Tough love and talkfests: Discourses of Aboriginal policy in media reporting on Closing the Gap

Thomas, A

Tough love and talkfests: Discourses of Aboriginal policy in media reporting on Closing the Gap

Thomas, A

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Publisher:: Aboriginal Studies Press
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations?: 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments, 2019, 1st, pp. 177-195
Issue Date:: 2019-11-30

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Thomas, A https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5460-5641
dc.contributor.editor	Thomas, A https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5460-5641
dc.contributor.editor	Jakubowicz, A
dc.contributor.editor	Norman, H
dc.date.accessioned	2020-05-07T04:44:59Z
dc.date.available	2020-05-07T04:44:59Z
dc.date.issued	2019-11-30
dc.identifier.citation	Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations?: 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments, 2019, 1st, pp. 177-195
dc.identifier.isbn	9780855750848
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/140539
dc.description.abstract	This case study undertakes textual analysis of selected national and New South Wales (NSW) mainstream print news media in the weeks following Rudd’s Apology on 13 February 2008 which contain thematic references to ‘close the gap’. It finds that, across the whole sample, there was a failure to distinguish between the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), and Closing the Gap. The NTER, also known as the Intervention, had been launched by the previous government and was supported by Kevin Rudd’s Labor government after some modifications (Bielefeld, 2014). Not only did this erase Aboriginal communities outside the remote Northern Territory (NT) from the mainstream media coverage of Closing the Gap, the negative behaviour said to characterise life in these communities was often generalised to Aboriginal people as a whole, supporting a simplistic discourse of dysfunction that was generally associated with Aboriginality. Aboriginality thus became the gap that needed closing. This supported an overwhelming deeper narrative that ‘tough love’, using Intervention style measures that overruled existing ‘failed’ Aboriginal authority, was necessary to close the gap, while a cognate narrative told that a mixture of consultation and Intervention-style approaches, based on expert opinion, was needed to implement Intervention-style measures. In both narratives, such measures could avoid the apparent mistakes of the self-determination era.
dc.format.extent	14
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Aboriginal Studies Press
dc.relation.ispartof	Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations?: 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.title	Tough love and talkfests: Discourses of Aboriginal policy in media reporting on Closing the Gap
dc.type	Chapter
utslib.for	160803 Race and Ethnic Relations
utslib.for	1903 Journalism and Professional Writing
utslib.citation.edition	1st
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Social and Political Sciences Program
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	true
dc.date.updated	2020-05-07T04:44:57Z
pubs.edition	1st
pubs.place-of-publication	Canberra
pubs.publication-status	Published
utslib.start-page	177
dc.location	Canberra

Abstract:

This case study undertakes textual analysis of selected national and New South Wales (NSW) mainstream print news media in the weeks following Rudd’s Apology on 13 February 2008 which contain thematic references to ‘close the gap’. It finds that, across the whole sample, there was a failure to distinguish between the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), and Closing the Gap. The NTER, also known as the Intervention, had been launched by the previous government and was supported by Kevin Rudd’s Labor government after some modifications (Bielefeld, 2014). Not only did this erase Aboriginal communities outside the remote Northern Territory (NT) from the mainstream media coverage of Closing the Gap, the negative behaviour said to characterise life in these communities was often generalised to Aboriginal people as a whole, supporting a simplistic discourse of dysfunction that was generally associated with Aboriginality. Aboriginality thus became the gap that needed closing. This supported an overwhelming deeper narrative that ‘tough love’, using Intervention style measures that overruled existing ‘failed’ Aboriginal authority, was necessary to close the gap, while a cognate narrative told that a mixture of consultation and Intervention-style approaches, based on expert opinion, was needed to implement Intervention-style measures. In both narratives, such measures could avoid the apparent mistakes of the self-determination era.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/140539