Diversity and the Media

Author(s):  
Uche T. Onyebadi ◽  
Mohamed A. Satti ◽  
Lindani Mbunyuza-Memani

This chapter investigated the curricula of journalism and mass communication programs in African universities. Sixty-seven programs in public and private universities located in all regions of the continent were examined. The major findings show that diversity and the media courses were taught in 58% of the sample. Programs in the sample from North Africa did not have the course or its equivalent. And, with the exception of Southern Africa, most of the programs in other regions of Africa mainly limit their diversity courses to gender issues. To better prepare journalism students for the coverage of a diverse world, this study recommends that diversity and the media courses be requirements in journalism and mass communication programs in Africa, with the courses expanded to include other elements of diversity such as social class, age/generation, race/ethnicity, religion, and geographical/physical location.

2019 ◽  
pp. 374-385
Author(s):  
Marina Myasnikova

The paper focuses on the problem of new digital generation’s participation in the media consumption process and first of all in television watching under conditions when the contemporary television audience transforms due to the emergence of mobile digital technologies. The digital generation is the most vivid segment of the society in terms of diverse interests and active media consumption; it possesses new selection opportunities and influences the elder generation. This article aims to define the digital generation’s role in contemporary media processes; identify its current functions and current attitude to traditional media, particularly television, as well as Russian telecontent. Methods of researching the media audience also change. The main object of mediametry measurements is now the process, not the result of media consumption. In practice, however, the audience is still viewed as a homogenous mass, not a dynamic system. That is why “mass” calculations cannot be used to judge specific audience needs. It is important not simply to measure views but also to study the audience, taking into account the content and formats of media texts consumed by it within the telecommunication process. The research applies the expert survey method within homogenous groups of young people and focuses on qualitative properties of media consumption, specifically its motivation structure and audience needs. Results of three expert surveys conducted among 17–27 years old journalism students of the Ural Federal University at various times are presented. The motives of telecontent consumption are defined. The paper reveals that the new digital generation relies on the telecontent posted on various online platforms. The youth have a critical attitude towards broadcast television not only because of competition from the new media but also due to low quality of professional media products. Additionally, representatives of the young media audience participate in mass communication processes not only as consumers but also as creators of their own video content.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Ramasela Semang L. Mathobela ◽  
Shepherd Mpofu ◽  
Samukezi Mrubula-Ngwenya

An emerging global trend of brands advertising their products through LGBTIQ+ individuals and couples indicates growth of gender awareness across the globe. The media, through advertising, deconstructs homophobia and associated cultures through the use of LGBTIQ+s in commercials. This qualitative research paper centres the advancement of debates on human rights and social media as critical in the interaction between corporates and consumers. The Gillette, Chicken Licken‘s Soul Sisters and We the Brave advertisements were used to critically analyse how audiences react to the use of LGBTIQ+ characters and casts through comments posted on the brands‘ social media platforms. Further, the paper explored the role of social media in the mediation of significant gender issues such as homosexuality that are considered taboo to engage in. The paper used a qualitative approach. Using the digital ethnography method to observe comments and interactions from the chosen advertisement‘s online platforms, the paper employed queer and constructionist theories to deconstruct discourses around same-sex relations as used in commercials, especially in quasiconservative. The data used in the paper included thirty comments of the brands customers and audiences obtained from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The paper concludes there are positive development in human rights awareness as seen through advertisements and campaigns that use LGBTIQ+ communities in a positive light across the world.


2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 174-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Kuppers

Given the media frenzy over Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful presidential bid, and the ensuing questions about the state of feminism, it seems a serendipitous moment to feature two pieces—written by the women who conceived and performed them—that offer very different but complementary takes on agency, identity, and the conflation of the public and private as one's body becomes the locus of the gaze. Petra Kuppers's dramaturgical meditation on her experiences as part of Tiresias, a disability culture performance project, investigates erotics, change, mythology, and identity. A collaboration between photographers, writers, and dancers, the project, occurring over six months in 2007, posits the body as the site at which myth might be reshaped and movement might become poetry. Lián Amaris critically analyzes her feminist public performance event Fashionably Late for the Relationship, which took place over three days in July 2007 on the Union Square traffic island in New York City. Informed by Judith Butler's citational production of gender, the piece focused on exposing and critiquing the marked visibility of gender construction and maintenance within an extreme performance paradigm.


2019 ◽  
pp. 398-406
Author(s):  
Natalya Antonova ◽  
Viktoria Khafizova

The paper deals with professional values of journalism students. The grounds for research are the transformation of values in journalists’ professional activity that occurs under conditions of society mediatization and development of new information and communication technologies. The consequences of this transformation include problems like publication of non-validated / non-authentic information, distortion of facts, imposing a false agenda. Media experts are engaged in active debates on preserving the journalists’ professional ethics. In this regard, a need emerges to study professional and value orientations of students – future journalists who are beginning to get acquainted with this profession at a higher education institution. The object of our research was students from Journalism Faculty of the Ural Federal University and the University for Humanities. The research included an online survey of students (n = 202), as well as two interviews with Faculty Heads for profound understanding of the situation in the contemporary journalism education. The findings evidence that fact checking, accuracy and integrity are among the top professional values of journalism students. A journalist, in students’ view, is an innovator capable of creating unique content; their purpose is disclosing the truth and helping people. We can therefore conclude that students respond to value demands of the media environment and at the same time they are oriented at reproducing the traditional principles of journalism ethics, despite media experts’ doubts of preserving professional values in contemporary journalism.


