Education Policy in the Media: Public Discourses on Education

Citation

Normore, A. (2007), "Education Policy in the Media: Public Discourses on Education", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 45 No. 3, pp. 345-347. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230710747875

In her book, “Education Policy in the Media: Public Discourses on Education”, Sue Thomas provides a meticulously detailed account of the relation between media representations of education policy, and how policy is developed. Focusing upon a major review of the Queensland school curriculum, known as the Wiltshire review, the author provides a comprehensive and rigorous analysis not only of the process and outcomes of the review but also presents a detailed analysis of the mass mediated context in which it took place and therefore the issues and public pressures with which it was required to deal. According to Graeme Turner, Director of the Center for Critical and Cultural Studies at University of Queensland (pp. 7‐8), “Anyone who works in education will be familiar with the experience of reading accounts of their work in the media that are just plain wrong … teachers, in particular are routinely misrepresented … little wonder that teachers are frustrated by the version of themselves and their profession they see reflected back through the media”.

The book is divided into three sections. Section one contains five chapters focused on the investigation of public discourses on education. Each chapter is brilliantly interwoven into the fabric of what it means to investigate public discourses on education. In chapter one, the author focuses on the construction of (p. 17) “common sense understandings” through public media debates on education and investigates how these understandings inform the educational policy‐making process. Essentially, she reiterates the importance of an exploration into the interrelationships between news media and educational policy‐making. In Chapter two, Thomas (2006), provides a comprehensive overview of the research that has been conducted on the media coverage of educational issues in both Australia and the international context while simultaneously (p. 29) “exploring assumptions and perspectives on the media and policy discourses that are central to, and underlie, this book”. Chapter three elaborates on the concepts of ideology, discourse, and power and their place in hegemonic struggles. Thomas (2006), includes the notion of textually mediated discourses and their role in the construction of ideological narratives.

In chapter four, she provides a comprehensive detailed analysis on critical discourse by first offering a series of definitions as asserted in the research literature. Hence, Fairclough's multidimensional model of analysis, believed to form the basis of critical discourse analysis, is introduced. The model is explained in depth and includes three elements (p. 71): it is a “spoken or written language” text, it is an instance of discourse practice that involves the production and interpretation of text, and it is a piece of social practice. In chapter five, the author outlines the nature of the project from which the book evolved. Thomas (2006) situates the research in its context by presenting a clearly defined procedure that maps how the data were collected (i.e. policy documents, interviews with key participants, media items), how the data were analyzed, and discusses the measures that were adopted for resolving the issues that arose during each phase of the process. Thomas' intent is to ensure the reader is well‐aware that the (p. 114) “discourse ‘doing the investigation’ is as critical a matter as the discourse ‘being investigated’”. Thus, she prepares the reader for the discourses under investigation – namely, the Wiltshire Review of the Queensland school curriculum.

Section two contains four chapters focused on the unfolding of the Wiltshire Story. Thomas (2006) provides a narrative overview of the review process by chronologically tracing its origins in four separate, but interconnected stages. Each chapter discusses the social context of one particular stage while outlining a comprehensive mapping of the myriad of competing discourses articulated in each stage (p. 117). Hence, she concludes with a preferred discourse in each stage and the relationship between them. Chapter six begins with an explanation as to how the Wiltshire review process was established. Thomas (2006) analyzes the various discourses that were articulated in the press before, during, and after the announcement of the review. In this first stage of the review, the author outlines a preferred media discourse of (p. 146) “falling literacy and school failure”. In support of this preferred discourse, she analyzed several textual features that were used repeatedly in the press items, including: transparent declarative sentence structure, rhetoric, and the collection of certain words and phrases that provided local and global cohesion. Continuing in a similar vein, chapter seven highlights the time frames of the initial review process that culminated in an interim report. Focus is on the second stage of the review process. Thomas (2006) concentrates on the details of the (p. 149) “discourses underlying the press coverage of the report and the public reaction to the recommendations emphasized in the press”. The preferred discourse in this stage of the review defined schools as (pp. 190‐191) “failures, labeling them as inefficient and unproductive”, thus, resulting in an obvious element of mistrust that was present in the relations between the review panel and the Minister, the Department of Education, the Reference Group to the review, and the general education community.

Chapter eight focuses on the third stage of the review process – the release of the official report of the curriculum review. Thomas (2006) organizes this chapter into three sections (p. 193) outlining the structure of the report documents and the context in which the documents were released. She then presents a critically detailed analysis of the competing discourses, followed by an analysis of the interrelationships between these discourses and the discourses found in the report documents. In her analyzes, Thomas (2006) found the media and policy discourses replete with contradictions (e.g. preferred media discourse emphasized failure of schools, while the panel's preferred discourse was found in the press coverage devoted to the release of the report, and so forth). In chapter nine, Thomas (2006) presents an analysis of the discourses constructed in the fourth stage – the submission of the final amended recommendations to the Cabinet. After rigorous analysis, her findings indicated a proliferation of discourses that lead to several contestations between the preferred Government discourse and the preferred media discourse. Yet, the stage was characterized by the (pp. 290‐291) “establishment of congruences within the Wiltshire discursive field”. The overall conclusion made by Thomas is that the final stage indicated (p. 291) “a reassertion of the authoritative voice of Government on education”.

Section three of the book provides a summary of the research on the Wiltshire story. Thomas (2006) maps the Wiltshire discursive field including preferred discourses of the Review Panel, the Government, and the print media. She further summarizes the various elements of a shared discourse and offers alternative discourses. The lessons learned from Wiltshire are highlighted in her resulting analysis that extensively reveals the nature of public discourses, authoritative voices in the public sphere, and the relationships between the print media and educational‐policy making. With 50 pages of newspaper clippings in the form of an appendix – all of which are cited throughout the text – Thomas (2006) concludes that media discourses (p. 311) “are essential to the construction of discursive threads within the complex web of contested meanings that characterize policy‐making processes” – in this case, debates on policies on the Queensland school curriculum.

The book, “Education Policy in the Media: Public Discourses on Education”, opens up an interesting and thought‐provoking area of research‐ the discourses in the media that are used to represent education. As emphasized by Turner in the foreword (p. 8), “the links between public perception and policy formation are explicit and dramatic, in this account, substantiating Sue Thomas's conviction that educationists would be well served by better understanding, and perhaps directly intervening in, the media representation of education issues and policy”. In the opinion of this reviewer, the book is very timely and well‐written for particular audiences. Due to its detailed, thorough and socially engaging research, the book is a highly valuable, insightful and recommended volume, presented with great rigor and thought. While it is recommended for those interested in the public debate about Australian education reform, the international audience would equally benefit from its dissemination – especially those interested in school reform, the influence of media representation on educational policy‐making, researchers and policy makers who are involved in curriculum review and development. Of much significance, a book of this nature adds enormously to what appears to be a slim research base for it can definitely serve as an invaluable resource for graduate students and professors of educational policy and leadership studies, and/or journalism studies who tackle with critical discourse analyses.