WikiLeaks, journalism and the consequences of chaos

This article considers the impact of the WikiLeaks organisation in relation to debates around the defence of national security and free speech, global media citizenship and the emerging dynamics of the global public sphere. Building on the author���s previous work on political communication, journalism and ���cultural chaos���, it explores the implications of WikiLeaks for emerging conceptions and definitions of journalism, and for the changing structure of media���politics power relations at the global level, against the background of three trends: democratisation, declining deference and digitalisation.

The Committee on Public Information : a transmedia war propaganda campaign

This article summarises a PhD dissertation of the same name. It develops an understanding of how propaganda entered journalism and popular culture in the United States during World War I through an examination of materials created by the Committee on Public Information (CPI). Three CPI divisions were studied: The Division of News, the Four Minute Men, and the Division of Pictorial Publicity. The methodology of archival contextualisation was created, bringing together the methods of close reading, discourse-historical contextualisation, and Piercian semiotics. A summary of relevant literature is interspersed with thematic historical developments that impacted the relationship between propaganda, journalism and popular culture. This review outlines a gap in knowledge about the archival materials as well as the relationship between propaganda, journalism and popular culture from this period. A discussion about how the expectations of persuasion, truth and amusement relate to each other when mediated in culture, using Lotman���s concept of the semiosphere further develops an understanding of propaganda as a cultural system in relation to other cultural systems ��� in this case, journalism and popular culture. Findings from the study include that the CPI created a transmedia war propaganda campaign, which enabled propaganda to successfully draw entertainment value from popular culture and credibility from journalism in order to influence public opinion.

Digital futures for cultural and media studies

An ambitious rendering of the digital future from a pioneer of media and cultural studies, a wise and witty take on a changing field, and our orientation to it Investigates the uses of multimedia by creative and productive citizen-consumers to provide new theories of communication that accommodate social media, participatory action, and user-creativity Leads the way for new interdisciplinary engagement with systems thinking, complexity and evolutionary sciences, and the convergence of cultural and economic values Analyzes the historical uses of multimedia from print, through broadcasting to the internet Combines conceptual innovation with historical erudition to present a high-level synthesis of ideas and detailed analysis of emergent forms and practices Features an international focus and global reach to provide a basis for students and researchers seeking broader perspectives

New discursive configurations of journalism : Narratives in Rio de Janeiro's favelas [Novas configura����es discursivas no jornalismo: narrativas digitais nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro]

Oprincipal objetivo desse artigo �� apresentar os resultados parciais de uma pesquisa em andamento sobre o processo de produ����o de conte��do do portal Viva Favela, um dos projetos sociais realizados pela organiza����o n��ogovernamental Viva Rio. Partindo de uma abordagem conceitual que discute os modos pelos quais a m��dia alternativa e o jornalismo p��blico/jornalismo c��vico criam as condi����es de possibilidade para que uma determinada pr��tica jornal��stica d�� ���voz��� e ���empodere��� (empower) moradores de periferias e favelas brasileiras, estamos realizando um estudo das rotinas produtivas do Viva Favela e seus ���correspondentes comunit��rios���. O conceito sobre voice, de Jo Tacchi, oferece-nos um embasamento te��rico adequado para refletirmos sobre o que vem sendo denominado, nos Estados Unidos, de digital storytelling ��� as narrativas digitais produzidas com as tecnologias de informa����o e comunica����o para ���contar est��rias��� 1, que s��o criativamente apropriadas, no Brasil, por moradores das favelas e periferias das regi��es metropolitanas.

Happenings and sensational journalism [O acontecimento e o sensacional no jornalismo]

EM artigo anteriormente publicado (AGUIAR, 2008a), conclu��mos que as cr��ticas elaboradas por certos autores (SOUSA, 2000; KURTZ, 1993; MARSHALL, 2003; MARCONDES FILHO, 1988), ao classificarem um determinado modo de jornalismo como sensacionalista, parecem querer opor uma imagin��ria constitui����o democr��tica do espa��o p��blico e da cultura leg��tima a uma suposta disfun����o narcotizante do entretenimento, que promoveria o conformismo social e refor��aria as normas sociais. O jornalismo sensacionalista, nesse entendimento, veicularia apenas a ampla trivialidade e o excesso de divers��o estaria ���matando��� os ideais iluministas da sociedade moderna, tal como aposta Postman (1986). Entretanto, pode-se ver nestas cr��ticas aquilo que Edgar Morin define, ao estudar cultura de lazer, como a m�� impress��o causada pelo divertimento e pela evas��o aos ���moralistas dessa confedera����o helv��tica do esp��rito que s��o as letras e a universidade��� (MORIN, 2002).

Non-rhetorical journalism? A case study of Absudo [Jornalismo (n��o) ret��rico? Um estudo de caso sobre o Abusado]

Resumo: A proposta do artigo �� discutir a possibilidade de um jornalismo n��o-ret��rico, pelo vi��s do acontecer po��tico, no romance-reportagem Abusado: o dono do morro Dona Marta, do jornalista Caco Barcellos. Retoma, nesse empreendimento, a reflex��o do fil��sofo Michel Foucault sobre a constru����o discursiva da figura do delinquente. Com isso, a constru����o biogr��fica do traficante M��rcio Amaro de Oliveira aparece como imagem-quest��o, anunciadora de novas perguntas e inquieta����es sobre a realidade da favela da Santa Marta, ao inv��s de uma simples constru����o discursiva sobre o real.

