Showing papers in "Global media journal in 2015"

The Western Way: Democracy and the Media Assistance Model

Abstract: International media assistance took off during a time where the ideological extremes of USA vs. USSR were set to disappear. Following the Cold War, international relations focused on democracy building, and nurturing independent media was embraced as a key part of this strategy. Fukayama called it the ‘End of History’, the fact that all other ideologies had fallen and Western style democracy was set to become the one common ideology. The US and UK led the way in media assistance, with their liberal ideas of a free press, bolstered by free market capitalism. America was the superpower, and forged the way around the globe with its beacon of democracy. Under that guiding light they would bring truth, accuracy, freedom of expression and independent reporting to the countries which had so long lived under the shadow of communism, or authoritarian media systems. This is what propelled and justified American foreign policy, and their media assistance, for many years. Much work was thus carried out in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet satellites, but many now question the impact and legacy of these projects. When the US and UK spoke of media assistance they seemed to mean ‘free market’. These days, the ‘democracy promoters’ focus has turned more to Africa and the Middle East. The ideology is apparently the same: to help establish and support democracy with a stronger and more independent media. But with Western economies, and their media systems, in crisis, the relevance of this media assistance model is questioned. This essay looks at the history of media assistance and the ongoing debate on the impact of media assistance over the long term, its motives and the new balance of power appearing in international media development.

Making and sharing the commons: Reimagining 'the West' as Riverlands, Sydney through a dialogue between design and ethnography

Abstract: Scholars from the social sciences and humanities are increasingly seeking to improve the relevance and social impact of their research beyond the academy. In this context, ‘designerly’ thinking and methods are being drawn on to inform social change agendas, and a range of new relationships and collaborations are forming around this node of activity. This article critically reflects on this trajectory through a dialogue between ethnography, design and theoretical principles from anthropology and human geography.

Local colour in German and Danish television drama: Tatort and Bron//Broen

Abstract: The impact of place and locality in narrative media can be regarded as seminal for the medium’s function of communicating culture and negotiating societal discourses. As a result of the growing attention in globalisation theory and transnational considerations, space and place have become key issues to understanding the circulation of cultural commodities within an increasingly global and supra-national context. Taking the case of two popular contemporary European crime series, the German series Tatort and the Danish/Swedish series Bron//Broen, our aim is to focus on and carve out local colour as an aesthetic textual strategy, as well as relate it to a production context and to a broader discussion of the region/nation and the transnational/global. We argue that local colour can be located at three different levels: Firstly, on the level of representation as part of an overall narrative and aesthetic strategy that produces structures of appeal for the audiences. Secondly, within the frame of production, public broadcasting service, and policy that stage the general preconditions of cultural products. Thirdly, we regard locality as commodity and cultural consumption (e.g. branding, tourism, investments). Local colour and the representation of places evoke different concepts of imagined communities related to the regional and the national, but also the global and transnational.

Media Development with Chinese Characteristics

Abstract: Chinese authorities often frame their activities in the development sector as distinctive from those pursued by Western donors by stressing that they are not seeking to export a specific model but simply to help countries reach their potential. This demand-driven approach has applied to old and new development areas, from education to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and has appeared fairly consistent across countries. This pledge, however, has not meant that Chinese aid is neutral or without significant political implications. China’s concessionary loans and support to development projects have tended to shift balances of power by favouring certain actors over others and have challenged existing development paradigms,revitalizing ideas of the developmental state. Building on fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia,and Kenya this article explains to which extent China’s entrance in the media and telecommunication sector actually challenges the dominant, Western-driven approaches to media development, promoting a state centred vision of the information society.

