Hollow State

As this term draws to a close our last Global Media lecture meant we weren’t learning about new theories or concepts and focused on looking at a number of programmes that discussed ones we’d learned in previous weeks.

The programme titled Hollow State produced in December 1996 looked at the information society developing in China at the time.

An interesting thought process is if the hollowness has increased or decreased over the years. Has culture and society caught up with the information society and developed with it? Or has it become more hollow as the information technology of today develops at such a rate that we are constantly behind the trend or latest revelation.

The programme brought to light some of the academic theorists we have seemingly studied over the past few weeks. This shows that the journalist making the programme will use the theorists when discussing certain developments and the latest news. It’s important to develop contacts with the people I study with currently as these may be the people I’m interviewing in a few years time.

Hollow State was particularly well made due to the different views it offered. It’s a good visual example of how to construct the essay due to be handed in next week. It presented the views opposing the programmes theory and gave examples of why it may be true, as well as the views the programme believed with examples.

 

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Final Research Project.

The MA Journalism Project provides you with an opportunity to create an original and intellectually critical extended writing. You are expected to produce a dissertation of 12-15,000 words or an appropriate project in print/broadcast/online format or other acceptable platforms together with a shorter dissertation, on a topic relevant to your specialist interest and mutually agreed with course staff. The topic should be worthy of sustained in-depth inquiry. Both types of dissertation should take the form of a properly academically written and referenced piece of work following accepted conventions.

 

This description is intended to engage and excite an MA Journalist student into the final project of the year. We discussed this at great length with Fred and Andrew today and it opened and closed many avenues not previously thought of.

The idea that had been floating around my brain for a few weeks was looking at journalistic training over three very different countries with the aim to discover the best journalistic practice and who teaches their journalists best.

I began explaining my idea and shortly was interrupted by my lecturers explaining that this task would be tough and I would have to simplify the whole thing. Each country’s definition of journalism is different. Journalists perform different roles in different places around the world; some inform, others direct or manage, it can even protest and demonstrate. So ultimately good journalism would be determined on how well each country adheres to its law and purpose.

I would have to essentially look at what journalism actually is in each country, but I imagine this idea has been done to death.

I then thought of my secondary idea that came up during the preparation of my M40MC essay. Here is my written proposal:

How does a dramatic, culture-changing event affect media policy and the role of journalists?

My intention is to view three countries with differing cultural heritage and examine how the aftermath of each event causes change in national policy. I will also investigate the changes in journalistic practice.

To do this I intend to analyse a national newspaper with the highest rate of circulation from three countries; The United States of America, The Czech Republic and [arab league country after arab spring]. This analysis will include measuring the volume of news stories – both local and national, international content, cultural reporting and framing of political news stories.

I also intend to interview a reporter from each of the national newspapers who has worked both before and after the traumatic event. This will provide a level of first-hand qualitative research that will have not been featured in previous texts.

By combining both the qualitative and quantitative research, I will then be able to answer how an event with a global impact changes views and policy in the media. This will ultimately become the definition of ‘Post-Traumatic Journalism’.

 

I think this is ultimately what the Final Research Project will be so I have opened up a new Category under ‘My Course’ titled Final Project Journal.

When I research anything, or contact anyone regarding my Final Research Project I will update it in this. It may not be that often quite yet, but hopefully a little bit every once in a while over the next few months will mean I’m on top of things when next summer arrives.

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Time to start some work

I have been doing this course for 8 weeks now. I have done more reading in the past 8 weeks than I did in my entire three years studying Creative Writing. This either says a lot about how seriously I’m taking this course or very little about how seriously I took my previous course.

The truth is I knew what I was capable of as an undergraduate and perhaps I took it a bit lightly and I spent my time at Marjon growing as a person and getting involved in plenty of extra-curricular activities.

This course I haven’t got involved in basketball or many side-projects, I am reading so much and focusing on my work each week. It has definitely led in a slower development of bonding with friends but feel I’m slowly getting there with my course-mates.

My first piece of major coursework is due in pretty soon and I think I am pretty prepared for it, not quite entirely, but nearly. Of course what I have realised in doing so much work is that I was never ready to complete any piece of coursework in my previous course, I didn’t even take the time to learn how to construct my academic essays.

This past Friday’s session allowed us to look at this subject a little bit. We did spend the first hour discussing this past weeks readings, but after this we looked at other journal articles and how they are set up. I’ve never thought about it before but for this academic essay I think I’m going to ‘plan’ it. Bizarre. At least it feels so. I’ll start this week as we don’t have any essential reading to do so I can spend the time I’d usually commit to that looking at how I’m going to put together the essay.

The introduction needs to adhere to these brief points.

