Advocacy journalism in the 21st century: Rethinking entertainment in digital Black press outlets

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110231
Author(s):  
Miya Williams Fayne

The Black press is often conceptualized as an advocacy press, but in the current digital environment, in which there are numerous entertainment-focused outlets, what exactly constitutes advocacy is fraught. Perceptions of advocacy, which have previously been associated with hard news content, are broadening to accommodate the entertainment content on Black news websites. Informed by interviews with journalists and focus groups with readers, this research finds that there are two different categorizations of advocacy journalism – hard advocacy and soft advocacy. Some editors and consumers believe the Black press should contain hard advocacy content, such as political activism coverage, while others perceive entertainment in the Black press, which provides positive coverage of African Americans and additional representation of Black life, as soft advocacy. Expanding advocacy conceptions provides further nuance and insight into how the Black press functions in the new media age.

Author(s):  
Kim T. Gallon

This chapter examines the mass movement of southern African Americans to Northern cities in the first half of the twentieth century and shows how it dramatically altered the Black Press. After 1920, black newspaper editors covered more news that they believed would appeal to working-class African Americans. In charting the development of the early-twentieth-century Black Press, chapter 1 presents a comparative analysis of five different newspapers: The Amsterdam News, The Baltimore Afro-American, The Chicago Defender, The Philadelphia Tribune, and the Pittsburgh Courier. These five newspapers demonstrate how the Black Press fostered and imagined an African American readership’s interest in sexuality through its sensational coverage of the variegations of black life throughout the 1920s and 1930s.


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Carlson ◽  
Tristan Kennedy

Social media is a highly valuable site for Indigenous people to express their identities and to engage with other Indigenous people, events, conversations, and debates. While the role of social media for Indigenous peoples is highly valued for public articulations of identity, it is not without peril. Drawing on the authors’ recent mixed-methods research in Australian Indigenous communities, this paper presents an insight into Indigenous peoples’ experiences of cultivating individual and collective identities on social media platforms. The findings suggest that Indigenous peoples are well aware of the intricacies of navigating a digital environment that exhibits persistent colonial attempts at the subjugation of Indigenous identities. We conclude that, while social media remains perilous, Indigenous people are harnessing online platforms for their own ends, for the reinforcement of selfhood, for identifying and being identified and, as a vehicle for humour and subversion.


Author(s):  
Heather P. Williams

AbstractAs policymakers and school communities work to address underlying causes of achievement gaps and access to quality early childhood education, this study considers the use of 21st Century Community Learning Centers to address early childhood education needs on western U.S. state, Idaho. The study sought to understand the relationship between federal and state policies related to out-of-school opportunities to enhance early childhood education. Utilizing data from a statewide evaluation of Idaho’s 21st Century Learning Centers, the study examined 92 centers providing after school, before school, or summer programs in grades preschool through the third grade to predominately at-risk children. Data collection included quantitative data from a survey given to parents (n = 183), as well as qualitative data collected through site-based interviews, focus groups and observations. Data included a review of historical and current data on participation rates; attendance rates; standardized test scores for program participants in grades PK-3 (n = 3258). Data were analyzed for themes and transfer. The study findings provide further insight into understanding possible relationships between U.S. federal and state policy regarding 21st Century Community Learning Centers on both students’ outcomes and parent satisfaction. The findings further support the role of out-of-school time (OST) experiences in the larger ecosystem of learning and provides insight into understanding how the OST activities are carried over into family life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2(6)) ◽  
pp. 125-137
Author(s):  
Magdalena Grela-Chen

In the popular discourse, geiko districts are described as places where traditional culture is preserved in a living form. Although this statement may be considered as true, the geiko community is a part of Japanese society as a whole and does not exist in complete isolation. Being able to survive as guardians of the Japanese tradition, in the 21st century geiko are discovering new opportunities, such as using new media to promote themselves in order to protect their lifestyle. However, outside world has forced them to change the way they manage their business in the districts. By using their own Internet sites, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to reach new customers, they display their daily routine, one in which traditional culture meets modern ideas. This paper shows the reception of usage of the Internet in traditional entertainment districts of Kyoto and the response of Western tourists to the geisha phenomenon. It appears that overwhelming attention on the part of tourist industry, as well as commercialisation, are becoming a threat to the values which have cemented relationships between customers, geiko and teahouses owners. For instance, while during the so-called “geisha hunting”, tourists often try to take photographs of them at all costs. Considering the aspects of geiko life and processes mentioned above it is worth analysing how the image of the geiko is perceived by Westerners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-300
Author(s):  
Wioletta Nowak