Uncovering facebook photo tagging culture and practices among digital natives

Abstract: Adoption of Social Networking Services (SNS) has gained immense popularity in developing countries like India where digital natives are actively engaging and communicating with these platforms. Understanding the interaction between technology systems and digital natives and proposing guidelines and recommendations for the development of better and good fit systems is highly valuable. Prior research examining users' motivations and actual usage from photo tagging systems is limited and predominately focused on Flickr and adult users while many aspects are completely missing. In order to understand in detail as why, how and with whom, digital natives tag digital photos on Facebook, a qualitative essay based exploratory study is organized with 67 participants in India. The study aims at understanding various gratifications, motivations, experiences and practices around Facebook photo tagging focusing on the technologically savvy Indian digital natives. Our results point out that Facebook photo tagging practices by digital natives substantially vary especially among the gender groups. Facebook photo tagging is popular among Indian boys and they are more willing to embrace and use the photo tagging activity. Meanwhile, the involvement of Indian girls is considerably limited as they tend to avoid Facebook photo tagging mainly due to privacy concerns as well as social norms and pressures.Keywords: Digital natives, Photo Tagging, Social networking services, Facebook, Human Factors, IndiaIntroductionOver the years, digital photography has become more viable and common mainly due to the availability of low-cost yet high end digital cameras, enhancement in the inbuilt mobile phone camera and a strong desire to share moments with others online. Online photo sharing services have gained immense popularity in recent years as they offer the users ease of sharing and other innovative opportunities for sharing their photos with other people. Digital photo sharing has been one of the integral part of most of the Social networking services (SNS), especially Facebook. Since the launch of photo sharing feature on Facebook in October 2005, it has been one of the most popular activity as billions of photos have been shared by its users (Facebook Newsroom, 2013). The integration of photo sharing within SNS has provided the users with unique opportunities such as, communicating, express likings and feelings, and tagging. Photo tagging feature on Facebook allows the users to tag their network friends in their digital photos. The reach and popularity of photo tagging feature can be accessed in a way that within a month of launching this feature, about 85% of the Facebook subscribers got tagged atleast once (Kirkpatrick, 2010). Furthermore, 100 million photos are tagged daily on Facebook (Pesce et al. 2012). Social networking sites (SNS) have gained significant popularity across all regions, age groups, and genders, especially youth. A survey of American youth by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 41% of 12-13 year olds and 61% of 14-17 year olds use social networking sites (Lenhart and Madden, 2007). Similarly, another recent study by the same institute observed that adolescents are highly engaged with SNS, as 93% of the American teenagers have a Facebook account (Lenhart et al. 2010). Various activities revolving around digital photos on SNS including sharing, commenting, liking, and tagging has been embraced by teenagers, as every nine out of ten teenagers post their photos on SNS, making it the most popular SNS based activity (Madden et al. 2013). Furthermore, on Facebook which is regarded as one of the most popular and frequently accessed SNS, beside posting on walls, and reading content, engaging with digital photos including photo sharing and tagging has been one of the popular pastime especially among the adolescents (Bruneel et al. 2013).Even though, mobile phones and ICT use among Indian digital natives have been studied recently (Rangaswamy and Cutrell, 2012; Singh and Goyal, 2009), photo tagging practices among this age group has not been addressed yet. …

The Public Sphere and Network Democracy: Social movements and Political Change?

Abstract: The article critically examines the democratic possibilities of technological innovations associated with Web 2.0 tools and in this context it address the first and second ‘waves’ of academic debates concerning the social media and the public sphere in the networked society. It argues that the initial optimism associated with a virtual public sphere has been replaced by doubts about whether this model was appropriate for the development of democratic values. It assesses whether the information communications networks have constructed a more personalised form of politics and it is concerned with the application of the networked power relations with reference to grassroots or social revolutionary movements. New communications environments were seen to be instrumental in forging the conditions for the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions and the Turkish protests within Istanbul’s Taksim square during the summer of 2013. These Middle Eastern case examples are discussed along with the calls for political and economic change in Southern Europe within financially constrained countries of Spain and Greece. Based on such studies the article theorizes on the key question concerning whether the social media can contribute to democracy, revolution and expansion of the public sphere, or whether they remain instruments of control and power.

The Virtual and the Vegetal: Creating a 'Living' Biocultural Heritage Archive through Digital Storytelling Approaches

Abstract: FloraCultures is an online archive currently being developed in consultation with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia. The archive will showcase the ‘botanical heritage’ of indigenous plant species found in the extant bushland areas of Kings Park near the heart of the city. A selection of multimedia content (text, images, audio recordings, video interviews) and social media approaches (crowd-sourcing, interactivity, participatory media) will be brought together to highlight the cultural value of Perth’s bio-cultural diversity. This paper will analyse FloraCultures in terms of Stuart Hall and Jacques Derrida’s theories of ‘the living archive’ in tandem with recent research into ‘digital storytelling’ through new media. Derrida argues that the living archive is brought into existence through the dialectic between the death drive (Thanatos) and the conservation drive (Eros), and that an interdisciplinary field of ‘archiviology’ is required to understand and develop archives in their broader cultural contexts. For Hall, the living archive is defined by heterodoxy as a participatory space consisting of a multitude of materials and in which public exchange can be fostered. I argue that a living archive in the digital era is brought to life through digital storytelling techniques that allow users to contribute to, participate in and create their own stories as part of an ecology of the archive. In ecological terms, FloraCultures brings plant diversity ‐ and the factors which impact it ‐ to bear on the archive and the archivable.

