Newspapers can be fun!

Hats off to the one who has given us the following. Read and circulate. It is fun.

dilip c

Admission to PhD, Graduate and Post-graduate courses in Kushabhau Thakre University Raipur

Kushabhau Thakre Patrakarita Avam Jansanchar Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, has invited applications for admission to Ph.D. (Mass Communication), M Phil (Mass Communication & Media Studies) , PG courses in  Mass Communication, Journalism, Electronic Media, Advt & PR, Media Management and MSW and several media related PG Diploma courses. Candidates can see the advt at (www.ktujm.ac.in) and apply on-line. 

For details, pl contact:

Rajendra Mohanty
Assistant Professor, Mass Communication & In-Charge, admission 
Kushabhau Thakre Patrakarita Avam Jansanchar Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh
Cell: 9425520352

Admission to Master's in Mass Communication in Solapur University

पत्रकारिता अभ्यासक्रम प्रवेश
सोलापूर विदयापीठाच्या एम.ए. मास कम्युनिकेशन या पत्रकारितेच्या अभ्यासक्रमाच्या प्रवेश परीक्षेसाठी अर्ज भरण्याची प्रक्रीया सुरु झाली आहे. लेखन, वाचण्याची आवड असणार्‍या व पत्रकारितेत करिअर करण्याची इच्छा असणार्‍यांना या अभ्यासक्रमास प्रवेश घेता येईल. कोणत्याही शाखेच्या पदवीधर विदयार्थ्यास या अभ्यासक्रमास प्रवेश घेता येईल.पदवी तृतीय वष्‍॒ परीक्षेचा अदयाप निकाल लागला नसेल तरीही अर्ज करता येईल .अर्ज ऑनलाईन भरण्यची अंतिम मुदत 30 मे आहे . अधिक माहितीसाठी मला 9860091855 या मोबाईल क्रमांकावर संपर्क करु शकता.प्रवेश प्रक्रीयेचा सर्व तपशील विद्यापीठाच्या वेबसाईटवर खालील लिंकवर उपलब्ध आहे
http://oasis.mkcl.org/supg/StaticPages/HomePage.aspx?did=8

..:: Solapur University, Solapur ::..

oasis.mkcl.org

A foreigner as chief content and editorial officer of Hindustan Times

The editor of the Mail and Guardian in South Africa Nic Dawes is joining the Hindustan Times as 'chief content and editorial officer'. That's a new designation in the Indian print media universe and probably indicates a multimedia role. 
Source: http://thehoot.org/web/New-designation/6795-1-1-32-true.html 

SWAMY AGAINST THE HINDU

POSTED BY SOMI DAS | MAY 10, 2013

Congress President Sonia Gandhi is not the only “non-Indian” who Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy is trying to get ousted from her post. He now wants the appointment of – to quote him – an “anti-nation Naxalite” declared null and void as the editor of an esteemed newspaper. And no, the person concerned doesn’t live in Jangalmahal or Gadchiroli district. His official address is Kasturi Building, Anna Salai, Chennai.  If you still haven’t got it, the canker in Swamy’s eyes is the editor of The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan.

So, what’s Swamy’s bone of contention? It’s Varadarajan’s US citizenship. Subramanian Swamy has filed a plea in the Delhi High Court saying editors of news organisations in India “must be Indian citizens and residents of India” and not foreign citizens. The court in turn, on May 8, 2013, issued a notice to the Centre asking whether the citizenship of editors of publications in India should be a criteria for their appointment. The court has decided to hear the matter on July 24, 2013.

What does the rule book say?  The Press And Registration of Books Act (PRB Act) 1867, which is a pre-Independence legislation for publications, states that a person who does not ordinarily reside in India would not be permitted to edit a newspaper. However, the Act doesn’t comment on the matter of citizenship. In 2011, the Cabinet approved the Press & Registration of Books and Publication Bill, which would replace the antiquated 1867 Act. According to Section 2(C) of the Bill, “an editor is a person, whether called editor, chief-editor, sub-editor or by whatever name called, who is a citizen of India and ordinarily resides in India, who controls the selection of the matter that is brought out in a publication”. The Bill, though, is pending in Parliament.

Why has Subramanian Swamy filed this petition? Speaking to Newslaundry, Subramanian Swamy said, “The Cable Act says that the editor of a news channel has to be an Indian citizen. The 2002 Cabinet decision on FDI in print media said that the editor of any print organisation receiving foreign funds should be an Indian. So, why should an Indian print organisation funded by Indians have an editor without an Indian citizenship?”

