TELEVISION FUTURES IN AUSTRALIA

In this paper I discuss "Television Futures in Australia" and social science's attempts to describe that future. In the first part of the paper I note characteristics of the discussion of television futures drawing attention to the communicative positions of the various industry players and their resulting debate cultures. I also insist on the wie played by mundane actions of agents in the broader television milieu. In the remainder of the essay, I discuss some characteristics of television generally not in dispute identifying the ways various agents-industry and social scientists alike - apprehend the future by projecting alternative uptake scenarios. In one way or another all these questions come back to questions surrounding Australian content which I want to pose in the first instance not so much as a question of content regulation as a question of distribution of cultural discounts in program formats