Media Re-victimization of Rape Victims in a Shame Culture?Exploring the Framing and Representation of Rape Cases inNigerian Dailies

Abstract: This is a content analysis of three Nigerian Dailies – Daily Sun, Vanguard and Guardian newspapers to examine the framing and representation of rape cases in the newspapers Among the objectives of the study are to find out the frequency of stories on rape reported in the Nigerian newspapers, to find out the sources of rape cases as reported in the Nigerian Newspapers, and to find out the dominant frame used in the stories on rape reported in the Nigerian newspapers It was found that the dominant frame of rape stories in the newspapers was innocence frame which portrayed victims of rape as innocent of the crime rather than re-victimisation frame which portrayed victims as responsible for the incident

The Canadian Armed Forces “YouTube War”: A Cross-Border Military-Social Media Complex

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to conceptualize, contextualize, and critically analyze the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) use of YouTube to promote itself, recruit soldiers, and frame its role in the post-9/11 U.S.-led NATO war in Afghanistan. The first section of this paper engages with scholarship on war and the media, the military-industrial-communications complex (MICC), and YouTube War to conceptualize YouTube as a tool and contested battle-space of 21 century new media wars. The second section contextualizes the rise of the CAF’s YouTube channels—Canadian Forces and Canadian Army—with regard to post-9/11 Canadian foreign policy, the growth of the Canadian military publicity state, the creeping militarization of culture, and the CAF’s “social media policy”. The third section conceptualizes the CAF’s two YouTube channels as tools and spaces of its publicity front; then, through a synoptic critical overview of numerous CAFgenerated YouTube videos, it shows how the CAF uses YouTube to recruit personnel and frame its role in the war in Afghanistan. The conclusion discusses the characteristics of this cross-border military-social media complex and its contradictions, namely, the spread of pacifist and veteran-generated videos that contest the war in Afghanistan. Overall, the paper offers an initial politicaleconomy of communication of the CAF’s foray into the global battle-space of the Internet and its use of YouTube for publicity.

Making Sense of Youtube

Abstract: Drawing on the literature of digital culture and new media studies the author offers a statement of original intent: the theorization of Youtube. Using broad strokes the paper conceptualizes Youtube through a number of prisms: Architecture, Use, and Impact along with developing a Genre analysis of its stories. Extended endnotes provide examples and additional theoretical embedding.

Social Networks as Sites of e-Participation in Local Government

Abstract: This paper proposes that electronic social network sites (SNS) make visible forms of participatory behaviour to which local governments must respond. Groups and individuals ‐ publics ‐ operating in diverse ways for diverse purposes, propagate and respond to communication by local governments via SNS and, in doing so, practice electronic e-participation. In addition to alternate channels of communication, SNS can facilitate alternate forms of participatory behaviour online, but there is little alignment between public perceptions of these emerging practices and local government behaviours in the same space. The publics seeking to engage with local governments on SNS, expect that their participation should be both sought and valued, but local governments are active on social networks for different purposes, primarily information sharing. A study of the main social network channels of five local governments, in and around the Illawarra region of New South Wales, reveals that local governments are neither aware of this shift in public e-participation expectations, nor equipped to understand them. In particular, certain forms of e-participatory behaviour are not recognised by the local governments as genuine forms of participation. Nonetheless, there are some promising signs that local governments are making efforts to acknowledge and respond to publics and individuals on SNS, pointing to opportunities for more active engagement between publics and councils.

Media accountability online in Israel. - An application of Bourdieu`s field theory

Abstract: Due to structural changes in journalism, such as deregulation, privatisation and the influence of new technologies, it has become increasingly important to study media accountability (MA). By applying Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, this paper proposes a new approach to do so: MA is defined as a function of both journalistic autonomy and influence in the media field. Here, online communication potentially widens the scope of action for media’s transparency, responsiveness as well as the articulation of media criticism by a variety of actors. In Israel, media criticism is driven by the agent’s struggle for interpretive authority over public discourse in a politically polarized society. Semi-structured interviews with Israeli journalists, media activists and experts suggest that journalistic agents who have yet to earn credibility and reputation exploit online communication to its full potential, while agents in the field of power tend to dismiss online criticism. The influence of the audience’s media criticism is not solely dependent on the technical ability of connecting and hearing the voices of the masses; it has to be in combination with symbolic or political capital. However, the demand for media’s social responsibility is also related to being more careful and less critical, which is very evident in Israel. Thus, it is important to critically reflect on what happens when media accountability practices become more efficient and a stronger sense for “being watched” develops.

SNS as Intimacy Zone: Social Intimacy, Loneliness, and Self-disclosure on SNS

Abstract: This study explores factors that may influence one’s self-disclosure on SNS where one self- disclose information in the public eye. Social intimacy and loneliness as indicators of one’s social relationship status are found to be both significantly, though contradictorily related to self-disclosure on SNS. Social intimacy and loneliness function are mediators in the direct effect of personality on self-disclosure on SNS. This study enhances the understanding of self-disclosure on SNS rather than interpersonal connections.

