"Telling ’our’ Stories":Chinese Media And Chinese Identity Construction In Australia

The thesis discussed the relationship between the media sphere and identity by exploring Chinese media in South Australia, and to discuss its role in construction of the "Chinese identity". Media is a powerful shaper of culture and communication in society. Ethnic media is crucial in ethnic identity shaping particularly in a highly multicultural society that exists in Australia. Chinese media in South Australia has consciously been constructing Chinese identity to their audience. In the last decade, Chinese population (especially from Chinese Mainland) has increased prominently in South Australia, where the society showed highly multicultural features. However, not a single mainstream media is able to serve the interest of any particular non-mainstream ethnic group. However the native Chinese media have been carefully sculpting a path to integrate both cultures. These Chinese media shoulder the responsibility in promoting the notion of "what it means to be Chinese" in Australia. This is the focus of my study.The research selected four Chinese media’s contents between Sept2013and Dec2014and analysed samples of their practices with interviews to see how these varied media constructed concepts about cultural identity in a diasporic setting. These four media are iAge Weekly, SA Chinese Weekly, Yiben Magazine, and Hwashe on Wechat. They form a significant part of the media consumed by Chinese people in South Australia. By studying these newspapers, we can gain insights into how the Chinese cultural identity is negotiated under the context of immigration. The thesis drew on primary data as well as previous studies on the representation and construction of Chinese identity. The innovation of this study lies in that it draws a panoramic picture of the media contents inclination and at the same time offers in-depth analysis and tracks down the common trends varied Chinese media adopted to reconstruct Chinese identity. In addition, a portion of "Wechat" media contents, as the New Media landscape of our time (social), was studied as well. The thesis first described media producers’ agenda-setting, how they define their target audience and what position or tact they take when guiding their media organizations and how that would influence media practices. The thesis then delved into the ways Chinese identity represented in the four media, the implications of such representation and analysed that the Chinese media utilized the concept of "Chineseness","immigrant", and binary comparisons to construct Chinese identity. Although the four media have distinct characteristics in terms of medium used and their own political position, they display certain similar trends in interpreting Chinese identity. This identity shaping may help the audience to feel a sense of belonging and to better settle into their new "home". Although these media practices are largely based on their economic interests, they try to paint a big and unified Chinese community by stressing common experience of Chinese culture and immigration, which all Chinese readers could relate to, blurring intra-group cultural, political and historical differences, and elevating the prestige of the Chinese community. They also further the immigration chapter of Chinese people and adjust Chinese identity into the host society, by advocating "hybrid" cultural experiences and emphasizing positive stories about Australia as well as South Australia. They promote a lifestyle that is elevated when compared to the previous life in their homelands. China is depicted as increasingly influential and Chinese people richer than they used to be. Yet, Australia is pictured as the ideal destination for a "Chinese dream". As a result, such representation practices construct a new Chinese identity for the Chinese people living in South Australia:proudly embracing traditions and looking forward to becoming valuable members of Australian society.