The representation of the national quality framework in the australian print media: silences and slants in the mediatisation of early childhood education policy

ABSTRACT

While research investigating the mediatisation of education policy has primarily been undertaken in school contexts, this paper reports on a study conducted in the context of early childhood education. The paper examines how a major policy in early childhood education in Australia – the National Quality Framework – has been mediatised in selected newspapers. Drawing on Foucauldian, critical discourse analysis and mediatisation theorising, we utilised the corpus linguistic tools of WordSmith Tools 6.0 to inform content analyses of 121 articles from two major media corporations, News Corp and Fairfax. Our findings highlight the utility of treating our data as two distinct corpora, with each corporation found to have utilised discursive technologies to proffer competing positionings of the Framework. The contested nature of the Framework – generally purported in Fairfax to be a tool that supports quality early education, as opposed to News Corp’s framing of the policy as one that inhibits affordable childcare – poses implications for which advocacy groups are regarded by the media as having authority and thus likely to influence policy through the reporting of their voices. Implications for newspaper media as a discursive influence on parents’ childcare decision-making are also considered.     

Korean media discourse on international education

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the representation of international education in the Korean print media, by comparing texts produced by the leading conservative (Chosun) and progressive (Hankyoreh) newspapers in 1997 and 2014 (N?=?271 articles). We find a major expansion and diversification of media articles on international education, including rising numbers of articles mentioning non-traditional destinations (beyond USA and UK), written or shaped by non-traditional media producers (i.e., educational agents), and including individual-utilitarian and positive themes. We quantify, and find statistically significant correlations among, three key variables (destination, media producer, discourse theme). Articles mentioning non-traditional destinations are more likely to be written or shaped by agents than by journalists only. Articles mentioning non-traditional destinations and articles written or shaped by agents include relatively more positive and individual-utilitarian themes (but not more individual-expressive themes) than do articles not mentioning non-traditional destinations and articles written by journalists only. Theoretically, we link the evolution of media discourse to neo-liberal structural and ideological changes that encourage market competition and consumer choice.     

Teachers and public engagement: an argument for rethinking teacher professionalism to challenge deficit discourses in the public sphere

In the context of public debates on teacher quality, both media and education policy texts construct deficit discourses about teachers, discourses that work together to inform public, commonsense understandings of teacher quality. This paper explores the interrelationships between discourses on teachers constructed on television and in policies in the Australian policy context. Critical discourse analysis was employed to trace the links between the discourses on teachers constructed in a television situation comedy and discourses in the policy documents that inform the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme. The paper demonstrates the interdiscursivity of media and policy discourses on teacher quality by analysing the ways that the television sitcom constructed a particular version of teachers within the quality policy context. The analysis highlights the need for teachers to challenge these deficit discourses. The paper concludes by arguing for a rethinking of teacher professionalism in ways that include active engagement in public debates on education.     

The cultural politics of national testing and test result release policy in South Korea: a critical discourse analysis

This paper examines the ideological construction of educational discourses embedded within the South Korean print media. Significantly, these discourses have recently promoted the resurrection of a sweeping national testing and test results release policy. Through careful examination of the “test plus release” policy, the authors show how the government has achieved hegemonic power by shaping public opinion through the national testing contexts. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of educational policy texts from the government and top 10 print media sources, this paper analyses how discourses on “accountability”, “the right to know” and “the fairness of the tests” have been produced, reproduced and recontextualized to favour particular perspectives. The authors also examine how government and influential print media discourses interact with political and cultural factors such as “acclaiming the evaluative state”, “education fever” and “meritocratic beliefs” to achieve public consent for the new “test plus release” policy.     

Media/ting change: the print media's role in mediating education policy in a period of radical reform in Victoria,Australia

This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis, cultural studies and communication theory, studies on media and educational reform, and the work of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Luhmann in particular, to explore how the print and media ‘mediated’ a period of educational change marked by moves to self‐management in schools in Victoria, Australia. It considers how the media was mobilized by various education stakeholders, and in turn informed relations between schools and government, through policy discourses and texts. It considers why and how particular themes became media ‘issues’, how schools and teachers responded to these issues, and how the media was used by various stakeholders in education to shape policy debates. It is based on a year‐long qualitative study that explored critical incidents and representations about education in the print media over a year in the daily press. It illustrates the ways in which a neo‐liberal Victorian government mobilized the media to gain strategic advantage to promote radical education reform policies, considers the media effects of this media/tion process on schools and teachers, and conceptualizes how school and system performance is fed from and into media representations, public perceptions and community understandings of schools and teachers' work.     

