Deterrence for whom? Public information campaigns as border internalization in Australia

Public information campaigns, advertising conducted by destination countries to dissuade migrants and asylum seekers from leaving their countries of origin, have primarily been studied as examples of border externalization and deterrence. Australian campaigns such “No way: you will not make Australia home” plastered across billboards, radio advertisements, graphic novels, street theater, and feature films have been deployed throughout the Asia-Pacific region since the late 1990s, targeting would-be migrants from Afghanistan to Vietnam. However, in contrast to public information campaigns in other parts of the world, Australia has consistently deployed information campaigns not only externally, but also to internal audiences, including migrant diaspora communities and the wider Australian public. In this paper, I explore deterrence messaging as a form of border internalization: why were these campaigns deployed domestically? Through interviews with former campaign producers, it became clear that domestic deterrence campaigns were beneficial in multiple ways: border internalization contributed towards externalized enforcement, took advantage of existing relationships and ties, gained earned media, and contributed towards swaying domestic public opinion. Yet in addition to these stated goals, I argue that the border internalization strategies here also reflect wider understandings of national belonging anchored in the racialized colonial context of Australia.