Myra C Gurney | Western Sydney University (original) (raw)
Papers by Myra C Gurney
In an increasingly toxic and fractious Australian political debate, many self-labeled political a... more In an increasingly toxic and fractious Australian political debate, many self-labeled political and media ‘climate sceptics’ repeatedly resort to religious metaphors to rhetorically frame their attacks on climate science and on advocates of carbon reduction policies. While the ideological wellsprings of climate change denialism have been well researched (Campbell & Kay, 2014; Carvalho, 2007; Fielding, Head, Laffan, Western, & Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012; Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2010), the common discursive conflation of climate science ‘scepticism’ and the rhetorical pejorative of religious ‘faith’ remains a curious and paradoxical anomaly. This paper examines speeches by key Australian public figures to explore the manner in which politicians and conservative media commentators use language borrowed from religion, theology and morality as a rhetorical vehicle through which to construct doubt about the veracity of scientific evidence and to cast aspersions on the autho...
Social media can be helpful in creating awareness about environmental protection and particularly... more Social media can be helpful in creating awareness about environmental protection and particularly wildlife conservation in the wake of anthropogenic climate change (Meribe, 2017), however certain detrimental trends over social media have been emerged that may lead to smuggling of endangered species and even death of wild animals (Binney, 2017). Humans and wild animals face the same challenge of catastrophic climate change.Now, the role of social media becomes imperative for the conservation of wildlife amid climate change in those countries which are badly affected by climatic degradation and Pakistan has been facing catastrophic consequences of climate change
This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching stat... more This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching statement which examine the language and discourse of the climate change debate in Australia since 2007. Published over the period of my candidacy, the papers individually explore a range of questions about the broader underpinning drivers of a unique period of political disruption in Australia – the so-called ‘climate wars’. Thematically, this thesis considers how the scientific urgency and moral imperative for climate change policy action, so powerful in 2007, degenerated into a rancorous political wedge that provided the catalyst for the removal of three sitting prime ministers. The thesis addresses a number of pertinent questions. What is it about climate change as a scientific, environmental, economic, psychological, social, cultural and ethical and ideological phenomenon that offers insight into this remarkable period of Australian political history? What does the political narrative o...
Global media journal, 2014
While Liberal Party leader ‐ and now PM ‐ Tony Abbott declared the 2013 Australian federal electi... more While Liberal Party leader ‐ and now PM ‐ Tony Abbott declared the 2013 Australian federal election to be a ‘referendum on the carbon tax’, debate on climate change by both major parties, as a problem and as a policy, appeared to be largely absent. This paper examines the discursive characteristics of this debate by examining the election launch speeches of both party leaders and by using the Leximancer text analytics software to map both the frequency and conceptual relationships within mainstream media coverage. The strength of this software is that it allows a researcher to both map the quantitative nature of the linguistic characteristics of a corpus of texts, and to use this conceptual mapping to examine the results qualitatively. The paper concludes that quantitatively, in comparison with the previous two elections, climate change was a second order issue. Further, a qualitative analysis of the debate that did occur, concluded that it was largely framed in relation to the poli...
This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the four... more This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the fourth edition. The text covers all aspects of communication, with an emphasis on strategy, practice and process, all of which are explored within the context of our society and culture.
In Australia since 2007, attempts to deal with anthropogenic climate change have become highly po... more In Australia since 2007, attempts to deal with anthropogenic climate change have become highly politicised, politically poisonous and discursively fractious. Central to the toxic politics has been a vocal media campaign from so-called 'sceptics' and 'denialists' who have largely framed their opposition to carbon reduction policies in terms of the scientific basis of climate change in general, and the economic implications, in particular. Using the text analytics program Leximancer, this paper applies a mixed methods approach of 'distant' and more traditional 'close' reading to examine a large sample corpus of the columns of prolific Australian conservative commentator and climate sceptic Andrew Bolt for the manner in which he discursively constructs his views on climate change. It then discusses the extent to which Bolt's self-labeled 'scepticism' is consistent with both the traditional application of scientific scepticism and the broader strategies of climate change denialism and its role in legitimizing doubts about the both the veracity of climate science and scientific consensus. The Leximancer analysis works on a large scale corpus that demonstrates the manner in which Bolt's arguments are inconsistent with genuine scientific scepticism, but are examples of denialism that is largely ideologically driven.
Environmental Conflict and the Media, 2015
In the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd famously amplified the environmental political rh... more In the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd famously amplified the environmental political rhetoric on climate change by referring to it as “the great moral challenge of our generation”. However an examination of three key political speeches on implementing climate change policy, concludes that scant attention has been paid to the notion of the moral and ethical elements of the debate from either side of Australian politics. This paper examines the discursive dimensions of these speeches and considers the broader implications for the status of the climate change policy currently being played out in the Australian political arena.
