Melbourne’s ‘African Gangs’ and Media Narratives

Abstract

This paper examines the racialised media coverage of so-called ‘African Gang’ Crime in Melbourne, Australia. It argues that we can usefully examine such media coverage as a risk communication where relevance and authority comes from experiential rather than expert media voices. In the case of the Australian television program A Current Affair’s coverage of this issue, when examined through the theoretical lens of parrhessia, experiential knowledge was found to be dominant. It was found that expert voices, such as those of the Victorian police were problematised by this media coverage. It is concluded that in this case, attempts by expert voices to undermine experiential media narratives were unsuccessful.

Keywords

• African gangs
• Risk
• Parrhesia
• Crime
• Experts