Tragic Deaths in Driveways

The death of another child who was backed over in his own driveway had prompted authorietes to urge parents to be aware of their children at all times and make sure that the coast is clear before reverseing out of their houses. A three year old boy from Sydney joins two other childern who have been killed by the family vehicle within a six day period. The mother behind the wheel of the four-wheel-drive BMW was in shock following the death of her son and is being given counselling. Among the previous two victims were a two year old boy from Melbourne who was struck by his mother's four-wheel-drive along with his grandfather, and a two year old girl who was also from Sydney and was run over by her father in her driveway. Such deaths are heartbreaking and tragic and not just for the loss of the children, as I have no doubt that the parents responsible will never be able to forgive themselves and will regret not looking behind them for the rest of their lives.  



Amanda Knox Appeal in Concluding Stages

Last semester I wrote an assignment about the Amanda Knox case and the decision by lifetime to turn the crime into a drama documentary starring Hayden Panettiere. I became facinated with the case, largely due to its highly publicised nature and the relentless efforts of the Italian Press to paint Knox as a sex crazed American teenager with a heart of ice. The crime itself occurred in Perugia, Italy in 2007, where 21 year old British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found stabbed to death in her apartment. Amanda Knox, who was her roomate at the time, was convicted for Kercher's murder along with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. The crime is believed to have resulted from a drug-fuelled sexgame that went to far. The Italian press pounced upon the case, deeming Knox the Angel Faced Killer and painting her as a promiscous devil nicknamed 'Foxy Knoxy'. The Italian court system does not require juries to be sequestered and some depictions of Knox in the media are likely to have impacted their perception of her. The case was also a hot topic of international bulletins and was heavily featured in the British, American and Italian media due to the diverse nationalities of those involved. The crime was not the only aspect heavily featured or debated, as the Italian justice system came under attack for their handling of the case and their method of trial which greatly differs to that of the American System. Amanda Knox has already served 2 years of a 26 year sentence with an appeal verdict expected within the early days of October. Knox and her boyfriend have maintained their innocence throughout the entire investigation and trial, claiming that they were together in Sollecito's apartment the night of the murder.

The case is particularly interesting when considering its radically different portrayal across continents and integral role of the media in shaping the conclusions and perceptions of audience. The press can wield a lot of power and influence when reporting on controversial crime stories and the Amanda Knox trial is a perfect example of the media's ability to subvert opinion.

The tralier for the lifetime adaptation is included below (the quality is very bad but it was the best I could find that was in English)

Photo of the Week

Similar to the Vietnam War photograph of the naked child running down the street in agony, this amazing photograph poses ethical questions, as it is capturing the murder of a human being while the photographer captures the event with his camera. It was taken in South Africa during the Apartheid years and depicts a a male supporter of the African National Congress, using a machete to hack at another man (a Zulu named Lindsaye Tshabalala) who is simultaneously being burned alive. The photographer did not intercede on the man's behalf or try to stop the crime, instead remaining a passive observer. Freelancer Greg Marinovich was responsible for capturing the event and received a pulitzer prize for the photograph of Lindsaye Tshabalala's Fiery Death. When reflecting on the photograph, Marinovich states that:

"This was without doubt the worst day of my life, and the trauma remains with me, despite some twenty years and a lot of coming to terms with the incident, my role and what it means to be involved in murder. This mudered happened a month after I had witnessed the one in Nancefield Hostel, and I was determined to redeem myself by not just being an observer. I neither saved him, nor redeemed myself, though at least I did not act shamefully.”

Lecture on Agenda Setting

Agenda setting is concerned with constructing reality to serve an ulterior motive - a motive that can be either altruistic or self-serving. The way that audiences perceive reality and interact with it is mediated through social life through everyday communication and shared language. The main forms of agenda are:

Public Agenda - a set of topics that members of the public consider important

Policy Agenda - issues that decision makers think are salient

Corporate Agenda - issues that are valued by conglomerates and businesses

Media Agenda - issues found within everyday media

The forms of agenda are not mutually exclusive and are often interconnected and interrelated.

