Queering Australian Screens: The production culture influences on gender and sexually diverse representations in Australian scripted television, 2011–2021

There is a tendency to associate an increase in onscreen diversity with the proliferation of global streaming services. However, this project identifies that a boom in queer stories in Australian scripted television was already well underway before streaming services, such as Netflix entered the market in 2015. This thesis uncovers the behind-the-scenes processes of how and why queer stories appeared in Australian scripted television in the period 2011–2021. This decade was a key transitional period between linear broadcast and nonlinear online distribution, when Australia’s unique policy and funding responses to fracturing audiences gave rise to more queer television stories.