Reshaping the Borders of Journalism

The Saami and the Roma are both transnational peoples with robust journalistic practices. Although vastly different in socio-economic standing and relationship to the state, both groups choose to develop journalism and journalists to share their perspective of the world; and do so while remaining true to the distinction between journalism and propaganda. This requires access and ability to frame issues and actors, problems and solutions while maintaining professional journalistic standards. Media—both having one's “own” media and creating stories that appear in the “mainstream” media—is key to this practice. Saami and Romani journalists very clearly show there is a way to be objective without being neutral. By interviewing 45 journalists, journalism educators, funders, and evaluators across six countries, as well as examining primary source documents, I show that although emerging from radically different contexts, the Saami and Roma are both distinct nations stretching over two or more states—transnational—which allows, and indeed requires, a unique approach to journalism. I identify two distinct strategies in approaching the goals and practice of, “transnational peoples’ journalism”: nation building/speaking within and intervening/speaking outside.     

JOURNALISTS AT WAR

This article looks closely at the issue of unionization among a sample of Arab journalists working in transnational media. Although divided geographically, these media share the same trait of addressing Arab audiences all over the Arab region and indeed the whole world. The main question addressed in this article is how those journalists perceive the role of unions and whether there are differences among those who work in Europe, particularly London, vis-à-vis those in the Gulf. The article is based on interviews with 25 journalists from such outlets, who were asked about their membership and views of journalism unions in their local or host countries. I argue that journalists who work in London and who have joined the British National Union of Journalists (NUJ) see the NUJ as part of the British political scene and consider it to be a powerful potential tool in defending journalists' rights when reporting inside the Arab region.     

中印开放获取比较研究

认为中国和印度是两个最大的发展中国家,两国的科技发展在全球的科技发展中起着至关重要的作用。自20世纪90年代末开放获取兴起至今,两国的开放获取都取得一定的进展,尤其是印度发展更为迅速,可以说是发展中国家开放获取的领头羊之一。通过对中国和印度的开放获取政策进行比较,并通过对开放获取期刊目录DOAJ和开放获取仓储名录DOAR的统计分析,比较两国的开放获取现状。最后,提出促进我国开放获取进一步发展的途径。     

主题科学传播的选题与渠道分析 ——以COVID-19疫情情境下我国医学论文传播为例

主题科学传播在选题策略和传播渠道均存在其特点。选取我国新型冠状病毒肺炎学术成果交流平台2020年1月27日至7月19日网络载文作为典型案例,收集单篇论文的阅读量、题目、期刊、作者信息及网页访问量构成,定性分析论文学科属性与传播主题的关联,定量分析全球访问量的国别特征、构成及趋势。高阅读量论文的选题呈现以下3个特点:与中心事件强相关、与关键问题有结合点、研究对象较受关注,单篇阅读量较高的论文类型为论著、指南共识、述评专论。网络传播中以直接访问与外部链接引流为主要渠道,引流来源以自建网络平台、文献数据库、主流搜索产品(如百度学术)为主。随着疫情形势变化及观察时间窗延长,访问量增幅较大的渠道以微信公众平台及社交媒体为主,新增渠道包括不同出版平台资源中心外链及大众新闻媒介。除我国外,访问量较高的国家为美国、巴西、印度、日本、意大利。主题科学传播中传播迅速且较受关注的论文选题兼顾学科关联性及公众关切,传播渠道以网络为主。随着时间推移,即时通讯及社交媒体传播增速较高,更多境外网络访问、出版机构互链及国际学术组织数据库涉入,科学传播的受众角色更加丰富。中文论文的国际推广应注重传统平台及新兴渠道的均衡发力,凭借国际化资源中心及社交媒体平台主动传播。     

Inter-media agenda setting in global news production: examining agenda attributes in newspaper coverage of the MH370 incident in the U.S., China,and Hong Kong

The disappearance of Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 attracted high media attention across countries. To explore how news media outlets influence each other in transnational settings, this study focuses on the coverage of MH370 by three major newspapers in the U.S., China, and Hong Kong, and examines the inter-media agenda-setting effect as an indicator of media’s mutual influence. A content analysis of 255 news articles revealed significant correlations among the issue agendas of the 3 newspapers, suggesting the existence of reciprocal, though asymmetrical, influence among the news media in the U.S., China, and Hong Kong. The findings also suggest that news media differ in power and that news media in high-power countries play a key role in shaping the global news agenda.     

