Media accounts of school performance: reinforcing dominant practices of accountability

Abstract

Media reportage often act as interpretations of accountability policies thereby making the news media a part of the policy enactment process. Within such a process, their role is that of policy reinforcement rather than policy construction or contestation. This paper draws on the experiences of school leaders in regional Queensland, Australia, and their perceptions of the media frames that are used to report on accountability using school performance. The notion of accountability is theorised in terms of media understandings of 'holding power to account', and forms the theoretical framework for this study. The methodological considerations both contextualise aspects of the schools involved in the study, and outline how 'framing theory' was used to analyse the data. The paper draws on a number of participant experiences and newspaper accounts of schools to identify the frames that are used by the press when reporting on school performance. Three frames referring to school performance are discussed in this paper: those that rank performance such as league tables; frames that decontextualise performance isolating it from school circumstances and levels of funding; and frames that residualise government schools.

‘Everything is negative’: Schoolteachers’ perceptions of news coverage of education

“…Other related research (Shine, 2015a;Baroutsis and Lingard, 2017;Wallace, 2007) has noted a particular recent focus on testing, performance and accountability in the reporting of education, and a repeated questioning of standards. Consistent with the findings reported here, a recent Australian study (Baroutsis, 2016) that considered news coverage of standardised testing also found that metropolitan news outlets generally framed coverage negatively, while the reporting in local and regional news organisations tended to be more balanced. This may be due to the fact that teachers and/or principals are more likely to have an ongoing relationship with a local or regional news journalist or editor.…”

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

“…The first two phrases aspire to the more democratic notions of the free press (Finkelstein & Ricketson, 2012) acting as society's guardian and holding power to account; while the latter is about influence. These are common understandings by media practitioners of the role of media (see Baroutsis, 2016). For example, a recent review of media in Australia, the Finkelstein Inquiry, 1 identified a role of media as being society's guardians (Finkelstein & Ricketson, 2012).…”

Counting and comparing school performance: an analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014

“…These practices seek to influence politics and policy (Birks, 2010). However, within this agenda-setting context, newspapers, editors, and journalists perceive their media role as that of policy reinforcement, rather than policy construction or contestation (Baroutsis, 2016).…”

“…While our study is Australian in focus, it has relevance in the global policy context because of the strengthening global policy significance of PISA (Sellar & Lingard, 2014) and enhanced salience of the media in policy (Lingard & Rawolle, 2004;Baroutsis, 2016). As Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) state:…”