Recent geopolitical events have focused debate about immigration in Western nations on Muslim immigrants and the role of Islamic culture in these societies. Several commentators have noted that Muslims have become increasingly ‘othered’ by the mass-media, and that Muslim culture has been portrayed as incompatible with, and a potential threat to, the dominant Western culture (Manning, 2006). In Australia, which officially adopted a policy of multiculturalism more than 40 years ago, public opinion polls suggest that while support for the policy remains strong, many believe that certain cultural groups are not compatible with Australian society (Dunn, Forrest, Burnley, & McDonald, 2004). This has important implications, as recent research into acculturation preferences of dominant groups in other Western nations suggests that acceptance of cultural maintenance may not extend to cultures which are regarded as incompatible or which are perceived as threatening the cultural status quo (Florack, Piontkowski, Rohman, Balzer, & Perzig, 2003; Montreuil & Bourhis, 2001). This research program sought to investigate the role of perceived threat in tolerance of Muslim practice in Australia, with a focus on the impact of media portrayals. Recent research suggests that media may influence the criteria which members of dominant groups use when making decisions about acculturation practices (e.g., Domke, McCoy, & Torres, 1999). In a similar vein, this research pursued an information-processing perspective, seeking to demonstrate that accessible media exemplars of Muslims in conflict with others lead those who are reliant on the mass-media to take symbolic threat into consideration when making decisions about tolerance of Muslim cultural practice. Five studies were conducted, the first three using survey methodology, and the latter two using experimental designs. Study 1 demonstrated that Australians who were more reliant on television as a source of information considered issues such as terrorism and interethnic tension more important than those who were less reliant on television and that television reliance was more strongly associated with concern about both issues than either general or genre-specific levels of television viewing, (Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, 1976; Rubin, Perse, & Taylor, 1988). Study 2 demonstrated that tolerance of Muslim practice in Australia was explained largely by general attitudes to multiculturalism, but that symbolic threat played an independent role in predicting tolerance for those who were reliant on the media. Study 3 replicated this finding, and demonstrated that it was symbolic threat rather than other forms of threat identified by Stephan and Stephan’s (1996) integrated threat theory which interacted with media reliance to predict tolerance of Muslim practice. Busselle and Shrum (2003) have suggested that media influences later decision making by making relevant exemplars more accessible in memory for those who use media frequently. In Study 4 participants read a transcript of a fictitious television interview describing a conflict between Muslims and Christians in Belarus, and then recalled examples of similar events. Results indicated that media reliance was positively associated with greater recall of events involving Muslims, and negatively associated with perceived difficulty of recall, providing support for the notion that the media reliant have more accessible exemplars of Muslim conflict. Study 5 aimed to demonstrate that the accessibility of such exemplars among the media reliant is the key factor explaining the interplay between media reliance and perceived threat on tolerance of Muslim practice observed in Studies 2 and 3. It sought to do so by comparing the responses of participants who first recalled an example of either a natural disaster (the control condition) or an act of terrorism (the experimental condition designed to make salient stereotypes about Muslims). As expected, among participants for whom terrorism was not made salient, symbolic threat predicted tolerance only for those high in media reliance (who ostensibly have accessible exemplars) – consistent with the results of Studies 2 and 3. However, among participants for whom terrorism was made salient, threat predicted tolerance even among those low in media reliance. Taken together, the research provides insight into an important real-world issue, tolerance of Muslim cultural practice in Australia. It demonstrates the role of both multicultural ideology and symbolic threat and makes a unique theoretical contribution to acculturation research regarding the mechanism by which the media may influence tolerance of minorities in multicultural societies. Implications for theoretical perspectives on prejudice and discrimination and for applied concerns about promotion of community harmony are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/285896 |
| Creators | White, Campbell John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
Page generated in 0.1668 seconds