Julia Gillard as a Well-Polished Public Image - Assignment Example

Title: Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis Topic: How Julia Gillard has been Represented in the Press in the Lead up to the 2010 Federal Election Introduction After experiencing a period of political as well as leadership instability on both sides of the political divide, Australia is finally planning to go in to election later in the month on August 21st, 2010. This paper therefore tries to analyze the content and the discourse on how the media reports Julia Gillard, her campaign period, and her post election period in the country. Defense missing in action in Australia, the political candidates have been largely been silent on issues to do with the security of the public and the importance of the election in the country for the wellbeing of every voter in the long term. According to an article by Barker in the Australian Financial Review, 2010, it argued that there was no politician who was willing to remember the new defense white paper that was released about 15 months ago showing the realities of how Australian circumstances in the security, the strategies and the economic situations were. Specifically, Julia Gillard has been quiet about the issue of the security in the country. Instead, she focuses the paper on year 2030 when the country is expected to have good power relations in leadership, more global economic power as well as influence in the global politics. Gaffs/Goofs According to the Sydney Morning Herald, July 24-25, 2010, p.14, News Review Section, it is reported that the election mood in Australia is now at the full swing whereby most politicians are making serious goofs or gaffs in an attempt to lure the voters in to their sides. According to an article in the daily telegraph, August 2, 2010, p.5 it was reported that on 25th July Julia and Abbott had a debate after a week of campaign where neither the labor party nor the coalition party had their political campaigns without much of the dramatic political incidences. Both of these candidates tried to twist the questions by trying not to answer some of the questions and trying to maintain their focus. Gillard was asked the question of her policy in climate change and the killing of Kevin Rudd. On the other hand, her rival Abbott stood to his ground by emphasizing his policies on how to ease the household budgets and choice of work. During the debate, it is reported that people lost focus instead of focusing on the important topics to do with health issues, environmental issues and the household budget they instead focused on the population and the perception that Kevin Rudd was assassinated. The Australian Financial Review indicated that the debate favored Julia over Abbott. However, in channel 9 and channel 7, the debate was boring and tiring as the gender issues played a role in talking away the debate from the real issues. It was obvious that the women were in great favor of Gillard while the men were in great favor of Abbott. However, over the past few weeks it has become clear that gender differences have reduced and both men and women have decided on how they are going to vote in the elections that are scheduled to take place on August 21st, 2010. Their influence is largely based on the more important topics and not on their gender. Effective Communication According to the Courier Mail on the 9th of July 2010, Julia Gillard is referred to as a well polished public image. There is word of praise allover the experts of communication who praise her choice of language, body expressions and also a well selected wardrobe when she speaks to the public of Australia or to the media conferences. She is seen to be humble, composed and with a sense of humor, qualities that were not present to the former primer minister K- Rudd. According to Michael Kelly, who happens to be an expert in the body language, indicates that Julia Gillard may be a very strong and powerful leader because of the body language that she has. The expert says that the female candidate has a unique voice, passion for her work and great energy for the work. This combined with other features in her creates a distinction between her and the rest of her political rivals or other leaders elsewhere. Earlier criticisms made on Julia Gillard that she had a monotone voice has ever since been corrected by attending a voice training session where she has been trained for her voice to be clear, interesting and good to be listened by the public without it being a bore. Her mode of dressing has changed to well made business suits unlike before when she used to wear causal dresses. This creates a distinction between her and Abbott who dresses in more casual outfits which may not be the best outfits for a leader. The posture of Gillard, eye contact as well as use of gestures during an interview or when addressing the media are all directed and focused to the media and the general public unlike Abbott the Liberal party leader who looks down at the camera and the people in front of them by condensing and failing to show eye contact with them. This portrays the weak point of Abbott in becoming their leader as Australia would like to elect a leader who can be confident and able to communicate an issue effectively in ways that will enable the country to move forward. Public can be able to choose for themselves through the public address meetings held by the politicians which type of leaders they require. However, despite this some other analysts say that Abbott has strength elsewhere as he likes having bike riding and swimming which makes him unique to the people because at the end of the day he shows the voters that he is still one of them despite the position he may be in. all in all, all the candidates seem to have different and varied policies for Australia development strategies, they only need to have a better ways on how to communicate these policies to the Australians in order to win their vote and move the country forward. Blunder boy’s Election leaflets The Liberal party whose political candidate is Abbott has given out political leaflets trying to persuade the Australian public. According to the Liberal party of Australia, one such paper is entitled the top 10 failures and disasters which try to show how the party of Gillard and Rudd has tried to make blunders in the political promises that they promised to keep for the country. In the paper, the liberal party criticizes their opposition for their installation of the home insulation package that caused many fire in the country, also they criticize the fact that Rudd had promised to give all students a new laptop computer but in the end only a third of the students received the laptops. Another criticism was that the Gillard party had promised to start about 260 child care centers and only 4 centers were delivered and about 222 centers were abandoned without completion. The above criticism looks more shocking in the fact that despite Rudd having left the post of the prime minister, Julia Gillard was part of the government and this creates doubt on her performance once she gets elected to be the next prime minister. According to a satirical group called ABC1 on Saturday August 7th 2010, they made up their stories to humiliate the candidates of the prime minister in the coming elections in Australia. This program aims at airing serious political events by bringing a twist so as to bring out the comic in the event. In this episode the program brings out the political vulnerability of the Australian Labor party to which Gillard is a candidate in their campaigns slogans titled ‘moving forward. In this program it is argued that the media is facing a stressful moment as it tries to keep up with the level of the competition that is in existence between the parties and the candidates in an effort to get more votes. The Gruen Nation The gruen nation is a program which runs for 45 minutes with an aim of showing the political advertisements as well as the tricks that are used by the politicians to win the votes from the voters. Its main aim is the forth coming elections on August 21st, 2010 and it tries the voters to understand the tricks, the strengths and the extent which the politicians will go in trying to make the voters to vote for them. One of the show creators, Jon Casimir, explains that the most favorite character Peter Garett can no longer be seen despite him being a man who can never hide from the public. He explains that in the campaign the only people who can be seen are Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott and there is no other person who receives recognition from the public. He continues with his critics on how funny it is to see two new contenders who have never ran any political party trying to ask the voters of their votes. (Molitorisz, 2010). The program despite it being satirical provides the strategies used by each party on how they are trying to win the votes form the Australians. References ABC Online. About the Gruen Nation. 8th August 2010. Australian Associated Press. Parental Leave Scheme Welcomed in NSW, Sydney Morning Herald. 16th August 2010 Phillip Coorey. they're off, The Sydney Morning Herald. Tuesday August 10 edition 2010, page 1. ABC TV: The Chaser's War on Everything. Molitorisz, S, Taking a spin on road to the poll, July 29 2010. Read More