Representation of news related to culturally diverse population in Australian media

Abstract

The Australian media market has fragmented with audiences accessing news from various sources (mainstream media and/or social media) on a variety of platforms. In this fragmented market, we examine the media coverage of high-profile multicultural and transnational events and issues during a 6-month period, which potentially has adverse impact on social cohesion by contributing to negative attitudes towards minority communities. The article outlines outcomes of a classical content analysis of news and commentary available on Australian mainstream news sites, and a sentiment analysis of Twitter conversations around the same topics. We use Stuart Hall’s encoding decoding model to explain the outcomes of the two content analyses and consider the news coverage and social media news conversations of these prominent events/issues from the perspective of culturally diverse Australian audiences.