The Influence of Globalization on "Lookism" in Workplace Environment of Different Cultures

Abstract: The practice of discrimination on the basis of physical appearance in the workplace has attracted a good deal of academic interest in recent years. They all found evidences that appearance can have a different effect on one's career, depending on the occupation. In many organizations, appearance is rewarded either in increased productivity or by consumer discrimination. In his research about globalization and beauty, Geoffrey Jones (2011) confirmed that the growth of the world beauty market was closely linked to the waves of globalization. The aim of present study is to explore if there is any relationship between globalization and lookism in workplaces. Furthermore, there is an attempt to understand how these two phenomena of globalization and lookism vary in different cultures which in return can influence working conditions.Keyboard: Globalization; Lookism; Workplace; Meaning of BeautyIntroductionAccording to Taheri (2012) if we could take out human being from the universe, there will be no meaning of beauty or ugliness for all existences in the universe. It is us, as human being, who determines and interprets everything in this world to be beautiful or ugly, and it is much related to the theory of relativity. Otherwise, the whole universe with every particle in it is living together without any exception or protestation. But human are stricken to absolutism and forget that the meaning of beauty is a matter of relativity. He is true is saying that it is us as human being who determines what is beautiful or not and then we start to discriminate based on our own criteria. It is not very surprising if you hear a beautiful, attractive, and fashionable person is treated very well and gain extra attention and the other one who is not that attractive, is not attended in the same way in different occasions (Taheri, 2012). Lookism was first recognized as a term for discrimination based on looks in 2000 by dictionary writers. Both the Oxford English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary have included the word "lookism" in the editions published since 2000 (Ayto, 1999). Considering the fact that discrimination based on appearance namely lookism (see also(Tietje & Cresap, 2005) may have always been there in human life, a new "ism" word related to appearance shows that it is just recently that the issue is alarming. The concern is that we do not see all diversities as beautiful and we instead create limited ideals of beauty and assess everybody according to that criterion, unaware of the fact that beauty is a subjective matter which is based on relativity. So the problem is not in preferring attractiveness or beauty, the concern is the people who identify what is beautiful, and what factors are involved to build criteria of attractiveness of people in different countries and cultures.If previously, every small size of groups, tribes, cities or in large scale countries could identify norms and beauty ideals, recently, the phenomenon of globalization has hugely impacted the cultural values and has created a united norm of beauty. Multinational organizations, corporate brandings, advertisements, models, movie stars and global media play a very important role by accelerating interactions among societies around the world. Also for Schaeffer (2009), globalization has many positive and good benefits for people around the world and is sometimes inevitable. But does it have the same positive influence on the lookism as well?Among many elements of globalization, global media and visual advertisements are consciously or unconsciously specifying the norms of beauty and these two elements are hugely used by corporations for their advertising purposes. Some may be true in saying that a person's look is not only a personal decision but it should consider many norms and values. As industries know the importance of this appearance norm, they indirectly educate people to judge based on the norm that they define for the societies. …

Invitation to Information Sociology

Abstract: While there have been substantial developments in the sociology of knowledge, technology, the internet and communication since the beginningof the 20th century, an information sociology remains underdeveloped with respect to both emerging societal changes and insights into older sociological problems. Centring on the notion of informational interactions, this paperexplores the way these interactions manifest in various levels of social phenomena and particularly investigates four of these levels: 1)information society: structural sustenanceas consequences of ideological ‘development’; 2) knowledge generation: the rise of personalized and epistemologicalknowledge;3) information experience: howcharacterizingtheinternet as ‘virtual’ has undesirable overtonesthat could obscure the sociological understanding of information technology and its relationship with network users; and 4) heterogeneous operationalization:the problem ofdiscrepancy of (orthodox) gametheory with empirical findings of human behaviour.It is hoped that this explorationcan providethe necessaryfocus in information sociology as to how information interactions characterize, sustain and transform social institutions and relationships.

