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Abstract

Media narratives that dehumanise asylum seekers have tremendous power to shape and reinforce public support for policies that jeopardise the well-being of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Research suggests that such dehumanisation is exacerbated by the limited opportunities these groups have to contribute to media coverage about their experiences. In response, scholars have advocated for more inclusion of asylum seekers’ voices in news coverage; however, little is known about how Australian media audiences are engaging with this issue. This article discusses research utilising Critical Discourse Analysis alongside a cultural studies Audience Reception framework to examine the perspectives of 24 Western Australians concerning news discourses about asylum seekers. Resistance to dehumanising constructions was a recurring theme, with many participants arguing for greater inclusion of asylum seekers voices’ in news depictions of their plight. These findings suggest that some audiences are challenging and resisting dehumanising discourses about asylum seekers and in some cases, demonstrating awareness of Australian media’s evident exclusion of their voices. Examined through Judith Butler’s social ethics lens, we consider these findings in the light of positions that advocate for the provision of voice as a means to a more ethical and inclusive Australian media.

Keywords

asylum seekers audience reception audiences Australia critical discourse analysis dehumanisation inclusion media news

Public debate concerning Australia’s humanitarian policies is highly dichotomised, exacerbated by the continued attention to seeking asylum as a political issue in the public sphere (Every and Augoustinos, 2008; McDonald, 2011; Martin, 2015; Pedersen et al., 2006). The literature concerned with public attitudes towards people seeking asylum indicates that they are often regarded as ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘bogus’ refugees and ‘economic migrants’ (Every and Augoustinos, 2008a, 2008b; Laughland-Booÿ et al., 2014; McKay et al., 2012; Pedersen et al., 2006; Saxton, 2003). Conversely, attitudes that call for ‘compassion’ and ‘fairness’ have also been reported (McKay et al., 2012) along with expressions of concern about Australia’s asylum seeker policies (Markham and Cover, 2018; Fozdar and Pedersen, 2013; Hartley and Pedersen, 2007; Klocker, 2004) and obligations under international law (Every and Augoustinos, 2008b).

Despite ample evidence of Australians holding strong views about people seeking asylum, most of the general population lacks direct exposure to asylum seekers and in turn, are predominantly exposed to information on the topic through media (Muller, 2016). Mainstream news organisations therefore have the power to ascribe certain identities to asylum seekers, emphasising difference and contributing to the processes of ‘othering’. The media therefore plays a pivotal role in collective understandings of the issue (Cottle, 2000; Dunn et al., 2007; McKay et al., 2012; Pickering, 2001). Labels such as ‘invaders’, for example, create a public narrative preoccupied with perceived threats to the host nation (Lynn and Lea, 2003). In addition, asylum seekers are often presented as a homogeneous and distant ‘other’, diminishing empathy and understanding among news audiences (Higgins, 2016). Haslam and Holland (2012) argue that such dehumanisation can legitimise harsh policy responses. For instance, in Australia, asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa are detained in both mainland and offshore processing facilities. In 2018, 1369 people were being held in Australian-run immigration detention facilities (Department of Home Affairs, 2018), with children accounting for 194 of these (Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, 2018). These policies remove asylum seekers from public view, reducing their capacity to share their experiences and perspectives in the public sphere (Higgins, 2016). This is exacerbated by the fact that media access to detained asylum seekers is specifically restricted by the Australian government (Ellis et al., 2016; Murphy, 2016).

A social ethics perspective, grounded in recognition of the humanity of others, argues that broad attitude change is necessary in a media-saturated era whereby policy decisions are based on popular views, which are influenced by mediated discourse (Cover, 2013; Markham and Cover, 2018). It is therefore important to understand how media representations of asylum seekers are perceived by the wider public. However, despite growing evidence of dehumanising depictions, to date, little is known about audience responses. This article hopes to address this gap by analysing the ways in which a sample of Western Australians engage with and resist dehumanising news constructions of asylum seekers. We will demonstrate that despite evidence of dehumanisation of asylum seekers through both media and public discourse, some Australians are advocating for more humanising and inclusive media representations.

