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.
The Media and the Rwanda Crisis: Effects on Audiences and Public Policy
This chapter is based on an analysis of British television news coverage of the Rwanda refugee crisis of July 1994.1 It is part of a programme of research undertaken by the Glasgow Media Group into relationships between media coverage, audience reception and political decision-making processes. In other work, the Group is examining media representations of migration from the Third World and the impact of such images on public beliefs and attitudes to issues of ‘race’.2 The representation of crisis in the Third World was also examined in earlier work on the Ethiopian famine of 1984–85 and the media response to this.3 This study showed the low priority which news stories from the Third World typically have in Western news agendas and the very limited range of explanations which are offered in news reports on the nature and origins of such crises. This theme is also developed in the current study of the media and the Rwanda crisis in that the reasons given for the refugee exodus are extremely limited. It is also clear, however, that whatever the faults of the media, they have become central to the priorities and planning of some NGOs and government agencies. As we will show, this can have a crucial impact on policy decisions.
In-services and empty threats: The roles of organizational practices and workplace experiences in shaping U.S. educators' understandings of students' rights.
This paper applies theoretical frameworks from organizational sociology and sociolegal studies to examine factors associated with educators' conceptions of students' rights to due process in disciplinary actions. We analyze a unique representative data set of 402 teachers and 200 administrators in U.S. high schools to investigate how educators understand the rights to due process articulated in the Supreme Court case of Goss v. Lopez (1975). We then examine whether individual characteristics and participation in organizational processes are associated with educators' understandings of students' due process rights. Findings suggest that educators' understandings of students' entitlements to due process vary with educators' level of education, experience of school-related legal threats, and participation in district or diocese in-service training programs on students' rights. Results point to organizational climate as a key factor in shaping educators' rights conceptions and the role of law in American schools.