Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, Department of International Communication, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 431-447. / Introduction -- Literature review -- Methodology -- The development and the actual situation of television industry in China -- Commercial television in the U.S. and public television in the U.K. -- Results and discussion -- Conclusions and recommendations -- Bibliography. / Over the past five decades, China's television industry has gone through various historical periods, which have seen marked changes in China's political and economic spheres, indeed in Chinese society overall. Over the last thirty years, since the reform and opening up of China in 1978, transformation of the original television systems, structure and industrial market chain has been attempted concomitant with the gradual relaxation of the restrictions applicable to China's television industry. Within these circumstances, the Chinese government, media practitioners, and scholars are actively exploring long-term, feasible and sustainable approaches to the further development of the television industry in China. The research examines China's approaches to the development of its television industry, using McQuail's political, economic and social framework, the relevant political economy traditions involving the neoclassic paradigm and the heterodox approach, and the principles of media economics and the 'market chain' theory of the television industry. This thesis first presents a concise review of how television developed in China: it then seeks to map perceived changes and to ascertain the problems throughout the process. Research methods employed are secondary data analysis, in-depth interview and focus group. Chinese scholars, officials and media practitioners are the participants of interviews and focus groups. The discussion draws on previous analyses and discussions, to assess the overall picture of television industrialisation reformation in China, additionally drawing on discourses surrounding commercial television in the United States and public television in the United Kingdom for valuable reference material that will support China's television development. The significance of this research lies in its providing an insight into China's television reformation and adding, to the field of communication and development, the Chinese experience. The research expects to propose a television development pathway with Chinese characteristics, drawing on Chinese as well as Western theories. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xix, 461 p. ill

This study investigates how journalists experience economic and political pressures on their ethical decisions at the Nation Media Group (NMG) conglomerate in Kenya. The study uses qualitative semi- structured interviews to examine how journalists experience these pressures on their professional ethics as they make their daily decisions. Grounded in the critical political economy of the media tradition, the findings of the study indicate that economic and political pressures from advertisers, shareholders’ interests, the profit motive and the highly ethnicised political environment in Kenya largely compromise the ethical decisions of journalists. The study draws on the work done by Herman and Chomsky in their ‘Propaganda Model’ in which they propose ‘filters’ as the analytical indicators of the forms that political and economic pressures that journalists experience may take. The study explores the ways in which journalists experience these pressures, how they respond to the pressures and the ways in which their responses may compromise their journalism ethics. The findings indicate that aside from the pressures from the primary five filters outlined in the Propaganda Model, ethnicity in Kenyan newsrooms is a key ‘filter’ that may compromise the ethical decisions of journalists at the NMG. The study therefore argues that there is a need to modify the explanatory power of the Propaganda Model when applying it to the Kenyan context to include ethnicity as a ‘sixth filter’ that should be understood in relation to the five primary filters. From the findings, it would seem that the government is no longer a major threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility in Kenya. Market forces and ethnicity in newsrooms pose the greatest threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility. The study therefore calls for a revision of the normative framework within which journalists’ and media performance in Kenya is assessed. As the study findings show, the prevailing liberal- democratic model ignores the commercial and economic threats the ‘free market’ poses to journalism ethics as well as ethnicity in newsrooms and only focuses on the media- government relations, treating the government as the major threat to media freedom.

This thesis explores the manner in which the conflict in the oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria is represented in western Anglophone media. Large oil reserves in the Niger Delta have contributed millions of dollars towards the growth of Nigeria's export economy. Despite this, the Niger Delta is the least developed region in the country and is characterised by high rates of inequality. Residents of the Niger Delta have been outraged by the lack of action on the part of the Nigerian government and multinational oil corporations. Their discontent over the inequalities in the region has resulted in the proliferation of armed groups and militants who often use violent and criminal tactics to communicate their disgruntlement. This thesis closely examines the representations of the violent insurgency in the Niger Delta by conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis of 145 news texts selected from four western Anglophone newspapers from 2007 to 2011. The depiction of the conflict as it appears in the four newspapers is discussed in relation to an overview of scholarly literature which explores the portrayal of Africa not only in western media, but also in other forms of western scholarship and writing. The research undertaken in this study reveals that to a significant extent representations of the Niger Delta conflict echo and reflect some of the stereotypical and age-old negative imagery that informs meanings constructed about the African continent. However, the analysis of the news texts also shows that there are certainly efforts amongst some newspapers to move beyond simplistic representations of the conflict. The disadvantage however, is that these notable attempts tend to be marred by the use of pejorative language which typically invokes negative images associated with Africa. This study argues that the implications of these representations are highly significant as these representations not only affect the way in which the conflict is understood, but also the manner in which the international community responds to it.