scholarly journals Local newspapers and coronavirus: conceptualising connections, comparisons and cures

2020 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2095645
Author(s):  
Kristy Hess ◽  
Lisa Jane Waller

Within weeks of the nation-wide COVID-19 shutdown, more than 200 regional and community newspapers across Australia announced they could no longer keep their presses running due to the unprecedented crisis. A drain in advertising spend, a broken business model and the refusal of digital behemoths to pay for content were blamed for their collapse, ironically as audiences’ demand for credible news and information soared across the globe. There is no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has widened existing, deep cracks in the news media industry. In response this article sets out to explore possible solutions and strategies for local newspapers in the post-pandemic media landscape. We take an analogical approach to argue some of the issues that emerged during COVID-19 and strategies used to fight the global health pandemic also present valuable lessons for the preservation of public interest journalism and news at the local level. We conceptualise five coronavirus-related themes that resonate with a much-needed innovations agenda for local newspapers in Australia: (1) support for essential services, (2) warnings of complacency against an evolving biological threat, (3) appreciating the power of the social (4) coordinated government/policy responses and (5) ‘we are all in this together’.

Author(s):  
Kirstin Kerr

This chapter examines similarities in patterns of inequality in education and in health. Using England as a case study, it considers broad patterns of educational inequality and recent policy responses to these, emphasising the need for greater understanding of, and engagement with, the underlying causes of educational inequalities. The chapter first provides an overview of patterns of inequality in educational outcomes before discussing policy responses to educational inequalities in England. It argues that a central part of efforts to address educational inequalities must be for education, as a field, to think and act more comprehensively in ways that parallel thinking about the social determinants of health. It also highlights the important role of schools in leading the development of innovative responses to educational inequalities at a local level and concludes with an analysis of overlaps between educational and health inequalities and the responses needed to address these.


2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 709-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlene A. Caburnay ◽  
Matthew W. Kreuter ◽  
Douglas A. Luke ◽  
Robert A. Logan ◽  
Heather A. Jacobsen ◽  
...  

News media are an important and influential part of the social environment, calling attention to certain issues by the amount and nature of their coverage. To better understand howhealth behaviors are covered, we examined more than 80, 000 stories in 1, 354 newspaper issues from four midsize Missouri communities. Health behavior stories were rare. Of 1, 373 stories (1. 7%) that addressed diet, physical activity, or tobacco, few were prominently located in the paper, and only half had a primary prevention focus. A large majority had no local angle, local quotes, or call to action for individuals or the community, and only 10% were generated by local reporters. Because the local newspaper can be especially influential in smaller communities, strategies are needed to help reporters and editors in these settings provide more and better coverage of health behavior-related stories.


This collection of essays, drawn from a three-year AHRC research project, provides a detailed context for the history of early cinema in Scotland from its inception in 1896 till the arrival of sound in the early 1930s. It details the movement from travelling fairground shows to the establishment of permanent cinemas, and from variety and live entertainment to the dominance of the feature film. It addresses the promotion of cinema as a socially ‘useful’ entertainment, and, distinctively, it considers the early development of cinema in small towns as well as in larger cities. Using local newspapers and other archive sources, it details the evolution and the diversity of the social experience of cinema, both for picture goers and for cinema staff. In production, it examines the early attempts to establish a feature film production sector, with a detailed production history of Rob Roy (United Films, 1911), and it records the importance, both for exhibition and for social history, of ‘local topicals’. It considers the popularity of Scotland as an imaginary location for European and American films, drawing their popularity from the international audience for writers such as Walter Scott and J.M. Barrie and the ubiquity of Scottish popular song. The book concludes with a consideration of the arrival of sound in Scittish cinemas. As an afterpiece, it offers an annotated filmography of Scottish-themed feature films from 1896 to 1927, drawing evidence from synopses and reviews in contemporary trade journals.


2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wallace Beard ◽  
Jean Benfer ◽  
Joseph Bohr ◽  
Robert Castellvi ◽  
Jill Chambers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel

Beginning around 1860, authors in the Egyptian capital portrayed Cairo’s changing cityscape and the recent emergence of local newspapers in terms of their impact on rationality (‘aql). In their descriptions, these contemporaries depicted rationality as an education of the heart that especially enabled men from the middle class to control their bodies and passions. The chapter shows that Cairo’s transformation was, however, not always associated with rising rationality by drawing on a different set of sources. Police and court records from the 1860s and 1870s demonstrate that contemporaries also described processes of urban change as a danger to the “honor” of lower-class women. Like the debates in Berlin, emotional practices in Cairo thus served as a way to address the social formation of the Egyptian capital during a time of dynamic transformation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Nordström ◽  
B Kumar

