Australian indigenous community has been thought to be one of the world longest continuous culture ever existed. Despite this perception of several hundred years of cultural enrichment, aborigine’s culture is in near extinction due to main media influence on the communities. This started when the Europeans invented Australia and changed the lifestyle, culture and the fate of the indigenous communities that have coexisted for several hundreds of years. The European overtook the lifestyle of these communities and they were forced into the white culture that has or taken over their lives and culture. Therefore these communities are struggling to keep in touch with the lost past cultural practices by trying to regain cultural identity in the modern world which is influenced by technology advancement and space in the mainstream media.
The representation of the indigenous communities of Australia in the mainstream Medias vital for it has the ability to expose them to non-indigenous communities and challenges the daily threats they face in their attempt to survive in the current world associated with technology. The media represent what the indigenous communities do and think to other communities which greatly impacts positively on the other communities mindset while making decisions. Therefore the media is endowed with reporting issues that affect both positively to all communities in Australia by highlighting stereotypes, essentialism, culturism, haling and interpellation in attempt to bring coexistence in the world.
Media portrays indigenous Australian in different categories which many academics institutions and commentators have often associated them with negativity and stereotyping. This has resulted to drowning of indigenous community voices by nonindigenous communities which view them as a problem to the rest of the community or society. Most of the featured stores in the mainstream media are often directed non-indigenous communities and draws clear line when addressing sensitive issues like land and welfare rights by using words like "us" and "them" to draw clear distinct line between the indigenous community and the general population. But while the government intends to attract tourist to earn funds for economic empowerment they sponsor documentaries and advertisement that portray such communities positively that interact with the general society without conflict. Many reviews carried out by different people on the representation of indigenous communities in Australia show that cases of criminal offenders are mentioned in the mainstream media when the offer is an aboriginal toward other communities as compared to when the person from the general society. Despite this mainstream media has been and will always be an influential tool in shaping the opinion of the general population towards indigenous communities (Morrissey, 2013).
In Australia, many people turn to the media to gain information about their daily happening about any event or issue that affect them. Across the globe news have a powerful and permeating effect on how people make a decision on the world around them; therefore many people believe that those who work in media experience and exposure influence the presentation of an issue or event. This notion results to ill-informed notion on the issues and history of indigenous communities in Australia despite the existence of many commentators and columnist. Many news reporters tend to adhere to the subtle way of collecting and reporting the news without a clear analysis of a historical event that leads to the existence of such phenomena in the current world. This has resulted in instructional racism in media houses whether intended or unconscious. The lack of power to connect different historical issues by those working in different media houses has greatly impacted negatively on the representation of indigenous communities.
Media house special treatment
Since the integration of mainstream media into the life of people, specific stories have been given special attention if they are perceived to pose a significant threat to the general population i.e. White Australian. Since the early 1980s, increased recognition of the indigenous community’s distinct right became the focal point for negative media attention and public debate. This is Aboriginal land right attracted nationwide media attention to an extent of chambers of miners providing advertising in the state media on the equal verses special right. Where equal right in many cases is interrelated as ingenious people should abandon their cultural beliefs and behaves like the general population. This sparked nationwide contagion by the indigenous communities an issue which was given media blackout Henry and Tator, 2002).
Savage and noble paradox
In many movies and film, products divide indigenous people either noble or savages. In the savage edge is the Aboriginal criminality which mainstream media always employ in the relationship between the general population and the aborigine. Research has shown that race and photo of the public offender is mostly mentioned in mainstream media when he/she is reported to come from the indigenous community. Many documentaries produced before the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the current surgery portray aboriginal in traditional attires and roles thus depicting them as primitive. Such films have also been centered on the traditional cultures of the indigenous communities thus ignoring those who reside in the urban part of south-east Austria. This has continuously ill informing the general population that indigenous population is distanced from modernization and have continuously objected technology which is false information.
Essentialism
The mainstream media overtime have been portaging indigenous communities in Australia as primitive and violent. Indigenous communities on their strive to retain their ancestral land and voice their concerns to the modern form of governance have been branded as violent and primitive. The essence is realized in their strive to fight for the lands they inherited from their forefathers and nature. This according to the mainstream media, combined with the sense of place they belong and resistance from external influence like modernization make indigenous acts like a conceptual cannibal. This perfective was invented by the colonialist in order to erase every aspect of their life that does not conform to White settlers teaching and perfective of life. Since the mainstream media is largely controlled by the non-indigenous communities and have brought forth the same notion even in this era. Mainstream media have argued that the identity of the indigenous communities is more about self-identification and culture than blood but in a real sense they are pushing to prove their discourse (Brady, 2013).
