Behind the Scenes with the Snowden Files

Author(s):  
Ellen Nakashima

This essay examines how the Washington Post dealt with the tension between its duty to inform the public and its desire to protect national security when it received documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The essay describes the push-and-pull between the media and the government. Journalists try to advance the public’s right to know, particularly about potential government encroachment on civil liberties, and the government tries to defend the security of the country while respecting civil liberties. Reporters with a bias for public disclosure voluntarily withhold certain documents and details based on a careful consideration of harm, and intelligence officials with a bias toward secrecy do not fight every disclosure. The Post’s coverage of the Snowden leaks provides an opportunity to gain insights into how to navigate the inevitable conflicts between journalists’ desire to inform the public and the government’s desire to protect its secrets from foreign powers.

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ms. Neelam Seam

National Security is the main elements in the on- going process of nation building for any country, not limited to the developing and developed countries, An imperative for all countries that need to survive and gain prominence in the community of nations. While nation building is guided and directed by the political leadership, various actors contribute significantly to the process of nation building. Media, which is considered as a fourth pillar of the democracyand proper channel between the public and the government, is one of the major actors which contribute enormously to the exercise of nation building. The objective of this paper is to without national security the motive of nation building will ruin and media is the main instrument to protect national security which is the major step of nation building. My Research question of this Paper is "Whether the media is positively contributing in nation building with keeping in mind the important factor of National Security or The media misguided or obsessed with selfish or partisan interests, can destroy nations.In this paper we will critically analyze the role of media in Nation building, their Scope, functions of the Media, The concept of Nation building and national interests. Media and National security, Examine the factors which influence the role of media in national development. To make the study richer we will make a brief glance on the cases in which media play a positive and negative role. To conduct this research I will adopt the research methodology which is both in nature doctrinal and non-doctrinal. By these methods we can definitely reach towards the most viable and authentic conclusion that how media can effectively contribute in maintaining the National security viz-a-viz Become a voice of the public interest in the front of the government.


Author(s):  
Keith B. Alexander ◽  
Jamil N. Jaffer

Leaks of highly classified information, popular views of government national security efforts, and changes in the media environment in recent years have resulted in a significant decay in the relationship between the government and the media and public trust in both institutions. To correct this harmful trend, a significant recalibration of the government-media relationship and the establishment of a new compact between them would best serve the public interest. The government should be more transparent about its national security efforts and more self-critical in classification decisions and should explain national security activities it undertakes, defending and justifying classified programs in detail whenever possible. The press must likewise be willing to afford the government fair treatment, including noting government efforts to protect national security, and to appropriately balance civil rights and privacy. It is important that these institutions work together to establish new mores on classification, government transparency, and a more responsible approach to classified disclosures.


MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley Sarah Muchetwa ◽  
Ephraim Maruta ◽  
Hilda Jaka ◽  
Joyman Ruvado ◽  
Evans Chazireni

The paper reports findings from a study that explored health communication strategies employed by the media on the state of preparedness by the Zimbabwean government during the COVID 19 crisis by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television (ZBC-TV). The study adopted secondary data analysis. Data were collected using secondary sources. The study was influenced by the framing theory. The study found out that ZBC-TV used songs, road shows, commercial ads, dramas, musical shows on reporting the pandemic. The archival documents also revealed that ZBC-TV have used periodical updates as health communication strategies to educate the public about COVID 19. ZBC-TV also used Facebook showing staff from the Office of the President and Cabinet receiving the Covid 19 vaccine at the same time applauding positive response from Harare Metropolitan Province as front line workers surpassed the target under the first phase of Covid-19 vaccine roll out plan. The study concluded that the health communication strategies employed by ZBC-TV have been effective in increasing the societal awareness about health issues. ZBC-TV managed to reach out to the masses using both the television and by making use of the new media communication technologies. However, press censorship has been a challenge in publishing information concerning COVID 19 as the media house is not allowed to publish anything that tarnishes the image of the government. It is based on such evidence that the study concludes that ZBC-TV at some point distorted information to paint the picture that the government is doing all it can to contain the spread of COVID 19 and ensuring the safety of the public. The study recommends that the ministry should ensure freedom of information publicity, in which media houses, including ZBC-TV is not controlled by any political party of government. The government should also privatise ZBC-TV so that it will be answerable to the public and not few government officials. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0895/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Forcese

The expression "national security" or its close similes lacks a precise meaning, even in the public policy literature. Nevertheless, the concept appears in over 30 federal statutes. In most instances, the term is undefined, an important oversight in light of the significant powers these statutes accord the government. Under these circumstances, how courts review government invocations of "national security" is of real importance. With some exceptions, courts applying s. 7 of the Charter and standard administrative law doctrines have accorded substantial deference to government national security determinations. When largely deferential substantive review of the ambiguous concept of national security is coupled with the ex parti and in camera context in which these cases are often heard, the net effect is to leave government with a freer hand in national security matters than in other domains of administrative decision making. Several possible responses to this problem are proposed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.


Author(s):  
Jacky Burrows

This chapter focuses attention on sex offenders who, perhaps more than any other 'type' of offender, have been systematically vilified, demonised, and ostracised from mainstream society. The author argues that, for once, the public, the media, the government, and – worryingly – large numbers of professionals seem to be in agreement that such 'othering' is entirely right and proper in what are seen to be the larger interests of public protection. The author explores the implications of this deeply entrenched culture for ‘would-be desisters’ and suggests ways forward that offer individuals opportunities to uncouple from the ‘master status’ of sex offender and to build positive social networks.


Author(s):  
Zufeng Zhong

ABSTRACT Objectives: In this study, we carried out a text analysis on the information disseminated and discussed among netizens on the Baidu Post Bar (the world’s largest Chinese forum) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, to create a policy basis for health administrative departments. Methods: We used Python tools to search for the relevant data on the Baidu Post Bar. Next, a text analysis was performed on the posts’ contents using a combination of latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), sentiment analysis, and correlation analysis. Results: According to the LDA analysis, the public was highly interested in topics such as COVID-19 prevention, infection symptoms, infection and coping measures, sources of transmission and treatments, community management, and work resumption. The majority of the public had negative emotional values, yet a portion of the public held positive emotional values. We also performed a correlation analysis of the influencing factors was established. Conclusions: Netizens’ degree of concern shown in their posts was greatly associated with the spread of COVID-19. With the rise, diffusion, outbreak, and mitigation of COVID-19 in China, netizens have successively created a large number of posts, and the topics of discussion varied over time. Therefore, the media and the government have the responsibility to distribute positive information, to correctly guide the public’s emotions to bring some sort of reassurance to the public.


Significance The issue of media independence has become a fraught one under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration, with perceptions rising among journalists and the public that the government is subjecting the media to political pressure. Critics of the administration speak of censorship and threats to freedom of expression. Japan's ranking in the World Press Freedom Index has fallen from 22nd in 2011-12, before Abe took office, to 61st in 2015. Impacts The government seems likely to try to marginalise the criticisms of constitutional scholars, like it marginalises its other critics. International media as well as domestic journalists are likely to feel some pressure from the authorities. In the near term, the issue is unlikely to destabilise the government, or derail passage of security legislation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document