Understanding media mentalities and logics: institutional and journalistic practices, and the reporting of teachers’ work

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the ‘media mentalities’ about teachers and their work in the Australian print media. The notion of media mentalities draws on the theoretical concepts of discourse, mentalities, and mediatisation. This refers to the constructed realities and forms of thought in media coverage that circulate particular accounts. These are linked to institutional and journalistic practices in media that are governed by media logics. Drawing on newspaper text and interviews with journalists, the following practices are addressed: agendisation and accountabilisation which are both institutional practices; and the journalistic practices of factualisation, emphasisation, and sensationalisation – all of which operate globally, to some degree, across and within media institutions and media practitioners, and produce the news about teacher's work within the framework of these practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Media logic
• media mentalities
• teachers’ work
• newspaper construction of teachers
• media discourse
• frame analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Aspa Baroutsis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6038-7492

Notes

1 The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Media and Media Regulation was commissioned in 2011 by the Australian Government to review aspects of media, media regulation, and accountability.