Contested representations in historical Perspective: Images of Islam and the Australian Press 1950-2000

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, newspapers have provided Australians with much of what they know, or rather apprehend, about Islam as a religious system and Muslim culture in general. This stands to reason. On the one hand, very few non-Muslims would bother going to the length of consulting the Qur'an, the prime source of Islamic theology, to discover for themselves the prescriptions for life it lays down and embodies. On the other hand, the press has long superseded all other forms of literature as the instrument of mass communication, a register of current national and international information, and the medium through which the world's changing landscape can be regularly viewed.