Dependent on the Hegemony to be Heard: Chinese Ethnic Media in Postcolonial Australia

ABSTRACT

Existing research has positioned ethnic media as alternative or complementary to the English mainstream media, suggesting ethnic media as something inherently different to the mainstream society. How ethnic media relate to Western multicultural societies is more complicated than what has been conceptualised as segregation or otherisation. By focusing on Chinese ethnic media in Australia as a case study, this paper seeks to understand how ethnic media associate themselves with mainstream society in their everyday practices and the social implications informed by these associations. Based on the 27 qualitative interviews with Chinese media professionals at commercial Chinese-language media organisations run by local Chinese migrants, I argue that Chinese ethnic media aspire to be part of Australia’s postcolonial structure that is inherently designed to exclude them. To be recognised by the dominant society, Chinese ethnic media imitate English counterparts uncritically or internalise inferiority in the media structure by positioning themselves news source providers or assistance. Chinese ethnic media’s dependence on the hegemonic society generates biased activism. Chinese ethnic media advocate for communal interest while translating inter-ethnic racism from postcolonial Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese ethnic media
• WeChat
• Australia
• postcolonialism
• inter-ethnic racism
• biased activism

Ethnic Media in the West

Ethnic media in Western multicultural societies are critical to inform non-English migrants about issues that happened within and outside diasporic communities (Viswanath and Arora 2009; Arnold and Schneider 2007). Existing research tends to view ethnic media as supporting an accepted form of cultural diversity or as threatening forces to national integrity (Budarick 2019). On the one hand, ethnic media provide diverse, alternative or complementary voices for the frequently under-represented or misrepresented ethnic communities among dominant media discourses (Hardt 1989; Ojo 2006; Budarick 2019). On the other, in light of geopolitical tension, ethnic media have been accused of channelling “foreign influence” and speaking on behalf of “foreign powers” (Sun 2019; Yang 2021b; McMillan and Barker 2021). By highlighting the “alterity” of ethnic media, these strands of research, to different degrees, situate non-English ethnic media in an antagonistic position vis-à-vis the dominant English media in multicultural societies. However, the relationship between ethnic media and the hegemonic society can be more complicated than the dominant narratives of “integration”, “self-representation”, and “foreign interference”; those academic narratives are evaluated based on ethnic media’s content representation. More complexities can be further revealed through studying the less accessible and thus overlooked internal newsroom practices within ethnic media organisations.

Based on the study of ethnic media newsrooms in North America, a limited amount of research has provided insights on the synergy between ethnic media and mainstream English media. Particularly, the three studies discussed below have generated more nuanced insights to ethnic media research (Husband 2005; Matsaganis and Vikki 2013; Yu 2017). Charles Husband (2005) is one of the pioneers of studying ethnic media newsrooms in the United States. He identifies the institutionally perpetrated inequality between ethnic media and mainstream media and intends to de-otherise ethnic media workers through their intertwined journalistic and ethnic identities. Matsaganis and Katz’s (2013) and Yu’s (2017) projects are expanded from Husband’s research and further examine the connections between ethnic media and English mainstream media. With an ecological approach, Matasaganis and Katz (2014) find that ethnic media workers defined their professional identities through their daily interactions with mainstream media, societal institutions, and political personnel. During the interaction, ethnic media conceive themselves as inferior to mainstream counterparts due to the limited financial resources and thus lower social prestige. Husband’s and Matsaganis and Katz’s research examine ethnic media in general, which to some extent has reflected researchers’ lack of ethnographic engagement and “situated knowledges” (Haraway 1988) with particular ethnic communities. Yu (2017) argues that ethnic media are heterogeneous and the knowledge of ethnic media should be contextualised by being situated within the complex of the immigration history, demographics, and communication infrastructure of the studied ethnic community. With a focus on Korean-language media in Vancouver and Los Angeles, Yu indicates that Korean cultural identity, ethnic media’s institutional identity, and journalistic identity are intersectoral factors shaping Korean media professionals’ daily practices. Further individual and structural factors are suggested to be explored in the future discussion of ethnic media across diasporic communities.

This paper aligns with Yu’s observation: first, ethnic communities and their media are not monolithic, and they should be studied in their own contexts; and second, ethnic media establish different associations with the mainstream society without being completely segregated. Aside from migrants’ individual differences, structural factors including Australia’s postcolonial multiculturalism and (partial-)colonial legacies in migrants’ home societies are wielded in the way to shape how migrants manage their relations with the Australian state and produce their own media to accommodate their interests (Gunew 1997). This paper provides the first ethnographic perspective to understand how Chinese ethnic media relate themselves to Australian dominant society in their newsroom practices. For Australia, Chinese immigration is distinctive due to its longest history of the large-scale settlement after the British and Australia’s ongoing perplexity between its economic reliance on China and the political disparity (Ang 2010). The racial and economic politics in Australia otherises Chinese migrants as “cash cows”, “spies”, or passive recipients of CCP’s influence in English media more frequently than other ethnic communities (Martin 2018a). Without considering Chinese-Australians and their media as anything exceptional, the paper also recognises that Chinese communities, like other migrant groups, internalise Australian multiculturalism that is shaped by the country’s postcolonial legacies at the structural level at the country’s behest of constructing “Australian unity”. In light of the specificity and generalisability of the study, the analysis of this paper provides significant insights on conceptualising the relationship between ethnic minority media and Western multicultural societies without being limited to Chinese ethnic media in Australia.

