Showing papers in "Global media journal in 2007"

"Saving" Muslim Women and Fighting Muslim Men: Analysis of Representations in the New York Times

Abstract: This study analyzed representations of Muslim men and women in The New York Times between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2003. Stories about Muslim women living in non-Western countries were often stories about political violence where they were represented as victims of violence and Islamic practices. Representations of Muslim women were also marked by a continual obsession with the veil. Muslim women were often portrayed as victims in need of Western liberation, which was sometimes defined narrowly as the exercise of individual choice in the purchase and use of consumer goods such as nail polish, lipsticks and high-heeled shoes. Articles on Muslim men were often about Islamic resurgence, terrorism and illegal immigration with details about "resumes of holy warriors" and "manuals of killing." However, The New York Times also performed a watchdog role by highlighting violation of civil rights of Muslims living in the United States and hate crimes committed against them after the September 11 attacks. Such stories, however, were rarely able to resist the dominant representations of Muslim men as violent and dangerous and Muslim women as victims of oppression. The dominant images of both Muslim men and women served the same purpose: They established the need to intervene to rescue the women and control the men. Keywords: Representations; Muslim women; liberation; modernity; Muslim men; terrorists; illegal immigrants; Western intervention. "Saving" Muslim women and fighting Muslim men: Analysis of representations in The New York Times. Viewing mediated representations of both men and women may be considered by some to be a truly feminist exercise as it is both critical and inclusive. The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare representations of Muslim men and women in The New York Times between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2003, a period that witnessed both the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003. In both the wars, saving oppressed Muslim women and fighting militant Muslim men served as important justifications for waging war against the two countries. For instance, First Lady Laura Bush in a radio address on November 17, 2001 stated: "The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women" (Bush, 2001). The address enlisted support of women for the war in Afghanistan by pointing out that "because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes" (Bush, 2001). Such broad claims render it necessary to analyze how Muslim women are portrayed in the U.S. press. A study of media representations of Muslim men also becomes important considering that in the two months following the September 11 attacks, more than 1,200 non-US nationals were taken into custody in the United States, in "nationwide sweeps for possible suspects" (Amnesty International, 2002). Partial data released by the government revealed that most were men of Arab or South Asian origin (Amnesty International, 2002). The Amnesty International report stated that the organization is concerned that the U.S. government may be violating fundamental rights of those arrested and detained. In another report titled "Human Rights Forgotten in USA's 'War on Terrorism,'" Amnesty International (2003) revealed that since the 9/11 attacks, more than 3,000 people who are alleged to be "al-Qa'ida operatives and associates" have been arrested in over 100 countries. Again, the report expressed deep concern about people held without trials and charges. Elizabeth Poole and John Richardson (2006) assert that they feel a "pressing ethical and political obligation to criticize and counteract the distorted reporting" on Islam and Muslims as such coverage encourages detention of Muslims without trial and racial profiling (p. 2). Apart from racial profiling of Muslims, the raging "War on Terrorism," continuing occupation of Iraq and escalating political violence in the region only heighten the urgency to examine how the U. …

The power and the passion: a study of Australian community broadcasting audiences 2004-2007

Abstract: This paper reports on the first qualitative audience study of the Australian community broadcasting sector and concludes that the processes identified disturb the established power base of mainstream media. The efforts of community media producers and their audiences interrupt ‘common sense’ mainstream media representations by offering ‘good sense’ ‐alternatives which reveal the diversity of Australian culture at the local level. This is empowering for participating audiences who are either not represented or misrepresented in the mainstream media. The dissemination of different ideas and assumptions about the world and our place in it affirms a place for millions of Australians by validating their ‘whole way of life’.

Universal Childhood: The Global Trade in Children's Television and Changing Ideals of Childhood

Abstract: While the technical capacity for television programs to reach worldwide has existed for decades, the attendant cultural challenges of global television have proved more formidable. Nevertheless, a handful of program genres seem to be able to overcome these cultural barriers. This paper examines one such genre, children’s television animation, the processes of program development and trade, as well as the assumptions about children’s viewing pleasures that these industrial processes encourage. While these assumptions about what is “universal” in the experience of childhood have a certain plausibility to them, they are nevertheless ideological, in the sense that they carry particular ideas about race, gender, age, class, and other forms of social grouping and identity that not only reflect but also act upon the world we live in. As some of the most powerful gatekeepers of contemporary popular culture, these industry insiders are deeply involved in imagining prevalent ideals of childhood in an increasingly globalized world as well as the kinds of children and cultures that do an do not fit these ideals

