Rural sociology and the media
Hugh Campbell
Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment, School of Social Sciences, Otago University, New Zealand
Geoffrey Lawrence
Professor, Sociology; Head, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, QLD
PP: 13
Keywords
media and communications
Article Text
There is an adage at universities that nothing beneficial can come from the meeting of academics and the mass media. Academics, by habit and training, excel in providing complicated arguments and in disclosing the uncertainties of findings, the media want a quick and racy story.
This is not to say the relationship between the two groups is not productive. On the positive side, the presentation of otherwise incomprehensible scientific knowledge to the public provides information and knowledge which aids understanding of our complex society. On the negative side, university findings can be sensationalised; researchers can become the victims of the increasingly common ‘beat up'.
Rural sociologists try hard to provide theoretically insightful and methodologically sound research findings. Sometimes they are castigated by the media for their troubles. A recent example is that of La Trobe sociologist Ken Dempsey who conducted fieldwork in ‘Smalltown' in central Victoria. His carefully documented findings were considered by one reviewer to be ‘sociological sludge'. He was accused of being boring, unspectacular and of ‘not telling us anything we didn't already know'. He was guilty, of course, of couching his findings in impartial sociological prose.
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