Agrandissement : Illustration 1
On the international stage, France has been an epicentre of the current political furore surrounding terrorism, immigration, and Islamic extremism. Recent terror attacks in France have received extensive news coverage in the Australian media and have undoubtedly made significant impressions on the Australian popular imagination. As an Australian, I have watched as my country’s popular imaginings of Paris have turned from romance, berets, and boulangeries to something darker and tinged with fear: images of impoverished refugees, Islamic ghettos, and the lurking threat of senseless violence. The shift towards perception of Paris as an unsafe place was palpable when my announced trip to Paris was met with unease and apprehension from those around me, rather than excitement. Since then, I have attempted to gain a greater understanding of the varied and changing perspectives of France in Australia, and how they have been affected by news coverage of terrorist attacks in Paris. This article will examine how terror attacks in France have been portrayed in the Australian media, and how they are understood and explained through the lenses of Australian cultural and political discourses.
Australian news reporting on terror attacks in France
It has been near-impossible for Australians to remain ignorant of the terrorist attacks in France. The duration and aftermath of each violent terror event has dominated Australian media channels. Most major news networks and publications have given French terror attacks front-page attention and continuous rolling coverage. A search for ‘French terror’ on the ABC website, for example, returned 6,553 results.[1] After the November 2015 attacks in Paris, front-page headlines variously emphasised solidarity ('United we stand'), combativeness ('Act of war', 'Bloodbath'), and pathos ('The world weeps').[2] The prominence and scope of the news coverage indicate the significant presence of France and French terror in the Australian media landscape and popular imagination. The variation in tone of the front-page headlines gives an indication of the range of political and emotional responses in the Australian media, and reflects the strong emotional responses from the Australian public itself.
Many major news outlets, including the ABC, the Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, had live rolling coverage of the November 2015 attacks.[3] The ABC’s initial rolling coverage commenced at 8:29am AEST on November 14, and ended at 1:14am on November 15. Updates consisted of police statements and reports, eyewitness testimonies, images, interactive maps of attack locations, the accumulating death toll, and other related information. However, the live feed also focused heavily on the international and Australian response to the attacks as they were happening. It featured statements from international politicians from the US, India, Korea, Canada, Russia, and others condemning the attacks and offering condolences. Australian political leaders, including Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, expressed condolences via Twitter. Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s statement was reported in the feed:
‘The Australian Government extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in these horrific attacks that have occurred in Paris overnight…This is indeed a Black Friday for France and for the world.’[4]
Public international tributes and acts of solidarity also featured in the live feed. Australian landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House were shown lit up in blue, white, and red, in addition to international buildings such as the One World Trade Centre in New York. Multiple artworks expressing solidarity and grief, including images of the Eiffel Tower and the slogan ‘Pray for Paris’ were also posted. Images of flowers and letters laid outside the French Embassy in Canberra identified it as a focal point for Australian solidarity and grief. A similar mix of reporting on the events in Paris and international responses both online and in real life were evident in the rolling feeds of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian. This phenomenon was not limited to this single attack; Australian’s rolling coverage of the earlier Charlie Hebdo killings of January 2015 similarly focus heavily on the international outpouring of solidarity expressed in marches and rallies in the aftermath of the attack.[5] Responses to terror attacks have been as prominently featured in coverage as the events of the attacks themselves. Overall, the coverage emphasised international solidarity and collective mourning on both the political and personal level. It is evident that even as the terror situation was ongoing, the Australian public had already begun the process of collectively grieving and memorialising the attacks, attempting to identify their significance in the political, social, and cultural realm.
The Islamic issue
As the fear of terrorist attacks in Europe have gained more social and cultural influence, so has a deep-seated xenophobia and Islamophobia in the Australian public. During the November 2015 attacks, the first mention of Islamic extremism as a possible motivation in the ABC’s feed came from Julie Bishop, who stated ‘We don't know who has carried out these horrendous attacks on innocent people but it certainly has all the hallmarks of the terrorist attacks we've seen in recent times by ISIL, Daesh and similar organisations.’[6] Her assumption was later echoed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the live feed. Though the assumption was ultimately correct, it is significant to note that Australian politicians assumed the terrorists were Islamic in nature before any official source or indeed any news at all about the perpetrators had indicated so. This suggests the existence of an influential cultural script about Islamic terrorism that was called readily to mind upon the breaking news of the Paris attacks -- something that was almost certainly established by news coverage of previous similar terrorist attacks such as Charlie Hebdo. These immediate assumptions and conjectures about Islam highlight how influential this cultural script about Islamic terrorism in Europe has become in the Australian media and popular imagination.