The Impact of the Internet on Teenagers' Face-to-Face Communication

Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between teenagers’ Internet use and their interpersonal communication behavior – most of all, whether Internet use was associated with the teens’ loss of desire for face-to-face communication with family and friends. Also examined was whether any loss of desire for face-to-face communication with family and friends was linked to certain motives for going online. The findings of this study were based on statistical analyses of 405 valid returns of self-administered questionnaires from 657 students of Carbondale Community High School in Carbondale, Illinois, who were selected through a purposive sampling. The results showed that Internet use was significantly correlated with decreases in face-to-face communication with family (r = - .137, p < .01) and with decreases in desire for face-to-face communication with family (r = - .120, p = .01). Most significantly, this study found that Internet use displaces not only the time the teens spent with family, but also their desire for spending time with family.

Estudios sobre comunicación en Baja California: Tendencias de investigación y análisis 1943-2005

Abstract: El presente articulo es resultado de un proceso de registro y sistematizacion documental, mediante el cual me propuse establecer un panorama descriptivo sobre las publicaciones academicas, periodisticas y de divulgacion, asi como tesis y trabajos terminales de licenciatura y posgrado, encaminados a producir conocimiento y reflexion acerca de los fenomenos comunicacionales relacionados en su sentido mas amplio con el entorno bajacaliforniano. Palabras Clave: Comunicacion, campo academico, universidades, Baja California.

Telling tales: the absence of drama on Australian community television

Abstract: Why is there virtually no drama on Australian community television? Within this sector of the Australian media, the potential of fictional screen narratives to powerfully and imaginatively explore human experience in relation to issues of cultural diversity, social equity and community change has been unrealised. Are the demands in time, money and effort of this form of production too great for predominantly non-professional and un-funded program creators and producers? In the digital era, the blurred media space between the professional and the amateur has been expanding and changing. In relation to film and television, this increasingly significant space is occupied by community television and a range of independent producers with alternative creative and cultural perspectives. This paper discusses the research I have been undertaking into the practical and creative possibilities and constraints of "no-budget" television drama production and the impact a lack of money has on the creative outcomes of a project. Drawing on the work of writers such as Bourdieu and Bakhtin, as well as filmmakers such as Alexander Kluge, my practice-based research has been investigating the production process for a no-budget television program, which has a particular focus on issues of social change and formal innovation.

Tales of Transgression or Clashing Paradigms: The Danish Cartoon Controversy and Arab Media

Abstract: This study looks at the extensive coverage of the Danish cartoon controversy on the web pages of the two leading Arabic satellite TV stations, al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera, to examine the reemerging thesis of “clash of civilizations” and rising anti Americanism on Arabic media. The analysis identifies “transgression” as an overarching frame, but finds less support for a dominant “clash of civilizations” frame in Arab media. The media coverage appears to “legitimize” Muslims’ reactions to the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons, without abetting the “clash” thesis as some have proposed.

