Understanding media influences on education policy in contexts of changing digital media cultures

Abstract

This critical policy research paper considers the impact of media on education policy, drawing on our empirical research that utilises print and digital newspapers and social media datasets. We acknowledge the broader social shifts in digital technology, advances in digitalisation and datafication, which contribute to mediatisation and deep mediatisation. In considering media/policy imbrications, we analyse three strategies utilised by different actors in the construction of media messaging to influence education policy. These are, celebrity as policy influencer, organisation as mediapreneur, and media as message curators. These actors include a football celebrity, Marcus Rashford, a mediapreneurial international intergovernmental organisation, the OECD, and Australian legacy media curation. The celebrity utilised social media activism to directly change policy decisions; the OECD attempted to manage legacy media reporting of PISA results to affect national policy responses and used social media for policy awareness raising and dissemination; and the Australian legacy media utilised their gatekeeper status to affect the context of influence of policy development and helped constitute discourses that frame policy. We conclude offering a comparative analysis of the three strategies, as well as considering the contribution of our research to the fields of policy sociology in education and media and education policy.