Journalism in Australia and beyond inscribes masculinity, whiteness, and middle-classness in its structure, norms, and daily practices, so does its discipline (Rhodes 2001). Hegemonic, universal knowledge in journalism studies renders marginalised experience, imagination, and knowledge invisible (Stoetzler and Nira 2002). Non-English ethnic media are positioned by their English counterparts as something inherently different and thus to be segregated. This paper stresses both particularity and situated knowledges of Chinese ethnic media. It studies Chinese ethnic media professionals’ daily practices through which they relate ethnic media to Australian mainstream society through a long-term ethnographic engagement conducted by a migrant researcher of Chinese heritage. The findings present a new theoretical approach in journalism studies by focusing on the veiled associations that Chinese ethnic media have been attempting to build with the mainstream, postcolonial Australian society. The contribution of this paper can be broadly extended to expound ethnic minority media and their overlooked relations with multicultural societies in the West; further, the paper will enrich our existing conceptualisations of ethnic media characterised by segregation or otherisation.

The remainder of the paper situates the historical development of Chinese ethnic media in the contexts of colonial and later postcolonial Australia which has significantly influenced the currency of Chinese ethnic media. This historical-socio-political nexus foregrounds the research question: how do Chinese ethnic media relate themselves to Australia’s mainstream society in their daily practices and what are the social implications? To address this question, the author conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 27 Chinese-Australian media workers. Based on the ethnographic engagement, the paper argues Chinese ethnic media depend on the hegemonic society in postcolonial Australia to be recognised by the mainstream public and institution that are structurally designed and conditioned to exclude non-English or Indigenous media. In term of media practices, Chinese ethnic media’s dependence is manifested through Chinese media professionals’ uncritical imitation of their English counterparts to be recognised by the mainstream society and their benevolent assistance towards mainstream media in the form of providing news sources without being necessarily recognised as “journalism” or “media”. Depending on the hegemonic society thus generates biased activism. Chinese ethnic media tend to advocate for the interest of Chinese migrant communities while reproducing inter-ethnic racism against darker-skinned people in postcolonial Australia.

Chinese Ethnic Media in Postcolonial Australia

The paper follows the tradition of Chinese ethnic media research (Sun 2002, 2016, 2018; Yu and Sun 2020; Yang and Martin 2020; Yang 2021a, 2021b) and focuses on the private, locally established, small-to-medium-sized Chinese-language media entities owned by Chinese migrant entrepreneurs. These ethnic media organisations are financially independent of the Australian or the Chinese state. They are situated within the Chinese migrant economy and majorly targets the migrant readership. By exploiting the internet since the early 2000s and later digital platforms including Weibo, WeChat, Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), Red (Xiaohongshu) and their self-developed news apps, Chinese ethnic media expand their content distribution transnationally to readers who are interested in Australia’s education, immigration, and investment opportunities. The research scope of this paper thus excludes Chinese-state media such as Global Times, People’s Daily, and CGTN with transnational reach in Australia, Australia’s taxpayer-sponsored media with Chinese-language channels such as The Australian, ABC, and SBS, or transnational Chinese diasporic media represented by Epoch Times and Sing Tao Daily (closed in 2020). With the majority of Chinese migrants consuming news from ethnic media, the importance of Chinese ethnic media cannot be undermined (Sun 2018; Yang 2021b). The contemporary landscape of Chinese ethnic media is composed of both digital-dependent media organisations with the history of Chinese-language newspapers (represented by Chinese News and Media Group and Pacific Media) and digital-native Chinese-language media entities that were emerged from online “participatory culture” (Jenkin, Ito, and boyd 2015) such as Media Today and Australian RedScarf.

The perception of “Chineseness” is contested. Ideologies of Chinese migrants (including media professionals) are unidentical, complex, and dynamic. Migrants dynamically weave in and out of their identity orienting towards home society, host society, and diasporic community in their daily interactions (Ang 2001; Ong 2009). Despite the complexity, there is little ideological heterogeneity identified across contemporary Chinese ethnic media operated by owners from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or mainland China (Yang 2021b). Chinese ethnic media undergird “cosmopolitan Chineseness” (Yang 2021a), suggesting their inclusivity in cultures, ethnicities, and more importantly business opportunities, while de-prioritising nationalities or citizenships (Ang 2001; Sun 2016). As business entities, the market component is a determining factor of ethnic media outlets’ ideology. With the increased immigration from the PRC in the categories of permanent residency, investment, international student, and tourist since the 1990s¹ (Collinson and Zhou 2019; Ho 2020), Chinese ethnic media founded by PRC, Hong Kongnese, or Taiwanese entrepreneurs attempt to monetise groups of readerships from mainland China (Yu and Sun 2020; Yang 2021a). Despite commercial imperatives, Chinese ethnic media are subject to the public dispute for Beijing’s “ideological infiltration” (Sun 2018).

