Shannon, Cáelainn
(2024)
Irish News Media’s Preferential Treatment of Religious Actors in
Relation to Crime and Harm.
Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
News media plays a dual role in society of both informant and influence, with a shifting overlap
based upon internal and external factors. Simultaneously, powerful parties within society can
often exert influence over media, news inclusive - raising a question of how this relationship
may in turn affect news portrayals of actors within these parties. This research project set out
to examine Irish newspaper articles to deduce whether a primary ‘powerful party’ throughout
Ireland’s history, the Christian order, and its branches, held sway over the portrayals of order
members accused or charged of committing harm.
Through a content analysis of one hundred news articles over a sixty-year period, with an even
focus split between members of a Christian order and non-members, it was determined that
Irish news media did show bias in favour of order members through several means such as
inclusion of information, tone and language, amongst others. the significance of this finding is
discussed within its own context and in the wider contexts of media and power within society,
with considerations of cyclical inequality, labelling, norms, and wider social structures,
alongside the plausibility of change in society’s approach to news media, as this study’s results
highlight an issue which is only exacerbated by the modern-day relationship between powerful
actors and media.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(Masters)
|
| Additional Information: |
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice. |
| Keywords: |
Irish News; Media; Preferential Treatment; Religious Actors; Crime; Harm; Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
19046 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
16 Oct 2024 11:33 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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