Cultural Safety in Health Care

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Running head: CULTURAL SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE
Cultural Safety in Health Care
Institution
Name

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CULTURAL SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE
Introduction
Mass media has been used widely to expose messages to large populations through ways
like television, newspapers as well as radios and the internet. The exposure to these messages is
generally passive and addresses such issues like marketing of products, strong social norms and
other behaviors which are brought up by people’s habits or addiction. The content that the media
covers day-in-day-out has a great influence and impact on the population of the nation, the death
rate, diseases, and infections relating to people’s social norms (Schwitzer et al, 2015). Therefore,
media can bring about positive changes or negative changes in the health care behaviors both by
health care systems as well as the general public. This piece of work will analyse the media of
Australia, including print media, internet, and the broadcasting media and discuss the role it has
played in the current health care system as well as the power it has. Additionally, it will also
discuss the influence and impact that the media has on the health care system of the multicultural
society of Australia. Two relevant and related media articles will be selected to discuss the
influence they have in health care safety.
Media has an extensive role to the public and the government, not only in Australia but
also in all countries in the world. McNair (2016) says that the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation is a broadcaster which provides such media as radio, television, mobile and online
services to Australians and also overseas. These broadcasting services offer programs which are
of a high standard, comprehensive and innovative in informing, educating, entertaining and
promoting diversity of culture in the community of Australia (Flew and Swift, 2015). The
Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a role of ensuring democracy in the nation. It is through
the media they provide where the journalists and other concerned groups or organizations let

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CULTURAL SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE
their interests be known (McNair, Flew, Harrington and Swift, 2017). The media also checks and
ensures balance in politics and the general democracy of the citizens.
Additionally, politicians use the media during campaigns where they are featured in
Newspapers, live in televisions and other media such as Facebook. Through these forums, they
communicate with the general public by convincing them of their power and ability to serve
them. They lay their intentions, plans, goals, and objectives as well as their strategies to ensure
full service to the Australian community. The journalists collect information from the public and
air-out their opinions and interests concerning the political sector. Moreover, McNair (2016)
suggests that the on-going projects and programs that are beneficial to the lives of the public are
also brought to them through the media. For example, pictures of the projects in progress are
shown in televisions, newspapers and the internet for the public to be aware of what is going-on.
Programs such as on public training and awareness days are also shared through the
media where the public is enriched with knowledge and skills that help them in different forums,
events and situations as well as their overall survival in the community (Andersen, Edwards and
Wolfe, 2017). The media also acts as a non-governmental organization where it makes the public
understand the problems that are existing in the government and hence provide an opportunity
for them to express themselves to the government (McNair, 2016). This, therefore, gives the
media the power to balance and control the power of the government, avoid autocracy as well as
tyrannical rule. This linkage of the media between the government and the citizens gives them
the power and command to not only controlling information flow but also nature of debates that
form political life in the democratic liberty of the nation as a whole.
Brennan, Durkin, Cotter, Harper, and Wakefield. (2017) argue that mass media
campaigns are continuing to be more intense and significant in the control of tobacco in