The Guardian’s rolling news coverage updated that IS had claimed responsibility for the attacks on November 14 at 9:56pm.[7] In a roundup article posted on November 15, the ABC reported that the Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attacks.[8] Subsequently, issues regarding refugees and immigration policy began to appear in the coverage of the France terror attacks. As early as 1pm on November 15, the Guardian reported that Australian Nationals MP Andrew Fraser turned the conversation to Australian immigration policies, urging Malcom Turnbull to ‘close our borders’ to ‘Middle Eastern refugees and Islamic boat people’ on Twitter.[9] This comment anticipates the spate of opinion pieces using French terror to argue for restricted Muslim immigration, which I will discuss in further detail shortly.
Media discourse surrounding French terror : the politicisation of grief
In the wake of terror attacks in France, a number of opinion and analysis pieces inevitably appear in the Australian media. By analysing these news pieces, one can gain insight into how terror attacks in France are mobilised to serve a number of political agendas. Several major themes emerge in the media discussions surrounding French terror attacks, including the proportionality of news coverage, terror as ‘close to home’, racism, and anti-immigration arguments.
Conservative sources have used French terror attacks to stir up anti-Islamic sentiments in Australia and advocate for the restriction of Muslim immigration. Controversial conservative columnist Andrew Bolt has published a number of anti-Muslim articles using French terror attacks as cautionary tales. Writing for the Herald Sun after the 2016 Nice terror attack, Bolt declares that 'we in the West cannot live like this' ('this' presumably meaning in fear of the threat of terrorism). Immediately, he sets up a dichotomy between 'us' as the West, and the presumably non-Western 'them' who are threatening 'us'. In this way, he centres and prioritises the West in his discussion and reframes the discourse around terror as a West-versus-Middle-East conflict. Bolt brings the discussion back to immigration and blatantly casts Muslims as the enemy, arguing that Australia should not 'keep letting in carriers of a faith whose most dogmatic believers wish to destroy us'. He finally warns of a 'huge right-wing backlash', warning 'watch out for a civil war' if Australia's current immigration practices and tolerance for the Muslim faith continue.
Bolt's solution to the terror crisis is 'no more multiculturalism, and no more mass immigration from the Muslim world'. He places the blame for terror attacks squarely on the Islamic faith, and alerts the Australian public to the likelihood of similar incidents happening on Australian soil.[10] Bolt’s words echo the racist, xenophobic, and anti-immigration stances of emerging far-right political groups such as grassroots organisation Reclaim Australia and Pauline Hanson’s ‘One Nation’ political party, which have both seen increased support from the Australian public in the wake of French terror attacks. It is evident that right-wing groups and commenters are able to effectively politicise French terror attacks in order to promote a xenophobic, anti-Islam, and anti-immigration agenda.
Other opinion pieces similarly remind the Australian public of their vulnerability to terror, but refrain from identifying Muslim immigration as the main enemy. A piece by Colin James published on adelaidenow.com warns that there is 'no room for complacency' about the threat of terror on Australian soil. He encourages the tightening of security and border controls, and permission for governments to access metadata.[11] The implication, of course, is that without these strict measures, Australia will experience terror attacks on the same scale as France. In this way, James' article uses terror attacks in France to reinforce the need for Australia to remain vigilant and proactive about combating terror, reminding the reader that the threat is close to home. Similarly, an opinion piece released by government defence thinktank Australian Strategic Policy Institute conveys an overall message not to be complacent about terror, and to remain vigilant and active in counter-terrorism operations. In notable contrast to Bolt's article, neither of these authors place the blame for terrorist attacks on the Muslim faith or advocate for halting Muslim immigration. Rather, the ASPI article highlights mental health awareness as a vital component of counter-terrorism operations.[12] It is evident that although terror attacks in France bring the threat of terror close to home for many Australian commenters and reinforce the need for vigilance, not all are as quick to identify Muslim immigration as a threat as Andrew Bolt is.
