Faculty/School

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Digital Media Research Centre

Supervisors

Professor Axel Bruns
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice
Dr Katharina Esau
Position
Postdoctoral Fellow
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice
Associate Professor Michelle Riedlinger
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice

Overview

News shapes our perception of social reality and is a crucial piece in understanding the problem of political or social polarisation. The way stories are told in the news impacts our lived realities. News reporting can be partisan; indeed, it can be a driver of social polarisation. This project contributes to defining, conceptualising, and measuring polarisation within news content. Using media coverage of two issues (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, climate change), students will be involved in applying new mixed-methods approaches to assess levels of polarisation in news reporting. We will identify actors or speakers included in the news media stories and explore new measures of news polarisation beyond the dominant left-right continuum. The insights we generate will enable journalists and researchers to investigate and reflect on the processes that create divisions in news reporting and identify possible feedback loops of polarisation between news content and audiences.

Research engagement

codebook refinement, test coding, qualitative and quantitative manual content coding

Research activities

under the supervision of Katharina Esau and Michelle Riedlinger literature review, discussion around codebook refinement, test coding, qualitative and quantitative manual content coding, working as part of a research team

Outcomes

testing of codebook, intercoder reliability, manually coded data, overall insights into polarisation in the Australian media landscape

Skills and experience

interest in media and research, attention to detail, reliable, able to work in a team

Start date

4 November, 2024

End date

21 February, 2025

Location

Digital Media Research Centre, QUT Kelvin Grove Campus

Additional information

desk & IT equipment in DMRC office, access to INCEpTION server, codebook, 2x weekly meetings with supervisors and team

Keywords

Contact

Dr Katharina Esau

katharina.esau@qut.edu.au