Essay Question 8 - In the contemporary context the new relationship between media and politics has direct consequences for education. Discuss.

Question 1

Introduction to Essay Question 8. In the contemporary context the new relationship between media and politics has direct consequences for education. Discuss.

Answer 1

• New relationship between the media and politics =
• “. . . catching politicians in embarrassing confessions and humiliating gaffes has become the primary objective of modern political journalism” (Tanner, 2011, p. 39).
• Deliberately using unflattering photographs, Exaggeration, Distortion, Propensity for inaccurate reporting to turn into ‘fact’, Story to entertain not to inform (Di Cullen, Lecture 8)
• Linguistic inflation - any problem is a “crisis” a criticism is a “savage attack” (Tony Blair, from Lecture 8)

Question 2

Discuss the worry of viewers being bored and implications

Answer 2

“Frightened that readers and viewers might be bored by any substantial treatment of policy issues, editors and producers now reduce politics to little more than opinion polls, gossip and gaffes”.
• In the modern world, a policy would be investigated and debated primarily based on whether the policy was good or bad.
• Outside influences such as industry groups “liking” the policy and government fortunes did not interact with media and politics.
• Cardiff University concludes that most content created by journalists is uncritical regurgitation of material collected
• Journalists try to create viable content from tiny stories and miss genuine stories
• The cause of this is generally a shorter attention span

Question 3

Discuss the effect of the diversion from ‘important news’ to ‘popular news’

Answer 3

“James Fellows argues that the ‘real and alleged scandals, have come to serve as a distraction machine, systematically diverting attention to a spectacle whenever the political systems threatens to deal with an important but dull seeming question affecting the way people actually live”
• Sometimes media can take a more enlightened approach to issues concerning the way we live
• Media and political energy devoted to search for gaffes
• If media has reduced the role of politics in the postmodern world
• Media creates victim and villain between political figures
• Creates conflict and becomes entertaining
• ‘National chocolate eating day’ is evidence that society is evolving to suit interests of media

Question 4

What are the implications to education?

Answer 4

• The role of politics and the way the outside world is perceived is manipulated by media
• Instils the ‘dog eat dog’ world
• Media looking for blunders in politics to publish to create sales
• Reduces the role of politics to good bad, blue vs red
• Teachers the wrong life lessons about how we operate inside and outside of school
• Creates a competitive and confrontational society

• Link to education = politicians pushing for all students to learn a language (preferably asian) AND review of national curriculum
– Victorian Government’s Vision for Languages Education
• “helps our children and young people to develop their first language literacy, problem-solving, intercultural and communication skills, and it equips them for a wide range of careers.” (VGV for Lang Ed, Lecture 8)
– “contributes to social cohesion, underpins Victoria’s increasingly globalised and export-oriented economy and enables speakers of the languages to maintain or reclaim their languages” (VGV for Lang Ed, Lecture 8)
– “ We want Victoria to have one of the world’s most diverse and effective languages education programs. We will settle for nothing less.” (VGV for Lang Ed, Lecture 8)
• Link to education = Australia selling National Curriculum overseas - our 3rd biggest export
• 2009-2010 = Australia’s Education services exports = $19 billion (ABS)
• Neo-conservatism = curriculum is becoming more regulated -> more results based EG) NAPLAN // curriculum is being packaged and sold overseas // languages curriculum is being implemented in all primary schools