Critical Analysis of the Roles and Power of Current Australian Media

Write about the Roles of Media in Health Care for Current Australian Media.

Media is one of the most significant agents of socialization in Australia. Just like any other progressive nation, Australia has a huge presence of the mass media. The commonwealth government and the territory governments have been creating a favorable atmosphere that supports the existence of the print, broadcast, and electronic media. Each of these media platforms has been helpful because they give Australians an opportunity to acquire education, information, and entertainment. Media has played a significant role in promoting the provision of healthcare services because it helps in educating people and advocating for changes in the sector. However, there are instances in which media has been negatively used.

In Australia, there is a heavy presence of all media channels. The government has demonstrated its concern for media freedom by giving its citizens and residents an opportunity to enjoy the use of media. Australians now have unrestricted access to and use of the conventional radio, television (TV), newspapers, magazines, video, and cinema as well as the emerging electronic media platforms including websites, blogs, and social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram and many more. Each of these media platforms is essential because they are used for the benefit of the general public (McCaffery, Jansen, Scherer, Thornton, Hersch, Carter & Brodersen, 2016). The roles of media are open to all the sectors where it is used to benefit the users in many ways.

Media has distinguished itself as one of the most conspicuous stakeholders in the country’s healthcare sector. Over the years, media has been playing a major role in the healthcare sector. Here, it has been used to perform a wide range of activities (Murphy, Loeb, Basto, Challacombe, Trinh, Leveridge & Bultitude, 2014). First and foremost, media has been used in creating and disseminating information to the members of the public. All the public health education campaigns are conducted through the media because it is the only place where the masses can be accessed and taught. In Australia, the radio and TV stations, for instance, do air healthcare programs through which the people are sensitized on various health-related matters. The same applies to other media platforms including the internet and video where such opportunities are availed to the public (Ferguson, Inglis, Newton, Cripps, Macdonald, & Davidson, 2014).  All the health education campaigns are broadcasted through the mass media because it is the only place where all the people can be reached. At the same time, media has been confirmed to be a very influential platform that is trusted by many people. That is why whenever there is a need for educating the Australians on pandemic outbreaks, lifestyle and behavior changes, it is the mass media that is used.

The influence of the Media in Relation to Culturally Safe Care

Apart from educating and informing the public on various health matters, the mass media has also been used as a tool for advocacy and agitation for policy change. Since all the health-related decisions are made and implemented by the top policy-makers, it is the government and its agencies that should be approached whenever there is a need to address such issues (Denecke, Bamidis, Bond, Gabarron, Househ, Lau & Hansen, 2015). Hence, should a need arises, the concerned people resort to the media as a means of reaching out to the authorities. The first category of people who can use the media to advocate for policy changes is the members of the public. Whenever they feel that they demand for some changes, the disgruntled members of the society can resort to the mass media and use it as a platform to lobby for such changes from the local, state and federal government or any concerned government agencies. The media can also be used by the healthcare professionals to appeal to the government to address certain issues of health concern to them (Hossain & Muhammad, 2014). For example, epidemiologists and medical researchers can use the mass media to urge the government and pressurize it to allocate funds in aid of medical research. If such campaigns are properly coordinated, the issues can end up being addressed because the government considers media as a very powerful tool that cannot be ignored since media houses always treat the interest of the public as a priority.

Australia is a plural society because it is made up of people from diverse backgrounds. Its population is composed of the Caucasians, blacks, indigenous tribes and other immigrant groups. Each of these people has the cultural values, beliefs, traditions, and practices that matter to them. The cultural diversities of the Australians are, therefore, one of the major social factors that determine the health status of the people (Denecke, Bamidis, Bond, Gabarron, Househ, Lau & Hansen, 2015). The cultural values held by the people have a direct impact on their health because it influences their response towards medical care, illnesses, medications, and various medical interventions that are available for them. For healthcare practitioners to satisfy the needs of the patients, they should be culturally-competent professionals who understand and appreciate the cultural views of everyone regardless of their uniqueness.

Media can, hence, be used as a platform for instilling the spirit of cultural-competent care. As already hinted, media is a very influential platform that wields a lot of powers. It can affect the delivery of culturally-safe care if it is used in a positive way. If the media is used to depict a positive image of a community, it can help in making them to appreciate it as a useful resource that is availed to help in addressing the challenges facing the people (Durey, Lin & Thompson, 2013). One way through which the media can enhance the culture of culturally-safe care is that it can be used to teach people on the right kinds of cultural practices that they can adopt to improve their health status. For example, when a medium publishes or airs an education program to challenge people and appeal to them to change their cultural views towards modern healthcare; they might decide to do so. Such educational campaigns can be useful because they might make people to consider changing their cultural views and encouraging them to be dynamic and tolerant to new technologies since it means well for them. The involvement of the public is essential because the success of a safe cultural care cannot be realized without them. That is why a media must sensitize them on all the culturally-related matters as long as it affects them.

The media can also help in promoting the practice of culturally-safe care because it can be used as a platform of sensitizing the healthcare practitioners and educating them on various issues pertaining to culturally-competent care. Although healthcare providers are professionals who have the requisite training, it cannot be assumed that they are always perfect. They may lack all the competencies and other soft skills such interpersonal communication, cultural competence, and respect (Grant, Parry & Guerin, 2013). Such incompetence might render the practitioners incapable of meeting all the needs of their diverse patients. Hence, the mass media can be resourceful because it can enable such practitioners to deal with the cited challenges. The media can achieve its educational role by airing and publishing contents aimed at educating the practitioners and challenging to be culturally-competent professionals who are always ready to meet the diverse needs of their patients (Durey, Lin & Thompson, 2013). Apart from the radio and TV, films can also be produced to address specific issues of health concern such as the negative impacts of cultural intolerance on the delivery of culturally-safe care to the patients. If the healthcare practitioners get an opportunity to view such films, for example, they might learn their mistakes, get challenged, and become committed to the provision of safe care to their patients.

