A news story as big as a doctoral thesis? : deploying journalistic methodology in academic research

The purpose of this paper is to identify and recommend the emergence of an academic research methodology for Journalism the academic discipline, through reviewing various journalistic methods of research – those making up a key element in such methodology. Its focus is on journalistic styles of work employed in academic contexts especially research on mass media issues. It proposes that channelling such activity into disciplined academic forms will enhance both: allowing the former to provide more durable and deeper outcomes, injecting additional energy and intensity of purpose into the latter. It will briefly consider characteristics of research methodologies and methods, generally; characteristics of the Journalism discipline, and its relationship with mass media industries and professions. The model of journalism used here is the Western liberal stream. A proposition is made, that teaching and research in universities focused on professional preparation of journalists, has developed so that it is a mature academic discipline. Its adherents are for the most part academics with background in journalistic practice, and so able to deploy intellectual skills of journalists, while also accredited with Higher Degrees principally in humanities. Research produced in this discipline area stands to show two characteristics: (a) it employs practices used generally in academic research, e.g. qualitative research methods such as ethnographic studies or participant observation, or review of documents including archived media products, and (b) within such contexts it may use more specifically journalistic techniques, e.g. interviewing styles, reflection on practice of journalism, and in creative practice research, journalistic forms of writing – highlighting journalistic / practitioner capabilities of the author. So the Journalism discipline, as a discipline closely allied to a working profession, is described as one where individual professional skills and background preparation for media work will be applicable to academic research. In this connection the core modus operandi will be the directly research-related practices of: insistent establishment of facts, adept crafting of reportage, and economising well with time. Prospective fields for continuing research are described:- work in new media; closer investigation of relations among media producers and audiences; journalism as creative practice, and general publishing by journalists, e.g. writing histories.

Spatial Science News from QUT, Urban Development, November 2009.

Brief overview of topics/issues of interest end of 2009, including Spatial Science Students undertake Variety of Research Projects; labs and offices on the move again); Congratulations to Surveying Student Project- QSEA awards.

Structuring free-form tagging in online news

Tagging has become one of the key activities in next generation websites which allow users selecting short labels to annotate, manage, and share multimedia information such as photos, videos and bookmarks. Tagging does not require users any prior training before participating in the annotation activities as they can freely choose any terms which best represent the semantic of contents without worrying about any formal structure or ontology. However, the practice of free-form tagging can lead to several problems, such as synonymy, polysemy and ambiguity, which potentially increase the complexity of managing the tags and retrieving information. To solve these problems, this research aims to construct a lightweight indexing scheme to structure tags by identifying and disambiguating the meaning of terms and construct a knowledge base or dictionary. News has been chosen as the primary domain of application to demonstrate the benefits of using structured tags for managing the rapidly changing and dynamic nature of news information. One of the main outcomes of this work is an automatically constructed vocabulary that defines the meaning of each named entity tag, which can be extracted from a news article (including person, location and organisation), based on experts suggestions from major search engines and the knowledge from public database such as Wikipedia. To demonstrate the potential applications of the vocabulary, we have used it to provide more functionalities in an online news website, including topic-based news reading, intuitive tagging, clipping and sharing of interesting news, as well as news filtering or searching based on named entity tags. The evaluation results on the impact of disambiguating tags have shown that the vocabulary can help to significantly improve news searching performance. The preliminary results from our user study have demonstrated that users can benefit from the additional functionalities on the news websites as they are able to retrieve more relevant news, clip and share news with friends and families effectively.

From 'sympathetic' to 'dialogic' imagination : cultural study in the foreign language classroom

This chapter reports on a critical literacy approach to developing intercultural competence in an EFL/ESL classroom: an approach which uses a form of 'connective analysis' between linguacultures leading to productive exploration of the interstices between cultures.

