Reporting Australia’s Asylum Seeker “Crisis”

Abstract

This paper looks at the way the Australian media has reported the “crisis” of refugees and asylum seekers landing on Australia’s shores without authorisation. The author argues that the arrival of the “boat people” is in fact a “pseudo crisis” and that the level of anxiety attached to the issue is totally out of proportion with the actual “threat” posed by unauthorised migration.In general the level of concern and empathy expressed in the media for the plight of refugees and asylum seekers seems to be in inverse relation to their proximity. Viewed from a distance, displaced people are often portrayed as helpless victims of circumstance, deserving of compassion and assistance. However when refugees and asylum seekers make their way to Australia, or other developed nations, to seek protection under the 1951 Convention, this imagery changes dramatically. Refugees and asylum seekers who display this level of agency suddenly shed the veneer of innocence and become a threat to the order and security of the receiving state. The author further argues that this results in part from what is, at best a lack of political courage by authority figures, and, at worst, cynical political expediency. However, the author also argue that humanitarian agencies are at times responsible for promoting unrealistic and unsustainable images of refugees that ill-prepare audiences for coping with the complexity of the unauthorised movement of people in the contemporary world.