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.

Media, 'Madness' and Ethical Journalism

This article analyses the way newspapers and journalists sometimes fail to acknowledge and resolve some of the contentious ethical dilemmas associated with reporting news. Its focus is on not exploiting and vilifying the vulnerable, especially people with mental illness, through sensationalism and inaccurate and imprecise use of medical terminology such as "psycho ". "schizo" or "lunatic ". Because ethics is central to our understanding of professionalism, this article uses professions and professionalism as benchmarks aginst which to analyse and critique how journalists and newspapers define and report news.Sometimes journalists fail the test of good ethical practice in terms of negative. outdated and inaccurate expressions they use in the news stories they report. Likewise, regulators of news industry standards appear not to recognize and sanction such reporting. The apparent inability to resolve these ethical dilemmas creates a context conducive to tolerance for, not acceptance of. unethical news reporting.

Astronauts as Audiences: Characteristics of the First Space Communities

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) publishes data (2003) which includes the name, gender, town of birth, education and some interests of almost every astronaut who has been launched into space by the dominant space explorer, the United States. This list identifies astronauts form the United States, the former USSR and its subsequently independent states, Europe, Australia and Asian participants. Our analysis of this data, we suggest, revealed the most likely characteristics of the members of the first communities in space. This led us to think about these communities as "audiences," just as earthbound communities have been grouped into audience, or "market," segments by media companies.

Enhancing Life in the Hyper-surveillance Mini-world of a Space Station: The Role of Situation Awareness, Communication, and Reality TV in the Life of Astronauts

This is the third article of a series entitled Astronauts as Audiences. In this article, we investigate the roles that situation awareness (SA), communications, and reality TV (including media communications) might have on the lives of astronauts in remote space communities. We examined primary data about astronauts’ living and working environments, applicable theories of SA, communications, and reality TV (including media communications). We then surmised that the collective application of these roles might be a means of enhancing the lives of astronauts in remote space communities.

Two Australian islander communitities as audiences, and their news needs

Many of the 8000 mapped islands within the Australian Exclusive Economic zone are home to full-time but small communities, and many in the far north are home to relatively large Indigenous communities. But small remote communities such as on these islands, and individuals within those communities, become isolated because conventional news media providers regard them as unviable markets. Community development is at risk in such apparently unviable news media markets because individuals an lose touch with each other, others in the community and those in the "outside world".

In journalism, we are all men: material voices in the production of gender meanings

This study uses qualitative data to examine how male and female professionals in newsrooms experience and vocalize gender both in their lifeworlds and in media production in general. The research was based on semi-structured interviews with 18 Portuguese journalists. The responses were analysed through phenomenological and feminist lenses and indicated the issues men and women considered salient or negligible within our realms of inquiry. The study used the lived experience of the media professionals to identify two clusters of meaning that help explain how material practices and norms in journalism are lived and understood in the newsroom: gender views in journalism and gender differences in day-to-day professional life. Overall, the findings confirm that organizational factors and the traditional gender system play important roles in journalists’ attitudes and perceptions about the role of gender in their work. The results are significant because they show how gender is simultaneously embodied and denied by both female and male journalists in a process of phenomenological “typification” and adoption of a “natural attitude” towards the gender system that may prevent the disclosure of new possibilities and understandings of the objective social world and of our gender relations.

Re-assessing the 'public's right to know' - the shift from journalism to political PR

El debate sobre las leyes de medios en Ecuador y Argentina: un análisis a dos periódicos colombianos 2009-2013

Este trabajo de grado estudia el modo como dos diarios colombianos, El Tiempo y El Espectador, presentaron la información sobre el debate de “Leyes de medios” en Ecuador y Argentina, desarrollado en los años recientes. El estudio analizó las noticias, columnas, editoriales, reportajes y entrevistas publicados desde el año 2009 (cuando se generalizó el debate) hasta 2013. La metodología facilitó el análisis comparativo de los dos periódicos y de sus posturas frente al debate de las leyes de medios. Se argumenta que los medios, como actores principales del debate, han tomado partido, en sus páginas editoriales e informativas, en contra de las políticas que buscan regular su actividad. Así, existe una persistencia en la prensa para imponer discursos con una ideología específica a través de los actores que son presentados en la construcción de los relatos, en este caso, dispuestos a contrariar la aprobación de las leyes de medios propuestas por el gobierno argentino y ecuatoriano. Se evidencia en el marco interpretativo de los textos periodísticos analizados, la guerra de poderes en países de la región latinoamericana que persiste entre los medios y los gobiernos.

The Agendas of The Stream

The new tech has introduced the traits of the hypermedia, interactivity and convergence in the journalism field. Moreover, it has involved the emergence of new media and changes in the informative contents. In 2006 Al Jazeera in English was created for covering the underreported regions, inasmuch as new media arise, new contents do so, thus, the research examines the agendas of The Stream, the TV show from Al Jazeera that relies heavily on social networks.

Debate sobre política de drogas a través de la opinión en cuatro medios colombianos (2009-2013)

Este trabajo de grado aborda la contribución del periodismo en la configuración del debate en Colombia sobre política de drogas, a través de un análisis de contenido a las columnas y editoriales publicadas entre 2009 y 2013 en cuatro medios de referencia del país. Se identificaron los perfiles de quienes participaron, los argumentos y las políticas defendidas que plantearon, y la manera como presentaron sus opiniones en El Espectador, El Tiempo, La Silla Vacía y Semana. El desarrollo de la discusión en los textos demuestra una evolución respecto al tema en la medida que hay una transformación del paradigma punitivo hacia un camino menos restrictivo frente a la producción, el tráfico y consumo de drogas ilícitas. Se sugiere que los hechos coyunturales motivaron en parte dicho cambio al ejercer influencia en los giros y la visibilidad que toma el debate dentro de la prensa.

Discurso y política sobre procesos de Desarme, Desmovilización y Reintegración en Bogotá: La representación de los desmovilizados en el diario El Tiempo (2005 - 2010)

Los procesos de Desarme, Desmovilización y Reintegración (DDR) han sido tema central en la agenda pública y la forma en que los medios nos presentan a los diferentes protagonistas del conflicto, nos ha acercado a ellos y a la realidad de ese fenómeno desde una mirada en particular. En esta monografía se analiza la representación discursiva construida por el diario El Tiempo sobre procesos de DDR y sus actores protagónicos, los desmovilizados, en la ciudad de Bogotá, entre 2005 y 2010; a lo largo del texto se reflexiona sobre la influencia que puede tener el discurso de los medios de comunicación en la manera que la sociedad podría ver y responder a ese grupo social que busca reintegrarse a la vida civil. El trabajo se realiza a través de un análisis del discurso, en este caso, del discurso periodístico emitido por el diario El Tiempo y se abordan elementos de la teoría del pánico moral. La llegada constante y creciente de desmovilizados a la capital del país conllevó a que el trato que debía dársele a la situación hiciera parte de diferentes discursos políticos y mediáticos; por tanto, el discurso del diario se contrasta con la política local de atención a desmovilizados, específicamente con el "Programa de Atención al Proceso de Desmovilización y Reintegración en Bogotá (PAPDRB)", a fin de diferenciar el tratamiento que le dieron al fenómeno.