What is The Hindu’s stand? Former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu and Director of Kasturi & Sons Limited, publishers of The Hindu, N Ram over a long email commented, “The PRB Act does NOT stipulate that only Indian citizens can be the editor of a newspaper. The requirement is that the editor be ordinarily resident in India. Siddharth Varadarajan has been continuously resident in India since September 1995. We were fully aware of the requirements of the PRB Act and that in appointing Siddharth as the Editor of The Hindu we were in full compliance with the provisions of the Act”.

Should citizenship be seen as one of the credentials of an editor before appointment? According to Ram, “No, there is no need to take the citizenship of someone into account before appointing him or her as Editor. What is important is the editor’s commitment to the philosophy, values and ethos of the newspaper and his or her willingness and ability to uphold those values”.

Swamy disagreed and emphasised that newspapers play a vital role in forming public opinion and, therefore, citizenship of the editor should be taken into consideration.  In a letter to the Press registrar dated June 6,2012Swamy wrote, “An editor of a newspaper as part of the Fourth Estate is in a particularly important position to influence the democratic processes including elections in India. It will adversely impact national security and go against public interest if a foreigner is allowed to become editor of a newspaper like The Hindu”.

Is Swamy targeting Varadarajan in particular? According to N Ram, there have been other, well-known instances where publications have had editors with foreign citizenship – although he did not name any. He wrote, “I have no comment on why Dr Swamy raised this particular objection. We do what we think and know to be the right and legal thing”. Swamy on his part says that he has known Varadarajan for long and he is not targeting him in particular. He said that he is seeking more clarity in the press laws and the criteria to appoint editors. He also added that it is Varadarajan who is spreading rumours about Swamy seeking vendetta as Swamy is perceived to be “anti-Communist”.

Swamy’s repeated insistence and mentions of Varadarajan and his own perceived political leanings makes us wonder what Swamy has taken umbrage to in regard to Varadarajan’s eligibility as editor of an Indian newspaper. Is it his citizenship or his political ideology?

(Source: http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/05/swamy-against-the-hindu/)

HT launches its own Medianet

By Abid Hasan
Thursday,May 16, 2013

Page 3 has become an integral part of a newspaper today, with its glamour quotient. Besides the numerous photographs, the page has also become a vehicle for paid features, garnering additional revenues for the publication.

The success of these paid features has prompted publications to further tap the medium. Thus, we have the Medianet from The Times of India. These features are placed in such a way that they neither represent as paid content nor advertisements. There is a different wing altogether to put these entire ads in place.

For The Times of India, these sections are distinct from paid advertisements, advertorials and special supplements and are highlighted as sponsored features. These features include endorsements of movies, fashion & lifestyle products, hotels & restaurants and so on.

Gauging the success of the promotional feature trend, now Hindustan Times has come up with an initiative called ‘Brand Promotions’. This project has been designed as an effective media tool to promote and build brands in an impactful way. The objective is to promote the brand and deliver the brand message in a relevant environment that delivers impact and credibility.

Hindustan Times’ supplement HT City confirms the initiative with a message that accompanies such features that states: “We would like to inform our readers that some of the coverage of events that appear on the party page is paid for by the concerned brands. We would like to emphasise that no sponsored content does or shall appear in any part of HT without it being declared as such to our valued readers.”

With the top two English dailies in the country initiating paid feature content, it remains to be seen whether other dailies, be it English or regional, follow suit. This also definitely gives brands an additional medium to get their message across.

(Source: http://www.exchange4media.com/51006_ht-launches-its-own-medianet.html)

Abstract of Articles of Media Watch May 2013

Mobile and Internet Communication: Privacy Risks for Youth in Bangladesh

FAHEEM HUSSAIN
Asian University for Women, BangladeshMOHAMMAD SAHID ULLAH
University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

This article looks into the privacy perception and vulnerability among Bangladeshi urban youth using mobile and computing devices. Based on a survey it shows a significant number of the youths are unaware about the concept of privacy in the ‘Digital Age’ and also has little or no idea about possible risks relating to shared voice and data communications. Amid the absence of any clear-cut privacy framework at the national level, this article has found that the level of trust on existing mobile telephony to be significantly higher than the Internet. This research concluded that the long term user experience (or absence of it) in mobile phone and Internet do not have any impact on Bangladeshi youths’ perception on possible privacy related vulnerabilities. Concern over data manipulation has also been identified a major influential factor in deciding youth’s online behavioral patterns.

