Going for woke: How The Australian, the Herald Sun and The Sydney Morning Herald adopted the lexicon of ‘wokeism’

Abstract

The word ‘woke’ emerged from within African American vernacular and then, after a process of pejoration, became popular as a political exonym among conservative adherents of so-called ‘culture war’. The study examines the word’s adoption by three major Australian newspapers (The Australian, Herald Sun and The Sydney Morning Herald). By focusing on the type of journalism in which ‘woke’ appeared, it documents the role of conservative advocacy in popularizing a term that then spread throughout the publications as a whole.