Issue No. 2, January - June 1997
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The Graduate School of Journalism, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Tim Hamlett & Judith Clarke:
The Law And Hong Kong News Media After July 1997
Journalism educators in Hong Kong will find themselves in a state of confusion over what to teach students for whom familiarity with the law is a professional necessity. The law-making structure during the handover of Hong Kong to China has become so unpredictable that little firm instruction can be attempted. This article traces the development of new laws impinging on the media in Hong Kong. It argues that without a clear legal framework, journalism instructors may end up teaching students to consider the consequences to themselves of what they write, which is hardly an appropriate approach to a competent education in journalism.
P. Eric Louw:
Parallel Media Response To Racial Policies In Malaysia And New South Africa
Some striking parallels have emerged between post-colonial Malaysia and South Africa in terms of their social policies and political discourse and the media's response to these policies and discourses. The Bumiputera policy as developed in Malaysia in the 1970's seems to have been exported to l990's South Africa where it is called affirmative action. This paper traces the roots of these two contemporary race-based policies back to a joint experience of British imperialism and examines the implications such race-based socioeconomic policies seem to hold for the media and media workers. Journalists and media trainers are challenged to consider ways in which the media can respond to such policies.
Philip Bell:
News Values, Race, And "The Hanson Debate" In The Australian Media
While the media are not to blame for racism, they are deeply implicated in reproducing the assumptions which maintain popular misconceptions about race as an inevitable cause of social divisions. This is evident in the Australian, as well as Asian, media focus on Pauline Hanson's politics of fear since her maiden speech in the Australian Federal Parliament in September 1996 . This article outlines some of the ways by which the 'quality' press, Sydney Morning Herald; and populist television program, 60 Minutes, developed the public discourse around race and immigration which effectively legitimised the unsupported assumptions of Hanson and her supporters.
Ron Scollon:
Hong Kong Newspapers On The Pre-Transitional Stage
Modern newspapers in Hong Kong have evolved over a period of more than 100 years from mission-based periodicals in an awkward Chinese interlanguage to one of the world's most diverse theatres of public discourse. While Hong Kong newspapers have largely begun as mouthpieces of interest groups, a formula of combining governmental and commercial interests has brought them onto the contemporary stage as vigorous and active representatives of worldwide journalistic practice. This article outlines a view of the public discourse of Hong Kong newspapers as it looks now and in historical perspective as a base for comparison as Hong Kong journalism moves through the current political transition.
Ricardo Saludo:
New Tech Old Skills: Reworking Conventional Journalism Instruction
High-tech has made the age-old skills of checking the facts, setting the context and organizing the story ever more necessary. With the Internet, journalism educators will all still have jobs teaching the next generation of hacks how to write clearly, organize their ideas and information, go for the right color and work as a team. Journalism education must develop that capacity in future graduates, as well as the management skills needed to knit together a group of people and bring the best out of each one. That is the only way to allow the full development of each individual's potential in specific skills while ensuring that the end- product makes full use of high-tech media's capabilities.
David Li:
News Values In Contrast: Western Versus Chinese News Reconstruction
This article explores the differences in journalistic policy and ideology between South China Morning Post (SCMP) and Ming Pao (MP) in their coverage of a public event. SCMP appeared reluctant to include eyewitness accounts whereas much more vivid details were included in the MP coverage. This overt difference may have been due to such considerations as differential perceptions of the journalist's responsibility, audience design, the preferred rhetorical model of news story reconstruction, and perceptions of 'truth'.
MEDIA COMMENTARY
Tsang Tak-sing:
Hong Kong Media In Transition; Mak Yin-ting: Hong Kong's Media Freedoms - Some Question Marks
Will July 1, 1997 mark the beginning of a slow "death" of press freedom in Hong Kong? TSang Tak-sing, editor of the Chinese newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, believes Hong Kong media will continue to prosper under the Chinese model of "press freedom". However, mak yin-ting, president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, argues the Chinese model is an anachronism completely alien to Hong Kong journalists. The opposing views were extracted from speeches delivered at the Commonwealth Journalists Association conference in Hong Kong on Jan.23-28, 1997. Chen Chongsan from the Cinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing provides a postscript on the issue of "News And The Chinese Public".
