Only in Ithaca 2

We don't need no cinematography! The story continues:

From: bounce-810576-3539755@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-810576-3539755@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Rhoda Streifer
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:00 AM
To: international-l@cornell.edu
Subject: dog walking exchange

thanks to the individuals who are interested, i cannot read the Chinese or Japanese characters in the response sent to me on Nov 26. if you are still interested, please send your mail in English. i do not have software in a different languages.

...and I am on my way to Hong-Kong.

Only in Ithaca

While i am waiting for the tea to boil, here is an email i got on one of my mailing lists:

From: bounce-799805-3539755@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-799805-3539755@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Rhoda Streifer
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 2:59 PM
To: international-l@cornell.edu
Subject: person to walk my dog in exchange for esl lesson or simply get regular exercise

I have a very wonderful 9 yr. old dog whom i cannot walk anymore due my age i have been tutoring English as a second language for 31 yrs and i am the mother of two grown children. The dog walk would only take from 20-30 minutes and i would go along and "pick up' after the dog.The route is near my home from North Albany St around one to two blocks onto north cayuga and then home. This would be good for a man or woman of any age who would like to get some moderate exercise without having to join a gym for $400/month. also, a pre-teenager age 11 though teenager age 16 might like this job. Please let me know.. you may phone me at 277-7351 or respond to this email. . thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

Only in Ithaca :)

Peace Journalism and Development News

I am trying to understand this concept of development communication. Right now I am reading a book by Clement Asante called "Press Freedo and Development". Putting in a nutshell my understanding of the progress of the subfield of development communication it has gone from applying a modernization theory to alternative, more reflexive(?) approaches, one of which is development support communication. In a way it is a transition from the strong influences paradigm to a more moderate view – if the earlier approaches talked about communication actually leading developmental processes, the later approaches are talking about communication being part of a more complex matrix of social, economic, cultural and political influences.

One of the terms described in the book is that of "development news". Deriving from a body of research that shows that developing nations are being portrayed by the Western media mostly in terms of catastrophes, political troubles, human suffering and misery, she suggests an alternative approach. Here is how Asante describes it:

"Development news is basically a development-oriented news story that gives a positive image of a country. This news item tries to raise national consciousness, promote national unity and integration, and help to improve the quality of life of the people in terms of provision of health services, food production, community development and alike. Thus, development journalism or communication can be defined as the critical examination, evaluation and reporting of the relevance of a development project to national and local needs. In fact, any news item that tends to focus or highlight any form of social change, development, growth, or improvement in a society or nation falls under the development communication concept." (p. 150)

Well, this normatively charged approach may appear naïve, not rigorous and simplistic. Moreover there is a series of question raising about the journalistic norms involved and the role of journalism as a social institution. Later Asante quotes Narinda Aggarwala (1979) who wrote:

"Development journalism is the use of all journalistic skills to report development processes in an interesting fashion. It may require high skills and hard work but the rewards of this kind of journalism can be tremendous. It could almost lead to the humanization of international news"

And then she quotes Schramm and Atwood (1981):

"By development news, these Third World spokesmen mostly mean "good" news."

Reading all this (and more) I had difficult time accepting the idea that development news is necessarily optimistic news. What about some healthy criticism of the regime, the industry, the civil society? What about media being an accountability mechanism in a democratic (or even semi-democratic) society? There is something intuitively wrong in viewing media as a tool of dissimilation of positive news only.

As the same time, reading this, made me thinking about the concept of "peace journalism", which is also trying to promote a normative stand in conflict coverage. I think that there are parallels, while at the same time PJ has some more advanced ways of conceptualizing its position. The basic argument there would be that as journalists take a normative stand in issues of crime, drugs, sexual violence, etc., they can also take a stand in coverage of conflicts. The important distinction however, is that the taken stand is more of a macro character, rather than explicit support to the parties. Similarly to an overall notion in crime coverage that crime is bad, there could be a notion that in conflict situation, regardless on who is right and who is wrong, the conflict itself is bad. At first, it is rather difficult to grasp, but reading more on the subject you do realize how contemporary media do not take a stand towards conflicts, in a way assuming that conflicts are exogenously imposed and they are there to stay. The claim of PJ is by changing the prism and looking at the conflict itself as a socially undesirable phenomenon can contribute to changing the social mindset as well.

Here I can see a possible link to development support journalism as taking a macro normative stand that the development is good. However it does not imply that from now on developing nations should receive positive and optimistic coverage only. The idea is probably more of a self aware journalism contributing to the shift of social mindset.

Another interesting point which is kind of rising from out PEACE study and in a way from Galtung's writing is that talking about peace, you have to talk about socio-economic development. Galtung is talking about positive peace, which is a motion towards inclusion and transparency not just among societies, but also within the societies themselves. Thus the positive peace includes socio-economic development and inclusion within and among nations, which in turn can strengthen my point about similarities in journalistic treatment of peace and development.

Any thoughts?