Redefining the Virtual Self: Analysis of Facebook Discourse of College Students in Kolkata

UMA SHANKAR PANDEY
Surendranath College for Women, University of Calcutta, India

One way in which Facebook is unique for creating perceptions of individuals is the degree to which private information is presented by avenues other than revelation by the person himself. Discourses, are not just insulated linguistic ‘objects,’ but are constitutive parts of communicative acts in a particular sociocultural situation. The present study looks at a particular set of socio-economic factors which influence the Facebook discourse of undergraduate and post graduate communication students in Kolkata, India. This research posits the role of interpreting the intentionality of the discourse on the respondents. This recognizes the process in which people decide about how and when they will disclose private information on a group site. The 292 respondents to our online questionnaire classify the topicality, functionality and colloquality of their Facebook discourse among closed ended options. The objective is to relate these intentionality to factors such as broadband use, medium of education, perceived usefulness and goal directedness.

Networked Publics and Identity Construction: Towards an Era of Virtual Socialization

BIDYARANI ASEM
Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, Delhi, India

In the era of digital age where the rate of information exchange and sharing have gone extremely high, the line of demarcation between the sender and the receiver in a communication act came to be less existent. With the rise of new media technologies, social networking sites (SNS) such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. have increasingly become a common platform for networking mong people. The term ‘networked publics’ became a more appropriate term for the broad category of users in these virtual networking platforms. One of the most important characteristic features of social networking is the issue of self constructed identity and representation. This emerging trend has become the key towards virtual socialization amongst the networked publics. Based on strong theoretical backgrounds of self and identity construction, this paper tries to explore the various aspects of socialization in the virtual space through a wide array of literature surveys. Notwithstanding their privacy concerns, the willingness to self expose themselves among the public and to what extent people reveal their “self” in the process of identity construction will be highlighted thoroughly in the paper.

New Media Impacts on Journalism: Revisiting the Dynamics of News Production

PITABAS PRADHAN
Aligarh Muslim University, India

 The Arab spring of 2011, the Indian Civil Society campaign for Lokpal 2012, and the ongoing campaign for capital punishment to the Delhi gang rape accused, are among a thousands of events, worldwide, which have demonstrated the power of new media in galvanizing the masses for a cause. The advent of high speed communication channels like broadband, optical fiber, and Web 2.0 services coupled with the ubiquitous multitasking devices like smart phones and other handhelds available in multitudes of forms have tremendously increased the scale of messages output and sharing. The pull of modern technology, push of business, and most importantly the search for new ways to satisfy the self expression needs and ambitions of the new generation have made the domain of new media grow beyond expectation. The technology savvy new generations, have learnt to explore constantly expanding opportunities for communication and self expression presented by the Internet and the Web. The interactive nature of the new media technologies have significantly altered the dynamics of journalism in the cyber space to an extent of blurring the distinction between producers and consumers of messages and transformed them into pro-summers. This paper analyses the impacts of new media technology on professional journalism and the responses of the old media.

Adolescents and the Media: Teenagers Talk about Television and Negative Representations

DOROTHY HOBSON
University of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Young people are an elusive and exciting audience and user of all media. They are both the most desirable yet indefinable set of groups and individuals who must be attracted, intrigued and held in thrall if media organizations are to succeed in their quests to keep in step with their ever moving interests, This article presents the views of diverse groups of young people aged between nine and nineteen in Birmingham, United Kingdom in the winter of 2010/11 and reveals in their own words how they feel about the way that they are represented in British media. They are avid watchers of television and even more active users of new media. They reveal their eclectic and heavy viewing habits. While they are diverse in their education, social backgrounds and ethnicity, they are united in expressing their unhappiness and discontent about the way that they are represented on British television both in news coverage, documentaries and in dramas directed at them. More worrying is the fact that they feel and give evidence that this negative view of teenagers, affects the way they are perceived by other members of the public. While they are critical of British television they do single out American television as being more aspirational and optimistic.

Bollywood Nuances Affecting Italian Television

MONIA ACCIARI
Swansea University, United Kingdom

Since the 1990s, Bollywood cinema arrived in Europe and successfully settled away from the Indian subcontinent, proposing a diverse, variegated and multisensorial experience not only for South Asians living abroad, but also for the locals. Interestingly, the plural mediatic nature of these kinds of films have penetrated European countries in different ways; some were enthusiastic for the joyfulness of songs, others began reviving connections between hippy culture and Bollywood atmosphere, while Italy, the country under investigation in this article, initiated a series of television programs profoundly inspired by the new and compelling Bollywood wave. The television programs analyzed in this article have the scope to unearth how Bollywood cinema has penetrated the small screen of Italy. Also, this article answers the following question: what are the dynamics that have characterized the artistic encounter between two very different ways of expression? Firstly, the work of Russian Semiologist Yuri Lotman on semiosphere is taken into account in an attempt to highlight how the world of Bollywood and the one of Italian television, considered as two diverse semiospheres, have influenced each other in the endeavor to see a process of exchange and fusion. On a second level, the fusion of formats, such as sitcoms with Bollywood nuances, could produce an interesting reflection on genre. A brief literature review on genre theory has been offered to frame the possibility for the emergence of a new genre, the fusion genre, at the base of this encounter.

