Multiculturalism, migration and racism: The role of the media. A comparative study of Australian and German print media1

Abstract

This study compares the discourses of multiculturalism in two Australian and two German daily newspapers in a single, randomly chosen week in 1996, to test whether differences in official policy with regard to multiculturalism in the two countries are reflected in their print media. A detailed evaluation of all sections of the 24 newspapers reveals both quantitative and qualitative differences in the treatment of multiculturalism in the two countries. For instance, the Australian sample has almost twice the proportion of articles within the discourse of multiculturalism; the Australian sample is also consistently more positive in its coverage of migrants and migration. Overall, although the one‐week sample is too small to allow any confident generalizations, our results suggest that the print media of Germany and Australia do indeed reflect the official policy of their respective countries in their handling of news within the discourses of multiculturalism.