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FRONTIERS IN JOURNALISM
LEVEL: M
CREDIT VALUE: 25
LINKAGES
The unit provides a context for students' professional skills development in Online Journalism and Digital Broadcasting. It also has close links with the study of media legislation, regulation and ethical issues undertaken in Legal and Ethical Context. The unit provides theoretical underpinning for the Critical Analysis during the Masters phase of the programme.
AIMS
The unit aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the implications for journalism and society of fundamental developments in the media landscape, including the convergence of media technologies and the concentration, conglomeration and globalisation of media companies and media products, and the ethical and regulatory issues they raise. The unit aims to introduce students to a range of critical perspectives developed from different cultural viewpoints and traditions. The unit thus aims to provide students with a critical framework within which their professional work, and the evolution of journalism as a profession, may be evaluated. Equally, it aims to provide them with an opportunity for reflection and intellectual development.
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Having completed this unit students will have demonstrated the ability to:
- evaluate some of the fundamental technological, structural and regulatory changes which are transforming the media landscape, and their implications for journalism and society;
- appraise a range of issues, perspectives and theories relating to these changes.
LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS
The unit will be delivered through weekly seminars supported by independent study. Typically, lecturer-led introductions will provide access to key issues and perspectives and will direct students to related scholarship. These will be complemented by student-centred activities including student presentations and group discussions. The unit will also include presentations by guest lecturers from the profession.
FRONTIERS IN JOURNALISM - TOPICS
Term One
1. Media Perspectives Political economists believe that ownership and advertising determine the media content, but is this true? Can advertising be seen in the light of alternatives? This session addresses both sides of the argument along with the role of news media and the process of marketisation.
2. Globalisation
Is media imperialism still a strong force shaping global news production? Has the rise of 'the global newsroom' led to a convergence of news content? The intellectual framework that surrounds the concept of globalisation and its effects on news content is discussed.
3. News Values/Audiences
News values online may be changing subject to the new powers of audiences. Certainly the size of audiences reignites vigorous controversy about the types, rights, and descriptions of those who produce and consume media. The relationship of the most recent conditions with older audience theories is evaluated.
4. Media and Public Relations
Journalism has a close realationship with Public Relations, an emergent set of persuasive practices that some argue endanger the survival of independently researched journalism. A leading expert in the field argues for an insidious progressive destruction of independent media by modern PR techniques.
5. Public Service Broadcasting and Regulation/Intervention
This session discusses the purpose and the role of public service broadcasting and the policy-makers' approaches to ensure an open market in the highly commercialised environment.
6. Tabloidisation/quality
This session addresses the question that whether the traditional journalistic standards have been 'dumbing down', and whether 'news converted into entertainment' has become more personalized and less contextualized?
Term Two
7. Language and News (Jan 16)
This seminar approaches issues of linguistic representation in relation to objectivity, cultural specificity, and gender.
8. Interactivity, Media Convergence, (Jan 23) The computer screen and browser interface fuse media together in new combinations.. Analytical techniques to explore the success and failures of the interface in presenting news this way are discussed, including hypermediality (Grusin and Bolter) and usability (Neilsen).
9. Images/truth/faith (Jan 30) This session discusses the intellectual framework that surrounds use of images and fair representation along with the news conventions, ethics and practices of journalists. Contrasts with recent abstract theories of image reproduction which are embodied in some 'postmodern' theorists will be explored, as a way of highlighting news conventions.
10. Conflict and trauma (1) (Feb 6)
Two sessions are devoted to dramatic enactment of a traumatic news story, in association with the DART Centre, on campus, with students as participant reporters. Session one sets the practical and intellectual framework.
11. Conflict and trauma (2) (Feb 13)
This session involves students reporting and writing about an enacted news drama, under deadline conditions simulating a professional reporting environment. The conclusion will require a reflective essay, written by all students.
12. Citizen Journalism
The rapid development and popularity of news technology has enabled the rise of citizen journalism. But is citizen journalism real journalism and is it creditable? This session discusses the issues surrounding this uprising force.
ASSESSMENT
The unit is assessed by three essays, each of 1500 words. Ten percent leeway is allowed either way. Bad spelling will be penalised. Normal essay writing conventions apply.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Each essay will account for 33 percent of the unit mark. It will be assessed according to the extent to which you have:
Some verbal guidance on essay technique will be given in class. No advice is prescriptive and innovation and intelligent diversity of approach is expected at this level of study. The following suggestions are not inclusive, but it is likely that they will form a framework for your answer. The referencing system is as requested in (5). Credit will be given for maturity of approach, concision, and critical attack.
- identified the issues raised by the question
- evaluated the existing research and scholarship relating to the question
- explored the complexities surrounding the question
- written a coherent answer interpolating between arguments
- presented your essay professionally, with accurate punctuation, spelling, grammar and referencing (please use the Harvard System)
SEMINAR PRESENTATIONS
Seminar presentations will be based on reading of relevant literature and case-study research. Presenters are asked to follow the structure outlined below.
STRUCTURE
The goal is for there to be two seminar presentations and discussions in the first hour of the Frontiers class. Each presentation/discussion should therefore not last more than 25 minutes. The presentation part should include a critical discussion of the relevant scholarship and appropriate evidence from the media.
Short introduction of seminar topic and definition of terms (e.g. what do you mean by "news", "production system", "interactivity". Prefer scholarship to media generated definitions)
- Critical review of the relevant scholarship/research.
- Analysis of empirical evidence, sample or case study to support your argument. You might aggregate your findings into tables.
- Conclusions, and how they compare with the relevant scholarship outlined in 2. Use bullet points.
- Effective critique of the 'opposition' view presented by the other team
The presentations will be followed by group discussions.
All members of a presentation team should be involved in preparing and delivering the presentation. The essays are written independently and should encompass and evaluate all points of view. In this way they develop beyond the arguments in the first presentations.
INDICATIVE READING
Thussu, D., (ed.) 1998. Electronic Empires.
Stevenson, N., 1995. Understanding Media Cultures.
Tomlinson, J., 1994. Media Imperialism.
Grusin, R. and Bolter, J., 1999, Remediation: Understanding New Media, Massachussets MIT Press
Webster, F., 1995. Theories of the Information Society.
Curran, J., 2002, Media and Power
Heinonen, A., 2004, Journalistic Ethics in the Age of the Net, In, R. Salaverria & C. Sadaba eds., Towards New Media Paradigms, p 213-225 (In Phil MacGregor's office, not the library)
MacGregor, P., 2003, Mind the Gap, Problems of Multi-Media Journalism, Convergence, September, 2003
Sundar, S., 2000 Multimedia Effects on Processing and Perception on Online News: A study of Picture, Audio and Video Downloads, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 77 (3, autumn), 480-499
Langer, J., 1998, Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the 'Other News', London & New York: Routledge
Sparks, C. and Tulloch, J., (eds.) 2000, Tabloid Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield
Curran, J., 2000, 'Rethinking Media and Democracy' In, J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds.) Mass Media and Society (3rd edition), London: Arnold
Golding, P. and Murdock, G. The Political Economy of the Media Volume 2 (see Part II)
Tracey, M., 1998, The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting, Oxford University Press
http://www.ecdc.info/publications/index.php
- EU multimedia journalism research project