Recontextualizing Traumatic Pasts: Croatian Justification of War Crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract: There has been much interest among scholars from a variety of disciplines in the question of how countries recover from episodes of mass violence (Fletcher and Weinstein, 2002, p. 574). Reconciliation occupies a special place in globally circulating human rights literature, and it is especially used in discussions about top-down impositions of peace-agreements (Wilson, 2001, p. 97). The majority of researchers that analyze the after-wars peace-processes in former Yugoslavia agree that the Dayton Peace Agreement was imposed by the International community, while especially promoted and advocated by the USA (For example: Bilandzic, 2006; Galtung, 2002; Kurspahic, 2003; Lampe, 1996; MacDonald, 2002; Samary, 1995; Woodward, 1995). The Agreement has not only laid the foundations for creating a troublesome “non-peace and non-war” situation but has also failed to solve the essential national and religious antagonisms in Bosnia. In particular, scholars argue that one of the main conditions of peace-building and peace-keeping processes is the ability to reconcile, and further, to acknowledge war crimes committed by one’s own military. If the Croatian public has by now acknowledged the war crimes against the Serbs in Croatia, it has also defined them as war crimes committed by individual perpetrators (Kajzer, 2006, p. 4). However, in the case of the crimes committed by the Croatian Army against Bosniak 1 civilians during the war in 1992-1995, there is still no political formal acknowledgement of Croatia’s responsibility in these massacres that took place in Bosnia. That comes in spite of the clear evidence of the Croatian army’s crimes that was put forward by International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and further acknowledged by Croatian historians themselves (eg. Bilandzic, 2006; Kurspahic, 2003). In July 2006, the opinion polls showed that the Croatian public was split over this issue: 41 percent of Croats believed that the Croatian Army committed war crimes in the Bosnian war, while 59 percent argued that Croatia was not involved in the Bosnian war at all (Kajzer, 2006, p. 4). Because the Croatian mainstream media have played an important role in spreading nationalistic propaganda (Thompson, 1995; Skopljanac Brunner et al., 2000) and continue to play a role in the reproduction of nationalisms (Erjavec & Volcic, 2006), our intention here is not to present yet another study of media’s negligence of war crimes, but to go further and focus on how news producers of leading media themselves, i.e. Croatian journalists, talk about the war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in that whether and how they reproduce nationalisms. We have focused on journalists here because it is generally recognized that they are critical components in the construction of nationalisms. Not in any direct, linear causal sense, but certainly as leaders in the shaping of a national discourses about identity, and history. In the summer and fall of 2006 we conducted in-depth interviews with Croatian journalists in order to find out how they deal with traumatic events of the past, i.e. the war crimes. The goal of this paper is to show how Croatian journalists borrow and appropriate different global discourses to justify and legitimate Croatian army’s war crimes of Bosniaks civilians. We unpack and analyze how journalists employ, borrow and appropriate different current global discourses to make sense out of Croatian nationalistic discourse 2 and war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We draw on Fairclough’s theory of recontextualization which is understood here as not only a representation of social events but as the appropriation of discourse. Thus, we try to uncover recontextualization strategies used by the informants to legitimize and justify a specific ideology (in our case, the nationalistic ideology of ‘Greater Croatia’) and specific practice (in our case, war crimes against the Bosniaks).

Industrias culturales, diversidad y pluralismo en América Latina

Abstract: A partir de una breve introduccion al asunto de la diversidad cultural, se presentan algunos de los principales temas de discusion y preocupacion en la agenda latinoamericana, con respecto al papel o, mas bien, papeles, que juegan las industrias culturales, especialmente los llamados medios audiovisuales, en los procesos sociales, culturales, politicos y economicos en el subcontinente, marcados por una dialectica entre la diversidad y la concentracion. Los datos empiricos no son exhaustivos, sino principalmente ejemplificantes. Hay un sesgo hacia los medios audiovisuales debido a los campos de investigacion del autor. No se pretende ningun grado de exhaustividad

Overview of Current Media Practices and Trends in West Africa

Abstract: The author examined the current practices and trends in West African media. A case study analysis of the main print and electronic media of Ghana and Nigeria served as a focal point. The analysis was performed within the context of present global telecommunications industries and their corresponding transnational media corporations (TMCs). A general historic overview that highlights main transitions of the development of mass media in West Africa from colonial to post colonial eras was included. The main print and electronic media of Ghana and Nigeria was identified and the political, social and cultural issues embedded in these media’s content were examined. Further, the discussions of media forms and contents in West Africa considered how the international press and electronic media interact with the media of Ghana and Nigeria. Evolving media relationships that emerged during the case study suggested a new era of global communication controlled by TMCs affiliated with local government officials and media industries whose primary interests are commercial.

Remembering the Rwandan Genocide:Reconsidering the Role of Local and Global Media

Abstract: In this article I investigate some of the ways that audiences both inside and outside Rwanda were told about what was happening in 1994 during and after the Genocide. This article is therefore structured around a discussion of different kinds of telling: radio broadcasting, subverting and claiming, chatting and singing, publishing and naming, directing and inciting, reporting and finally displaying. I particularly focus upon the Rwandan radio station RTLM and the extremist paper Kangura. With special reference to these media I demonstrate how religious expressions and themes were drawn upon, subverted or totally ignored. I also, though more briefly, consider the subsequent global coverage of the Rwandan Genocide. Alongside this discussion I describe the attempts in Rwanda both to keep the memory of the killings alive and to highlight the Genocide’s global significance through memorials and a museum.

