A dog, if you point at something, will only look at your finger: Travelling television

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. 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 te..