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The Portrayal of Indigenous Health in Selected Australian Media

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Open access
Authors
Stoneham, Melissa
Goodman, Jodie
Daube, Mike
Date
2014
Type
Journal Article

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Stoneham, Melissa and Goodman, Jodie and Daube, Mike. 2014. The Portrayal of Indigenous Health in Selected Australian Media. The International Indigenous Policy Journal. 5 (1): pp. 1-13.
Source Title
The International Indigenous Policy Journal
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This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

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Abstract

It is acknowledged that health outcomes for Australian Indigenous peoples are lower than those of non-Indigenous Australians. Research suggests negative media in relation to Indigenous Australians perpetuates racist stereotypes among the wider population and impacts on the health of Indigenous Australians. This study examined the media portrayal of Indigenous Australian public health issues in selected media over a twelve month period and found that, overwhelmingly, the articles were negative in their portrayal of Indigenous health. A total of 74 percent of the coverage of Australian Indigenous related articles were negative, 15 percent were positive, and 11 percent were neutral. The most common negative subject descriptors related to alcohol, child abuse, petrol sniffing, violence, suicide, deaths in custody, and crime.