John Laird:
Media And Sustainable Devt -- Testing The Media Agenda
We are at a turning point in the development of our global civilisation. It is hard for people to recognise this, caught up in patterns, routines and expectations which are the products of an outmoded economic theory of limitless consumption. Is it not time that the media administer to themselves the test of sustainability? Can media practitioners and managers act in concert to develop an agenda of their own to help bring about sustainable lifestyles? Or, are the media merely captive players in an economic machine, with no choice but to feed this consumerist frenzy that seems to be spiralling out of control.
Damien Kingsbury:
Constraints On Reporting Australia's Asian Neighbours
Indonesia's political landscape after Soeharto, Malaysia after Mahathir and Singapore after Lee Kuan Yew will raise whole new sets of political sensitivities which could challenge and even threaten the positions and perspectives of Australian journalists trying to report the region. As this article points out, it is because of the inevitability of fundamental political changes in the region that Australia needs its own journalists in Asia, viewing regional developments from an Australian perspective.
TRAINING NOTES
Cesar M. Mercado:
Continuing Education For ASEAN Communication Educators And Trainers
Communication education and training programs are highly competitive relative to other social science programs in the ASEAN region. However, the rapid changes in the region suggest that we should strive to make our communication curricula more responsive to the realities in the area.The rapid socioeconomic, geopolitical and techno-cultural changes that we have increasingly experienced in the ASEAN community suggest the urgent need to re-tool our communication programs in line with the emerging cybercommunity.Communication educators and trainers in the region are mainly responsible for ensuring the continuing relevance of our communication programs in this part of the most economically dynamic region in the world. But are we prepared to perform this role? To answer this question with confidence, we need to have a continuing education program for ASEAN educators and trainers. This article suggests some leads on the development of a continuing education program for communication educators and trainers that will continuously attune us to the never ending development of ASEAN-sensitive communication curricula, training programs and teaching learning materials.
Eric Loo:
Relating Journalism Training To Development Needs In Laos
As the Lao People's Democratic Republic goes through a period of "controlled development" local journalists are beginning to re-examine their role in communicating "development" messages from the government to the people. While most of the journalists do not have any formal training in journalism, their inquiries on what to them are new concepts of reporting issues of development in Laos highlights the inherent conflict between critical free reporting with "development news reporting". This article. based on my short stay in Vientiane in April, describes the circumstances that Lao journalists are working in since the country started its economic reforms in 1979.
David Robie:
Electronic Student Newspaper: "Uni Tavur" And Pedagogy Of Experience
A 20 year-old South Pacific journalism education program has spawned the only training newspaper of its kind, Uni Tavur in the region. After being redesigned as a desktop publishing venture in 1993, two years later it was relaunched as a professional tabloid. Now, after the debut of the paper's Internet online edition and an email news service, this article makes a case for the pedagogy of experience -- integrated learning combining theory and skills in the newsroom.
Peter White & David Blackall:
Journalism Practice Informs Multicultural Journalism Course
A new 24 credit point Graduate Certificate in Multicultural Journalism is being offered by the University of Wollongong. Developed in consultation with Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) Radio division , the course emphasises cultural sensitivity in the presentation of news and current affairs. The curriculum is tailored to provide skills for news media professionals in translating news from English to other languages. This is the case in SBS radio where mainstream English language (sourced from AAP and similar wire and online services) is translated into 68 different languages. Thus in developing the curriculum, SBS Radio becomes a valuable resource for case studies and experience.
Cathy MacCarthy:
Forging Media Representation Of Women In Cambodia
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