Framing Analysis Of Australian Media Coverage And Representation Of Skilled Migration During Malcolm Turnbull's Term

Australia is widely acknowledged as a country of immigrants.in which the rapidly increasing skill-based migration is a key contributor to the net overseas immigrants,helping maintain the demographic stability and economic growth.There is no doubt that this branch of immigrants is of great significance to Australia.However,this circumstance has caused the public opinion of their arrival to be surprisingly complicated.People acclaim them to be beneficial to the economy,but there are voices pinpointing their potential to lower the living standard of the local residents from many aspects.Based on the framing theory this paper will take a look at the mixed feelings towards skilled migration through the lens of media coverage.The author takes two big domestic Australian newspapers The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald as the sampling sources to practice an empirical analysis examining their images and related issues.In this study,the questions that will be looked into are as follows:I)What issues are included or mentioned in the newspapers concerning skilled migration?2)How are these issues reported?3)What images of skilled migration are reflected?4)How are these images portrayed?The research found that The Australian tends to represent skilled migration in a positive and ambiguous way with occasional opposition and The SMH are prone to negation and ambiguous representation.Regarding the reporting frequency and intensity of these two newspapers,they are strictly relevant to the change of government immigration policy.As for political,social and economic frames that media news tends to employ the reports within,positive assessments come more from the political frame than from the social frame,indicating the situation where skilled migration is favorably acknowledged in political sense as a pillar in the policy-making process,but is socially interpreted as a threat to environment and community.Economic frame places equal stress on the positive and negative depiction,on one hand recognizing skilled migration's great potential in bringing wealth and on the other hand analyzing the possibility of latent disadvantages.In the discussion section,this paper selects four most popular yet controversial images of skilled migration in the reports,namely contributor to national interest,creator of city congestion,vacancy filler and job stealer,to further illustrate the rationale behind the depiction.Australian mainstream newspapers interpret the existence of overseas workers dichotomously,not only believing in their significance in boosting Australian economic interests,but also fearing the risks Australia has to bear absorbing much human capital.