Journal articles on the topic 'Polarized pluralist model'

The global society which we live in nowadays makes us rethink about media system, global dynamics, and the operation of the influences that these dynamics have on national media systems. Starting from the book by Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, and under the Polarized Pluralist Model they proposed, the aim of this work is to compare Turkish and Italian journalists’ professionalization. This research has been conducted under the concept of professionalization that these authors suggested in their work and, more specifically, under the Polarized Pluralist Model, in which Hallin and Mancini recognize countries like Italy have the main characteristics described by the model; Turkey can also be included. The main goal of this work is to underline not only the similarities but also the differences that are encountered in these two countries in the journalistic professionalization. The methodology used is in-depth interviews with 10 journalists: five Italian and five Turkish journalists chosen from the biggest journals in their respective countries. Main topics taken into consideration were autonomy, clientelism, and professionalization in journalism based on ethics values. Even if the Polarized Pluralist Model seems to fit in both countries from a macro perspective, with the in-depth interviews, it is clearly seen that different cross-national nuances come out.

The article analyzes the media treatment of two sex scandals: the “Stormy Daniels scandal”, which involved the current US President Donald Trump in 2018 and the “Ruby scandal”, which involved Silvio Berlusconi in 2010, while he was Italy’s Prime Minister. By combining both quantitative and qualitative methodologies the aim is to discover whether the media treatment is different, as we can expect since the two countries belong to two different media systems, or if, following the theory of Americanization of political communication, the Italian media will tend to emulate the American model. Furthermore, another aim of this study is to detect whether a shift towards a more Polarized Pluralist model can be identified in the USA, as some authors have started foreseeing. The results will show that both countries’ media behave coherently with the traditional feature of their media system, the Polarized Pluralist and the Liberal.

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas Lietuvos žiniasklaidos sistemos funkcionavimas. Remiantis D. Hallino irP. Mancini sudarytais žiniasklaidos sistemų modeliais: poliarizuotuoju pliuralistiniu, demokratiniu korporaciniu ir liberaliuoju, aiškinamasi, kokius šių modelių bruožus yra įgijusi Lietuvos žiniasklaidos sistema. Žiniasklaidos sistemos modelių bruožai nustatomi analizuojant keturias dimensijas: laikraščių industrijos plėtros procesą, politinį paralelizmą žiniasklaidoje, žurnalistinio profesionalizmo esamybę ir valstybės intervencijos į žiniasklaidos sistemą pobūdį.Straipsnyje teigiama, kad formuojant teisinę, politinę, ekonominę žiniasklaidos aplinką ir žiniasklaidos savitvarkos sistemą, Lietuvos žiniasklaidos sistema įgijo poliarizuotojo pliuralistinio, demokratinio korporacinio ir liberaliojo modelių bruožų, tačiau vyraujantys yra poliarizuotojo pliuralistinio modelio bruožai, būdingi Viduržemio jūros šalių žiniasklaidos sistemoms.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: žiniasklaida, sistema, modelis, valstybė.Features of the model of the Lithuanian media systemDeimantas Jastramskis SummaryThe article analyzes the functioning of the Lithuanian media system. Based on the D. Hallin’s and P. Mancini’s theoretical scheme of media systems (Democratic Corporatist, Liberal and Polarized Pluralist), the main features of the system are delineated. This is achieved by the analysis of four media system dimensions: development of newspaper industry, political parallelism in the media, professionalization of journalism, and the role of the state in the media system.The claim of the article is that in the formation process of, the media environment (legal, political, economic) and self-regulation, the Lithuanian media system acquired features of all three models of media systems. However, features of the Polarized Pluralist model (which are typical of Mediterranean countries) are predominant.>

The 2016 presidential election demonstrated the extent to which U.S. news has changed since its “high modernist” moment. Evidence of these shifts—fragmented and poorly monetized news markets, politicization of news content and funding, uneven professionalization, and even increasing openness to state involvement—have been documented in the literature for some years, but often framed as exceptions. This paper revisits Hallin and Mancini’s typology of news systems to suggest that as variants of Polarized Pluralist elements are entrenched in the American news system, it is drifting away from the Liberal model into a hybrid category of “Polarized Liberal.” Research and meta-journalism from the last decade are reviewed to characterize this hybrid model, which is applicable beyond the United States and might well become the focal point of convergence in the near future. Potential reasons for this transition are discussed, evoking sociopolitical and technological dynamics.

The article presents the analysis of the Croatian post-socialist media system within the comparative framework of Hallin and Mancini’s approach. The media system and the political system are analyzed with the cluster of variables, interpreting the development of the media market, political parallelism, journalistic professionalism, and the role of the state in relation to the existing theoretical framework. The paper demonstrates a perfect fit with the Mediterranean polarized pluralist model of media system, and argues that the Croatian case disproves the proposition that Hallin and Mancini’s model cannot be applied to new democracies in post-communist Europe. The communist period in Croatia provided nuance to an already existing framework of media system, while the post-communist transition after 1990 and ensuing democracy continue to exhibit the historically determined relationships between politics and the media. The article argues in conclusion that ignorance of the true nature of media systems and social and political frameworks that shape them are the reason for the failed internationally assisted democratization processes and successful implementation of foreign media regulation models.

