Ms Anne Aly

Edith Cowan University, Australia

The Media, the Masses and the Muslims: How the Media is Impacting on the Formation of Australian Muslim Identity

Abstract

Much of the literature on the media representation of Muslims both pre and post the September 11 attacks on the United States establishes Australian Muslims as the victims of negative media stereotyping. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing ‘war on terror’ the emergent discourse on terrorism in the Australian media has contributed to the demonisation of Australian Muslims as the objects of fear and terror.

In the media discourse on terrorism, Muslims are positioned as non-members of the Australian community— relegating Australian Muslims to the space of the ‘other’, alien, foreign and incompatible with Australian cultural values. The relative ease with which Islam and, by association, Australian Muslims were objectified as the ‘other’ in the media discourse is rooted in the historical representation of Muslims which perpetuated socially shared understandings of Muslims as a category associated with violence, human rights abuses, and resistance to the ideals of the liberal nation state.

Discourses however are locations of struggle and contestation. The subject positions imposed on Australian Muslims by the media discourse on terrorism are open to alternative discourses of resistance that challenge the institutional role of the media as ‘knowers of truth’ and ‘mediators’ of reality. Based on audience focused research on how Australians are responding to the media discourse on terrorism, this paper argues that Australian Muslims are active agents in the media’s meaning making process. Far from being passive victims of negative media stereotyping, Australian Muslims actively engage the media discourse on terrorism in creating new narratives of belonging; forming new discourses of resistance and engaging alternative discourses that reinforce their constructions of identity. The paper explores the implications of this phenomenon on what it means to be Australian and Muslim.

Bio

Anne Aly is a PhD scholarship candidate at Edith Cowan University. Her research looks at Australian responses to the media discourse on terrorism and is part of a broader project funded by the Australian Research Council on the fear of terrorism. As part of this project, Anne and her supervisor, A/Professor Mark Balnaves, have developed Australia’s first Metric of the Fear of Terrorism. Anne has published papers on the fear of terrorism, the media discourse on terrorism, the media construction of Muslim women and Australian Muslim identity. She has presented papers at national and international conferences on the history of terrorism, the media and Australian Muslims, the policy response to the threat of terrorism and Australian Muslim identity.

Anne is also a Senior Policy Officer at the WA Office of Multicultural Interests (currently on leave) and is Secretary of the Management Committee of Dar Al Shifah, a Muslim community organization.