Violence Profiles on International TV News

Journalism has achieved a crucial importance as a social institution linked with the notion of the public interest. It is still doing so but is nevertheless increasingly challenged by getting networked with the interested publics. This becomes more apparent in times when the media repertoires and audiences as such are changing, when the public relies on more than one news source for the transmission and formulation of world events, but when the importance of TV news nevertheless remains relatively stable. Against this backdrop we may ask what publics contribute to or take away from the new plethora of images and stories saturating the media? This article gives an approximate answer by drawing on a comparative analysis of the present-day presentations of violence on British, German, and Russian television news. Violence in the media is not a new phenomenon, as age-old literary masterpieces like Homer’s Odyssey show, but it is still a very popular one, especially in the news. This article highlights trans-national and national elements in the reporting of violence in three different news cultures. At first glance, both the substantial cross-national violence news flow and the cross-national visual violence flow (key visuals) may be interpreted as distinctly trans-national elements. Event-related textual analysis, however, reveals how the historical rootedness of nations and their specific symbols of power are still very much manifested in respective television mediations of violence. In conclusion, this study recommends the pursuit of conscientious comparisons in journalist research and practice in order to understand what violence news convey in the different arenas of present-day newsmaking.

Waking up with friends : breakfast news, Sunrise and the "televisual sphere"

This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is "used" as a news source, and explores its role within the audience’s morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the "Televisual Sphere", it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populist style in pursuit of higher ratings. Because of its success in communicating and connecting with viewers, it may be more constructive to consider Sunrise a very effective form of journalism which has been at the forefront of the recent trend towards increased levels of viewer input in television journalism.

Consumer trends in digital news and information in Australia

We all know that the future of news is digital. But mainstream news providers are still grappling with how to entice more customers to their online sites. This paper provides context for a survey currently underway on user intentions towards online news and entertainment, by exploring: 1. Consumer behaviours and intentions with regards to accessing online news and information; 2. Current trends in the Australian online news and information sector; and 3. Key issues and emerging opportunities in the Australian (and global) environment. Key influences on use of online news and information are pricing and access. The paper highlights emerging technical opportunities and flags service gaps. These gaps include multiple disconnects between: 1. Changing user intentions towards online and location based news (news based on a specific locality as chosen by the user) and information; 2. The ability by consumers to act on these intentions via the availability and cost of technologies; 3. Younger users may prefer entertainment to news, or ‘infotainment’; and 4. Current online offerings of traditional news providers and opportunities. These disconnects present an opportunity for online news suppliers to appraise and resolve. Doing so may enhance their online news and information offering, attract consumers and improve loyalty. Outcomes from this paper will be used to identify knowledge gaps and contribute to the development of further analysis on Australian consumers and their behaviours and intentions towards online news and information. This will be undertaken via focus groups as part of a broader study.

EUAustralia Online : News & Information from the Capitals of Europe to Australia (www.euaustralia.com)

Experimental / pilot online journalistic publication. EUAustralia Online (www.euaustralia.com) is a pilot niche publication identifying and demonstrating dynamics of online journalism. The editor, an experienced and senior journalist and academic, specialist in European studies, commenced publication on 28.8.06 during one year’s “industry immersion” -- with media accreditation to the European Commission, Brussels. Reporting now is from Australia and from Europe on field trip exercises. Student editors participate making it partly a training operation. EUAustralia demonstrates adaptation of conventional, universal, “Western” liberal journalistic practices. Its first premise is to fill a knowledge gap in Australia about the European Union -- institutions, functions and directions. The second premise is to test the communications capacity of the online format, where the publication sets a strong standard of journalistic credibility – hence its transparency with sourcing or signposting of “commentary” or ”opinion”. EUAustralia uses modified, enhanced weblog software allowing for future allocation of closed pages to subscribers. An early exemplar of its kind, with modest upload rate (2010-13 average, 16 postings monthly), esteemed, it commands over 180000 site visits p.a. (half as unique visitors; AWB Statistics); strongly rated by search engines, see page one Googlr placements for “EU Australia”. Comment by the ISP (SeventhVision, Broadbeach, Queensland): “The site has good search engine recognition because seen as credible; can be used to generate revenue”. This journalistic exercise has been analysed in theoretical context twice, in published refereed conference proceedings (Communication and Media Policy Forum, Sydney; 2007, 2009).

