An ‘Organ of Student Opinion’? Alternative Print, Protest, and the Politics of Education in Salient, 1973-1989

<p>This thesis explores Victoria University of Wellington’s student newspaper, Salient, in the 1970s and 1980s. Salient covered a wide array of issues, performing its role as a campus newspaper while closely engaging with and informing students of wider political issues during a period of significant student protest. As a publication, it consistently and deliberately set itself apart from the mainstream media, a position which placed it alongside other alternative or radical publications. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates that the connections between Salient and the Wellington Marxist-Leninist Organisation (MILO) were profound and enduring in the 1970s, with significant implications for the kinds of analysis and issues that Salient presented to its readers. While individual editors did have unique editorial policies, the nature of Salient’s journalism in the 1970s was notably socialist and activist in its outlook. In the 1980s, while Salient maintained a progressive political outlook, the direct association with MILO (by then the Workers’ Communist League) loosened. The paper’s political content still covered a range of contemporary social issues, and its editors took political stances, but its content was more akin to political commentary than an extension of political activism. The exception was Salient’s opposition to user pays tertiary education, which was seriously considered by David Lange’s Labour Government as part of its neoliberal reforms. As the possibility of a user-pays tertiary education system became more likely, Salient dedicated more space to covering, opposing, and organising action against this disruptive policy which had major implications for its student readership. Salient often did not speak for all students, but provided a platform for alternative analysis of social and political issues, pushing the boundaries of the purpose of student media and its place within the print landscape of New Zealand.</p>

An ‘Organ of Student Opinion’? Alternative Print, Protest, and the Politics of Education in Salient, 1973-1989

<p>This thesis explores Victoria University of Wellington’s student newspaper, Salient, in the 1970s and 1980s. Salient covered a wide array of issues, performing its role as a campus newspaper while closely engaging with and informing students of wider political issues during a period of significant student protest. As a publication, it consistently and deliberately set itself apart from the mainstream media, a position which placed it alongside other alternative or radical publications. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates that the connections between Salient and the Wellington Marxist-Leninist Organisation (MILO) were profound and enduring in the 1970s, with significant implications for the kinds of analysis and issues that Salient presented to its readers. While individual editors did have unique editorial policies, the nature of Salient’s journalism in the 1970s was notably socialist and activist in its outlook. In the 1980s, while Salient maintained a progressive political outlook, the direct association with MILO (by then the Workers’ Communist League) loosened. The paper’s political content still covered a range of contemporary social issues, and its editors took political stances, but its content was more akin to political commentary than an extension of political activism. The exception was Salient’s opposition to user pays tertiary education, which was seriously considered by David Lange’s Labour Government as part of its neoliberal reforms. As the possibility of a user-pays tertiary education system became more likely, Salient dedicated more space to covering, opposing, and organising action against this disruptive policy which had major implications for its student readership. Salient often did not speak for all students, but provided a platform for alternative analysis of social and political issues, pushing the boundaries of the purpose of student media and its place within the print landscape of New Zealand.</p>

“The Paper Is White”: Examining Diversity Issues With the Next Generation of Journalists

Although the lack of diversity in newsrooms and reporting remains a serious issue in the journalism industry, college journalism education and student media provide a critical opportunity for change. Yet prior research has found notable diversity gaps in both. This study analyzed the state of diversity at a Midwestern university student newspaper and found significant gaps in coverage of diverse populations. The findings suggest the need for more comprehensive diversity education within the college classroom and campus media advising. This is important not only for more representative student media, but also for the future of journalism.

Agent of social change : a history of Canadian University Press

Canadian University Press (CUP) is a co-operative national student news group that produces a news service and unites student newspapers across the country. Since its establishment in 1938, CUP has brought campus newspapers from across the country together to share news and information as well as training with one another. From 1965 to 1991 CUP's policies stated that the major role of the student newspaper was to "act as an agent of social change." During this time CUP and its members took on an educative and active political role. Using CUP as a case study of a politically engaged press organization that saw its role as an active participant in the events it reported, this thesis illuminates the factors that can encourage a politically engaged press taking into consideration both theory and practice. This study examines the factors that made it possible for CUP to act as an agent of social change, how that role was interpreted, and the changes that resulted in the organization moving away from that role.

Agent of social change : a history of Canadian University Press

Canadian University Press (CUP) is a co-operative national student news group that produces a news service and unites student newspapers across the country. Since its establishment in 1938, CUP has brought campus newspapers from across the country together to share news and information as well as training with one another. From 1965 to 1991 CUP's policies stated that the major role of the student newspaper was to "act as an agent of social change." During this time CUP and its members took on an educative and active political role. Using CUP as a case study of a politically engaged press organization that saw its role as an active participant in the events it reported, this thesis illuminates the factors that can encourage a politically engaged press taking into consideration both theory and practice. This study examines the factors that made it possible for CUP to act as an agent of social change, how that role was interpreted, and the changes that resulted in the organization moving away from that role.

Defeating the Purpose of Multiculturalism: a Case of Hate on Campus

This paper examines the student newspaper at two Toronto universities: Ryerson university and York university to uncover the manifestation of hate motivated activity on campus. The findings capture a striking contradiction between an articulated understanding of official multiculturalism in Canada and the reality of persistent and pervasive hate activity on campus. I argue that hate motivated activity impacts the social processes of exclusion for racialized students in Toronto universities. Using a social exclusion framework I examine how the nature and extent of hate motivated activity materialize as a means of constructing the ‘Other’ within university spaces. Moreover, these systems of meaning support patterns of domination and exclusion, all the while exposing the fallacy multiculturalism in Canada. In order to bring this to light, this study re-conceptualizes, contextualized and problematizes hate activity in the Canadian context, specifically in relation to the university.

Defeating the Purpose of Multiculturalism: a Case of Hate on Campus

This paper examines the student newspaper at two Toronto universities: Ryerson university and York university to uncover the manifestation of hate motivated activity on campus. The findings capture a striking contradiction between an articulated understanding of official multiculturalism in Canada and the reality of persistent and pervasive hate activity on campus. I argue that hate motivated activity impacts the social processes of exclusion for racialized students in Toronto universities. Using a social exclusion framework I examine how the nature and extent of hate motivated activity materialize as a means of constructing the ‘Other’ within university spaces. Moreover, these systems of meaning support patterns of domination and exclusion, all the while exposing the fallacy multiculturalism in Canada. In order to bring this to light, this study re-conceptualizes, contextualized and problematizes hate activity in the Canadian context, specifically in relation to the university.

Teaching Jack Kerouac in a Decolonizing South African University

Eric Strand addresses his experiences as a white, male American professor teaching Jack Kerouac’s On the Road at the University of Cape Town in South Africa during the Rhodes Must Fall student movement, c 2015. Integrating excerpts from student essays in his classes and from the univeristy’s student newspaper, the essay reveals complex racial, gender, and class-based interpretations of the novel, all advising against narrow and stereotypic predications of reader responses to the novel.

The Why of Education

What do we hope for when we send children to school? This is the question Martin Luther King, Jr. posed in an essay entitled “The Purpose of Education,” published in the Morehouse student newspaper around the time of his 18th birthday. King's answer: “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” But what, then, is character? This is the question child psychologist Diana Baumrind addressed, toward the end of an illustrious career, in an essay entitled “Reflections on Character and Competence.” Character, Baumrind writes, “provides the structure of internal law that governs inner thoughts and volitions subject to the agent's control under the jurisdiction of conscience.”