News Translation

Chinese ethnic media are situated somewhere between Chinese state media and Australian dominant media to accommodate the news consumption need that is shaped by the in-betweenness of migrant identities. Without being completely detached from Australian mainstream media, content production is typically characterised by translating news stories from Australian English media into traditional/simplified Chinese (Sun 2016; Yang 2021b). Due to the limited financial and human resources, small-to-medium-sized media organisations extract published news stories from Australian dominant English media such as Australian Financial Review, ABC, Daily Mail (Australia), Sydney Morning Herald, and 9 News (Yang 2021b). Accurate linguistic exchange is not particularly concerned within Chinese ethnic media organisations. Critical views about the Chinese government are moderated to accommodate a significant part of the readership formed by PRC Chinese and to circumvent the Chinese state censorship with the content distributed to mainland China via digital platforms (Yang 2021b).

Existing scholarships recognise contemporary political-economic vulnerability that engendered news translation as a typical content production model of ethnic media (Husband 2005; Sun 2016; Yang 2021b). This section complements this view by analysing a historical-socio-political account to illuminate deeper-seated colonial legacies that foreground and normalise news translation within relatively resourceful or less impactful Chinese ethnic media organisations. The first known but unregistered Chinese-language newspaper—The Chinese Advertiser (1856–1858, later changed to The English and Chinese Advertiser) was established in 1856 in one of the British colonies Ballarat, Victoria where the paper was distributed. It was founded and managed by a British settler entrepreneur Robert Bell who also self-identified as a scientist and linguist (Reeves and Mountford 2011; Bryans 2013; Wang and Ryder 2013; Yang 2021a). To eliminate the perceived “difference” from British settlers against Chinese gold miners, Bell aspired to incorporate the early Chinese migrants into the British colonial structure by translating content either from colonial government announcements or businesses (Yang 2021a). The tradition of incorporating Chinese migrants into the British colonial societal structure through media consumption continued in the first officially registered Chinese-language newspaper—Chinese Australian Herald (1894–1923). The paper was launched in colonial Sydney by two European proprietors James Alexander Philip and George Arthur Down and two Chinese bilingual editors Caizhang Lee and Johnson Sun. With financial resources introduced by Down’s business network, Chinese Australian Herald started producing small amounts of original reports on social affairs that happened within Chinese migrant communities, alongside translated news stories on international affairs and Australian domestic issues (Kuo 2008).

The involvement of British settlers in The English and Chinese Advertiser and Chinese Australian Herald unveiled the nature of Chinese ethnic media—adhere to the colonial structure through news translation. There were other Chinese-language publications that emerged from the 1910s to the 1950s aiming to connect the Chinese diaspora to China. These newspapers were organised by pro-democracy Chinese revolutionists in Australia to mobilise financial support for China’s domestic anti-feudalism 1911 Revolution. These publications included Chinese Times (1902–1915), Chinese Republican News (1914–1937), and China World’s News (1921–1950s) (Chinese Museum 2001). From 1901 to the late 1960s, the White Australia Policy to restrict the non-white population led to the discontinuation of Chinese ethnic media in Australia (Yang 2021a).

Postcolonial Multiculturalism

Chinese ethnic media re-emerged in the context of a postcolonial, multicultural Australia. Since the 1970s, Australia rebranded itself with the official proposal of multiculturalism to erase the country from the colonial past and serve the neoliberal economy by attracting migrants of non-Anglo backgrounds (Ang and Stratton 1998; Hage 2002; Koleth 2010; Walsh 2014). The policy framing and implementation of multiculturalism are likely to be volatile, depending on how the Australian state wishes to engage with people of colour in the country. From the 1970s to the 1980s, the meaning of Australia’s multiculturalism was transformed from “cultural pluralism” to “cultural assimilation” with the latter one prioritising “Australian identity” and national unity (Koleth 2010; Walsh 2014).

Being a multicultural country does not suggest the termination of colonialism in Australia. Postcolonialism, as an extension of colonialism, exists beyond colonial temporality or spatiality—it is saturated in the construction of hegemonic society and public institutions, national integrity, cultural assimilation, racial stereotypes, and is further normalised through the differentiated access to education, citizenship, political systems, and social welfares among Indigenous people and ethnic communities (McEwan 2018; Young 2012).

Indeed, with “multiculturalism” as a deceptive façade, Australia is still a postcolonial state experiencing the significant and expansive aftermath of colonial rules and norms. The postcolonial, hegemonic societal structure is defined by and for the white, Anglo-Celtic Australians to legitimise their own interest and centralise the national identity. This postcolonial structure is established and reinforced through repetitive political discourses such as “mainstream Australians” advocated by John Howard in the 1980s and “ordinary Australians” infamously avowed by Pauline Hanson in the 1990s (Ang and Stratton 1998, 26; Ahluwalia and McCarthy 2008). For migrants, to be part of Australia means to be part of the mainstream, white society which has been paradoxically designed to exclude non-white migrants through their daily engagements with public institutions, social norms, commercial entities, and aesthetics (Manickam 2009). The aspiration of being part of the mainstream society underscores migrants’ information need that is driven by Australian English public sphere (Yang 2021b). Postcolonial studies capture the tension between the hegemonic society and people of colour. Such tension further imposes an impact on how ethnic communities perceive and interact with one another, which will be demonstrated later in this paper through the case of Chinese ethnic media.

The paper focuses on Chinese ethnic media in Australia as a case study and how they relate to Australian mainstream society in their daily practices. Ethnographic engagement with Chinese ethnic media in Australia opens up opportunities to examine the more complicated and nuanced relations between Chinese ethnic media and Australian mainstream media and society in the daily practice of media professionals. Through the case study approach, the paper contributes to applying the knowledge produced out of the situated experience of Chinese ethnic media to illuminate more diverse relations between ethnic media and postcolonial multicultural societies that cannot be fully captured by either “integration” or “segregation” (Stake 1978; Yin 2018).