Dehumanisation, voice and listening

Scholars have identified a range of media discourses that dehumanise people from asylum seeking backgrounds, defining them within frames of deviance, threat and restriction (Goodman et al., 2017; Lueck et al., 2015; McKay et al., 2011; Pickering, 2001; Saxton, 2003). Such framing results in the construction of asylum seekers as threats, rather than people in need of protection (Bleiker et al., 2013). Even those that also use a victimhood discourse still manage to dehumanise (Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2017). In turn, a ‘politics of fear’ is maintained (Gale, 2004), which represents a pervasive and harmful aspect of Australia’s political response to people seeking asylum (Hodge, 2015; McDonald, 2011). During his analysis of the violent frames of Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), Hodge (2015) observed,

it is through images of asylum seekers in boats at sea; of them being escorted off planes, of them behind fences in offshore detention; and their representation in the language of criminality, that asylum seeker subjectivities are formed and framed. (p. 123)

For Hodge, such discursive constructions contribute to the dehumanisation of asylum seekers by denying them the status of ‘personhood’ (Hodge, 2015: 123).

In the ethical framework presented by Judith Butler (2004, 2009), this act of denying personhood is made intelligible through positioning asylum seekers as ‘ungrievable’, that is, lives which will not be collectively or publicly mourned by the host country if lost. As grievability is a condition for human belonging, those whose lives are positioned as ungrievable are denied human subjectivity. The task, in Butler’s (2009) view, is to call into question ‘the framework that silences the question of who counts as a “who” – in other words, the forcible action of the norm on circumscribing a grievable life’ (p. 163). The ethical obligation, in this framework, is to recognise the other (i.e. the minority, the marginalised, the displaced) as worthy of humanity, and one of the ways Butler proposes to do this is to espouse a critical relationship with texts and communication. In looking to how that ethical relationship with the refugee other can be operationalised through media in the Australian context, we propose that there is value in considering the interplay of voice and listening in a way that can facilitate a better understanding of the lives of asylum seekers beyond media dehumanisation. In the nation’s collective framing and subsequent treatment of marginalised groups, those with a ‘voice’ have the power to influence the national conversation, whereas others are largely excluded from it, despite regularly featuring as a key topic of discussion in the public arena.

The absence of asylum seekers’ voices in news coverage has been raised by Australian and international scholars (see for example, Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017; Nolan et al., 2018) and journalists, some of whom themselves come from asylum seeking backgrounds (e.g. Boochani, 2018; Fernandez, 2015; Hamad, 2016). For instance, Australian journalist Ruby Hamad (2016) argued that minority groups are treated as subjective sources of information on topics that directly impact their own lives while white, Anglo-Australians are regarded as authorities who can report on any topic with impartiality. Similar concerns have been raised by Australian journalist, author and former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani, recent winner of Australia’s most valuable literary prize for non-fiction (the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award) for a book about the life of asylum seekers living on Manus. Boochani (2018) writes extensively on the subject of Australia’s exclusion of people seeking asylum:

Journalists need to respect the people they write about. I am convinced that if the refugees in Manus Prison were provided opportunities to form and present a different perception of our own character, we would be able to challenge the system in much more profound ways . . . But the reality is that Australia has done everything it can to ensure that we’re not perceived as this kind of character, not recognised as professionals, as valuable and insightful contributors to the discourse. (p. 373)

Prior research supports this argument. Cooper et al. (2017) observed that people from asylum seeking backgrounds often lack agency in Australian media coverage, with their perspectives typically omitted from the narrative. Similarly, in their examination of European news reports, Georgiou and Zaborowski (2017) found that very few included asylum seekers’ names or information about their backgrounds and experiences. Instead, they were framed as anonymous ‘others’ whose stories were predominantly dictated by government representatives. The need for greater self-representation is also a motivating factor for ethnic minority groups who engage with media production themselves. Budarick’s (2018) sample of African-Australian media producers in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide regarded their roles as media creators as an effective way to counter problematic representations of the African-Australian community, exposing the wider public to more balanced portrayals of the challenges they experience, as well as their contributions to Australian society.

