scholarly journals Hinduism in the News: The Shifting Role of Religion and the Media in Canadian Public Life

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mann

This article studies Canadian and international newspaper reports from September, 1995, of the Ganesha milk drinking miracle. It analyzes the chronology of the newspaper reports as the story develops from an account of a miracle in the “exotic” East to an account of a miracle also occurring in Canada. The evidence demonstrates an inability on the part of the Canadian news media to view religion as hard news with broad social and political implications. The comparison with international reports demonstrates that the story had a significant political dimension and was viewed as hard news in other parts of the world. The comparison questions the assumed boundaries between the public and private spheres in relation to religion and demonstrates that such boundaries are constructed through power relationships and the news media itself.Cette etude examine des articles canadiens et internationaux parus en septembre 1995 concernant le miracle de la consommation du lait de Ganesha. Elle analyse la chronologie des articles de journaux tenant compte du développement du miracle de l’Orient ‘exotique’ vers le développement de ce même miracle au Canada. La discussion l’analyse fait valoir l’incapacité de la part des médias canadiens de percevoir la religion comme étant au centre des actualités sérieuses ayant des conséquences sociales graves et des implications politiques. La comparaison des rapports internationaux montre que ce sujet a une dimension politique importante et est considéré d’actualit sérieuse. La comparaison remet en question les frontières définissant les sphères publiques et privées en matière de religion et démontre que de telles limites sont construites par l’entremise des relations de pouvoir et des médias eux - mêmes.

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Rodrick

This article begins by outlining what the principle of open justice is intended to achieve. It then investigates the nature of the relationship that exists between the courts and the media, and between the media and the public, and suggests that these relationships are not always conducive to realising the aims of open justice. While the reporting role of the traditional news media will undoubtedly persist, at least for the foreseeable future, it is argued that, since courts now have the means to deliver to the public a fuller and truer picture of their work than the media can, they should seize the opportunity to do so.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 728-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederik Stevens ◽  
Iskander De Bruycker

This paper evaluates the circumstances under which affluent interest groups wield influence over policy outcomes. Interest group scholarship is ambiguous about the beneficial role of economic resources for lobbying influence. Economically resourceful groups are often presumed to provide more and better expert information to decision-makers and, in exchange, receive more favourable policy concessions. We argue that the beneficial role of economic resources is contingent on the media salience of policy dossiers. We expect that resourceful groups are more influential when issues are discussed behind the public scenes, while their competitive advantage dampens once issues grow salient in the news media. We test our expectations in the context of European Union policymaking, drawing from 183 expert surveys with lobbyists connected to a sample of 41 policy issues. Our empirical findings demonstrate that economic resources matter for lobbying influence, but that their effect is conditional on the media salience of policy issues.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenwick Robert McKelvey

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” explains an unnamed Bush administration official. This quote sets the tone for a new edited collection reflecting on the role of the media in constructing reality. The lack of a “truth” does not quell the public demand for one, as Boler aptly points out in her introduction: “The desire and longing for truth expressed by the public demands for media accountability is in tension with the coexisting recognition of the slipperiness of meaning” (p. 7). Media, then, in all their forms, become a central battleground for forging meaning and shaping reality. “Media are the most powerful institutions on earth,” Amy Goodman of Democracy Now claims, “more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile” (p. 199). This series of interviews and articles explores how incumbent powers and media activists compete to produce and reproduce their versions of reality through the media. The contributors use the format to discuss the tenuous relationship between media and democracy and the changing role of the news media, as well as to present examples of tactical media. The resulting collection provides an excellent introduction to the current, troubling media landscape and its tactical opportunities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 137-138
Author(s):  
Federico Nicoli ◽  
◽  
Paul J. Cummins ◽  
Joseph A. Raho ◽  
◽  
...  

"In the aftermath of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, media coverage was scrutinized for sensationalism, weakness in explaining scientific uncertainty, dehumanization of patients, and lack of contextualization. The current COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to assess whether the media learned its lesson. Results are mixed. Early reporting on the origin of COVID-19 in “wet markets” indicates that the media continues to do poorly with contextualization. On the other hand, stories on mortality and the infectiousness of COVID-19 indicate there has been improvement. The situation remains fluid as COVID-19 threatens to transform into a pandemic at the time of submission. Data from new countries may alter the reported rates of lethality and infectiousness, and media reporting on these changes may or may not be responsible. The explosion of social media, as a medium to promote reporting, could provide bioethicists a tool to direct the public to reliable stories and criticize inaccurate ones. Using a bioethics perspective, this poster will critically evaluate the quality of U.S. and Italian news media’s reporting on the evolving scientific understanding of COVID-19 and its contextualization. The presentation will employ QR technology to provide links to media coverage of COVID-19 from the U.S. and Italian news media. After critically appraising the quality of COVID-19 reporting, this poster will consider if bioethicists: 1) should provide comment to the media on pandemics; 2) should correct reporting for the public and 3) have a duty to publicly criticize sensationalism in the media. "