Research Methods

This paper is extended from a longitudinal project investigating the internal operation of Chinese ethnic media in Australia. It seeks to address how Chinese ethnic media relate themselves to Australian mainstream society in their daily media practices and the social implications. My identity, as a first-generation Chinese migrant, sharing ethnicity, linguistic capacities, migration experience, and emotional connections with Chinese-Australian media professionals, consolidated my access to Chinese migrant media professionals and further ushered in informative discussions between me and participants. From August 2019 to March 2021, I conducted 27 ethnographic interviews with Chinese-Australian media professionals working at Chinese ethnic media organisations. Interviews that happened before February 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic reached Australia were conducted face-to-face; interviews scheduled after February 2020 were conducted online. Each interview lasted from 90 to 150 min and was conducted in either English or Mandarin or the two languages in combination. The choice of language was subject to informants’ preferences. Interview questions were largely unstructured while revolving around the three major themes—the history of the ethnic media entity, the daily operation of the organisation including content production and revenue model, and media professionals’ perceptions of Chinese ethnic media and their occupations in Australia.

As the larger project seeks to gain insights into the Chinese ethnic media industry, Chinese-Australian media professionals from the senior, managerial level to the junior level were involved. Specifically, the project included 8 managers, 3 editors-in-chief, 13 content producers, 2 marketers, and 1 IT operator. Apart from 6 part-time content producers and 1 unpaid intern, the rest of the participants worked full-time. The project does not intend to target any Chinese ethnic media organisations in particular and the inclusion of organisations is not purposeful. With part-time or casually employed content producers working across multiple Chinese ethnic media organisations, there were more than 30 Chinese-language media entities discussed during the fieldwork. This group of Chinese ethnic media organisations diversely included digitally dependent Chinese-language legacy media, digital-native Chinese ethnic media, influential Chinese ethnic media organisations with multiple branches in major cities in Australia, small organisations managed by a handful of staff members, and inactive organisations that no longer update the content. These Chinese ethnic media reflect different business backgrounds—most of them were founded by media entrepreneurs whereas 2 of the media entities are positioned as news-advertising fronts by an education-immigration business or a real-estate business. With the majority of Chinese ethnic media firms managed by PRC migrant entrepreneurs, there is one company established by a Hong Kongnese-Australian and one founded by a Taiwanese entrepreneur. Existing research has informed that despite different ownerships, Chinese ethnic media organisations demonstrate a great deal of homogeneity that aligns themselves to “cosmopolitan Chineseness” for inclusive commercial opportunities (Yang 2021a, 2021b). As Chinese ethnic media are operated on a small scale within the Chinese ethnic economy, any reidentification from colleagues, employers, competitors, clients, or government authorities would possibly jeopardise the future employability of junior-level media workers or business opportunities of organisations. Deidentifying media organisations and pseudonymisation collectively protect the privacy of informants.

Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in English. To ensure an accurate Mandarin-English translation especially with regard to professional jargon and internet slang in Mandarin, I shared informant their own interview transcript privately and highlighted the to-be-confirmed translations. The project wished to practice care to informants so that their participation of the research does not risk their future employability within the Chinese migrant business circle. By reviewing interview transcripts, participants had the agency to ensure accurate information delivery and to exclude the information that they no longer wanted to incorporate into the analysis. This paper is extended from a longitudinal project on the internal operation of Chinese ethnic media in Australia, the coding of which was based on the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967). The themes discussed in this paper were attained from the 10 subthemes summarised out of 302 open codes, 108 selective codes, and 20 axial codes. As a researcher of Chinese heritage, my self-reflexivity can be a useful instrument in making sense of Chinese migrant communities; however, it can also generate analytical blind-spots if such identity is taken for granted. To ensure the validity of data analysis, the coding process involved the discussions with at least 5 academics who are identified as experts in media, communication, migration, and culture studies.

Dependent on the Hegemony to be Heard

Chinese ethnic media are associated with Australian mainstream media through news translation. This media practice is shaped by the postcolonial legacy in multicultural Australia that compels migrants to be integrated into the mainstream society, constructed and imagined as white, hegemonic Australia. Based on the ethnographic interviews with Chinese-Australian media professionals, the analysis contributes to revealing how Chinese ethnic media associate themselves to Australian mainstream society in their daily media practices and the social implications of this synergy.

The Exclusion of Chinese Ethnic Media from the Mainstream Society

Charles Husband’s (2005, 462) claims that ethnic media are the dominant media for ethnic communities. Ethnic media’s limited scale of consumption and recognition implies that they are viewed as “second-class journalism” (Yu 2017) by the mainstream society due to the ethnic-centric audience reach (Husband 2005). Yu (2017, 1310) justifies: “the technical possibility for these [ethnic] media to serve as the media for all communities—both minority and majority ethnic communities—has always existed”. Yu suggests ethnic media’s potential of gaining broader recognition in “American journalism” with many of them producing content in English. According to Yu, the type of language used by ethnic media determines the scalability of media influence and thus public recognition. While this statement stands true, it reinforces the dichotomy between ethnic media and mainstream media by normalising the Englishness and hegemonic nature of the latter (Stoetzler and Nira 2002). The paper has more to reveal behind the otherisation of ethnic media through the case of Chinese ethnic media in Australia.