Classification���Content Regulation and Convergent Media

On 24 March 2011, Attorney-General Robert McClelland referred the National Classification Scheme to the ALRC and asked it to conduct widespread public consultation across the community and industry. The review considered issues including: existing Commonwealth, State and Territory classification laws the current classification categories contained in the Classification Act, Code and Guidelines the rapid pace of technological change the need to improve classification information available to the community the effect of media on children and the desirability of a strong content and distribution industry in Australia. During the inquiry, the ALRC conducted face-to-face consultations with stakeholders, hosted two online discussion forums, and commissioned pilot community and reference group forums into community attitudes to higher level media content. The ALRC published two consultation documents���an Issues Paper and a Discussion Paper���and invited submissions from the public. The Final Report was tabled in Parliament on 1 March 2012. Recommendations: The report makes 57 recommendations for reform. The net effect of the recommendations would be the establishment of a new National Classification Scheme that: applies consistent rules to content that are sufficiently flexible to be adaptive to technological change; places a regulatory focus on restricting access to adult content, helping to promote cyber-safety and protect children from inappropriate content across media platforms; retains the Classification Board as an independent classification decision maker with an essential role in setting benchmarks; promotes industry co-regulation, encouraging greater industry content classification, with government regulation more directly focused on content of higher community concern; provides for pragmatic regulatory oversight, to meet community expectations and safeguard community standards; reduces the overall regulatory burden on media content industries while ensuring that content obligations are focused on what Australians most expect to be classified; and harmonises classification laws across Australia, for the benefit of consumers and content providers.

The new normativity : the innovation imperative

At a quite fundamental level, the very way in which Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) may envisage its future usually captured in the semantic shift from PSB to Public Service Media (PSM) is at stake when considering the recent history of public value discourse and the public value test. The core Reithian PSB idea assumed that public value would be created through the application of core principles of universality of availability and appeal, provision for minorities, education of the public, distance from vested interests, quality programming standards, program maker independence, and fostering of national culture and the public sphere. On the other hand, the philosophical import of the public value test is that potentially any excursion into the provision of new media services needs to be justified ex ante. In this era of New Public Management, greater transparency and accountability, and the proposition that resources for public value deliverables be contestable and not sequestered in public sector institutions, what might be the new Archimedean point around which a contemporised normativity for PSM be built? This paper will argue for the innovation imperative as an organising principle for contemporary PSM. This may appear counterintuitive, as it is precisely PSB���s predilection for innovating in new media services (in online, mobile, and social media) that has produced the constraining apparatus of the ex ante/public value/Drei-Stufen-Test in Europe, based on principles of competitive neutrality and transparency in the application of public funds for defined and limited public benefit. However, I argue that a commitment to innovation can define as complementary to, rather than as competitive ���crowding out���, the new products and services that PSM can, and should, be delivering into a post-scarcity, superabundant all-media marketplace. The evidence presented in this paper for this argument is derived mostly from analysis of PSM in the Australian media ecology. While no PSB outside Europe is subject to a formal public value test, the crowding out arguments are certainly run in Australia, particularly by powerful commercial interests for whom free news is a threat to monetising quality news journalism. Take right wing opinion leader, herself a former ABC Board member, Judith Sloan: ������ the recent expansive nature of the ABC ��� all those television stations, radio stations and online offerings ��� is actually squeezing activity that would otherwise be undertaken by the private sector. From partly correcting market failure, the ABC is now causing it. We are now dealing with a case of unfair competition and wasted taxpayer funds��� (The Drum, 1 August http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2818220.html). But I argue that the crowding out argument is difficult to sustain in Australia because of the PSB���s non-dominant position and the fact that much of innovation generated by the two PSBs, the ABC and the SBS, has not been imitated by or competed for by the commercials. The paper will bring cases forward, such as SBS��� Go Back to Where you Came From (2011) as an example of product innovation, and a case study of process and organisational innovation which also has resulted in specific product and service innovation ��� the ABC���s Innovation Unit. In summary, at least some of the old Reithian dicta, along with spectrum scarcity and market failure arguments, have faded or are fading. Contemporary PSM need to justify their role in the system, and to society, in terms of innovation.

Teaching journalism students how to tell Indigenous stories in an informed way : a work integrated learning approach

Australian journalism schools are full of students who have never met an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island person and who do not know their history. Journalism educators are ill-equipped to redress this imbalance as a large majority are themselves non-Indigenous and many have had little or no experience with the coverage of Indigenous issues or knowledge of Indigenous affairs. Such a situation calls for educational approaches that can overcome these disadvantages and empower journalism graduates to move beyond the stereotypes that characterize the representation of Indigenous people in the mainstream media. This article will explore three different courses in three Australian tertiary journalism education institutions, which use Work-Integrated Learning Approaches to instil the cultural competencies necessary to encourage a more informed reporting of Indigenous issues. The findings from the three projects illustrate the importance of adopting a collaborative approach by industry, the Indigenous community and educators to encourage students��� commitment to quality journalism practices when covering Indigenous issues.

Fever pitch

Queensland Theatre Company's season-opening production is a double bill: two one-person plays, two hours to pitch them and two dynamic actors (Hugh Parker and Barbara Lowing). Peter Houghton's works The Pitch and The China Incident caper somewhere in between stand-up comedy and Yes, Prime Minister. Both plays are about "double guessing the bullshit'', in the frenzied worlds of two success compulsives: Walter and Bea.