Global Media Journal - Australian Edition - ISSN 1550 7521

Volume 3, Issue 2: 2009

Editorial

Articles

  1. Technology in Conflict Reportage: the Use of Satellite and Drone Images in the Final Days of the Sri Lankan War
    Dr Kasun Ubayasiri - Queensland University of Technology

    Sri Lankan government censorship may have prevented journalists from covering the final days of the civil war, but technological developments such as satellite technology shattered a government monopoly on information and sparked an international outcry over alleged human rights violations.

    This paper focuses on the final days of the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, staged in a conflict theatre denied external independent media coverage. It argues that the development of satellite imagery and its availability to ‘independent’ humanitarian agencies provided a somewhat unique media resource, providing alternative and diverse news voices which would have otherwise been censored by the Sri Lankan government. While arguing the hyper-real images of satellite and drone footage provide only a partial narrative of the conflict, this paper argues without it, the much needed debate on the human suffering and the civilian death toll may have been non-existent.

  2. ‘Not Wrong for Long’: The Role and Penetration of News Wire Agencies in the 24/7 News Landscape
    Assoc Prof Jane Johnston – Bond University, Australia and Dr Susan Forde – Griffith University, Australia

    This paper examines the role of Australia’s single news agency, Australian Associated Press (AAP), in the Australian news media landscape. Specifically, we examine the prevalence of AAP copy in the ‘Breaking News’ sections of two major news websites in an effort to create a preliminary understanding of the impact of AAP on Australian news content. The results suggest an overwhelming reliance on copy from not just AAP, but international news agencies, in major news websites. Increasingly, the need for large volumes of news copy, coupled with the need for that copy to be published online as soon as possible, would appear to be having a significant impact on the type and depth of news covered. The paper and its associated data-gathering techniques form part of a much broader examination of the role of AAP in Australian journalism, and particularly the evolving role of AAP and other wire services as a source or origin for news stories in an increasingly 24/7 news environment where the pressure to be first may be overriding the pressure to be right (Gawenda & Muller, 2009).

  3. Globalisation, Television and Developmental Agenda
    Dr Usha M. Rodrigues - University of the Sunshine Coast

    Theorising the impact of foreign and private television in India since 1991, does not neatly fit into the old debates about one way flow of news and information as reflected in the demand for the New World Information and Communication Order in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1990s, Indian society was invaded from the skies by a number of satellite television signals. However, did this advent of satellite television, vis à vis foreign and private television channels, lead to one way flow of information and entertainment programs from the Western world? Or, did it lead to rapid growth of Indian television industry, resulting in exponential increase in quality and quantity of television programs available to audience?

    This paper argues that the de facto de-regulation of the television media since 1991 has led to an enviable growth in local production of programs for more than 450 channels, estimated to be worth Rs30 billion (AS$1 billion), thereby providing an increased level of opportunity for articulation of Indian local stories and culture. This way, the Indian television industry seems to have come full circle – where television, which was launched in the country as a means of development and education but became complacent and the government’s mouth-piece, finally in the past decade-and-a-half has grown sufficiently to potentially provide an outlet for diverse local expressions thereby revitalising democracy in India.

  4. Reporting in the ‘New Media’ Environment: How Today’s Television Journalists are Recycling Work Practices of the Past
    Barbara Alysen – University of Western Sydney

    The issue of whether the practice of journalism for new mobile platforms and round-the-clock delivery represents a sharp break with the past or an adaptation of existing practices to meet new circumstances, remains unresolved within the study of Australian journalism. Some analysts see the contemporary news environment as forcing a revolutionary change in professional practice. In television news, for example, this has seen newsrooms addressing the challenges of new competition and reduced budgets by using associated online sites to present first versions of stories, requiring reporters to do more of the production work and more of their work in a ‘live’ environment while also drawing on the public for more of the material from which to generate news.

    However, the idea that journalism is undergoing a revolutionary shift in practice may owe its appeal, in part, to the relative dearth of historical analysis of work practices within Australian journalism in general, and broadcast journalism in particular. While some practices may, in fact, represent something new occasioned by changes in news media delivery others are more evolutionary and, in some ways, the skills required of journalists working in the ‘new media’ environment echo those required in a very different media environment.

