Australian perceptions of the South Pacific are largely shaped by promotional tourist reports. Australian press coverage of violent conflict in New Caledonia erupting late in 1984, during the Kanak struggle for independence, produced a very different image of one part of the region. The Australian media coverage focused on violent events, used evocative language and dramatic headlines and stressed the threat that violence posed for Australian tourism. In subsequent months tourist numbers slumped and never regained earlier peak levels while press coverage dwindled as violent events became fewer. In New Caledonia the conservative press argued that biased Australian media coverage had encouraged local economic collapse to enable Australia to exert greater hegemony in the region and that the nationalist movement was merely a socialist or terrorist minority and that nationalist sentiments were stirred up by overseas media interest. Inevitable media distortion, through oversimplification in a complex socio‐economic context and the lack of continuous coverage, did contribute to a biased perception, whose legacy remained beyond the duration of the period of violenc
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