Kevin Rudds Media Policy - Research Proposal Example

Research proposal: Kevin Rudd’s Media policy (Name) (Institution) (Grade/course) (Instructor’s Name) April 10, 2009 Background Kevin Rudd was born on September 21, 1957 in Nambour, Queensland. He later attended the Nambour State High School and later the Australian National University in Canberra where he majored in Chinese history and Chinese language. He was later to further his education in Taiwan. On his return to Australia he worked in the foreign affairs department in government. He began full participation in Labor Party affairs in 1988 when he was employed as the Chief of Staff to the Labor Opposition Leader in Queensland. He gradually rose in the party rankings and served as the Director-General of the Office of the Cabinet of Wayne Goss’s government in early 1990’s. Powered by rising popularity, Rudd contested the party’s leadership in December 2006 and won. One year on, he was sworn in as Prime Minister as the incumbent, Howard, conceded to Labor party’s right to govern as the coalition government faced numerous hurdles. Australia is one of the few countries in the world where the media ownership is highly concentrated, in that few corporations or individuals have so much influence in the media channels that they have the potential to interfere with the dissemination of information. Literature review The labor government under the leadership Kevin Rudd has on several occasions been accused of sending the wrong message to Australians especially so when it comes to international matters. According to the Japanese and Chinese human rights atrocities committed by these governments against the Tibetans the government has been overly mute. Parkinson says for this reason there has been “rising anxiety, if not anger, about the emerging priorities of Australian foreign policy in Asia under Kevin Rudd. During the presidential campaigns, Rudd was viewed and publicized more politely that his rival Howard. This thereby contributed immensely to his winning the elections and placing him higher in the popularity polls (MacCallum, 164). Unfortunately, social websites and blogs where the PM received a lot of coverage in the early days of his premiership and during the 2007 campaigns are giving him less recognition and coverage as reported by one of the blogs, Greener Desktop (2009). Craig (2009) also claims how effective interviews that Rudd gave to media houses during the 2007 election were. He notes that “Rudd was able to present himself as a younger candidate, in contrast to Howard,…….. Rudd worked hard to present himself as a ‘reasonable’ person, regularly expressing a desire not to ‘play politics’ on issues where there was consensus with his political opponents. This media strategy was part of the broader political strategy, colloquially referred to as ‘me-tooism’”, (Craig p5) Rupert Murdoch, an influential figure in Australia’s political arena as major player in the media industry endorsed Rudd in the 2007 elections. Previously, he had supported other candidates out of Australia who went on to win the elections. Most credible are his support for Tony Blair, George Bush and even Margaret Thatcher. (The Age: MacCallum, p 164) Despite criticism by the same media over hypocrisy on certain issues and more on the administration’s foreign policy, Rudd is heading the Labor government in popularity against the opposition headed by Turnbull. In fact as recent as this April, The Australian reports that Labor’s popularity stands at 47 per cent compared with the Coalition's 36 per cent (Taylor, 2009) Problem definition The labor government headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has amassed a lot of popularity in recent times despite some telling failures. The fact that the Australian people are very content in this administration raises a lot of question in the regard that, the media seems to play an active role in painting a relatively “good picture” of the current government. On the other hand Rudd’s governance has been critiqued by some of his rivals as being similar to that of Howard who also happen to share same ideologies on certain policies such as the war on Iraq and war on terrorism. His relationship with China has also drawn a lot of criticism given that he was responsible for signing the Kyoto Protocol as his first assignment as Prime Minister. As such, the current Labor administration seems to be failing in the face of a global economic slowdown that has not spared Australia while at the same time the government’s popularity is on the increase. Given the above situation, there arises a question of how the relationship between the media and the Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, shaped the situation more so when looked from a perspective of the personal relation between Rudd and media owners? Main central research question The main central research question for this research is: How has the relationship between Kevin Rudd and media owners in Australia affected his success to the post of the Prime minister and even towards his positive rating as shown by recent popularity polls? Sub-research questions To explore in more details of the nature and process regarding to the main central research question, the following sub questions can be asked: 1. How has the current government handled the over due media reforms issue in Australia? 2. Has the coverage on the Prime Minister been fair? 3. Has the media been harsh on the opposition in order to warrant a fair rating of the current government? Research Objective The objective of the research project is to find out if there is any positive relationship between the method of governance adopted by Kevin Rudd in person and as head of government in regards to the media. In addition, the researcher provides meaningful knowledge and hopes to link Kevin Rudd’s media policy to political strategy that offers him and his administration an advantage over his rivals for political and other non political reasons. Definitions in terms of this research Media In this context, media refers to the various means and channels of communication available to the public. The term is also used as a collective noun for broadcasting houses or the press in general. Knowledge In this research project, “knowledge is to be understand to be the fact or condition of being instructed, or of having information acquired by study or research; acquaintance with ascertained truths, facts, or principles; information acquired by study; learning; erudition.” Hypothesis 1. Kevin Rudd received extensive backing from major media houses during the 2007 elections campaign that assisted in marketing his policy to the people and this eventually led to him winning the elections. 2. As a result he stands indebted to the media and is thus reluctant to introduce the long standing problem of media reforms in Australia. 