As political rhetoric intensifies around immigration, researchers warn communities are disproportionately exposed to false information — and trusted local media is part of the solution
Multicultural communities across Australia are being disproportionately targeted by misinformation — and the problem is accelerating.
New research from the Australian National University, based on a nationally representative survey of more than 5,200 Australians, found that respondents estimated unemployment among Australia’s eight million foreign-born residents to be 143 per cent higher than it actually is. The study found that in most cases, media narratives about migrants are more effective at shaping public opinion than facts.
The findings come as political rhetoric around immigration has intensified, with migration increasingly linked in public discourse to housing affordability, cost of living, and pressure on services. Experts from the Council to Homeless Persons have been unambiguous: the housing crisis is the result of a long-term failure of supply policy, not migration. Victoria has the lowest proportion of social housing in Australia — a fact that has nothing to do with the backgrounds of the people living here.
Research from the University of New South Wales, conducted between 2023 and 2024, found that political disinformation circulates both online and in person among friends and family in multicultural communities — spreading most effectively through private group chats and closed social media channels where trusted voices are absent and regulatory oversight is limited.
In a separate study, nearly two-thirds of Australian adults — 60 per cent — reported encountering election misinformation in the two weeks prior to the 2025 federal election. Only 41 per cent felt confident they could verify whether information online was true.
A gathering of multicultural media leaders in Melbourne this month heard that the solution is not simply more fact-checking — it is the presence of trusted, community-embedded voices. “You are not distribution channels only,” one speaker told the gathering. “You are a trusted voice. And when a trusted voice speaks, it is a voice that is believed.”
For Geelong’s African and multicultural communities, access to credible, locally grounded information is not incidental. It is the difference between being informed and being misled — between participating in civic life with confidence and withdrawing from it in confusion or fear.
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Emerge Magazine covers news, policy, culture and community for Geelong’s multicultural communities. emergemagazine.com.au