• The title – has to explain what country I’ll be talking about, what media system and the theory I’ll be attaching to it
• The 1st sentence – should tell the reader something about how the system is affected by political, social or economic structures.
• The 1st paragraph – will propose the current situation in the country regarding the media system discussed and it’s pros and cons.
• Before beginning the analysis, the intention of the article should be set out and the system should also be put into context in the global marketplace

So that’s the first paragraph planned. It only took two days…

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On this spot, a hundred years ago, nothing happened

With the second half of Monday dedicated to discovering InDesign there wasn’t a lot to write about from that particular class apart from that we re-constructed a magazine DPS (Double Page Spread) from AutoCar.

Hence I didn’t really offer a full write up.

Friday’s seminar session with Fred and the Global Media and Communication gang was a discussion roundtable of work we had been reading up until that point. We discussed theories and different media concepts and conversed as to how we will be using them to relate to our essay this term. That’s the part I worry over is the academic writing. I’ve always struggled with academia, if you ask me to write a story about anything I can, if you want me to critically analyse the media systems present in the Czech Republic since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the drop of the Iron curtain – I’ll struggle.

But I’m reading all I can and so far have been impressed with how I have approached this course in comparison to my BA. Of course the reasons are justified but I’m happy the work is going in to it.

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Media Reporting of Foreign Affairs

We began Friday afternoon by reviewing an event that took place earlier in the week. It was a debate linking to the launch of John Mair‘s new book ‘Mirage in the Desert? Reporting the Arab Spring‘ to be released on 26th of October. One that we were offered to attend but unfortunately due to previous work commitments I was unable to.

By reviewing what they talked about at the book launch we were able to touch on a few key issues regarding global media and communication.

Initially we were asked what are the practicalities that journalists face when covering controversial overseas issues?

The answer to this brought up several points.

·      It is necessary to keep sending media out to war torn places when there are already so many on the ground?

·      Should the focus of the stories be on the families and the people rather than how many bombs have dropped?

·      It is imprtant to provide background information rather than opinion.

·      Safety comes at a high price when journalists are following tanks and troops.

·      Thr fiscal price to send these people away is so high when it includes camera crews, satellite mobiles.

We also looked at what theories we can apply to these points.

·      With so many different, often opposing press and broadcast teams reporting the competition may lead to a downfall in the standards of reports i.e. BBC vs Sky vs ITV (John Mair’s notes highlighted these Commercialisation aspects)

John Mair has written a collection of books inspired by Coventry Conversations

·      The idea of embedding a journalist in a troop can lead to problems because no writer will write negatively about a troop they are travelling with. This could lead to the press not being trusted and kicked off the tour.

This work led to a discussion and some in class research about how athe media can seemingly lose a war. When you look at research of the Vietnam war, one point that crops up is how the US press played such a heavy role in reporting every negative detail of what went on. Some theorists believe that despite the US winning the war, it was shown to have been lost through the eyes of the media that the US lost the war.

The second half ot eh lecture was reviewing the tasks set the week previous. I personally looked at McPhail’s Global Comunication (2005) and reviewed this to the class but this week I have elected to look at Media Concentration Options for Policy by Trapper and Meier in McQuail and Siune (1998).

In addition to this I have begun focusing on our homework assignment for this week about who owns the media in my country. A review will be posted later this week.

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M40MC – Global Media and Communication

My first sit down seminar with Fred Mudhai was rather an interesting one. We mainly discussed the course and the breakdown of it.

It seems I will be doing two assignments; a project essay and a group presentation.

The presentation will be about a country’s media policy and systems, I will cover one and my partner (as yet to be discovered) will study another. Then we shall come together to compare the two countries and put forward a presentation.

I am interested in 3 countries currently, the first being the UK: I have come to realise that although I am coping well and learning as I’m going I still don’t know a hell of a lot about the media policies of Britain. I am slowly getting through McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists (2007) as recommended by Marcos Young and I’m sure I will have a better understanding of common law and practices by the end of the year anyway.

So part of me thinks the US would be very interesting as I could see myself working in the US and I am generally interested in their media policies as some of it seems to be so much more heavily influenced by the government (or at least some of the major corps do), so I would enjoy that one quite a bit.

Another one I would take great interest in is the Czech Republic. I would be keen to study the change in journalistic freedoms this former Soviet occupied state has seen since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and I doubt there are too many people considering covering Central Europe.

A lot of my decision will be based who I am partnered up with. I will consider some more then get back to you. In the meantime I have LOTS of reading to do for this module and I’ll be writing about Global Communication – Theories, Stakeholders and Trends McPhail (2006) shortly. So don’t go anywhere, we’ll be back after this short commercial break.

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