Agenda setting theory acts upon the premise that the news media has a large influence over the public with respect to what stories they deem newsworthy and how much prominence they give them. The main objective of agenda setting is salience transfer, imparting issues of importance from their news media agendas to public agendas. Mccombs describes the process of agenda setting as the following:

"Through their day-by-day selection and display of the news, editors and news directors focus our attention and influence our perceptions of what are the most important issues of the day. This ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda has come to be called the agenda setting role of the news media"

Agenda setting is a process of building and cutting - there is so much information out there that it is virtually impossible to include everything, therefore it is best to choose issues that serve a wider purpose. A great deal of filtering is required which is not inherently sinister or corrupt, it is just necessary. However, a consequence of the media featuring certain issues more prominently and frequently than others is that the public comes to perceive these issues as more important than others. Unfortunately, this can lead to a uniform way of thinking as audiences fail to seek out wider issues.

Another form of agenda setting that could be regarded as sinister is propaganda, which is often used to promote a certain way of thinking through means akin to brainwashing. One definition describes propaganda as a tool used "to help shape images in the minds of human beings in support of an enterprise, idea or group. Propaganda can be used to substitute one social pattern for another."

The Agenda Setting Family comprises of:

1. Media Gatekeeping - controls the flow of messages through a communication channel (the internet is is a problematic medium when it comes to gatekeeping.
2. Media Advocacy - purposive promotion of a message which is often sponged to the public (such as health and safety messages)
3. Agenda Cutting - deciding what is and is not newsworthy ( unfortunately issues like AIDS are often shunted to the background)
4. Agenda Surfing - the media will jump on the bandwagon when trends arise, following and reporting on issues that audiences are currently interested in or obsessed with
5. The Diffusion of News - how, when and where news is released and those who are responsible for deciding
6. Portrayal of an Issue - the way an issue is portrayed will often influence how it is perceived by the public
7. Media Dependence - the more depend a person is on the media for information

Photo of the Week

Talk about capturing the moment - this iconic shot features the infamous murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, while he was being taken into custody. Oswald was believed to have been responsible for assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, with this photo being taken just two days after the police arrested him. The photographer, Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas-Times Herald, received the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for the photograph. 

The Controversy of Reporting Suicide

As a result of the horiffic murder/suicide that occured in Paddington, tutorial members debated the ethics of reporting suicides within the media and reflected upon past attitudes within journalism on the issue. We are all aware that publicising events generates interest and creates ideas among audiences and the concern of reporting instances of suicide is that it will encourage copycats among the public. During to the turorial i was alerted to the fact that Australia once had one of the worst suicide rates in the world, particularly among youg males living in rural and isolated areas. Of course I had no idea just how many suicides had occured due to the media's reluctance to report on the issue - and i can understand their reluctance but to me it just seems like the country was in a permanant state of denial. If no one acknowledges the existance of a problem, than nothing can be done about the problem and all these deaths are just being swept under the rug. A lot of good can be done by raising awareness and impressing upon the public the reality of the situation. Audiences are more likely to donate funds, identify warning signs and argue for government intervention if the problem of suicide is made more public. Foundations such as Beyondblue are in a better position to reach more people if they have the support of the media and the community. For example, when the Governemnt was made aware of the significant problem of adolewscent suicide in outback Australia, they were given very real incentive to assign funds to help with the problem, setting up programs and support groups within the community. In my opinion, I believe these stories should be reported on and discussed but I would consider it unethical for the media to release photographs or footage of the crime or its aftermath.