Hacia una ciudadanía mediática en la era de la información

Abstract: Algunos academicos de los estudios culturales promueven redirigir la nocion de ciudadania hacia un espectro de ciudadania cultural que implica armonizar la identidad, los rasgos de tradicion religiosa, de organizacion social, las raices artisticas y las expresiones sentimentales. En este contexto, no se puede pasar por alto la dupla: medios de comunicacion-construccion de la identidad ciudadana. La subjetividad implicita en el proceso identitario dentro de la esfera privada y que surge con la experiencia mediatica, conforma una nueva forma de ser ciudadanos. Entonces, la ciudadania mediatica deviene del complejo ensamble de medios que emplea cada individuo y que motiva la creacion de sentimientos y emociones capaces de proyectarse al ambito publico. De esta forma, la esfera privada converge con las nociones de racionalidad precedentes en la idea tradicional de ciudadania para hacer emerger una opinion politica. Este trabajo expone la reflexion sobre una nueva ontologia de ciudadania que ahora se conforma desde lo textual: la ciudadania mediatica.

"Let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech:" 1 Developing a Model for Comparative Analysis and Normative Assessment of Minority Media Rights

Abstract: The media have traditionally been assigned a role in creating a unified national identity, a process that has often come at the expense of recognizing the distinct identities of minority groups. Dramatic geopolitical changes and increased awareness of human rights in recent years, however, have focused attention around the world on the need to institutionalize media services designed to preserve the cultural rights of minorities, and a growing number of democratic societies have, at least in ideal, shifted away from uniform national identity to pluralistic consensus in order to maximize participation by diverse groups. These needs have been addressed in various ways in different countries and have been the focus of growing academic interest. This study offers a unified conceptual model for assessing the effectiveness of policies that aim to enhance minority representation and voice in national media systems, and tests the model on a “convenience sample” of nations self-defined as democratic. It creates a generalized model that allows comparing different policies using a common definitional context, and it examines these policies and how they measure up to ideal standards of discourse.

Análisis del impacto cultural e ideológico de la serie Grey's Anatomy: Estudio de caso en el área metropolitana de Monterrey

Abstract: El objetivo de esta investigacion es identificar las apropiaciones culturales e ideologicas que posiblemente han hecho algunas telespectadoras mexicanas que habitan en la zona metropolitana de Monterrey, tras haber visto la serie televisiva norteamericana Grey’s Anatomy (temporadas 1 y 2). Se trata de una exploracion cuyo diseno metodologico es cualitativo, especificamente a traves de estudios de caso y entrevistas a profundidad de cinco mujeres, divididas en dos rangos de edad (22-25 y 33-37 anos). Se encontro que las entrevistadas, lejos de interiorizar directamente lo producido por la television, ven y buscan informacion que consideran confiable, o lo comparan con las situaciones que ya les ha tocado vivir y construyen su propio cuadro de la realidad. Tambien se identifico que las televidentes consumen la serie Grey’s Anatomy con fines de entretenimiento, descartando que exista algun proceso de aprendizaje; asimismo se encontro que existe un estado de alerta que incita a las espectadoras a seguir el hilo de la serie sin perder rastro de ningun capitulo. Otro hallazgo realizado concierne a la posible identificacion de las entrevistadas con algun personaje de la serie; en este sentido, sus identidades no se han definido por el consumo de Grey’s Anatomy; contrariamente, son las vivencias previas las que van determinando el valor que le otorgan a cada uno de los personajes, es decir, lejos de definirse a traves de la serie, reafirman sus identidades propias. Palabras clave: Series televisivas, identidad, apropiacion, ideologia

The Role of the Nation-State: Evolution of STAR TV in China and India

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the nation-state by analyzing the evolution of STAR TV’s in India and China. STAR TV, the first pan-Asian satellite television, represents the global force; while the governments in India and China represent the local forces faced with challenges brought about by globalization. This study found that the nation-states in China and India still were forces that had to be dealt with. In China, the state continued to exercise tight control over foreign broadcasters in almost every aspect – be it content or distribution. In India, the global force seemed to have greater leverage in counteracting the state, but only in areas where the state was willing to compromise, such as allowing entertainment channels to be fully owned by foreign broadcasters. In areas where the government thought needed protection to ensure national security and identity, the state still exercised autonomy to formulate and implement policies restricting the global force.

