What is the role of Australian media, especially news media, in shaping a sense of who we are as a nation, amidst talk of a Cold War with China? How do these media produce public knowledge about a country that is increasingly imagined as its strategic enemy? This talk addresses these questions through the politics of voice, framing, and truth-claiming in journalism, and considers how the answers to these questions may impact on democracy and multicultural citizenship in Australia.

About the speaker

Wanning Sun is a Professor of Media and Communication in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. A fellow of Australian Academy of the Humanities since 2016, she is currently a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts (2020-2022). She is a specialist in Chinese media and cultural studies; rural-to-urban migration and social change in contemporary China; and soft power, public diplomacy and diasporic Chinese media. Her research monographs include Leaving China: Media, Migration, and Transnational Imagination (2002), and Subaltern China: Rural Migrants, Media, and Cultural Practices (2014).

This CIW Annual Lecture is also a part of the Chinese Studies Association of Australia 17th Biennial Conference.