CBC and the Science Academy: A Participatory Journey

NICOLE BLANCHETT NEHELI
Sheridan College Institute of Technology, Canada

 The publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has a unique, participatory relationship with the science academy that showcases scientific discovery on the Geologic Journey II website—a site run by CBC. Although academics work on interesting projects that have great relevance to those outside academic circles, their work is generally published in journals or texts that are not often accessed or, in some cases, understood by the general public. On Geologic Journey II, a site created in conjunction with the development of a documentary project, contemporary research is highlighted in a manner that makes it easily accessible to a much wider audience. Through the lens of media logic, using the theories of convergence culture and the public sphere, in this paper, I explore how the partnership between CBC and the science academy invigorates public discourse, and why building relationships with community partners makes good business sense for a public broadcaster.

Freshman 15: Are Universities Doing Enough?

STEVEN McCORKLE
University of Alabama, USAKEVIN ARMSTRONG
Mississippi State University, USAMARK GOODMAN
Mississippi State University, USAJANICE GIDDENS
Clarkson Community Center, Atlanta, USA

Freshman 15 has been identified as a major medical issue on college campuses for over a decade. Scholars have indicated that Freshman 15 treatment options need to include physical fitness, nutrition, and counseling. Our analysis of the web sites of 45 major universities indicates that most schools need to improve their communication methods if they are going to successfully provide intervention to their students.

Audience at Play: An Inquiry into the Song Kolaveri Di

SHUBHDA ARORA
Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad, India

The discourse in communication studies has looked at audiences as active seekers of pleasure through communicative play. This perspective has been talked about extensively by William Stephenson (1988) through his play theory of mass communication. Stephenson refutes Freud who considered play to be an unconscious, passive and an escapist defence mechanism. This paper furthers this understanding of play in the present day of digitization and virtual media technologies. The study proposes that the users of the Internet (virtual audiences) get actively co-opted into the creation and recreation of media content through play. Participative play on the Internet can be equated to what Caillois (2001) has described as Paideia (primitive, pure play of carefree gaiety). Paideia in its new Internet avatar may manifest itself in the form of shares and likes, posts and reposts, comments and recommendations on content sharing and social networking sites. This carefree act of pure play can be attributed to the absence of a proper regulatory framework on social interactions in the cyberspace which in turn makes the play elusive and the players’ (audience) behaviour very unpredictable.

Constraints in Screen Translation: The Socio- Cultural Dimensions of Dubbing and Subtitling

LOVJI K. N
Vimala College, University of Calicut, India

Whether domesticating or foreignising in its approach, any form of audiovisual translation ultimately plays a unique role in developing both national identities and national stereotypes. The transmission of cultural values in screen translation has received very little attention in the literature and remains one of the most pressing areas of research in translation studies. (Mona Baker and Braño Hochel 1997:76) The term audiovisual translation refers to both the translation of the distribution format and its contents. Even though the technical responsibilities of audiovisual translators may become limited, their creative and linguistic abilities, as well as their capacity to match words with both images and sounds continue to be tested. The present paper reflects the pace and breadth of the linguistic and cultural challenges that the translators encounter while translating, subtitling and dubbing films.

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For contact: mediajournal@ymail.com/ sonyraj@gmail.com

Admission to the MA (Communication and Journalism), MA (Electronic Media) and MA (Public Relations), University of Mumbai

Following from Dr. Sanjay Ranade, Head, and Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Mumbai

Admission forms are available for admission to the MA (Communication and Journalism),  MA (Electronic Media) and MA (Public Relations).

For detailed syllabi and dates visit www.mcjmumbai.org

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UNICEF's draft report on Mobiles for Social & Behaviour Change in India

Read UNICEF's 'Draft Report on 'Mobiles for Social & Behaviour Change in India' at

http://defindia.net/files/2013/05/UNICEF-MSBC-Consultation-Whitepaper.pdf 

Its executive summary is here:

