Home and Away vs Netflix: Inter-generational and Intersectional Asian Australian Viewing Patterns

ABSTRACT

This article presents findings from interviews conducted with first and second-generation Asian Australian audience members as part of a project on the histories of television and migration in Australia. The data presented here is (a) testament to the agency of migrants in choosing what to watch beyond what might be expected on the basis of primordial markers such as ethnicity, and shows that factors such as generation of migration and education status play a significant role; and (b) differences in patterns, as well as influences between generations within a family unit. This means that the influence of cultural elements from parents or grandparents’ generations, as well as the impact of technology on younger viewers appears to be more marked. Additionally, in the case of the first generation, there is a noticeable desire to watch mainstream Australian content (such as Home and Away), where this usually changes to a longing to be ‘represented’ for subsequent generations. These trends, while not based on a representative sample, give us an indicative glimpse into shifts in migrant media cultures, and reinforce the need for an intersectional approach to audience studies. What this analysis contributes is the importance of foregrounding the relationality of viewing practices, especially in a migrant family setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian Australian
• migrant
• audiences
• television
• inter-generational
• intersectionality

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on Contributor

Sukhmani Khorana is a Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow at the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at University of Wollongong. Sukhmani has published extensively on diasporic cultures, multi-platform refugee narratives, and the politics of empathy. She holds a Linkage grant (with the Museum of Victoria and The Australian Centre for the Moving Image) examining the role of television in the experience of migration to Australia. She is the author of The Tastes and Politics of Inter-Cultural Food in Australia (RLI).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australia Research Council (ARC) [grant number LP150100202].