Stand up against oppression. Stand up for freedom of expression

Public Perceptions.

I am currently working on my my second news article which I have recently posted about onto my blog about. This article will also be based on Embedded Journalism but this time instead of researching for factual information my team members and I will have to obtain the information by ourselves to develop this new article.

We will attempt to do this by carrying out surveys based on Embedded Journalism in order to find out about the perceptions of actual people, we will attempt to interview journalists, members of the Media and Communications Department at the University of Kwa - Zulu Natal, Howard as well as post graduate students of the University.

Here are examples of some of the questions that we will be asking, we will be asking people about their understanding of embedded journalism, we will be asking people if they believe that the process of embedded journalism has increased due to the war, if they believe it is objective, what embedded journalism brings to media and the society and if gaining a first hand experience at war is worth it.

Draft for my Second News Team article.

The word embedded journalism simply means journalism done "under cover or hidden". It involves journalists that get the opportunity to document war as a first hand experience. They are able to record anything on and off the battlefields, and gain a personal account from soldiers, thus creating some 'explosive' (no pun intended) media worthy stories to send around the world instantly. Basically embedded journalism transfers actual events into news.

For the purposes of this piece we have we have conducted interviews to find out more information about what actual people's views and perceptions of embedded journalism entail of.

One of the key interviews of this piece has been based on the views of Zoe Molver, from the Media and Communications Department at University of Kwa – Zulu Natal, Howard. She has a particular interest in the Iraq War. She has given a very factual and informative account of Embedded Journalism as well as her own opinion on it.

Her understanding of the Iraq war was that it was devised by the Pentagon to try and control the images and stories that go out into the media world about the war.

She believes that the Iraq War is a truly digital war, almost as if it was made for media- and this is undoubtedly true. Zoe Molver, says that although embedded journalism is very fascinating to watch, it is not authentic in its content, there are a lot of constraints placed on journalists. In relation to our broader aspect of media and press freedom, Zoe Molver seems to bring a new if not optimistic perspective to the issue of censorship. She says that while so much constraints are placed on journalists, and their work is restricted, there are nevertheless many other media sources out there that are willing and that are not afraid of letting out the truth. There are the restricted embedded reporters but there also independent embedded journalists that work on behalf of themselves, do not give up the rights to their work and broadcast it to the world without allowing it to be censored.

The Media Tribunal:

I have researched a very interesting and informative blog online. The name of the blog is entitled 'Committee to protect journalists'. This blog strongly relates to my views based on the media tribunal which is a vastly discussed issue that is contemporary in South Africa. The title of the posting is 'In South Africa, a new struggle for press freedom'.

The link for the posting is as follows:

http://cpj.org/blog/2010/08/in-south-africa-a-new-struggle-for-press-freedom.php

Similar experiences

In my News media and the Internet Society lecture that I had attended today I had learned that there are students from an American University in California who are actually doing a course that is dealing with very similar issues to what we, the Internet Studies students are dealing with in our current module. These students are very keen on communicating with students from my university, and this is most likely because we can learn so much from each other through the exchange of information.

 I was very amazed by this because we often don't ever think that other people, especially people belonging to first world countries actually experience the same type of problems or address and study the same types of issues that we deal with here in South Africa. Perhaps we share much more with people from around the world without truely realising it.

Write to know

For the module that I am currently doing and blogging about entitled News Media and the Internet Society we have what is referred to as a news portal site. This site has been developed to host news articles that have been created by different groups of students. The focus point of this site is based on freedom of expression, freedom of the press, as this is the main focus area for the course. All the students belonging to this course were given the opportunity to be creative and to come up with a title for this news portal site that will be hosting our articles. After a few title suggestions the name of our news portal site is 'Write 2 Know' and it is subtitled 'Some views of media freedom from a South African classroom'.

THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN FIND MY NEWS TEAM ARTICLE ENTITLED JOURNALISM: THE MEDIA AND THE MILITARY BY NATASHA, PRANISHA AND SUDHIKA:


 http://internetstudies.ukzn.ac.za/inst102news/home?page=3

Good night and good luck

In my Internet Studies lecture for today, we watched a film entitled 'Good night and good luck'. The film was in black and white, which evokes the thoughts of the past. It starred many famous actors such as George Clooney. The film was very media based and it allowed us to view a scenario based on what people who work directly with the media deal with. The film is very centred around a character named, Edward. R Murrow. It deals greatly with communist hunts. There are also two secretly married people that are apart of the staff in this film. With regards to the music, the dress code and the black and white filming we are very much aware that the film is telling us a story of the past. It was not the type of film that I would usually watch, but it was interesting. I got to see the process of what people who are involved in the media go through before they actually provide us with news.

My articles for embedded journailsm.