Social media has significantly transformed how political discussions and deliberations occur, mainly by providing a digital realm for the public sphere. This study aims to analyse the extent of polarised opinions across Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom regarding COVID-19 during 2020 within social media. To do this, we examined YouTube comments (n=111,808) using automatic analysis and machine-learning techniques based on algorithms. This methodological strategy denoted an innovative and unique quantitative approach for this field of study. In line with previous research, the hypothesis was that the degree of polarization does not crystallize in the same manner in different countries’ digital spheres. Therefore, it could be said that higher levels of polarization occur amongst Southern European countries like Spain and Italy (both countries adhering to a polarised pluralism model), compared to other countries ascribing to the liberal model (the United Kingdom in our study), which provides evidence supporting previous research studies. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the polarization of digital deliberation between Spain and Italy is higher than in the United Kingdom. But, also, the findings based on more disaggregated analysis suggest that the most polarized attitudes are even rewarded by other users in Mediterranean countries. Las redes sociales han transformado de forma muy significativa la forma en la que se produce el diálogo político, impulsando una configuración digital de la esfera pública. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo el análisis de la deliberación producida en las redes sociales, con un especial énfasis en la polarización. Tomando como referencia los comentarios observados en YouTube sobre la COVID-19 durante 2020 en España, Italia y Reino Unido, lo cual arroja una muestra de 111.808 comentarios, se aplicaron una serie de técnicas automáticas de análisis basadas en algoritmos, lo que supone una metodología cuantitativa novedosa en este ámbito de estudio. En línea con lo señalado por trabajos previos, la hipótesis que se plantea en este artículo es que el grado de polarización no se da con la misma intensidad en las esferas digitales de distintos casos. De esta manera, cabe esperar unos mayores registros de polarización en la esfera digital de los países del sur de Europa, adscritos a un modelo de pluralismo polarizado, que en países de otros modelos como el liberal. Los resultados confirman la hipótesis, verificando que no solo se observa mayor polarización en España e Italia que en Reino Unido, sino que, a nivel desagregado, los hallazgos apuntan a que la actividad más polarizante obtiene mayor aprobación en los países mediterráneos de nuestra muestra.

This paper presents a comparative study of Media System in the context of Nepal on the basis of Hallin and Mancini’s study. The paper shows that the characteristic of Nepalese press match with the polarized pluralistic model, which is prevailed in Southern European states. This study also helps to understand the effect of political parallelism in professionalism of Nepalese press.

We explore the statistical laws behind the plurality voting system by investigating the election results for the mayor in Brazil in 2004. Our analysis indicate that the vote partition among mayor candidates of the same city tends to be "polarized" between two candidates, a phenomenon that can be closely described by means of a simple fragmentation model. Complex concepts like "government continuity" and "useful vote" can be identified and even statistically quantified through our approach.

Despite widespread feeling that public opinion in the United States has become dramatically polarized along political lines, empirical support for such a pattern is surprisingly elusive. Reporting little evidence of mass polarization, previous studies assume polarization is evidenced via the amplification of existing political alignments. This article considers a different pathway: polarization occurring via social, cultural, and political alignments coming to encompass an increasingly diverse array of opinions and attitudes. The study uses 44 years of data from the General Social Survey representing opinions and attitudes across a wide array of domains as elements in an evolving belief network. Analyses of this network produce evidence that mass polarization has increased via a process of belief consolidation, entailing the collapse of previously cross-cutting alignments, thus creating increasingly broad and encompassing clusters organized around cohesive packages of beliefs. Further, the increasing salience of political ideology and partisanship only partly explains this trend. The structure of U.S. opinion has shifted in ways suggesting troubling implications for proponents of political and social pluralism.

AbstractThe practice of climate simulation takes place in a polarized social and political context. In this paper some methodological aspects of the practice of climate simulation are addressed and the potential value-ladenness of modelling assumptions is discussed. I claim that there is clearly a plurality of values guiding climate simulation efforts with climate scientists themselves also commonly holding different political views on the climate-change problem. There exist climate models of varying levels of concreteness and with different basic assumptions, and the modelling approaches behind these models are valued differently by different groups of climate scientists. The social and political context in which the climate modelling is done plays a role in these value judgements. In order to prevent one particular group of models from dominating the field for social and/or political reasons, the climate-modelling community should acknowledge the vital and necessary role of plurality in the practice of climate science and should stimulate reflection within this practice. Finally, while the IPCC partly addresses the issue by presenting model ensembles, the uncertainties in climate simulation should be better communicated to policy makers and politicians.