Refugee voices are not, however, absent in media discourses, and several scholars have investigated the value of models that provide migrant and marginalised communities with a voice in Australian media coverage (Billbrough, 2018; Dreher, 2009, 2010, 2018; O’Donnell et al., 2009). For example, Marjoribanks et al. (2018) analysed the AuSud media intervention, an alternative news production model that provided members of the Melbourne Sudanese community with journalistic training and a platform to engage with existing media discourses about Sudanese Australians. Their analysis showed that stories written by participants were often picked up by mainstream media organisations, leading to an increased sense of belonging. However, the authors argue that it is critical to focus on mechanisms for promoting listening, as opposed to merely providing opportunities for voice alone, which may not perform the desired change in attitude and policy.

Likewise, in her recent work with community media interventions in Western Sydney, Tanja Dreher (2018) demonstrates that approaches prioritising listening can facilitate a stronger sense of belonging for communities otherwise stigmatised and dehumanised through media discourse. Dreher (2009) proposed a ‘politics of listening’, which recognises that the mere provision of voice has two key limitations: (1) it is not possible to ascertain whether these voices are being heard in the public sphere and (2) it places the burden on marginalised individuals to challenge dehumanising representations of their community. Dreher (2009) posits that a ‘politics of listening’ can shift accountability to the power structures that dictate who gets to speak and be heard in the mediated public sphere, thus beginning to address important questions surrounding how media organisations ‘enable or constrain listening across difference’ (p. 445).

The audience perspective

A growing body of literature demonstrates that public perceptions of asylum seekers, both in Australia and internationally, often share some of the dehumanising characteristics observed in media discourse. For instance, studies find asylum seekers are routinely characterised as ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘bogus’ versus ‘genuine’ refugees and ‘economic migrants’ (Every and Augoustinos, 2008; Laughland-Booÿ et al., 2014; Lynn and Lea, 2003; McKay et al., 2011, 2012; Pedersen et al., 2006; Pickering, 2001). Some scholars have theorised that such discourses legitimise exclusionary policies such as mandatory detention, offshore processing and restrictive visa conditions (Every and Augoustinos, 2008; Mares, 2002; O’Doherty and Lecouteur, 2007). However, resistance is also evident, with asylum seekers framed within discourses of ‘compassion’ and ‘fairness’ (Anderson et al., 2015; Fozdar and Pedersen, 2013). For instance, in their examination of online comments in response to a blog post about asylum seekers, Fozdar and Pedersen (2013) found that many commenters directly challenged discourses that oppose Australia’s acceptance of asylum seekers, instead arguing for more humane policy approaches.

As noted, most prior research exploring discursive constructions of asylum seekers has focused on either the content of media depictions, or the views of the general public. As limited attention has been paid to audience perspectives on media coverage of the issue, we sought to explore how a sample of the Australian public conceptualised and evaluated news coverage about people seeking asylum. This is to follow a cultural studies framework and consider the role of the audience as active in the production of meaning, of cultural narratives, of attitude and responsiveness. Both engagement and disengagement with attitudes and concepts form part of the milieu through which audiences (and societies more broadly) produce responses to cultural issues and events. By investigating some of the ways in which the public respond to media as stand-in mechanism for responding to asylum seekers, and in thinking about how practices of responding are conditioned by means of listening, we are able to begin to shift scholarship away from ethical statements of what should be to start understanding how is it and how can it be. We demonstrate that despite the evident exclusion of asylum seekers’ voices in media representations of their plight, some members of the public identify asylum seekers’ exclusion and dehumanisation in the media, with many indicating that these features of news discourse as diminishing their trust in coverage of the issue.

Research design

Semi-structured interviews were conducted between May 2015 and April 2016 with 24 Western Australians. Extensive qualitative and quantitative research has revealed that many Australians express hostile views towards asylum seekers (Carson et al., 2016; Dunn et al., 2007; Fozdar and Pedersen, 2013; Haslam and Holland, 2012; Markus, 2018; Suhnan et al., 2012; Pedersen and Fozdar, 2010), yet little research has explored the sources of these perspectives. We therefore sought a sample with diverse views and backgrounds. As such, the sample represented a range of demographics, including age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic-status, educational attainment and political views. Half were recruited through social media using convenience sampling, responding to a public ‘call for participants’ post shared in numerous Facebook groups concerned with Australian social and political issues. The remaining participants were recruited through snowballing.

