Squeezing cultural diversity to tell a story

While attending a funeral in Melbourne after having spent 18 months in the city seeking higher education, I was surprised to see almost everyone laughing, which would be regarded as an unforgivable offense to the deceased in China. After I signed my name in the notebook as an attendee, I overheard someone whispering that the Chinese girl was so rude and arrogant that she didn't even pass the pen to the next person.

This small incident reveals a big cultural difference between China and Australia. In Australia, like most countries in the world, the media are the primary source of information on which a country's image is built. Apart from the views of a minority based on personal experiences and studies, most Australians are likely to base their opinions on what they hear or read in the media.

The images of China and the Chinese people in Australia have been built based on two distinct elements. The first is the process of newsgathering and presentation by reporters - and the internalization of the information received by media persons is the second. Image creation starts with the selection of a story for publishing in the Australian media. Millions of incidents and events take place in China that are worth reporting, and even if Australian reporters in China have access to just a small fraction of those, a radical culling process is needed to choose the stories to be presented to Australian readers and viewers.