This article, placed in the field of comparative journalism studies, explores the extent to which Czech journalists share their professional identity and compares the congruence of their professional identity with selected Western journalistic communities working in the liberal, democratic-corporatist, and polarized pluralism media model defined by Hallin and Mancini. The results show that the professional identity structure of Czech journalists does not, in principle, differ from that of foreign journalists. This implies that they have cut themselves from the Soviet journalistic model. Czech journalists do not significantly differ in the intensity of the selected professional values, and the measure of their professional identity split is comparable to that of their foreign counterparts.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the social role of European journalists as they cover the issue of terrorism, which is a potential threat to European society itself. For this purpose, the paper presents the results of a qualitative media content analysis related to the news coverage of the aftermath of three major terrorist attacks. Specifically, the research focuses on the values involved in the coverage of the event rather than on the strict report of what happened. The authors observe that both liberal/‘trustee’ and polarized pluralist/‘advocacy’ models engender a double paradox concerning the interest of citizens in being informed or being protected by news media. Nonetheless, the liberal value of responsibility emerges as fundamental, in order to face and resolve this paradox.

This article provides the first systematic cross-country analysis of interest group appearances in the news media. The analysis included three countries – the UK, Spain and Denmark – each representing one of Hallin and Mancini’s1three overall models of media and politics: the liberal system, the polarized pluralist system and the democratic corporatist system. It finds important similarities across countries with high levels of concentration in media coverage of groups, more extensive coverage of economic groups than citizen groups, and differential patterns of group appearances across policy areas and between right- and left-leaning papers. It also identifies country variation, with the highest degree of concentration among group appearances in Spanish newspapers and the most attention to economic groups in Danish newspapers.

El modelo de pluralismo polarizado del sistema mediático español se caracteriza por un periodismo ideológicamente alineado con los principales partidos políticos. Ello se ha traducido en que, en los géneros de opinión, la interpretación sosegada haya sido sacrificada en favor de un discurso dirigido a enjuiciar la realidad y movilizar ideológicamente a las audiencias. Este trabajo aborda las posibles transformaciones en el sistema mediático español como consecuencia de la irrupción de nuevos partidos y de los medios digitales. Con ese objetivo, se han sometido a un análisis cualitativo las columnas de opinión publicadas en dos de los principales cibermedios españoles, Eldiario.es, donde firma Ignacio Escolar, y El Confidencial, donde publica José Antonio Zarzalejos, durante la campaña electoral de diciembre de 2015. Los resultados apuntan a que, si bien los columnistas favorecen la voluntad interpretativa, todavía perviven elementos centrales del pluralismo polarizado y se evidencian alineamientos partidistas.

Esta investigación se enmarca dentro del periodismo postindustrial y pretende explorar la información que, sobre sí mismos, incluyen los medios de comunicación del modelo pluralista polarizado (Hallin y Mancini, 2004). Se analiza el grado de transparencia de las webs de seis medios: Italia (RAI-1 y Republica.it), Portugal (RTP-1 y Público.pt) y España (TVE-1 y Elpais.es). El estudio comparado atiende a una categorización desarrollada en base a Bardoel y d’Haenens, 2004; MediaACT, 2010, y Groenhart y Bardoel, 2012. Las conclusiones revelan que la transparencia comienza a difundirse en los sites aún de forma incipiente, de manera que la opacidad se mantiene como característica dominante frente a la rendición de cuentas.

This article analyzes the extent to which diverse institutional logics (stock market, privately held, civil society, public) are linked to the exercise of one important mode of media ownership power: public service orientation. The research draws on a content analysis of a total of fifty-one news organizations in Sweden, France, and the United States, representing, respectively, Hallin and Mancini’s democratic corporatist, polarized pluralist, and liberal models. We find that two types of institutional logics—affordance and homogenization—shape the amount and type of public-service-oriented news. On average, public-service-oriented news was highest at civil-society-owned media, but there was significant variation within this category: We call this kind of institutional logic an affordance logic because it affords but does not guarantee a certain kind of news content. Public media, on the other hand, exhibited the least deviation across outlets within each country, thus exemplifying a strong homogenization logic. All forms of ownership, but especially privately held and civil society media, exhibited significant variations across individual organizations. Economic field dominance, as in the United States, did not produce greater homogenization across ownership fields as predicted by field theory.

Basándonos en los altos niveles de fraude fiscal en España, entendemos que los ciudadanos no están suficientemente socializados en torno a sus responsabilidades tributarias. En este sentido, y apoyándonos en la teoría de la selección expositiva por la que los individuos consumen medios afines ideológicamente, estudiamos qué papel juega la prensa en la forma de dar relevancia o enmarcar (agenda-setting) las cuestiones tributarias en una muestra de 293 noticias. Nuestro análisis pone de manifiesto que solo los periódicos conservadores (El Mundo y ABC) refuerzan sus valores característicos. De hecho, nuestros resultados permiten rechazar el modelo del pluralismo polarizado para las cuestiones tributarias.

