Session Information
23 SES 04 C, Education, Policy-Making and the Media
Paper Session
Contribution
Topic
The relationship between education policy and the media, albeit under-examined, have been pointed at by some researchers in the last decades. This may be related to a present context frequently labeled in terms of an age of mediatisation. Among other things this indicates the media as deeply involved in political processes on all levels, through the constructions resulting from media decisions about which issues to debate and cover as well as how to frame them.This is not least important in a European context since it handles an important democratic role to the media inparticipatory societies (cf. Gerstl-Pepin 2007). Accepting this characterisation, the ways in which political issues - such as education - are constructed in the media becomes a matter of great political importance since they are vividly alive in the public sphere; in people’s everyday discussions as well as in policy formation and decision making.
Research questions and motivation
The overarching research question of this paper concerns how to understand the functions of education coverage and debate in the media as co-constructing education policy. This focus is connected to an interest in the position of the media in public debate and political decision making within the field of education. A further motivation for the study is a general lack of research on this relationship (cf. Thomas 2003, 19).
Objectives
The aim of this paper is to formulate and examine discourses on education in the media. A further aim is to examine and discuss the functions of the media in terms of co-constructing education policy and discuss possible political implications of this.
I have chosen the year 2008 as a case. The main materials analysed in the paper are Swedish media text (from newspapers, television, radio and the web) but I have used media texts, as well as research, from Germany and Great Britain as well, as points of reference and in order to lift the discussion to a European level.
Theory and methodology
The questions put in this paper departs from post-structural discourse theory approaches inspired by applications of French philosophers Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida as carried out or proposed by educational researchers such as Maggie MacLure (MacLure 2003; MacLure & Pettygrew 1997; Stronach & MacLure 1997) and Stephen J Ball (1994) and by the political scientist Jacob Torfing (Howarth & Torfing 2005; Torfing 2000). This approach is at work in the post linguistic turn stance that language matters and is performative through setting limits that makes things possible/impossible. A post-structural discourse approach has also been generative for the central concepts of the study, including discursive formation and - construction, space of possibility and subject position. I combine these with the concepts; priming and framing (Johnson-Cartee 2005) from media theory. These concepts specifically focus the relationships between media texts and public debate and opinion as well as the processes through which (political) issues are defined, and thereby constructed, in media texts.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Anderson (2007): Media’s impact on Educational Policies and Practices: Political Spectacle and Social control. Peabody Journal of Education,82 (1), 103-120. Ball (1994): Education Reform –A Critical and Post-Structural Approach. Buckingham: Open University Press Blackmore & Thomson (2004): Just ‘good and bad news’? Disciplinary imaginarie of head teachers in Australian and English print media. Journal of Education Policy, 19 (3), 301-320 Blackmore & Thorpe (2003): Media/ting change: the role of mass popular media in school reform. Journal of Education Policy. 18 (6), 577-596 Gerstl-Pepin (2007): Introduction to the Special Issue on the Media, Democracy and the Politics of Education. Peabody Journal of Education,82 (1), 1-9. Haas (2007): Think Tank References on Education in the News Media. Peabody Journal of Education,82 (1), 63-102 Hattam, Prosser & Brady (2009): Revolution or Backlash? The Mediatisation of education Policy in Australia. Critical studies in education 50(2) 159-172 Howarth & Torfing (2005). Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy and Governance. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson-Cartee (2005): News Narratives and News Framing. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Levin (2004) Media – government relations in education. Journal of Education Policy, 19 (3), 271-283 MacLure (2003): Discourse in Educational and Social research. Buckingham: Open University Press. MacLure & Pettygrew (1997): The Press, Public knowledge and Education. Norwich: University of East Anglia Macmillan (2002): Narratives of social disruption: education news in the British tabloid press. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 23 (1), 27-38 Thomas (2003): The trouble with our schools’: a media construction of public discourses on Queensland schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 24 (1), 19-33 Thomas (2000): Mapping Wiltshire: A Study of the Interrelationships between Media and Policy Discourses on Education. University of Queensland. Thompsom (2004): Introduction to special issue: Education policy and the media. Journal of Education Policy. 19 (3), 251-253
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