New technologies and journalism practice in Nigeria and Ghana

New technologies are generally perceived as the basic tool for survival in modern society. But the extent of their availability and use, as well as their impact on newspaper journalism practice in West Africa is unknown. This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the impact of new technologies on newspaper journalism practice in two West African countries — Nigeria and Ghana. The study, conducted in five newspapers in the two countries, found that, although a majority of the journalists believed the new technologies have improved the quality of their newspapers, fewer than half of the journalists were unimpressed with the level of the technologies available to them in the performance of their duties.

The effect of provocation in the form of mild erotica on attitude to the ad and corporate image: Differences between cause-related and product-based advertising

Provocative advertising is characterized by a deliberate attempt to gain attention through shock. This research investigates the reactions of individuals to a provocative appeal for a cause as opposed to a provocative advertisement for a standard consumer product, using mild erotica as the element of provocative imagery. An experiment using 391 adult subjects was conducted, and two analyses were performed. The first examined the effect of stimulus type (mildly erotic/nonerotic) by product category (cause appeal/consumer product) on attitude to the ad. The second examined the effect of stimulus type (mildly erotic/nonerotic) by cause (AIDS [acquired immunodeficiency syndrome]/SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome]) on corporate image. Both analyses also included gender as a third independent variable. The results suggest that people prefer mildly erotic ads generally, that an organization using mild erotica in appeals for a cause will be viewed more favorably where the erotica is congruent with the cause, and that women may be more responsive to mild erotica in cause appeals than are men.

Unfreezing the frame: Functional fram analysis for journalists and journalism students

This paper presents two case studies that suggest, in different but complementary ways, that the critical tool of frame analysis (Entman, 2002) has a place not only in the analytical environments of critical media research and media studies classes, where it is commonly found, but also in the media-production oriented environments of skills-based journalism training and even the newsroom. The expectations and constraints of both the latter environments, however, necessitate forms of frame analysis that are quick and simple. While commercial pressures mean newsrooms and skills-based journalism-training environments are likely to allow only an oversimplified approach to frame analysis, we argue that even a simple understanding and analysis at the production end could help to shift framing in ways that not only improve the quality and depth of Australasian newspapers' news coverage, but increase reader satisfaction with media output.