El protagonismo de los medios en los diarios: el problema de la autorreferencia

Abstract: Las informaciones autorreferenciales son cada vez mas frecuentes, los medios se citan a si mismos y asumen el papel de protagonistas. Un protagonismo que no siempre parece justificado desde criterios estrictamente periodisticos. Palabras clave: Autorreferencia, sinergia, etica y promocion.

Unethical Consequences of Pack Journalism

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to identify and explain why pack journalism, a widespread media practice where large groups of reporters collaborate to cover the same story, should be abolished, or at least lessened in frequency. Particularly analyzed are seven unethical consequences of pack journalism. As such, pack journalism is responsible for issues of journalistic laziness, short-term and long-term harm to readers and viewers, an amplified endangerment of privacy and lives, a loss of independence in news reporting, the threat of lost credibility in the content of news reported by packs, defamatory, slanderous, and libelous news, and economic inefficiencies.

Cronología, discurso y marcos de referencia sobre las células madre en la prensa española (1997-2004)

Abstract: Las recientes investigaciones en las denominadas celulas "madre" son una clara muestra de la interrelacion entre los factores politicos, sociales, eticos y cientificos. El caso Bernat Soria, las expectativas generadas en el tratamiento de enfermedades o la clonacion de embriones humanos no son ejemplos aislados, exclusivos del mundo de la medicina y la investigacion. Del mismo modo que podemos afirmar la llegada de este debate a la sociedad, tambien podemos senalar la importancia que ha tenido sobre la opinion publica el tratamiento mediatico que se pueda haber dado a las diferentes investigaciones relativas al tema. La comunicacion social de la informacion cientifica es uno de los elementos clave para entender el impacto que pueda tener esta informacion sobre la sociedad.

New Trends in Global Broadcasting: "Nuestro Norte Es El Sur" (Our North Is the South)

Abstract: Using Pierre Bourdieu's Field Theory, especially the concept of the interconvertability of cultural, economic, political and media capital, I examine the rise of regional and global centers of broadcasting that seek to compete with the CNN and the BBC, namely, TeleSUR of Latin America, Al-Jazeera Arabic, and Al-Jazeera International (AI) of Qatar (launched worldwide on November 15, 2006). I also describe the Latin American and Arab questioning of the inevitability of following "the Anglo-Saxon" model of "commercialization, depolitization and trivialization of news." I examine the countermeasures the U.S., British and French governments are taking to fend off this regional and global competition from Latin American and Arab media.1 I conclude that diversity and the expansion of the news pie is a healthy phenomenon that is bound to help serious news gathering and reporting worldwide against the rising trend of infotainment that has started to taint serious news dissemination in the United States. "Television is a window on the world. But if you are sitting in Latin America, that window is more likely to be facing Baghdad than Buenes Aires. Or show Michael Jackson instead of Mexico City. Or offer a clearer view of Ukraine's Orange Revolution than the one in Ecuador last month. Those networks do not cover regional news, like CNN Espanol, based in Atlanta, or Spain's TVE, are often considered US or Eurocentric, with pundits sitting in Washington or Madrid. (Harman, 2005, p. 1). "We launch Telesur with a clear goal to break this communication regime and present a vision, a voice which until now has been silenced. Telesur is an initiative against cultural imperialism." Andres Izarra, TeleSur president and Venzuela's minister of communications (Latin America TV takes on US Media, 2005, p. 1). "Al-Jazeera International is 'the most exciting television news and current affairs project in decades - one which will revolutionise the global news industry by offering viewers across the world a fresh perspective on news." (Nigel Parsons, managing director of Al-Jazeera International) (A correspondent, 2005, p. 1). Introduction Bourdieu (1998: 41) suggests that for a journalistic field analysis to be complete, "the position of the national media field within the global media field would have to be taken into account." The dissatisfaction with Western news sources has a long history and dates back at least to the era of primacy of Western news agencies on the world news scene. NWICO discussions at UNESCO in the 1970s and 1980s provided "Third World" countries with a forum in which they complained about the unequal flow of information that moved mostly from North to South and from West to East. The impetus for the creation of alternatives to Western media, then, as now, was fueled by dissatisfaction with media's content, its narrow focus, its lack of source diversity and the absence of serious attention to the news of the rest of the world. Decades later, the problems became worse. In the United States of the mid-1990s, television networks gave much less attention to serious foreign news than during the Cold War years. CBS maintained 24 foreign bureaus in its heyday; by 1995, it had reporters in only four capitals (Hess, 1996, 66). In the 1970s, the networks in the US ran as much as 45% foreign news. By 1995, the proportion was in the teens (Bierbauer, 2006). American newscasts also tend to be ethnocentric in their selection of news sources. Only 14 of the 401 guests who appeared in "Meet the Press" (NBC), "Face the Nation" (CBS) and "This Week with David Brinkley" (ABC) in 1994 were foreigners (Griffith, 1986, p. 72 in Hess, 1996, p. 7). During the first four months of 1995, foreign stories added up to 10 percent of the news segments, ranging from 3 percent on NBC's "Today" to 16 percent on ABC's "Good Morning America" (Stephen Hess, Telephone Interview with Tyndal on July 11, 1995). …