This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the four... more This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the fourth edition. The text covers all aspects of communication, with an emphasis on strategy, practice and process, all of which are explored within the context of our society and culture.
The University of Western Sydney is a large multicampus metropolitan university. The campus invol... more The University of Western Sydney is a large multicampus metropolitan university. The campus involved in the study is located on the outskirts of Sydney and comprises students who come from highly diverse multicultural backgrounds. Communication Research is a core unit in the UWS Bachelor of Communication program taught by the School of Communication Arts. The unit introduces the modern process of communication research including critical review of research literature, argument and logic, data Ray Archee University of Western Sydney, Australia
Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy
No. 123 — May 2007 (pp. 172–76), as well as more expected entries such as media effects (pp. 114–... more No. 123 — May 2007 (pp. 172–76), as well as more expected entries such as media effects (pp. 114–17) and political advertising (pp. 147–51). The book argues that the contexts of political communication must also be understood in order to be able to understand ‘the functions and roles’ of a communication (p. 17). This emphasis on context highlights one noticeable absence from the list of concepts: political culture. Although arguably not a political communication concept, some discussion of the concept and the controversies which surround it would have been a useful addition to the book’s concerns about reception, especially as most of the concepts in the book are defined in terms of a politics focused around electoral competition. The book largely achieves its aim of providing a ‘foundation for further research’ for ‘newcomers’ to political communication studies (p. 21). Even those more familiar with the field may find the up-to-date definitions and sketches of current research handy and its discussion of reception valuable, although some mention of critical theory, its terminology and concerns would have been welcome. As it is, the emphasis seems to be more on practical issues and empirical contexts largely to do with formal state politics, despite the complexity of general communications, media and political theory. — Sandey Fitzgerald, Sociology, Macquarie University
The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian politic... more The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian political landscape in recent years and has been a pivotal issue around which the political fortunes of several of the major players in Australian politics have revolved. While Kevin Rudd’s call to arms for action on the ‘great moral challenge of a generation’ was rhetorically memorable, the major discursive focus to date has been on the need to develop policies which do not significantly impact the economic status quo. But to what extent does the continuing narrow focus on economic impacts ignore other ethical questions which lie at the heart of need for substantive, but potentially politically more difficult, responses to climate change? This paper will overview the economic frame through which climate change has been debated in Australia since 2007 and discuss some of the ethical questions which underpin this frame.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
This study explores, with a particular focus on the Australian political context, how the ethical... more This study explores, with a particular focus on the Australian political context, how the ethical impacts of pursuing effective climate change policy have been diluted by the singular focus on economic implications. The paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine examples of political speeches and documents. It gives an historical overview of political problems of pursuing climate policy (Australia has had five prime ministers in six years, all of them whose political incumbency has pivoted around their positions on climate change.) The paper then discusses more generally, why economics has become the dominant narrative and the arguments for considering climate change as a moral or ethical issue, hence the title “the choice between progress or the planet.”
Challenges and Solutions, 2011
Integrating Culture with E-Learning Management System Design (9781466600119): Ray Archee, Myra Gu... more Integrating Culture with E-Learning Management System Design (9781466600119): Ray Archee, Myra Gurney: Book Chapters.
Media International Australia
In an increasingly toxic and fractious Australian political debate, many self-labeled political a... more In an increasingly toxic and fractious Australian political debate, many self-labeled political and media ‘climate sceptics’ repeatedly resort to religious metaphors to rhetorically frame their attacks on climate science and on advocates of carbon reduction policies. While the ideological wellsprings of climate change denialism have been well researched (Campbell & Kay, 2014; Carvalho, 2007; Fielding, Head, Laffan, Western, & Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012; Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2010), the common discursive conflation of climate science ‘scepticism’ and the rhetorical pejorative of religious ‘faith’ remains a curious and paradoxical anomaly. This paper examines speeches by key Australian public figures to explore the manner in which politicians and conservative media commentators use language borrowed from religion, theology and morality as a rhetorical vehicle through which to construct doubt about the veracity of scientific evidence and to cast aspersions on the autho...
