National press is considered as integral institution in articulation, propagation, and dissemination of the national agenda. The press helps general public in interpreting news stories. This article is set to explore the nature of representation of Islam and Muslims in the editorials of the Australian newspapers during January 01, 2016, to March 31, 2017. This study has employed van Dijk’s ideological square and lexicalization approaches within the critical discourse analysis paradigm to examine editorials from two leading Australian newspapers. The findings showed that both the newspapers The Age and The Australian produced entirely opposite discourses in their editorials regarding Islam and Muslims. The findings have demonstrated that The Age portrayed Islam and Muslims positively and favorably while The Australian constructed Islam and Muslims in a critical and negative way. In the editorial contents of The Age, predominant themes regarding Islam and Muslims were “victimization,” “understanding,” “multiculturalism,” “solidarity,” “cohesion,” and “harmony.” On the contrary, predominant discourse in the editorial contents of The Australian were “securitization,” “Othering,” “violence,” “categorization,” and “stereotyping.”

Recent research has revealed a prominent ‘political parallelism’ discourse in the coverage of Islam and Muslims by international media. The studies have evidenced that the coverage of Islam and Muslims is widely influenced by the ideological leanings of the newspapers. This paper is set to explore whether the ideological differences of the Australian newspapers are reflected in the coverage of Islam and Muslims from January 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017. Employing Van Dijk’s (1998) ideological square and lexicalization approaches within the CDA paradigm this study examined editorials from two leading Australian newspapers. The findings have validated the existence of the ‘political parallelism’ discourse in the editorial contents of the selected newspapers representing Islam and Muslims.

There is a plethora of research conducted in the UK, US, and in few other European countries that has revealed a prominent discourse of securitization in the news coverage of Islam and Muslims. Researchers have evidenced that the media have portrayed Islam and Muslims as a security threat to the West. This paper sets out to explore whether the editorial coverage of Islam and Muslims in the Australian press reflects the securitization discourse from August 1, 2016 to October 31, 2016. Employing Van Dijk’s ideological square and lexicalisation approaches within the CDA paradigm, this study examined editorials from two leading Australian newspapers. The findings validate the existence of the securitization discourse in the editorial contents of the selected newspapers during the period under study. The Australian portrayed Islam and Muslims as a security threat to Australia, Europe, and to the West more explicitly than The Age. This study confirms that there is a clear transformation in the Muslims’ construction in the Australian press from an exotic presence to the bearers of values, culture, and political inclination considered violent, radical, and threatening to the Australian values and life style.

This paper is an attempt to explore whether and to what extent the Australian newspapers; The Age and The Australian, produced the “solidarity discourse” regarding Islam and Muslims during the time period January 01, 2016 to March 31, 2017. Edward Said’s Orientalism and many other research findings suggest that there is clear evidence of positive in-group (Us/the West/the Occident) and negative out-group (Them/the Islam and Muslims/the East/the Orient) discourse in the representation of Islam and Muslims by global media. However, Jeffery C. Alexander asserts that the media being “communicative institution” of a society plays an important role of “civil repair” by producing a “solidarity discourse”. His civil sphere theory proposes that the media as a “vital centre” highlight and generates common understanding of the solidarity which can resist “non-civil” polarization and radical actions in civil societies. The researcher has employed “Lexicalization” and “Ideological Square” approaches from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm proposed by van Dijk. The findings of this study show that The Age produced the “solidarity discourse” overwhelmingly by emphasizing on “understanding”, “cohesion”, and “we-ness”. On the contrary, the “solidarity discourse” is entirely absent in the editorials of The Australian.

Research conducted in some European countries and in the US has evidenced that there is a considerable difference in the media coverage of the National/Internal and Foreign/External Islam. Wherein, the latter is viewed and portrayed as a ‘greater threat’ to the mainstream society. This research endeavour is an effort to explore the predominant themes associated with the Foreign/External Islam in the editorials of the two selected Australian newspapers during January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017. The researcher has employed Tuen A. van Dijk’s (1998) ideological square and lexicalization strategies from the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm to examine the editorials of The Age and The Australian. The research findings are evident that in the coverage of the Foreign Islam both the selected newspapers have associated ‘conflict’, ‘violence’ and ‘collectivism’ with Islam and Muslims, however The Australian highlighted ‘women underrepresentation’ also. While covering the National Islam, The Age highlighted the ‘victimization’ and ‘prejudice’ to Muslims in Australia and stressed on the need of ‘understanding’, ‘harmony’ and ‘cohesion’. However, in The Australian the National Islam also received the same treatment as did the Foreign Islam in terms of themes.