How the Australian media cover humanitarian issues
This article reports on the quantitative analysis of a large-scale study of the coverage of aid and humanitarian issues in the Australian media in 1999. It should be read in conjunction with the qualitative analysis (forthcoming in AJR). The analysis indicates there are large variations in the amount and type of information on these issues available to Australian audiences, depending on their geographical location, print/television/radio and public/private media preferences. For some audiences, including private sector outlets in all media outside the SydneyCanberra-Melbourne media reach, extremely limited information is available on these issues. There are marked differences between mastheads/sections/programs within particular media outlets, and between print/television/radio media. Across all media there is a tendency for saturation coverage ofa small number ofissues, most notably East Timor in the period of our study, and the exclusion of coverage of a broader range of issues, events and regions. Coverage tends to be organised around themes of conflict and violence, to tocus on certain international regions and to ignore or underplay others, to be sourced from international media outlets and to favour spokespeople notfrom the people most directly affected by the issues being reported.
A Case Study in Ethical Failure: Twenty Years of Media Coverage of Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Australia's media accountability systems (M*A*S) include the Australian Press Council, broadcasting self-regulatory schemes, public broadcasting charters, the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA) Code of Ethics, journalism education and training programmes and organisations devoted to critiquing and enhancing the media. The explicit or implicit purpose of these systems is to enable the media to play its role in repre- sentative democracy, ensuring citizens can obtain information and com- municate. So it is against these broader democratic goals that M*A*S and journalism itself must finally be evaluated. One way of doing this is to look at the end product—the media content produced by journalists—and examine how it reflects and responds to sources and events beyond the media itself. To explore further the implications of such an approach, in this article I have chosen a single case study—the Australian media's cov- erage of Aboriginal deaths in custody over a 20-year period.
A better way forward: Research on media and violence in the Pacific
Pacific researchers exploring the relationship between violence, media and their societies, are likely to be disappointed by the media-violence debate in the West which is characterised by inconclusiveness and a type of intellectual poverty which Pacific researchers would do well to avoid. This article suggests that in analysing the media's possible role in engendering violence, we are not simply concerned with representations of conflictand violence in the media. Rather, we may find that representations far removed from social turmoil can engender knowledges conducive to violence.