In today’s world, political environment is closely linked to the media, which are integrated into a political system’s operation and transform communication processes. The phenomenon of mediatization, which represents interrelation between social spheres and the media, is currently in the focus of researches into the media, communications, and society. The article considers mediatization of politics as a key concept for understanding the importance of the media in the contemporary political communication. In the context of the numerous views on mediatization, the authors attempt to conceptualize the phenomenon. They study the emergence and usage of the term and key approaches to studying mediatization, analyze the weak and the strong theories of mediatization, and examine the contextual levels of social transformations within the process. The general theoretical framework allows for two possible lines of studying mediatization of politics: from media actors’ point of view, and from that of a political system. Basing on features of three models of media systems — liberal, democratic corporatist and polarized pluralist, the authors outline areal models of mediatization of politics and emphasize their importance for related researches. As stated, mediatization of politics, being an interdisciplinary phenomenon, is as a complex ambivalent concept with features of a process. A further research of the concept is necessary due to the development of IT-communications, which provides for media’s penetration into all social spheres.

The study of comparative European politics since the 1930s shows a shift from a largely normative and institutional concern with a few larger European countries towards a clear subdiscipline of modern political science. Marked influences were the need to rethink democratie development in the light of the rise of totalitarianism and the rapid decline of democracy in most emerging new states after 1945.The field shows a strand influence of the wish to bring the particular experience of individual countries onto the map of general comparative politics.Thus, one finds the effect of a typical cross-Channel dialogue contrasting Britain and France, the extrapolation of 'polarised pluralism' from an Italian background, the deliberate challenge to the Westminster model from consociational democracy theorists, and the transposition of Norwegian experience onto a Macro-Model of Europe in center-periphery terms. More recent developments also mirror new political developments, e.g. , neo-corporatism, the rise and crisis of the welfare state, and concerns about public policy generally. Yet such challenges pale compared to the potential effect which processes of European integration, the decline of bipolar international polities, and above all problems of democratic development in post-totalitarian Eastern and Central Europe, must haveon comparative politics in and on Europe.

Según Hallin y Mancini (2004), el sistema mediático español encaja en el modelo denominado como pluralismo polarizado, que describe una situación en la que los medios de comunicación no actúan como elementos independientes del poder político, sino que se entregan al proselitismo y el ataque al adversario. El objetivo de esta investigación es comprobar cómo se comporta la red social Facebook en relación al fenómeno de la polarización política. Se analizarán cualitativamente los post de los cuatros principales candidatos a la presidencia del Gobierno en las últimas elecciones generales (26 de Junio de 2016) durante una semana de la campaña electoral (del 19 al 25 de junio) y se valorará el nivel de polarización que generaron atendiendo al número de comentarios recibidos.

Se utiliza la ubicación ideológica en el continuum izquierda-derecha para el cálculo de indicadores unidimensionales de polarización, coherencia, superposición y similitud ideológica, los cuales permiten analizar la competencia electoral de los partidos salvadoreños y su fuerza partidaria. Para estos cálculos, se utilizan las fórmulas desarrolladas por Sani y Sartori, complementadas con el cálculo de la similitud por las fórmulas del coseno de Eisen y de pareo simple. Para determinar y analizar la transición de la estructura del sistema de partidos de El Salvador de un modelo de pluralismo moderado a un polarizado, se utilizan los conceptos de sistemas competitivos de Sartori y el análisis de la díada izquierda-derecha de Bobbio. La estructura se determina a partir del método de clustering de Ward. Finalmente, se aplican los resultados al análisis espacial de la competición electoral de los partidos políticos salvadoreños. ECA Estudios Centroamericanos, Vol. 75, No. 762, 2020: 63-90.