Chinese ethnic media and media professionals are otherised by Australian mainstream media due to the ethnic-centric public interest that they serve. As a content producer in a Chinese media organisation, Lily recalled her previous internship experience in an English media organisation in 2016:

I migrated to Australia with my parents when I was six and grew up in an Asian suburb. I had seen those issues happen within our community. […] We saw them happen but didn’t see them reported. I wanted to be a journalist to report those stories. I made it. […] During the three-month training, I always wanted to propose stories that happened within Asian migrant communities. But one day, I was told by the editor; they said, if I kept proposing those stuff, […] they would refuse to spend time reading them because they were not related to the public interest.

Lily’s experience reveals a bigger picture of the institutionalised whiteness and racism that marginalises journalists’ voices representing ethnic communities in postcolonial Australia (Dreher 2020). Although a more recent report identifies an increase in the number of journalists with ethnic backgrounds, journalists of colour in the newsroom are not necessarily included in the decision-making process or have their voices accepted (Rogers 2020). According to Lily, mainstream media and ethnic media are differentiated by whose public interest they serve—the English-speaking mainstream society or ethnic communities. Mainstream media serve the interest of the targeted English-speakers that are considered the public while ethnic communities are excluded from this range. The scale of public interest practically has its limits which contrasts to its suggested universality and transcendence of common good among all members of society regardless of one’s gender, race and ethnicity, disability, sexuality (Downs 1962). The conception of public interest rhymes with the bipartisan vision of Western democracy that agrees to the dominant postcolonial power while masking exclusion of people of colour (Dahlberg 2005). Like multiculturalism, public interest, as an ostensibly inclusionary proposal engenders insidious exclusionary actions. The marginalisation of voices from journalists of colour representing ethnic communities within the newsroom reflects the broader picture of mainstream society’s exclusion of non-English ethnic media.

The lack of recognition from mainstream society prevents Chinese ethnic media workers from accessing first-hand sources released by public institutions, which reinforces the content dependence of Chinese ethnic media on Australian English media even though some of which are resourceful. The research participant Molly, a full-time content producer, obtained a postgraduate degree in media from a highly prestigious university and was working at an impactful Chinese ethnic media organisation in August 2019. She recalled her encounter with an Australian police officer and described:

I would like to consider myself a journalist, but I was also disbelieved by police. […] There was a student jumping off the building in the city. I went to the incident scene, trying to get some information. […] We got that information because a colleague was lurking in a student WeChat group. I was nearby the city, so I ran to the scene. The scene was concealed by the police. I managed to squeeze through the crowd. I tried to grab some first-hand sources […] asked the police […] what’s going on. I showed him my journalist certificate […] with my organisation’s name on it. He told me to contact their PR department because I can’t prove my professional identity. […] That [Talking to their PR department] would take days […] When I was just about to leave, I saw him communicate something with another Western reporter. That’s when I realised that maybe I wasn’t a journalist at all.

Without being able to gather first-hand sources from the police, Molly and her colleagues could only manage to get information from the student WeChat group and English media outlets that obtained easier access to first-hand official sources.

In practice, journalism is a field marked by its embodiment within the power structure formed by public institutions, media outlets, and individual actors. This embodiment is shielded under the discursive detachment of journalism to maintain its independence and objectivity (Carlson 2015). Among the network of actors, non-hegemonic media have been struggling to engage in the dominant political cultures and there is a lack of ethnic media representation in major political events (Budarick 2018a, 2407). Resourceful ethnic media organisations have recognised that access to Australian public institutions would enable original news reportage so that issues beyond Chinese ethnic communities can be covered; with a broader scope of media coverage, broader scale of public interest would be reflected and the credibility of ethnic media, from the perspective of the mainstream society, can be leveraged. To this end, Derek, who is the founder of an impactful Chinese ethnic media organisation, desired to join the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery (hereafter the Press Gallery) to report political news from the Parliament House. During the interview in October 2019, Derek stated:

I figured a long time ago. […] The difference between us and Australian media is that they can report news from the Parliament House. […] To be part of Australian media, we need to join the Press Gallery. We applied several times. None of them worked out. No Australian media would like to endorse our participation.

To be eligible for the Press Gallery accreditation, one needs to be referred by four² current Press Gallery members and to provide writing samples (Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery n.d.a, n.d.b). Derek further contextualised this inclusion/exclusion:

laowai won’t recommend us. […] People from News.com wouldn’t come and endorse us. It [the Press Gallery] is the thing in their own circle. They don’t want multicultural media to be part of them. We have approached ABC Chinese and even SBS. They didn’t recommend us.

“Laowai” means foreigners. In English, it is transliterated as the “superior outsiders”. As an informal term used by Chinese people based in China, “laowai” indicates people of European descents, more specifically, white people (Wu 2019). The term is associated with social and physical attributes more than geographic metrics. While in Australia, a postcolonial nation dominated by whiteness, Derek’s deployment of “laowai” to indicate white Australians contrasts to many Chinese-Australian media professionals who referred to white Australians as the “local” (dangdiren) during the interviews. Derek deployed the term “laowai” to underscore whiteness within Australian dominant media and public institutions that exclude multicultural voices. Indeed, a review of the Press Gallery members indicates that there is a lack of non-English or Indigenous media within the Parliament House (Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery n.d.a, n.d.b). By describing the mainstream media as outsiders, Derek also positioned Chinese ethnic media as insiders for Chinese communities and suggested a mutual exclusion—being excluded by the dominant media while excluding the mainstream counterparts.

