Journalism education 'down under' : a tale of two paradigms

Journalism studies is currently undergoing one of the periodic renovations that is characteristic of an active and diverse community of scholars. This paper examines aspects of this renewal debate among journalism scholars by focusing on the situation in Australia and New Zealand. It argues that the debate ‘‘Down Under’’ mirrors global differences on the issues of ‘‘theory’’ and ‘‘practice’’ in journalism education and that an understanding of the key fault lines in this context can provide useful insights into the wider arguments. In Australia and New Zealand a key area of discussion is around attitudes towards the concept of professionalism in the practice, training and scholarship of journalism. These tensions are apparent in both the news media and in the academy. The contradictory positions of those who favour greater industry involvement in curriculum matters, including accreditation of courses, and those who are less sanguine about the normative influence of industry on critical scholarship are explored in relation to differing attitudes to professionalism and the political economy of news production. The paper concludes that rather than pegging the debate to an unstable definition of professionalism, journalism educators should instead focus more on journalism scholarship founded on a political economy approach.

Ethical martini: the home of media ethics and martinis

This is a blog about media ethics and journalism / journalists, with the aim of being a tool for students, media consumers and journalists or other newsworkers.

Packaged good : responses from Australian journalism educators on the Reporting Diversity project

The Reporting Diversity Project provides teaching materials on reporting cultural diversity for journalism educators and university students. This article reports the findings from a survey designed to gauge journalism educators' awareness of the online curriculum resources and their views on the usefulness of these materials. The survey was also used to capture journalism academics' views on educational resources produced with government support. This article includes the findings from a series of trials of the Reporting Diversity teaching resources with a small cohort of academics from throughout Australia. It includes their evaluation of the resources and reveals ways in which the modules are being used and adapted for different classroom settings.

The pillory effect : media, the courts and the punitive role of public shaming in Australia

Public shaming and humiliation have been used across cultures for centuries to punish offenders and define the boundaries of acceptable behaviour for communities. This article argues that since court-imposed shaming sanctions were phased out in Australia, the news media has assumed responsibility for performing this cultural practice. Through critical engagement with some of the research literature on shaming, the historical shift to the media as the modern pillory is explored. This article looks beyond the doctrine of open justice, which assigns the news media a dual role as a watchdog against injustice and a conduit between the courts and the public, to consider its role in shaming and suggest this role continues to evolve in a changing media landscape.

The personal selling and sales management ethics research : managerial implications and research directions from a comprehensive review of the empirical literature

Research into ethics in personal selling and sales management has increased substantially over the preceding decade by investigating complex dimensions of ethical decision-making in greater depth and with more analytical sophistication. This review of the recent conceptual and empirical literature provides insight into the extent and the direction of this knowledge, recommends managerial action, and discusses areas for future exploration. Future direction is also provided through research propositions. The type of sales practitioner investigated, the main variables examined, and the key findings are summarized in an Appendix.

Second city syndrome : media reportage of urban rankings

This paper investigates the popularly reported phenomenon of city rankings and, in particular, the category of the ‘second city’ that regularly features as part of this prolific evaluative discourse. Our paper proposes that the category ‘second city’ has a specific analytical value that has to date been underestimated in academic accounts (particularly in the confusing, interchangeable use of ‘second-tier’, ‘secondary’ and ‘second cities’ in the dominant urban studies literature). Instead, we are interested in how second city identifications permeate popular forms of urban comparison in some places.

The example of Melbourne (Australia) is used to investigate how second city identities are historically sustained through evaluative media representations. In particular we examine how, through their reportage of various world city rankings, metropolitan newspapers reveal and articulate a ‘second city consciousness’. How do media institutions, and more specifically, media reports, frame these urban rankings in such a way to confirm Melbourne’s similarity to other globalised places (i.e. proposing its status as a ‘world city’), yet also as a city also marked by a particular historical specificity? And how do they draw on already existing popular and political traditions of urban comparison? This article will identify and analyse the role of newspapers in perpetuating both formal and informal urban comparisons.

Learning in both worlds : academic journalism as a research outcome

Works of journalism by journalism academics can be valuable outcomes of research without making the claim that they are scholarly works per se. In the discussion of the feature article Learning in both worlds that follows, I make a case for the importance of writing and publishing this piece of journalism as an outcome of my research on the interplay of news media and bilingual education policy in Australia’s Northern Territory 1988-2008. I also advocate the ‘experimental’ possibilities such works of journalism offer for ‘testing’ research findings, concepts and theories.

Identity and self-presentation : from a representational to a performative lens in studying social media engagement in organisations

Social media make fast inroads into organisations. This raises issues regarding self-presentation and locating experts in these new emerging communication spaces, as the basis for effective social media-enabled knowledge work. However, research on self-presentation and identity in organisational social media is only just emerging and has been founded on broader understandings from studies of public social media. In this literature study we demonstrate that the existing body of research on identity in social media is dominated by a ‘representational lens’. Based on an analysis of the historic foundations of this stream of research, we will expose limitations of this lens in capturing contemporary engagement in online spaces and advocate for a ‘performative lens’ in studying identity work in organisations. We contribute a detailed exposition of the evolution of identity studies in the context of public social media, and we offer an alternative lens for studying the topic in organisational contexts.

Potentials of social media for tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians : preliminary findings

Tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians, such as the sharing of clinical experiences, skills, or know-how, or know-whom, is known to have a significant impact on the quality of medical diagnosis and decisions. This paper posits that social media can provide new opportunities for tacit knowledge sharing amongst physicians, and demonstrates this by presenting findings from a review of relevant literature and a survey conducted with physicians. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten physicians from around the world who were active users of social media. Initial thematic analysis revealed eight themes as potential contributions of social web tools to facilitate tacit knowledge flow amongst physicians. The emergent themes are defined, linked to the literature, and supported by instances of interview transcripts. Findings presented here are preliminary, and final results will be reported after accomplishing all phases of data collection and analysis.

Bilingual education and the language of news

This paper presents evidence that shows for the first time that news media influence was a significant factor in the decision to dismantle the Northern Territory’s bilingual education policy in 2008. It identifies and discusses five media-related overlays that have affected public discussion and policymaking during the life of the policy. They include the media’s role in informing public understanding of the policy; media representation of Indigenous peoples and issues; the relationship between policymaking and journalism in general; neo-liberal discourses about education, especially literacy; and the reporting practices of journalists who have covered the issue. It draws on relevant literature, the history of the policy and interviews conducted for the Australian News Media and Indigenous Policymaking 1988-2008 ARC Discovery Project to interpret some of the connections and disconnections between these overlays and bilingual education policy. This analysis suggests that the news media exerted a complex and uneven range of influences on the 2008 decision to dismantle Australia’s first and most enduring policy of Indigenous self-determination.