School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications
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ItemMornings with Radio 774: can John Howard’s medium of choice enhance public sphere activity?( 2007)This paper addresses the necessity for program-specific analysis in radio research by focussing on Jon Faine’s Morning Program on ABC Radio 774 (Melbourne). After establishing the present Prime Minister’s preference for radio appearances over all other types of media, I examine the extent to which Faine’s particular iteration of talkback has the capacity to enhance public sphere activity, given the view that this medium is being strategically utilised by politicians to gain virtually uncontested access to listeners. My examination occurs principally through a morning’s observation of Faine’s program, supported by information from recordings of a constructed week of the program from the previous two months. My findings suggest that while a certain amount of ‘top-down’ flow of information is unavoidable, some contestation of ideas often occurs, mitigating politicians’ exploitation of at least this particular program. Faine’s program does, moreover, seem to give the impression of an acceptance of listeners calls on topics that affect their daily lives, even though only a small number of ‘ordinary’ callers are featured each day. My observations suggest this program does offer processes that enhance public sphere activity, although with some qualifications.
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ItemRelatively benign corruption? Critical discourse analysis for media students( 2007)Don Watson, in his book Death Sentence, claims that the way in which the media disseminate information and the way politicians manipulate this process have resulted in a kind of corruption. Assuming this is the case, I suggest in this paper that it is therefore useful to equip students in media courses with the skills of critical discourse analysis. A useful starting point for teaching these skills to undergraduates, I have found, is a newspaper article by Alexander Downer, excerpted from one of his speeches about the 'war on terror'. Such a mediated political linguistic act as this will of course inherently involve power or resistance to power, and will contribute to the formation of a specific discourse community via strategies of coercion, resistance, opposition or protest, and dissimulation/de-legitimisation. This necessarily results in relations of struggle that are played out at the lexicogrammatical level, on which I invite students to focus. Such media texts, which represent and foreground starkly opposing ideologies, can be useful vehicles for teaching the concept of discourse communities, as well as the reading strategies of critical discourse analysis.
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ItemWordlings in a Web 2.0 World( 2009)
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ItemWoman of the End Times( 2004)
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ItemMornings with radio 774: Can John Howard's medium of choice enhance public sphere activity?(UNIV QUEENSLAND PRESS, 2007-02)
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