Ending the affair: The decline of television current affairs in Australia

Examines the state of current affairs television in Australia today by pondering the future, while drawing lessons from the past. The book questions the social and political value of what we now think of as current affairs journalism.

Mediatizing educational policy: The journalistic field, science policy, and cross-field effects

This paper is concerned to demonstrate the usefulness of the theory of Bourdieu, including the concepts of field, logics of practice and habitus, to understanding relationships between media and policy, what Fairclough has called the 'mediatization' of policy. Specifically, the paper draws upon Bourdieu's accessible account of the journalistic field as outlined in On television and journalism. The usefulness of this work is illustrated through a case study of a recent Australian science policy, The chance to change. As this policy went through various iterations and media representations, its naming and structure became more aphoristic. This is the mediatization of contemporary policy, which often results in policy as sound bite. The case study also shows the cross-field effects of this policy in education, illustrating how today educational policy can be spawned from developments in other public policy fields.

Globalizing policy sociology in education: Working with Bourdieu

This paper uses Bourdieu to develop theorizing about policy processes in education and to extend the policy cycle approach in a time of globalization. Use is made of Bourdieu's concept of social field and the argument is sustained that in the context of globalization the field of educational policy has reduced autonomy, with enhanced cross-field effects in educational policy production, particularly from the fields of the economy and journalism. Given the social rather than geographical character of Bourdieu's concept of social fields, it is also argued that the concept can be, and indeed has to be, stretched beyond the nation to take account of the emergent global policy field in education. Utilizing Bourdieu's late work on the globalization of the economy through neo-liberal politics, we argue that a non-reified account of the emergent global educational policy field can be provided.