Are Blogs More Peace-Journalistic Than Newspapers?: A Dual MethodAnalysis

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to compare blog posts with mass media (newspaper) texts under the frame of war/peace journalism and meaning structure perspective. This study uses two different methods (content and semantic network analysis) for four kinds of texts (blogs, New York Times, Washington Post, and New York Times + Washington Post). Blogs are found more peace-journalistic than newspapers with few content characteristic exceptions. Although NYT is found closer to peace journalism than WP, the difference is not so great. In terms of meaning structure, newspaper texts are more military-focused, elite-source dependent, and interpret the war in a domestic-politics context. Suggestions for future research are addressed.Keywords: Iraq War; Blog; Newspaper; Semantic NetworkIntroductionJournalism for Peace?Mass media reporting on international conflict has been criticized for supporting one side, relying mostly on government sources for information, dramatizing, and overlooking the innocent people victimized by war (Ersoy, 2010; Keeble, 2010; Ottosen, 2010; McMahon, 2011; Hallin, 1986; Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Knightley, 2000). These trends have been labelled by Galtung (1986, 1998) as ?war journalism,? denoting the tendency of modern mass media to agitate hostile attitude to each other and prioritize ?winning? in the game to peaceful reconciliation. As an oppositional concept to war journalism, Galtung suggested peace journalism as a guideline for journalists who are reporting global conflicts. Peace journalism focuses on peace initiatives, multilateral negotiations, how to prevent future conflict, the structural source of conflict, and post-conflict reconstruction, chances of reconciliation (Galtung, 1986, 1998). Jacobsen and Galtung (2002) explicated that commercially and/or politically motivated war journalism is centering on winning in conflict because journalists assume that conflict is a zero-sum game. For this reason, war journalism is compared to "sports journalism," and peace journalism is to "health journalism" whose characteristics are informing the readers of causes, preventive measures, and cures (Lee & Maslog, 2005, p. 312).According to Lee (2010), Galtung and Ruge (1965) proposed the idea of peace journalism in their critique of war reporting in "The Structure of Foreign News." Galtung's suggestion led to lively discussions of the concept by journalists and theorists. Galtung set up "TRANSCEND (www.transcend.org)" as a discussion forum about his vision for global peace. Also, his peace journalism concept was deepened by journalists in a series of articles and booklets, "The Peace Journalism Option" (Lynch, 1998), "What Are Journalists For?" (Lynch, 1999), "Using Conflict Analysis in Reporting" (Lynch, 2000), and "Reporting the World" (CPF, 2002), all of which are published by Conflict and Peace Forums (CPF). A book, "Peace Journalism" (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005), may be considered a beginning of an attempt to combine peace journalism theory with practice. It defines peace journalism:· uses the insights of conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness, and accuracy in reporting· provides a new route map tracing the connections between journalists, their sources, the stories they cover and the consequences of their journalism - the ethics of journalistic intervention· builds an awareness of non-violence and creativity into the practical job of everyday editing and reporting (2005, p. 5)Even if there are numerous theoretical works about why and how war journalism is formulated and conducted (Hallin, 1986; Iyengar & Simon, 1994; Knightley, 2000; Galtung 1996; 1998), works on peace journalism are few and "normative and prescriptive" (Lee & Maslog, 2005, p. 313). Extant literature is rare, and it has used Galtung's (1986;1988) categorization of the characteristics of peace journalism. On the other hand, military conflict manifests political influence of the Internet evidently. …

Ethnography, co-design and emergence: Slow activism for sustainable design

Abstract: In this article I take the novel step of examining how ethnographic understandings of the futures and intervention orientation of indirect forms of activism can inform design practice. To do this I focus on the example of the Slow City movement, specifically on its development across the UK, Spain and Australia. The focus on process and relationality that is part of the way that the movement works, creates forms of emergence that can lead to sustainability and resilience. Such processes are in many ways coherent with the principles of design anthropology and a phenomenological approach to co-design, and I suggest that by studying the success and limitations of Slow City examples we can see their work as a kind of living lab that brings new insights to design theory and practice for similar or parallel scenarios.

Commentary: Rethinking Multicultural/Multiracial Media and the Integrity of Immigrant Integration

Abstract: While it is still early to tell, the 2015 federal election campaign suggests a different conjuncture: a new politics of “call out” and “call in” culture on racism in Canadian political culture, and new assertiveness and division of labour between multicultural and mainstream media in campaign coverage. After the majority of Canadian voters rejected racialized wedge politics, the next important task is de-essentialization. A term usually applied to identity politics, this article argues for a broader creative economy lens on how it can also be applied to multicultural/multiracial media policy, the forthcoming Syrian influx of refugees, and evaluating the inclusivity and integrity of immigrant integration.

Journalism in Jordan: A comparative analysis of press freedom in the post-Arab spring environment

Abstract: 2. IntroductionAs the Arab region erupted in protests in early 2011, the king of Jordan appeared to see the writing on the wall. He fired his cabinet and called for immediate changes in the organization of his government. King Abdullah II vowed the government would take "practical, swift and tangible steps to launch a real political reform process" including expanding public freedoms (Kadri & Bronner, 2011, para. 4). His statement acknowledged that one of the many grievances of Arab audiences was the ingrained censorship of both private and public media and other excessive limits placed on freedom of expression. Despite the promise to make changes, few observers would argue that the level of press freedom in Jordan has improved since 2011. In fact, many argue that Jordan has suppressed freedom of expression more since the Arab Spring, even though evidence shows that many populations are rejecting information from state-controlled entities in favor of more-free, digital forms of communication (el-Nawawy & Khamis, 2013; Howard & Hussain, 2013; Tufekci & Wilson, 2012; Youmans & York, 2012). Data from press freedom organizations support the observation that press freedom has gotten worse in Jordan (see figures 1 and 2.)The paper examines the issues surrounding the press freedom environment in Jordan, particularly in the wake of the Arab Spring. After a literature review and theoretical grounding, the analysis focuses on events since 2011 to identify whether the government's pledges of increased freedoms have been carried out. Interviews with two practicing journalists in Jordan help expand on the analysis. The paper concludes with a comparative legal analysis between the approaches taken in Jordan to generally accepted principles of free expression. This comparison is a notable contribution to the literature because many critiques simply end with "governments shouldn't arrest journalists" but do not explain how other countries adjudicate similar circumstances. Every country in the world balances the need for freedom of expression against the need to maintain public order and protect reputations. This paper attempts to explain the approach that might be taken in more robust free speech environments.3. Literature reviewThe benefits of a free press-particularly in democracies-are widely embraced in both academic research and conventional wisdom. The free press facilitates the flow of information between the government and the public, offers a forum for political discussion and deliberation, and watches out for abuses from powerful figures. Research has shown that an unfettered press bridges the divide between the government and its citizens (Besley, Burgess, & Prat, 2002), decreases corruption (Djankov, McLeish, Nenova, & Shleifer, 2002), encourages political participation (Leeson, 2008), fights extremism of religion (Amam, 2002), and facilitates economic growth (Roll & Talbott, 2003). Scholars at Pakistan's International Islamic University found that press freedom is linked with both economic growth and direct foreign investment (Alam & Ali Shah, 2013). To further the goals of a free press, media outlets must be allowed to examine and criticize officials and their actions and protected even if they publish incorrect information. For this reason, laws such as criminal defamation and prohibition of insults are generally disfavored because they impede the benefits of a free press by generally chilling speech (Buckley, Duer, Mendel, Price, & Raboy, 2008). Previous academic studies of Jordanian journalism and press freedom have found a complicated environment. Najjar (1998) examined the Jordanian press from 1985 to 1998 and discovered several expansions and retractions of press freedom over the years. He remained cautiously optimistic for greater freedoms despite a 1997 law that restricted speech. He pointed to independent judicial rulings as reason for hope. In his examination of the tabloid press in Jordan, Jones (2002) found these more-sensational media outlets to be both a sign of increasing liberalization as well as constant source of conflict and contention with the government. …

