The Heroes and the Helpless: Conflicting Media Images of Refugees From Burma

After a protest against Burma's military government exploded into bloody violence on August 8, 1988, some political dissidents applied for refugee status through the United Nations. Since 1990, nearly 6,000 members of Myanmar's ethnic groups settled in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The project's overarching question asks: How have photojournalists covered the lives of the Burmese? An archive of photographs published from 1992 through 2012 by Fort Wayne's The Journal Gazette was used for this qualitative analysis. Three major themes emerged: refugees as “freedom fighters,” Aung San Suu Kyi as “superhero,” and Burmese as helpless victims lacking agency. With mounting tensions concerning refugees arriving into Europe, this examination is important because media images may play a role in welcoming and integrating refugees into new communities.     

MANAGED MEDIOCRITY?

Based on a production study of the distinct and unique children's news programme, BBC Newsround, this paper explores the place of the professional understanding of the target audience as a “missing link” within the news-making process. Approaching programme production with this concern uncovers the particular understandings of the target audience that inform journalists’ news culture and professional views. Further revealed is how such ideas, when traced within the news production process, explain the particularised practices that condition and shape “appropriate” news representations for the audience. The paper concludes with an assessment of the impact of these professional ideas on the dialogical possibilities of the children's news programme.     

Border Patrolling and “Passing” in Eminem's 8 Mile

This essay argues that the semi-biographical film 8 Mile represents Eminem as being both racially distinctive and as possessing universal commercial appeal. 8 Mile accomplishes this paradoxical construction by portraying “Rabbit” as “white trash,” a discursively “dark” (white) object, and as an American mythological white subject. The film makes whiteness hyper-visible by subjecting it to raced and gendered struggles. Through real and symbolic violence, Rabbit battles “dark” villains and grapples with “dark” women, initiating a rite of passage. The film grounds Eminem's hip hop authenticity in Rabbit's discursive darkness, but attaches to this image the marketable allure of mythic whiteness. I conclude by contemplating how the film's conservatism reifies “blackness.”     

Communicating the Value of Cartoon Art Across University Classrooms: Experiences From the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

ABSTRACT

This article is an exploration of the varying applications of comics and cartoon art as primary resources and pedagogical tools within the university setting. Following some background information on cartoon art forms including early American newspaper comics, nineteenth century humor serials, political cartoons and manga, the article explores how the perception of comics has changed and suggests ways librarians can work with academics to better utilize comics and cartoon art as educational resources. Drawing on the literature and the author's experience of working with Faculty and students at The Ohio State University, this article highlights ways to embed comics and cartoon art into the curriculum in disciplines ranging from Women's Studies to Psychology, ESL, History, Fashion, and more. The article aims to serve as a springboard for “thinking outside of the box” to maximize the value and use of library collections.     

Qatar's Hidden Women: Symbolic Annihilation and Documentary Media Practice

This article explores how documentary film practice and visual storytelling can be used to help portray Qatari women's narratives, even though many are prohibited by cultural norms from appearing in visual media. We investigate which communication and media practices can provide a work-around, ensuring that women's stories and testimonies are documented. We also explore whether Qatar's social and cultural restrictions result in a form of “symbolic annihilation” for Qatari women, as articulated by Gaye Tuchman, and how this impacts Qatari women's position and visibility in local society.     

Girls rule!: gender,feminism, and nickelodeon

Nickelodeon is a powerful commercial cable network of television, internet activities, toy manufacturing, and video production. The network has been recognized by both industry professionals and media scholars for its representation of girls as strong, intelligent lead characters. Focusing on entertainment programs Clarissa Explains It All and As Told by Ginger, as well as on Nickelodeon's non‐fiction children's news program, Nick News, I argue that the media context of girl power, combined with the increasing recognition of adolescent girls as both powerful citizens and consumers, offers what at times looks like a radical gesture in terms of disrupting dominant gender relations. However, we can also read the mainstream embrace of girl power as a restabilization of particular categories of gender, so that this “radical” challenge moves toward the entrenchment of conventional gender relations.     

