Author(s)
Chris Healy
Institution(s)
University of Melbourne
Year
2014
Citation
Healy, Chris. '"A dog when you point at something, will only look at your finger": Travelling Television.' Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, vol.28, no.5, 2014, pp.583-593.
Description
Introduces, and considers how best to write about ‘travelling television’, a genre that stretches from (before) the Leyland Brothers, and from Australian Walkabout (1958) to Bush Tucker Man (1988–1990) and Indigenous director Hetti Perkins’ series Art + Soul (2010-2014).
Attachment(s)
Abstract
This paper introduces, and considers how best to write about, a genre of Australian television programming that I call ‘travelling television’, a genre that stretches from (before) the Leyland Brothers to Steve Irwin, and from Australian Walkabout (1958) to Bush Tucker Man (1988–1990) and beyond and including Indigenous director Hetti Perkins’ series Art + Soul (2010-2014). The long history of this genre makes it a useful form through which to ask some very basic questions about broadcast television. I do that here by taking up some suggestions about the changing nature of television by the novelist and essayist, David Foster Wallace, focusing in particular on questions of representation, referentiality and ontology that, in the end, may offer a useful contribution to television scholarship from offshore.