Many articles about the news coverage of French terror itself have also emerged, largely focusing on the disproportionate amount of attention given to terror attacks in France and Europe as a whole when compared to deadly attacks in other parts of the world. For example, James' article laments how European terror attacks received 'saturation media coverage' in Australia whereas a deadly bombing in Baghdad that killed 300 people 'barely rated a mention'.[13] Some Australian commentators, particularly those on left-wing sites, have argued racism is the major reason for the disproportionality of coverage. Popular left-wing news site New Matilda compares the extensive news coverage of the November 2015 attacks to the relatively little coverage of the attack in Beirut. Chris Graham identifies racism as a motivation behind the 'selective grief and outrage' shown by the Australian media and general public. For Graham, there can be no other explanation for the comparative lack of solidarity and media coverage of the Beirut attacks despite the significantly greater numbers of Lebanese-Australians compared to French-Australians. He argues the Paris attacks received more attention that the Beirut attacks because the latter happened in a 'brown part of the world'.[14] Writing for Daily Life, Ruby Hamad similarly raises the issue of race, her headline asking, 'is solidarity for white terror victims only?' As a half-Syrian, half-Lebanese commentator, Hamad's personal connection to the Beirut attacks that were overshadowed by the Paris attacks in the media leaves her feeling that 'as an Arab, I am not quite as worthy, not as significant, not as human'. Her article bemoans the lack of international support for the victims of the Beirut attacks, and the 'sad reality' of the West's view of the Middle East as a 'collection of...terrorists'.[15] These authors politicise public expressions of grief over French terror by interpreting them as expressions of unconscious racism.
Other news sources that discuss disproportionality attempt to explain the phenomenon with factors other than racism, notably monetary motivations and the 'it could happen to me' fear. Folker Hanusch's article for the ABC and Michael Mann's article for the conservative-aligned Daily Telegraph both sidestep directly addressing racism in favour of other explanatory factors. Both authors emphasise the closeness of Australia and France, and the perception that French terror victims are more 'like us' than terror victims in the Middle East. Mann writes that the Paris attacks bring terror 'closer to home' for the Australian public, and Hanusch explains increased interest in French attacks with the 'it could have happened to me' factor and Australia's 'political, economic, and cultural ties with France'. He frankly states that media audiences are less interested in stories about people who are not perceived as 'like us'.[16] Despite the obvious racial implications here, Hanusch notably shies away from naming the unconscious racism motivating the perception of non-white countries as ‘not like us’, and Mann refuses to address race-related arguments altogether.
However, despite some similarities in Mann and Hanusch's observations, there is an important difference in the way they interpret public grief over French terror: Mann views increased attention to France as natural and acceptable, whereas Hanusch laments the tendency of viewers to pay more attention to France. Hanusch places responsibility on the consumer to increase their consumption of media relating to non-Western parts of the world, so that media newsroom analytics and metrics can no longer use viewership statistics as an excuse to focus disproportionately on the West. Mann, however, ridicules the left-wing media's moral outrage over disproportionality, and condemns those who measure the value of 'brown people' by the amount of news coverage given to them (his use of 'brown people’ in quotation marks strongly suggests a response to articles like Hamad's mentioned above). Though he sidesteps the issue of racism, Hanusch's argument suggests a moral responsibility to social justice and equality (expressed here in caring about Middle-Eastern lives) appropriate to a centre-left-leaning news site like the ABC, whereas the acceptance of inequally-distributed empathy and rejection of racism as a factor is more typical of the conservative publication Mann is writing for. Mann's goal is to persuade the reader to accept the disproportionality of expressed grief and news coverage, whereas Hanusch attempts to explain it in order to help lessen it.[17] These articles demonstrate the complex and multifaceted significance of French terror attacks in Australia, and the way commenters attempt to understand and explain the events through their own varied political beliefs and ideologies. In particular, the sidestepping of racial issues displays the fraught relationship Australia has with addressing its own xenophobic and racist tendencies.
These articles demonstrate how collective grief and moral outrage is heavily politicised in the Australian media. Expressing grief for the victims of French terror often becomes a politically loaded action, and authors interpret the significance of grief according to their political views and goals. Conservative commentary tends to use French terror attacks as reminders that Australia could be next and cannot be complacent. Authors on the far right such as Andrew Bolt are blatantly anti-Muslim and anti-immigration. Leftist news sources tend to focus critically on the disproportionality of news coverage and public expressions of grief, and implicate both the media and audiences in racism. This has resulted in a political media landscape where both right-wing and left-wing authors use French terror events as a proxy through which they can fight political battles and push agendas. This political tension in the media realm reflects the fraught relationship the Australian public has with terrorist attacks as they attempt to navigate racism, xenophobia, immigration, cultural challenges, and national security. The strong ties between Australia and France and the grip of French terror attacks on the Australian public imagination will ensure that these events continue to deeply affect the Australian media and political discourses at large.
