Media Watch
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Media Watch Communication
Journal
Impact Factor: SJIF 3.276 | IIFS 0.993 | ISRA 0.834
(Indexing:
SCOPUS, Thomson Reuters ISI, EBSCO)
www.mediawatchglobal.com
Abstract: September 2014, Vol. 5 No. 3
Pseudo-Events as a Mesocyclone: Rethinking
Boorstin’s Concept in the Digital Age
TIMOTHY R. GLEASON
University of Wisconsin
Oshkosh, USA
Daniel J. Boorstin’s concept of pseudo-events
has been around almost as long as Queen Elizabeth II’s reign as monarch. 2012
was the year of the Diamond Jubilee, a 60-year anniversary, which can be viewed
as a giant pseudo-event made from smaller pseudo-events. Compliant media were
ready and willing to present images reinforcing the power, authority, and
naturalness of the monarchy. The Diamond Jubilee, as an event and subject of
analysis, exemplified the reconceptualization of pseudo-events using the
analogy of a Mesocyclone. The Mesocyclone model of social media and journalism
relations, developed in this study, reflects the transformation of relations
between media planners, the news media, and the public. The Mesocyclone
represents the challenges faced by media planners in creating, sharing, and
encouraging others to participate in the process while attempting to keep the
news media and public aligned with the event’s message. However, the
Mesocyclone is unpredictable because social media sharing has enabled the news
media and public to craft their own messages, as well as possibly change the
meaning of the event. Boorstin’s concept of pseudo-events has been expanded by
also considering Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus in using the
Diamond Jubilee’s pro-monarchy theme as an example.
Journalistic News Framing of White Mainstream Media
during the Civil Rights Movement: A Content Analysis of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
FELICIA McGHEE
University of Tennessee
at Chattanooga, USA
Most social movements receive some type of
news media coverage during the course of the movement. How the media covers a
social movement and its participants is critical in the influence it plays on
media consumers. This study analyzes the news framing of the Montgomery Bus
Boycott. On December 5, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a
white man. That act of refusal resulted in a 381-day protest of the city’s
segregated bus system. This research elucidates how the boycott was framed in
the local newspaper, Montgomery Advertiser. The findings of this study are crucial in
understanding the complexity of past and contemporary social movements, and how
social norms may influence the ensuing news coverage.
The Hegemonic Dance Partners: United States and
North Korea
SKYE C. COOLEY & MARK GOODMAN
Mississippi State
University
On March 31, 2014 North Korea and South Korea
shot artillery shells into each country’s territorial waters. No one was
injured in another incident of the 60 years of conflict on the Korean
peninsula. This rather nonsensical activity of war is just another step in the
hegemonic dance steps initiated by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
This paper applies the theory of hegemony to explain why the leadership of
North Korea requires on-going conflict without war.
Visual Exploration of Environmental Issues: Photographers as Environmental Advocates
MICHELLE I. SEELIG
University of Miami, USA
Photographers of recent years document land,
nature, and the environment to reveal to the public, politicians and lawmakers
decay or spoiled lands, endangered cultures and wildlife, and other issues
affecting the degradation of Earth’s natural resources and all its inhabitants.
Different from their predecessors, contemporary photographers use all media to
expose and make the public aware of wide-ranging environmental concerns.
Therefore, the purpose of this research was to explore how photographers
visually document environmental issues. Interviews and analysis of
environmental and nature photographers’ websites are the primary sources for
this exploratory study. Findings reveal photographers do not just document the
environment, they engage in media as activism. More than words and pictures,
media activism comprises a myriad of mediated content from still photos, to
moving images, graphics, audio, web and mobile devices, as well as social media
all in an effort to improve society.
Press and Corporate Reputation: Factors Affecting
Biasness of Business News Reporting in Malaysia
LEE YUEN BENG
School of Communication,
Universiti Sains Malaysia
TAN KHOON YAN
Graduate School of
Business, Universiti Sains Malaysia
In Malaysia, media bias has always been a hot
debated issue. The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition often portrays itself as
an advocate of press freedom while the masses often feel otherwise as media
organisations are either directly or indirectly owned by component parties of
the Barisan Nasional. Readers therefore commonly accuse these organisations of
practising media control although the latter often maintains that they are free
from external factors or from governmental control. Till date, researches about
media biasness have only studied the effects of media biasness on corporate
reputations but not about the factors associated to such biasness and are often
done within Western contexts. This paper fills these gaps by examining the
links between the personal interest of a journalist and their level of
compliance with the National Union of Journalists’ Code of Conduct, audience
pressure, political interests, and the biasness of business news reporting in
Malaysia.