An analysis of the news on Covid-19 published by okdiario.com and eldiario.es until the end of April 2020 is carried out considering interactions on Facebook (shares, comments, and reactions) as the consumption measure. The analysis includes the evolution of the news published; an analysis of the interactions on Facebook, including the top 10 news items with the most interactions for each media; and a content analysis based on the keywords extracted from the metatags of the digital news websites. The evolution of the publication volume is similar for both media, but okdiario.com achieves a greater number of interactions. Based on the content analysis, okdiario.com can be related to the Polarized Pluralist Model defined by Hallin and Mancini (2004), and eldiario.es with the Democratic Corporatist Model, at least concerning news on Covid-19. The results obtained will be useful for people to decide which media outlet is more appropriate to address their information needs, at least in relation to the topic analyzed. Finally, the value and originality of this work lie in the extraction of keywords from the metatags of the news published by the media, considered as the basis of the content analysis. This technique can be used in future research to produce thematic media maps, as it is done in other fields such as bibliometrics and science mapping analysis. Resumen Se analizan las noticias publicadas sobre Covid-19 por los medios digitales okdiario.com y eldiario.es hasta finales del mes de abril de 2020, tomando como medida de su consumo las interacciones en Facebook (shares, comentarios y reacciones). El análisis se centra en la evolución del volumen de noticias; en las interacciones en Facebook incluyendo el top 10 de noticias con más interacciones; y en un análisis de contenido basado en las palabras clave extraídas de las metaetiquetas de las noticias para analizar el tratamiento que hacen los medios sobre el tema. El volumen de publicación es similar en ambos medios pero okdiario.com supera a eldiario.es en interacciones en Facebook. En cuanto al análisis de contenido, los resultados permiten identificar a okdiario.com con el modelo pluralista polarizado de Hallin y Mancini (2004), y a eldiario.es con el modelo democrático corporativo, al menos en lo que a las noticias sobre Covid-19 se refiere. Los resultados pueden ser útiles a la población en su decisión de a qué medio acudir para cubrir sus necesidades de información, también al menos en lo que al tema analizado se refiere. El valor y originalidad del trabajo radican en la extracción de palabras clave de las metaetiquetas de las noticias dadas por los medios y utilizadas para el análisis de contenido. Esta técnica puede ser utilizada en futuros trabajos para elaborar mapas temáticos de medios de comunicación, tal y como se hace en otras disciplinas como la bibliometría y el mapeo científico.

Abstract Translation has been theorized as a process of metamorphosis, either as metaphor (replacing the original) or metonymy (substituting part for original whole). I propose an additional model for translation exchanges: the metramorphic processes described by psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger. Ettinger expands the scope of interactions by describing maternal/late pre-natal infant relations as ‘subjectivity-as-encounter.’ Her focus on a ‘severality’ preceding autonomous subject positions overcomes the problematic self/other divide and helps us rethink the relation between source and target text. Ettinger posits ‘matrixial’ metramorphosis, which, unlike metamorphosis, does not involve total transformations; rather, it indicates expansion or development. Textually, this means that translations do not efface sources through equivalent matches or inevitable losses, but extend them through exchanges in which sources are still present within translations. An alternative to equivalence as the goal of translation and fidelity as the ethics of translation, a matrixial paradigm reflects the dependency of the source text on the translation, as well as the plurality of many texts prior to translation. A metramorphic translation practice amplifies source texts, mediating them through a less polarized and more interconnected perception of difference which is the grounds for a new feminist ethics.

