Gloriavale is a Christian community based in Greymouth, New Zealand and live their lives completely devoted to “God”. This is considered interesting and newsworthy because of its controversial nature with people disagreeing whether or not this is a positive way for them to live. It has become a focus of the news due to the fact that everyone has an opinion on the community. The earliest that I have found Gloriavale being covered in the media was in 2009 but since a documentary aired in 2014, they have become a more prominent topic in the media.
The coverage of this issue is re-occurring because of the subjects controversy. With topics such as religion, everyone has an opinion which gives it a big talking point. With the conflict around religion, Gloriavale is an extreme example which gives everyone something to talk about as we all have an opinion on this life style. There is continuity as year, there is a new investigation that takes place such as finding out that one of their leaders is a convicted sex offender. A small amount of documentaries air about the community eg. Gloriavale: Worlds Apart which aired at the start of 2014. This causes the general public to discuss their opinion over this issue.
The Gloriavale community is in Greymouth so it has been covered in the media because of its proximity to us here in New Zealand. On July 12th 2014, an article was published discussing a documentary that had aired shortly prior. Other than recapping the events of the documentary, the article displayed very little new information therefore the article was published to display the same information online in a different form of media besides the television. Had Gloriavale been overseas then this article would not have been published as no one would be interested in an overseas documentary about a religious community. Another online news article was published on stuff.co.nz on March 10th 2015 explains about a family that had left the Gloriavale community to start a new life in Timaru. This article gives another example of proximity as it was published to show the readers that this family traveled from the west to east side of the South Island in order to retain a new life for themselves. Because this is a New Zealand story, they have gone into more depth about the families travels and success of their new lives as it relates to us and we are interested in what is happening in our own country.
Gloriavale is a very controversial issue as everyone has a different opinion on the situation. Some articles tell the events in a positive tone but other focus more on the negative issues that surround their community. Articles such as the one published July 12th 2014 on stuff.co.nz focuses on the debate about whether or not they live in a cult or idyllic society which causes the readers to leave debating their own beliefs on the issue. With a situation like religion, everyone believes that they know the correct answer so the media uses these debates to create a talking point. An effect of the controversial nature of Gloriavale can be that the negative feedback gets back to those who live in the community which could leave to more people believing that their society may not be the best place for them and they could leave with the family because of this. Reports of Gloriavales leaders being convicted sex offenders could lead to police investigations and more recently, an anonymous telephone help line for members of Gloriavale who are having concerns has been set up so that the police can try control the actions that may be taking place inside the community.
There was also a lot of shock value involving the situation as some of the Gloriavale residents had reported various incidents about their communities leaders. An article published online on dailymail.co.uk on the 11th of March, 2015 reported that families had left Gloriavale and were being offered protection from their leaders sexual abuse. the article went into a fair amount of detail about the Gloriavale leaders sexual harassment towards their communities women. This was seen as shocking as the community was promoting their perfect lifestyles yet those running the community have been reported as sexually harassing their women which has now got the police investigating. Other reports also state that the police have set up a phone life specially for those being harassed and wanting to report it. The serious tone of these articles publicising the events make the articles more shocking for the audience to read as it emphasises the importance of the event.
There are many implications and consequences of the news reports on Gloriavale. With Gloriavale being a regular news story, it has created public awareness on the issue. Because a majority of the news articles are written in a negative perspective, this causes a negative public opinion to form on the issue. When the reports of the leaders being convicted sex offenders were published, the public had a strong negative opinion due to the shock value and pathos towards the women of Gloriavale. Due to the fact that many of our population are believe in other religions or none at all, this forms a bias towards being against the Gloriavale community as we have different believe to the ones that they have so we immediately do not want to agree with them as we believe that our personal beliefs are better than theirs. This also fan lead on to stereotyping Christians to all having beliefs as strong as those who live inside of Gloriavale. Along with the negative articles, there is the occasional positive article on Gloriavale which then causes debated and discussions over the issue on social media websites such as Facebook and the comment sections of news websites. The news reports of Gloriavale have many implications and consequences to their society as well as to the consumers who read he news reports on the events.
Media Coverage Essay | Gloriavale
16 Thursday Jul 2015
Posted Media Studies
in