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The Role of the Media in the Formulation of Economic Policy
Author(s) -
Gittins Ross
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8462.1995.tb00900.x
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , elite , quality (philosophy) , political science , economic analysis , economics , economic policy , politics , law , classical economics , philosophy , epistemology
This article examines and comments on the reporting of economic news in the Australian media, the influence on that reporting of media judgments about newsworthiness, the relationship between economic reporting and the financial markets, and governments' use of the media in the economic policy process. Finally, it focuses on the role of economic commentators in the quality press, their relations with the bureaucracy, their part in the rise of economic rationalism and the nature of their influence on the formulation of economic policy. It concludes that when the commentators as a group take up causes and pursue them over sustained periods, they help to create a climate of elite option which emboldens governments to undertake politically difficult policy reforms.