Dismantling the Deadlock: Australian Muslim Women’s Fightback against the Rise of Right-Wing Media

Chrisanthi Giotis

doi:10.3390/socsci10020071

Abstract

In Australia, as in other multicultural countries, the global Islamophobic discourse linking Muslims to terrorists to refugees results in the belief of an “enemy within”, which fractures the public sphere. Muslim minorities learn to distrust mainstream media as the global discourse manifests in localised right-wing discussion. This fracturing was further compounded in 2020 with increased media concentration and polarisation. In response, 12 young Australian Muslim women opened themselves up to four journalists working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). They engaged in critical journalism research called Frame Reflection Interviews (FRIs). The process gave journalists important knowledge around the power dynamics of Islamophobia and empowered participants to help shape new media discourses tackling Islamophobia. This paper proposes that the FRIs are one method to rebuild trust in journalism while redistributing risk towards the journalists. These steps are necessary to build a normatively cosmopolitan global public sphere capable of breaking the discursive link between refugees and terrorism and fighting back against the rise of the far right.

Highlights

The fusion of refugee movements, terrorism and Islamophobia in public discourse impacts the citizenship status of Muslim minorities in Western countries
The brutal speed and strong police, as opposed to health worker, presence, raised questions about the underlying racism and classism at work—it highlighted that the global media and political discourse of separation does not stop in refugee camps and warzones
In the focus group feedback from the participants, when asked about the potential for the Frame Reflection Interviews to be expanded, the young women concluded that it would probably be most useful for journalists “in the middle” who had not thought about these issues and in helping journalists of good will report with more nuance

Summary

Introduction

The fusion of refugee movements, terrorism and Islamophobia in public discourse impacts the citizenship status of Muslim minorities in Western countries. Like the clothing store discussion, and in government policy, the presumption of guilt until proven innocent has been established post 9/11 as Islamophobia has framed Muslim minorities as the “enemy within” (Alimahomed-Wilson 2020; Duffield 2007; Finlay and Hopkins 2020; Ghani and Fiske 2020; Heffernan 2008). This “enemy within” discourse begins at the level of border protection—the “I’m all for helping people but . It is this power to create disconnections at the level of everyday interactions, human to human, which makes the global, media-supported Islamophobic discourse of “terrorist–refugee–enemy within” so dangerous

Facts Are Not Enough—Finding Purchase for New Narratives Amidst Islamophobia

Method

Analysis

Conclusions