Participants were asked open-ended questions concerning their media consumption, views about people seeking asylum in Australia, and perspectives concerning how the Australian media represents asylum seekers. To ascertain participants’ general views, they were asked whether they support asylum seekers coming to Australia (and why or why not). Their general perspectives were then assigned to one of three loose categories: ‘accepting’ (n = 11), ‘ambivalent’ (n = 8) or ‘non-accepting’ (n = 5). It must be noted that these proportions do not represent the attitudes of the broader Australian population, who are generally much more negative about asylum seekers (see for example, Dunn et al., 2007; Markus, 2018; Pedersen et al., 2006). To ensure their anonymity, participants’ names have been replaced with pseudonyms, and other identifying information provided in their interviews has been omitted from all publications arising from this study. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a combination of critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1992), and audience reception analysis (Hall, 1980). As ‘linguistic practice is social practice’ (Machin and Mayr, 2012: 35), this research sought to understand how mediated language is perceived to influence, reinforce and maintain attitudes about seeking asylum. A CDA approach was deemed most appropriate as it recognises the connection between language and power (Titscher et al., 2000), and is therefore an effective means of examining how audiences perceive and discuss the power relations and ideological messages found within media discourses about seeking asylum.

CDA was applied to the interview data by first identifying perspectives noted in prior literature as well as ideas not previously reported – these were highlighted as they emerged in each transcript and then listed in a separate document with notes indicating (a) which participants voiced each idea and (b) which prior studies (if any) have reported similar perspectives. Arguments voiced by multiple participants were then noted as key themes and organised into ‘discourse categories’. Through this process, the analysis was able to reveal not only how participants’ views differed and related to those of one other, but also how their perspectives complemented and/or expanded on prior findings, while also uncovering interesting argumentative features present in each interview.

As this research recognised the active role audiences play as consumers of media information (Hall, 1973), an audience reception framework was also employed. This approach recognises that audiences apply their own meanings to media messages, rather than passively accepting the dominant-hegemonic discourses presented to them, and these meanings are shaped by complex and unique individual factors (Hall, 1973, 1980; Madianou, 2007; Morley, 1980). Audience reception theory (Hall, 1980) presumes people vary considerably in their appraisals of media discourse and the extent to which they incorporate or repeat attitudes and ideas encountered in the public sphere. An audience reception framework allows audiences to be understood as active consumers of news content in a media landscape where discourse functions as a driver of social control and ideological reproduction (Curran, 1996). The combination of audience reception and critical discourse approaches facilitated greater depth in exploring how participants engaged with Australian media discourses about people seeking asylum.

Findings

Most participants cited news coverage as their main exposure to information about asylum seekers. Some reported regular engagement with news sources, despite holding reservations about the reliability of their content, suggesting a complex relationship with the media. Participants also indicated mixed perspectives about how their own stance on seeking asylum is affected by news coverage – while some felt that news content impacts their views, others denied any influence. All participants critiqued how Australian news coverage depicts asylum seekers. During these discussions, the issue of ‘dehumanisation’ was frequently raised. This tended to be discussed along two dimensions as follows: (1) media language that either explicitly or implicitly portrays asylum seekers as ‘less than human’ and (2) the exclusion of asylum seekers’ voices.

Participants recognised that coverage of humanitarian issues continues to be permeated by a ‘politics of fear’ (Gale, 2004), and the need for media organisations to move towards a ‘politics of listening’ (Dreher, 2009). While a significant majority of the wider population hold negative views about asylum seekers, reinforced by media representations, here we see a critical lens employed by media consumers, demonstrating an ability to resist and challenge the dominant media discourse. First, we consider challenges to dehumanisation, and second, support for greater self-representation of asylum seekers.

‘We’re talking about real people’

Most participants cited news coverage as their main exposure to information about asylum seekers. All participants reported engagement with multiple types of news media, a phenomenon referred to as ‘news grazing’ (Morris and Forgette, 2007). When discussing their views on news coverage of people from asylum seeking backgrounds, the majority referred to commercial or ‘mainstream’ content, notably broadcast bulletins, newspapers and online news, with the latter representing the most popular medium among the sample – this supports prior findings that audiences are becoming more inclined to engage with news through digital platforms (Park et al., 2018; Szostek, 2018; Young, 2009, 2011). Overall they engaged with a range of both traditional (i.e. newspapers, television broadcasts, radio programmes) and non-traditional sources of news (i.e. online news and social media, including blogs and editorials). Online news was typically accessed through social media (usually Facebook), aligning with prior research showing that web users often use social networking sites to access news material (McCollough et al., 2017; Mitchell et al., 2013; Nelson and Webster, 2017).

