ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the expectations, misconceptions and misunderstandings around international students in Australia by interrogating the spatial environments of international students and Australian attitudes towards international students in mainstream and social media. The chapter starts out by looking at the ways in which Australia markets itself as a ‘dream’ destination to potential students and how expectations and realities of life as an international student in Australia sometimes collide. The chapter shows that international students have transformed cities in Australia, using a case study of Melbourne City, in particular its central business district (CBD). The chapter discusses how Melbourne’s CBD is home to international students whose accommodation premises are part of the CBD landscape and who have also transformed the ethnographic landscape and services of key Victorian-era landmarks such as the Victoria State Library – Australia’s oldest state library – ironically disconnecting international students from the local population. This chapter also looks at the reasons why international students readily disconnect from the destination society by investigating media and social media commentary about them. The chapter points to the anti-international student discourse found in official media outlets and social media commentaries.