Discourse Analysis of News Coverage in Print and Electronic Media

This paper explores news coverage in two media: print and electronic. The discourse analysis represents differences in general structure,images attached,and texts of specific print and electronic media.     

报纸版面的多模态话语分析——基于《人民日报》2010年世界杯特别报道的一个版面分析

兴起于20世纪90年代的多模态话语分析已成为语言学研究的热点。作为信息传播的主要渠道之一和重要的平面媒体,报纸集文字、图片、颜色、各种图形、版面布局等各种多模态手段的运用于一身。例如,《人民日报》就在焦点热点事件报道中融合各种多模态元素。本文以Lim的整合的多模态模型框架为基础,聚焦于《人民日报》世界杯报道的一个版面,通过对多模态的诠释以及对各个模态的话语意义和语法关系的分析,对该版面进行了多模态话语分析。本文深入挖掘了的语境意义,并剖析了各个不同模态如何相互协调,从而将信息传递给读者并达到预期效果。     

'The Trouble with Our Schools': A media construction of public discourses on Queensland schools

This paper gives an account of competing public discourses on schooling. In particular, it investigates one newspaper's coverage of the release of an educational report. The paper combines interview data with a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts to show how media reporting of Queensland schools constructed a preferred discourse on education that represented schools as being in crisis, 'in trouble'. The analysis describes how the paper shaped popular opinion on educational policy through the construction of public discourses of crisis in education. Further, the analysis shows how this discourse positioned particular groups as the authoritative voice on standards in Queensland schools. It shows how, at a time when teacher quality was under question, the media constructed a public discourse that diminished the authority of teachers to speak about education policy, granting that authority to the newspaper's editor, who assumed the people's voice on educational issues. This analysis of the construction of public discourses about education policy gives insights into the media's place in educational policy-making. In so doing, the paper adds to the small body of literature that investigates the relationships between the media and education.     

Contesting education policy in the public sphere: media debates over policies for the Queensland school curriculum

This paper investigates the work of media discourses on education policy in public debates over the Queensland school curriculum. It draws on theories of discourse, theories that have recently influenced the field of policy sociology, to outline a conceptualization of policy and media texts as discourses in the public sphere. In so doing, it notes the significant contribution such public discourses on education make to the policy process. The paper employs critical discourse analysis to investigate the discursive constructions of curriculum during one particular policy initiative. The analysis focuses on newspaper debates over the inclusion of a subject called Health and Physical Education (HPE) in the Queensland secondary school curriculum. The paper shows how educational policy issues were discursively constituted and contested through the construction of public discourses on education policy. In particular, it demonstrates how such public discourses worked to construct authoritative voices on educational policy. The paper concludes with a call to teachers and policymakers to seek opportunities to construct an authoritative public voice on issues of education policy.     

Fixing higher education through technology: Canadian media coverage of massive open online courses

The popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been shrouded in promises of disruption and radical change in education. In Canada, official partnerships struck by higher education institutions with platform providers such as Coursera, Udacity and edX were publicized by dailies and professional magazines. This print coverage of MOOCs captures the contemporary ideological struggle over the meaning of both technology and higher education. By means of a thematic analysis of the English Canadian print coverage of MOOCs (2012–2014), this paper shows that both online educational technologies and higher education are constructed through an economic frame. However, this frame does not go unchallenged. Where newspapers construct MOOCs as an easy fix for an allegedly inefficient and outdated higher education system, professional magazines question the relationship between technology, higher education and money. These different representations point to the efforts of academic communities to develop alternative social imaginaries of education as public good within a dominant neoliberal framing of MOOCs and of the higher education system. In conclusion, the paper reflects on how the academic community can create alternative discursive spaces by shifting the discussion of MOOCs from economic concerns to civic goals.     

