Reporting of the ACT heroin trials

The aim of this research is to analyse the reports of the proposed heroin maintenance trials in the Australian Capital Territory (A.C.T.), in Melbourne print media during 1997. The proposal for trials of heroin-prescription to long-term users in the A.C.T. was based on extensive scientific research. The rejection of this proposal by Prime Minister Howard raised many questions. This study was designed to help understand what discourses and rhetorical devices were used in the reporting of heroin issues in the media and what part some sections of the media played in the government’s decision. Discourse analysis was conducted of newspaper articles from two major Melbourne newspapers, The Age and the Herald-Sun for the year 1997. All articles relating to heroin and drug-policy from the newspapers were included for analysis. Those in favour of the trials used predominantly health and social discourses. Those opposed used moral discourses supported with stereotypes, metaphors, emotive practices and ‘inaccuracies’. There were considerable differences in discourses presented by The Age and the Herald-Sun. This study demonstrates that opposition to the heroin trials relied on rhetorical strategies and sensationalistic arguments, rather than meaningful debate of scientific and social issues. Researchers should act to identify the stereotypes and metaphors used in the discourses surrounding an issue and act to disarm them.

From despotism to democracy : reporting Iraq's January 2005 election in the Australian and Middle Eastern print media

It is only in recent times that the magnitude of Ancient Mesopotamia’s contribution to language, agriculture, modern thought and urbane society has begun to be understood. Most relevant to this study is the governance of Mesopotamia’s early city-states by a political system that Jacobsen has termed ‘Primitive Democracy’ where “…ultimate political power rested with a general assembly of all adult freemen” (Jacobsen, 1977; 128). Yet, despite this, the coverage of Iraq in the Western media since its creation at the end of the First World War and particularly since the first Gulf War, has tended towards Orientalism (Said, 1978) by trivialising this nation and thereby reinforcing the hegemony of the West over the ‘backward, barbaric’ East.

This paper examines this issue further by comparing and contrasting the representations of the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005 in four of Australia’s leading daily newspapers (The Australian, The Courier-Mail, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald) with four Middle Eastern English language papers (The Daily Star from Lebanon, Andolu Agency and Dunya both based in Turkey, and the eponymous Kuwait Times). In essence, it finds that while the Australian media posits democracy as a Western concept and asserts a discourse of US hegemony, the Middle Eastern papers are more contemplative, focusing on the impact that this election could have throughout the region.

Reporting Iraq's cosmopolitan society in the Australian print media : The case of the Assyrian church bombings

A series of bomb blasts that targeted a number of Assyrian churches in Baghdad and Mosul last year were reported in the Australian media and seemed to hint at the complexity of Iraq’s cosmopolitan society. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the representation of these events in four of Australia’s leading newspapers (The Australian, The Courier-Mail, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald) by using a multi-methodological approach. The analysis reveals that Australian print coverage falls short of detailing the complexities of Iraq’s cosmopolitan society and therefore engenders an Orientalist (Said, 1978) discourse that constructs the Assyrians as powerless and anonymous victims.

Iraq's December 2005 election : reporting democratisation in the Australian and Middle Eastern print media

Throughout the coverage of Iraq since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and especially since September 11, the Western mainstream Media have eschewed key historical and contextual data about Iraq, thereby serving to reduce and homogenize the complexity of the issues surrounding the region and the conflicts therein. In so doing, the media has tended towards Orientalism (Said, 1978) by trivialising Iraq and its people and thereby reinforcing the hegemony of the West over the ‘backward, barbaric’ East. Building on earlier research (Isakhan, 2005a), this paper further examines the reductive and homogenising reporting of Iraq in the Western media by using both quantitative and qualitative assessment methods to compare and contrast the discursive practices used to construct the Iraqi election of December 15, 2005 in Australia’s leading daily newspapers with newspapers from the Middle East. In essence, it finds that while the Australian media propagates Orientalism through its one-eyed coverage, the Middle Eastern papers are more contemplative, focusing on the impact that this election could have throughout the region.