Resistant Matters: Tents,Tear Gas and the “Other Media” of Occupy

From tents to tear gas, objects and architectures of resistance speak to us across the transnational Occupy Movement. More than background scenery or mere props for action, these objects have their own stories to tell about how they mediate and communicate political struggle. Informed by the revitalisation of materialism and object-oriented analyses, this paper draws together affect theory, “post-ANT” scholarship and social movement studies to explore particular nonhuman elements of resistance as “other media.” Beyond those practices already seen to be part of the communications ecology of protest (alternative media, demonstrations, speeches, performative actions), I argue that other technological infrastructures and interfaces make and mediate political communication at sites of resistance in ways that are significant but often overlooked in existing scholarship.     

“To Ferguson,Love Palestine”: mediating life under occupation

In Ferguson, Missouri, Palestinian activists and black protesters created a transnational collective identity defined by what some scholars call a “community of feeling” following the murder of Michael Brown in August 2014. This paper focuses on the transnational politics of the Ferguson Movement through a textual analysis of digital media discourse and interviews with local community activists. Findings reveal that activists generated a transnational collective identity based on their shared experiences of oppression and resistance, which activists made visible across various digital platforms, including social media, blogs, and livestreaming. Informed by the literature on social movements, collective identity, and affect, the authors move beyond theoretical analyses that emphasize activists’ communicative practices as strategic; instead, this article underscores the affective linkages that led to the development of a transnational collective identity within the movement.     

Do As I Say,Not As I Do: Video Stores and Parental Mediation of Children's Video Consumption

Parental control of children's television viewing has been studied for the last 4 decades. Cultural analysts have advocated studying media use as part of a broader family system. Framing media use as a process of domestic consumption raises interesting questions about media institutions' influence on parental mediation of viewing content. This study analyzes 2 structures present in video stores. I conclude that stores introduce structural constraints on parent-child discussion of content. Although many parents readily adopt these constraints in their video use, social class is a strong influence over their access to and negotiation of these control structures. The conclusion discusses the prospects for effective parent-child engagement over media content, given this set of institutional constraints.     

Television in the Workplace: Ford and FCN TV

Television is increasingly creeping into non-traditional spaces such as workplaces. As part of that movement, Ford Motor Company of Europe uses television as a key component of communication between top management and subordinates. The company broadcasts over its internal television system various Ford-related video and news stories to its plants in five countries—UK, France, Belgium, Spain, and Germany. As an employee in Ford of Europe's internal-communications team based in Cologne, I witnessed first-hand the inner dynamics of the deployment of television in a pan-European setting. Through television, the company is crafting a transnational corporate identity among its multi-national workforce, interpellating viewers in the various local sites within a larger “Ford family.” While television can act as a unifying force, the deployment of the technology also exacerbates tensions within the transnational entity as inflected by site-specific concerns—white collar/blue collar, international/national, management/union, labor/leisure, and public/private. Layered on top of this multitude of tensions remains the inherently propagandistic nature of developing news for a captive audience. For myself and others at the company, irony became a necessary tactic, to use DeCerteau's terms, to cope with the presence of a potentially monolithic technology in the prototypical transnational corporation.     

