Television and simulation : Seachange as a nostalgic imaginary

"The television program, Seachange, appears to construct or 'simulate' Australian life within a 1950s imaginary based on simple values and life free from the complexity and pace of sophisticated urban society. As a simulation, Seachange imagines a world, with specific space/time dimensions and a particular mode of being. It constitutes a specific scene where the drama of resistance to change is continually played out. In this paper, I will examine this scene as a television simulation - as produced through a particular technology in which the past, present and future merge in a nostalgic imagining of a heterotopic world allowing for an intermingling of roles and values. This paper is based on my research in television as a cultural form, and includes concepts and theory drawn from the poststructuralist writings of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, and Brian Massumi.