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1and2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. G. K. Sahu ◽  
Shah Alam

We are living in a mediated world where every aspect of human life is getting affected by images of media. Consciously or unconsciously, knowingly or unknowingly our attitudes, values and belief systems are getting increasingly influenced by media. Some media critics expressed serious concern over the influence of the media in our everyday life. In the contemporary media saturated world, the agenda of the media becoming the public agenda. It is in this context, the news media play an important role in shaping public opinion and creating consciousness on different issues. Keeping in view of the importance of the news media in the contemporary society, the paper makes an attempt to ascertain the agenda setting role of the press towards women’s issues. For the purpose two mainstream dailies- one from the English and the other from the Urdu language newspapers purposively taken and their contents related to women’s issues have been subjected to detailed analysis.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenwick Robert McKelvey

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” explains an unnamed Bush administration official. This quote sets the tone for a new edited collection reflecting on the role of the media in constructing reality. The lack of a “truth” does not quell the public demand for one, as Boler aptly points out in her introduction: “The desire and longing for truth expressed by the public demands for media accountability is in tension with the coexisting recognition of the slipperiness of meaning” (p. 7). Media, then, in all their forms, become a central battleground for forging meaning and shaping reality. “Media are the most powerful institutions on earth,” Amy Goodman of Democracy Now claims, “more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile” (p. 199). This series of interviews and articles explores how incumbent powers and media activists compete to produce and reproduce their versions of reality through the media. The contributors use the format to discuss the tenuous relationship between media and democracy and the changing role of the news media, as well as to present examples of tactical media. The resulting collection provides an excellent introduction to the current, troubling media landscape and its tactical opportunities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Cătălina Nastasiu

Significant developments that occurred in the past two decades in the media and information system, such as the rise of the internet and social media or even the commentary based journalism that adopted a 24-hour coverage, led to a continuously rising process of creating, disseminating and consuming information. Nevertheless, the enormous amount of information that crosses the public space is not always supported by factual information, data, analysis or statistical representations. In fact, this large volume of information circulating in the public sphere is rather based on personal interpretation, misleading content, false assumptions or intentionally manipulated stories. Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich, authors of the complex exploratory research called Truth Decay. An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life argue in favor of the term ”Truth Decay” to define the current changes of political and civil discourse in the U.S.


2021 ◽  
pp. 93-118
Author(s):  
Francesca Rizzuto ◽  
Vera Sciarrino

This article analyses the new and problematic relationship between the media and individuals' visibility, as well as privacy in the new context of the Internet, by focusing on the process of transformation of both the public and private dimensions. A new style of Self-presentation/representation emerges in the digital communication ecosystem, which presents numerous risks due to online overexposure, to the logic of the show, typical of infotainment, and to the process of social windowing. In the society of platforms and fake news, it is necessary to redefine the social role of journalism and its limits, above all when connected to some sensitive issues of individuals' private sphere. At the same time, in relation to law and rights it seems essential to both develop useful tools and rules in order to defend individuals' Self-representation in the media and ensure everyone's right to be forgotten in contemporary planetary discursive spaces.


Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492090385
Author(s):  
Anne O’ Brien

Media depictions of mental health difficulties and suicide are an important element in shaping how the public understands the issues and how relevant agencies devise strategies to advocate and reduce stigma. The role of the media in the production and reproduction of stereotypical portrayals of mental health difficulties and suicide has been of concern for a number of decades. However, relatively little research attention has been paid to date to the process through which stories on mental illness and suicide are produced by journalists. This article aims to contribute to that analysis by focusing on Irish journalists’ experiences of and insights into the challenges underpinning reporting on mental health difficulties and suicide. Despite some generic and platform differences, journalists noted that their output was shaped by a number of factors, which included, sensitivity to the topic of suicide; care for families; balancing public and private interests; challenges to reporting facts, finding appropriate sources and meeting the needs of media platforms; interpreting guidelines on reporting and the discovery of the relative absence of mental illness stories. Understanding how journalists deal with these challenges can help them and advocacy agencies to address these challenges and thereby improve the nature of coverage of mental health difficulties and suicide in media output.


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. 


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