The consultation paper (draft) presents the key areas of emphasis in the growing mobile for development space in India. The purpose is to understand the scope and magnitude of the expanding mobile domain as it is lately linked essentially to advance development and governance objectives and seen as the most democratic technology medium to offer scope to deliver service needs anytime, anywhere. The Paper content has been derived from existing research and field inputs. The paper is intended to assist consultation ( Mobiles for Social and Behavior Change) stakeholders to get an overview of issues, scope and relevance in mobile thrust to support development efforts of the government and private players including bilateral agencies and civil society bodies.
.
Today, India has more than 800 million subscriptions – up from 6.4 million in 2002 - and the mobile pundits believe this number will exceed 1.2 billion by 2016.More people than ever before have
access to mobile phones and many of them are those at the bottom of economic pyramid (BoP) living in 250 backward districts of the country. The mobile density stands at 70 per 100 and the penetration rate is 51 %, which is below expectation. 
The low penetration rate indicates there is still room for growth.The most important driver of mobile growth is the wave of liberalisation and privatization of the telecom sector in 1990s that has led to more players determining the deployment, reach and usage of mobiles. Thus, mobile ‘culture’ has arrived and going to stay. 
Competition among mobile operators has resulted in the rapid extensionof mobile networks, falling prices of services and mobile handsets, and innovative service and business models that have reduced much of traditional information and communication bottlenecks and resultant impact in social and economic
processes. Given rising demand for network, access and services, itis estimated that by 2015, more than 90% of the total population will come under the “coverage gap”, and will need enhanced services and access networks. Rural areas will need special focus on 2G coverage followed by3G services.The intra and interdepartmental thrust under the proposed Mobile Governance Framework of the government is expected to spur service delivery till the last household.
There are increasing numbers of mobile based projects, and the government, bilateral agencies, private sector players, and the civil society continue to investin mobile based practices that can provide
local solutions in local context and problem areas. For instance, The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) II government during the 65th Independence Day on August 15 (2012) announced a new Har
UNICEF MSBC Consultation Whitepaper:Layout 1 5/8/2013 12:08 PM Page 4 Use of Mobile Phones for Social & Behaviour Change
Hath Mein Phone (HHMP) (Mobile in Every Hand) scheme. It is expected that if implemented, this scheme will enable 28 million poor people (6 million families) across India to have access to free
connectivity and thereby ride on mobile platform to access services and other impacts from programme focus.
A review of 13 practices for this paper indicates the most common sectors for focus are education, health, socio-economic development, and disaster management well within the central focus of MDGs. There is evidence that stakeholders are interested
and expressed keenness in using mobiles as service and solution providers,yet there remain vital challenges towards sustaining
the pilots and scaling them. The pilot initiatives have highlighted two essential points. One, mobiles have emerged as effective mechanism to derive project impacts in – information dissemination, project monitoring / tracking, training of
front line workers and interpersonal communication practices. Second, mobile projects calls for inclusive agenda among
stakeholders in multi-stakeholder partnership mode.
Common themes of focus and role playing among stakeholders include network extension into rural areas, network upgrading (focused on urban areas), innovative applications, content, and services, alongside convergence. Specific focus on providing MVAS calls for applications in mHealth, mEducation, mBanking and
other development focus needs to cater to the BoP social market.
Given UNICEF’s focus on sustainable and effective communications for development thrust involving the isolated and
vulnerable groups, mobile application based services are likely to prove valuable in achieving programming goals.
Apart from connectivity and access for the deprived groups and communities, mobiles provide cost effective interventions, enable to overcome bottlenecks to access and deliver services, and enable
communities to maximise the impact of
available resources. 
This draft consultation paper solicits views and opinions from stakeholders as to what specific policy and programme
thrust required to maximize the potential of the most democratic medium in mobile to serve development needs. The final consultation paper will emerge as a knowledge guide for stakeholders as to why and how mobiles find increasing
presence and relevance to support development efforts as promoted by the government, industry, civil society and
others.

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Veteran former UNI crime reporter T P Alexander no more

Former UNI crime reporter T P Alexander of early 1970s died at his native place Kanjirapally in Kottayam district of Kerala. TPA, or Alex, as he was known among colleagues, was an ace crime reporter when I joined the Mumbai UNI bureau in 1972. I was junior to him by about two years and held him in awe for his capacity to dig in stories about Mumbai's underworld. He would write the stories without inviting rejoinders and contradictions from the underworld or the Mumbai police.

His interview with Matka King Ratan Khatri made him crime reporter extraordinaire. The typed copy of the interview was handed over to me for Sunday Morning Release. I did not realise how important the feature was until I saw it splashed in all major newspapers in India and congratulatory messages started coming in from all UNI bureaus. This feature was written in a simple language which was his style for juniors like me emulate.

His article on the Matka King was a prominent feature in the Illustrated Weekly of India next week.

Alex was extremely nice to juniors like me. I would approach him after subbing his copy and ask him if I could edit out the last two sentences because they were superfluous. His mischievous response used to be: "Yes, yes. Go ahead. I wrote these two sentences so that smart subs like you would have the pleasure to edit copy of seniors like me."

