Whiting out the news: Governmentality, discourse and nation in newsmedia representations of the indigenous peoples of Australia

This dissertation is a genealogy of the discursive mechanisms of censorship that govern newsmedia representations of Indigenous peoples on national television news in Australia. Beginning with a discussion of the colonial constitution of Australian nationalism, its spatiotemporal predications, and the contestation of this colonial nationalism in the struggle for Indigenous rights, this dissertation traces an analytic of the relations of power that inform national television news discourses of Aboriginality in Australia. Based on this analytic, this dissertation maps a genealogy of the discursive mechanisms of censorship that have governed national television newsmedia representations of three newsevents (1996–1999): the Port Arthur massacre, Mirrar opposition to mining at Jabiluka, and the Wik debate. Readings of these newsevents point to a need for the articulation of intellectual and cultural property rights in the formulation of policies regarding Indigenous access to communications technologies in Australia