The proportion of multicultural immigrants in Australia has increased from about 20% to 51.5% over the past 30 years. Little systematic research has been done on their roots in Australia, because the change has been so rapid and so large that the government has not understood the situation before it has had a significant impact on the community.
Until the early 1980s, immigrants to Australia were predominantly English-speaking British and non-English-speaking European immigrants with a close Christian culture. Non-English speaking immigrants who came to Australia and learned to speak English could easily integrate into the community as there was not much difference in their living habits. However, from the mid-1980s onwards, Asian non-native English-speaking immigrants became the majority, and the Australian society became more diverse. Multicultural media played an important role in the integration of these immigrants into Australia.
Only large groups of immigrants have newspapers and magazines in their own language, and most minority groups use community radio to broadcast in their own language. In every major city, the Australian government has a government-run SBS and a ethnic language radio station staffed by community volunteers. In Melbourne, 3ZZZ Ethnic Radio broadcasts in over 60 languages every week. With the increase of immigrants, there are other community radio stations, which provide minority radio stations with lesser utilized time. Today, there are more than 700 programs of ethnic language broadcasting in cities and towns across Australia every week.
SBS broadcasting began in Australia in the 1970s, and ethnic radio and television became an important part of Australian society, leading to the integration of immigrants into the community to this day. Research has shown that, to this day, these traditional media outlets are the primary means by which ethnic Australians learn about life in Australia, rather than the internet platforms that people think of.
Many people think that the internet, social media platforms and mobile smartphone technology have changed the way we access information today, and that this is the way of the new media, but this is not the case. If we think about how we change the way we think about things, we will realize that traditional media still plays an important role. For multicultural immigrants, especially Chinese immigrants, we are even more influenced by the Chinese media in Australia.
Chinese rarely use English media
Migrants other than Chinese, most of whom are Indians, are forced to use English for work or life, so English becomes a common language in their lives. As a result, many immigrants, especially young ones, use at least a little English as a language of communication after living in Australia for a period of time, and obtain information about Australia through English, unlike Chinese immigrants. Due to the large number of Chinese immigrants and their wealth, it is easy for them to establish a Chinese-dominated economic circle, and at the same time build up a lot of supportive communities. Therefore, most of the Chinese people are able to use Chinese as a language of life as they wish, and there is not much motivation for them to learn English.
Young immigrants, many of whom are professionals or have more contact with the mainstream society at work, also use basic English for communication, but not many of them are able to make speeches in English. These people can use English to access information and news in their daily lives, but at home, when they communicate with their family members or take a break from work, they mostly use Chinese, and of course, some of them use English in between. It can be said that using Chinese media is a more comfortable choice for them.
It is true that there is a lot of information in Chinese on the Internet today, which can be used by anyone in a free information society. Chinese people from different regions can actually continue to use the Chinese media that they are accustomed to using in their place of origin to communicate with their friends. Therefore, the use of Chinese language information on the Internet is primarily for social purposes, rather than for information about life in Australia. It can be said that prolonged use of online media makes it difficult for people to participate in Australian life. However, Chinese people who have been living in Australia for a long time will use high quality Chinese information sources if they are available.
Chinese-translated social media platforms are heavily used
Many Chinese social media platforms have translated many mainstream social media messages into Chinese to meet the needs of this community. For new immigrants over 50 or 60 years old, it is difficult for them to learn English, so they are happy to use these Chinese platforms.
It is in this context that the SBS Chinese TV and radio stations in Australia, whether in Cantonese or Chinese, have developed into reliable news sources, which is precisely why the Australian government is willing to invest a lot of resources in SBS. However, since SBS is funded by the Australian government, it naturally adopts the values of the mainstream Australian society and is oriented towards providing news, but cannot provide much entertainment information. However, due to the prevalence of the Internet, Chinese people can access Chinese entertainment programs anywhere on public platforms, so the quality of life of immigrants is not too restricted.
Secondly, there are many social media platforms that provide news and information in Chinese, and many people feel that they provide a lot of information in Chinese. Yes, but WeChat, which is the most widely used social media platform in China, is known to be a strictly regulated and managed system. It can be said that any information that can be disseminated must be tolerated by the Chinese government, and because of this, most WeChat users have a much lower opinion of the truthfulness and accuracy of the information that is circulated.
Moreover, the WeChat platform has also been influenced by the “navy”, which crowds out the real information with false information, and thus often misleads people, and their perception of things can be easily manipulated. Therefore, many people do not want to believe in the information spread on WeChat, and it is not easy to influence the thinking and values of Chinese immigrants. However, these platforms can be like a stratosphere of like-minded people, making it difficult for a person to accept new things and things he or she is not familiar with, and therefore not easy for a person to change his or her mind about things. It can be argued that the use of WeChat is an effective tool for the Chinese government to continue to control the thoughts and contacts of Chinese people coming to the country.
Lack of politically neutral Chinese media in the community
Due to the high cost of running a media outlet, most Chinese information services using social media platforms now hold on to their readers with low-quality translated news (many of which are translated and edited by machines in China). However, since online platforms are regulated by the Chinese government, the information obtained from these platforms only reflects certain viewpoints, so it can be said that the audience is not able to get comprehensive information.
However, after using these platforms for a long period of time, many people have come to believe that what they read is correct, and that they can’t distinguish between true and false information because they don’t have access to Australian society.
I remember in the 2018 Victorian election, the Leader of the Opposition, Matthew Guy, proposed that maintaining law and order in the home should be a key part of his platform, as it was something the Liberal Party had heard from Chinese immigrants that they valued. However, these platforms were not recognized by the general public. In the mainstream society, people simply do not think that law and order is a very important issue. In this election, the Liberal Party received even less support than in the previous one, and Matthew Guy stepped down in disgrace. Do you still remember that in WeChat, there are at least hundreds of WeChat groups organized by region to support the cooperation among Chinese people to maintain the safety of their home life? Doesn’t this show that Chinese people really believe that home safety is a big issue?
In fact, many people have pointed out that this kind of thinking is just a reaction to the insecurity of Chinese immigrants who have recently moved from living in high-rise urbanized buildings to bungalows in Australia, and due to the large distance between families, it does not really reflect that the law and order situation in Melbourne is poor or unsafe. Because everyone is talking about it, it is mistakenly assumed that this is the case, or that it is a common belief shared by the rest of the community. That’s because we’ve mistakenly taken people’s social conversations as accurate information about our society.
I remember in the same-sex marriage referendum, some people analyzed the Chinese WeChat platforms and found that a high percentage of people were against same-sex marriage, but the results of the referendum showed that the majority of Chinese people were in favor of same-sex marriage. This shows that the supporters are reluctant to express their views to their friends, while the opponents are more courageous to express their views, which creates misunderstanding in the community. Therefore, it is a mistake to take the messages sent by social media platforms as public opinion, news, or social consensus.
Traditional Chinese media in the Chinese community, especially the print media, is limited by the Chinese government’s huge foreign propaganda funding, and most of them are pro-China and full of political propaganda, which makes it difficult for independent media to survive as they try to maintain their neutrality and hope that their readers will understand and integrate into Australian society. The situation has only improved since 2016, when China abandoned its traditional media outreach, and instead monitored WeChat to influence overseas Chinese. However, it is believed that these independent media outlets still need more support from the community and mainstream society in order to survive and help the Chinese to plant their roots in Australia.。
Mr. Raymond Chow