Multicultural Media in Australia

Media plays a significant role in regards to multiculturalism in Australia. Media provides representations and frameworks which shape our understanding of different races, ethnic and religious groups. It has the power to reflect culture or fame into fame public debate and contribute to racism.

Tanja Dreher’s article on ‘White Bread Media’ talks about both the positive and negative potential of the media’s representational function in multicultural Australia. She shares an example of the media under scrutiny for the under-representation of people groups on commercial TV, with Firass Dirani, Australian Actor, who accused TV producers of a ‘White Australia’ policy, claiming that all-Anglo family soaps like Neighbours don’t reflect todays multicultural society. She also shares how multicultural groups in community media are speaking up and talking back to help shift multicultural representations in the media with the example of the Muslim TV show, Salam Cafe which uses self-reflexive comedy to break down mainstream representations of Islam which is often exacerbated in the media. Both of these examples show us that media definitely has the power to frame culture whether its through mainstream or self-representation sources. It also shows just how much media matters in creating a multicultural profile for Australia.

Sukhmani Khorana’s article on Ethnic diversity on Australian television shares how TV shows like MasterChef are working for change by diversifying representations of culture not only in food but in the people, with Asian and Muslim contestants. I think its important for Australian media to diversify its representations of culture because of its power to frame multiculturalism. In todays media people are stereotyped, racialised or misrepresented in the generalisation of culture. Australian media definitely needs to extend its representations of culture to avoid the ‘White Bread Media’ debate and reflect a true representation of our multicultural complexities. I can’t wait for new TV shows to emerge in the future that reflect todays Australian modern family.