The effect of responsibility attributions on message source evaluation

Concepts from Heider's “Attribution of Responsibility” theory were used to investigate the process of message source evaluation. The results of a role‐playing experiment indicate that: (1) When a message source's previous behavior has had favorable consequences for a receiver, the source will be rated more “safe,” “qualified,” and “dynamic” to the extent that responsibility for those consequences are attributed to the source; and (2) when the source's previous behavior has had unfavorable consequences for the receiver, the source will be judged less “safe” but more “qualified” and “dynamic” to the extent that responsibility for those consequences are attributed to the source.     

THE WAGES OF SYNERGY

In the current economic environment, message synergy may result in a perceptible manifestation of ownership's impact on media content. That influence raises ethical issues: journalistic independence and access to the media marketplace for a variety of messages. This project analyzes the “soft news” content of the two most popular morning television news shows, The Today Show and Good Morning America during November 2007 sweeps. The analysis demonstrates that “soft news” story topic selection appears to be strongly influenced by economic connections to the parent corporation. The potential impact of this distortion of the cultural public sphere for journalists, viewers, creative artists and advertising at the institutional level are analyzed. The wages of synergy include a restriction of journalistic autonomy, confining viewers to a role that is exclusively consumption oriented, and, at the institutional level, jeopardizing the credibility of news programming which could have a long-term impact on advertising revenues.     

“Not Just the Levees Broke”: Jazz Vernacular and the Rhetoric of the Dispossessed in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke

This essay proposes the notion of the “jazz vernacular” as a tool specific to the Creole culture in New Orleans for understanding racial discourses of disposability both geographically and historically. We argue that the jazz vernacular is a discourse structured by musical repertoire. The jazz vernacular provides a channel for the historical pain of the black diaspora by playing in the background, both literally and figuratively, of communication in and about New Orleans. This essay considers Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke to understand how the jazz vernacular frames hurricane Katrina as well as how it frames Lee's film as an intervention into “neoliberal” racial discourses. We argue that Lee's film utilizes the jazz vernacular as a metadiscourse to reinforce the ways in which residents used jazz to restructure cultural memory around the rhetoric of the dispossessed in New Orleans after Katrina. When the Levees Broke uses testimonials and affective communication to structure the narrative of Katrina through elements of the jazz vernacular like: displacement, embodiment, brashness, and improvisation to connect contemporary Creole New Orleanians to a long history of structural oppression and violence. By harnessing performative elements, Lee's film performs a jazz intervention into neoliberal discourses about freedom, defense, safety, and heroism that contrasts these discourses with the despair and the resistance of black America. Consequently, Lee's use of the jazz vernacular relies on native musical culture to recontextualize what neoliberalism had erased.     

The Implications of Vantage Point in Parental Mediation of Television and Child's Attitudes Toward Drinking Alcohol

A survey of 273 children in grades 3, 6, and 9, and their parents investigated parental mediation effects on a child's message interpretation process both from a child's and from a parent's perspective. The study found that children's reports of positive mediation (parental reinforcement of media messages) were significantly higher than parents' reports. Parents and children agreed more closely on reports of negative mediation (counter-reinforcement of media messages). Only the children's reports predicted variables influencing their decision-making for drinking alcohol. The results suggest that children's reports are probably more useful than parents' reports for predicting a child's cognition and behavior.     

Changing the Game: The Role of Social Media in Overcoming Old Media's Attention Deficit Toward Women's Sport

Social media is now an integral part of modern sports broadcasting, which combines old and new media into a redefined and multidimensional experience for fans. The popularity of social media has particular implications for professional women's sports due to this convergence, and may be utilised by organisations to address some of the issues women's sports face from a lack of traditional broadcast coverage. This article discusses Twitter activity surrounding the ANZ Championship netball competition and analyses the ways social media can help transcend the structural challenges that “old” media has placed on professional women's sports.     

Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation through Recognition: Assessing an Integrated Peace Media Strategy in Kenya

This research analyzes a peace-media initiative in Kenya designed to promote conflict resolution and reconciliation in the months following the 2007 post-election violence. This multifaceted intervention featured a 19-episode television talk show that aired in Kenya for six months; a series of open-air screenings of the show; and workshops held in eight areas heavily affected by the violence. Using criteria for evaluating “media for peace,” I evaluate the effectiveness of the program strategy and provide recommendations for practitioners and researchers. Based on interview data, and analysis of internal documents and the talk show, I assess the program's effectiveness and offer suggestions, which can be used by both practitioners and academics interested in peace media. In addition, the findings suggest that recognition of the other was an important part of the conflict resolution process as workshop members recognized their “enemies” and Kenyans from disparate parts of the country as similar to themselves in their experience of the violence. This research contributes to our understanding of the implementation of media-for-peace initiatives using a systemic evaluation process that academics and practitioners can use when designing, implementing, and researching these types of programs.     

