Rougher than usual media treatment: A discourse analysis of media reporting and justice on trial

This article summarises a research study which applies preliminary discourse analysis to a selection of Australian and South Australian newspaper headlines from 2002 to 2006 to identify a consistent pattern of reporting which inexorably demands that the justice system be modified. Such demands challenge, and may threaten the independence of the judiciary and courts in Australia. Newspaper headlines are shown to establish discourses of disapproval and disrespect which develop into discourses of debate and diminution, and then move into forceful discourses of direction as critique is intensified. Interviews conducted as part of this research, with politicians and judicial officers, reflect corresponding discourses of disapproval and, in the case of the judiciary, reflect what Habermas([1]) calls colonised or marginalised groups. This study calls on the judiciary to take an alternative view and to avoid reliance on the media as a major conduit for communication with the public or to facilitate community understanding. Identification and analysis of discourse patterns can provide significant advance notice of negative public and community attitudes to instrumentalities which provide services that are not easily measured, eg justice or health. Recognising early indications of the discourses of disapproval and disrespect can allay moves into the discourses of direction. Forming appropriate communication responses, not necessarily within mass media, can contribute to active reputation management programs within institutions that have difficulty measuring and communicating their worth in a modern world of managerialism.