3. The issue of media reforms has dominated Australian politics for a long and the idea that the Kevin Rudd administration will effect the reforms is nothing but a pipe dream as he owes his success in the campaigns to the media. Research Limitations The scope of the research is restricted to the extent of the functional and available data. Therefore, the results of the research will be limited to the results and the focus of the research. The media is the only source of information for this research and it becomes hard to critically analyze the information available. Research Design In this chapter, a general plan of this research project is outlined to seek answers for the research questions and the objective. Furthermore, an explanation is given how the researcher will precede in his research. In addition, the researcher will specify the sources for the data collection and the constraints for this research. In addition to this the researcher will develop an organized and comprehensive plan that will schedule each activity planned for, time and day and the estimated duration. This will ensure timely completion of the research project and avoid time wasting and ensure good organization. Research Philosophy This research project proposes an interpretivism philosophy as is best suited to collect qualitative data (Leedy, 2004). The researcher understands the differences between the various interviewees in their roles of policy makers, board of directors, media personalities, entrepreneurs, and managers as social actors in their various capacities. However, the researcher appreciates the role subjectivism in respondents. Their perceptions, experiences, and feelings of the interviewees in their perspective view to the world as a complex unity of human social actors towards their organizations. Research Approach The research approach will be devoid of theory in conducting the research. For this research project, the researcher will use an inductive approach to collect data that uses data obtained from the respondents whose analysis will be used to build a theory. Therefore, the researcher does not know the outcome of the research. Nevertheless, the respondents are largely expected to give their answers based on observations of which the researcher is also subjected to. As such, the researcher is allowed to make some hypothesis. Research Method The research method is a systematic way of collecting data procedure, durability of the research and the purpose of the research. This research project will dwell on a descriptive case study on the approach adopted by Kevin Rudd in the face of persistent calls for media reforms. The data obtained will be solely qualitative and is based solely on the opinion of the respondents. As such, the opinion of the respondents will be interpreted as to keep in line with the aim of the research project as being deductive and interpretive. Research Strategy The researcher will act as the facilitator of 12 focus groups. Each focus group will be composed of diverse personalities from the general population. Ideally, each focus group will constitute 10-15 respondents. 4 to 7 members of the focus groups will be persons who can positively identify their link with news items. This implies that these respondents should be chosen on a basis of how often they watch news on television, how often they read daily papers and news on radio. In addition to this, persons with few interests on political news in the media will also be included. In appreciation of the role of the internet, members of social networks in the internet will also be included in the sample. Furthermore, the researcher intends to interview 5 to 8 directors or senior management employees of media houses. Such a composition will ensure that the information obtained is all representative and is most accurate. This will also improve on the credibility of the research findings. All interviews will be recorded with a recording system with the permission of the all members in that particular focus group. In the line of the time horizon of the research, cross-sectional results can be expected from this research. Research Population The research will attempt to be inclusive as much as possible. Each of the focus group will be drawn from each of the six territories. Other groups will be sourced on random samples giving weight to political affiliation and population. Special groups including political affiliation will also be considered as a qualification factor to the focus groups. Sampling Method The data sampling for this research is non-probability sampling. The researcher will focus on small selected cases as explained earlier to provide rich and relevant data for this research to meet the research question and the objective. Therefore, the researcher will use purposive sampling with an appropriate focus on heterogeneous sampling. The various groups will be assembled and selected based on the researcher judgment since there is a variation in the data sampling. Furthermore, a heterogeneous sampling gives the researcher space to describe and explain the key themes of the research question and the objective. Empirical Framework The primary qualitative data for this research project come from the discussion s with the selected focus groups. Assumptions -Information collected from the focus group discussions is true and free from political bias -Respondents selected to take part in the focus group will willingly accept the offer. -The research project will be immune from political interference and especially from the Rudd administration or the involved media houses. Data collection and analysis The recorded focus group discussions will be analyzed each according to the grouping adopted. Findings from groups organized on geographic divisions in this case states will awarded higher weight than findings from focus group discussions on special groups or other classifications adopted namely political affiliation and position in the media industry. Graphs and Practical, legal & ethical issues A potential risk is that it might not be enough time available to assemble and gather all the focus groups more so given that their composition is set to be as diverse as possible. Given that, the research subject is highly politically sensitive. As such, the focus group discussions should be guided carefully guided so as not to degenerate into political debates. A possible problem may arise in the observance on the right of privacy which may limit data collection. In one way, political views are personal and respondents in focus groups might feel inclined to keep them as so given the political aspect of the problem in question. Organizing the numerous focus group meetings would be costly to this research project. The costs would thus be prohibitive and thus only an established and possibly independent research organization is capable of carrying out this kind of research. On the other hand, the research findings might have severe political consequences. For one, the finding might be offensive or rather classified inflammatory and sensitive. Challenges -The researcher is faced with the task of developing a solid compelling case that the study contributes to theory, research, practice, and existing media policy in Kevin Rudd’s administration. -Planning a systematic and realistic research in a very sensitive subject that attracts a lot of emotions in the political and social arena is in itself a challenge. -There is no justifiable method of qualitative data collection. References Craig, Geoffrey, (2008) Kevin Rudd and the framing of ‘politics’ in news media interviews, Refereed paper presented to the Politics/Media Conference The University of Melbourne 12-13 February 2008 Greener world, Retrieved on April 8 2009 from, http://greenerdesktop.com/320/kevin-rudd-pm-social-media Leedy, P. and Ormrod, J. (2004) Practical Research: Planning and Design, London: Prentice Hall, MacCallum, Mungo Poll dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election, New York: Black Inc Parkinson, T., “Kevin Rudd's Asia hypocrisy” Institute of Public Affairs Review. Retrieved on April 8 2009 fromhttp://www.ipa.org.au/publications/1249/kevin-rudd%27s-asia-hypocrisy Robert K. Yin, (2003). Case Study Research, third edition, London: Sage Publications Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2007). Research Methods for business students, London: Prentice Hall The Age, Retrieved on April 8 2009 from http://www.theage.com.au/news/NATIONAL/Rupert-Murdoch-backs-Rudd-as-future-PM/2007/04/21/1176697138551.html Read More