Volume 2, Issue 2: 2008
Editorial
Articles
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The United Nations may stand to benefit greatly from more robust image promotion and protection. In the last decade, the UN image has been significantly damaged by allegations and innuendos regarding the Oil-for-Food Programme. More systematic and rapid responses to criticism may be of value and may be achievable after the recent Department of Information restructuring. If possible, reserving an hour of primetime radio and television airspace for an annual message from the Secretary-General to the peoples of the world, could be one method by which the organisation could increase control of its public image. A positive (or negative) UN image should tend to scale up (or diminish) support from national decision makers.
Source credibility and attitude change in readers of foreign news
As receivers of information from the media, we are constantly determining what sources are and are not credible. Research suggests people are more motivated to think about the information provided by a high credibility source because they are more induced to examine what an expert has to say (Gilling & Greenwald, 1974; Hass, 1981; Petty & Cacioppo, 1983). The relationship between newspaper credibility and attitude is not linear however, and it is essential to consider what other factors are efficacious in causing attitude change in message receivers apart from the credibility of a source. The current study investigates 462 university students in south-east Queensland for their current views of which newspapers they found to be of high and low credibility, and then exposed to news messages in these sources. Their changes in attitude as a result of these news sources were then examined through a range of data collection techniques. Unlike the majority of previous research in the field of media credibility and attitude change, a non-controversial issue was selected. The results are discussed in terms of how readers’ background knowledge and involvement in an issue contributes to their change in attitude when receiving news from high- and low-credibility new sources.
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Acting Strategically: Skilled Communication by Australian Refugee Advocacy Groups
This paper discusses the major strategies and tactics of five refugee advocacy organisations in Australia: the Refugee Council of Australia (RCA), Australian Refugee Rights Alliance (ARRA), A Just Australia (AJA), Rural Australia for Refugees (RAR) and Children out of Detention (ChilOut). Along many others, those organisations played a critical role in the Australian refugee movement in 2001–2005. The success of that movement is to a degree to explain with refugee groups adopting modern and more efficient techniques of lobbying and public campaigns. The paper uses the concept of communication capital to describe the accumulation of symbolic capacity such as strategic positioning and information credibility (authority). Especially significant are the combinations of strategic positioning and tactical efficiency borrowed from Michael Porter. The main conclusion is cautiously optimistic. Even small and unofficial advocacy groups can be influential if they act strategically, provided they know how to accumulate communication capital (legitimacy and credibility as an information source based on message and media strategies) capital and make use of the professional skills of their volunteers.
Interview
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‘In conversation with Alexandra Halkin’ on the themes of Chiapas and Guerrero films
Independent documentary video producer Alexandra Halkin, has been producing documentaries for the last 25 years. In 1995, she started developing the Chiapas Media Project (CMP). This is a bi-national partnership that provides video and computer equipment and training for indigenous and campesino communities in Southern Mexico. Since 1998, the CMP has trained over 200 indigenous men and women in video production in Chiapas and Guerrero, Mexico. In 2004, Alexandra was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work with the CMP and to develop a new project, the Latin American Indigenous Video Initiative (LAIVI). In 2007, Alexandra was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for the Indigenous Audiovisual Archive (IAA) in Oaxaca, Mexico. She spoke to Verena Thomas, a filmmaker who is currently setting up video production workshops in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Postgraduate Submissions
Quest for a Sustainable Community Radio Broadcasting in Nepal: Practices, Prospects and Problems
Since its inception in 1997, Community Radio (CR) in Nepal has earned wide range acceptability among the masses as an effective community-based medium. This paper critically looks into the issue of ensuring ‘sustainability’ in Nepalese CR broadcasting. Here, different types of CR management systems in Nepal have been analyzed with the goal of understanding the activities initiated to ensure the multidimensional sustainability of the stations. The five stations considered cover all the major types of CR management in Nepal. The field study focused on issues related to social, operational and financial sustainability. All the stations were found to be more or less successful in achieving social sustainability but struggling to some extent while achieving the rest. Finally, a set of recommendations have been proposed with the goal of developing a sustainable CR mechanism in Nepal that will be able to play a significant role in overall human development.
Engaging the Civil Dead: Citizens’ Media and Prisoner
If community media is at the forefront of new models of citizen participation, then what better way to test this claim than by examining how community radio facilitates those groups most segregated from the general public? Prisoners, by their very nature, are by far one of society’s most excluded populations. In this paper I draw on international examples of prisoners’ radio and, more specifically on an Australian case study (4ZzZ, Brisbane’s Locked In), to investigate the practical implementation of citizens’ media theory.
Book Reviews
- Machin, D. and Van Leeuwen, T. - Global Media Discourse: A Critical Introduction
Reviewed by — University of Otago, New Zealand
- Géraldine Muhlmann - Political History of Journalism
Reviewed by — University of Sydney, Australia
- Mark Tremayne (editor) - Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of the Media
Reviewed by — University of Sydney, Australia
- Geraldine Brooks - People of the Book
Reviewed by University of Western Sydney, Australia
- Jean Seaton - Carnage and the Media: The making and breaking of news about violence
Reviewed by — AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand
- Jane Johnston - Media Relations: Issues and Strategies
Reviewed by — University of Sydney, Australia
- Matt Thompson - My Colombian Death
Reviewed by — academic, author and journalist