[1] http://search.abc.net.au/s/search.html?query=paris+terror&collection=abcall_meta&form=simple (accessed April 10, 2017).
[2] ‘How the Australian media covered the Paris terror attacks’, Mediaweek, November 16, 2015, http://www.mediaweek.com.au/how-the-australian-media-covered-the-paris-terror-attacks/ (accessed April 11, 2017).
[3] ‘As it happened: At least 120 people killed in multiple terrorist attacks across Paris, officials say’, ABC, November 15, 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-14/live-paris-france-attacks/6940758 (accessed April 10, 2017); ‘Paris attacks: Many dead after shootings, multiple blasts in France capital’, Sydney Morning Herald, November 15, 2015, http://www.smh.com.au/world/paris-shootings-several-dead-after-gunman-opens-fire-explosion-at-stade-de-france-20151113-gkyvyc.html (accessed April 10,2017); ‘Paris terror attacks: rolling coverage’, The Guardian, November 15, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/3491906/paris-terror-attacks-rolling-coverage/bowral-woman-rebecca-cribbin-alive-in-paris/ (accessed April 10, 2017).
[4] ‘As it happened’, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-14/live-paris-france-attacks/6940758.
[5] ‘Paris terror attacks: live coverage’, The Australian, January 12, 2015, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/paris-terror-attacks-live-coverage/news-story/426111475fe0124db001b46dae71a76f (accessed April 10, 2017).
[6] ‘As it happened’, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-14/live-paris-france-attacks/6940758.
[7] ‘Paris terror attacks’, http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/3491906/paris-terror-attacks-rolling-coverage/bowral-woman-rebecca-cribbin-alive-in-paris/.
[8] ‘Paris attacks: Islamic State claims responsibility, French president Francois Hollande calls it 'act of war'’, ABC, November 15, 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-14/hollande-says-mass-shootings-and-bombings-in-paris-act-of-war/6941696 (accessed April 10, 2017).
[9] ‘Paris terror attacks’, http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/3491906/paris-terror-attacks-rolling-coverage/bowral-woman-rebecca-cribbin-alive-in-paris/#slide=5.
[10] Andrew Bolt, ‘The West can’t keep making excuses’, Herald Sun, July 17, 2016, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/andrew-bolt-on-nice-terror-attack-west-cant-keep-making-excuses/news-story/a1077e1c4c5d362a78bfedc2448ab683 (accessed April 10, 2017).
[11] Colin James, ‘Atrocity in Nice reminds us why Australia cannot become complacent about the threat of ISIS terrorism’, Adelaide Now, July 15, 2016, http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/colin-james-nice-reminds-us-why-australia-cannot-become-complacent-about-the-threat-of-isis-terorism/news-story/f75cab6ec6fd54fe4464481b84e0f17d (accessed April 10, 2017).
[12] Jacinta Carroll, ‘Terrorism: What do Attacks in Europe Mean for Australia?’, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, August 18, 2016, https://www.aspi.org.au/opinion/terrorism-what-do-attacks-in-europe-mean-for-australia (accessed April 11, 2017).
[13] James, ‘Atrocity in Nice’.
[14] Chris Graham, ‘Paris Attacks Highlight Western Vulnerability, And Our Selective Grief And Outrage’, New Matilda, November 14, 2015, https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-highlight-western-vulnerability-and-our-selective-grief-and-outrage/ (accessed April 10, 2017).
[15] Ruby Hamad, ‘Paris attacks: is solidarity for white terror victims only?’, Daily Life, November 15, 2015, http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/paris-attacks-is-solidarity-for-white-terror-victims-only-20151115-gkzci8.html (accessed April 10, 2017).
[16] Folker Hanusch, ‘Paris attacks: Disproportionate coverage of deadly events not just media's fault’, ABC, November 17, 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-17/coverage-of-paris-attacks-not-just-medias-fault/6946656 (accessed April 10, 2017); Michael Mann, ‘Hey, Australia: sorrow over terrorism isn’t a competitive sport’, Daily Telegraph, November 16, 2015, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/hey-australia-sorrow-over-terrorism-isnt-a-competitive-sport/news-story/122825b6524c256828f0c3174a954213 (accessed April 10, 2017).
[17] Hanusch, ‘Paris attacks’; Mann, ‘Hey, Australia’.