[Public Lecture] Dominance, diversity and decoloniality: Changing media discourses on ‘religion’ in Australia

The Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice (DTCSRJ) & the Asian Research Centre for Religion and Social Communication (ARCRS) invite you to a Joint Public Lecture on "Dominance, diversity and decoloniality: Changing media discourses on ‘religion’ in Australia."

Institutional religion (Christianity) was first introduced to Australia through colonisation, and this complex relationship has shaped and continues to influence contemporary understandings and media discourses about religion. Australia, like other Western countries, displays a religious complexity characterised by simultaneous and conflicting trends—it is predominantly Christian, post-Christian, increasingly religiously diverse, non-religious, and deeply secular all at once. In this lecture, I will compare past and contemporary quantitative and qualitative research I have conducted to analyse the portrayal of ‘religion’ in Australian media discourses. Research findings reveal that while ‘religion’ has been dominantly constructed through perspectives informed by race, gender and class, there are increasing media contestations that aim to bring Indigenous perspectives from the periphery to a more central positioning. This lecture invites reflections on how media scholarship and practices can contribute to the indigenisation and decolonisation of contemporary understandings of religion in Australia.

Lecturer: Dr Enqi Weng is a Teaching Fellow from the School of Communication and Creative Arts, and a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University. She is a media sociologist with research interests in intercultural relations and communications, and author of Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia: Of Dominance and Diversity (2020; Routledge). She is Managing Editor for the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture. Before academia, she was a communications practitioner with experience in branding, marketing communications and public relations, addressing social equity and environmental justice issues in Singapore.

Respondent: Dr Ishaya Anthony is an Anglican priest who serves as the Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Kwoi in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Ishaya is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Religion Studies. He completed a residency as the 2025 inaugural Commonwealth Theologian at Westminster Abbey in London, United Kingdom. His research interests and academic publications include practical theology (preaching), religious media, religious education, ecumenism, colonialism, Anglicanism, and African socio political development (African Union Agenda 2063).

Details: 29 July 2025 8pm Melbourne Time | 5pm Thailand | 12pm (Noon) South Africa | 11am UK The event will run for 90 minutes Zoom link: https://uwc.zoom.us/j/92908843993 Meeting ID: 929 0884 3993