Does the scholarly communication system satisfy the beliefs and aspirations of new researchers? Summarizing the Harbingers research

A study from the Harbingers research project provides a comprehensive assessment of the main features of the scholarly communications system as viewed by early career researchers (ECRs) in the final year of the study (2018). Aspects covered are: discovery and access, authorship practices, peer review, publishing strategies, open access publishing, open data, sharing, collaboration, social media, metrics, impact, reputation, libraries, publishers, and scholarly transformations. Nearly 120 science and social science researchers from seven countries were questioned about these 16 aspects. It was found that some scholarly features work well for ECRs, and in this category can be included: discovery and access, authorship practices, sharing, collaboration, and publishers. Reputation, publishing strategies, and impact are more problematical, and they, in turn, cause tensions regarding some other factors – social media, open access, and open data. Of the rest, libraries are largely invisible, and ECRs have conflicting views concerning ethical behaviour. Few envisage that transformational change will take place in the next 5 years.     

Digital library development: identifying sources of content for developing countries with special reference to India

Digital libraries aim at unhindered access to content over computer and communication networks, and digitization may be taken as a visible proposition to enhance the shelf life of non-digital content by preservation apart from the virtue of increased and easy access, thereby furthering usage. As a fresh, lively and dynamic area with a lot of enthusiasm and activity by researchers from different disciplines, institutions and countries, digital libraries are viewed in different perspectives and the single most development that has brought about sweeping changes in the library and information discipline currently in the developed world is that of digital libraries. Advancements in computer and information technology with breakthroughs in memory technology has not only reduced the cost of infrastructure required for hosting digital libraries, but the demonstrated success of a wide variety of projects in USA and Europe also endorsed the chances of their survival even in a developing country. Though the professionals and libraries in developing countries are also experiencing the virtues of Internet, and electronic information highways, many of these libraries have not gone much farther than the computerization of in-house operations, availing databases in electronic media such as CD-ROMs, and web access of subscribed journals and various free resources. Digital library development should be taken up as an additional task to populate the web sites with valuable in-house content like the research reports, publications of in-house researchers, and so on. Digital library projects and developments in the country are so many, though a large number of them are only at an aggressively enthusiastic preliminary stage. In a country such as India so rich in content of indigenous research and development in disciplines varied from science and technology to social science, humanities and spirituality, there is tremendous need for hosting full fledged digital libraries by appropriately tagging the content with affordable information technology. However, what is lacking, especially in developing countries, is a coordinated collaborative approach to bring in institutions and identifying content valuable for digitization with sufficient monetary and infrastructure support. The digital library development in the country needs a two-pronged strategy (i) to digitize local content, and (ii) to devise options for accessing external resources. Channels for internal content include journals and serials for research, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations and preprints, research and status reports, textbooks and learning materials, government publications, spiritual/heritage sources, tourism information, traditional knowledge, etc. As far as external resources are concerned, there are electronic options from publishers and information provides such as, online access through Web of subscribed journals, CDs and floppies containing supplementary material of printed books, bibliographic/full-text databases, which can be hosted on library servers or intranet along with local content. The problems for digital library development are manifold in India such as lack of interest, non-availability of computer and IT infrastructure for library activities, copyright problems, ensuring secure access, properly selecting content from the mass available, internet bandwidth, absence of sufficient financial support, over concentration of professional time on administrative routines, acute shortage over concentration of professional time on administrative routines, acute shortage of competent manpower, etc. The software boom engulfing the country, as a result of the big leap in computer penetration, sudden rise in proficient manpower, and sizable improvement in communication infrastructure should also be treated as an asset and taken advantage of by authorities and information professionals to create and maintain digital information facilities to usher in the new information age.     

Academic Publishing in India: Sites of Reform and Resistance

Concentrates on the academic publishing sector within India, promoting three sites of resistance to historical (colonial) publishing processes identified as deficiencies for India’s growing academic publishing market. For a framework, the research draws on postcolonial theory, particularly the body of work assessing the means by which large academic publishers tightly control access to scientific output in many developing countries. It argues that although the historical constraints to academic publishing in India are diminishing, careful socioeconomic planning, recognising the development of a unique digital culture in India, are pivotal for a revitalised, local academic publishing program to grow and succeed.     