Transformation der Mediensysteme in fragilen Staaten am Fallbeispiel Afghanistan

Abstract: In diesem Beitrag wird die Transformation der Mediensysteme in fragilen Staaten analysiert und gefragt, ob die Liberalisierung und Kommerzialisierung der Mediensysteme in fragilen Saaten im Interesse der Staatsbildung ist. Dazu wird das Fallbeispiel Afghanistan betrachtet. Die Liberalisierung des Medienmarkts hat, wie man in Afghanistan sehen kann, auf unterschiedliche Weise eine starke Fragmentierung des Mediensektors zur Folge. Daraus wird die These entwickelt, dass die „Power to the market“-Strategie im Mediensektor der fragilen Staatenzwar eine Vielzahl an Medientiteln, aber selten qualitative Medienvielfalt hervorbringt. Dazu kommt, dass die Medienlandschaft von oligarchischen Tendenzen gepragt ist. In diesem Kontext entwickelt sich ein Journalismus, der von Polarisierung und Boulevardisierung gekennzeichnet ist.

The Socially Challenged: Exploring Obstacles to Social Media Integration in Newsrooms

Abstract: This research explores the challenges many journalists face in integrating social media tools into their daily workflow Using a qualitative approach, 25 journalists from a variety of media backgrounds provide insights into what obstacles kept them and others from seeing the practicality of social media tools Results point to four main themes including concerns about quality and accuracy, the increase in workload and job-related stress created by social media, the competitive environment of breaking stories via social media, and the age and experience of the journalist Results are considered within the framework of Rogers’ (1983) diffusion of innovations theoretical model

Video Activism: A Descriptive Typology

Abstract: IntroductionThis article forms part of a previously initiated line of research whose aim is to establish an epistemological framework for the study of video activism from the perspective of media and communication studies. In previous articles we have presented a model of definition and description of video activism (Mateos and Rajas, 2014) and a historical outline within certain conceptual limits (Mateos and Gaona, 2014). The aim of these works was to enable us to identify the practices of video activists and the contextual factors in which the emergence of video activism about a century ago became possible. In these texts we describe video activism as an audiovisual discursive practice that sets out to counter a discursive abuse or gap and is carried out by actors outside the dominant power structures. The audiovisual practice engaged in by these subjects of counterpower is one of political intervention (Shamberg, 1971; Buchloh, 1985; Harding 2001; Widgington, 2005; Bustos, 2006), which can be considered a direct heritage from militant cinemas goals (Linares, 1976; Burton,1986; Sheppard, 2004; Mestman, 2011). The practise confines itself to a certain extent to the area of protest, but also includes other objectives such as education, the construction of a collective identity, social rebellion and denunciation, demonstration, meeting and bearing witness, all within the broader aim of promoting social change. "A way for film-makers and radical organizer-agitators to break into the consciousness of people. A chance to say something different... to say that people don't have to be spectator-puppets. In our hands film is not an anesthetic, a sterile, smoothing-talking apparatus of control. It is a weapon to counter, to talk back and to crack the facade of lying media of capitalism" (Film Quarterly, 1968-69: 44).These objectives manifest themselves in the range of discursive strategies deployed by video activism, all of which are aimed at constructing an emancipatory consciousness, which is to say, a consciousness that equips people with the tools necessary to resist political manipulation, symbolic domination or cultural subjugation. In other words, video activism is an audiovisual mode of communicative action that consists in taking possession of discourse itself from the public sphere (occupying it by means of an audiovisual narrative) with the aim of fighting against repressions of a symbolic nature that have biopolitical repercussions on the individual. Such repression often does not take the form of straightforward physical repression, but is in fact intangible because it operates in the symbolic realm.The conceptual and theoretical framework we have developed in these works may be capable of providing a sufficient basis for some empirical studies: "Finally, language is a third way of ordering and managing the World. Language is used not just to name objects and thus have some control over them; the linguistic choices made reveal a particular symbolic reality, a particular way of seeing the World" (Littlejohn and Foss, 2011: 239). But the objectives pursued by other studies require a different set of epistemological tools not currently available in the specialist literature. Within this general aim of promoting empirical studies, this article also attempts to make a contribution by providing an underlying methodology insofar as it sets out to create a typology and suggests ways to implement it. It is clear that a typology of the activity and production of video activists is needed if we are to be in a position to elaborate useful samples for such studies. "The constructed type serves as a point of reference for the analysis of the empirically occurrent" (McKinney, 1966: 49)Moreover, to consolidate this field of research it is necessary to foster these empirical studies, whether in the form of doctoral dissertations or research projects initiated from both within academia and in professional media and collective forums. …

