Filters. Border security.
Week six, we had to present in a group in response to the concept of filters in media. We took a rather different approach to the question in the sense that we picked the topic of immigration. We looked at how our border acts like a filter which opens and closes to the different types of people that comes in to the country. Now these factors are affected by the media through various ways. Our presentation consists of a video, flowchart and the speech itself.
How does the filter expand and contract?
Australia’s most obvious immigration access points include seawater via naval means and of course our airport capitals via airplanes. These points of access serve to filter who and what comes in and out of the country as well as what stays out of the border.
The expanding and contraction of filtration is governed by a circulation of media attention. Like a gauze it is complex and constantly influenced by the social climate expanding and then contracting depending on the type and extent of the attention around the borders.
As an example to illustrate this concept we could look at how media coverage in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack resulted in an almost impenetrable gauze; particularly was the case at airports. Inceptions of stricter quarantine processes coupled with the constant repetition of images of the twin towers, fires burning coupled with barbaric portrayals of Islam as the “enemy” meant that these gateways to nation-states underwent an enhanced scrutinization.
Prior to the 9/11 coverage the process of screening people was much more straightforward. Access and passageway through the immigration gateway was a matter of having the right Visa. In Australia, citizenship and correct visa status acts as a key to pass validly and safely through. A simple stamp of the pass-port will permit you access. However this is only a later part of the process. Australia’s filtration of international immigration begins with particular treaties and agreements between countries. For example people who originate from countries of the commonwealth as well as many from the European union such as Germany can be granted instant working tourist visas at the click of a button after an internet application is filed. For them it is much more easier to pass through the barrier. This part of the process is done offshore.
In contrast to this people from less developed nations who have lesser ties for instance Iraq find it much harder to travel through the filter process.
Media attention and portrayal of other countries plays a heavy part in a country’s immigration policy. Just one year after extensive media coverage on “The War on Terror,” a heavy focus on “Islam” as the enemy, resulted in a proliferated attention to our border line security.
This notion of attention overload is also paralleled in Richard Lanham’s article on the economics of attention.
“Information doesn’t seem in short supply…we’re drowning in it. There is too much information around to make sense of it all.” We could relate this idea to the attention of people of middle eastern backgrounds as being linked to terrorism. This was reported in a number of media articles. The war on terrorism also became a major issue and it became enmeshed with the immigration, especially asylum seeker policies. This posed questions as to who was valid to cross through the filter. Racial stereotyping and media depictions of middle-eastern religion and culture were used to insight fear into public perception. This resulted in the constriction of the gauze
i.e. inception of stricter and lower immigration quotas for people from Islamic backgrounds.
While there are valid passage ways through the filters there are access points which are deemed invalid. For example in the instance of asylum seekers it was published in the International migration review that after the Tampa “children overboard” incident 75% of Australians supported the decision to refuse entry to the asylum seekers.
Although origins and visas play a significant part in determining entrance through border gateways there are ways to pass through.
Money can purchase tickets through immigration borders whether it be as a student or through permanent resident visas. Furthermore Australia permits easy access through the filter to those who can demonstrate skilled labour in fields where jobs are needed to be filled in high demand.
So under all those words, we pretty much meant that the media plays a big part in our own border security. For example, the 9/11 incident caused a massive media bombardment on the war on terror and the idea of Islam as not being a religion of peace. Now, our minds are so moulded that we start thinking and linking muslims to terrorists. This results in the tightening of the filter (border) to people of that background. Now there is a video that we made, and we specifically edited it in a way that it contrasts every scene to parallel on how the media works on moulding our minds. enjoy!