More on parade

Well, Ynet has a special section dedicated to parade coverage, which is probably signifies the centrality of the issue on the Israeli public agenda.

Election and my privacy paranoia

Right now I am sitting in a living room watching, together with two classmates, the results of the US election coming in. Yes, this is yet another socializing event :) As we watch it, there is apparently a mini-history taking place as the democrates are taking back the house. Watching it with two "burned" (literally translation of שרוף from Hebrew) democrats it is rather entertaining. Judge yourself:

more :)

However, not everything is that shiny. A couple of days ago Veronica sent me that article, which was rather "eye-opening" for me. Here are some examples of articles in English describing the phenomena: [1], [2], [3] (thank you Erik for those). Basically, the idea is that in this election campaign managers used voters registry crossed with various consumer data for targeted campaigns. As a result they claim to be able micro-manage the election knowing practically everything about their voters' behavior. So today, when you shop, subscribe for a journal or send your kids to a summer camp, you've been literally monitored by the Big Brother. Is it me, or this is spooky? How come that we don't really care about that? What happened to the boundaries of our privacy? Today the monitor the behavior to target the message/political pressure and what will happen tomorrow? Are we going to be followed to the polls? After that I do start question my concerns about Google for there are worse things out there…

And here is the guy who is apparently (partly?) responsible for creation of this database, Frank Luntz, a name and a face to remember.

Is religion evil?

Well, this is a little bit long one and also probably a sensitive one, but let see…

In the last couple of weeks, there is a huge debate going on in Israel regarding a possibility of having a gay parade in Jerusalem. Well, the parade is scheduled for the end of the week (as from what I understand have happened in the last 5 years), but this time there is a huge opposition to it from the religious communities in the city. The claim, shared by various religion representatives, is that Jerusalem is a holy city and gay relationships are such a huge sin that having the parade will contaminate the place. The things are kind of going out of control at the moment while ultra religious people (dare I say fanatics) are burning trash bins and tires, block highways, throw stones on the policemen and today even attacked the mayor. The police is afraid people will get hurt or even killed. The newspapers seem to be flooded with articles on the subjects and the talkbacks (got to love them!) flourishing with comments ranging from calls to cancel the parade and even expel the gays to having it at any cost and break the bones of everyone who will try to stop it. I also had a big argument with a friend about that matter and we kind of agreed to disagree. But it made me thinking…

The argument against the parade is the holiness of the place. It is claimed that the religious feelings are going to get hurt that much by holding that parade that is not justified to have it. And I keep on asking myself if the religious feelings are more important compared to civil liberties? How do we compare? For example, one argument I heard is that the religion is deeper rooted in our culture, it has history and thus people are more sensitive compared to the gays. Well, first I am not sure how true this statement is. In a similar fashion one can claim that secular Israelis are less passionate about their secularity and thus Israel should be turned into an absolutely religious state based on religious law only. Then, I still find it difficult to decide if a long lasting believe matters more than a basic right of a person to have a different sexual orientation. If I believe for hundreds of years that the earth is flat and it really hurts my feelings when people get out to streets to celebrate the fact that they were able to travel around the world, does it make my believe more valuable than their right to celebrate a different set of believes and behaviors? Another argument I hear is "Why in Jerusalem? Aren't there other places? Why not Tel-Aviv?" And, again, I keep on asking myself, isn't Jerusalem a capital of all Israel? If that is so, why one group of citizens can express their believes and ways of living in the capital, but another is not? How do we decide whose liberties are more important than the others'? Frankly, I fail to see a difference.

I have to admit that the last few weeks gave a lot of food for though about religion, or more precisely what it has became. I do believe the original idea was good, but the contemporary version, or at least the contemporary publicly presented version, is rather bad. For me, the main focus of the last week was of course the debate, or shall I say the fight, around the parade. A few days ago I also read Lisa's post about Australian Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly basically blaming the victims of the southwest Sydney gang rapes, for what happened. I do not understand that.

When I look at religion as it is represented today I see disrespect to women and impatience towards anyone who is different. I see violence, anger and blocked minds. I see abuse of originally beautiful values and I see masses – masses of people who are either being manipulated or have chosen an easy path of being told what to think. This is not kind of a religion I am ready to identify myself with or to support.

Of course, what I am doing here is a rough, and probably unfair, generalization. I've been discussing this with people and many have told that majority of people who believe are not that fanatic. And as a communication scholar I understand that media represent the extremes for they look better on screen. And still I keep on asking myself, why do all those who believe and keep their faith private and pure, do not speak? If they are the majority, how do they allow this bunch of fanatics abusing their religion? How do they allow introducing more evil and anger through this religion that they love and respect? I do not understand that…

I am sorry to admit, but it seems like religion has became a source of all the things we do not want in a modern, moderate, thinking, liberal and patient society. In a ways it has became a source of evil :(

Any thoughts?

P.S. Interesting, looking for articles in English to illustrate some of mine points, I saw that they are actually much more PC than those in Hebrew…