Academic spells out Discourse Analysis for Judges
South Australian communications academic and author, Dr Pamela Schulz, has told a top conference of Australasian judges
that the media and politics have “conspired’’ to marginalise them. The opening key speaker of the 21st Bi-annual National  District and County Courts Judges Conference held in Adelaide on June 30th Dr Schulz presented her case by analysing
discourses surrounding the justice system in Australia, New Zealand and around the world.
Judges from around Australia and New Zealand attended this significant conference.
Dr Schulz presented an overview and analysis of her recent book “Courts and Judges on Trial: Analysing and Managing
the Discourses of Disapproval” published by Lit Verlag Berlin, London and New York.  Her research illustrated how  the media – in its search for grabbing headlines – and politians have conspired to make judges the “other” and
marginalise them as a type of new “offender” in the courts.
“The judiciary system is constantly berated as being too soft on crime,’’ said Dr Schulz, a communications management
expert.  “And the justice system is under threat as a result.’’
She had plenty of evidence – slides of “screaming headlines’’,  pictorials pillorying judicial officers and graphic illustrations of sentencing issues. She bundled them together under the academic term “discourses of disapproval and direction
, a major finding in her work.
She reckons that such a barrage of negative messages holds that judges are somehow to blame for an insecure and anxious community.
Dr Schulz also exposed what she called “fear discourse’’, a notion of a scary world delivered by media daily into the
nation’s home.
It was all new news to the judges who kept Dr Schulz at the podium answering comments and questions from her captive audience for another 45 minutes.
Dr Schulz wants to see the language surrounding sentencing to change and to be more relevant to community.
She said afterwards that judicial officers seemed keen to find ot more and to learn new and better ways to communicate
effectively with the community they serve. Find out more on < http://pameladschulz.com/>
Tags: courts, discourse, judges, media analysis, politics, public opinion