If you or someone you know think you need some help or just someone to talk to, please call any of the numbers listed below:

• Emergency appointment with your local doctor (General Practitioner) check the White Pages for the phone number. You can find a GP in your area who has had extra training in mental health by looking at the beyondblue Find a Doctor List.
• Contact your local public hospital.
• beyondblue info line - 1300 22 4636
• Lifeline - 13 11 14
• Suicide Helpline Victoria - 1300 651 251
• Kids Help Line (free call) - 1800 55 1800
• Mensline - 1300 789 978



Lecture on Public Media

Monday's lecture explored the attributes of Public media on a national and international level and highlighted the key differences between Public and Commercial media.

Nigel Milan, who was a former managing director of SBS, argues that "the difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens."

The primary objective of public media is to serve or engage the public. Supported by the government and funded through by taxpayer's money, the form is not supposed to be a market-driven entity and although it might engender a profit, this should never be its ultimate focus. Within Australia, media institutions such as the ABC, SBS and their subsidiaries (ABC2, 3, SBS2 etc.), along with Radio ABC, Triple J and Classic Fm are typical examples and heavily utilised forms of public media.

On an International scale, institutions such as the BBC (funded by television license fees, UK), Channel 4 (UK), PBS and National Public Radio (U.S.A), TVNZ (New Zealand), arte (France), NHK (Japan), RTHK (Hong Kong) and DR (Denmark) exist with an identical purpose to Australian public media, although there are variations in their operation, in accordance with their own laws and codes. They are funded by license fees, donations, government contributions and taxpayer money.

Community Media forms are local outlets for the dissemination of news and information and can have public and student contributors.

The Role of Public Media within a democracy is to facilitate conversation and support of public and democratic processes. The grounding principle is that it should always have public value.

Public media should include programs that cater to a large range of people, generally aimed at universal appeal. Provisions for minority groups should also be included as opposed to mainstream issues and ideas. It should not be concerned with things like ratings or profit but rather quality and entertainment. It should function within issues of nation, concerned with nation building, national heritage, identity and conversations. Cooking programs and entertainment shows are also a feature of public media, designed to serve and interest the public. However, there are always commercial aspects to everything which is exemplified through the appearance of shops and services such as the ABC shop, the World Game Shop and translation and data cast facilities.

The ABC - founded in 1929, ABC is broadcast all over the world through radio and television and includes a lot of programs that are not made in-house. Independent works are preferable and cheaper to broadcast.

The SBS - launched in 1980 under the banner of a 'multi-cultural' channel, this company ranges from programs such as Skynews, to music shows such as Rockwiz, documentaries, foreign programs and world sports. A lot of unique and quirky stuff that is increasingly rare within mainstream or commercial media channels will be broadcast through the SBS.

Aside from a slew of television programs, and films, Public Media is also heavily concerned with the news, although it operates in a different manner to news broadcasts by commercial stations. Within Australia, a tremendous majority of the population rely on the ABC for their news, with statistics revealing that the number is as high as 41%. The style of public media news is seen as the deciding factor, as it is less tabloid-like, foregrounding important and serious issues and presenting well researched and fact-driven pieces. The downside of this style, is that it is seen as boring and elitist, failing to spark interest to those who might tune in for the first time or who just want the headlines.

Some problems and criticisms that the ABC faces is the danger they risk when they are critical of the government and political factions, as these are the institutions responsible for its maintenance and funding and it is never a good idea for you to bite the hand that feeds you. There is also a belief that public media is performing too well and are capitulating to commercial pressures by focusing on ratings and competition with other channels over their ingrained responsibilities to the public.

Train and Bus Meet Deadly End

A train in Argentina collided with a bus on Tuesday morning on September 13, and then a second train crashed into the wreckage as a result of the relentless peak hour traffic. Over 212 people were injured, with emergency services working extremely hard to quickly extract the victims and rush them to hospital, Unfortunately, 11 people have already been declared dead and this is unlikely to be the final death toll. Footage of the aftermath of the tragedy is embedded below.