The role of the press in Iraq's long struggle for democratic reform

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state organs that served as propaganda machines, to a wealth of over 200 Iraqi-owned newspapers which are being fervently produced and avidly read on the streets of the nation. This paper traces the introduction of the printing press to Iraq by the Ottomans and details both the periods where Iraq’s press was truly free and fostered the emergence of a civil society and democratic reforms and those where the Iraqi media was most restricted and did little else than praise the regime at hand. Following on, this paper reviews the developments since the fall of Saddam Hussein and, despite the extensive interference in Iraq’s media sector from the occupying forces, it concludes by arguing that these papers have been central to the re-emergence of an Iraqi public sphere which has openly debated and discussed the issues surrounding the nation’s shift from despotism to democracy.

Mediated hegemony : interference in the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 brought with it the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq. This has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed across the nation. As is to be expected, there are several problems that have accompanied such a divergent, ad-hoc and highly volatile media landscape. Leaving aside important issues such as the dangers faced by Iraqi journalists and the lack of appropriate press laws, this paper focuses instead on the influence of both foreign and domestic political bodies on the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector. Among the foreign influences are Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, all of which fund, control and manipulate various Iraqi media outlets. Not surprisingly, the United States has been the most active, using both overt and clandestine propaganda methods as well as forced closure to control the Iraqi media sector. Unfortunately, such measures are not limited to those governments which exist outside Iraq’s borders, with both the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional authority having used similar means to control and even silence Iraq’s nascent public sphere. This paper concludes by noting the irony of limiting press freedoms in Iraq during this crucial phase in its transition from despotism to democracy.

The early Australian press and the Middle Eastern 'other'

In recent years, and particularly since the events of September 11 2001 and the subsequent “War on Terror”, much scholarly attention has been paid to the Australian news media’s role in stereotyping, homogenising, victimising and demonising people of Middle Eastern descent or of the Islamic faith. However, contemporary Australian journalists have not so much invented the tropes and stereotypes that they have used to construct this negative image and limited discursive field, as they have invoked a rich tapestry of pre-existing notions about the non-Western world. This paper therefore seeks to investigate the relationship between Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism and the Australian press of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning with its deplorable coverage of Australia’s Indigenous people and the paranoia surrounding the “Asian Invasion” this paper sheds new light on the coverage of Islam and the Middle East in the early Australian press and the emergence of the “Muslim Menace”. Finally, this chapter concludes by noting that such a racialist history raises a host of questions and challenges for the contemporary Australian news media.

Media discourse and Iraq's democratisation : reporting the 2005 constitution in the Australian and Middle Eastern print media

This paper analyses in detail the coverage of two milestones in Iraq's shift towards democracy: the drafting and approval of the constitution by Iraq s interim government (August 2005) and the ratification of this constitution via the Iraqi polls (October 2005). Aside from some rudimentary quantitative analysis, a critical discourse analysis method is utilised to compare and contrast the discursive practices used in three of Australia s leading daily newspapers (The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) with three Middle Eastern English-language papers (The Daily Star, Anadolu Agency and the Jordan Times). The paper finds that the Australian print media continues the neo-Orientalist tradition of media coverage of Middle Eastern democracy, while the Middle Eastern press eschews these discourses in favour of a more open, varied debate on Iraq s constitution and the future of democracy across the region.

The post-Saddam Iraqi media : reporting the democratic developments of 2005

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 brought with it the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq. This has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed across the nation. This paper therefore reviews the developments in Iraq’s post-Saddam media sector and finds that it has been central to the return of an Iraqi public sphere which has openly debated and discussed the issues surrounding the nation’s shift from despotism to democracy. This is perhaps best evidenced by the role that the Iraqi media played in hosting a rich tapestry of debate, discourse and deliberation from a panoply of political, religious and ethno-sectarian factions throughout the elections and the referendum held across the nation in 2005. Despite their respective biases and particular persuasions, the net effect of such a rich media sector has been an Iraqi populace who are both concerned and informed about the nuances of democratic governance.