Social media can be helpful in creating awareness about environmental protection and particularly... more Social media can be helpful in creating awareness about environmental protection and particularly wildlife conservation in the wake of anthropogenic climate change (Meribe, 2017), however certain detrimental trends over social media have been emerged that may lead to smuggling of endangered species and even death of wild animals (Binney, 2017). Humans and wild animals face the same challenge of catastrophic climate change.Now, the role of social media becomes imperative for the conservation of wildlife amid climate change in those countries which are badly affected by climatic degradation and Pakistan has been facing catastrophic consequences of climate change
This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching stat... more This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching statement which examine the language and discourse of the climate change debate in Australia since 2007. Published over the period of my candidacy, the papers individually explore a range of questions about the broader underpinning drivers of a unique period of political disruption in Australia – the so-called ‘climate wars’. Thematically, this thesis considers how the scientific urgency and moral imperative for climate change policy action, so powerful in 2007, degenerated into a rancorous political wedge that provided the catalyst for the removal of three sitting prime ministers. The thesis addresses a number of pertinent questions. What is it about climate change as a scientific, environmental, economic, psychological, social, cultural and ethical and ideological phenomenon that offers insight into this remarkable period of Australian political history? What does the political narrative o...
Global media journal, 2014
While Liberal Party leader ‐ and now PM ‐ Tony Abbott declared the 2013 Australian federal electi... more While Liberal Party leader ‐ and now PM ‐ Tony Abbott declared the 2013 Australian federal election to be a ‘referendum on the carbon tax’, debate on climate change by both major parties, as a problem and as a policy, appeared to be largely absent. This paper examines the discursive characteristics of this debate by examining the election launch speeches of both party leaders and by using the Leximancer text analytics software to map both the frequency and conceptual relationships within mainstream media coverage. The strength of this software is that it allows a researcher to both map the quantitative nature of the linguistic characteristics of a corpus of texts, and to use this conceptual mapping to examine the results qualitatively. The paper concludes that quantitatively, in comparison with the previous two elections, climate change was a second order issue. Further, a qualitative analysis of the debate that did occur, concluded that it was largely framed in relation to the poli...
This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the four... more This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the fourth edition. The text covers all aspects of communication, with an emphasis on strategy, practice and process, all of which are explored within the context of our society and culture.
In Australia since 2007, attempts to deal with anthropogenic climate change have become highly po... more In Australia since 2007, attempts to deal with anthropogenic climate change have become highly politicised, politically poisonous and discursively fractious. Central to the toxic politics has been a vocal media campaign from so-called 'sceptics' and 'denialists' who have largely framed their opposition to carbon reduction policies in terms of the scientific basis of climate change in general, and the economic implications, in particular. Using the text analytics program Leximancer, this paper applies a mixed methods approach of 'distant' and more traditional 'close' reading to examine a large sample corpus of the columns of prolific Australian conservative commentator and climate sceptic Andrew Bolt for the manner in which he discursively constructs his views on climate change. It then discusses the extent to which Bolt's self-labeled 'scepticism' is consistent with both the traditional application of scientific scepticism and the broader strategies of climate change denialism and its role in legitimizing doubts about the both the veracity of climate science and scientific consensus. The Leximancer analysis works on a large scale corpus that demonstrates the manner in which Bolt's arguments are inconsistent with genuine scientific scepticism, but are examples of denialism that is largely ideologically driven.
Environmental Conflict and the Media, 2015
In the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd famously amplified the environmental political rh... more In the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd famously amplified the environmental political rhetoric on climate change by referring to it as “the great moral challenge of our generation”. However an examination of three key political speeches on implementing climate change policy, concludes that scant attention has been paid to the notion of the moral and ethical elements of the debate from either side of Australian politics. This paper examines the discursive dimensions of these speeches and considers the broader implications for the status of the climate change policy currently being played out in the Australian political arena.
This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the four... more This is an extensive revision of the text "Communicating Theory and Practice", the fourth edition. The text covers all aspects of communication, with an emphasis on strategy, practice and process, all of which are explored within the context of our society and culture.