9/11 Ten Year Anniversary

Last Sunday marked the ten year anniversary of one of most prominent terrorist attacks of our generation> I still remember waking up that morning and going to watch cartoons before school and was just bombarded with report after report of the terrorist attacks. The footage went on for weeks and the rest of the world fell away and we knew that this tragedy would have lingering consequences for years to come. The following site depicts the dedication of the memorial and enables visitors to access information about victims and portals to offer support: http://www.911memorial.org/

Photo of the Week

This past July I went on an overseas trip to Europe and one of my final detonations was Amsterdam. Aside from taking a bike tour, gorging myself to flotation on dutch pancakes and visiting the Van Gogh Museum, I made sure I visited the House of Anne Frank. The twelve year old Jewish girl is one of the most associated faces with the tragedy of the holocaust, injecting identity among the masses of nameless corpses that are synonymous with the nazi regime. The house has been converted into a museum and displays several photos of Anne and her family. The photo that hid me the hardest and evoked the most tragedy and despair was that of Otto Frank, returning to his empty home (which had been his self-imposed prison for so long) having been the only survivor within his family. His wife and two daughters were killed during the war and even without this knowledge, the photo is most definitely that of a broken man.

Lecture on Commercial Media

Commercial media maintains a critical role within the Australian media landscape, with its accessibility extending from free to air television channels, newspapers run by News Limited and Fairfax Media, Pay TV channels such as Austar and Foxtel, not to mention the large variety of radio stations. It is a profit-driven form of media production that serves to keep advertisers happy.

Unlike government supported public media, commercial media outlets have shareholders and investors who are motivated by the need to generate audiences and who depend upon the success or failure of a media form for their own business. The cost of pro ducting commerce media derives from subscription, sponsorship and sometimes subsidisation through government funding. Within Australia, the major commercial media contributors and their associated assets are:

News Limited - an Australian newspaper publisher owned by News Corporation

• The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-mail, The Sunday Mail, The Mercury
• GQ Australia, Vogue Australia and Big League 
• news.com.au, theage.com.au
• Brisbane Broncos, Cowboys Rugby League Football

Fairfax Media Limited - one of Australia's largest and most diversified media corporations

• The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Border Mail
• CFO Australia, AFR Boss and AFR Smart Investor magazines 
• Fairfax Digital
• domain.com.au, RSVP
• Southern Cross Broadcasting, Satellite Music Australia

Nine

• Free to Air television - 9, GO, GEM
• ninemsn, ticketeck 
• Women's Weekly, Cosmo, Cleo, Zoo, FHM, Woman's Day

Win

• Free to Air TV and radio - mostly rural based
• TPG
• St George Footy Club

Other prominent commercial media outlets include Southern Cross, Channel Ten and Seven West Media.

Commercial media plays an important role within democratic society, however it can often be torn between two competing interests such as profit and social service. The social responsibilities of commercial media are to report the truth and keep the government and other interests in check and hold them accountable for their actions. However, commercial media is market driven and owes their allegiance to their investors and advertisers more than the general public. There should be an ethical wall that divides the profit and public interests, yet this boundary is sometimes crossed.

Because commercial media exists within a competitive environment, the public has access to wide variety of competing stories as stations and newspapers compete for headlines and are motivated to produce faster and compelling accounts.

However in some countries, social controls do operate within commercial media as some governments will restrict and censor the type of content reported and broadcast. Within China, the "great firewall of China" exists that prevents access to corrupting and networking sites such as Facebook, for fear that it will influence generations for the worse. At one point, Egypt, to no avail, tried to shut down the internet, to prevent footage of the riots and violence leaking overseas. Even in Australia, there are efforts to produce "clean-feed" internet sites by prohibiting certain forms of media being shone, however this is highly problematic as who gets to decide what is and is not appropriate. In some countries such as Indonesia and East Timor, they have issue licenses for journalism that can be revoked at any time if the organisation believes that you have done something offensive, this is a liberty we take for granted in Australia and every day, more and more citizen journalists are created.

