Screenwriting research in Australia: A truncated (pre)history

Abstract

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the history of fields of study and academic disciplines. While recognizing a number of limitations, this article explores the emergence of screenwriting research in Australia. It addresses the question of what were the cultural conditions that gave rise to contemporary screenwriting research in Australia. The article discusses three key factors: firstly, long-standing policy settings around cultural identity and content in film and television; secondly, active debates around ‘screen culture’ that have given discussions of the place of culture and story special prominence and contributed to awareness of questions of cultural ‘value’, and conventional separations of production and consumption; thirdly, the rise of film studies in the 1970s, which gave ferment to research into narrative and story forms. My goal is to capture some of the contextual features that are important to an understanding of screenwriting research in this period and geography, and to suggest that screenwriting research emerged as intellectual attitude and area of interest that eventually crystallized as part of a more formalized arena of study in the later 2000s.