Public education and the post-fordist accumulation regime: A case study of Australia

This paper discusses the current radical changes in the Australian education policy. Central to the argument is the claim that the radical restructuring of the public sector hastened the loss of the possibility of any critical evaluation of national policy.The paper argues that this shift has been forced on the Australian state by the objective conditions expressed in a new realignment of the dominant transnational capital with the subordinate domestic capital, and in the shifts in a global capacity for consumption. The argument is underpinned by the claim that a new, post-Fordist (or flexible specialization) regime of capital accumulation is at present replacing the Fordist regime of mass production and consumption.The paper further argues that in order to achieve the system-preferred changes in the Australian education policy, the Australian government introduced radical changes in the production rules of policy formation. This involved a narrowing of policy making context and, crucially, an exclusion of voices critical of the shift towards economic reductionism.This loss of a critical sensibility constitutes the central concern of this paper. To advance the argument, in Part One, the paper discusses the relationship between the Australian state and the post-Fordist objective conditions of capital accumulation. Part Two argues that the lack of intellectual tradition in Australian public life was at least partially responsible for the easy passage given to neoclassical economics¹ perspective in becoming a dominant public policy paradigm. Part Three locates the role of education within the context of the European philosophical tradition. It provides the link between critical sensibility, the project of Western civilization (which clearly extends beyond the modern vs. postmodern dichotomy), and the role of public discourse. Finally, the paper argues that education policy needs to take the issue of critical sensibility seriously. For this reason, it needs to be informed by a desire to go beyond the mere technical fit between graduates and the workplace, and allow itself to be inspired by new ideas, and new ways of seeing.Parts One and Two of this Article appeared in INTERCHANGE, Vol. 26, #2, 1995.     

他者图景：域外媒体报道中的广州形象分析

在媒介化社会,城市形象的感知和评价表现出较强的媒介依赖性。通过对域外（广州区域以外）四家报纸的872篇有关广州报道的内容分析,发现域外媒体对广州的关注主要集中在政治、经济、社会等关键议题上,四家报纸呈现的广州,经济活跃、展会发达,政治具有改革探索精神,体育表现突出,但科教、治安以及广州制造形象欠佳。同时,还发现不同性质的报纸对广州的选择和建构方式不同,以《新民晚报》《楚天都市报》为代表的市民类报纸,新闻选择看中趣味性、接近性,报道多用批判视角;以《人民日报》《中国青年报》为代表的全国发行的官方权威报纸,新闻选择看中重要性、显著性,以正面宣传为主,报道视角更为亲善。     

Public education and the post-fordist accumulation regime: A case study of Australia

This paper discusses the current radical changes in the Australian education policy. Central to the argument is the claim that the radical restructuring of the public sector hastened the loss of the possibility of any critical evaluation of national policy.The paper argues that this shift has been forced on the Australian state by the objective conditions expressed in a new realignment of the dominant transnational capital with the subordinate domestic capital, and in the shifts in a global capacity for consumption. The argument is underpinned by the claim that a new, post-Fordist (or flexible specialization) regime of capital accumulation is at present replacing the Fordist regime of mass production and consumption.The paper further argues that in order to achieve the system-preferred changes in the Australian education policy, the Australian government introduced radical changes in the production rules of policy formation. This involved a narrowing of policy making context and, crucially, an exclusion of voices critical of the shift towards economic reductionism.This loss of a critical sensibility constitutes the central concern of this paper. To advance the argument, in Part One, the paper discusses the relationship between the Australian state and the post-Fordist objective conditions of capital accumulation. Part Two argues that the lack of intellectual tradition in Australian public life was at least partially responsible for the easy passage given to neoclassical economics perspective in becoming a dominant public policy paradigm. Part Three locates the role of education within the context of the European philosophical tradition. It provides the link between critical sensibility, the project of Western civilization (which clearly extends beyond the modern vs. postmodern dichotomy), and the role of public discourse. Finally, the paper argues that education policy needs to take the issue of critical sensibility seriously. For this reason, it needs to be informed by a desire to go beyond the mere technical fit between graduates and the workplace, and allow itself to be inspired by new ideas, and new ways of seeing.     

Representations of ethnic minorities in China's university media

This paper examines the representation of ethnic minorities in China through a review of campus newspapers, a major print medium in which universities exercise power over the discourse of cultural recognition. Three universities attended by minority students were selected. A two-dimensional mode (content and configuration) is established to analyze ethnic representations. A combination of content analysis and discourse analysis is used to categorize and analyze text and photographs relevant to ethnicity. The study concludes that (1) different discursive practices are employed to construct ‘images’ of ethnic groups as ‘Others’ or ‘Us’; (2) representations of ethnic minorities and the Han generate three discursive dichotomies between minority and majority: minority groups are distinctive, potentially separatistic, and visible; and the Han people are normative, patriotic, and invisible, respectively; (3) the university media reflects an ideology of ‘state multiculturalism’ that constructs a reflexive representation of the relationship between majority and minority.     