Adult Children's Forgiveness of Parents' Betrayals

The purpose of this study was to establish whether adult children's commitment, trust, and relational satisfaction are differentiated by their forgiveness stage (i.e., Stage 1, “Impact;” Stage 2, “Definition;” Stage 3, “Moving On”) in response to a parent's act of betrayal. Participants included 61 adult children who completed an online survey. Adult children's commitment, trust, and relational satisfaction were highest in the third stage of forgiveness. Future research should specifically analyze the messages exchanged between the parent and adult child to better understand the progression through the stages.     

SlutWalk as perifeminist response to rape logic: the politics of reclaiming a name

Questions about the meaning and value of SlutWalk have generated considerable public debate. This article explores how SlutWalk subverts rape logic, rendering it apparent and absurd while circulating counterclaims to oppose sexual violence. By reclaiming “slut” through performative protest and political mobilization, SlutWalk offers trenchant critiques of rape logic's conflation of clothes and consent. Although media and feminist commentators alike met this protest strategy with skepticism, I argue that SlutWalk enacts a perifeminist response to rape logic that demonstrates the subversive power of reclaiming a name.     

AMERICAN SPORTS WRITERS’ SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PROFESSIONALISM

American sports writers' use of social media as a newsgathering tool has influenced journalism practice, further complicating the industry's abstract definition of “professionalism.” This study builds on a pilot study published in the fall 2011 issue of Journal of Sports Media, which assessed print sports journalists' use of social media. In the current study, a survey was administered to 77 full-time print sports journalists who cover professional sports. This paper seeks to extend the pilot study and previous professional research in two ways: firstly, to assess how this specific subgroup of sports writers use Facebook and Twitter to gather information; and secondly, to analyze how these sports writers define “professionalism” and what industry factors correlate with chosen definitions, such as newspaper circulation and work superiors' attitudes toward social media. Cross-tabulations and chi-square tests were used to test hypotheses. Cramer's V or Phi, depending upon the cross-tabulation, were used to measure relationship strength. Results suggest this subset of sports writers more often uses Twitter for newsgathering purposing than Facebook. There is also a strong relationship between the frequency of Twitter usage and the definition of professionalism chosen; circulation size and instances of directly quoting from athletes' social media accounts; and age and Twitter usage.     

Time's up. Or is it? Journalists’ Perceptions of Sexual Violence and Newsroom Changes after #MeTooIndia

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo movement, which engulfed much of India's news and entertainment industry in October 2018, was projected by many as a watershed moment for Indian journalism. Driven largely through social media activism, it created significant public discourse and outcry, leading to the “outing” and resignation of many journalists. This paper explores the perception of #MeTooIndia in regional and national newsrooms. Drawing on Manuel Castells's ideas of networked social movement, we consider the origins of #MeTooIndia, including its mediation on private and social networks. We then draw on 257 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in 14 languages across India to explore the “cause” of the campaign—the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in workspaces—before turning our attention to the impact, or potential for impact, that journalists saw in it. We find most journalists felt the movement was “good”, but did not think it influenced their environment or newswork in any meaningful manner. Regional journalists expressed more pessimism about the #MeTooIndia, men more so than women.     

The Trouble with Aileen Wuornos,Feminism's “First Serial Killer”

Lesbian prostitute Aileen Wuornos was popularly termed “America's first female serial killer.” Between 1989 and 1990, she killed six men, later testifying they had raped or attempted to rape her. By analyzing media coverage of Wuornos’ story, I argue that Wuornos’ incommensurability with available stories of women who kill illustrates the need to expand the rhetorical resources that make female violence and victimage intelligible. After demonstrating that Wuornos’ gender transgressions were disciplined into intelligible terms by understandings of criminality as an already spatial and gendered category, I conclude by discussing the “trouble” Wuornos poses to feminist and queer cultural politics.     

