The right (Pentagon) thing
Media's influences on Australia's political landscape

By Bita Riazati
January 4, 2003
The Iranian

The media plays a crucial factor in influencing people's ways of thinking and lives as well as our country's political landscape in Australia and around the world. The media has the power to directly inspire reactions where public emotions are touched as in the case of refugees, war and elections and significant events such as the loss of loved ones, reminding us of September 11 and Bali attacks.

The way these events were presented by news organizations were directly the reflection of our Australian political figures. However there are other complications to consider such as ownership, as this statement does not apply to all media sources; (e.g. SBS and ABC offer a broader range of political views due to less or no ownership). The sorts of media that have less influential government ownership have a better chance of offering a diversity of views on different events.

All Australian media are represent the political landscape and most of the time they display the political views of the majority. But mainstream news is not necessarily an objective portrayal of reality. Social institutions such as religion, economy, government, and leisure also persuade individuals on a mass basis towards a particular view and subsequent social behavior.

Some good examples are the harsh treatment of people from Middle Eastern backgrounds and judgmental views on Islamic societies in Australia displayed by the media and reflected by in the political arena. Media institutions are concerned with promoting particular views to achieve convergence of thinking.

The media industry today is highly competitive and there is often insufficient time to prepare material. Public relations professionals representing organizations and politicians now initiate many of the news stories covered by news programs, which make them strategic "gatekeepers" of community awareness based upon true or false interpretation of the events. In effect the job of media professionals is to present information in ways that will make the most impact. The greater the impact, the greater the influence in patterning a political view.

Australia has a long tradition of political parties using national security and foreign policy to scare voters and score points. Frequently emotive, they conjure up feelings of patriotism and debates about Australia's place in the world; the future of international security; our relationship with the United States and other allies; and whether we are closer to Asia or the US.

As the media played a major part in the war on Iraq, displaying explicit images on "menace Saddam" and reflecting statements by the American leader George Bush referring to Iraq part of the "axis of evil". Here the media has been trying to persuade us that alliance with the US is a good idea. They are trying to force this to us that even though Australia is a multicultural country, including a huge population of Asian and eastern migrants, its cultural implications are still closer to American politics.

Did our government join the war to do the Iraqis and us a favor, or Bush? How did the media act? The Australian media were trying to use the debates on the war for their own political reasons, persuading us that Australian politicians know what they are doing.

By using the Australian mass media, the government's strategy was to prepare the public for the possibility of supporting a US-led military strike against Saddam Hussein. They made a case against the dictator and in favor of backing George Bush. Using the national TV channels, they touched on the public's fear that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons. Prime Minister John Howard injected a note of urgency on TV, saying that "unless you act sooner rather than later it will be too late and the world will then turn around."

The media is, therefore, influencing our opinions on the war, that if we don't attack them they will attack us. By showing close Australian-American relations on commercial news and papers, they reassured us that they are doing it for the good of the nation and the Iraqis.

Will reporters even be allowed to be fully objective? Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke acknowledged that "some" censorship would take place, but believed most embedded journalists would want to do the "right thing".What is "the right thing"? I think I have stressed enough! Clearly it is "the Pentagon thing".

The influence of politics on media created a national message and provided us with a clear political image of who is good and who is evil. And so the war on Iraq reassured the world about an "Australian" political outlook. As such, Australia is no more a country for "bleeding hearts" and kangaroos; it is a Westernized country because it supports American plans, American pop culture and American politics!

The media have done enormous damage to our reputation by portraying Australia as a racist country. They picked up on a few words of Pauline Hanson -- founder of Australia's anti-immigration One Nation party -- about being "swamped by Asians" and turned them into the greatest beat up of the decade.

Hanson is not a true representation of an Australian and so it was good that the media made that clear by uncovering it on TV news, radio and print, showing that the majority of Australians and its politicians do not support her White policy. (Howard is another Hanson but he worked his way up with a more subtle strategy through the media.)

However the Australian media started to worry our Asian neighbors and none Australian background residents, and placed Australia in a precarious position.

Trevor Watson, a former head of ABC radio, crystallized the problem at a conference on the Australian news media in 1996. He described Australia as a tolerant, non-racist country but a very different impression was given to Australia's Asian neighbors by the media's coverage of the Hanson debate.

