The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia

Despite intense concern among academics and advocates, there is a deeply felt absence of scholarship on the way media reporting exacerbates rather than helps to resolve policy problems. This book offers rich insights into the news media's role in the development of policy in Australia, and explores the complex, dynamic and interactive relationship between news media and Australian Indigenous affairs. Spanning a twenty-year period from 1988 to 2008, Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller critically examine how Indigenous health, bilingual education and controversial legislation were portrayed through public media. The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia provides evidence of Indigenous people being excluded from policy and media discussion, as well as using the media to their advantage. To that end, the book poses the question: just how far was the media manipulating the national conversation? And how far was it, in turn, being manipulated by those in power? A decade after the Australian government introduced the controversial 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response Act, McCallum and Waller offer a ground-breaking look at the media's role in Indigenous issues and asks: to what extent did journalism exacerbate policy issues, and how far were their effects felt in Indigenous communities?

Autorentext

Kerry McCallum is associate professor and senior research fellow at the News and Research Centre, University of Canberra, and is a former President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association.

Inhalt

Part I: Setting the Scene
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 1: Introduction: Media dynamics and policy intractability
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 2: Policy histories and discursive environments
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Part II: Media Coverage of Indigenous Affairs
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 3: Race, indigeneity and the media: Theoretical trajectories in Australian studies of Indigenous media representation
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 4: News from another country: Remote Indigenous reporting for mainstream audiences
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 5: The Australian and Indigenous affairs
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Part III: Indigenous Health Policy
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 6: Key moments in Indigenous health policy, 1988-2008
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 7: Framing Indigenous health in the Australian news media
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 8: Policymakers' media-related practices and 'new paternalism' in Indigenous health
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Part IV: Bilingual Education
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 9: Bilingual education: A case study
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 10: Saving bilingual education: Media-related practices of Indigenous policy advocates
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 11: A game of mirrors: News, policy and bilingual education
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller Chapter 12: Conclusion: Change and continuity in media and Indigenous affairs
Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller