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Paper details
You will write a briefing paper
The briefing paper is brief and should include a summary of the issue, a suggested course of action, with
arguments for and against. The final decision will always rest with the recipient (in this case a Minister), but
briefing papers are usually clear in recommending a course of action.
It should be set out in the following way:
Title: Briefing Paper prepared for………..by……….
Issue (2-3 sentences to describe what the issue or topic of the briefing paper is)
Background (use your imagination to explain why this has come up now and is important for the Minister to
consider).
Analysis – this is where you analyse the pros and cons, disadvantages and advantages, highlighting the
texts you are being asked to use for the assignment
Conclusion/Recommendation – This is where you make the case to the minister about what they should do.
You will write a briefing paper, which is a short piece of writing designed to advise and update a
parliamentarian on an item of importance, assessing the pros and cons of a particular decision or issue.
Your paper should be based on the content found in block 3 of the subject. Your briefing paper will address
the following scenario:
You are working in the office of a Minister of Parliament in Australia who needs to be advised (by you) on a
proposal from within government to create a publicly-funded/owned Social Media platform for citizens to
use. Your task is to advise the Minister on whether or not they should support the proposal. Your briefing
paper should contain clear recommendations to either support or not support the proposal, providing good
reasons as well as background explanation of the issues.
This briefing paper will include references to at least 5 readings/texts from the following
Nancy Fraser, 1998, ‘Sex, Lies and the Public Sphere: Reflections on the Confirmation of Clarence
Thomas’ in Joan B Landes, Ed. 1998, Feminism: The Public and the Private, OUP, Oxford, 135-163.
Britney Cooper, 2018 ‘Bag Lady’ in Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist discovers her Superpower, St Martin’s
Press, New York, 99-124.
P. Hodkinson, (2017) ‘Media, Gender and Sexuality’ in Media, Culture and Society, Sage: London, 243-262.
Bronwyn Carlson and Ryan Frazer, 2020 ‘’They got filters’: Indigenous Social Media, the Settler Gaze, and
a Politics of Hope’ in Social Media and Society, April June 2020: 1-11.
Kate Eichhorn (2019) ‘Girls in the Public Sphere: Dissent, Consent, and Media Making’, Australian Feminist
Studies, 2-13DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2019.1661771
Karin Wahl Jorgensen, 2019 ‘Taking Emotions Seriously: A Brief History of Thought’ in Emotions, Media
and Politics, Polity Press, London, 20-36