Media and Communication Studies (Non peer-reviewed publications)

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    Report on human trafficking and exploitation on the island of Ireland (Pre-published)
    (Mary Immaculate College, 2021) Breen, Michael J; Healy, Amy Erbe; Healy, Michael G
    The Human Trafficking & Exploitation Project on the Island of Ireland (HTEPII) is the culmination of a cooperative project involving several collaborators. This unique mixed-methods research project brings together senior academics at Mary Immaculate College with senior personnel from An Garda Sióchána, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Irish Department of Justice & Equality, and the Department of Justice Northern Ireland to review and re-assess the scale and scope of human trafficking in Ireland. Conceptually, the project is located within the Santa Marta North Atlantic Maritime Project, an inclusive partnership of the police, clergy, state and civil society in Ireland, England, Scotland, Spain and Portugal. In particular, this report is concerned with reaching an informed consensus on human trafficking data, especially the ‘dark figure’ of unregistered victims of human trafficking that is not formally known to the Police / Justice systems north or south on the island of Ireland. Specifically, this report shines a light on that dark figure, illustrating that there are substantially more ‘invisible’ victims in Ireland than are officially known to the authorities. Concomitantly, it contributes to substantiation of this issue within the broader theme of social exclusion and poverty, as well as equality, diversity, inclusion and interculturalism that are at the heart of creating a more just, equitable and fair Irish society for the coming decades. The report examines key questions such as: why are the victims of this crime invisible? How is this possible ‘in plain sight’? What data exist in the ‘official’ record? What additional data can be added to improve understanding of the scale and scope of human trafficking in Ireland? What facilities are available currently, and what is needed to enable victims to seek support and help? Whose awareness is critical? Whose awareness is insufficient? How can this be addressed and rectified? These questions are tackled both through the lens of official records such as the two National Referral Mechanisms and through other filters, in particular the experience of support organisations / NGOs that provide a variety of ‘unofficial’ services to trafficking victims who are not presenting formally to the Justice / Policing authorities. This report demonstrates that the work of victim support organisations and NGOs can help with understanding the barriers that prevent victims from engaging with the statutory authorities, as well as highlighting the inadequacies in State support for those who have been trafficked. These organisations offer particular potential to access information on potential victims of trafficking outside of the NRMs, thus allowing more complete statistics on the numbers of victims of trafficking in Ireland and justifying improved assistance and services for these victims of crime. The report reveals that there is a substantial gap in the public-domain numbers between official figures recorded for victims of human trafficking in Ireland north and south and unofficial figures compiled from evidence provided by victim support organisations and NGOs. The full extent of this gap remains uncertain. However, the approach adopted by the HTEPII in generating a new inclusive methodology for data collection, incorporating ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ records as presented in this report, provides considerable potential for generation of new data to improve the accuracy of the statistics recorded in relation to victims of trafficking in Ireland north and south. The HTEPII project was directed by a Project Executive Board, chaired by Kevin Hyland OBE, and composed of senior representatives of the sponsoring organisations as well as a number of independent members and academics with expertise in human trafficking. Funding for the project was provided by the main collaborating organisations, the police services north and south, and the Justice Departments north and south, as well as Mary Immaculate College. The principal investigators were Professor Michael Breen (Dean of Arts) and Professor Michael Healy (Vice President Research), both senior managers and academics at Mary Immaculate College with extensive experience in research and research governance.
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    Measure for Measure: Comparing methodologies for determining newspaper exposure.
    (1997) Breen, Michael J.; Shoemaker, Pamela J.; Wrigley, Brenda J.
    Measure for Measure: Comparing Methodologies for Determining Newspaper Exposure Measuring media exposure requires careful consideration of both the reliability and validity of the operational definitions. This study compares two ways of measuring newspaper exposure — exposure to newspapers in general and exposure to specific sections of a newspaper. The study found that respondents report more time spent with the newspaper when measuring exposure to specific sections, rather than to the newspaper overall. Although the aggregated index of exposure to specific newspaper sections did not correlate with attitude measures, results did show correlations between specific newspaper sections and knowledge and attitudes.
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    Exploratory Analysis of Photographic Imagery as used In Irish Printed Daily Newspapers
    (2009) Breen, Michael J.; O'Sullivan, Grace
    The purpose of this study is to examine visual representation of our society in the news sections of Irish printed daily national newspapers and to analyse the power distribution that traverses these images for evidence of hegemonic tendencies. There are a small number of American studies of newspaper visuals similar to this one, but this study will fill a gap in the literature on Irish newspaper photography. Power is part of the fabric of our society and can be a destructive force when those without power suffer restricted freedom. The mass media play a pivotal role in the discourse of power relationships, in particular through visual representation, building up an impression in society's psyche about how to think about the other. When a group is repeatedly represented in a certain light , these images establish the dominant thinking on this group and may even sufficiently influence the group itself, compelling them into a particular pattern of behaviour. At the core of this study is the argument, by portraying groups repeatedly in certain ways, either negatively or positively, the media may be advancing and normalising dominant ideologies which tend to benefit the already wealthy and powerful. Through an extensive content analysis of the photographs in the news sections of a cross-section of Irish daily newspapers,this study uncovers evidence that supports the hypothesis that press photographs in Irish printed newspapers support a dominant patriarchal ideology by collectively under-representing and marginalising females.
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    Abusers, Beasts and Child Molesters: The ABCs of constructing sexual abuse in the Irish print media.
    (Proceedings of the 2004 Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. Honolulu, Hawaii., 2004) Breen, Michael J.