1,720,996 research outputs found
Berlin Wall in the news: mass media and the fall of the Eastern Bloc in Europe, 1989
No full text"Berlin Wall in the News" is the first-hand account of a media correspondent involved in one of the shock events in history, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lee Duffield’s book is about the way that the news media of the world saw what was happening, but in the author's words "could not believe it themselves". It reviews news media of the time and matches that with what has been written since, in history books and reminiscences of some of the leading political figures, like Mikhail Gorbachev or Helmut Kohl. It comes to the conclusion that piece by piece, the media succeeded in getting that "unbelievable" story right, if you were able to keep up with all the news. Most importantly for its subject matter this book reports on interviews with thirty correspondents from the Western news media – from America, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom – who go back over their experience of the break-down of the communist system in Europe. We are constantly reminded of those events by television images of the Wall coming down, and the street celebrations that went on night after night. It can be a surprise then to realise that this year it will be twenty years since it all happened. "Berlin Wall in the News" devotes much space to telling the story of the massive crowds of people who followed the lead of a brave few, and stood up for their human rights. Their rolling demonstrations in Eastern Germany, Prague, Romania and elsewhere brought down the Wall and ended the Cold War. Lee Duffield as a member of the media "pack" was European Correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and today teaches Journalism at the Queensland University of Technology in his home country. \ud
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The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the shocks of history, heralded at the time the almost unimaginable fall of communism and end of the Cold War. The dramatic "Wall" events are replayed as landmarks in television histories today; a reminder that they were media events -- on a grand scale. This book tells the story of the collapse of the Eastern bloc from the perspective of the mass media; the journalists who reported and documented what they saw but could hardly themselves believe. The author was there as one of the international correspondents. His book records interviews with leading reporters and editors who took part; revisits the actual coverage from six major Western media organisations, and checks those accounts against histories being written ten years later. It considers also the perspectives of political leaders of the era, and especially the gigantic crowds in the streets demanding freedom. To understand those crowds, well tested theories of mass social movements, and their use of media, are consulted in the book; and in the end an argument is made, that in this new Century, history can be understood very accurately from the news media, just as it happens.\u
Media and Global Conflict: An International Crisis Group case study
Full text linkThe Pacific region is part of a larger world, far from being isolated from centres of global power as a glance at the map might imply, but instead caught up in a web of multilateral relations with binding effects on its future progress and prosperity. This article considers such connections, in regard to both governmental and non-governmental agencies, referring in particular to the proliferation of highly influential non-governmental organisations in the region, as in the world at large. It treats the European Union handling of the December 2006 Fijian coup d'etat and its aftermath as a case study in government-to-government relations, and it provides secondly a detailed case study of one outstanding example of a non-governmental organisation, the International Crisis Group
1989 : Tienanmen Square and the "China Solution" for East Germany?
No full text[This is the script for a radio commentary, translated into Chinese language and broadcast by BBC World Service radio, week beginning 1.6.09.]-----The twentieth anniversary of the shootings at and around Tienanmen square (4.6.09) was being greeted with refreshed horror worldwide, and a certain arrogance in Beijing – where the archived news was officially called “groundless allegations”.-----\ud
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In this radio commentary Lee Duffield recalls the moment as seen from another public square, in Europe; and he reprises the information that came out, about the reality of a “Tienanmen Solution” much feared in Eastern Europe, just months after the tragedy in China
George Negus on Media and Culture: Interview by Lee Duffield
No full textThe interview was commissioned by M/C Dialogue online journal as one in a series with "cultural scholars". George Negus as a veteran reporter, presenter and commentator in Australian television current affairs, was questioned about responses of the journalistic profession to changes dveeloping in media at the start of this Century. He adopts a position that practitioners must adjust to the "opportunities" of new media, convergence or globalisation. In response to proliferation of media producers and outlets, he advocates a continuing role for professional journalists as centrally placed sense-makers. He says: "I hink what the information age will do is make analytical and opinion journalism even more important than it always has been, because the information being available to you, you’ll probably still require assistance in sifting it, assessing it, evaluating it … I think the great paradox will be that as information journalism becomes less important, because the information will be so freely available to any one of these gatekeepers, self styled journalists, the opinion journalism, and commentary and analysis will become more important – because most people don’t have time to do that; they’re too busy doing other things.
