media contexts. Providing much-needed data on these issues, this article catalogues the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary characters in Australian scripted television since 2000. We highlight the inclusion of more queer characters onscreen and situate this in the context of two significant decades of change in the Australian television industry and the broader socio-political context. In teasing out recent trends around gender and sexually diverse representation, we identify shifts toward representing more complex and inclusive queer story worlds on Australian television. We also note significant tensions in these representations, highlighting how Australian television remains quite conservative in depicting queer sex, intersections between sexualities and gender identities, and bisexual identities.

Abstract Linguistic differences in staged or scripted performances matter, since language, or language-ing, is a critical component in structuring power and maintaining unequal social differences or challenging and complicating them. To investigate such scripted speech in the context of Indigenous characters, we draw on the semiotic processes of erasure and rhematisation as well as the newly proposed concepts of erasure marking and semiotic overlay. We examine a dataset of Australian television series with Indigenous characters that feature significant creative involvement by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander individuals. Crucially, these series address mainstream, mixed audiences, meaning they must blend multiple perspectives to reach diverse viewers. We explore overt meta-discourses and subtle signs of linguistic characterisation to show how Indigenous screen creatives counter or challenge erasure and rhematisation by diversifying and complicating characters’ linguistic repertoires and bringing in Indigenous discourses and perspectives. (Semiotic processes, ethnoracialisation, decolonisation, Australia, mainstream media, Aboriginal English, language ideologies)*

This article investigates how viewers born in the 1970s and 1980s recall Australian film and television LGBTQ+ themes, characters and narratives they viewed while they were growing up. Aspects of place and space were centred in these accounts, from memories of watching a shared television in the domestic family setting to the physical artefact of the video tape. Participants emphasised the theme of mobility toward the city and a rural/urban distinction in the film and television they discussed, and the role of city contexts in providing better access to screen media that represented LGBTQ+ lives – for example, through access to independent cinemas. These memorial accounts were considered formative and often provided the framework by which participants perceive and navigate everyday life as members of minority communities. At the same time, these place-bound accounts of encounters with LGBTQ+ screen texts expressed a complex attachment to domestic spaces, tangible objects and narratives of mobility.

She Must Be Seeing Things! Gender disparity in camera department networks

Representing Online Hostility against Women

Over the last decade Australia's free-to-air commercial networks Seven, Nine and Ten have undergone a protracted digital transformation with the development of their online, ad-supported broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) platforms 7Plus, 9Now, and 10Play. The present article considers some of the questions these commercial BVODs raise for television policy in Australia, with specific reference to local content regulation. Through content audits of 7Plus, 9Now and 10Play, we assess the localism of the BVODs’ catalogues in terms of the availability and discoverability of Australian titles. We find that these BVOD services – which are not presently regulated for local content – are less local in their programming than the networks’ free-to-air linear channels, but are more local than competing subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Prime Video. We also reflect on how the networks position themselves in the newly expanded Australian television market, and how they reconcile their historical status as protected national broadcast institutions with their newer status as ‘just another app’ in the streaming ecosystem.

ABSTRACT Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Program (2015–2023) addresses the underrepresentation of women in the screen industry. Older women continue to be less visible and stereotyped on screen which will be examined in this paper on the Australian television mini-series Stateless (Freeman and Moorhouse 2020). Stateless is an award-winning series commissioned and screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and acquired by Netflix. This case study will apply a framework comprised of five guiding principles to writing older women to analyse the portrayal of the two major female characters. The five principles are based on unpublished Honours research data addressing the representation of older women: as the lead protagonist; as authentic, capable, complex characters; in powerful leadership positions; depicted at work in an occupation in a non-traditional role; and as flawed imperfect characters. Lauzen’s 2021 Boxed In report highlights the underrepresentation of women forty and over on broadcast and streaming services. The case study reveals that the female protagonists in Stateless are two contrasting complex, authentic characters who actively pursue their respective goals.

ABSTRACTStephen Fry has described the typical American comic hero as a freewheeling “wisecracker” compared to the English type, who is apt to be an aspirational lower-middle-class failure. With Fry as a prompt, we consider humour and class in the evolution—or devolution—of that representative local hero, the larrikin, during Australian television’s first three decades. This was a period that saw a realignment of the nation’s political, economic and cultural affiliations away from Britain towards the US, and in which the ocker came into sudden prominence as a less benign version of rowdy male identity. If media larrikins such as Graham Kennedy and Paul Hogan excelled at the kind of sketch-based humour that had its origins in vaudeville and were unsuited to sitcoms, ocker characters such as Wally Stiller from My Name’s McGooley and Ted Bullpitt from Kingswood Country found a home there. Our analysis of larrikin and ocker humour is triangulated with that of Norman Gunston, as played by Garry McDonald: a desperately aspirational failure with his own mock variety show who emerged from the dialogue between these two comic types. We conclude with some thoughts on post-ockerism and the emergence of the bogan.