While most participants resisted media dehumanisation of asylum seekers, some used dehumanising language themselves. For example, when Beth was asked to comment on the kinds of media she chooses to engage with, she remarked,

I ignore the stuff about reffos and immigrants and all that unless it’s kind of, I dunno, unless it’s kind of done in like a humour kind of way. (Female, aged 30–39, Indigenous-Australian, ‘non-accepting’ views)

Here, Beth says she consciously ignores information about migrants and refugees, apart from material she can laugh at. This exercise of agency and power allows her to deny their humanity by selectively engaging with content about their plight on the basis of humour. The term ‘reffos’ to describe refugees is designed to belittle and offend, and research suggests such terms exacerbate refugees’ feelings of exclusion from their host society through positioning them as ‘other’ (e.g. Corden, 2017). Similar ‘othering’ can be observed in comments made by Bryan, who, when asked if he believes Australia should resettle refugees, said,

No, if I’m honest with you. You know, I just feel that actual Australians need to take priority. That’s my biggest thing. We have to give preference to Australians and Australian values. (Male, aged 40–49, British-Australian, ‘non-accepting’ views)

In this example, Bryan, who is somewhat apologetic in expressing his views (‘if I’m honest with you’, ‘I just feel’, ‘that’s my biggest thing’) differentiated ‘actual Australians’ and those with ‘Australian values’ from people seeking asylum, suggesting they constitute two distinct groups. This mirrors widely reported political discourse representing asylum seekers as the ‘other’ (Every and Augoustinos, 2008a, 2008b). Bryan constructs asylum seekers and refugees as the un-Australian ‘other’, placing them on a hierarchy of who counts as a ‘who’, in Butler’s (2004) terms, less worthy of being accorded humanity, and therefore of ethical obligations of care. Interestingly, his ‘who’ is not based on categorical exclusion but on a hierarchy of preference and priority – Australians must be first. Numerous participants, however, resisted such discourses, critiquing the media’s tendency to dehumanise and arguing for more humanising representations. For instance, Ingrid argued,

I think those images that really bother me or the language that really bothers me is, is this dehumanising language that they are using at the behest of the politicians. You know, so, um, ‘illegal immigrants’ and that, some of that sort of language that the government use and therefore the media use, that really bothers me because it is so, uh, there is no acknowledgement of the human beings involved. (Female, aged 70+, Australian, ‘accepting’ views)

It is interesting that Ingrid, one of the oldest participants in the study, uses the term ‘dehumanising’, suggesting an analytical and critical approach to media consumption. She also does not blame the media but politicians, seeing the media as being manipulated by, or ‘at the behest of’, politicians. It is important to note that when she used the term ‘illegal immigrants’, she made a gesture with her hands to indicate scare quotes, which acknowledges that she views this idea as a construction, before arguing that such terminology explicitly fails to recognise asylum seekers’ humanity.

Susan voiced a similar perspective, referring to a specific example where a detainee on Manus Island, Hamid Khazaei, died from complications arising from a leg infection in 2014. Susan noted that during news coverage of Hamid’s death, the ‘security’ discourse overshadowed the fact that a ‘human being lost his life’:

The headline doesn’t always represent the full picture. A lot of people just see the headline, and that’s what they remember. It’s in great big, huge letters ‘security issue’ with pretty much no focus on the fact that a human being lost his life, um, like, he’s not worth worrying about. (Female, aged 50–59, Australian, ‘accepting’ views)

Like Ingrid, Susan offers a critical analytical resistive reading deconstructing media representation. She is aware of the power of the headline, and the focus on securitising the asylum issue, rather than seeing the human face of it. Again, we see an explicit recognition of the effect of this, in Butler’s terms, the individual is presented by the media as ‘not worth worrying about’ – someone who is literally ‘ungrievable’ and unworthy of recognition and ethical concern. Susan challenges this with her explicit identification of the ‘human being’ behind the story.