Mediated Negotiations: A Case Study of a Transcultural Exchange between Lebanon and Israel

This article examines the strategies and practices by which the Israeli news media negotiated and (re)appropriated a Lebanese documentary that was produced in cooperation with a French company and was purchased and broadcast by an Israeli commercial channel. Using this transnational textual event, the article explores the dynamics, opportunities and pitfalls associated with transcultural exchanges that take place in a conflictual, translocal context, and the ways in which such exchanges are shaped by an interplay of material-institutional and discursive-symbolic dimensions. The article also provides a multi-layered framework for analyzing the broadcasting and journalistic practices surrounding such textual events, and establishes the relationship between appropriation and witnessing strategies. I show how the Israeli media—driven by commercial interests and applying complex forms of witnessing and appropriation—worked to sustain national myths and suppress the potentially disruptive aspects of the documentary, while at the same time exposing the weaknesses of these myths, as well as the limits of the State's power. Emerging from this case study is a complex picture of the multifaceted roles played by national news media in a transnational economy, and of the ways in which commercial media interests serve as both hegemonic and disruptive forces within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict.     

Mediating Diasporas and Fandom: Second-Generation Korean American Adolescent Diasporas,Identification, and Transnational Popular Culture

Research on second-generation diasporic reception practices is rare, and it is the goal of this article to continue the nascent inquiry on multiple-generation diasporic audiences. The complicated ways in which diasporic identity is negotiated allows for greater understanding of the border zones that multiple-generation diasporas inhabit. Fully acculturated but not fully included, second-generation diasporas infuse their identities with meanings drawn in part through reception of transnational popular media and the development of fan communities. For Korean Americans, it is a way of identifying with a transnational home identity that allows for counterhegemonic identification. Boundaries of fan communities, however, exclude as well as include. Intraethnic taste hierarchies define what counts as authentically ethnic and who counts as sufficiently Korean.     

Do FOI laws and open government data deliver as anti-corruption policies? Evidence from a cross-country study

In election times, political parties promise in their manifestos to pass reforms increasing access to government information to root out corruption and improve public service delivery. Scholars have already offered several fascinating explanations of why governments adopt transparency policies that constrain their choices. However, knowledge of their impacts is limited. Does greater access to information deliver on its promises as an anti-corruption policy? While some research has already addressed this question in relation to freedom of information laws, the emergence of new digital technologies enabled new policies, such as open government data. Its effects on corruption remain empirically underexplored due to its novelty and a lack of measurements. In this article, I provide the first empirical study of the relationship between open government data, relative to FOI laws, and corruption. I propose a theoretical framework, which specifies conditions necessary for FOI laws and open government data to affect corruption levels, and I test it on a novel cross-country dataset. The results suggest that the effects of open government data on corruption are conditional upon the quality of media and internet freedom. Moreover, other factors, such as free and fair elections, independent and accountable judiciary, or economic development, are far more critical for tackling corruption than increasing access to information. These findings are important for policies. In particular, digital transparency reforms will not yield results in the anti-corruption fight unless robust provisions safeguarding media and internet freedom complement them.     

NGOs in India's elite newspapers: a framing analysis

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are deeply embedded within the socio-political landscape of India. NGOs were instituted by the Indian government specifically for the purpose of nation-building at the time of national independence in 1947 (Muttalib, 1987). In recent times however, NGOs have come under much scrutiny because of the expanding neoliberal agenda, and global discourse surrounding NGOs often involves questions of accountability. Communication scholars have studied NGOs in various contexts, but what remains unexplored is the question of how NGOs are portrayed within the media, which in contemporary society constitutes the public sphere or space of public opinion. It is important to look at the media because public legitimacy can have serious consequences for an NGO's ability to garner funds, influence policy, and build trust in beneficiary communities. This study thus asks the research question: How are NGOs framed in the Indian media? A qualitative analysis was employed to identify news frames or ‘interpretive packages’ used to talk about NGOs in two of the most widely-circulated English daily newspapers in India. The analysis identified four frames: the ‘do-good’ frame, protest frame, partner frame, and the public accountability frame. The findings show that, for the most part, NGOs are represented in a positive and even a nationalistic light, in spite of the larger global discourse interrogating NGO practices. The discussion elaborates on institutional, political, and historical reasons why NGOs are portrayed favorably in the newspapers.     