The Style and Consequences of Commercial Media
CM has gained a bad reputation for being corrupt, self-serving, lacking in quality and prioritising advertising interests over the good of the public. The consequences of CM is a type of tabloidisation of the news where it is dumbed down and given in broader terms due to the overwhelming desire to satisfy the superficial interests of the public. Basically, giving the public everything they want rather than what they really need and just like spoilt children, the effect of this will ultimately ruin them.

Future Challenges
The revenue for advertising within commercial media is continually decreasing and with the proliferation of free to air channels, audiences are stretched over a thinner base between countless competing interests. The loss of revenue ultimately inhibits the ability to produce quality media as there is simply no money for it, so instead we get bombarded with constant repeats of sitcoms and imported dramas.

But as we move into the digital era, a glimmer of hope persists as advertisers will switched to digital portals of promoting their products. As budding journalists, we hope that the public will continue to want and pay for quality journalism, no matter whether of not they access it through traditional forms of media or new digital formats. We can also view this as moving away from corporate media dominance to an expanded public sphere. 

Darren Lockyer Retires

I'm not much for sporting stories or icons but even I cannot let the retirement of Darren Lockyer go unmentioned, especially when considering that his autobiography has been flying of my work's shelves and was our number one seller for father's day. The legend is set to retire at the end of this NRL season and after a bit of R and R, not to mention some physical therapy, Lockyer is set to host a signing at the local Victoria Point Shark's Club, curtesy of Angus and Robertson Victoria Point.

Darren Lockyer announces his retirement at the Broncos Leagues Club, Red Hill. Picture: Nathan Richter The Courier-Mail

Paddington Murder-Suicide: Tragedy Hits Close To Home

My colleague at work mentioned this story to me the other night because it took place in Paddington Brisbane, making it seem a lot more real and immediate than a lot of other crimes you hear about on the news. I generally think of Brisbane as a pretty safe and rather mundane place and hearing about a murder of a young girl so near to me is quite shocking and a little hard to compute. The body of 14 year old Sidonie Thompson, was discovered on the 7th of September following the suicide of her mother who flung herself off a bridge. The mother, Kim Pattison, is suspected of murdering her child and ending her own life immediately afterwards. Investigation is still be carried out with the police choosing not to disclose intimate details of the case for the time being.

The News of the World Scandal Continues

The News of the World scandal resulted from a series of abuses by the Rupert Murdoch owned paper, when it was revealed that the company was guilty of hacking into the phones of Royals, celebrities and politicians and paying hush money to anyone who came close to exposing their scheme. They are also accused of tapping the phones and email accounts of intelligence officers, victims, devastated parents and police officers, which takes the breaching of ethical as well as legal boundaries to a whole other extreme. Printing stories based on the illegal obtainment of information is a serious offence and has resulted in several sackings, resignations and continued legal repercussions for the company and those involved.

Ethics exist in journalism to prevent the exploitation of individuals and communities and to ensure that the rights and laws of the public are followed. Pursuing a story at any cost is an understandable goal, especially when considering the highly competitive "do or die" nature of journalism. However, there can be serious consequences for such reckless disregard of privacy rights and engagement in criminal activities, both legally, monetarily and some would say most importantly, reputation-wise.

For a timeline of the scandal go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8634176/Phone-hacking-timeline-of-a-scandal.html

Photo of the Week

This photo raises questions about the ethicality of some reportage and whether ti is right to display such clear moments of distress to the public. On the one hand, it is exploiting the pain and suffering of nine year old Phan Thị Kim Phúc during the Vietnam War but on the other hand, it is raising awareness about the horrific consequences of war and giving the public a face to the victims. Nick Ut took the photograph during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972 received the pulitzer prize for it. The little girl is town running down the street naked and in obvious agony after her back was severely burned by a South Vietnamese Napalm attack. 