Scaffolding an EFL (English as a foreign language) ‘effective writing’ class in a hybrid learning community

This study sought to establish and develop innovative instructional procedures, in which scaffolding can be expanded and applied, in order to enhance learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing skills in an effective hybrid learning community (a combination of face-to-face and online modes of learning) at the university where the researcher is working. Many educational experts still believe that technology has not been harnessed to its potential to meet the new online characteristics and trends. There is also an urgency to reconsider the pedagogical perspectives involved in the utilisation of online learning systems in general and the social interactions within online courses in particular that have been neglected to date. An action research design, conducted in two cycles within a duration of four months, was utilised throughout this study. It was intended not only to achieve a paradigm shift from transmission-absorption to socio-constructivist teaching/learning methodologies but also to inform practice in these technology-rich environments. Five major findings emerged from the study. First, the scaffolding theory has been extended. Two new scaffolding types (i.e., quasi-transcendental scaffolding and transcendental scafolding), two scaffolding aspects (i.e., receptive and productive) and some scaffolding actions (e.g., providing a stimulus, awareness, reminder, or remedy) for EFL writing skills in an effective hybrid learning community have been identified and elaborated on. Second, the EFL ‘Effective Writing’ students used the scaffolds implemented in a hybrid environment to enhance and enrich their learning of writing of English essays. The online activities, conducted after the F2F sessions most of the time, gave students greater opportunities to both reinforce and expand the knowledge they had acquired in the F2F mode. Third, a variety of teaching techniques, different online tasks and discussion topics utilised in the two modes bolstered the students’ interests and engagement in their knowledge construction of how to compose English-language essays. Fourth, through the scaffolded activities, the students learned how to scaffold themselves and thus became independent learners in their future endeavours of constructing knowledge. Fifth, the scaffolding-to-scaffold activities provided the students with knowledge on how to effectively engage in transcendental scaffolding actions and facilitate the learning of English writing skills by less able peers within the learning community. Thus, the findings of this current study extended earlier understandings of scaffolding in an EFL hybrid learning environment and will contribute to the advancement of future ICT-mediated courses in terms of their scaffolding pedagogical aspects.

Election campaigns, and television news coverage : the case of the 2001 Australian election

This paper examines the patterns of television news coverage of the political parties, their leaders and the issues they raised during the 2001 Australian federal election campaign. By focusing on some issues, parties and leaders, television has long been argued to constrain voters' evaluations. We find that television news coverage in the 2001 Australian election campaign focused primarily on international issues, especially terrorism and asylum seekers, and on the two major parties - virtually to the exclusion of coverage of the minor parties and their leaders. Within the major party 'two-horse race', television gave substantially more coverage to the leaders than to the parties themselves, thereby sustaining what some have called a 'presidential'-style political contest. John Howard emerged as the winner in the leaders' stakes, garnering more coverage than Labor's Kim Beazley.

News blogs and citizen journalism : new directions for e-journalism

Even for a casual observer of the journalistic industry it is becoming difficult to escape the conclusion that journalism is entering a time of crisis. At the same time that revenues and readerships for traditional publications from newspapers to broadcast news are declining, journalistic content is being overtaken by a flotilla of alternative options ranging from the news satire of The Daily Show in the United States to the citizen journalism of South Korea’s OhmyNews and a myriad of other news blogs and citizen journalism Websites. Worse still, such new competitors with the products of the journalism industry frequently take professional journalists themselves to task where their standards have appeared to have slipped, and are beginning to match the news industry’s incumbents in terms of insight and informational value: recent studies have shown, for example, that avid Daily Show viewers are as if not better informed about the U.S. political process as those who continue to follow mainstream print or television news (see e.g. Fox et al., 2007). The show’s host Jon Stewart – who has consistently maintained his self-description as a comedian, not a journalist – even took the fight directly to the mainstream with his appearance on CNN’s belligerent talk show Crossfire, repeatedly making the point that the show’s polarised and polarising ‘left vs. right’ format was “hurting” politics in America (the show disappeared from CNN’s line-up a few months after Stewart’s appearance; Stewart, 2004). Similarly, news bloggers and citizen journalists have shown persistence and determination both in uncovering political and other scandals, and in highlighting the shortcomings of professional journalism as it investigates and reports on such scandals.

Foreign wine consumption in Australia : the influence of consumer perceptions to foreign cultures on wine choice

Research has shown that while some people favor foreign- sourced products, others prefer to purchase goods made in their own country. From the perspective of the Australian wine market, consumption of wine has been consistently increasing in recent years. While sales of Australian made wine is booming, sales of imported sources is also increasing in terms of dollar value. This paper examines the effect of consumer ethnocentrism and animosity on willingness to buy foreign wine products, in an effort to better understand the factors involved in the consumer decision making process when purchasing wine products.