Presents a systematic analysis of the coverage of Italian matters in the Australian news media in the period 2005-2012.
Executive summary
The study presents a systematic analysis of the coverage of Italian matters in the Australian news media in the period 2005-2012. As far as the authors are aware it is largest study of the representation of Italy in the news media of a foreign country ever undertaken.
The study was undertaken by the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC) in association with the On. Marco Fedi, who commissioned research on coverage of Italian politics in selected Australian newspapers.
During the period covered by the study there was more than usual interest in Italian political developments in Australia, both because of their inherent newsworthiness and because of the newly-acquired right of direct participation of expatriate Italians in Australia in the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections.
To obtain as wide a view of Italy in the Australian news as practicable both the press and television were included in the study.
Three well -known and respected newspapers, namely The Australian, the major national newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) published in Sydney and The Age published
in Melbourne were selected for the study. All editorial matter in all issues of these newspapers for the years 2005-2012 was searched using ‘Factiva’– a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. The initial search for relevant news in the press generated a very large number of items (around 10,000) which were then assessed individually for relevance and eligibility for inclusion in the analysis. This process generated a data set of 5325 news items
