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Communication Ethics
Get PDFThe mulberry trees stirred, and the prophet Ezekiel saw dead bones coming to life. The observer of mass communication ethics these days might feel like Ezekiel. It is a growth industry. The snippets of a decade ago have become a major body of scholarship.
The scope of interests is expanding. Cross-cultural concerns are growing. The earlier focus on printed news has widened to include electronic media, data management, advertising and public relations. A generic narrative ethics is beginning to appear. Theological ethics has not yet reached its potential, though it contributes more of late. Social responsibility gets some of the attention previously reserved for individual rights.
Issues important in the past are being readjusted. We were worried about violence, and still are, but the requirements of establishing a peaceful society are now attracting attention. The needs of the poor for appropriate media are being recognized. Studies of manipulation and ideology are coming into their own.
Normative ethics, long derogated, is increasingly seen as a sign of maturity, balancing the descriptive approach.
Finally, linkages are being established between such controversial but necessary fields as critical studies, feminist theory and applied ethics.
Fashioning a systematic ethical structure is like building a house in a hurricane. Working on it is often a thankless act of conscience, without guarantees. Media ethics may never attract the prestige, energy or resources of other communication fields, but the research outlined here indicates its intrinsic worth
Television and Children: Towards the Millennium
Get PDFTwice over a decade, in 1972 and 1982 the US Surgeon General has issued major reports exploring the implications of watching screen violence, on children. Between the reports, the British Commission into the Future of Television, under Lord Annan, had suggested that enough had now been done on the issue of screen violence. This advice has not been taken. New ways to explore any consequences of watching violence continue to be found. There is a new emphasis on the positive uses that children make of their viewing and of their own initiative in making sense of what they see. Gaps in previous knowledge are slowly being filled in, with a notable start on the viewing experience of toddlers and even infants. The viewing context is receiving more attention, including the ways in which parents do or do not exercise control or alter their patterns of conversation in the presence of television, since these new patterns of family life as a whole, rather than merely the screen in particular, may affect children. Television is also now sharing time with videocassettes and computers and even videocameras, and such extensions of the screen experience are being investigated. The economic side of programme provision and the ways in which advertising and sponsorship may affect children provide another area in which knowledge is being sought
Mertens, Cynthia, Law, interviewed by
No full textIn this powerful and moving interview, Dr. Cynthia Mertens reflects on her journey from growing up in the Bay Area to becoming a trailblazing lawyer, professor, and fierce advocate for justice. A graduate of Stanford and UC Law San Francisco, she candidly recounts the discrimination she faced as a woman in law—stories of “ladies day” in law school, firm meetings held in men-only clubs, and disrespectful male students as a female professor—all of which only deepened her commitment to uplifting the marginalized. Her leadership was instrumental in founding the Katharine and George Alexander Law Center at Santa Clara University, a lasting legacy of her devotion to community-centered advocacy. Mertens’ professional accolades include numerous teaching and service awards from Santa Clara, as well as regional recognition as a “Silicon Valley Woman of Influence” and a “Bay Area Woman of Honor.” Equally impactful is her profound care for students: she led immersion trips around the world to examine human rights and personally housed and mentored international students who couldn’t afford law school, several of whom she now considers family. Even in retirement, she continues this work, currently housing a student who just completed his final exams. Her compassion, strength, and lifelong dedication have left an indelible mark on the Santa Clara community. Dr Mertens is a phenomenal speaker, teacher, lawyer, and human– and this is an interview you do not want to miss
Ross, Peter, Math and Computer Science, interviewed by
No full textDr. Ross has an “unusual life,” according to himself. Born and raised in the Midwest, he pursued his undergraduate studies at MIT in math and then gained his PhD from UC Berkeley at 40 years old. Dr. Ross’s most proud and satisfied moment in his career is when he volunteered as a Peace Corps volunteer in Calingapatnam, India, where he taught high school maths and physics. One of the greatest contributions Dr. Ross made to the Santa Clara community was that he helped introduce a UC/CSU Calculus Readiness Exam for freshmen to his department in 1982 after he arrived. In 2000 he wrote a SCU version of it, which was used until after he retired in 2010. He is still involved in the community closely by attending math colloquia and casual swims, even after his retirement
Media Education: Growth and Controversy
Get PDFMedia education has come a long way since 1977 when UNESCO made the first international survey. In industrialised countries of the West, media education is increasingly accepted as part of primary and secondary school education. In Australia and Britain, for example, it is now offered as an optional course, and in other countries it is taught as part of social studies, art or language/literature curricula. In regions such as Latin America there are programmes for working-class women in poor neighbourhoods or for rural families. There has been a boom in textbooks, teaching packs and audiovisual materials. Teacher training has long been neglected, but now there are graduate degree programmes in media education and special courses in schools of education and in departments of communication. Media education is being recognized as an important discipline in the field of communications with a prominent place in professional meetings such as the International Television Studies Conference in London.