1. CBQ REVIEW ESSAY: A Review of Recent Sources in Mass Media Interviewing, 1998–2006

Abstract

Interviewing has, of course, become a common place occurrence. Most adults are familiar with the nature of the transaction, but perhaps not with the complexity of what is actually happening. Modern interviewing as we have come to understand it is basically a post-World War II phenomenon. One of the major changes is the development of interviewing ordinary people (as compared with the more typical past practice of interviewing elites or at least only the significant players). In Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies, Weiss observes that interviews permit listeners “to learn about places, environments, organizations, fashions, careers, and cultures with which they would otherwise have no contact or exposure. But perhaps more telling is that interviews also reveal “interior experiences” including perceptions, and how they are interpreted. The human condition covering events, families, work, and all the emotions from joy to grief become open for all to witness” (Weiss, p. 1).

David Silverman refers to the “interview society” (p. 248) in his 1997 Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (London: Sage), and that was a decade ago. Today we find ourselves being exposed more and more to a panoply of interviewing experiences. This essay review is designed to present the most recent books with both sides of the equation presented. Guidance on how to be a successful interviewer, and also how to be a wise and sensible interviewee can be found in the following pages. The neutrality of the interviewer is assumed, but should not always be taken for granted as various astute observers note.

The subject domain of interviewing in mass media contains a range of topics considered below. The essay begins with general resources. Fielding's edited work, titled Interviewing, is the most unusual, as this four-volume book set contains “classic” journal article reprints. While there are no articles specifically on mass media, the individual contributions all pertain to the general topic and cover issues and findings that are relevant to the conduct of interviewing in mass media.

As one element of the mass media, entries dealing with interviewing in journalism, follow. Of particular note in this category are Brady's The Interviewer's Handbook and the treatment of the online journalism environment as found in Craig's 2005 chapter. As the title suggests, Brady's work presents a “how to” approach. Craig's contribution brings interviewing into the electronic/computer era and addresses the special challenges and benefits associated with it.

The interviewing in mass media section includes a review of Elsberg's Media Interview Owner's Manual, Barber's The Craft of the Media Interview, and Jones' Winning with the News Media. These, and other entries in this section, provide the core of the recent literature by highly experienced interviewers, and would be useful to anyone contemplating an interviewing career or interesting reading for the person attempting to understand the techniques used by the professionals.

In the era of television and the Internet, radio interviewing still has a place, and Beaman's Interviewing for Radio more than adequately addresses the special consideration of the medium. Television interviewing is covered in Merlis' How to Make the Most of Every Media Appearance. The broader category of video interviewing is treated in The Video Performer, a manual written by Dreibelbis. Bull analyzes the highly specialized world of political communication via television appearances in his work titled The Microanalysis of Political Communication.

The special kind of interviewing found in the public relations environment closes this essay. These works are guides or “how-to” presentations. All are useful, but the Palmer volume may prove to be the most valuable in terms of what to avoid and how to use the media for your own purposes.     

Movement as memory: Significant form in eyes on the prize

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years ranks as one of the most successful public television documentaries ever produced. Although it originally aired in 1987, the series has since been shown widely in school and college classrooms, where it arguably has influenced many students’ understanding of the civil rights struggle and, more fundamentally, of the nature and form of “social movement” itself This essay draws upon Kenneth Burke's concept of “significant form” to examine how the documentary's design works to shape public memory of the civil rights struggle as a social movement. In addition to yielding insight into the rhetorical structure of a landmark television documentary, the analysis of form in Eyes on the Prize illumines how public consciousness of “social movement” can be created and perpetuated through narrative form.     

Changes in Public Library Youth Services: A Content Analysis of Youth Services Job Advertisements

ABSTRACT

This article investigates requirements and responsibilities for public library youth services librarians. Position advertisements were published in American Libraries in five-year increments, from 1971 to 2001. Youth services librarian positions were analyzed as to changes in position titles, education requirements, job responsibilities, and personality characteristics. Findings suggest that the number of advertised youth services positions is increasing, and job titles are changing from the specific “children's services” to the more generalized “youth services.” Advertised responsibilities of the youth services librarian have consistently emphasized collection management and administrative duties, and many advertisements place a heavy emphasis on personality traits.