Manufacturing consent in Iraq : interference in the post-Saddam media sector

The toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 saw Iraq's media sector shift from a handful of state-run media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed nationally. Not unexpectedly, several problems have accompanied this divergent, ad-hoc and highly volatile mediascape. Although recognizing important factors, including dangers faced by Iraqi journalists, and the dearth of appropriate press laws, this article focuses instead on attempts by certain key foreign and domestic political bodies to manufacture consent in Iraq via their interference in the post-Saddam media sector. These foreign influences are Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, each of which funds, controls and manipulates different Iraqi media outlets. Not surprisingly, the United States has been the most active in this respect, utilizing both overt and clandestine propaganda techniques as well as forced closures to control the Iraqi media sector. Unfortunately, measures such as these are not limited to foreign governments: both the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government have used similar means to control and silence Iraq's nascent public sphere. The article concludes by noting the irony of limited press freedom in Iraq during this crucial phase of its transition from despotism to democracy.

E-book devices and m-commerce : what might be the impact on organizational learning?

E-book devices are changing current organizational practices by providing a source of e-learning, in which organizations and their employees can more easily access information about current business developments that impact on their existing practices. E-book devices (also referred to as e-book readers or e-readers) use electronic ink technology to display written words from books, newspapers, magazines and other documentation. They are portable devices that are the size of a paperback book and are a new technology that has only been mass-marketed to the general population in the past year. Most importantly for an organization is that e-books could transform and will certainly influence their current technology practices and how people communicate and perform their job tasks.

A phase II multicentered, single-blind, randomized, controlled trial of the stroke self-management program

Background and Purpose—The benefits of chronic disease self-management programs for stroke survivors are uncertain because individuals with severe impairments have been excluded from previous research. We undertook a phase II randomized controlled trial to determine whether a self-management program designed for survivors (SSMP; 8 weeks) was safe and feasible compared to standard care (control) or a generic self-management program (generic; 6 weeks).
Methods—Stroke survivors were recruited from 7 South Australian hospitals via a letter or indirectly (eg, newspapers). Eligible participants were randomized at a 1:1:1 ratio of 50 per group. Primary outcomes were recruitment, participation, and participant safety. Secondary outcomes were positive and active engagement in life using the Health Education Impact Questionnaire and characteristics of quality of life and mood at 6 months from program completion.
Results—Of 315 people screened, 149 were eligible and 143 were randomized (48 SSMP, 47 generic, 48 control); mean age was 69 years (SD, 11) and 59% were female. Demographic features were similar between groups and 41% had severe cognitive impairment; 57% accessed the interventions, with 52% SSMP and 38% generic completing >50% of sessions (P=0.18). Thirty-two participants reported adverse events (7 control, 12 generic, 13 SSMP; P=0.3; 34% severe); however, none was attributable to the interventions. Potential benefits for improved mood were found.
Conclusions—SSMP was safe and feasible. Benefits of the stroke-specific program over the generic program included greater participation and completion rates. An efficacy trial is warranted given the forecast growth in the stroke population and improved survival trends.

Reshaping dominant stories : a poststructuralist approach to online role play

Online role play is an increasingly popular teaching/learning technique in higher education (Wills & McDougall 2009) but there has been little research into ways a poststructuralist approach may be supported in this format. This paper describes two very different means of incorporating a poststructuralist approach into role plays in higher education to problematise dominant assumptions in the language and content of the subject matter. The first method was a series of interventions in a face-to-face role play in which medical students practised consultations with adolescent school students. The consultations were interrupted repeatedly with activities designed to interrogate assumptions and the school students acted as coaches to improve the medical students' technique. Although this role play was performed face-to-face, some of its activities may be redeveloped to suit an online role-playing format. The second method was a feature of an online role play involving Middle-East politics and journalism students, in which daily online newspapers provided a reflecting and distorting mirror to the political events simulated by the politics students. Indications of ways in which the two methods produced changes in understanding were gathered using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods: questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and analysis of online discussions and artefacts.