The Pathway to the Mainstream: Imitation or Inferiority?

Chinese ethnic media are otherised due to its perceived ethnic-centric public interest, non-whiteness, and non-English nature. The low-quality content production contemplates on the vulnerability of Chinese ethnic media that is systematically perpetrated by Australian mainstream society, which is further turned into a stereotypical perception of inferior ethnic media. Journalism, as a profession, is formed by sets of boundary-marking discourses that establish and reinforce its legitimacy (Carlson 2015). During the interaction between ethnic and mainstream media, Australian dominant media define what media are not, rather than what media are, to exclude non-English media. Chinese ethnic media are excluded from this self-drawn category; however, attempts have been made to feature in the mainstream voice. Derek sent follow-up emails to Australian media that refused to endorse his company’s application for the Press Gallery. Derek remembered:

The reason for rejection was […] “credibility”. They thought […] our publishing platform can’t reach the standard. We had already interviewed Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten!

Derek referred to the time during May 2019 when the major political party leaders in Australia Scott Morrison, representing the Liberal-National Coalition, and Bill Shorten, representing the Australian Labour Party, accepted to be interviewed by Derek’s organisation to mobilise votes among the Chinese diaspora. For Derek, the credibility of Chinese ethnic media has been proved through their access to and recognition from significant political personnel. However, Australian media demonstrated different but rather unclear approaches to measure the “credibility” of ethnic media. Derek followed up on emails to ask what other unwritten qualifications were. He continued:

Only SBS³ got back to us. But we didn’t get clear answers. They wanted us to read their samples to learn from them. They told us that at this stage, we are less likely to join the Press Gallery because we are under-qualified but […] what are the qualifications then?

The public media organisation didn’t provide tangible or actionable criteria of media or journalism. Its dominance allows it to normalise what a media prototype is. Without specifying the qualifications of being media, SBS painted imitation an achievable goal for Derek’s media organisation and suggested the possibility of being part of the Press Gallery in the future. The unspecific definition of media does not necessarily exclude or reject Chinese ethnic media’s future participation in Australian media but links to a positive technique of mainstream media’s intervention to transform Chinese ethnic media into one of them and therefore incorporate ethnic media into the postcolonial structure.

Derek realised that like many Chinese migrants, for Chinese ethnic media, to be recognised by the mainstream, he needed to apply assimilative techniques by imitating an English media prototype. Daily Mail (Australia) was the one selected as an English model. According to Derek, Daily Mail (Australia) as a tabloid targeting broader publics echoed the sensational news storytelling strategies and business ambitions of Derek’s media organisation. Derek stated:

We started playing April Fool’s Day pranks several years ago. Many Australian media do that. Daily Mail does it. We learned it from them. But you know what? We were accused by mainstream media and many commentators of publishing fake news! We already said in the article that it was a joke and happy April Fool’s Day! […] It’s been years. People now still bring it up when they want to accuse us of publishing fake news.

Chinese ethnic media learn from Australian media hoping to be reformed and recognised. However, mimicrying Australian media represents an ironic compromise that only makes Chinese ethnic media an inharmonious existence in the postcolonial Australian society—a subject of Other that is almost the same (as English media) but not quite (Bhabha 1984). This uncritical imitation alienates Chinese ethnic media from migrant communities or restrains them from reporting ethnic issues in their own voices, which would further make ethnic media ambivalent in their professional identity and secondary in the media hierarchy defined and dominated by English mainstream media.

To be part of the mainstream requires Chinese ethnic media to acknowledge their inferiority and attachment to English counterparts. During the interview, Nancy, an editor-in-chief normalised the constructed hierarchy between mainstream media and ethnic media and repositioned her organisation as a “source provider” for Australian media. In this way, Nancy sought English media to voice for Chinese migrants. Nancy stated an instance:

Many years ago, our reporter covered a story on our WeChat account about a group of Chinese beggars coming to Australia with their tourist visas to practise illegal begging. […] We did an extensive investigative report on that. This same thing happened again in 2019. The story was picked up and then translated into English by someone on Reddit. That subreddit got attention from the ABC and the police. They had a more thorough investigation, with the translation assistance of our reporter, and made an in-depth report. The news was big at the time. In ABC’s report, they only accredited the Reddit account, without mentioning us.

Nancy suggested that Australian media considered Chinese ethnic media less trustworthy to be attributed as a news source. To be part of the mainstream media system, Nancy acknowledged the inferiority of Chinese ethnic media in Australia and proposed an imbalanced collaboration to render ethnic media visible in mainstream media. She positioned her media organisation as a quotable “news source” for Australian media:

We report interesting stories, but we aren’t able to push the agenda any further. It’s more like we Chinese people arguing against each other in our community to decide what’s good or bad. But if we see ourselves as a news source provider for Australian media and send what we know to them, the voice of Chinese communities could be heard by mainstream society. In this way, we turn mainstream media into our big speaker.