The University of Western Sydney is a large multicampus metropolitan university. The campus invol... more The University of Western Sydney is a large multicampus metropolitan university. The campus involved in the study is located on the outskirts of Sydney and comprises students who come from highly diverse multicultural backgrounds. Communication Research is a core unit in the UWS Bachelor of Communication program taught by the School of Communication Arts. The unit introduces the modern process of communication research including critical review of research literature, argument and logic, data Ray Archee University of Western Sydney, Australia
Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy
No. 123 — May 2007 (pp. 172–76), as well as more expected entries such as media effects (pp. 114–... more No. 123 — May 2007 (pp. 172–76), as well as more expected entries such as media effects (pp. 114–17) and political advertising (pp. 147–51). The book argues that the contexts of political communication must also be understood in order to be able to understand ‘the functions and roles’ of a communication (p. 17). This emphasis on context highlights one noticeable absence from the list of concepts: political culture. Although arguably not a political communication concept, some discussion of the concept and the controversies which surround it would have been a useful addition to the book’s concerns about reception, especially as most of the concepts in the book are defined in terms of a politics focused around electoral competition. The book largely achieves its aim of providing a ‘foundation for further research’ for ‘newcomers’ to political communication studies (p. 21). Even those more familiar with the field may find the up-to-date definitions and sketches of current research handy and its discussion of reception valuable, although some mention of critical theory, its terminology and concerns would have been welcome. As it is, the emphasis seems to be more on practical issues and empirical contexts largely to do with formal state politics, despite the complexity of general communications, media and political theory. — Sandey Fitzgerald, Sociology, Macquarie University
The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian politic... more The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian political landscape in recent years and has been a pivotal issue around which the political fortunes of several of the major players in Australian politics have revolved. While Kevin Rudd’s call to arms for action on the ‘great moral challenge of a generation’ was rhetorically memorable, the major discursive focus to date has been on the need to develop policies which do not significantly impact the economic status quo. But to what extent does the continuing narrow focus on economic impacts ignore other ethical questions which lie at the heart of need for substantive, but potentially politically more difficult, responses to climate change? This paper will overview the economic frame through which climate change has been debated in Australia since 2007 and discuss some of the ethical questions which underpin this frame.
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
This study explores, with a particular focus on the Australian political context, how the ethical... more This study explores, with a particular focus on the Australian political context, how the ethical impacts of pursuing effective climate change policy have been diluted by the singular focus on economic implications. The paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine examples of political speeches and documents. It gives an historical overview of political problems of pursuing climate policy (Australia has had five prime ministers in six years, all of them whose political incumbency has pivoted around their positions on climate change.) The paper then discusses more generally, why economics has become the dominant narrative and the arguments for considering climate change as a moral or ethical issue, hence the title “the choice between progress or the planet.”
Challenges and Solutions, 2011
Integrating Culture with E-Learning Management System Design (9781466600119): Ray Archee, Myra Gu... more Integrating Culture with E-Learning Management System Design (9781466600119): Ray Archee, Myra Gurney: Book Chapters.
Media International Australia
It seems that not a day goes buy [sic] before yet another person who has "worked in communication... more It seems that not a day goes buy [sic] before yet another person who has "worked in communications, political and advocacy roles for the past 25 years" offers their opinion on social media. The old media people seem to be having a hard time getting over the fact that the rest of us also have a voice now.
The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian politic... more The issue of climate change has had a significant and polarising impact on the Australian political landscape in recent years and has been a pivotal issue around which the political fortunes of several of the major players in Australian politics have revolved. While Kevin Rudd’s call to arms for action on the ‘great moral challenge of a generation’ was rhetorically memorable, the major discursive focus to date has been on the need to develop policies which do not significantly impact the economic status quo. But to what extent does the continuing narrow focus on economic impacts ignore other ethical questions which lie at the heart of need for substantive, but potentially politically more difficult, responses to climate change? This paper will overview the economic frame through which climate change has been debated in Australia since 2007 and discuss some of the ethical questions which underpin this frame.
Study of the language, rhetoric and discourse of politicians can provide a rich, if until recentl... more Study of the language, rhetoric and discourse of politicians can provide a rich, if until recently, largely neglected, source of insights into the evolving nature of political debate in the information society as well as of the underlying ideological foundations that inform the practice and those of the modern political system more broadly. In 2006 when long serving Australian Prime Minister John Howard differentiated between ‘core and non-core promises’, he coined a phrase which, like no other, encapsulated the modern political landscape. The paper proposes that Eisenberg’s (1984) notion of ‘strategic ambiguity’, that is the intentional employment of language in ambiguous ways to accomplish strategic, organisational goals, may be a useful framework through which to probe the style and structure of the public language and performance of politicians. The notion offers a useful mechanism for exploring many of the despised characteristics of ‘political-speak’: obfuscation, abstract usage, parroted lines and a seeming preference for complex but empty phrases and rhetoric. In the era of the 24 hour news cycle where every word uttered by a politician is micro-analysed and can be turned into a sound bite which may be used repeatedly as a weapon by political opponents and a blood thirsty news media, speaking plainly, spontaneously, unambiguously and unrehearsed, poses a potential risk usually not tolerated by the career politician and their media minders and strategists. The need to ‘stay on message’ and to ‘perform’ for the media pack, has become the mantra. The larger question to which the theme of this paper alludes, is the extent to which these strategic linguistic and framing choices, ultimately debases political debate and undermines political credibility and may in fact impede policy development by alienating an already jaded political audience.