Analyzing The Power Of News Media For Journalism

Journalism Origins and Evolution of Media

Discuss about the Analyzing the Power of News Media for Journalism.

Journalism has its origins in the early 14^th to 17^th century when printing was just beginning to make it presence felt. Newssheets devoted to news from beyond boundaries, newspapers that laid the foundation of the Press, mass circulation of papers characterized the later 18^th and 19^th centuries. The 20^th century witnessed the evolution of other forms of the media that is the radio and television.

The aim of the essay however, is to focus on the role of the news media in strengthening the voices of the people in the margin. The marginalized people may include the women in the field of sport, the indigenous Australians, refugees and the environmentalists. The essay will provide an overview of the news media and scrutinize its role in bringing the voices of these people to the fore.

McQuail (2013), while focusing on the role of journalism, identified “three levels of attention” that comprised the practice of journalism. The individual journalist, the news organization and the society comprised these three levels of attention.

The journalists often find themselves in a dilemma while deciding whether to follow principles of the organization or the principles of the society. The news organization maintains and follows its own set of principles although without colliding with the societal norms and rules. It is but interesting to note that the principles followed by the news organization often collide with the principles of the individual journalists. The reason for this is the tendency of the news organization to enhance its position within the field by building connection with the political parties or politicians. On an individual level, the relationship between journalist and the audience is argued to be of either a critic or a medium.  

During the 1991 Gulf War, the way CNN, an American news-broadcasting channel covered the entire war and sent live feed to the viewers across the globe; it changed the shape of the media (Mowlana 2018). The people regarded the media as the source by which they could voice their opinions against or in favor of various issues. Many organizations and individuals that work towards ensuring equal opportunities for all classes of people, turn to the news media to tell their stories. However, not always are their stories told in ways they desire. There are numerous instances where the news media played an important role in putting forward the views of the marginalized people. One such instance is the place of women in sport.

The Role of News Media in Strengthening Marginalized Voices

In sport, the representation of women has always been a matter of debate to the journalists since the media entered its realms. It needs mentioning that sport holds a prominent place in any society including Australia. In fact, the craze for sport has surpassed the films as well. The Australian nation is obsessed with sport and many role models have come out from this field. They included the cricketing legends like Sir Don Bradman, tennis legends like Rod Laver, swimming stars like Ian Thorpe and so on. Like the sporting legends, sport journalists also became somewhat a star while covering the lives of these sporting legends. People like John Arlott, John McPhee and Norman Mailer amongst others redefined the way sport is transmitted to the viewers. However, the significance of women as both sporting personalities and sport journalists was not realized until the late 20^th century. Even after that, women have not been given the importance they deserve as sport players and writers. Evidences are in abundance that shows the role news media plays in both undermining the voices of women sporting personalities and acting on behalf of the suppressed voice. The telecast of men and women’s cricket is a great example of understanding this bias. While all the mainstream news media channels and papers cover the men’s cricket, women’s cricket receives the least coverage. Other sports like the Australian Football League (AFL) also have been biased towards male players (Sportsbusinessdaily.com 2018). The news media in these cases must put aside the profit motives and think of their role as those who have the responsibility to be the voice of the people in the margins like the women in sport.  Farzalipour et al. (2012) conducted a study on the role of mass media in women’s sport and found that the mass media has “high potential role in women’s sport but for some reasons, they do not do it properly”. Some reasons could the lack of understanding of journalists about their role as amplifiers of the suppressed voices. Other reasons could include the barriers they face while trying to help the marginalized ones. The most significant and visible barrier is financial support. It has been found in most cases that women sports do not attract sponsors and thus lack sufficient budget. Journalists too are constrained by the lack of finance to cover women in sport. The question priority is also an issue and acts as a barrier to journalists concerning supporting women’s voice in sport. Most viewers prefer male sport and are willing to pay handsome amount for it but do not feel the same for females. News organizations are paid more to cover men in sports and hence they too are bound by company policies and profits.

Three Levels of Attention in Journalism

Focusing on the indigenous Australians, they constitute a significant part of the Australian population and yet receive the least attention. As Stoneham, Goodman and Daube (2014) remark, the indigenous people comprising of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been the true inhabitants of the country and still they have been neglected on a large scale. Although later reforms and acts tried to uplift the community, there was a renewed conservatism with the election of John Howard as the prime minister in 1996 (Gulmanelli 2014). Indigenous land rights, the resources allocated to them and the initiatives and services meant for them were abolished. The mainstream Australian media covered the events from the mainstream perspective neglecting the voices of the indigenous people. The stories of the indigenous people lacked clarity and credibility and were not wide ranged as well. The people were stereotyped when shown in the media and core issues were suppressed by sensationalizing violence. Instead of highlighting the injustice done to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the media focused on their old traditions, family disputes, poor health and other issues that were not related to the core issue. The projection of indigenous people in such a way in the media led to the belief that they do deserve the treatment. In all this, the journalists forget that they are sometimes the only source of information that reaches the non-indigenous people and hence the picture portrayed by them is taken as the ultimate truth. The stereotypes induce a sense of racism amongst the mainstream people towards the indigenous population. It has been found that the news media significantly affects the opinion of the people and the policies that are framed by the government. Therefore, it is important for the news reporters to understand their importance as the medium and voice of the margined people and act cautiously in this regard. Many barriers limit the journalists and news organizations from depicting the true situation of the indigenous people and being their support. The first is the perception that controversy, negativity and unexpectedness regarding indigenous people garner more viewership. Second is the journalists’ perception that the audience have restricted craving for stories relating to the indigenous people. Third barrier is financial. The limited availability of resources as opposed to the cost of reporting indigenous stories by visiting remote places causes huge financial stress upon the news organizations. Lastly, the journalists who report on indigenous issues rely on expert sources or official sources rather than relying on authentic sources. Overcoming these barriers would allow the news media to contribute genuinely towards portraying the true picture of the indigenous people. 