The new Latin American journalistic crónica, emotions and hidden signs of reality

Abstract: Latin America journalism, throughout history, has been snugly knitted to the rich literature tradition of the region. In the 19th century - the century of the de-colonisation struggle with the Spanish crown - Latin American writers began experimenting with hybrid forms of narrative. It was a quest for new ways of story telling; a hybrid form - the cronica - where story telling became a parallel journey taken by the novelist impatient to engage his or her writing with the new post colonial conditions. Since these early days, the cronica - or the chronicle - was embraced with aesthetic commitment and ideological conviction by some of the most celebrated novelists in the region. In the cronica - paraphrasing Cuban poet Alejo Carpentier - the journalist and the novelist turn out to be the same person. The exponents of the new crop of Latin American journalistic cronica - the central theme of this paper - could well be described as a post-literary boom generation of writers who - like their predecessors of the 19th century - are impatient to engage their writing with the 21st century post dictatorship conditions. The new cronistas don't discard any stories, as long as they are part of the Latin American realism, in the sense of Zola's realism instead of Garcia Marquez's magic realism. All of these stories have three literary nexuses; they read as fiction, they are true tales and they are overpoweringly socially progressive. This paper seeks to review, examine and perhaps propose pointers toward the conceptualization of the cronica, as a literary long form of journalism that has a distinctive Latin American diacritic, form and social undertaking.

Scholars as Audiences, Symbolic Boundaries, and Culturally Legitimated Prime-Time Cable Drama

Abstract: This article addresses Jason Mittell's controversial essay “On Disliking Mad Men” (2010) in the cultural context of post-network television. The author uses 72 critical reviews of five HBO series to place Mittell's argument alongside other rhetorical strategies that resist the prestige associated with high-status prime-time cable dramas. In relation to these rhetorical strategies, the troubled publication history of and negative scholarly reactions to Mittell's essay are understood as indicative of elite post-network television audiences policing the symbolic boundaries surrounding culturally legitimated texts.

Construcción de ciudadanía a partir del relato de jóvenes participantes del #YoSoy132

Abstract: En este trabajo se presentan los resultados del analisis del relato de jovenes que participaron en el surgimiento del #YoSoy132. De manera puntual analizamos el uso que hicieron de las redes sociales con relacion al acceso a la informacion, formas de organizacion y visibilizacion en el espacio publico. Analizaremos entonces la participacion politica juvenil a partir de la biografia y la generacion para tratar de comprender lo que esta en juego en terminos de la construccion de ciudadania en el largo plazo a partir del repertorio de acciones colectivas en el que se vieron envueltos los jovenes participantes del #YoSoy132 durante el 2012.

Fictional politics on TV: Comparing the representations of political reality in the US-series The West Wing and the German series Kanzleramt

Abstract: It is generally agreed upon that fictional stories can serve as sources for the audience’s perceptions of reality This also includes the political realm Our paper examines the fictional representation of politics in the US series The West Wing and its German adaption, Kanzleramt The comparative content analysis concentrates on political actors and political themes as key parameters of fictional politics It investigates whether the national political context is reflected in the political dramas Results show a rather small impact of national contexts This indicates that the logic of fictionalization levels out national differences in shaping fictional politics

Media Aid Beyond the Factual: Culture, Development, and Audiovisual Assistance

Abstract: This paper discusses audiovisual assistance, a form of development aid that focuses on the production and distribution of cultural and entertainment media such as fictional films and TV shows. While the first audiovisual assistance program date back to UNESCO’s International Fund for the Promotion of Culture in the 1970s, the past two decades have seen a proliferation of audiovisual assistance that, I argue, is related to a growing concern for culture in post-2015 global development agendas. In this paper, I examine the aims and motivations behind the EU’s audiovisual assistance programs to countries in the Global South, using data from policy documents and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Program Managers and administrative staff in Brussels. These programs prioritize forms of audiovisual content that are locally specific, yet globally tradable. Furthermore, I argue that they have an ambivalent relationship with traditional notions of international development, one that conceptualizes media not only as a means to achieve economic development and human rights aims, but as a form of development itself.