Welcome and exclusion: an analysis of The Australian newspaper’s coverage of international students

For countries such as Australia exporting education is recognised as an important contributor to the nation’s economy. The embodiment of this export industry in Australia is the presence of international students in tertiary institutions across the country. Despite their considerable contribution to social, political, cultural and economic life, there have been recent examples of violence, exploitation and discrimination against international students in Australia. To understand how international students are both welcomed and excluded from Australian life, we use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse news reports published in an Australian national newspaper from 2009 to 2011. Following van Dijk (Ideology: a multidisciplinary approach, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1998) we view newspapers as ideological institutions that mobilise discursive power to polarise public opinion to support their ideological agenda(s). In the case of international students we use CDA to show how media discourses construct international students in ways that commodify their participation in higher education and marginalise them as the excluded ‘other’ in Australian society. Our conceptual and analytical approach has broader implications for national higher education policy and international student experience by exposing the social inequalities that accompany globalised international education.     

高等教育政策生产：价值的权威控制及其演变

文章基于教育政策本质上是对教育领域中价值的权威控制,政策文本作为官方话语的载体反映了权威对价值的控制这一基本假设,围绕改革开放20年间我国高等教育政策文本中权威对价值的控制有哪些表现和特点,这些表现和特点反映了高等教育政策发展怎样的趋势和机制这一研究问题,在政策生产的分析框架下对我国1978年至1998年533个国家教育法规政策文本及其7473条法规条款中的权威、价值和控制三个变量进行了编码、统计分析和假设检验。论文概括了改革开放20年间我国高等教育政策生产的基本特征;构建了高等教育政策文本的经验价值体系;提出了基于价值和控制的11种政策文本类型和政策生产理论框架;揭示了政策生产中权威分裂、价值冲突和反控制三个主要矛盾,并从政策生产要素、政策生产过程和作为＂产品＂的政策三个层面探讨了什么是＂好＂的高等教育政策生产。     

Opening Up Alternatives to Dominant Ideological Constructions of English Language Teaching in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) on the way English language teaching (ELT) is currently understood and practised in Malaysia. It presents a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts in order to show how CEFR represents a form of Western-imposed globalisation that conflicts with local cultures and values. We argue that the newspapers construct a dominant discourse that promotes a vision of society that accords with CEFR–ELT implementation. Our aim is to contribute to the development of a counter-discourse that challenges the broader world-view underpinning ELT.     

Defining curriculum policy through slogans

This article explores the upper secondary (or post‐16) school market. The study on which it is based, funded by the Swedish Research Council, was entitled ‘Upper‐secondary education as a market’. Empirical data include official statistics, policy documents, school publications, company reports and school visits. Printed and other news media were also scrutinised to identify how the marketisation of education is represented in public discourse. A number of themes emerged from the study which included mapping the expansion of the school market, chains of ownership and influence, marketing strategies, choice and the school market and issues raised in the media. These imply that there is a new market discourse which represents a clear break with previous social democratic education policies primarily aimed at enhancing citizenship and wider democratic values within an inclusive public school. However, critiques have also emerged including a call for strengthened regulations of and control over independent schools and concern about an education market equated more with shares and profits rather than pedagogy and student citizenship.     

The policyscape of transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: a case study

ABSTRACT

In this paper, our purpose is to investigate policy informing texts and discourses referencing transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system. Drawing on scholarship from transgender, queer and policy studies, we highlight the interplay of progressive and conservative forces affecting the Western Australian education system’s commitment to supporting transgender and gender non-binary students. Based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) project, the paper constructs a Western Australian case study, which threads together the critical examination of policy informing texts, qualitative interview data and media discourses surrounding public narratives, such as the Safe School Coalition Australia’s attempt to implement a school program, which builds awareness about gender and sexual diversity. Emerging through the material, discursive and spatial elements of locales and networks, our case study has the potential to deepen knowledge regarding the heuristic capacity of employing policyscape as an analytic category. In this vein, we draw attention to the possibilities and challenges for re-conceptualizing gender and providing trans-affirmative school spaces that promote equality.