Dilemma for Journalists and News Organizations

The next section of people in the margins includes the environment activists who work day and night for protecting the environment from further degradation. These people are aware of the power of the media and thus work hard to draw attention of the journalists towards this issue. Although news media in the contemporary setting puts least significance to the issues of environment, separate department of environment journalism was formed to look into issues related to it. Environment journalism provides significant links among science, policy and the people. It helps audiences understand the multifaceted issues related to environment. Further, environmental journalism forms people’s thoughts for action. However, the issues raised by the activists are given least coverage by the mainstream media and these only find place in feature stories.  In Australia, environmental journalism developed during the 1800s, the same period around which, the Australian press had developed. Gradually, the stream developed and started reporting on multifarious issues out of which some had political influence while other were neutral. Rachel Carson was a prominent figure during the 1960s to 1970s who contributed towards environmental reporting that raised people’s awareness. On the other hand, environment activists shifted their attention from environmental movements to attaining maximum media coverage (Simons et al. 2017). This led to public accusing the activists of having too close relationships with the journalists. Around the globe, the changing paradigms of environmental journalism witnessed the rise in interests in climate reporting due to growing alarm about climate change. Journalists while reporting on environment hence confront many challenges. these include, activists with various agendas coming to journalists, rise of the internet as the new claimer of the bulk of the market and the lack of context and depth in stories further decreasing public’s interest in environmental issues.  News media has the crucial role of reporting issues environment and science from an unbiased perspective as policy makers often use it to frame different policies.

The last section of people in the margin is the refugees residing in different countries. The refugees are the most vulnerable part of any population because they are placed in the middle of nowhere. They cannot claim to be the citizens of that country neither could they go back to their own country. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of the journalists to bring forth their struggles to the larger population. Refugees often fall prey to the politics of two countries and pay the price of it with their lives. The media coverage often lacks depth regarding the plight of the refugees. In a report published by the Refugeecouncil.org.au (2018), it was found that only 21% of the news coverage of migration and asylum referred refugees or their plight. The focus of these news reports is mostly the laws governing migration. However, the news coverage manages to bring to the surface, the contradiction in the policies discussed at the political level and their implementation at the ground level. The main issue with this minimum coverage and importance given to refugees is the access journalists have to report on such issues. in Australia, most journalists fail to have access to refugees and thus only manage to report those accounts gathered from a third source. Nonetheless, it is the news media that has been able to bring a change in the lives of these refugees by covering their plight whenever they found an opportunity. This led to the formation of several policies and organizations that look after these people.

In the end, it can be stated that the news media plays an important role in making the voices of the marginalized people heard despite the dominance of the social media. However, the journalists face numerous challenges while bringing to the fore the voices of the people in the margins. The essay provided an elaborated account of the role of the news media as a platform that amplifies the margined people. These margined people include women in sport, the indigenous people, the environmental activists and the refugees. The essay discussed the issues related to sportswomen being represented in the media as compared to male sportspersons. Further, the essay explained the barriers that journalists face while reporting these issues. Similarly, the media do not cover the issues of indigenous people and their problems entirely accurately. The essay also mentioned how the trend in environmental journalism changed over the years along with the changing responsibility of the journalists.

References:

Farzalipour, S., Akalan, C., Tuncel, S., Ghorbanzadeh, B., Majid, M., Kashef, M.M.Z. and Hajizadeh, N., 2012. The Role of Mass Media in Women’s Sport. Scholars Research Library, 1(1), pp.6-13.

Gulmanelli, S., 2014. John Howard and the ‘Anglospherist’reshaping of Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 49(4), pp.581-595.

McQuail, D., 2013. Journalism and society. Sage.

Mowlana, H., 2018. Triumph Of The Image: The Media’s War In The Persian Gulf, A Global Perspective. Routledge.

Refugeecouncil.org.au (2018). Speaking Out: voices of young people from refugee & asylum seeking backgrounds – Refugee Council of Australia. [online] Refugee Council of Australia. Available at: https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/publications/reports/speaking-voices-young-people-refugee-asylum-seeking-backgrounds/ [Accessed 21 May 2018].

Sportsbusinessdaily.com 2018. Women in sports media cite progress, obstacles. [online] Sportsbusinessdaily.com. Available at: https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2017/03/06/Opinion/From-The-Executive-Editor.aspx [Accessed 21 May 2018].

Stoneham, M., Goodman, J. and Daube, M., 2014. The portrayal of Indigenous health in selected Australian media. The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 5(1), pp.1-13.

Simons, M., Tiffen, R., Hendrie, D., Carson, A., Sullivan, H., Muller, D. and McNair, B., 2017. Understanding the civic impact of journalism: A realistic evaluation perspective. Journalism Studies, 18(11), pp.1400-1414.