IntroductionThe National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program (NSCSWP) has been one of the most controversial Australian news topics in the past eight years. Newspaper representations of the NSCSWP have been prolific since the Program began in 2006/07. In my previous research into the NSCSWP, I found that initially the Program was well received. Following the High Court Challenge campaign, however, which began in late 2010, newspaper reports portrayed the NSCSWP in a predominantly negative light. These negative portrayals of the NSCSWP persisted in the lead up to the second High Court Challenge from 2013 until June 2014. During this time, newspaper representations portrayed the Program as an illegitimate form of counseling for state school students. However, I would argue that it was the newspaper representations of the NSCSWP that were in fact illegitimate. In this article, I contend that illegitimate representations of the NSCSWP became hegemonic because of a lack of evidence-based research conducted into the Program’s operation within state schools. Evidence-based research would have appropriately evaluated the Program’s progress and contributed to a legitimate and fair representation of chaplains in online newspapers. My analysis acknowledges the overwhelming prejudice against the NSCSWP. Whether chaplains were indeed a legitimate or illegitimate form of counseling is not my argument. My argument is that newspaper representations of the NSCSWP were illegitimate because news articles were presenting biased and incomplete information to the Australian community. Defining IllegitimacyIllegitimacy as a term has a long history dating back to early modern England, when it was commonly used to refer to children born out of wedlock (Pritchard 19). However, the definition of illegitimacy extends beyond this social phenomenon. Katie Pritchard states:The understanding of illegitimacy encompasses a kind of theoretical illegitimacy that is nothing to do with birth, referring to a kind of falseness or unsuitability that can be applied in many circumstances. (21)For this article, I will be using the term ‘illegitimate’ to describe how the newspaper representations of the NSCSWP were unsuitable because they were biased and lacked valuable information. Newspaper reports, which can be accessed online via the newspaper company’s website, include important authoritative voices. However, these voices expressed a certain opinion or concern, rather than delivering information that contributed to society’s understanding of the NSCSWP. Therefore, newspapers did not present legitimate facts, but instead a range of subjective opinions.The Illegitimacy of Newspaper ReportingThe ideological bias of newspapers has been recently examined regarding News Corp, the owner of national title The Australian, and many of the major Australian state newspapers: The Daily Telegraph; The Courier Mail, Herald Sun; The Advertiser; and Sunday Times. This organisation has recently been accused of showing bias in its newspaper articles (Meade). Meade quotes Mark Scott, the ABC Managing Director, who states:Given the aggressive editorial positioning of some of their mastheads and their willingness to adopt and pursue an editorial position, an ideological position and a market segmentation, you could argue that News Corporation newspapers have never been more assertive in exercising media power. (1)The market domination enjoyed by large organisations such as News Corp, and even Fairfax Media, leads to consistency in journalists’ writing on political, social, religious, and economic issues, which may predominate over the articles published by smaller newspapers. There is the concern that over time a particular point of view will be favoured. According to Mark Scott “a range of influential voices [is] essential to ensure a fair and open media” (Meade 1). Scott cites Rupert Murdoch who stated, back in 1967, that “freedom of the press mustn’t be one-sided just for a publisher to speak as he pleases, to try and bully the community” (Meade 1). Therefore, it has been acknowledged that a biased news article is illegitimate, and national news articles are to present facts, not the opinions of the newspaper.A Methodological Framework For this article I will utilise Norman Fairclough’s theory of Critical Discourse Analysis. Fairclough states:By ‘critical’ discourse analysis I mean discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes. (132-133)This method of analysis examines three assumptions: Existential, Propositional and Value. Existential assumptions make claims about what exists with regards to the problem, and refers to social phenomena such as globalisation or social cohesion (56). Propositional assumptions make predictions about what is or will be (55). Value assumptions simply evaluate things as good or bad, needed or not needed (57). These assumptions can be identified through analysis of the various direct quotes included within online newspaper articles.Direct quotations in newspaper articles available online often represent polarised views demonstrating whether people agree or disagree with the topic being discussed. The selection, or framing, of dominant voices within an article can be used to construct or re-present certain ideologies (Entman, 165). Entman explains that “we can define framing as the process of culling a few elements of perceived reality and assembling a narrative that highlights connections among them to promote a particular interpretation” (164). The framing of direct quotes within an article, therefore, assists the reader in identifying the article’s bias. The National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare ProgramThe National School Chaplaincy Program was first established in 2006 by the Howard Government, and in 2011 Julia Gillard included secular youth workers, expanding it from 2012 to become the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program. According to the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Guidelines, the Program aimed to “assist school communities to provide pastoral care and general spiritual, social and emotional comfort to all students, irrespective of their faith or beliefs” (6). Chaplaincy in Australia has been a predominantly Christian counseling service with Christianity being the most commonly practiced religion in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics). However, there have been chaplains representing other faiths such as Islam, Judaism and Buddhism (Australian Government 8). Chaplains were chosen by their respective schools and were partly funded by the Government to provide support to students and staff.State Newspaper Articles Online: Representations 2013-2014My sample of articles came from nine state newspapers with an online presence: The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Courier Mail, Adelaide Advertiser, Melbourne Age, Northern Times, The Australian, The West Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Mercury. A total of 36 articles were collected, from the newspaper’s Website, for 2013 and 2014, and were divided into two categories.The two categories are Supportive (of the Program) and Unsupportive (of the Program). In 2013, two articles were supportive of the Program, whereas in 2014 there were