Media Law and Ethics assignment
What are some of the legal and ethical complexities concerned with media representations of Indigenous Australians. Refer to two case studies in your response.
Legal and ethical concerns with the misrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in media.
The media play a vital role in contemporary society by influencing public opinion and dictating our behaviour and attitude toward a particular culture. Media’s misrepresentation of Indigenous people has negatively shaped the perceptions of many Australians and this has led to prejudiced assumptions. This is mainly due to the lack of media law to help protect or promote their rights, resulting in ethical issues of institutionalised racism. Problematic representation is prevalent in the 2016 Bill Leak cartoon and 2014 Redfern Riots controversy, which in both cases depict Indigenous Australians within a negative framework of oppression.
Media’s representations of Indigenous Australians are embedded within a racist framework. This way of thinking may be arguably attributed to the earliest periods of colonisation, where William Dampier described Aborigines as “the miserablest people in the world” (Anderson & Perrin, 2007, p. 3). Colonists judged an Indigenous culture’s worthiness based on the degree to which it conformed to European customs and norms (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2003, p. 2). This had serious repercussions for the Indigenous community. Commonly in mainstream media, Indigenous people are often times positioned as either victims, criminals or as activists. This is apparent in the recent 2016 Bill Shorten cartoon (ABC Radio Melbourne, 2016), which portrays an Aboriginal man with a beer can and appearing to not remember his son’s name when a police officer hands him in. Muriel Bamblett, the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency chief executive, has expressed that cartoon stereotypes Indigenous Australians as “second class citizens” (ABC Radio Melbourne, August 2016). The cartoon mirrors the current media’s attitude towards the Indigenous people, whereby their use of racist stereotypes reflects their lack of understanding of Indigenous culture.
Presently in Australia, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 under Section 18C states it is “unlawful for a person to do an act, if it is reasonably likely to offend, insult humiliate or intimidate a person of a certain race, colour or national or ethnic origin, and the act was done because of one or more of those characteristics.” (Commonwealth Consolidated Acts, 2017). However, this comes into conflict with the Freedom of Speech, which states that communication is “unshackled by laws and censorship — subject to its impact on other human rights” (Pearson & Polden, 2015, p. 29). Under these practices, the publication of the Bill Shorten cartoon is considered legal and lawful. The cartoon by Shorten demonstrates the inadequate media laws in promoting or protecting the rights of Indigenous people, particularly owning and controlling representation of their stories, knowledge and other cultural expression.
According to Gargett (2005), he suggests that the media’s reporting of the 2014 Redfern Riots linked Indigeneity and crime. The media ignores the historical context of Indigenous colonisation, dispossession and assimilation. They reduce the Redfern Riots to criminal acts rather than acts of frustration or desperation. By constructing Indigenous people as criminals, it shows the Indigenous race as outside society as a result of their deviance requiring regulation and control. Tim Dick from The Age reports, “bottles were hurled at the station wall, leaving a thick carpet of broken glass along the footpath, along with a wrecked shopping trolley and a damaged bicycle left in the wake of the rioters” (2004). This article reporting focused on the damage caused by rioters rather than the reasons behind the riot, which further perpetrates the stereotype that Indigenous Australians are violent and irrational, and they are a threat to society.
The riot emerged from the belief that the victim, T.J. Hickey, was unfairly targeted and that his injury and subsequent death was at the fault of the police as he was unreasonably harassed. Police misconduct was not reported on and instead journalists focused on the Indigenous Australian’s criminality, further painting them as ‘other’ and not a part of Australian society. Gargett’s theory is supported by Atherford, who had analysed The Koori Mail, — an Indigenous owned, national publication — The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph (2006, p. 43). Atherford found that both the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph approached the story through a racial angle, focusing on the drugs and crime aspect. This differed to The Koori Mail whereby they reported that riots were another problem faced by the Redfern Indigenous community, and included the disadvantages that they faced as well as other Indigenous opinions on the matter. Media’s misrepresentation of the riots encourages a negative public opinion of the Indigenous community, which raises ethical concerns of racism.
From the 2016 Bill Shorten cartoon and 2014 Redfern Riot media publications, it is evident on the government level that there should be a greater focus on developing legal laws and amendments to the Racial Discriminatory Act 1975, in order to promote and protect Indigenous people. Furthermore, media reporting practices need to change and adequately represent the Indigenous community. Professional communicators and media organisations need to be better informed on how to ethically cover a story as well as to promote that new stories do not have to be about conflict, be more supportive of Indigenous issues and that they are aware of their own position and assumptions, to ensure that the story is unbiased and not reinforcing racial stereotypes.
There is a long history of institutionalised racism of Indigenous Australians in mainstream media, linking them with criminality and poverty. This has caused Australians to negatively perceive their race, resulting in a lack of government policies and media laws to support them. The Indigenous people are portrayed more positively than 20 years ago but there is still a long way to go.
References
ABC Radio Melbourne. (2016). Bill Leak cartoon in The Australian an attack on Aboriginal people, Indigenous leader say. ABC News. Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-04/cartoon-an-attack-on-aboriginal-people,-indigenous-leader-says/7689248. Date accessed: 28/5/17.
Anderson, K. & Perrin, C. (2007). ‘The Miserablest People in the World: Race,
Humanism and the Australian Aborigine. The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 18(1): 18–39. Retrieved from: http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/156754/Anderson_and_Perrin_TheMiserablestPeople_ICS_Pre-Print_Final.pdf. Date accessed: 27/5/17.
Atherford, J. (2006). Redfern: the riot and the reporting. Australian Studies in Journalism. Retrieved from: http://www.academia.edu/1754000/Perspectives_on_assessment_practices_in_Australian_journalism_education. Date accessed: 27/5/17
Commonwealth Consolidated Acts. (2017). Racial Discrimination Act 1975 — Sect 18C. Retrieved from: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s18c.html.
Date accessed: 27/5/17.
Dick, T. (2004). Aborigines riot in anger at boy’s death. The Age. Retrieved from: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/16/1076779848996.html. Date accessed: 28/5/17.
Gargett, A. (2005). A Critical Media Analysis of the Redfern Riot. Indigenous Law Bulletin. Volume 6 (10). Retrieved from: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/2005/18.html#fn11. Date accessed: 27/5/17.
Pearson, M., & Polden, Mark. (2015). The journalist’s guide to media law (5th ed.). Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin.
