This book investigates Australia's relationship with the Eurovision Song Contest over time and place, from its first screening on SBS in 1983 to Australia's inaugural national selection in 2019. Beginning with an overview of Australia's Eurovision history, the contributions explore the contest's role in Australian political participation and international relations; its significance for Australia's diverse communities, including migrants and the LGBTQIA+ community; racialised and gendered representations of Australianness; changing ideas of liveness in watching the event; and a reflection on teaching Australia's first undergraduate course dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest. The collection brings together a group of scholar-fans from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives - including history, politics, cultural studies, performance studies, and musicology - to explore Australia's transition from observer to participant in the first thirty-six years of its love affair with the Eurovision Song Contest.

This book investigates Australia's relationship with the Eurovision Song Contest over time and place, from its first screening on SBS in 1983 to Australia's inaugural national selection in 2019. Beginning with an overview of Australia's Eurovision history, the contributions explore the contest's role in Australian political participation and international relations; its significance for Australia's diverse communities, including migrants and the LGBTQIA+ community; racialised and gendered representations of Australianness; changing ideas of liveness in watching the event; and a reflection on teaching Australia's first undergraduate course dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest. The collection brings together a group of scholar-fans from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives - including history, politics, cultural studies, performance studies, and musicology - to explore Australia's transition from observer to participant in the first thirty-six years of its love affair with the Eurovision Song Contest.

This book presents the first in-depth study of the Eurovision Song Contest from an Australian perspective. Using a cultural studies approach, the study draws together fan interviews and surveys with media and textual analysis of the contest itself. In doing so, it begins to answer the question of why the European song contest appeals to viewers in Australia. It explores and challenges the dominant narrative that links Eurovision fandom to post-WWII European migration, arguing that this Eurocentric narrative presents a limited view of how contemporary Australian multicultural society operates in the context of globalized culture. It concludes with a consideration of the future of the Eurovision Song Contest as Australia enters into the 'Asian century'.