Koala gets acupuncture: Visual framing and cultural competence in reporting traditional Chinese medicine in Australian news

Australia, a country featuring its multiculturalism, offers a unique context to examine news reporting through the lens of medical pluralism and cultural competence using the case of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Drawing upon an inductive approach informed by Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s four-level model of visual framing analysis, this article investigates how TCM is visually framed in Australian news media, specifically the national public broadcaster of Australia – the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Adopting the research method of visual framing analysis, this article analyses visual images in the news articles produced by the ABC between 2003 and 2023. The findings identify five key visual frames portraying TCM: (1) as a healthy lifestyle in multicultural Australia; (2) as a profitable business for rural Australia; (3) as an alternative medical form dominated by biomedicine; (4) evolving into a modernized form – proprietary Chinese medicines and (5) producing an impact on animal welfare. These visual frames in news photographs are reflections of journalistic cultural competence, particularly in terms of cultural desire, awareness and knowledge. These visual frames reveal that Australian journalists’ interest in TCM is shaped by two main forces: the promotion of multiculturalism through intercultural dialogue and economic rationalism within a neo-liberal policy context. They also reflect a form of cultural awareness rooted in nationalism, reinforcing symbolic distinctions between Australia and other countries.