A critical aspect of both Susan and Ingrid’s remarks is that they occurred after both participants were asked to elaborate on earlier assertions that Australian media coverage does not adequately inform the public about seeking asylum. Thus, for both participants, dehumanising language appears to have a strong impact on their trust in Australian news coverage. This is significant considering the prevalence of references to illegality and security concerns in media discourses about people seeking asylum (e.g. Goodman et al., 2017; Lueck et al., 2015; Mares, 2002; Nolan et al., 2011; Stewart, 2016).

As a corollary, some participants recommended that media outlets adopt more humanising representations. For example, during a discussion about aspects of media coverage he finds problematic, David pointed out the need for news discourses to emphasise that asylum seekers are ‘real people’:

The media should at least acknowledge that we’re talking about real people going through really difficult situations. (Male, aged 30–39, Venezuelan-Australian, ‘accepting’ views)

Using a number of standard devices when voicing a ‘dispreferred’ or minority opinion (Fozdar and Pedersen, 2013), David frames his point minimally, saying the media should ‘at least’, ‘acknowledge’ people going through ‘really difficult situations’, rather than a stronger framing about the media’s obligation and the life-threatening persecution asylum seekers faced. This suggests he is aware his view is somewhat marginal. David implies such depictions make it difficult for audiences to relate to asylum seekers as fellow human beings. Using similar devices and commentary, Andrew remarked,

Maybe a bit more of a, you know, a human approach might help things. They’re all talking about, as I said, the bad things that are happening and they never just show, like, families or things like that and I think if more people saw that, you know, I think if you spoke to most family people, if they were in a country where, you know, there was pretty much a lot of danger for their family and the kids and everything, they would do the exact same thing, you know, try to get out. I think if you showed that side of it to more people, they’d probably be a bit more understanding. (Male, aged 30–39, Australian, ‘ambivalent’ views)

Framing his opinion apologetically ( ‘maybe’, ‘a bit more’, ‘you know’, ‘I think’, ‘pretty much’), Andrew argues for a more ‘human approach’ demonstrating more compassion and appealing to the humanity of audiences. This is evident from his repeated references to family, arguing that ‘most family people’ could empathise with asylum seekers trying to ‘get out’ to protect their families – ‘they would do the exact same thing’. This approach replicates the ‘loving family repertoire’ identified by Goodman (2007: 36) in constructions of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom that ‘normalises the asylum seekers in question, which reduces the “us and them” dichotomy’. It emphasises the similarity between the audience and asylum seekers, making the point that these are people with strong family connections and a desire to protect their children, just like us (Fozdar, 2008). This is an explicitly humanising discourse.

Collectively, these extracts point to considerable awareness concerning dehumanisation in mediated constructions about people seeking asylum. In these statements, participants both challenge dehumanising media depictions and actively humanise asylum seekers. We now turn to participants’ arguments for greater inclusion of asylum seekers’ voices in media narratives, as a means of humanising them.

‘Did anyone even ask them?’

Australian media organisations’ access to asylum seekers is highly restricted, especially for those detained in immigration processing facilities. They must therefore rely heavily on government sources for information (Ellis et al., 2016; Murphy, 2016). Consequently, asylum seekers’ contributions to media discourse are minimal or non-existent. Yet research, such as Muller’s (2016), indicates Australians have more confidence in information about seeking asylum when it is communicated by asylum seekers themselves. Participants raised this issue, often in the context of media dehumanisation. Some felt dehumanisation results from the exclusion of asylum seekers’ perspectives. This exclusion was also seen as a barrier to adequately informing the public. For instance, Zara commented,

I feel like, mostly, the media go about things in a way that’s actually ignoring or, I guess, um, glossing over their [asylum seekers’] experiences. Like, you hardly ever hear their point of view. Instead, you’re getting someone else’s and like, I’m pretty, um, wary about how accurate it is. Like, I see stories making claims about why people come here and how bad it really is where they come from and I think ‘did anyone even ask them?’ (Female, aged 18–29, Pakistani-Australian, ‘ambivalent’ views)

With the same hesitance and hedging (Levinson, 1983) found in other extracts (‘I feel, like, mostly’, ‘I guess, um’, ‘like, I’m pretty, um’, ‘like, I see’) that indicates a desire to soften the assertion, Zara suggests the accuracy of the media is impeded by the lack of inclusion in news-making processes. She sees this as a conscious action on the part of the media that ‘ignores’ or ‘glosses over’ or ‘makes claims about’ their experiences, without asking them. Her emphasis is on voice, and hearing of voice – the need to ‘hear their point of view’ and ‘ask them’. Zara went on to link asylum seekers’ exclusion to their dehumanisation in media discourse:

As someone from a migrant background myself, I get sick of hearing Australian-born people speaking on my behalf about, you know, my own experiences. And I feel like it’s probably ten times worse for asylum seekers because they’re already dehumanised enough already.

