ABSTRACT

Many Irish Australians resent their allocation to the super-ordinate category Anglo-Celtic, remembering Irish history on the one hand, and anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigotry in Australia on the other. While multiculturalism has been a critical point of debate and contention, it has at the same time provided a forum for analyses of Australian media and their responses to cultural difference. A leading scholar of mass media audiences in Australia, Virginia Nightingale, has argued that audiences, as far as the media industry is concerned, are essentially participants 'in the world of consumption'. Major systematic study of ethnic minority audiences in Australia, carried out in 1992 demonstrated the critical role for new immigrants played by the media, in the process of settlement. It also showed the processes of negotiation on which the ethnic audiences embarked when they engaged with mainstream television and media. The Australian dreaming may be increasingly fragmented, while the white fantasies and nightmares have become tinged with many hues.