Foreign correspondents and fixers: an investigation of teamwork in international television newsgathering

This thesis considers the relationship between television foreign correspondents and their locally-hired 'fixers' in order to ascertain the centrality and significance of this relationship in facilitating international news production. The design of this research project, with its emphasis on news production practice, was guided by scholars in the sociology of news tradition, such as Jeremy Tunstall, Michael Schudson, Stephen Reese, Pamela Shoemaker and Simon Cottle. The main research question asks to what extent, and how, is the relationship between the correspondent and the fixer important to newsgathering? Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu concerning the journalistic field and the acquisition of cultural capital, this research demonstrates how fixers possess vital stores of capital which foreign correspondents borrow in order to be successful in the field. This thesis explores in depth how the players work in tandem to overcome the difficulties posed by multi-skilling, parachuting, instant live reporting, and the 24-hour news cycle. Current newsgathering practice in Iraq is investigated as a case study, which reveals the difficulties of reporting from this dateline and reflects on how the level of danger has changed the nature of the correspondent-fixer relationship. Within this relationship, where a correspondent has the ultimate power to hire and fire, a fixer nonetheless brings significant influence to bear on story generation and story coverage. But does this influence bring into the Western news agenda stories that genuinely reflect localised, indigenous viewpoints? Or, in this globalised world, are fixers simply 'People Like Us' (PLU), who have absorbed Western news values and will reinforce them through the stories that they propose? In other words, are correspondents likely to gain an insight into localised communities and their problems that they might not otherwise have understood, or will they have their own views and presumptions reflected back at them? This thesis examines what the use of fixers reveals about the political economy of news and the changing context of international news production. It asks whether the growing importance of fixers in newsgathering reflects a move by media companies to eventually outsource international newsgathering to local employees. This thesis employs a qualitative methodological approach involving semi-structured interviews with foreign correspondents and fixers to explore their modus operandi and to investigate the building of overseas news teams.

Popular consent and foreign policy choices : war against the Philippines and covert action in Chile

It is usually assumed that US policymakers need to generate popular consent in order to undertake regime change against another state. This article explores the ways in which contextual factors such as the joint democracy effect, popular values and public moods influenced efforts by elites in the United States to generate popular consent for regime change in the Philippines and Chile. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the United States undertook covert action in Chile due to public recognition of the target state's democratic credentials and a public mood opposed to further military ventures. In contrast, the absence of a strong joint democracy effect, a national mood infused with romantic nationalism qua militarism and social Darwinism facilitated efforts by US elites to generate consent for the invasion and occupation of the Philippines. Subsequently, this article contributes to understandings of the domestic-level factors that influence foreign policy decisions.

Consumer-citizens of China : the role of foreign brands in the imagined future China

This book presents a comprehensive examination of Chinese consumer behaviour and challenges the previously dichotomous interpretation of the consumption of Western and non-Western brands in China.

The visitors guide a simple video reuse application

One of the results of the surge in interest in the internet is the great increase in availability of pictorial and video data. Web browsers such as Netscape give access to an enormous range of such data. In order to make use of large amounts of pictorial and video data, it is necessary to develop indexing and retrieval methods. Pictorial databases have made great progress recently, to the extent that there are now a number of commercially available products. Video databases are now being researched and developed from a number of different viewpoints. Given a general indexing scheme for video, the next step is to reuse clips in further applications. In this paper we present an initial application for the reuse of video clips. The aim of the system is to resequence video clips for a particular application. We have chosen a well-constrained application for this purpose, the aim being to produce a video tour of a campus between designated start and destination points from a set of indexed video clips. We use clips of a guide entering and leaving buildings on our campus, and when visitors select a start location and a destination, the system will retrieve clips suitable for guiding the visitor along the correct path. The system uses an index of spatial relationships of key objects for the video clips to decide which clips provide the correct sequence of motion around the campus. Although the full power of the indexing notation is unnecessary for this simple problem, the results from this initial implementation indicate that the concept could be applicable to more complex problems.

Foreign correspondence and fixers : the missing link

Colleen Murrell gives a talk for the Reuters Institute seminar series.

'It's not enough for the work of art to be great' : children and young people as museum visitors

This paper examines trends in the understanding of children as visitors to art and natural history museums. It begins by examining research into the qualities of engagement by museum visitors generally. It then addresses the specific challenges posed by children as visitors, and the responses developed by museums to enhance their engagement. Three strategies are identified: social/family-centred interactivity, immersive experiences and engagement through interpretive dialogue. The three examples of programs of children’s engagement examined in this paper represent a major departure from such models towards a profoundly social form of interaction. The paper argues that these strategies are museums’ responses to shifts in pedagogical theory, and have been developed to increase the engagement of the child-visitor with exhibitions. Such strategies represent a genuine engagement between adults (both museum staff and parents) and children, and an opportunity for children to define the experience of cultural engagement. The consequence of this is a redefinition of the cultural role of museums in relation to children.

Dismantling Baathist Iraq : foreign occupation and cultural destruction

This paper examines the systematic efforts to dismantle or destroy the symbolic dimension of the Baathist regime in Iraq since 2003. It argues that while the Baath were undeniably cruel and oppressive, they did undertake one of the twentieth century’s most robust attempts to utilise the political power of historical memory to create a unified Iraqi national identity. However, while many have examined the militaristic or bureaucratic dimensions of de-Baathification, no such attempts have been made to examine the destruction of the symbols and monuments of the Baathist state and the consequences it has had for Iraqi national identity. This paper addresses this paucity and concludes that with the symbolic destruction of the Baathist state has come a near complete erosion of the Iraqi brand of nationalism that the Baath had managed to promulgate to varying degrees of success since the late 1960s.

Foreign direct investment in the Asia-Pacific region : overview of recent trends and patterns

APEC represents the world's most powerful economies. Although much trade related research has been undertaken on APEC countries, investment in the region is still not well understood. This paper provides an overview of FDI of selected APEC economies. Three main themes emerge from this review. First, APEC economies have experienced phenomenal growth in FDI over the last twenty years although such growth is uneven among countries. Second, FDI appears to shift from the primary sector into the manufacturing and tertiary sectors of the economy as economies grow further. Thus, future FDI in APEC economies will likely be relatively higher in the tertiary sector as the poorer members of APEC continue to grow. Third, FDI is found to contribute positively to economic growth in all economies considered although results show that FDI in the tertiary sector generally leads to higher economic growth.