Abstract Issue Sporadic accounts of initiatives, interventions and good practices in Migrant Health at the Municipality level account for Norways' lower score on “Measures to achieve change” in the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). While the structure and organization at the municipality level should enable intersectoral action (as all under one umbrella), the municipal counties say lack of intersectoral collaboration is one of the main barriers for long-term public health work. Description of the Problem 51 municipalities have an immigrant population larger than the national average 17,8% (2019). In a recent Country Assessment (part of Joint Action on Health Equity Europe), limited inter-sectoral action on the social determinants of health including migration was observed. Although multiple agencies are engaged in attempts to address these issues. While there is a drive to promote public health and primary health care in municipalities, these initiatives do not pay special attention to migrants. In the first stage of this project, we have reviewed municipal policy documents to map policy and measures on public health, migrant health and intersectoral collaboration. In the second stage, municipalities will be contacted to engage them in the implementation of intersectoral actions. Results The desk review and mapping show that only 8 of the “top” 32 municipalities mention “intersectoral” in the municipal master plan (5 were not available online), its mentioned in 9 action program/budgets, but not necessarily by the same municipalities. 15 of the municipalities mention migrants, but rarely in relation to health. We observe that, the size of the municipality, financial resources and support from the County are factors that may play a significant role in prioritising migrant health and intersectoral collaboration. Lessons Advocating for and supporting the local/municipal level for intersectoral action is highly relevant, timely and essential. Key messages Intersectoral action on the social determinants of migrants’ health needs to be implemented through municipal policies to reduce inequities in migrants’ health. Implementation on the local level is the main arena for good public health work and is crucial to ensure good health for migrants.


Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110170
Author(s):  
Valerie Hase

Baghdad, Christchurch or Paris: Over the last years, many cities were the location of extremist attacks – but only some incidents were covered as “terrorism”. Journalists selectively attach the label to particular acts of political violence. This study analyses how characteristics of attacks and their perpetrators influence whether news media portray incidents as terrorism. Based on attacks between 2012 and 2018 ( N = 86,668) and their coverage in the German press ( N = 5411), the study finds that highly lethal incidents in Western countries are more likely to be called terrorism. Moreover, news more often portrays violence by Islamist extremists as terrorism than attacks by right- or left-wing extremists. Small or inconsistent effects emerge when comparing violence by lone actors to those by groups and domestic to international terrorism. The study illustrates that news is highly selective in which acts of political violence are presented as terrorism, which may foster stereotypes and prevent policy responses towards different forms of extremism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175063522199094
Author(s):  
Matthew Pressman ◽  
James J Kimble

Drawing upon media framing theory and the concept of cognitive scripts, this article provides a new interpretation of the context in which the famous World War II photograph ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’ appeared. This interpretation is based primarily on an examination of American newspaper and newsreel coverage from the Pacific island battles prior to Iwo Jima. The coverage – especially the pictorial coverage – often followed a three-step sequence that showed US forces proceeding from a landing to a series of skirmishes, then culminating with a flag-raising image. This created a predictable cognitive script. That script, combined with other framing devices found in the news coverage (such as metaphors and catchphrases), conveyed the misleading message that the Allies’ final victory over Japan was imminent in early 1945. The Iwo Jima photo drove home that message more emphatically than anything else. This circumstance had profound implications for government policy at the time and, in retrospect, it illustrates the potency of media framing – particularly in times of crisis or war.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Šakić Trogrlić ◽  
Grant Wright ◽  
Melanie Duncan ◽  
Marc van den Homberg ◽  
Adebayo Adeloye ◽  
...  

People possess a creative set of strategies based on their local knowledge (LK) that allow them to stay in flood-prone areas. Stakeholders involved with local level flood risk management (FRM) often overlook and underutilise this LK. There is thus an increasing need for its identification, documentation and assessment. Based on qualitative research, this paper critically explores the notion of LK in Malawi. Data was collected through 15 focus group discussions, 36 interviews and field observation, and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that local communities have a complex knowledge system that cuts across different stages of the FRM cycle and forms a component of community resilience. LK is not homogenous within a community, and is highly dependent on the social and political contexts. Access to LK is not equally available to everyone, conditioned by the access to resources and underlying causes of vulnerability that are outside communities’ influence. There are also limits to LK; it is impacted by exogenous processes (e.g., environmental degradation, climate change) that are changing the nature of flooding at local levels, rendering LK, which is based on historical observations, less relevant. It is dynamic and informally triangulated with scientific knowledge brought about by development partners. This paper offers valuable insights for FRM stakeholders as to how to consider LK in their approaches.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document