Opening with a ‘credentialising’ statement (Tilbury, 1998) – a rhetorical device that gives weight to an argument through an identity claim – Zara drew upon her own experiences as a migrant to empathise with the lack of voice of asylum seekers. She argues the exclusion of asylum seekers’ voices further exacerbates their dehumanisation in the media. David agreed, saying in relation to concerns he raised about how Australian media organisations do not always recognise that asylum seekers are ‘real people’, that

You really need to talk to the people who are involved if you are going to try to understand what is happening to them. (Male, aged 30–39, Venezuelan-Australian, ‘accepting’ views)

One participant explicitly noted that such voices also need to be heard by the right people. While talking about detainees on Manus Island and the fact that very little information about their plight is communicated to the Australian public, Jodie commented,

These guys are silenced and there’s no way to get their views out. Surely a more inclusive model of journalism is possible, one that actually gave people a voice instead of speaking for them. Having said that though, whether or not you actually get through to the ones you’re trying to reach is another thing. We, we, just, you know, it’s great to have these messages out there, but you kind of need to make sure it will be taken on board. (Female, aged 40–49, Serbian-Australian ‘accepting’ views)

Demonstrating an awareness of the constructed nature of media messages, Jodie not only recognises that asylum seekers are actively silenced, but advocates for a ‘more inclusive model of journalism’, while recognising that such an approach may not be sufficient to ensure that asylum seekers’ perspectives are ‘taken on board’. This signals a key component of Dreher’s ‘politics of listening’ – the need to consider ways of ensuring these voices are actually heard.

Not only is there evidence of a lack of asylum seeker voices in media representations (see Colic-Peisker, 2018; Cooper et al., 2017; Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017; Nolan et al., 2018), we have demonstrated that audiences note this absence and view such exclusion as affecting their trust in news coverage. This has important implications for communications research and practice. First, as perceptions of reliability of news content was a key factor impacting participants’ engagement with media sources, audiences may switch off from news content when they perceive it as dehumanising or exclusionary. Such disengagement may result in the Australian public being ill-informed about asylum seekers. Alternatively, instead of disengaging altogether, audiences may seek out media that presents asylum seekers’ plight in a more humanising manner.

Conclusion: moving beyond ‘just voice’

Most participants in this research were wary of media representations and felt that asylum seekers are dehumanised in Australian news coverage – through both the language used to describe them and the exclusion of their voices. We have demonstrated, using CDA, how some resist the dehumanising discourses, arguing that Australian media organisations should adopt more inclusive practices by representing asylum seekers as ‘real people’, and by including their voices. Being able to see the ‘who’ behind the fences, and hear their stories and experiences, will allow a recognition of shared humanity. This contrasts with research showing a tendency for the Australian public to uncritically accept dehumanising narratives about asylum seekers, which generally parrot political discourses (e.g. Gale, 2004; McKay et al., 2011; Pedersen et al., 2006). In our data, it was common for participants to show awareness of these issues and, in some cases, push back against them. Nonetheless, the sample was not completely immune to the effects of dehumanising constructions of asylum seekers, with some voicing similar narratives and ‘othering’ language. Thus, as would be expected from audience reception theory, while some resist dehumanising constructions of asylum seekers, others remain susceptible to accepting and reproducing such ideas. More work is needed, however, to identify the factors influencing why some challenge and others reproduce these constructions.

When interpreting these findings, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of the sample, which came from a single geographical location (e.g. Perth, Western Australia), and reported slightly higher levels of education and more left-leaning political views than the general population. As a result, the observed resistance to dehumanising news discourses cannot be generalised to the wider Australian population. Future studies would benefit from sampling across various Australian localities, and screening for education levels and political views.

