Media representation of African individuals in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on mental health

• Date: 30 August 2024
• Pages: 540-556
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-11-2023-0105
• Published date: 30 August 2024
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Inequalities & diverse/minority groups,Sociology,Race & ethnic studies,Minorities,Multiculturalism,Racial identity,Work,economy & organizations,Labour movements
• Author: Wole Akosile,Babangida Tiyatiye,Adebunmi Bojuwoye,Roger Antabe

Media representation of African individuals

in Australia during the COVID-19

pandemic and its impact on mental health

Wole Akosile, Babangida Tiyatiye, Adebunmi Bojuwoye and Roger Antabe

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of media representation on the mental

health of Australians of African descent during the COVID-19 pandemic. By analysing the media

coverage of COVID-19 restriction breaches, particularly focusing on individuals from African

backgrounds, the study aims to shed light on how racially charged narratives can contribute to

emotional distress and exacerbate feelings of alienation within these communities. The findings

highlight the detrimental effects of such portrayals, emphasising the need for more responsible and

inclusive media reporting to safeguard the mental well-being of culturally and linguistically diverse

populations.

Design/methodology/approach –The study employed media content analysis to explore

representations of Australians of African origin versus the broader Anglo–Australian popula tion during

the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on racial identity’s impact on news coverage of COVID-19

restriction breaches. Researchers classified and distilled extensive textual content, using a diverse

sample from various ethnic-racial backgrounds, with an emphasis on African Australians within the

CALD community. Data analysis was conducted using NVivo (version 12) software, following an

inductive approach.

Findings –The findings underscore the consistent portrayal of people from African communities as

outsidersand the racial profiling they experiencein media coverage of significantissues like COVID-19.

Originality/value –There is very limited research that examines the impact of media coverage on

Africanmigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords Australia, Mental health, Media representation, COVID-19 pandemic, African migrants,

Media coverage, Racism, Racial discrimination, CALD, BIPOC, Race, Ubuntu, Multiculturalism,

Intercultural

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a pronounced impact on most countries around the

world, including Australia, where it caused over 11,000 deaths among nine million

registered cases. The impact of COVID-19 on the Australian economy has also been

significant. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Reserve Bank of Australia

reported the largest decline in economic activity since the previous century (Australian

Bureau of Statistics, 2021). Along with its marked economic aftermath, the pandemic has

also had consequences for the mental health of the Australian population. As documented

by the COvid-19 and you: mentaL heaLth in AusTralia now survEy project, a dynamic

ongoing study specifically designed to comprehensively examine the effects of the COVID-

19 pandemic on mental health and overall well-being of individuals in Australia, the

Australian general public reported experiencing higher levelsof internalizing emotions such

as depression, stress and anxiety (Rossell et al.,2021). The groups at the higher risk of

Wole Akosileis based at the

Greater Brisbane Clinical

School, Faculty of

Medicine, University of

Queensland, Herston,

Australia. Babangida

Tiyatiye is based at the

Department of Psychiatry,

The University of Western

Australia, Perth, Australia.

Adebunmi Bojuwoye is

based at the School of

Public Health, The

University of Queensland,

Herston, Australia.

Roger Antabe is based at

the Department of

Humanities, University of

Toronto Scarborough,

Toronto, Canada.

Received 13 November 2023

Revised 31 May 2024

Accepted 6 August 2024

Funding declarations: This

research received no specific

grant from any funding agency

in the public, commercial or

not-for-profit sectors.

Author contribution: Authors

WA and BT conceptualized the

paper and wrote the

introduction, discussion and

conclusion sections, and RA

and AB performed the literature

search and wrote the

methodological section.

Data availability: Data

supporting this study are

openly available from Factiva

and Newspaper databases in

Australia.

Conflict of interest: The authors

have no conflicts of interest to

declare.

PAGE 540 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MIGRATION, HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE jVOL. 20 NO. 4 2024, pp. 540-556, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1747-9894 DOI 10.1108/IJMHSC-11-2023-0105

experiencing increased negative emotions were young females and people with mental

illness (Rossell et al., 2021).

The adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health was particularly strong for

Australian individualsof African background, as the pandemic brought about a newwave of

racist reactions, which further aggravated the detrimental effects of the pandemic on the

affected people’s mental health. Previous research has extensively documented the impact

of Australia’s violent colonial past (Jalata, 2013;Markwick et al.,2019), and Australia’s

transition from the formerly indigenous society to the currently largely migrantnation has left

unresolved many long-lasting issues –among them discrimination, racism, exclusion and

scapegoating of migrants –that have persisted in Australian society and that come to the

fore whenever a public healthcrisis arises.

Historically, health crises such as infectious disease-related pandemics threatening human

lives across countries and continents have frequently been racialized. This racialization

typically emanated from fear of the “other” (Ittefaq et al.,2022). Health-related hysteria and

anxiety, fueled by an existential threat, give rise to latent racism or prejudice (Ittefaq et al.,

2022). Accordingly, during crisis periods, Australian minorities, including people of African

background, typically become objects of biased narratives from politicians and the media

(Quintero Johnson et al.,2021). As an important source of information, the media plays a

pivotal role during a health crisis, and the way the media presents information shapes how

society perceives who is responsible for a health crisis and how to deal with the

corresponding existentialthreat (Ittefaq et al., 2022).

In Victoria, Australia, several mediaoutlets blamed migrant communities, at least in part, for

the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak,which led to an increase in the rates of micro-

aggression, xenophobic comments and racism against minority groups (Ben and Elias,

2024). A representative case illustrating these trends was the case of two teenage

Australian girls of African origin from Queensland, Australia, who breached the state

COVID-19 regulations (Yussuf, 2020). The media breached the privacyof these girls, which

eventually led to online harassment and racist abuse that later spread to their entire

community (Yussuf, 2020). The abuse these girls endured at the time was significant

enough for the Queensland Human Rights Commission to issue a statement appealing for

this abuse to stop, stating, “we cannot allow this to create a second wave of COVID-related

racial hostility” (Yussuf, 2020). This statement highlights that the actions of specific

individuals within a communityshould not be used as a pretext to harass or racially vilify the

entire community –particularly considering that people of European ancestry who

breached the same COVID-19 regulationswere afforded privacy and anonymity and did not

experience bullying or harassment, nor did their broader community (Yussuf, 2020).

Media representation plays a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions, attitudes and

beliefs about various social groups, including minority populations. According to previous

research, negative portrayals of specific social groups in the media can increase the levels

of racial or ethnic discrimination, which, in turn, can lead to adverse health outcomes, such

as higher rates of chronic diseases, cardiovascular problems and reduced access to

health-care services for the affected people (Williams, 2018). Said differently, the

perpetuation of stereotypes and biasesin media narratives can reinforce the existing health

disparities and hinder efforts to effectively address them. To date, extensive evidence is

available showing that media representation of minorities can lead to discrimination and, as

a result, to adverse psychological outcomes, such as increased anxiety, depression and a

low sense of well-being (Saleem and Ramasubramanian, 2019;Saleem et al., 2019). For

instance, in a study that compared the impact of COVID-19 media coverage on Asian

minorities and Caucasian/white Americans in the USA, QuinteroJohnson et al. (2021) found

that people of Asian background reported experiencing lower subjective well-being and

higher psychosocial distress and loneliness. Similarly, Gatwiri and Anderson (2020) argued

that media portrayal of minority communities in Australia is a concern because such

VOL. 20 NO. 4 2024 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MIGRATION, HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE jPAGE 541