Is the Australian media Islamophobic?

29 May 2006

It is not uncommon to hear complaints of media bias and prejudice against Islam. Some critics go even further and accuse the media of pursing an anti-Islamic agenda. This is a serious charge, but little evidence is available to support it. A recent study of news items in two widely read Victorian newspapers (the Herald Sun and The Age) discovered an interesting pattern which challenges assumptions of systematic bias.

The project focused on news items. Opinion pieces were deliberately excluded as, by definition, they represent the marked position of the author with no claims to objectivity. News items, on the other hand, are assumed to be grounded in facts and hence impartial in their coverage. Given the surge in Australian Muslim complaints about harassment in the wake of terrorist attacks overseas, this project covered a three-year period after September 11, 2001.

The emerging picture of Islam in the press is less clear-cut than often assumed. Undeniably, certain negative stereotypes continue to be reproduced especially in regard to the status of women in Islam, hygiene among Muslims, social tolerance and civic consciousness. Both papers carried news items that tacitly (and at times overtly) characterised Muslim behaviour as socially and morally unacceptable. The most striking example was the Herald Sun news item (29 May 2002) on a fraudulent insurance claim by a Muslim couple facing charges for deliberately setting their shop on fire. This news item included references to the religious devotion of the wife who followed Quranic injunctions and blindly obeyed her husband who masterminded this fraud.

It may be argued that vestiges of a colonial attitude to 'non-whites' continue to influence Australian opinion makers, as journalists inform and contribute to the body of public knowledge. There are discernible traces of an 'us v. them' mentality which draws a solid line between Muslims and the broader Australian community. Edward Said dubbed this approach to Muslims and Islam 'Orientalism.'

Yet for every news item that may be labeled Orientalist, the Victorian press also publishes many more items that bridge the 'us versus them' divide and treats Muslims like any other members of the community. The Age appears to have adopted a conscious decision to break out of the Orientalist mindset. The appearance of feature stories which explore the daily lives of Muslim families and individuals is very significant in this regard. Such stories take the reader into the ordinary experiences of the

AUSTRALIA

Is the Australian media Islamophobic?

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