Lecture on Web News

This lecture was fundamentally concerned with the evolution of the Internet and the shifting forms of interaction users have experienced since its inception. The challenges of online news and the ways that companies can gain money from online outlets was also explored, as the class questioned the ethicality of paywalls and charging for previously free online services.

Before the emergence and rapid popularity of the  world wide web, people relied on forms of old or traditional media for entertainment and information. The most popular forms of mass communication or legacy media were magazines, television, newspapers and the radio. We still use all of these forms today but the problem (or advantage) is that all of these forms are now available through the singular medium of the Internet.

Web 1.0 was the original Internet form and it was extremely advertising friendly with brochures and promotional material everywhere. Any content was surrounded with advertisements, mainly in the form of banners or headers that were hard to miss or jumped out at you as soon as the page loaded.

Web 2.0 is where we are now or at least is the place we are about to leave from. Also dubbed the social web, this internet form is defined by its capacity for interaction and communication. Poplar sites such as Facebook, twitter, youtube, myspace, wikipedia and linked in among others, encourage user produced content and focus on the formation of social groups and networking. Axel Bruns fro QUT coined the term "prod-users" to describe the emergence of user generated content who effectively act as their own producers.

The direction the Internet is headed towards is Web 3.0 which is known as the semantic web. Already, this is not a foreign or unheard of thing, especially considering the increasing popularity of smart phones and our amazement at the type of personalised applications available. This web form adds machine-readable meaning to packets of information. This information is particularly tailored to your own interests and needs and can be based on browser history or previously accessed material or on a simple input and answer process. This process is recognised as meta-tagging, where you can rely on web 3.0 to provide information that encompasses a wide variety of factors specifically for you, such as movie times, restaurants close-by, transportation deadlines etc.

The consequences of Web 3.0 for the news is hyper localisation that provides information specifically relevant to where you are. Advertisers readily exploit hyper localisation as it provides specific target audiences for particular types of products. The consequence of hyper localisation unfortunately, is that if we are exposing ourselves to our narrow likes and desires, we risk missing out on a lot of general knowledge and engagement with wider concerns and events.

The shift from paper journalism to online media is posing questioned for media producers, such as mad-dog Murdoch, as to how to get money out of consumers. Journalism is an occupation whose contributors require pay ( I know I sure want to get paid), so the concern is a valid one. The concept of a paywall has been proposed and has already been put into motion is some cases. The ethicality of this is questionable as issues of entitlement come into effect. Why should we now pay for something that we have always gotten for free? we expect web news to be cheap and accessible, in fact that i why a lot of users rely only on this format. How important is quality journalism compared to the simple reiteration of facts and events - can we put a price on how much it means to us - is that price more than the cost of the paywall. At least such paywall news sites are trying to offer add-ons to entice and reward subscribers, with membership privileges including discounts to popular shows, stores and events.

The direction of investigative journalism (which is a field i am particularly interested in) is not looking too good if people aren't willing to pay for quality journalism. Investigative journalism takes a lot of time, energy, research and should take fieldwork in order to write an interesting and thorough article that is fact-checked and not susceptible to lawsuit. Given my career aspirations, I hope that people will be willing to facilitate the production of quality journalism and afford journalists the resources and time needed to produce stories of a high calibre.

Julia Gillard: Not Long for this Government

I think it has gotten to the stage where Australians are now taking bets as to how long Julia Gillard will actually stay in power. The situation has steadily gotten worse for Gillard as the Labour Party is fighting to stay afloat after failing to live up to expectations and survival personal scandal. The deal that Gillard has with the independents, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie, is held together by a mere string that is fraying at the edges. The Labour party's failure to "stop the boats" has gendered significant controversy and uproar, especially in light of the Malaysia solution which is further stripping asylum seeker's of their right to freedom and choice. The following link provides a more detailed account of present situation: http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/latest/10163976/labor-powerbroker-says-gillard-finished/