Moving forward, the findings presented here suggest that despite evidence of dehumanising media representations of asylum seekers, audiences are capable of a critical reading that recognises the vulnerability of the ‘other’ as human with a grievable life (Butler, 2004, 2009). As Butler (2004) notes,

Vulnerability must be perceived and recognized in order to come into play in an ethical encounter, and there is no guarantee that this will happen. Not only is there always the possibility that a vulnerability will not be recognized and that it will be constituted as the ‘unrecognizable’, but when a vulnerability is recognized, that recognition has the power to change the meaning and structure of the vulnerability itself. (pp. 42–43)

Given the centrality of recognition, we argue that representation of asylum seekers, by incorporating their voices, is not in itself enough to adjust or change their vulnerability. Indeed, Chouliaraki and Stolic (2017: 1162) found that despite a range of representations of Syrian refugees in European news media, which included empathy, charity, hospitality, self-reflexivity, and activism, as well as the usual securitisation and threat discourses, these constructions ultimately still failed to humanise refugees, often presenting them as passive victims (see also Greussing and Boomgaarden, 2017). They conclude that this ‘failure to portray them as human beings with lives that are worth sharing should compel us, . . . to radically re-think how we understand the media’s responsibility towards vulnerable others’. Rather, it is through ethical listening – to recognise asylum seekers as central and active contributors to discourse about their situation – that this can and must be achieved.

This ties in with notions of transformative and inclusive recognition, which draw upon Nancy Fraser’s work on recognition as a key concept for social justice (see Fraser, 2001). Approaches that favour an inclusive politics of recognition can leave social injustices unchanged. Therefore, a transformative politics of recognition is required (Dreher, 2009). This approach emphasises the importance of not only listening for asylum seekers’ voices but also transforming established frames and in turn, challenging normalised ideas of welcome and inclusion. In other words, the goal is not simply to make audiences more comfortable with how asylum seekers are portrayed. Rather, the focus is on working to destabilise the assumptions of privilege that have traditionally shaped how belonging is defined by the dominant society. A transformative practice that begins with an ethical perspective seeking to restore grievability to the asylum seeker other through a politics of listening is one which needs to incorporate and embrace the fact that, in a media-saturated culture, there is no responsiveness that is not conditioned through practices of media engagement and disengagement. In seeking to produce recognition, the key finding here is that recognition can emerge through re-positioning audiences to read media stories critically so that those stories are not only ‘read’ but ‘heard’, regardless of the positioning of the story that media processes and practices inevitably bring.

We conclude that more work is needed to ascertain what ‘being heard’ actually looks like from the perspectives of asylum seekers themselves – we need to establish what an inclusive and humanising media narrative means for them and place this knowledge at the forefront of initiatives that seek to transform Australia’s ‘politics of fear’. Moving from a ‘politics of fear’ to a ‘politics of listening’ requires interventions that actively strive to ensure that the voices of the marginalised (and more importantly, what they are actually telling us) become part of mainstream narratives about these groups. Only then can constructions that dehumanise, endanger and exclude some of the most vulnerable be countered by narratives that place their lived experiences and needs at the forefront of the national conversation.

But we do not wish to end on a negative note. Our data recognise that despite negative ‘othering’ and invisibility in media coverage, clearly some audience members resist dehumanising characterisations of asylum seekers (see also Haw, 2019). These resistance readings demonstrate the dialogical feature of discursive constructions (see Fozdar, 2008; Billig et al., 1988; Goodman, 2007), that the critical public are capable of reading against the grain. The question remains, failing the media stepping up, how to encourage more such resistance.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Associate Professor Tanja Dreher from the University of New South Wales for reviewing previous drafts of this article and providing generous feedback and discussion.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Programme (RTP) Scholarship at the University of Western Australia.

ORCID iD

Ashleigh Haw

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Resistance to the dehumanisation of asylum seekers in Australia’s mediated public sphere: an audience perspective

Abstract

Keywords

Dehumanisation, voice and listening

The audience perspective

Research design

Findings

‘We’re talking about real people’

‘Did anyone even ask them?’

Conclusion: moving beyond ‘just voice’

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funding

ORCID iD

References