Australian Media Roles

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Australian Media Essay

Australian media has the power to inform and shape the views of its public audience depending on the outlets own intentions. This means that media outlets can either contribute to culturally safe care in a multicultural environment or postpone this from happening. This paper will discuss the current roles and power that media has within Australia and its influence and potential impact on culturally safe health care in multicultural Australian society. It will also present the positive and negative effects of media presentation in healthcare. Two media articles will be analysed to examine the effects of a positive and negative perspective in terms of achieving culturally safe care.

The role of Australian media includes …show more content…

“It is part of our sovereign wealth and is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. The ability to collect and disseminate news - especially information about the way our governments and businesses operate - is a precondition of civic health.” (Dunlop, T., 2012). Mass media within Australia can be separated into three categories public service, community and commercial media. Each of these categories has a media institution that can be relied on to provide the information to spark a discussion surrounding serious issues in Australia. (Jones & Harwood, 2009). The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) is an institution that provides public serious media. The ABC is known to Australia for presenting broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity. (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2016). While the ABC contributes to allowing the individual to feel a sense of national identity community media works to acknowledge an individual’s community identity and share that with people of other communities, this establishes a sense of connection. Fairfax Australian Community Media documents the stories of individuals and communities, their successes and their issues to provide this information with other communities to raise awareness about certain issues. (Fairfax Media Australian Community Media Ad Centre, 2018). Two of the three most significant media outlets in Australia, the ABC and Fairfax Media are both privately owned, while the third commercial media is government owned. “Commercial media companies can choose to monetise news (that is, try and make a quid out of it), but they have no more right to the unfettered use of this democratic resource than miners have to the minerals buried beneath our soil.” (Dunlop, T., 2012). Due to news outlets being able to choose what issues they present and how it is framed, media has a heavy influence on Australian’s personal beliefs, values,

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