Negotiating Postmodern Democracy,Political Activism,and Knowledge Production: Indymedia's Grassroots and e-Savvy Answer to Media Oligopoly

A grassroots-based and technologically sophisticated effort to counteract media oligopoly, online Indymedia (www.indymedia.org) enables activists to appropriate technologies of globalization, thereby promoting democratic access to citizen-produced knowledge. Combined with the efforts of some 150 Independent Media Centers (IMCs) worldwide, the Indymedia movement as a whole illustrates how citizenship is both global and local. This essay uses examples from online Indymedia and my local IMC to address questions of new media and democratic access, corporate media reform, postmodern resistance, and alternative news production. I argue that Indymedia's citizen-generated news production is a powerful response to corporate media consolidation.     

The Role of Non-Government Organisations (NGOS) In Practising Editorial Photography in A Globalised Media Environment

The news media industry has changed dramatically into a global business with ever-increasing attention being devoted to entertainment and celebrity across the last 10–20 years. There has also been a growing reliance on images produced by citizens (citizen photojournalism), by media outlets and publishers. It is widely acknowledged that in tandem these changes have shrunk publication opportunities for professional photographers undertaking editorial projects. As a result, photographers are increasingly relying on non-government organisations (NGOs) to gain access to photographing issues and events in developing countries and to expand their economic and portfolio opportunities. This increase in photographers working for and alongside NGOs has given rise to a new genre of editorial photography which I call NGO Reportage. By way of a case study, an exploration of this new genre reveals important issues for photographers working with NGOs and examines the constructed narratives of images contained within these emerging practices.     

Diasporas and Audience Studies: A Fruitful Match? Reflections From a Media Ethnographic Study on Turkish and Moroccan Film Audiences

Diasporic communities, especially in urban multicultural settings in the West, have emerged as one of the major sites for innovative audience research. This growing body of research connects media sociological questions with the study of global and transnational media flows. In this contribution, some of the main studies on diasporic audiences are revisited, exploring in which ways diaspora studies and audience studies have turned out to be a fruitful match. This is linked to and further exemplified by the discussion of a media ethnographic study of film reception among the Turkish and Moroccan communities in Antwerp, Belgium. It is demonstrated how the ‘diasporic turn’ reformulates traditional boundaries in audience research, proposing banal yet meaningful engagements with media texts. Finally, it is argued that a focus on diasporic audiences has revealed that ethnicity and nationality intersect with other social and cultural determinants such as gender, generation and religion, putting the diasporic proposition itself into perspective.     

Digital libraries initiatives in India

Abstract

Digital libraries (DLs) have evolved, and developments in information technology have changed the concept of the library from one of print and paper media to digital media. The success of a DL depends upon the computers, communication skills, and knowledge of library professionals in connection with modern technology. In the present scenario, we stand at a transition from the traditional library to a global DL. The technology-based idea is to provide universal access to digital content available only in a DL environment.

Today the emergence of digital technology and computer networks has provided a means whereby information can be stored, retrieved, disseminated and duplicated in a fast and efficient manner. On a global level, DLs have made considerable advances both in technology and its application. India still has far to go if the nation is to benefit from this movement. Only sporadic and partial attempts have been made towards DL initiatives in India.

The basic objective of DL initiatives in India has been to preserve the art, culture and heritage of this country. All projects aimed at creating DLs concentrate only on specialized collections. The DL initiative in India is still at a nascent or embryonic stage. But with the initiative like DL policy, it can also be said that the nation is serious about DL implementation.