four. In 2013 three articles were unsupportive of the Program, whereas in 2014 there were 27 unsupportive articles, representing the growing interest in the scheme in the final lead up to the High Court Challenge in 2014. An online newspaper article from 2013, which portrays the NSCSWP and in particular chaplains as illegitimate, is Call for Naked School Chaplain to Be Defrocked (Domjen). This article explains how an off-duty school chaplain was preaching naked in the main street of a country town in NSW. The NSW Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron, and Parents and Citizens Association publicity officer Rachael Sowden were quoted in this article. It is through their direct quotes that the illegitimacy of chaplaincy is framed. President Mulheron states:We believe the chaplaincy program is wrong and that money should be used for an increase in school-based counsellors. Obviously the right checks and balances are not in place. (1)When President Mulheron states “We” it is unclear to the reader as to whether he is referring to all NSW Teachers or the organisation’s administrators. The reader is left to make their own assumptions about whom he is referring to. The President also makes a value assumption that the money would be better spent on school-based counselors, thus expressing his own opinion that they are a better option. A propositional assumption is made when he claims that the “right checks and balances are not in place”, but is he basing his claim on this one incident or is there other research to support this assumption?Perhaps this naked chaplain appeared fine when the school hired him, perhaps he does not have a previous record of inappropriate behaviour, perhaps it was an isolated incident. The reader is not given any background information on this chaplain and is therefore meant to take the President’s assumptions as legitimate fact. Ms Sowden, representing the Parents’ and Citizens’ Association, also expresses the same assumptions and concerns. Ms Sowden states:We have great concerns about the chaplain scheme - many parents do. We are concerned about whether they go through the same processes as teachers in terms of working with children checks and their suitability to the position, and this case highlights that.Ms Sowden makes a propositional assumption that many parents and citizens are concerned about the Program. It would be interesting to know what the Parents and Citizens Association was doing about this, considering the choice to have a chaplain is a decision made by the school community? Ms Sowden also asks whether chaplains “go through the same processes as teachers in terms of working with children checks and their suitability to the position”. Chaplains do not go through the same process as teachers in their training as they have a different role in the school. However, chaplains do require a Certificate IV in Pastoral Care as well as a Working with Children Check because they are in close proximity to children, and are being paid for their school counseling service (Working with Children Check). Ms Sowden’s value assumption that chaplains are unsuitable for the position is based on her own limited understanding of their qualifications, which she admits to not knowing. In fact, to be appointed to represent parents and citizens and to even voice their concerns, but not know the qualifications of chaplains in her community, is an interesting area of ignorance.This article has been framed to evaluate the actions of all chaplains through the example of a publicly-naked chaplain, discussed without context in this article. The Program is portrayed as hiring unsuitable and thus illegitimate chaplains. However, the quotes are based on concerns and assumptions that are unfounded, and are fears presented as facts. Therefore the representation is illegitimate because it does not report any information that the public can use to better understand the NSCSWP, or even to understand the circumstances surrounding the chaplain who preached naked in the street. Another article from 2014, which represents chaplains as illegitimate, is Push to Divert Chaplain Cash to School Councillors (Paine). This article focuses on the comments of the Tasmanian Association of State School Organisations President Jenny Eddington, and the Australian Education Union President Angelo Gavrielatos. These dominant voices within the Tasmanian and Australian communities are chosen to express their opinion that the money once used for chaplains should now be used to fund psychologists in schools. AEU President Angelo Gavrielatos states: Apart from undermining our secular traditions, this additional funding should have been allocated to schools to better meet the educational needs of students with trained, specialist staff.Mr Gavrielatos makes a propositional assumption that chaplains are untrained staff and are thus illegitimate staff. However, chaplains are trained and specialise in providing counseling services. Thus, through his call for “trained, specialist staff” he aims to delegitimize the training of chaplains. Mr Gavrielatos also makes a value assumption when he claims that the funding put towards the NSCSWP undermines “our secular traditions”. “Secular traditions” is an existential assumption in positioning that Australians have secular traditions, and that these do not involve chaplaincy because the Australian Government is not supposed to support religion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics states:Enlightenment principles promoted a secular government, detached from the church, that encouraged tolerance and supported religious pluralism, including the right to practice no religion. By Federation, this diversity was enshrined in the Australian Constitution, which says that the Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. (1)The funding of the Program was a contentious issue from the time of its inception; although it could be argued that it was the prerogative of the Government to support the practice of diverse cultural and religious beliefs by allowing schools to hire religious counselors of their choice. Given that not every student is Christian some would perhaps benefit from chaplains or counselors representing other faiths.These news articles have selected dominant voices to construct and promote an ideology of chaplains as an illegitimate resource for school communities. In these newspaper reports existential, propositional and value assumptions were expressed by dominant voices who expressed concern about the role and behaviour of chaplains in schools. However, research into the Program and its operation within each state may have avoided the representation of unfounded and illegitimate assumptions.Evidence-Based Research: Avoiding Illegitimacy Over the course of the Chaplaincy Program various resources, such as reports and journal articles attempted to provide evidence of how the NSCSWP was funded and operated within state schools.The Department of Education received frequent progress reports by state schools who hired chaplains, although this information was not made available to the public. However, in 2011 then Education Minister Peter Garrett released a discussion paper informing Australians about the current set up of the Program and how the community could have their say on