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Turkmenistan’s economy has been growing very fast, which has been primarily generated through the extractive sector and construction industry. After the energy price collapse in mid-2014, the country has recorded a shortage of foreign currency. The authoritarian regime passed currency and economic problems onto the society. As a result, the country has experienced the most severe food crisis in its history. The main aim of the paper is to identify the reasons behind the food crisis in Turkmenistan. The paper tries to answer the following question: how did it happen that people in one of the fastest-growing countries in the 21st century have been suffering from food shortages? The study is based on data retrieved from the World Bank Open Data, ILOSTAT, and Observatory of Economic Complexity, as well as a critical review of independent news websites. The food crisis in Turkmenistan was primarily caused by hyperinflation and rationing basic groceries at preferential prices, wage arrears, cutting salaries of state employees to fund construction projects in progress, group layoffs of state employees, growing difficulties in running a private business, and depriving people of the possibility to exchange the currency at the official rate. The end of a free provision of Turkmenistan’s population with electricity, gas, and drinking water has further deepened the crisis.


Author(s):  
Burcu Kavas

Cinema, which started to digitalize in the 20th century, continues to be integrated with digital publishing platforms that emerged with the development of new media technologies in the 21st century. With the coronavirus pandemic that affected the whole world in 2019, digital broadcasting platforms became popular as an alternative cinema event in the quarantine process. Various precautions have been taken around the world for the coronavirus pandemic. As a result of the quarantine precaution, the local and global cinema industry was negatively affected. Cinema industry which is a collective production and screening process, has been interrupted by the suspension of the filming and the closing of the movie theaters during the quarantine. New media created a movement area for the cinema industry in this process. In this sense, the aim of this study is examining the researches on the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the cinema and the effect of new media tools and opportunities on the cinema sector.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Petrie ◽  
Clara García-Millán ◽  
María Mercedes Mateo-Berganza Díaz

There is a wealth of conversation around the world today on the future of the workplace and the skills required for children to thrive in that future. Without certain core abilities, even extreme knowledge or job-specific skills will not be worth much in the long run. To address these issues, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and HundrED conducted this Spotlight project with the goal of identifying and researching leading innovations that focus on 21st Century Skills in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Spotlight program was supported by J.P. Morgan. The purpose of this project is to shine a spotlight, and make globally visible, leading education innovations from Latin America and the Caribbean doing exceptional work on developing 21st Century Skills for all students, teachers, and leaders in schools today. The main aims of this Spotlight are to: Discover the leading innovations cultivating 21st century skills in students globally; understand how schools or organizations can implement these innovations; gain insight into any required social or economic conditions for these innovations to be effectively introduced into a learning context; celebrate and broadcast these innovations to help them spread to new countries. All the findings of the Spotlight in 21st Century Skills are included in this report.


Author(s):  
Kimberly M. Welch

This chapter turns away from the linguistic strategies people of color mobilized in court to investigate white lawyers’ incentives to represent black litigants and white judges’ motivations when deciding cases involving African Americans’ claims. It assesses the role of white people in the story of black litigiousness. Of course, rhetoric remained important, but rhetoric rarely led to results without a particular institutional makeup. Understanding the institutional framework of the Natchez district bench and bar—in this case, the makeup of the legal professionals, the internal hierarchies and values, the incentive patterns, and the pressure points and tensions—provides insight into how and where marginalized peoples inserted themselves and under what circumstances.


Author(s):  
Donna Goldstein ◽  
Valerie C. Bryan

There are several issues that we urgently need to address regarding K-20 education, including engaging students in the learning process, preparing our youth for entry into the 21st century workplace, enabling them to become fully productive citizens, and providing them with the tools they will need to succeed. Our ability to flourish as a nation depends on this. In his article, “Place-Based Knowledge in the Digital Age,” Thomas Fisher (2012) discusses the potential impact Geographic Information Systems (GIS) may have as our global society becomes more immersed in digital and spatial media. He suggests that “GIS will eventually become a major way—perhaps the dominant way—in which we will access information in the future because of the essentially spatial nature of that software” (Fisher, 2012, p. 5). While Fisher's notion of “spatializing education” may seem abstract, the reality is our ability to connect multiple layers of data based on place will afford a more informed insight into our past, present, and future by revealing relationships, trends, and patterns. Connecting data spatially shifts our way of thinking, and our way of doing business as well as education (Baker, 2012). This is explored in this chapter.


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