Sequence 4 | Source: Cronulla Riots — Role of the media 2
Thus newspapers were trawling blogs looking for comments, while blogs sucked down content they agreed with or wanted to argue with from the online versions of the mainstream media, while radio was reading out SMS messages (some 270,000 SMS messages were sent in the days before the riots). Some mainstream commentators also ran blogs attached to their columns, which were linked in convoluted strings of assertion and response. Talk-back radio hosts — a number of whom actively stoked the hysteria by calling on listeners to respond to the SMS messages being circulated and reading them on air a number of times — played a central role, both in relation to mobilising the Anglo-Australian masses and conveying their views on events to politicians with whom they were influential. For Muslim youth the many Muslim on-line forums provided venues for their anger and frustration, where the various politico-religious tendencies in the communities struggled for positions from which they could ‘explain’ the situation, and calm or inflame their followers.
Source: Andrew Jacubowicz in Greg Noble (Editor) (2009) Lines in the sand: the Cronulla riots, multiculturalism and national belonging, The Institute of Criminology Press, Chapter 10, pages 182-183. Republished with permission.
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