Stream - Inspiring Critical Thought (E-Journal)
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The Problems with Reimagining Public Media in the Context of Global South
Get PDFThis paper puts forward a case from the global south into the discussion of public media. It pays particular attention to Bangladesh, an epicenter of a thriving media system in South Asia. From a political economic perspective in this paper I ask: can the state broadcaster BTV be a public media? Based on a combination of methods including in-depth interviews and document analysis, I locate four problematic areas including political instrumentalization, commercialization, struggle for autonomy, and contradictory policy responses – all which impede BTV’s ability to perform as a public media. I argue that this inability has to be understood not as a failure of the state but as a result of colonial legacy, post-colonial transformation, as well as a derivative of neoliberal market-orientation of communications in the global South
Introduction: The Legacy of Graham Spry and the Future of Public Media
Get PDFOver the past twenty years, public media services worldwide have been facing increasing pressure from commercialization, marketization, and privatization. This situation is exemplified by the Cana-dian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) latest revenue shortfall and the subsequent austerity measures of the corporation. Indeed, CBC, as an iconic corporation of Canadian’s media landscape, is key to the country’s future policy-making in the media realm. The CBC’s current crisis, already exert-ing significant pressures towards the restructuring of the corporation, is seen by some critics as a warning of the corporation’s potential imminent collapse (Rowland, 2013). However, just as there has be a constant pressure toward marketization over public media, over the past few years the struggles of public media also offer a precious opportunity to re-imagine an alternative future for public communication services
Recap of the 2014 Global Communication Program Year-End Student Presentations
Get PDFThe M.A. Double Degree Program in Global Communication, jointly offered by Simon Fraser Univer-sity (SFU) and the Communication University of China (CUC), is the first fully integrated cohort pro-gram in Global Communication. It offers students of all nationalities with a unique experience of cross-cultural experience and cooperative learning. The Year-End Student Presentations on August 8, 2014 marked the end of the first cohort’s study at SFU. This event also demonstrated the amazing accomplishments of these students through their intensive academic engagement at SFU School of Communication
MA Defence: “Qatari Foreign Policy, Al-Jazeera, and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa†By Salameh Ayaad
No full textOur dear colleague, Salameh Ayaad, successfully defended his MA thesis on November 27, 2014. Here is the abstract of his thesis “Qatari foreign Policy, Al-Jazeera, and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa”
Environmental infomediaries in the Risk Society: The behavioral impact of online environmental information and communication strategies
Get PDFThe expansion of the online marketplace changed the way many people consume products and information by allowing consumers to conduct increasing amounts of pre-purchase research. Many organizations developed online tools to help consumers efficiently find and use environmental information to make more sustainable purchase decisions. In this paper I explore the impact and efficacy of these online environmental infomediaries through an analysis of their history, methods, and impact. Using a framework developed from Ulrich Beck’s theory of the Risk Society and Bettman’s theory of contingent decision making, I conducted a preliminary case study of GoodGuide.com, a well-known online environmental infomediary. Based on this framework, I found that effective online environmental infomediaries (1) target educated, internet-savvy, leisure- and trend-oriented consumers; (2) focus on high-risk, non-convenience purchases; (3) provide visually appealing and interactive tools; (4) ensure information tools are easy to use and understand; (5) employ a clear and transparent methodology; and (6) satisfy consumers’ expectations of their efficacy. GoodGuide.com excelled at several of these criteria, but its opaque methodology and failure to meet most consumers’ expectations may threaten its long-term viability
MA Defence: "Environmental Communication with Chinese Characteristics" by Sibo Chen
No full textIt is always a little weird to report a news update about yourself. My MA thesis defence occurred on October 14th, 2014. Here is the abstract of my thesis “Environmental Communication with Chinese Characteristics: Crises, Conflicts, and Prospects”
Recap of the 2014 Media Democracy Days
Get PDFThe Media Democracy Day (MDD) project is an annual event for alternative, independent, and democratic media in Canada. It has approached the project of media reform with a three-pronged ambition: Know the Media, Be the Media, and Change the Media. This year, MDD’s annual conference was held between Nov. 7th and 8th at Vancouver Public Library. For more information about MDD, Please visit http://mediademocracyproject.ca/
Dialogue on Public Broadcasting in Canada: An Interview with Wade Rowland
Get PDFIn framing the call-for-papers that kicked off this special issue, we asked potential contributors “what considerations might guide our attention as we think through public media as a socially central symbolic space that ought to be returned to the public interest? How might we come to re-inhabit public institutions?†Further to this, we queried possible contributors about the role and potentials of public broadcasting (notably the CBC) in a changing mediascape, and the possibilities for public media – not limited to the specific domains of established public broadcasters such as the CBC and the provincial educational networks, but rather appealing to an open interpretation of the term – that might be prefigured or imagined at present. As outlined in the introduction to this issue, the written pieces that arose from this line of questioning are varied and vital in their contributions.
To place this exercise in context, it is important to note that this special issue of Stream was conceived and produced in conjunction with a public event held at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University on February 6th, 2014 under the title ‘Occupy Public Broadcasting: Alt. Futures for the CBC’. That evening’s discussion brought together an eclectic panel and participating audience of media scholars, practitioners, activists, and concerned community members in dialogue and debate over the relative merits, limitations, and – most importantly – the future prospects for the CBC, other public broadcasters, and public media beyond this (circumscribed) context
The Technological Imagination of Public Media
Get PDFAlthough it has been nearly four decades since Raymond Williams’ book Television: technology and cultural form (Williams, 2003/1975) was first published, I find it helpful to return to this seminal work with a view of reflecting on the future of public media in Canada. Television is often remembered for Williams’ critique of technological determinism in Marshall McLuhan’s theory of media. But the book should also be remembered for a number of other significant contributions, including the prescient chapter titled “Alternative technology, alternative uses?†in which Williams examined some of the innovations in broadcasting technologies being developed at the time. For Williams, these innovations represented at once a risk and an opportunity. The risk was that people in the United States and the United Kingdom who were in a position to shape the implementation of these innovations would remain complacent, allowing their deployment to be ‘sorted out as we go’ (Williams, 2003/1975, p. 140). The opportunity was that changes to broadcasting infrastructure could afford people the chance to address structural inequities and imagine alternative uses. Williams believed that the early stages in implementing new technological innovations represented an opportune moment for putting in place alternative organizational and policy arrangements for television broadcasting
Contestation, a Deeper Seduction
Get PDFIndividual media events, from the extraordinary to the mundane, as well as the logic they present, have transcended society. Media events no longer happen in isolation, they are intertextually and extratextually linked and mixed together. The ability to view, create, join in, and affect the shape of media events has caused a profound shift in the conception of what they are. What Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz refer to as individual media events, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault and Douglas Kellner consider collectively as spectacle. Their work on media events and spectacle features a debate on the role of contestation within it. Live audience members have an opportunity to impact media events and the spectacle either through individual or collective action. This action can go along with the intents ascribed to the media event and spectacle, or it can oppose them. Contestation often takes the form of an oppositional interruption of the linear messaging promoted within media events and spectacle. Contestation is typically a strategy used by voices that feel marginalized by the images of the spectacle. But contestation of media events and spectacle through their own logic becomes a means of deeper seduction