In Nancy’s proposal, what failed to be recognised in this imbalanced collaboration and her pursuit of being attributed by the mainstream is the relinquished agency and displacement of the advocacy role of Chinese ethnic media in covering communal issues through their own lens (Spivak 1988). Based on the experience of both Derek and Nancy, by uncritically imitating Australian media, Chinese ethnic media are at the risk of cohering the postcolonial structure and normalising whiteness, Englishness, and ethnic media’s inferiority in their daily media practice.

The Translation of Racism and Biased Activism

Being excluded by Australian postcolonial media structure makes Chinese ethnic media aspired to be recognised by the dominant society in order to gain equal access to news sources and commercial opportunities as their mainstream counterparts. Uncritical imitation of English media and playing a benevolent role assisting dominant media are two strategies adopted by Chinese-Australian media professionals. The paradox—being part of mainstream society that is structurally designed to exclude them—makes Chinese ethnic media an ambivalent social existence in postcolonial Australia. This ambivalence has generated profound social implications—the translation of racism from mainstream media to darker-skinned people and biased activism for Chinese migrants. That is, Chinese ethnic media advocate for the right and justice of Chinese communities while initiating and reinforcing racial prejudice on other ethnic groups or Indigenous people in news representation.

Institutional racism and neoliberal market logic are ingrained in Australia’s media structure to appeal to the dominant power and the majority of the market, which further marginalise the voice of ethnic communities and Indigenous people (Budarick 2018a; Renaldi, Bahmani, and Yang 2020). Chinese ethnic media provide opportunities for the Chinese diaspora to have their voices represented and circulated within the community and beyond. In this way, Chinese ethnic media perform a mobilising force of social change and communal advocacy for everyday and systemic racism in Australia. The anti-hegemonic function of Chinese ethnic media aligns with the dominant argument of ethnic media in existing literature (Hardt 1989; Ojo 2006; Budarick 2019). During the interview, Taylor, an editor-in-chief, justified the role of translation as a way of “re-represent” the misrepresented Chinese people by Australian media, although the scale of influence and discursive change barely go beyond the migrant community. She explained:

In the process of news translation, we recreate the news story. […] No, we don’t translate them word-by-word. […] There are instances when Chinese people are misrepresented by Australian media. […] We critique that kind of media representation in our news translation in the article. We also ask our readers online what they think to give them voices.

Discussions of racism in Chinese-language media predominantly centre on whether Chinese communities are subject to racism as anti-Chinese racism is more attention-worthy. Not all research participants agreed on Chinese ethnic media’s counter-hegemonic role. To be part of the hegemonic society, the two informants Camille and Derek considered that Chinese-language media should eliminate their coverage of racism against Chinese people. Camille, a manager, further discussed that many Chinese-language media inappropriately addressed racial attacks only to trigger collective sentiment for their financial gain derived from users’ clicks on WeChat. She stated:

There were many reports at the time on a Chinese person being racially attacked. Many Chinese here [in an Asian suburb] were really angry. They wanted to argue with the local police, and they wanted to organise protests. […] Then we invited a police officer to do a seminar in our company to tell us what racism is. […] In Australia, if racism isn’t assessed and defined via trials, media can’t just randomly say it’s racism. This will only trigger public anger.

Camille’s uncertainty about racism led to the silence on the company’s coverage of the racial attack. This, to a great extent, eliminated the advocacy role of Chinese ethnic media. Her understanding of racism was informed by the interpretation of the police authority—a part of hegemonic power structure that is often characterised by its own institutional racism (Murphy 2020).

Derek held a critical stance on the constant portrayal of Chinese people as the subject of racism. He pointed to an article published in 2016 on one of his WeChat Official Accounts. The article, entitled “African Gangs’ Targeted Stealing of Chinese International Students”, went viral on WeChat. He argued from a different perspective:

It’s unfair that we always consider Chinese people as victims no matter what. For me, this is racism. They might just target all Asians, but we are just so narcissistic and think that those Africans only attacked Chinese international students.

Derek critiqued the phenomenon where Chinese-language media financially exploit anti-Chinese racist attacks and implied an elimination of reports on racism. From Derek’s perspective, racism exposed the vulnerability of Chinese migrants which tended to be counterfactual considering the middle-class social status of many skilled immigrants and international students (Steven 2018). The article that Derek discussed on violent incidents committed by people of “African appearance” indicates an example of Chinese ethnic media on WeChat translating racism out of English media in 2016. In Australian media, the whiteness of other criminal offenders is either ignored or rendered invisible (Budarick 2018b). Similarly, among Chinese ethnic media, non-Chinese nationality, race and cultural background become defining features in crime coverage. Derek continued to discuss:

I think we had more reports on this issue back in days [around 2016]. […] Racism is an objective existence. So, I think […] there are many Asians discriminating against Muslims or Black people. Then white people discriminate against all the non-white people. I don’t know if Muslims would discriminate against us or not.

Unlike Camille, Derek acknowledged the existence of racism while normalising everyday social exclusion between “us” and “others” among dominant and ethnic groups in his statement. Camille’s and Derek’s opinions have both normalised racism and proposed that Chinese ethnic media should eliminate their advocacy role and moderate the sentiment derived from everyday racism in their reportage to be assimilated into Australia’s postcolonial culture.

