This paper addresses the politicisation of the idea of wilderness in the Australian news media, and questions how journalistic labelling in news copy intensified this process. It is based on research into the coverage of the Franklin Dam blockade in the summer of 1982–83, the first wilderness campaign to attain global stature. Specifically, it analyses the coverage of the 10-week protest in the Melbourne Age and the Hobart Mercury, and draws on the work of Allan Bell, Teun van Dijk and Roger Fowler to discuss how journalists and their readers formed an ‘alliance of shared meaning’.
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