I am Pretty and I know It: Redefining Masculinities
in The King and The Clown
SOH, WENG-KHAI & NGO, SHEAU-SHI
Universiti Sains
Malaysia, Malaysia
The contemporary Korean films and dramas that
featuring a body of new representation of pretty boys or what are popularly
known as metrosexuality have challenged the conventional association of Korean
masculinity to the prevalent macho images. This article intends to focus on the
soft-spoken, delicate and neat man featured in The King and the Clown (2005) by
examining the cinematic figuration of such masculinity in order to reveal the
underpinning ideology of capitalism within the film through the mechanism of
representation. It is argued that the construction of pretty boy in this film
serves to promote a non-conformative male identity and yet subjects itself to a
manipulative consumerist gaze which embedding the ideological position of
selling ‘prettiness’ as commodification of masculinity.
Portuguese Democracy and Patterns of Transformation
in National Newspapers: A Comparative
Model Approach
HELENA LIMA
University of Porto,
Portugal
The Portuguese Revolution of 1974 produced a
major transformation on media property. According to the legislation approved
by the revolutionary rulers during 1975, all the banks and their interests were
nationalized. Almost all main tittles of national press were included in this
process, because they were partial or totally owned by societies belonging to
the most important financial corporations. The Portuguese state became the
owner of a large media group. The analysis of main aspects like political
statements, data on press production, official reports allow the identification
of the media evolution in this period. This study is focused on editorial
policy, management failure and professional behavior, and the relationship
between governments and the press. The purpose of this article is to establish
a connection between the failure of state policy and the decline of national newspapers
and, by opposite, transformations that took place in the Portuguese media
property during the nineties.
Media Management Trends, Techniques, and Dynamics:
An Indian Experience
V. SAI SRINIVAS
Osmania University,
India
Globally, Media is going through a drastic
transformation. The fight for survival is leading to innovation of technologies
and creativity in the fields of journalism and mass communication, and in this
process many organizations are adapting newer forms of journalism. Media moguls
irrespective of their age and borders are relentlessly spearheading cross media
ownerships combined with convergence of media platforms, paving way for media
management to be studied from a never before seen perspective. However, as
media industries continue to consolidate and expand their operations beyond
domestic borders, it has become all the more imperative to study and research
media management with respect to trends, techniques and dynamics from a global
standpoint of media consolidation, diversification, and convergence.
Social Movements and Digital Storytelling:
Challenges and Prospects in India
GOVIND JI PANDEY
Babasaheb Bhimrao
Ambedkar University, India
This research aims at analysing popularity of
digital media among youth for information sharing and generating support for
social movements. The user-friendly technology, the reduced cost of production
of digital content, and spread of the internet in peri-urban areas have changed
the sender and the receiver position dramatically. Once the receivers of the
media content are now actively involved in the production and dissemination of
digital content. The concept of the gatekeeper is not relevant to the new media
content as most of the matter comes directly from the users. The majority of
the content is uploaded to various social networking sites without interference
of gatekeepers. The digital media have empowered the common man and provided them
another platform to share and express their views on various issues of public
interest. It seems that this forum has great potential to help in strengthening
democratic movements in India by promoting multiple voices on several issues of
public interest, that too, without the interference of any gatekeeper.
Mass Media Preference and Consumption in Rural
India: A Study on
Bharat Nirman Campaign
SHALINI NARAYANAN & JYOTI RANJAN SAHOO
Indian Institute of Mass
Communication, New Delhi
This paper seeks to explore the media habits
and preferences of rural audience in India. The study adopted purposive along
with random sampling techniques to identify stakeholders in six states of the
country who were targeted for the Bharat Nirman campaign conducted by the Ministry
of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. The results indicated
that television is the best medium to target rural and semi-urban audiences for
public service advertising. Doordarshan’s regional channels remained one of the
preferred communication medium for accessing information along with other
regional channels. Newspapers and radio appeared to seriously lag behind as
mass media vehicles of choice in comparison to television. The mobile telephone
had made some inroads; however, it was hardly being used as a medium for
accessing public service information.
Regional News Channels in India: A Study on Viewers
Perspective
ATANU MOHAPATRA
Maharaja Sayajirao
University of Baroda, India
K G SURESH
Manav Rachna
International University, India
Satellite television news network have never
expanded as they have in India. In less than a decade, between 1998 and 2006,
India has experienced the rise of more than 50 24-hours satellite news
channels, broadcasting news in different languages. They are a prominent part
of a vibrant satellite television industry, comprising more than 300 channels,
that has targeted Indian homes since the early 1990s. In one form or the other,
at least 106 of these broadcast daily news in 14 regional languages, and their
emergence marks a sharp break with the past. They have arisen in a country
where the state had monopolised broadcasting since independence, and as late as
1991, India had only one government-controlled television network. The rise of
satellite television, and satellite news network, has engendered a
transformation in India’s political culture, the nature of the state and expressions of Indian nationhood.
