This study attempts to analyse the way foreign media organisations have used the Internet to inform, educate and mobilise citizens for participation in their national election. These foreign experiences provide a framework with which to analyse the implications for the SABC as a public broadcaster of the next elections in South Africa. The research was informed by theories of media and democracy. One of the most powerful features of the new technology is its technical ability to facilitate an interactive flow of information. This research examines the concept of cyberdemocracy and the implications for the SABC, especially as it is planning on launching an online election strategy. The democratic roles of journalism and the implications for the SABC are also discussed. As a public service broadcaster, the SABC is bound to educate, inform, and mobilise voters for participation, build community and national identity and scrutinise the poll in the interests of transparency, accountability and fair play. International journalists are advocating a new type of journalism, called public or civic journalism, which combines these roles. This research draws primarily on qualitative research methods, using a case study methodology. It draws upon direct observation and interview methodology in the fieldwork. However, it also uses some quantitative methods in the analysis of the websites and the SABC research.Finally, the research analyses the situation at the SABC and provides recommendations for the election website within this context

In December 2004, an enlisted soldier challenged the Secretary of Defense on international television and caused a media crisis situation in Kuwait and Washington D.C. that created a historic opportunity for military public affairs professionals to react to the press with electronic news gathering (ENG) technology. This case study examines how the Army responded from Kuwait and subjects these events to models of response generated by Coombs (1995) and Hale et al (2005). The intent is to examine the media crisis response strategies employed by the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) and to compare them with strategies that have been identified and addressed in contemporary crisis management literature.

Conde, Kelly, M.A., Spring 2013 Journalism The Damage Done Chairperson: Dennis Swibold The water that ran from Helen Rickers faucet stank of rotten eggs and of chemicals. It ran orange and greasy. It stained her clothes and clung to her skin. Ricker lives on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, three miles north of Poplar, Mont. From Rickers home, the oil wells from the East Poplar oilfields can be seen in the distance. Her water started to change in the early 1970s, twenty years after the first oil well was drilled. It took about that long for the contamination from poorly regulated drilling practices and leaking wells to reach her water supply. Since then, Ricker and her neighbors have struggled for clean water. Twenty years after the contamination turned Rickers water undrinkable, it reached Poplar. It went from contaminating the water of 20 homes, to poisoning an entire city water supply. Poised on the edge of the highly productive Bakken formation, Poplar was caught straddling two eras. As the town scrambled for a solution to their water problems brought on by oil practices from decades ago, the prospect of rapid oil production flickered in the near future. And just as the towns water was saved by way of a new water treatment plant funded by American taxpayers, the Bakken started to boom. If the boom reaches the reservation, it means a way out of economic hardship, but for those still dealing with the consequences of the last boom, it means fresh wounds on an already scarred land. The Damage Done sheds light on the long-term effects of unharnessed oil and gas production. It also tells the scientific story of oil production and some ways the industry and regulatory agencies have changed to prevent such environmental disasters from happening in the future.

Laws and judicial pronouncements

In December 2004, an enlisted soldier challenged the Secretary of Defense on international television and caused a media crisis situation in Kuwait and Washington D.C. that created a historic opportunity for military public affairs professionals to react to the press with electronic news gathering (ENG) technology. This case study examines how the Army responded from Kuwait and subjects these events to models of response generated by Coombs (1995) and Hale et al (2005). The intent is to examine the media crisis response strategies employed by the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) and to compare them with strategies that have been identified and addressed in contemporary crisis management literature.

Thèse--Paris. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 71 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-41).

Little attention has been paid to the psycho-cognitive factors that drive selective exposure of politically partisan media. This study tests the impact of need for cognition and need for closure on conservatism and selective exposure. A model of media use employing a hierarchical regression shows that need for closure drives conservatism, but does not have an effect on one's tendency to consume likeminded media. Need for cognition did not have a significant impact on media exposure or conservatism. Implications are discussed. / text

This project examines four dimensions of journalism in Mexico: historical development, journalists’ professional mindsets, conditions of freedom and autonomy, as well as sourcing patterns, narratives and reporting practices. By looking at individual, organisational, political, economic, and historical factors, we attempt to identify patterns of change and continuity—as well as areas of ambiguity—embedded in the culture of journalism after political democratisation. Previous accounts of media transformation in the country have noted that an American style of journalism has slowly gained a foothold as a result of economic liberalisation, and has allegedly replaced the passive, authoritarian traits that characterised press-state relations during the 20th century. We interrogate such narratives by arguing that rather than a progressive media transition, a hybridisation of journalism traditions has occurred, wherein the liberal discourse of professionalism has blended with continuing authoritarian practices, while commercial interests of the media have all re-accommodated and adapted to a mutating political environment. We first trace the development of journalism and the various factors that have shaped it. In the individual and organisational aspects of journalistic culture, we examine the way Mexican journalists notionally disengage from their authoritarian past and pay lip service to liberal press values and roles. Likewise, we look at the way they assimilate organisational demands, daily pressures, and newsroom hierarchy. In the analysis of conditions of autonomy, we survey the state of freedom of speech and censorship under the two consecutive PAN governments, as well as the role of political and private advertisers as agents of pressure. Moreover, the thesis analyses the way in which the collection and dissemination of political messages, sourcing patterns and the resulting narrative reflect a continuity of a passive style of journalism. Finally, we evaluate the interplay of these dimensions of Mexican journalistic culture in relation to a specific political conflict, notably the presidential elections of 2006. The study, ultimately, aims to highlight the flaws and limitations of liberal accounts of media transformation in the context of a transitional democracy.

Four Western press agencies, together with the Soviet press agency TASS, have a virtual monopoly on the gathering and dissemination of international news. These agencies to a large extent determine the nature of information originating in foreign countries that reaches the peoples of the world through newspapers, radio and television. / This information monopoly by itself indesirable, is particularly harmful to the developing nations that often have non independent means of obtaining information about events occurring in other countries. / The "New World Order of Information and Communication" (N.W.O.I.C.) that has emerged from deliberations among the non-aligned nations and in UNESCO represents an attempt to change this situation. This thesis analyses: the impact of the current situation on the developing nations; the modus operandi and the legal regime of the international press organizations; and the salient features of N.W.O.I.C.