As discussed by the informant Taylor, translation is a technique of re-representation. However, when news translation is conducted uncritically, Chinese ethnic media convey news agenda from dominant media that prioritise whiteness while marginalising the voices of people of colour. Chinese ethnic media do not hold a completely antagonistic approach to Australian dominant media. The interviews have identified an overlapping racial agenda between Chinese ethnic media and Australian media that underlines their antipathy towards darker-skinned people in news representation (Martin 2018b; Yang and Martin 2020). This racial hostility characterised by colourism in news representation is stemmed from colonial legacies in both China and Australia, i.e., the imperial modes of otherisation and social exclusion through racial stereotypes and one’s skin tones (Bhabha 1984; Mbembe 2015; Hark and Villa 2020). Individuals are placed along a social-status continuum where white people are assumed to be the dominant group and individuals with darker skin are subordinate (Middleton 2008).

The adherence to Australia’s postcolonial structure further extends to the lack of solidarity from Chinese ethnic media towards other immigrants of colour or Indigenous people in news translation and representation. Chinese immigrants see themselves as hard-working, ambitious, aspirational, disciplined, militant about their racial identities without being oversensitive or obsessed with race. Black people, however, are perceived as lazy, disorganised with a laissez-faire attitude towards family life and child-raising (Sani 2013, 200–207). As a result of the attention economy online and the lack of media monitoring on WeChat, the sentiment of xenophobic hostility can be even more exaggerated by Chinese-language media compared to their English counterparts (Martin 2018a, 2018b). The discussion of race or racism with Chinese media professionals predicated on the observation of biased activism. The fieldwork demonstrated that research participants’ understandings of non-Chinese ethnicities were characterised by racial stereotypes. For example, Jack, as a manager of a media outlet, preferred not to engage in discussions on race or racism in their news production and representation. He argued that more positive energy, rather than negative sentiments, needed to be conveyed through media coverage. During the interview, Jack disclosed his opinions on Australia’s policies for refugees and asylum seekers which he covered during the 2019 Australian federal election:

They [black immigrants with humanitarian visas] are not like us. They are lazy. […] They bring heaps of kids with them. They don’t work as hard as we Chinese do. They rely too much on our tax money. Chinese people are just very resilient.

Jack’s statement reflects the collective view of racism intertwining classism among the middle-class Chinese immigrant cohort, associating immigrants of colour coming to Australia with less financial capacity and their insignificant contribution to Australia’s neoliberal economy (Yang and Martin 2020; Ho 2020). This structural racism layered with classism was established and legitimised by Australia’s neoliberal elitist immigration policies since the 1990s that have been prioritising well-educated and well-resourced migrants; this particular immigrant cohort has been dominated by middle-class Asians, Chinese and Indians in particular (Ho 2020).

Conclusion

This paper addresses how Chinese ethnic media relate themselves to postcolonial Australia in their media practices and the social implications of these imbalanced associations. Despite the limited scope, the analysis informed by the 27 semi-structured interviews with Chinese-Australia media professionals contributes to illuminating more nuanced relationships between non-hegemonic media and postcolonial multicultural societies from the perspective of Chinese ethnic media in Australia.

Chinese ethnic media were originated from colonial Australia and have been surviving in the postcolonial structure. They aspire to be part of and recognised by the hegemonic society and its media culture. On the one hand, postcolonial Australia and its mainstream media system are constructed in a way that structurally marginalises ethnic communities, Indigenous people, and their media systems. On the other, Chinese ethnic media represent an instance of non-English, non-hegemonic media attempting to be part of the mainstream, postcolonial structure through uncritical learning and internalised inferiority. Depending on the hegemony through imitation and being news source providers to be visible in the mainstream only make Chinese-language media secondary in postcolonial Australia. Furthermore, structural racism embedded within Australia’s dominant media is translated to and normalised by Chinese ethnic media. In postcolonial Australia, racism intersecting classism is further reinforced across Chinese ethnic media.

This paper is one of the first steps towards understanding the internal operation of Chinese ethnic media through the lens of postcolonialism. It does not see Chinese ethnic media as something different or to be segregated but media entities that strive to be part of a postcolonial Australia. As a departure point, this paper hopes to encourage future studies to propose constructive suggestions for the sustainable development of ethnic media, Black media, and Indigenous media surviving in postcolonial societies.

The paper was drafted during the onset anti-Asian violent attacks in the West, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the intensified geopolitical divide between China and the West since 2020. In this context, the author denounces society’s persistent structures of postcolonialism and contagious racism. The paper is dedicated to further unveiling an understudied fact of inter-ethnic prejudice within Chinese ethnic media and among the Chinese diaspora that is shaped by colonial legacies extended beyond temporality and spatiality.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editor and the peer-reviewers for the constructive advice. The author would also like to extend the gratitude to Fran Martin and Pál Nyíri for the initial feedback. This project has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Office at Deakin Research Integrity, under the code 2019-267.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Immigration policies in Australia, i.e., “study-migration incentives” (Hawthorne 2014) and “temporary-to-permanent visa pathways” (Steven 2018), went hand in hand with China’s Open up and Reform policies, attracting more skilled migrants and international students from China.

2 Derek recalled that three endorsements were required during the interview happened in October 2019.

3 SBS: the Special Broadcasting Service is a majorly government-funded, hybrid public service broadcaster that provides multilingual services for ethnic and Indigenous communities.