Essays

  1. News: Structure and Agency
    Jake Lynch - Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney

    “The winds of change are blowing through American media”. So say the enterprising campaigners for peace and social justice at Avaaz.org, an independent not-for-profit organisation with offices in six countries. Avaaz means ‘voice’ in many languages and their team “works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making”.

  2. Photo Essay: The Land of the Blue Sky
    Mongolian nomads and the use of mobile communications technology.

    Kitty Hamilton

    In this work, the author looks at the rising use of mobile telecommunications by Mongolian nomadic herders. Mobile phones have a unique ability to connect to pastoral nomads and provide timely and up-to-date market and weather news. However, civil society in Mongolia is concerned that alongside the growing use of new technologies, there will also need to be effective training on how to responsibility use the medium.

  3. Just Because We Can: Instantaneous Recording of Music Concerts
    Collette Snowden – University of South Australia

    Open air and stadium-based musical events have been held in most societies for hundreds of year, but in recent decades, sound amplification technology, supplemented with large screen video, have enabled such events to be held in an increasing range of venues and circumstances and on even grander scales. Large music events, festivals and indoor arena concerts have become significant businesses, more recently providing a significant source of revenue for artists whose incomes have been compromised by falling sales of albums as a result of music downloading and file sharing.

    At the same time as live music events and festivals have become entrenched in the entertainment industry, recording technology has enabled events to be recorded for commercial purposes such as documentary film and live album production. Through the development of different technologies – from film to VHS to digital video, from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3, from photographic film to cell phone camera – over time live music events also became recorded events.

Interview

  1. In Conversation with Dr. Martin Indyk
    Dr. Hart Cohen and Dr. Antonio Castillo - Interviewers
    Dr. Martin Indyk is the Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution. Born in England and educated in Australia, he migrated to the United States in 1982. In March 1995, former US president appointed Dr. Indyk as ambassador to Israel. He returned to Israel as ambassador in March 2000 to work with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat on a renewed effort to achieve comprehensive peace. He also served there for the first six months of George W. Bush's presidency. Dr. Indyk is the author of Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. The book is a fascinating insider history of Middle Eastern diplomacy during the Clinton administration. In this interview held at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Dr. Indyk speaks about the process of writing a book that has been able to set the news agenda of journalists writing about the Middle East. Martin Indyk

Postgraduate Submissions

  1. Painting Everyday Life: Fulfilling Baudelaire’s Challenge through Photographically-Driven Painting
    Gary N. J. Makin - University of Western Sydney, Australia

    This essay, based on practice-led research, examines whether the challenge for painters to capture the character and essence of everyday life laid down by Charles Baudelaire in his essay, ‘Painting of Modern Life’ (1863), is fulfilled by photographically-driven painting. It studies, on both historical and contemporary grounds, the relationships artists have with photography and painting and the relationship between the two genres themselves. It will examine the relationships that artists such as Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, and Marlene Dumas have with these genres and how, through these, they witness and record the complexities of everyday life. It also refers to my own work to provide an insight into a practitioner’s point of view. Baudelaire’s own relationship to these genres will also be examined, as well as the associated theories, histories and concepts as seen through the writings of Roland Barthes, John Berger, Barbara Bloom, Yves-Alain Bois, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Van Deren Coke, Nina Felshin and Clement Greenberg. This essay will illustrate photography’s initial effect on painting, how this led to the domination of abstraction in painting, and why photographically-driven painting emerged as it did.

  2. Voiding of Scrutiny and Accountability in Turkey: Media and Journalism under the Justice and Development Party
    Nukte Ogun - University of Western Sydney, Australia

    A methodical transformation of the practice of journalism in Turkey began soon after the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) sweeping 2002 federal election victory. This is not unusual. Frequently new governments tend to target the media – and journalists in particular – while attempting to establish their political, social and economic agenda. In this political environment, completely void of scrutiny and accountability, journalism and the media are divided into two opposing feudal factions: those that support the AK Party, and those that do not. The media organisations and journalists who support the ruling party are able to access information, while opposing media is left in the dark. The Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of expression, however, this freedom is constantly undermined by a myriad of legal barriers; namely Article 301, which restricts freedom of expression if it is believed to denigrate the Turkish nation. This paper will discuss how the silencing of the media and public discourse in Turkey is systematic. It will contribute to the Australian understanding of international journalism and freedom of expression, in a country where east meets west.

Book Reviews