A Study of Internet Addictive Behavior among Teenagers and the Youth (15 to 25 years old) in Tehran

Abstract: This paper examines the addictive phenomena of internet use as a social issue of the modern time. It is now more than a decade that internet addictive behavior has been identified to be considered as one of the ever-developing process in developing countries. This phenomenon has had various malfunctions for individuals, families and society at large. This paper which is the result of a survey research in 2006 examines the consequences of the development of addictive internet use in Tehran. The target population of this study includes teenagers and the youth of 15 to 25 years old who were heavy users of internet in Tehran. The 800 samples were chosen though a probability sampling method and analytical results apply to this sample. The tentative results indicate that addictive internet use is also an issue in Iran although based on standards one cannot consider this behavior to be addictive rather natural. The results also indicate that internet addictive use is in direct correlation with factors such as feeling of social responsibility, social alienation, lack of social support, lack of professional and educational efficiency, and in reverse correlation with feeling of self-respect

Framing the Biotechnology Debate: A Textual Analysis of Editorials and Letters to the Editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Abstract: This paper examines how the subject of agricultural biotechnology is framed in editorials and letters to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1997 to 2006. Editorials and letters to the editor were textually reviewed and coded according to a frame typology that included the following frames: Progress, Economic prospect, Ethical, Pandora’s box, Runaway, Nature/nurture, Public accountability, and Globalization. The overall tone of each text was also qualitatively assessed according to whether it mentioned risks, mentioned benefits, or reported controversy. Whereas previous research has found the “progress” frame to predominate coverage of biotechnology, results suggest that the “public accountability” frame now largely organizes discourse on agricultural biotechnology, both in editorials and letters. Findings further show that both risks and benefits are commonly reported, but letters are much more likely to offer radical alternatives to applications of agricultural biotechnology than editorials. The implication of this finding is that readers are more likely than official editorial opinion to express subjectivist, non-technical solutions to the problems that biotechnology purports to solve, while editorials are more likely to maintain positivistic associations with the technology.

The WMD Coverage of Blogs and Mainstream Media:A comparison of two Media Types

Abstract: This study analyzes coverage of Iranian and North Korean weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by blogs and mainstream media, examining how the two types of media deal with international news, based on the theoretical framework of second-level intermedia agenda-setting. Attribute agendas of blogs are found to be positively correlated with the mainstream attribute agendas with regard to the issue of WMD coverage. The results indicate that despite many distinct characteristics, blogs cover international news in ways very similar to mainstream media.