Author(s):  
Antonio Sandu ◽  
◽  
Polixenia Nistor ◽  
◽  

Mass media affects its consumers primarily in their cognitive dimension, by changing the image of the world - in this sense that the media becomes a vector of social influence, by changing the cognitions of individuals - but also by changing the shared social constructs within membership groups. The stated role of the media is to inform target audiences about events of interest in the field-specific to the activity of the media trust, but also to convey opinions, ideas, and views on those events in a way that is as complete and as complex as possible, allowing recipients to build their own opinions or adhere to one or another of the opinions expressed. This article deals with the ethics of mass communication when faced with a window of opportunity which allows an easier promotion of ideas or interests, taking into account the theory of life as a spectacle promoted by Erwin Goffman.


Author(s):  
Paulina Czarnek-Wnuk

The media environment is an extremely variable universe where every now and again we can observe the emergence of new phenomena. Many of those form through blending of often rather different and distant areas. As a result, there emerge hybrid forms, which are not entirely established or completely defined. This article is focussed on those kinds of mixed types based on media entertainment, e.g. infotainment, edutainment, politainment, politicotainment, docutainment etc., which can be observed in the means of mass communication. The goal of the study was to define their essence, their distinctive features, and to indicate the place of those hybrid forms within the media discourses being carried on today.


10.28945/2733 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Elizabeth Bezanson ◽  
Kenneth J. Levine ◽  
Susan B. Kretchmer

Information and communication technology has opened up both challenges and opportunities for the process of communication. This is particularly true for communicating effectively and efficiently in the digital age, where unique problems of creation and distortion, especially misinformation and bias, can arise. In addition, the broad diffusion of a communication medium eventually prompts both the public and private sectors to establish mechanisms to regulate that medium under the rubric of the public interest. Sometimes this can happen through self-censorship on the part of the industry, while other times it requires the institution of governmental law and regulation. The emergence of the Internet as a mass communication system has raised questions about how this medium can function to benefit society, as well as concerns about its potential harm. Focusing on the nexus of the process of communication and the limitations and prospects of information technology, this panel explores some of the major concerns of the digital age from a legal and policy perspective. The topics to be covered through interactive discussion include: anonymous speech and cybersmearing; the nature of publication and misinformation; and Internet content filtering, freedom of speech, and intellectual property


Author(s):  
Elena Sergeevna Doroschuk

The article is devoted to identifying the features of using digital technologies in the educational process for training future journalists. Based on the analysis of the educational practice of Russian universities and the theory of digital education, the specifics of creating and applying a digital educational environment in the conditions of training future specialists in the media sphere are determined. The article substantiates the application of a two-stage model of digital education for journalism students based on the principle of a flexible combination of online and offline education based on the educational activity of students.


Babel ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria C. Choy

Abstract Mass communication has become a daily feature of our technological civilisation. This is as true of cross-cultural or intercultural encounters as it is of intra-cultural communication, and mass media have facilitated effective international information flow. Bilingual editing becomes an important medium of mass communication. The effectiveness of such communication rests upon the grammatical, lexical, sociolinguistic, socio-cultural, discourse and strategic competence of participants (editors, writers, translators and readers). It rests upon their ability to use creatively and to respond sensitively to language. In this dynamic process of communication, a bilingual editor not only plays the role of translator but also acts as a mediator; as Hatim and Mason (1990:223) suggest, s/he "has not only a bilingual ability but also a bi-cultural vision". In view of the diversity of usage of bilingual editing in the media, this research delves into the bilingual editing of magazines in Hong Kong. The study focuses on translation only from English and Chinese, or vice versa. Inasmuch as there is very little academic attention to bilingual editing and its nature, processes and techniques, or to the role of translation in bilingual editing, it is believed that this research will help facilitate cross-cultural communication between Westerners and Chinese. Résumé Dans notre civilisation, marquée par le seau de la technologie, la communication de masse relève du quotidien. Cette remarque est valable tant en ce qui concerne les rencontres interculturelles que la communication intraculturelle. De plus, la communication de masse favorise l'échange efficace des informations à l'échelon international. Les publications bilingues sont devenues un important support de la communication de masse. L'efficacité de cette communication repose sur le discours grammatical, lexical, socio-linguistique, socio-culturel et sur la compétence stratégique de ceux qui y participent (rédacteurs, écrivains, traducteurs et lecteurs). Elle repose sur leur faculté d'utiliser le langage avec créativité et d'y réagir avec sensibilité. Dans ce processus de communication dynamique, le rédacteur bilingue joue non seulement le rôle de traducteur mais aussi de médiateur, comme le suggèrent Hatim et Mason (1990:223): il ou elle "dispose non seulement d'une capacité de bilinguisme mais aussi d'une vision biculturelle". Au vu de la diversité d'emploi de la rédaction bilingue dans les médias, cette recherche fouille dans l'univers de l'édition de magazines bilingues à Hong Kong. L'étude se concentre uniquement sur la traduction de l'anglais et du chinois et vice-versa. Dans la mesure où dans les milieux académiques, on attache très peu d'importance à l'édition bilingue, à sa nature, à ses processus et techniques, ou au rôle de la traduction dans le monde de l'édition bilingue, l'auteur estime que cette recherche facilitera la communication interculturelle entre les Occidentaux et les Chinois.


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