the Program’s fulfillment from 2012-2014. The discussion paper was reported on by The Australian, which portrayed the Program as not catering to the needs of Australian youth because chaplains are predominantly Christian (Ferrari). The newspaper report focuses on the concerns of Australian communities regarding the funding, and qualifications of chaplains, and the cost of the Program. Thus, the Program appeared illegitimate and as though it could not cater to the Australian community’s expectations.Reports conducted by organisations external to the Education Department tried to examine schools communities’ expectations and experiences of the Program. One such report was written in 2009 by Dr Philip Hughes and Professor Margaret Sims from Edith Cowan University who aimed to examine how Australian schools evaluated the Program, and the role of chaplains, but their report excluded the state of NSW.Hughes and Sims state that chaplains’ “contribution was widely appreciated” by schools (6). This report attempted to provide a legitimate and independent account of the Program, however, the report was deemed biased by NSW Greens MLC, Dr John Kaye who remarked that the study was “deeply flawed” and lacked independence (Thielking & MacKenzie 1). According to critics, the study focussed on the positive benefits of chaplains, but the only benefit that was unique to them was that they were religious (The Greens). The study also neglected to report that Hughes was an employee of the Christian Research Association and that his background could impede his objectivity. In the same year, 2009, ACCESS ministries published a report titled: The value of chaplains in Victorian schools. The independent research conducted by Social Compass covers: “the value of chaplains; their social, spiritual and academic impacts; the difference made to the health, well being and quality of life of students; and the contributions made to strengthen communities” (2).This study promoted a positive view of chaplaincy within schools and tried to report on a portion of the community’s experiences with chaplains. However, it was limited in that it pertains only to Victorian schools and received very little media attention online. Even if this information were available online it would have only related to Victoria. Further research conducted into chaplaincy has been published in the Journal of Christian Education. This journal contains many articles on chaplaincy, but these are not easily available online as they require a subscription. The findings from these articles have not been published in newspaper articles online and have therefore not been made available to the general public. The Christian bias of the journal may have also contributed to its contents being neglected by news articles made available online, although they might have assisted in providing a more balanced representation of the NSCSWP.The extent of the research conducted into The National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program has not been entirely delineated here, but these are some of the prominent resources. Nonetheless, the rigorous evaluation of the contribution of the NSCSWP was minimal, and the quality of its evaluation predominantly biased.Robert Slavin states that school program evaluations must “produce reliable, unbiased, and meaningful information on the strength of evidence behind each program” (1). Unfortunately, the research conducted into the Chaplaincy Program was not free from bias, consistent or properly designed in a way that legitimately evaluated the NSCSWP. According to Monica Thielking and David MacKenzie:The fact is that the provision of support services for students in Australian schools has never been subjected to serious research and evaluation, and any analysis is made more difficult by the fact that the various states and territories deploy somewhat different models. (1)Thus, the information on the Chaplaincy Program’s progress and the responsibilities of chaplains in schools was not comprehensive or accurate enough to be appropriately reported in newspapers available online. Therefore, newspaper articles used quotes and information based on a limited understanding of the Program, which in turn produced illegitimate representations of the NSCSWP.ConclusionNewspaper reports available online drew conclusions about the Program’s effectiveness, which had not been appropriately tested. If research had been made available to the public, or published within state-based media online, Australians would have had a more legitimate understanding of the Program’s operation within state education, even if that understanding could not have changed the High Court ruling.The Chaplaincy Program demonstrates how a lack of evidence-based research allows the media to construct illegitimate representations based on promoting the assumptions of dominant, and I would argue the loudest, voices, in society. The bias represented in a consistent approach adopted by newspapers owned by dominant media companies, is a factor in the re-presentation and promotion of certain ideologies. This was made evident by the fact that, in 2014, across nine state newspapers available online, 27 articles were unsupportive of the Program as opposed to only four articles that were supportive. Audiences need to be presented with facts rather than opinions, which are based on very little research. Hopefully newspaper reporting will change in the future to offer audiences a more legitimate representation of news events. ReferencesACCESS Ministries. The Value of Chaplains in Victorian Schools. NSW, 2009. Australian Bureau of Statistics. "Reflecting a Nation: Stories from the 2011 Census, 2012–2013." 2012. Australian Government. National School Chaplaincy Program: A Discussion Paper. Australia: Commonwealth of Australian, 2011. Chaplaincy Australia. "Training." n.d. Commonwealth of Australia. National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program Guidelines. Australia: Australian Government, 2012. Domjen, Briana. “Call for Naked School Chaplain to Be Defrocked.” The Australian 3 Feb. 2013: 1.Entman, Robert. "Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power." Journal of Communications 1 (2007): 163-73.Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Longman, 2003.Ferrari, Justine. "School Chaplains Not Representative." The Australian 12 Feb. 2011: 1.Hughes, Philip, and Margaret Sims. The Effectivess of Chaplaincy: As Provided by the National School Chaplaincy Association to Government Schools in Australia. Perth: Edith Cowan University, 2009.Meade, Amanda. "Mark Scott: News Corp Papers Never More Aggressive than Now." The Guardian 3 Oct. 2014: 1.Paine, Michelle. “Push to Divert Chaplain Cash to School Councillors.” The Mercury 21 Jun. 2014: 1.Pritchard, Katie. "Legitimacy, Illegitimacy and Sovereignty in Shakespeare’s British Plays." U of Manchester, 2011.Slavin, Robert. "Perspectives on Evidence-Based Research in Education: What Works? Issues in Synthesizing Educational Program Evaluations." Educational Researcher 37.1 (2008): 5-14. The Greens. "Chaplaincy Program Study 'Flawed and Biased': Conclusions Not Justified." n.d. Thielking, Monica, and David MacKenzie. “School Chaplains: Time to Look at the Evidence.” 2011. Working with Children Check. "Categories of Work." 2008.