Student reporting abroad: An international programme called Journalism Reporting Field Trips
Full text linkJournalism Reporting Field Trips: Practical work overseas brings home to students "real world" implications of their professional preparation. A program organised by the writer for journalism students to do practical work overseas has seen small groups engaged in inter-cultural learning and working as foreign correspondents for campus-based media outlets. Since 2000, 60 students have joined nine tours of 10 – 20 days, in nine countries of Europe and the Asia Pacific. They obtain credit for a full elective subject, e.g. an individual study unit, and may negotiate additional credit in other subjects. The project's rationale was that while practice focuses the mind on essential communication tasks, practice in distant and unfamiliar settings intensifies the experience – hence the learning. It replicates journalistic practice of overseas correspondents encountering "high risk and high returns": more difficulty, more headlines and colour. This practice dovetails with increasing internationalisation of the curriculum. A literature has been consulted identifying main pedagogical arguments for study abroad, and present-day demands on the academy, e.g. preparation of professionals needing to work in their profession anywhere in a "world community". Leading researchers in this field, viz Jane Knight propose "non-ideological" definitions of internationalised education as a process responding to "real world" demands. The paper assesses documentation kept on field trips' itineraries; observations made by staff when the students were accompanied; students' notes and reports on inter-cultural experiences; costs, overwhelmingly met by the students themselves; and the output of news, features or special programs. Outcomes list students' products and feed-back, academic performance and later achievements. Most participants are motivated to strive in all fields and later have a strong record obtaining employment. Special features are considered, e.g. language learning in contemporary journalism; the program's popularity among postgraduate students. The investigation concludes that such programs can occupy a valuable place in core curricula; relate to increasing demand for "real world" learning and internationalisation, and can be integrated into degree structures without undue stain on resources
Media skills for daily life : designing a journalism programme for graduates of all disciplines
Full text linkThis article in the journalism education field reports on the construction of a new subject as part of a postgraduate coursework degree. The subject, or unit1 will offer both Journalism students and other students an intro¬ductory experience of creating media, using common ‘new media’ tools, with exercises that will model the learning of communication principles through practice. It has been named ‘Fundamental Media Skills for the Workplace’. The conceptualisation and teaching of it will be characteristic of the Journalism academic discipline that uses the ‘inside perspective’—understanding mass media by observing from within. Proposers for the unit within the Journalism discipline have sought to extend the common teaching approach, based on training to produce start-ready recruits for media jobs, backed by a study of contexts, e.g. journalistic ethics, or media audiences. In this proposal, students would then examine the process to elicit additional knowledge about their learning. The article draws on literature of journalism and its pedagogy, and on communication generally. It also documents a ‘community of practice’ exercise conducted among practitioners as teachers for the subject, developing exercises and models of media work. A preliminary conclusion from that exercise is that it has taken a step towards enhancing skills-based learning for media work
New Caledonia and Vanuatu: Differences defined in a student reporting venture into the Pacific
Full text linkAbstract: A reporting field trip by Australian journalism students to New Caledonia and Vanuatu in mid-2014 produced markedly differing impressions of the neighbouring island societies, linked to their 'independence' status - one as an integrated territory of France, the other as an independent state. The field trip, one of a series from the Queensland University of Technology, aimed at developing reporting skills through work in unaccustomed territory, especially different cultural settings. Over 17 days, six students and the coordinator, and author of this article, generated 18 feature-length reports for online outlets and a radio documentary. The article synthesises the collected work from the field, producing a thematic statement of findings. It records broad consensus in New Caledonia in favour of enacting the Matignon and Noumea Accords on independence, while noting an undercurrent of unresolved conflicts. It characterises public life in Vanuatu in terms of a democratic spirit, and the invocation of traditional ties within society, as the country grapples with problems of development and impacts of the outside world. This work is interpretative, concerned with identifying processes underlying events in daily news. It is proposed as a first step towards a scholarly construction of meta-analyses of the interpretative and informative power of journalistic reporting
Graffiti on the wall: reading history through news media: the role of news media in historical crises, in the case of the collapse of the Eastern bloc in Europe 1989.
Full text linkThe thesis reviews the engagement of news media in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, most vividly represented by the opening of the Berlin Wall. It uses field observations of the author as a journalist of the time, extensive interviews with other news correspondents, a review of historical writing on the period, and an exhaustive review of the coverage given by six major news outlets. The work sees the change in Europe being driven by mass social movements, but also examines conventional, institutional politics at work, and describes the engagement of news media in the historical situation as it unfolds. It determines that the daily coverage by leading Western news media judged in terms of
accuracy and perspective was successful, validated by later evaluations. It is informed by theoretical writing on mass social movements and on journalistic news values. It concludes by suggesting that the approach followed, a review of history from the perspective of news media of the day, could be applied to many other situations
New edition leaves scope for "human factor" in research
No full textThe Media and Communications in Australia, edited by Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner (3rd edition). Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2010, 362 pp. ISBN 978-1 74237-064-4; reviewed by Lee Duffield, Queensland University of Technology
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