I handed over my wedding card to him and all my colleagues in Mumbai UNI. He came to me at the desk, saying "Look, I will not be able to attend the wedding in Nashik. But I will write a news story for UNI after the wedding."

I looked at him in disbelief. My wedding story on UNI printers!

With a stony face, he showed me a copy already typed in UNI format with his initials at the end. It was as follows:

Nashik, May 15. UNI sub-editor Kiran Thakur got married to Ms Nanda Nikam here today. He was 25!

The copy was shown around and every one who read it burst into laughter after reading the second sentence.

--

Sekhar Seshan who followed me in UNI Mumbai, tells me how he taught him journalism and how to write news for UNI.

Sekhar remained in contact with him after TPA left UNI before the Emergency in 1975. He worked in Kuwait for sometime and returned to his native place to start a news service, Newsline, sending mainly Kerala news to newspapers in the Gulf. He would type his stories electronically and fax these to his subscribers during the pre-Internet era. Later, it was through email.

He lived on his small rubber estate, in a house on top of a hill at Kanjirapally in Kottayam district, moved to Trivandrum and back to Kanjirapally till his death yesterday. He was 72 and is survived by wife Omana, children Tracy, Terry and Anna.

Sekhar remembers how principled TPA was as a journalist. He gave up customary tea at the daily briefing at the Police Headquarter. He asked me and other reporters to follow suit. That was because the police PRO once remarked that the reporters wrote anti-police stories 'even after drinking our tea every morning.'

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Railway or Railways Minister

Should it be Railway or Railways Minister?

Read

http://thewriteandthewrong.blogspot.in/2013/05/railway-or-railways-minister.html

Also, read

Civic body, no civic sense, but Sackrifice?

http://thewriteandthewrong.blogspot.in/2013/05/civic-body-no-civic-sense.html

kiran thakur

A man has bitten a dog

Journalist Kaustubh Kulkarni has sent in the following: 

Chicago: A man has bitten a dog in the US. 

Yes, you read it right. In a bizarre incident, a man in the US bit a dog in a desperate attempt to save his wife from a vicious attack by the canine.

Caren Henry, from Grimes, Iowa, said she was just walking her dog, Kandy, near her father-in-law's home in rural Madrid when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. 

"This dog came racing across this yard, a big dog," she said.

Caren said a 50-60 pound Labrador mix, ran straight towards her and started attacking, WHO-TV reported.

"It got me here and I had my sunglasses on which I'm glad I did because I think it might have taken my eye as well as my nose, then it knocked me down and then it went after my dog," she said.

Caren's husband, Laine, was driving to pick her up when he saw the attack and jumped out to help.

"Caren turned and looked at me and I saw her face was nothing but blood, so I bit the dog literally in the nose and he let go and I grabbed our dog and I grabbed her and I put them in our pick-up and took off," Laine Henry said.

The couple ended up in the Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines after Laine was also bitten on the arm last Sunday.

The dog also bit Caren's thigh and abdomen. She will have to have several reconstructive surgeries to fix her nose. 

"It could have been a lot worse, he could have got my neck, he could have taken my eye," Caren said.

In Dallas County there is no vicious dog ordinance, so the Dallas County Sheriff's Office turned the case over to the county's Environmental Health Office.

A fund has been set up for the couple at the City State Bank in Madrid.

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/man-bites-dog-in-bizarre-incident-in-chicago-363047

India 140th on media freedom list, China 173rd

Kounteya Sinha TNN 

London: Increased censorship is crippling India, which has seen the biggest tumble in Asia in terms of media freedom. India is ranked 140th in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index — its lowest ranking since 2002 — because of an “increasing impunity for violence against journalists and because internet censorship continues to grow”. 

India has slipped nine positions on this list with the “government increasingly refusing to grant citizens the freedom to be informed”.  It makes India worse than countries that are usually considered miserly with freedom of information — Niger, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, UAE, South Sudan, Chad and Afghanistan.

India has been bracketed under the category “difficult situation” with regards to freedom of information along with Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq and Russia. The report said the Asian region saw the sharpest deterioration in the climate for those involved in news and information in 2012.
Four journalists were killed in India — the world’s biggest democracy — in 2012.

The report, which has for the first time published a global indicator of worldwide media freedom, says, “In India, authorities insist on censoring the web and imposing taboos, while violence against journalists goes unpunished and the regions of Kashmir and Chhattisgarh become increasingly isolated.” China has been termed as “very serious situation” and ranked 173rd among countries facing tremendous censorship.

(Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/05/04&PageLabel=22&EntityId=Ar02207&ViewMode=HTML)

Abstract of Articles of Media Watch May 2013

Here are abstracts of papers published in the latest issue of Media Watch Journal

Mobile and Internet Communication: Privacy Risks for Youth in Bangladesh

FAHEEM HUSSAIN

Asian University for Women, Bangladesh

MOHAMMAD SAHID ULLAH

University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

This article looks into the privacy perception and vulnerability among Bangladeshi urban youth using mobile and computing devices. Based on a survey it shows a significant number of the youths are unaware about the concept of privacy in the ‘Digital Age’ and also has little or no idea about possible risks relating to shared voice and data communications. Amid the absence of any clear-cut privacy framework at the national level, this article has found that the level of trust on existing mobile telephony to be significantly higher than the Internet. This research concluded that the long term user experience (or absence of it) in mobile phone and Internet do not have any impact on Bangladeshi youths’ perception on possible privacy related vulnerabilities. Concern over data manipulation has also been identified a major influential factor in deciding youth’s online behavioral patterns.

Redefining the Virtual Self: Analysis of Facebook Discourse of College Students in Kolkata

UMA SHANKAR PANDEY

Surendranath College for Women, University of Calcutta, India

One way in which Facebook is unique for creating perceptions of individuals is the degree to which private information is presented by avenues other than revelation by the person himself. Discourses, are not just insulated linguistic ‘objects,’ but are constitutive parts of communicative acts in a particular sociocultural situation. The present study looks at a particular set of socio-economic factors which influence the Facebook discourse of undergraduate and post graduate communication students in Kolkata, India. This research posits the role of interpreting the intentionality of the discourse on the respondents. This recognizes the process in which people decide about how and when they will disclose private information on a group site. The 292 respondents to our online questionnaire classify the topicality, functionality and colloquality of their Facebook discourse among closed ended options. The objective is to relate these intentionality to factors such as broadband use, medium of education, perceived usefulness and goal directedness.

Networked Publics and Identity Construction: Towards an Era of Virtual Socialization

BIDYARANI ASEM

Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, Delhi, India

In the era of digital age where the rate of information exchange and sharing have gone extremely high, the line of demarcation between the sender and the receiver in a communication act came to be less existent. With the rise of new media technologies, social networking sites (SNS) such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. have increasingly become a common platform for networking mong people. The term ‘networked publics’ became a more appropriate term for the broad category of users in these virtual networking platforms. One of the most important characteristic features of social networking is the issue of self constructed identity and representation. This emerging trend has become the key towards virtual socialization amongst the networked publics. Based on strong theoretical backgrounds of self and identity construction, this paper tries to explore the various aspects of socialization in the virtual space through a wide array of literature surveys. Notwithstanding their privacy concerns, the willingness to self expose themselves among the public and to what extent people reveal their “self” in the process of identity construction will be highlighted thoroughly in the paper.

New Media Impacts on Journalism: Revisiting the Dynamics of News Production

PITABAS PRADHAN

Aligarh Muslim University, India

The Arab spring of 2011, the Indian Civil Society campaign for Lokpal 2012, and the ongoing campaign for capital punishment to the Delhi gang rape accused, are among a thousands of events, worldwide, which have demonstrated the power of new media in galvanizing the masses for a cause. The advent of high speed communication channels like broadband, optical fiber, and Web 2.0 services coupled with the ubiquitous multitasking devices like smart phones and other handhelds available in multitudes of forms have tremendously increased the scale of messages output and sharing. The pull of modern technology, push of business, and most importantly the search for new ways to satisfy the self expression needs and ambitions of the new generation have made the domain of new media grow beyond expectation. The technology savvy new generations, have learnt to explore constantly expanding opportunities for communication and self expression presented by the Internet and the Web. The interactive nature of the new media technologies have significantly altered the dynamics of journalism in the cyber space to an extent of blurring the distinction between producers and consumers of messages and transformed them into pro-summers. This paper analyses the impacts of new media technology on professional journalism and the responses of the old media.

Adolescents and the Media: Teenagers Talk about Television and Negative Representations

DOROTHY HOBSON

University of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Young people are an elusive and exciting audience and user of all media. They are both the most desirable yet indefinable set of groups and individuals who must be attracted, intrigued and held in thrall if media organizations are to succeed in their quests to keep in step with their ever moving interests, This article presents the views of diverse groups of young people aged between nine and nineteen in Birmingham, United Kingdom in the winter of 2010/11 and reveals in their own words how they feel about the way that they are represented in British media. They are avid watchers of television and even more active users of new media. They reveal their eclectic and heavy viewing habits. While they are diverse in their education, social backgrounds and ethnicity, they are united in expressing their unhappiness and discontent about the way that they are represented on British television both in news coverage, documentaries and in dramas directed at them. More worrying is the fact that they feel and give evidence that this negative view of teenagers, affects the way they are perceived by other members of the public. While they are critical of British television they do single out American television as being more aspirational and optimistic.