The Hanson public relations disaster in Asia was largely media-made. "Such damage," according to Professor David Flint, "could not be blamed on politicians." He added that it was "media indulging in its own fantasies, believing its own stories, which turned Hanson into a spectre stalking the land."

So is this the part where media censorship comes in? The Australian nation and the world is allowed to know what is really going on with Australia's politicians and government, as we allow ourselves to know what's going on around other parts of the world, as our media makes judgmental decisions on certain cultures and politicians (How do we know Saddam is bad? Who is better, Bush or Saddam?)

Our government is so worried that "media is destroying our reputation" that they forget what they did with the refugees. Was it the media that left the refugees at sea? The politicians are missing the point here; the media's job was and is to report! Not to make decisions about whether it makes the country or the politicians look good!

The media has also caused other implications for Australia for exposing the truth about an incident in The Age newspaper over a French man detained for three days at Villawood detention centre because Australian officials believed he had arrived on a fake passport. A French embassy spokesman said Sacko had been detained because he was Black and officials became suspicious because they believed his passport had been tampered with.

This is another clear example of the Government's disgusting behavior, again confirming racist Australian views on other cultures, resulting in shaping a much uglier political image of Australia to the world. The message that the Australian media is sending across is, if you are not White then you must be a terrorist.

In every election year, there is more at stake than just which politician wins. There is always a question of how much influence the media has on the election. Did the media portray the losing candidate in a bad light before the election? Or did the winner receive more press coverage than the loser?

As media become more pervasive in society, the bigger the role the media have in influencing people's decisions. Ideally, newspapers and news shows would give equal time to all candidates and never give one candidate a better view than the other. Today, this is simply not done, but whether it is intentional or not is unknown.

Many people try to say the media are liberal, and reporters try to make certain politicians look better than others. An example of a political cover up revealed by the media was in the aftermath of Australia's 2001 elections, there had been a concerted attempt by the media, political commentators and the parties themselves to obscure the character of the election campaign and the significance of a vote that revealed widespread hostility to official politics as a whole.

After claiming victory, Howard had sought to rewrite history by denying that his win was achieved by whipping up racist anti-refugee sentiment. He had come under fire from prominent figures in the business, media and political establishment for running a campaign that was socially divisive as well as damaging to the country's image in key Asian markets.

Howard's protestations were belied by the fact that the coalition focused its election propaganda in the last week of the campaign entirely on the refugee issue. On the final day, full-page advertisements appeared in major newspapers featuring the Prime Minister's declaration, "we decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."

This theme was the culmination of a year in which Howard, shaken by a string of state election losses, set about wooing One Nation voters. He spent more than $20 billion on rural subsidies, fuel rebates, tax concessions and other handouts to small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, he and Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock stepped up their vilification of asylum seekers.

When the cabinet decided to bar entry to rescued refugees aboard the Tampa, and then established a naval cordon across the northern coast, the policy was simply escalated. The media later exposed that Howard and his government had abandoned refugee issues and human rights just for electoral expediency and thus endangering many asylum seeker lives.

This also shows that the media was indirectly responsible for Howard's re-election. The media offered the people on updates on the refugee status, detention camps, and provided the public with fair details of the Howard's actions on terrorism and war on Afghanistan, and the public still voted.

What sort of "public" voted? The hardcore supporters of each of the major parties are the least likely to be affected by media reporting. Most of these people vote the same way most of their lives and are likely to change their vote only if they are directly affected by major social or economic change, such as personal, social mobility or long term economic recession.

Rather than the media influencing their party allegiance, it is their party allegiance, which influences how they interpret media reporting. The media would have most of its influence on swing voters, but because swing voters form a major part, they are the ones who determine the outcome of elections.

We invented Australia ourselves. We are very different in basic social values from America. We are more egalitarian in our instincts. There is a stronger sense of a broad and inclusive community. We are also very different from continental Europe or the UK. Therefore our media should reflect that as well, even though that would be a long process. It wouldn't be easy.

American influence and pop culture is too strong. The Government influences Australian broadcasting through powers of appointment and funding. Where does most of this funding and sponsorship come from? How do they influence our media and how does our media directly link to our political landscape? I have 3 words for you: foreign ownership strategies. Yes foreign ownership does add diversity to our media but at the expensive of losing our cultural dignity.

* Send this page to your friends