Communication and Democracy in Latin America

Abstract: Keynote Address to Global Fusion 2006 In the face of attempts to impose one way of thinking, one message, one image, it the need is emerging for a social mass media that is able to reflect our own realities, our own interests, all from our own point of view. The topic of the mass media has to do with the future of our democracies. Nowadays, a media dictatorship tries to decide our peoples' destinies. The big economic groups - most of them, transnational enterprises - use the media for deciding who has the right to speak or not. In the same way, they usually decide about the protagonist and the antagonist. Commercial speech - bombed by through information, advertising, and mass culture - is an ideological, aggressive speech, which limits our freedom as citizens. Let's talk about only one point of view. Had Eve written the Book of Genesis, the history of the first night of human creation would have been substantially different. Eve would have started by clarifying that she wasn't white and less a 90-60-90 blondie dressed with a ridicule grape leave, that she wasn't born of anyone else's rib, that she had never met a serpent, that she had never offered anyone any apples, and that God never told her that she would give birth in pain and that her husband would dominate over her. Eve would say that those stories were pure lies that Adam told the serpent, excuse me, the press. And, surely, Adam would have defended himself by saying that his words were misinterpreted, twisted, and manipulated by a television channel serving mysterious foreign interests. Development and participation It is becoming increasingly clear that information and communication are fundamental to any action the international community wishes to take. If development cannot exist without participation, it is difficult to understand how one can have participation without communication. New factors are bursting forcefully onto the scene, impossible to understand if analyzed in an isolated and incomplete fashion. Ideas such as international cooperation or solidarity are rapidly loosing ground, while development aid has drastically fallen off, with an over 50 percent drop - among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And a similar tendency is occurring in the policies of the United Nations. You can talk about development aid when the resources really reach the people of poor countries. Issues from the South have also steadily been losing relevance in the North. In United States, the gap separating rich from poor is steadily widening, while in Europe a dramatic splintering of society can be seen, accompanied by political processes in which citizens participate less and less in the their countries' public arena. And, as in the seventies, we are now talking again about multilateralism, South-South cooperation, and communicational cooperation development. Development, understood as the general improvement of a population's standard of living by satisfying its basic needs, occurs only when there is consciousness about the realities that must be promoted. It is necessary for a society to grow mentally before it can develop materially. It is useful to recall that the McBride Report, which is already 26 years old, pointed out that in order to transform the verticality of communication, we need to accelerate the increasing participation of a larger number of people in the communication activities, to promote the progress of the democratization trends of the whole communication process and an expansion of the multidirectional information streams, coming from several sources: upwards, downwards and horizontally. Development of a country begins with the evolution of its intellect, and with the change individuals make about their notion about men and women, and about the whole world. The progress of thinking begins with knowledge of reality. …

The Abortion Debate in a Mexican Online Forum:Globalization, Religion, and Politics

Abstract: The globalization of information and communications has shaped and influenced the abortion debate in Mexico In recent years, abortion has risen on the Mexican public agenda and policymakers have seriously considered and implemented legal reforms liberating abortion laws In March 2006, at the height of a presidential campaign, El Universal online hosted an online forum asking readers what they would ask presidential candidates about abortion Two investigators analyzed a sample of 245 comments Of these, 40% were pro-choice, 30% anti-abortion, 12% mixed opinion, and 18% unknown opinion Arguments by pro-choice readers were that legal abortion is a hallmark of modern secular society and can prevent maternal mortality and unwanted children, whereas anti-abortion comments equated abortion to murder Readers on both sides of the abortion debate supported increased education about and access to contraceptive methods, and those that opposed abortion did not cite religious arguments in justifying their positions This online forum provides a case study of how the international abortion debate manifests itself among influential newspaper readers in Mexico, the second largest Catholic country in the world

Intersecting Gender and Race in Globalization: Beyond the Evolution from Cultural Imperialism to Cultural Hybridity

Abstract: Contemporary trans-cultural flow negates the dominant-subordinate binary scheme suggested by early cultural imperialism. Indeed, it is a complicated, ambiguous, and multilateral process. This essay explores how the theories of global trans-cultural influence have evolved in the realm of communication research since the 1960s. It first examines how the discourse of globalization has historically moved from cultural imperialism to cultural hybridity. It then attempts to intersect such evolution with issues of gender and race. This essay is theoretically grounded in the intersection of cultural hybridity and postcolonial feminism. Further, it owes its empirical approach to feminist ethnographers who try to encompass the diversity of women all over the world. Such scholarly frameworks can be intertwined in terms of their overarching concern, i.e., cultural hybridity, feminism, and ethnography strive to empower the powerless, such as women and the Third World, while criticizing the unequal distribution of power. I seek to grasp a “backward” global flow, i.e., subversive engagement of indigenous people with global media empowered by cultural hybridity and postcolonial feminism. More specifically, as an Asian feminist who is studying in the United States, I desire to de-Westernize the discourse on subaltern women and let them speak.