Bollywood Nuances Affecting Italian Television

MONIA ACCIARI

Swansea University, United Kingdom

Since the 1990s, Bollywood cinema arrived in Europe and successfully settled away from the Indian subcontinent, proposing a diverse, variegated and multisensorial experience not only for South Asians living abroad, but also for the locals. Interestingly, the plural mediatic nature of these kinds of films have penetrated European countries in different ways; some were enthusiastic for the joyfulness of songs, others began reviving connections between hippy culture and Bollywood atmosphere, while Italy, the country under investigation in this article, initiated a series of television programs profoundly inspired by the new and compelling Bollywood wave. The television programs analyzed in this article have the scope to unearth how Bollywood cinema has penetrated the small screen of Italy. Also, this article answers the following question: what are the dynamics that have characterized the artistic encounter between two very different ways of expression? Firstly, the work of Russian Semiologist Yuri Lotman on semiosphere is taken into account in an attempt to highlight how the world of Bollywood and the one of Italian television, considered as two diverse semiospheres, have influenced each other in the endeavor to see a process of exchange and fusion. On a second level, the fusion of formats, such as sitcoms with Bollywood nuances, could produce an interesting reflection on genre. A brief literature review on genre theory has been offered to frame the possibility for the emergence of a new genre, the fusion genre, at the base of this encounter.

CBC and the Science Academy: A Participatory Journey

NICOLE BLANCHETT NEHELI

Sheridan College Institute of Technology, Canada

The publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has a unique, participatory relationship with the science academy that showcases scientific discovery on the Geologic Journey II website—a site run by CBC. Although academics work on interesting projects that have great relevance to those outside academic circles, their work is generally published in journals or texts that are not often accessed or, in some cases, understood by the general public. On Geologic Journey II, a site created in conjunction with the development of a documentary project, contemporary research is highlighted in a manner that makes it easily accessible to a much wider audience. Through the lens of media logic, using the theories of convergence culture and the public sphere, in this paper, I explore how the partnership between CBC and the science academy invigorates public discourse, and why building relationships with community partners makes good business sense for a public broadcaster.

Freshman 15: Are Universities Doing Enough?
STEVEN McCORKLE

University of Alabama, USA

KEVIN ARMSTRONG

Mississippi State University, USA

MARK GOODMAN

Mississippi State University, USA

JANICE GIDDENS
Clarkson Community Center, Atlanta, USA

Freshman 15 has been identified as a major medical issue on college campuses for over a decade. Scholars have indicated that Freshman 15 treatment options need to include physical fitness, nutrition, and counseling. Our analysis of the web sites of 45 major universities indicates that most schools need to improve their communication methods if they are going to successfully provide intervention to their students.

Audience at Play: An Inquiry into the Song Kolaveri Di

SHUBHDA ARORA

Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad, India

The discourse in communication studies has looked at audiences as active seekers of pleasure through communicative play. This perspective has been talked about extensively by William Stephenson (1988) through his play theory of mass communication. Stephenson refutes Freud who considered play to be an unconscious, passive and an escapist defence mechanism. This paper furthers this understanding of play in the present day of digitization and virtual media technologies. The study proposes that the users of the Internet (virtual audiences) get actively co-opted into the creation and recreation of media content through play. Participative play on the Internet can be equated to what Caillois (2001) has described as Paideia (primitive, pure play of carefree gaiety). Paideia in its new Internet avatar may manifest itself in the form of shares and likes, posts and reposts, comments and recommendations on content sharing and social networking sites. This carefree act of pure play can be attributed to the absence of a proper regulatory framework on social interactions in the cyberspace which in turn makes the play elusive and the players’ (audience) behaviour very unpredictable.

Constraints in Screen Translation: The Socio- Cultural Dimensions of Dubbing and Subtitling

LOVJI K. N

Vimala College, University of Calicut, India

Whether domesticating or foreignising in its approach, any form of audiovisual translation ultimately plays a unique role in developing both national identities and national stereotypes. The transmission of cultural values in screen translation has received very little attention in the literature and remains one of the most pressing areas of research in translation studies. (Mona Baker and Braño Hochel 1997:76) The term audiovisual translation refers to both the translation of the distribution format and its contents. Even though the technical responsibilities of audiovisual translators may become limited, their creative and linguistic abilities, as well as their capacity to match words with both images and sounds continue to be tested. The present paper reflects the pace and breadth of the linguistic and cultural challenges that the translators encounter while translating, subtitling and dubbing films.

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