Although media can be a reliable platform for spreading a message on culturally-safe care, there are unfortunate instances where it has been abused ad used to disrupt the campaign for culturally-safe care in the country. There are instances when the mass media has been blamed for derailing the delivery of culturally-safe culture (Hunt, Ramjan, McDonald, Koch, Baird & Salamonson, 2015). Over the years, the media has been peddling rumors and baseless information on the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander people who are blamed for their irresponsibility, conservativeness, and ignorance. Instead of considering these indigenous people as a disadvantaged group that has special needs when it comes to health matters, there are many films, newspaper, radio and TV stations that have been condemning these people for deliberately contributing to their problems because they have deliberately chosen not to embrace modern health care rather than sticking on their obsolete good-for-nothing cultural values (Heinrich-Morrison, McLellan, McGinnes, Carroll, Watson, Bass & Cheng, 2015). Any media house which engages in such an act is doing a disservice to the indigenous people and the campaign for culturally-safe care in the country. Such publications are deadly because they do spread like a bush fire. It negatively influences the paces of culturally-safe care in two ways. First, it discourages the indigenous community from seeking for medical services since it renders them defenseless. Secondly, it discourages the healthcare practitioners because they get convinced that they do not have to sacrifice and dedicate their time to serve people who do not appreciate their efforts. 

Many Australians spend their precious time watching TV and films; listening to the radio; and reading newspapers, posters, magazines, and surfing the internet because they contain useful discussions on nearly every topic on an issue that affects them each day. As already heighted, the mass media, being a very powerful tool, can use its position to impact on cultural safety care in two ways: positively and negatively (Herring, Spangaro, Lauw & McNamara, 2013). The following examples of media items illustrate how the mass media has positively and negatively contributed towards the provision of culturally-safe healthcare services in Australia. 

This is an article that was written by Prof. Gillian Sandra Gould and published by the Conversation on July 21, 2016. Prof. Sandra wrote this article to provide an insight on the gap between the health of the indigenous and non-indigenous communities in Australia with reference to the women. According to her research, Prof. Sandra who has, for a very long time served as a research fellow at the Center for Brain and Mental Research University of Newcastle, found out that there exists a huge disparity between the health of the indigenous women and the rest of the Australian society (Gillian, 2016).  She attributed the poor state of the pregnant indigenous women to unhealthy cultural practices like smoking. Nonetheless, the author does not use the article to condemn these women, but use it as an educational piece which can be relied upon to create a behavior change on these women as a long-term solution is sought for the problem.

The article is good because it positively-contributes towards the delivery of culturally-safe care to the Australians. As a professional, Prof. Sandra uses her expertise to depict media as a useful tool that can help in solving an issue of health concern to the public. The high rate of smoking amongst the indigenous pregnant women is disastrous because it puts the lives of 9,000 infants in a dangerous state every year (Gillian, 2016). The author reports that such children are worse-off because exposure to nicotine and other tobacco chemicals at such a tender age exposes them to a wide range of illnesses that might end up affecting them throughout their lives. Hence, to address the problem, the author suggests that the healthcare providers who serve the indigenous people should have enough training on how to deal with them. If these practitioners are equipped with appropriate cultural competencies, they can do a marvelous job in creating the desired behavior change on these women (Fforde, Bamblett, Lovett, Gorringe & Fogarty, 2013). This is indeed an example of how the mass media can be used to positively contribute towards the initiative of providing culturally-safe care to the Australians.

“Ms Dhu Coronial Findings show Importance of teaching Doctors and Nurses about Unconscious Bias”

This article was written by Prof. Gregory Phillips and published by the Conversation on December 20, 2016. In this article, Prof. used his knowledge on Aboriginal health to pen down his ideas on the concept of unconscious bias amongst the healthcare practitioners. According to his research, it is true that the indigenous people have not been receiving a proper attention from the healthcare providers especially the non-indigenous people who serve them. Most of the time, the indigenous patients have not gotten quality services because the medics appear discriminative against them (Gregory, 2016). This simply implies that the culture of racism has gotten its way into the healthcare sector because the healthcare providers treat their patients based on the racial perceptions and attitudes they have formed against them.

Despite advocating for the role of knowledge on unconscious biasness, the article negatively contributes towards the provision of culturally-safe care because it depicts the indigenous people in a bad image. Allusion to the plights of people like Ms. Dhu shows how the delivery of culturally-safe care has been hampered by the medics who blame the indigenous for their conditions (Sweet, Dudgeon, McCallum, & Ricketson, 2014). For example, before Ms. Dhu died, the medics dismissed her agonies when they believed they were self-inflicted and mainly behavioral.  There are also examples where the medics claim that the Aboriginals do not say the truth because they do fake pain and claim to be suffering while they are actually not. Such patents end up being ignored because the medics do not take them seriously. That is what happened to an Aboriginal singer called Gurrumul Yunupingu who was left to bleed for hours because the medics believed that her sufferings were self-inflicted(Gregory, 2016).. The use of the mass media to spread labels like self-inflicted pain and irresponsibility is not good because it not only portrays the indigenous people negatively, but also hinders the delivery of culturally-safe care in the country.

Conclusion

The media has made significant contributions in the healthcare sector because they have been used as a means of conveying information to the masses and influencing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors as far as health matters are concerned. this notwithstanding, it should be acknowledged that the level of trust that the Australians have bestowed on the media has made it to be a very powerful tool that can negatively or positively impact on the Australian society depending on the way it is used. The two media items, thus, demonstrate how media can be used to encourage or discourage the provision of culturally-safe care in the country.

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