Evaluating the impacts of media assistance: Problems and principles

Abstract: While some form of evaluation has always been a requirement of development projects, in the media assistance field this has predominantly been limited to very basic modes of counting outputs, such as the number of journalists trained or the number of articles produced on a topic. Few media assistance evaluations manage to provide sound evidence of impacts on governance and social change. So far, most responses to the problem of media assistance impact evaluation collate evaluation methodologies and methods into toolkits. This paper suggests that the problem of impact evaluation of media assistance is understood to be more than a simple issue of methods, and outlines three underlying tensions and challenges that stifle implementation of effective practices in media assistance evaluation. First, there are serious conceptual ambiguities that affect evaluation design. Second, bureaucratic systems and imperatives often drive evaluation practices, which reduces their utility and richness. Third, the search for the ultimate method or toolkit of methods for media assistance evaluation tends to overlook the complex epistemological and political undercurrents in the evaluation discipline, which can lead to methods being used without consideration of the ontological implications. Only if these contextual factors are known and understood can effective evaluations be designed that meets all stakeholders' needs.

Evaluating Undergraduates attitude towards the use of podcast for learning selected Educational Technology concepts

Abstract: 3. IntroductionTechnology has revolutionized in higher education over the years and it has greatly improved the teaching and learning process. Most especially, digital native students are getting bored with the conventional lecture method and are approaching learning from a very different perspective. In the view of this, students' levels of engagement tend to be low, which may cause their learning to suffer and at the end affect their academic performance (Sun, Martinez & Seli, 2014). It is of high importance that the conventional lectures should be supplemented with online innovative tools like podcast which can stimulate and arouse students' interest to learn effectively which will greatly influence their academic performance positively. Most students use their mobile devices for entertainment purpose (listening to music, chatting on social media sites) which distracts them from learning. If there are educational/lecture podcast that they can download to their mobile devices, it may improve their study habits and positively influence their performances in the courses they offer. Since podcast gives learners an anywhere anytime learning experience using their various mobile devices. Students' attitudes are the good indicators of their approach to the educational technologies and these approaches differentiate users from each other (Graff, Davies & McNorton, 2004). Studies on students' attitude towards the use of podcast began to appear in the literature in 2006 (Chester, Buntine, Hammond & Atkinson, 2011). Studies have found out that positive attitude towards using podcast can lead to students' better learning (Bolliger, Supanakorn & Boggs, 2010; Fernandez, Simo & Salan, 2009; Heilesen, 2010; Oliver, 2005; Walls, Kucsera, Walker et.al, 2010). Evans (2008) reported that traditional learners found the use of podcast satisfactory, effective, and engaging. Podcast can be used to supplement the teaching and learning of any course in higher education not just Educational Technology concepts used in this study and a number of studies have proved that and they include: astronomy (Gay, Bemrose-Fetter, Bracey & Cain, 2007), education (Walls et al., 2010), information systems (Laing & Wootton, 2007), information and communications technology (Evans, 2008), engineering (Berger, 2007), Health sciences (Lane, 2006), medicine (Petrovic, Kennedy, Chang & Waycott, 2008) and so on. Students have reported a range of reasons for using podcasts which includes picking up missing information, revisiting complex material, working through material at one's own pace, and catching up on a lecture that was missed (Brookes, 2010; Chester et al., 2011). However, examination review is the most frequently reported reason for using podcasts (Copley, 2007; Gosper, McNeill, Woo et al., 2007; Janossy, 2007; Laing & Wootton, 2007; Williams & Fardon, 2007). A number of studies on students' positive attitude towards the use of podcast have been established in literature. Brookes (2010) reported that students' attitude were positive toward the use of podcast. Carvalho, Cruz and Moura (2008) in their study reported that students' attitude towards the use of podcast was positive as only one student hated podcasts. Most of the students preferred to listen to podcasts than rather reading the content from a book. Farshi and Mohammadi (2013) conducted a study on the use of podcasts in effective teaching of Vocabulary: Learners' Attitudes, Motivations and Limitations and their findings revealed that learners had positive attitude towards using podcast for learning English vocabularies. In a study by Heilesen (2010), it was concluded that students had positive attitude towards podcast and reports of rejection of podcast were very rare. Gribbins (2007) found that students had a positive attitude towards using podcasts for online classes. Shaw (2009) found that student attitudes toward podcasts were positive. Wilczak (2013) indicated that students had positive attitudes toward the use of podcast. …