Conference Papers
Session CG3.4 Media and Indigenous policy: connections and disconnections
1. Kerry McCallum: A generation of Indigenous health reporting
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The Australian government’s overarching policy framework for Aboriginal health is ‘Closing the Gap’, which commits to closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation. Closing the Gap is the most recent approach in a policy field characterised by dramatic shifts and sharply contested solutions. While there is much conjecture about the impact of media representation on Indigenous health, there is little research about the role of media reporting in the development of Indigenous health policy. This paper argues that the way Australia’s news media report on Indigenous issues is integral to the development of policy. The paper reports on a frame analysis of media reports and health policy documents around key Indigenous health policy ‘moments’ between 1988 and 2008. It first identifies the frames evident in the major policy statements and documents by political leaders and policy advocates. It then maps the nature of Indigenous health news items, identifying the volume, dominant topics, sources, and spokespeople involved in public discussion of Indigenous health. The paper then qualitatively analyses selected items of health news to identify the dominant, enduring and changing news frames that shape the reporting of Indigenous health. The paper concludes that while news media reporting and policy outcomes operate under distinct logics, which frequently appear to operate independently of one another, media attention to particular events works to develop and refine certain frames that are worked into particular policy solutions.
Author bio: Kerry McCallum is Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Canberra. She teaches communication theory, political communication and public opinion, and her research focuses on the representation, reception and public policy of Indigenous issues in Australia. Kerry is 1st CI on the ARC Discovery project ‘Australian news media and Indigenous policy-making 1988-2008’. Before entering academia, Kerry worked in Australian politics and the on the documentation of Indigenous oral history. She is co-author (with the late Hazel McKellar) of Woman from No Where, Broome, Magabala, 2000.
2. Michael Meadows: When the moon is in the 7th house: Indigenous media policymaking
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Australia’s first policy on Indigenous media emerged in 1993. This is despite more than 20 prior years of media production activity by various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities with various technologies. The Indigenous sector was first recognised as a significant part of Australia’s media industry following the Productivity Commission inquiry into Broadcasting in 2000. Why has it taken so long for Australia’s Indigenous media producers to be acknowledged? What policy processes have led to this situation? This paper will explore some of the variables that have influenced policymaking in the Indigenous media sector in Australia. It will draw from examples locally as well as from Canada and New Zealand to explore what impacts on the policy process and will speculate on strategies stakeholders might adopt if they are to influence the outcomes.
Author bio: Michael Meadows worked as a journalist in print and broadcast for 10 years before joining the hallowed halls of academia in 1987. Since then, his research interests have included Indigenous media policy and production, the representation of Indigenous people in mainstream media, journalism ethics and practices, and more recently, community media production and practices. He is Professor of
Journalism in the School of Humanities at Griffith University’s Nathan Campus in Brisbane.
3. Lisa Waller: Listen here: Indigenous voices in news media and policymaking
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This paper examines some of the ways Indigenous peoples have been able to define problems for policymaking and public discussion through the news media and thereby exert particular forms of influence in the policymaking process. It has been well established that Australia’s news media contributes to the social exclusion of Australian Indigenous populations. But few studies have explored the ways in which Indigenous peoples contribute to shaping public and policy agendas through their various uses of the news media. This paper draws on interviews conducted for the Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1988-2008 Australian Research Council Discovery Project to identify a range of strategies that Indigenous people and groups have used to penetrate public policy debates in the fields of primary health care, bilingual education and Indigenous media. The paper concludes that in the face of a neo-liberal policy agenda amplified through mainstream media, particular Indigenous voices have had significant impacts and involvement in Indigenous affairs, keeping alive debate about issues such as the importance of bilingual education programs and community involvement in the delivery of primary health care. This influence does not necessarily mean that ‘good’ policy results, but the evidence suggests it ensures a range of Indigenous perspectives are represented, albeit unevenly, in public and policy debates in Australia.
Author bio: Lisa Waller is a full-time PhD (Communication) candidate at the University of Canberra and lives in Ballarat, Victoria. Her research project ‘Two-way talk: the relationship between news media and the Northern Territory’s bilingual education policy 1988-2008’ is part of the ARC Discovery Project ‘Australian News Media and Indigenous Policy-making 1988-2008’. Lisa worked as a newspaper
4. Michelle Dunne-Breen: On for young and old: mediating the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention
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This paper addresses the question: how did the Australian print media perform in relation to the intervention into Aboriginal communities – the Northern Territory Emergency Response 2007 (‘Intervention’) – which was announced and enacted within a two-month timeframe. The paper will present some initial findings from my doctoral research, looking at the relative representations of elders and young people in news reports about the Intervention during this period. The thesis will bridge the gap between studies of representation through textual analysis and studies of news production and the structural constraints imposed by the political economy of the newsroom. Taking a critical realist perspective, the research employs the theoretical and methodological framework of critical discourse analysis, specifically Norman Fairclough’s dialectical relational approach, which analyses the micro level of texts and the mesa and macro levels of the social practices and cultural contexts of their production. It explores the social context of newsroom practices, and the cultural context of journalists’ and governments’ handling of Aboriginal affairs, via the textual analysis of news reports, opinion pieces and editorials and information subsidies such as press releases and their use by journalists, to investigate how this policy move was mediatised. This paper will focus on media and policy treatment of older and younger generations affected by the Intervention.
Author bio: I am a media studies PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the University of Canberra. My thesis is looking at the Australian media’s response to the Northern Territory Emergency Response a.k.a. the intervention into Aboriginal communities, 2007, in the two months between announcement and enactment. Prior to working at UC, I worked for 20 years as a journalist, both in Australia and overseas.