Australian Newspaper Framing of The 1905 Papua Act

Australian newspapers detailed the progress of the Papua Act (1905) through the early Australian Federal Parliaments. This article explores this reporting in two leading newspapers of the time: Melbourne's The Age and Sydney's Sydney Morning Herald. Attention is paid to journalist news framing" these include the Othering of the Papuan nation and the presentation of the nations' colonialist interest, especially regarding land and liquor. First, drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis and then on Teun van Dijk's analysis of strategies of cognition, it is found that Othering and the presentation of Whiteness were used to champion the Parliament's approach without challenge or dissent.