Quantifying government media relations in Queensland

Abstract

This article draws upon historical and contemporary data to attempt to identify key issues in government media relations and to discuss the processes and challenges involved in attempting to quantify the expenditure on this activity in the state of Queensland in the modern era. A combination of investigative journalism and academic research methods have been used to position government media relations as a practice and to gauge expenditure, staffing, and cost to the taxpayer of government media relations in Queensland. The Electoral and Administrative Review Commission’s Report on review of government media and information services (EARC, 1993) was the first comprehensive measure of such costs and since then only some insights were offered by premiers Beattie and Bligh in 2006 and 2008 in response to parliamentary questions on notice. This article reviews these costs, canvasses expert estimates of the real cost of government media relations, and debates some of the competing interests at stake.

Truth and Politics: Thinking About Evidence‐Based Policy in the Age Of Spin

“…A literature far larger than the evidencebased policy literature, testifies to the power and ubiquity of what we now call 'spin' but which in earlier, plainer times was called 'propaganda' (Garnham 1992;Franklin 1994;March 2014Kurtz 1998Jones 1995;Cappella & Jamieson 1997;Beresford 1998;van Onselen & Errington 2005, Stockwell 2007Pearson and Mclean 2010). Especially valuable in tracing out the adoption of spin by modern governments is work by Harris (see Harris 1999;Harris, Moss & Vetter 1999;Harris & Wring 2002).…”