The relatively rapid expansion of media education has brought with it much debate about teaching methods, teacher training and criteria for evaluating programmes. Controversy centres on conflicting educational theories and questions about the role of media education in communication policy.
This issue reports some of the current major approaches to media education and suggests how a more unified theory of media education is taking shape
Television Viewing and Family Communication
Get PDFOver the past thirty years a host of research studies has sought to determine just what are the effects of television viewing on social behaviour. In particular, study after study has attempted to establish once and for all whether or not the watching of violent programmes by children and adolescents is a direct cause of later aggressive behaviour.
Yet today all that these studies can tell us for certain is that \u27\u27for some children, under some conditions, some television is harmful\u27\u27 and that \u27\u27for most children, under most conditions, most television is probably neither harmful nor particularly beneficial. And we still know very little about how families, as distinct from individual family members, interact with and use television in their everyday life.
As long ago as 1972 the US Surgeon General\u27s Advisory Committee Report on Television and Social Behavior requested that television be studied in the home environment. Ten years later the update of the Surgeon General\u27s Report, Television and Behavior, called once again for more studies on family interaction with television, and for a research approach which uses the family or the peer group as the unit of analysis.
This issue ofTRENDS examines some recent research which has attempted to respond to the concerns raised by the Surgeon General\u27s Report. The first section discusses research which builds up social learning, and uses and gratifications theories to explore how the family acts as a mediator of television\u27s effects. The second section surveys recent work on the relationship between television portrayal of family life and family communication patterns. The third section examines some of the newer theories and methods which have been devised to explain how families use television. The last section offers a briefintroduction to research on the interaction of families with the video cassette recorder
The Discerning Gatherer: A Synodal Model of Priest Presider
No full textThis project proposes a synodal model of priest presider as a Discerning Gatherer. Central to the argument is the idea that any such model must emerge out of an ecclesiological vision; given the centrality of synodality for this model, this means that a model of priest presider must arise from and be in service to the ecclesial assembly. Furthermore, this model must be embedded within a particular ecclesial context, in this case, the US Church. Therefore, the argument begins by assessing the need for a renewed and reconfigured theology of ordained ministry, given the persistent specter of structural clericalism in the US Church. By elaborating the characteristics of structural clericalism, including the theologies of priesthood and church used for justification of such clericalism, Chapter 1 tills the soil for why synodal renewal is necessary. Chapter 2 proceeds by articulating what synodality is as a constitutive element of the Church and elucidates the ecclesiological and pneumatological foundations of synodality. In doing so, a renewed theology of ordained priesthood can emerge from the foundational identity of baptism that all of the baptized share and be put in the service of building up this foundational identity, attentive to the Spirit. Chapter 3 then unpacks the close link between synaxis (Eucharistic assembly) and synodos (synodal assembly) named in the Synod on Synodality’s Final Document, by highlighting the importance of the whole assembly as celebrant of the Eucharistic liturgy. A synodal model of priest presider, as a discerning gatherer, makes more sense once it is seen as embedded within these ecclesiological, pneumatological, and liturgical foundations. Following the elaboration of this model are implications first, for the ars celebrandi of the gathered assembly, and second, for the discernment of charisms within a community and the accountability for the priest presider. Finally, the project concludes by offering some orientations for how formation ought to change and adapt to synodality more generally and a synodal model of priest presiding more specifically
The Challenge of Cable Television
Get PDFCable television is at least thirty years old, yet it is still talked of as a new communications medium. Why? Optimists say because it has yet to realise its multi-channel potential to enrich and diversify television programming. Even better, cable will provide the citizen with a host of interactive information, educational, and transaction services.
Sceptics see cable offering old programming in new packages. They ask: Will only the well-off benefit? Who will control cable systems? Can privacy be protected? Does cable TV damage public service broadcasting? What do we really want cable for?
In many countries cable is on the verge of new growth. Public debate tries to weigh the enthusiasm of the optimists against the scepticism of the critics. Where is the evidence upon which to base policy recommendations? This issue of TRENDS looks at the scope of cable TV research and attempts to summarize some of the main conclusions to date. They may offer ideas for future policy and research. The challenge raised by cable is to devise policies that will best ensure its potential is achieved. The history of cable TV shows how formidable that challenge actually is