Stereotyping
Stereotyping propagation in the mainstream media is prevalent in Australia and it flows directly into the people's homes and place of work. Most are the time when screens give patriarchal condescension narrative on indigenous communities where it paints them as hopeless, as people who cannot manage their affairs or participate in a productive society. These paint indigenous communities as peoples who are always in dire need of help from white pole due to their alcoholism, violent and child abuser. This kind of picture has been painted on the indigenous communities since they were colonized by the white and has been a power depiction in a home setting since it directly affects their daily life activities. When indigenous people protest over mistreatment of one of their own or to agitate for their civil and basic right the main media over time has always portrayed them as selfish people who thrive in disrupting the life of good citizens "the white people". This is not the truth of that matter since the "good people" often are the initiators of the indigenous people demonstration which income cases turn chaotic due to interference by the white policemen. The people who take into the streets always do so altruistically to shine a light on injustice perpetrated by white oppressors. Despite this, the three arms of government have always maintained that anything that threatens the ruling class must be oppressed and subverted. This is perpetrated by strong media advertisement and propagation of policies that have been formulated by parliament to subvert any advancement of indigenous community’s access to basic human right.
Most of the colonial literature and mainstream media production have been credited for propagating racial stereotyping and racism to native Australian since media is part of the cultural and racial formation in the Australian landscape. The fabric of indigenous representation in media creation has been influenced by the white population viewpoint from days of colonization. This has been difficult to identify since the creation of Australia media house s is created on this strong foundation to deter native communities from seeing the light of the day. This has been supported by people perception that what they are earing, seeing and reading from media houses is free from prejudice and political stands are correct and do not influence media production. These old beliefs do not have any foundation for truth but undertones in the modern world still influence media presentation of content thus making it easy to propagate racism which is highly rampant in Australia media.
Historical and cultural reasons why the media gives little attention to indigenous communities in Australia
Since the combination of the six territories into one government state issues of indigenous communities have been sensitive in nature due to their continuous repellant to government policies and desire to protect their land. To avert this instability government and mainstream media have adopted effective tool of giving their issues total blackout to avoid international community intervention. As a result, the media houses have been panting the indigenous communities as hopeless communities that can cause violence any time thus disrupting good people's way of life. In return, the government has adopted false promises tactics in order to aggravate the indigenous communities to result in violence.
The media have overtime framed indigenous community’s ways of life by dictating the way they organize themselves and communicate false reality by focusing on what is relevant to their customers. At the end of the day they are in the market to maximize their profit, so they have to write and project what is likely to sale if they are to remain afloat. This kind of tactic is mostly evidence in aboriginal reporting. For example, main media have continuously painted indigenous communities as violent who disrupt the way of the white people live. But n reality the white people destroyed the way of the indigenous community during colonization.
Government control in media representation on Indigenous
In 1901 the Federation combined six colonies into an integrated system of governance which marked the turning point for indigenous community suffering and racial profiling. According to the department of prime minister and cabinet, indigenous communities have and will remain nation priority for the Australian government. The government had dedicated itself in improving the lives of such communities by reorganizing that each community in unique on its needs and thus has strived to formulate policies that benefit them. In such the government have developed strong media policies to protect indigenous communities from media provocation and political profiling a fact which is likely to cause any form of unrest (Morrissey, 2003).
Despite this goodwill of the government to brighten the lives of the Aboriginal communities little has been done at the grassroots and media control. The government has been viewing the aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as problematic people whom their problems cannot be solved. This has been propagated by those communities hindrance of government machinery of accessing mineral-rich western part of the country. As a result, the Australian government, parliament, and bureaucrats have devolved strategic tactic to profile the indigenous communities as violent through mainstream media. They have denied those communities land rights in order to access their land without any hindrance. The government have also swept into carpet genocide charges from the communities and failed to prosecute the propagators thus denying the communities justice.
References
Brady, M. (2013). Media practices and painful pasts: The public testimonial in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Media International Australia, 149, 128‐138.
Henry, F., & Tator, C. (2002b). Media discourse involving First Nations peoples. In Discourses of domination: Racial bias in the Canadian English‐language press (pp. 203‐224). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Morrissey, M. J. (2013). Poverty and Indigenous Health. Health Sociology Review. 12:(1):17-30
Morrissey, M. J. (2003). The Social Determinants of Indigenous Health: A Research Agenda. Health Sociology Review. 12:(1):31-44.
