Good Practice in EU Public Service Media and Contemporary Practice in Jordan: A Comparative Analysis

UNESCO Amman Office Foreword: UNESCO Amman office is pleased to publish a comparative analysis between good Public Service Media (PSM) practices in Europe and the contemporary practice in Jordan. The study is part of the Support to Media in Jordan project, funded by the European Union, aiming to increase media freedom, media independence and journalistic professionalism in Jordan. The state owned broadcaster, Jordan Radio and Television (JRTV), has informed, entertained and educated Jordanians for decades. JRTV reaches almost every corner of the Kingdom and has the potential to serve all Jordanians with balanced, impartial and accurate news and programmes relevant to their day-to-day lives.Based on this potential there has been a long standing ambition to transform the JRTV from a state broadcaster to a public service broadcaster; from a TV and radio that predominately serves the state, to a broadcaster that serves the public and is independent from the Government of the day. This ambition is expressed also in the Support to Media in Jordan project, agreed between the Government an the EU, under which UNESCO has been asked to produce two studies: The comparative PSM analysis and a broader media landscape assessment based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators (MDI’s). The Jordanian MDI assessment was carried out by a team of national and international researchers during the first six months of 2015, and builds on the rich flora of recent studies on the Jordanian media landscape, as well as on original research. The study is available in Arabic and English. Professor Naomi Sakr carried out the comparative PSM analysis parallel to the MDI study, and in close cooperation with the MDI research team and UNESCO Amman office.

Rethinking Professional Practice: The Logic of Competition and the Crisis of Identity in Housing Practice

The relationship between professionalism, education and housing practice has become increasingly strained following the introduction of austerity measures and welfare reforms across a range of countries. Focusing on the development of UK housing practice, this article considers how notions of professionalism are being reshaped within the context of welfare retrenchment and how emerging tensions have both affected the identity of housing professionals and impacted on the delivery of training and education programmes. The article analyses the changing knowledges and skills valued in contemporary housing practice and considers how the sector has responded to the challenges of austerity. The central argument is that a dominant logic of competition has culminated in a crisis of identity for the sector. Although the focus of the article is on UK housing practice, the processes identified have a wider relevance for the analysis of housing and welfare delivery in developed economies.

Re-modelling clay: ceramic practice and the museum in Britain (1970-2014)

This thesis analyses how the dialogue between ceramic practice and museum practice has contributed to the discourse on ceramics. Taking Mieke Bal’s theory of exposition as a starting point, it explores how ‘gestures of showing’ have been used to frame art‑oriented ceramic practice. Examining the gaps between the statements these gestures have made about and through ceramics, and the objects they seek to expose, it challenges the idea that ceramics as a category of artistic practice has ‘expanded.’ Instead, it forwards the idea that ceramics is an integrative practice, through which practitioners produce works that can be read within a range of artistic (and non-artistic) frameworks. Focusing on activity in British museums between 1970 and 2014, it takes a thematic and broadly chronological approach, interrogating the interrelationship of ceramic practice, museum practice and political and critical shifts at different points in time. Revealing an ambiguity at the core of the category ‘ceramics,’ it outlines numerous instances in which ‘gestures of showing’ have brought the logic of this categorisation into question, only to be returned to the discourse on ‘ceramics’ as a distinct category through acts of institutional recuperation. Suggesting that ceramics practitioners who wish to move beyond this category need to make their vitae as dialogic as their works, it indicates that many of those trying to raise the profile of ‘ceramics’ have also been complicit in separating it from broader artistic practice. Acknowledging that those working within institutions that sustain this distinction are likely to re-make, rather than reconsider ceramics, it leaves the ball in their court.