Cirrus@Austlit

'Much work on media fandom has considered the relationships between fans and those responsible for creating the object of fandom, particularly the interactions between fans and producers of television shows. This paper considers fan/producer relationships within online fandom of the Australian soap opera Neighbours to examine how such interactions function within soap fandom. I suggest that the often fierce clashes between fans and creators of fan objects can be better understood through application of Pierre Bourdieu's field theory. Fields are always characterized by struggles over legitimacy and bids for dominance and this paper argues that fan/producer relationships can be better understood if we consider them as agents who occupy positions within the 'broadcasting field' and engage in often fierce clashes over their positions within the field and the 'appropriate' behaviours associated with them.' (Author's abstract)

'As with Crocodile Dundee before it, the recent Australian film Wolf Creek promotes a specific and arguably urban-centric understanding of rural Australia. However, whilst the former film is couched in mythologized notions of the rural idyll, Wolf Creek is based firmly around the concept of rural horror. Wolf Creek is both a horror movie and a road movie, one which relies heavily upon landscape in order to tell its story. Here we argue that the film continues a tradition in the New Australian Cinema of depicting the outback and its inhabitants as something the country's mostly coastal population do not understand. Wolf Creek skilfully plays on popular conceptions of inland Australia as empty and harsh. But more than this, the film brings to the fore tensions in the rural idyll associated with the ownership and use of rural space. As an object of urban consumption, rural space may appear passive and familiar, but in the context of rural horror iconic aspects of the Australian landscape become a source of fear - a space of abjection.'(Author's abstract)