Una historia local en el horizonte mundial: el cine mexicano en Monterrey

Abstract: La numerosa presencia de mexicanos en los premios y nominaciones que ofrecen distintas agrupaciones cinematograficas internacionales puso en evidencia el talento de nuestros cineastas, pero tambien la dura realidad a la que se enfrentan los profesionales de la industria del cine nacional que tienen que emigrar en busca de apoyos para sus proyectos. El triunfo es de los cineastas, no del cine mexicano. La falta de apoyos y recursos suficientes para los creadores, asi como de una produccion sostenida en cantidad y calidad, son dos de los principales males que viene padeciendo nuestro cine y que durante el primer sexenio del 2000 presento una ligera mejoria con respecto al sexenio anterior.

Right-Wing Hindu Nationalism on the World Wide Web: An Analysis of HinduUnity.org

Abstract: Although the Hindu nationalist party, BJP, lost control of the Indian government in 2004 following elections, this paper argues that the Hindu nationalist movement, or Hindutva, still seeks to gather support from the Indian diaspora through the medium of the Internet. The paper draws on theories of nationalism offered by Benedict Anderson (1991) and Partha Chaterjee (1993). Since Internet penetration in India is still relatively low, the websites primary audience is inferred to be those living in the diaspora, primarily the United Kingdom and the United States, but other countries as well. Because of this diasporic audience, Stuart Hall's theory on identity formation is discussed. The paper traces the major organizations involved in promoting Hindutva, and finally examines some of those organizations' websites. Introduction Although the Hindu nationalist party, BJP, lost control of the Indian government in 2004 following elections, this paper argues that the Hindu nationalist movement, or Hindutva, still seeks to gather support from the Indian diaspora through the medium of the Internet. The paper draws on theories of nationalism offered by Benedict Anderson (1991) and Partha Chaterjee (1993). Since Internet penetration in India is still relatively low, the websites primary audience is inferred to be those living in the diaspora, primarily the United Kingdom and the United States, but other countries as well. Because of this diasporic audience, Stuart Hall's theory on identity formation is discussed. The paper traces the major organizations involved in promoting Hindutva, and finally examines some of those organizations' websites. Theories of Nationalism Benedict Anderson's influential book, Imagined Communities (1991), originally published in 1983, stated that the nation is imagined in three ways. One is that it is imagined as limited because even the largest of them have boundaries beyond which lie other nations. Secondly, a nation is imagined as sovereign as a result of Enlightenment ideals that undermined the legitimacy of divinely-ordained monarchy. Finally, the nation is imagined as a community. Regardless of inequality that may exist, essentially there is a horizontal relationship among the masses who will never actually know each other on a personal basis. Anderson's book is based on the emergence of the European nation. It was the countries of that continent that engaged in the exploitive political-economic system of colonialism whereby the European countries would use the countries of the Americas, Africa, and Asia as a source of raw materials to be processed in the center (Europe) and shipped back to the periphery (colonies). This system essentially produced a dependency by the colonies on the European countries for finished goods. Such a core-periphery colonial relationship existed between Great Britain and India. India first came into contact with Europe after the establishment of trading outposts by Holland and England in the early seventeenth century. After an initial period of Dutch dominance, the British East India company came to control trade, and eventually established control over India. After a failed mutiny against the British East India Company, India came under direct rule of the British monarchy in 1858. Ironically, it was colonialism that introduced the idea of a nation to a part of the world which, arguably, had never had such a concept. It was this idea of a nation that would be mobilized by Indian independence fighters, including Gandhi. Another theorist working in the area of the emergence of nationalism is Partha Chatterjee, particularly in his work The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (1993). Chatterjee raises the question that if outside of Europe and the Americas, all nations are based on modules that arose in those two areas, what is left to be imagined in the rest of the world? In other words, the peoples outside of Europe and the New World are forced to develop along established patterns of nationness according to Anderson's work. …

Killing US Softly With Their Story:New York Times Coverage of the My Lai and El Mozote Military Massacres

Abstract: This study employs framing theory to systematically and situationally analyze about 50 New York Times articles regarding the My Lai and El Mozote military massacres. It explores how fundamental international reporting is in truth discovery, moral responsibility sounding and as a power monitor service. Coverage similarities include Allusions to Other Events, Calls for Retribution, Military Mentality, and the Media’s Role. Considerations of Time and Politics-Public-Press Triangle Dynamics, including U.S. Military Involvement, Journalistic Repercussions and Political Climate, differentiate coverage.