For my research on embedded journalism, my group members and I all had the task of finding three reference articles each in order to draw up our own news journal article on embedded journalism. The articles I found were as follows:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jts.20020/abstract

Many argue that the disadvantage of embedded journalism is that it causes greater psychological risk, this article talks about a research done in order to determine if there is a truth behind this, and they found that both embedded and non embedded journalists were at an equal psychological level. This article also talks about the relationship formed between the media and the military

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/national/23STAN.html

This article talks about the invasion on Iraq as well as how technology has allowed people to view the war in a manner that was never seen before. This article is also based on the arguement that what viewers are seeing is not an entire war but just pieces if it.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20119603

This article talks about Christina Pacheco, a journalist,believes that embedded journalism is an important activity in order to "stretch our thoughts to their extreme limits". The process here sees embedded journalism as transferring an actual event into news.

Researched news article: why I believe that freedom of expression is an important civil right.

I have researched for a news article that illustrates why I believe that freedom of expression is an important civil right. The article is entitled, 'Freedom of expression for all in SA, not only media.' This strongly relates to my belief that freedom of expression is not something that only talks about the media's abilility to express themselves, but freedom of expression is something far greater. It is the ability for everyone to be able to express themselves freely, media or not.

Here is the link to the news article:
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=428278

News media and the Internet society.

In this module 'News media and the Internet society', both the readings as well as the lectures are very interesting in learning about the development of things, such as the oral and visual literacy. During the course of my lectures I also had the opportunity to learn about interesting people who have left their mark in history, one of these people were Willem Bosvhoff. Willem was born in South Africa, in the year 1951 and has been interested in the technologizing world. I've also learnt many interesting facts, such as the fact that the printing press was invented in the year 1440. I have also learnt about Steve Biko and the alternative press, which is anything that is not the voice of the state. I have also learnt about the Independant Protest Press and the Early resistance press. We have also had two very interesting guest speakers, one of the guest speakers spoke about News under Repression, and this had been a very exciting thing to learn about. These are just some of the many things that have been a highlight for me during lectures.

We have also covered a number of readings that we do on our own in preparation for a weekly quiz. My favourite reading thus far has been one entitled 'The coming of the Book', this basically goes into the history of the development of paper. I found this very interesting because I was able to learn facts about paper that I never previously knew. Like the fact that in old times paper had actually been made from old rags, I would have never thought that this was a reality. It was only in the year 1860 that straw had actually become a substitute for the use of rags in the manufacturing of newspapers.

I have also covered more interesting readings by authors such as Deborah Posel, Fred Khumalo and Justice Malala that deal with issues that can be more related to contemporary issues such as crime, HIV/AIDS and foreigners. This basically sums up all the aspects that I have enjoyed in this module thus far, I am looking forward to the content of my future lectures as well as my future readings as well as my final project which will be to make a film. I am so excited about this.

My news team :-)

I am currently working on a very exciting project for a module that I am doing called News Media and the Internet Society.

Basically my task was to form a news team with two other people and to then creatively create a piece that of which based on Section 16 of the Constitution, the specific focus for this task is based on Freedom of expression, more precisely freedom of the press. We had to choose a specific aspect based on Freedom of the press.

My group members and I formed a discussion with other individuals from our practical group to decide which will be our focus area. After a long discussion we realised that the best area of focus for us would be Embedded Journalism. It is an extremely current topic as well as an extremely broad based topic, that is discussed widely. It is also interesting because it is a perfect example about how far some investigative journalists are willing to go in order to provide news to us.

With Embedded journalism we get to see War in a manner that is so real, we get to observe it in it's raw state.

We have a very small news group with only three individuals, so we all have equal roles. Together we are going to generate nine reference articles and our piece will be based on our findings from these nine reference articles and we are going to work together to edit and put our article together in a beautiful flowing manner.

We will start by defining what Embedded journalism is, we will than look at ethical matters regarding Embedded journalism, as well as the dangers, the advantages and disadvantages, although my group is still in discussion as to the key elements and questions that we will be looking at. This is obviously going to be a very a very socially useful topic, because Embedded journalism is a topic of the social discussions, and it deals directly with the area of war which is a social problem.

I am hoping that my contribution to my news team is going to be very effective and useful. :-)

What does freedom of expression mean to me?

My name is Natasha Jagadasan, I am a 20 year old female and I live within the Durban area. I am currently a student and I have two majors, namely media and management, so likewise my goal is to obtain my degree and to obtain good results and perhaps further my studies as well as to have a successful career in the field of media. I am very driven individual and I am proudly South African!

News is something that surrounds most individuals on a day to day basis! I have a variety of different ways of receiving news based information, namely word of mouth, this for me is one of the most common ways, be it from my family at home, my friends and lecturers on campus or my community as a whole. Secondly and most commonly for me would be the traditional newspaper, newspapers are a key aspect to receiving informative news, whether it means reading the local community newspaper, namely the coastal weekly newspaper or purchasing them such as the Daily News. Thirdly the radio is another way that I receive news based information, everyday in the car while travelling back and forth I listen to East Coast Radio and lastly, television is another important source of obtaining news, I watch the E tv news broadcast. I watch and read everything in English only! I also watch tv on a regular basis, I generally watch fashion and entertainment, things like the style network and e news, my reading generally based on the same interests, I read material such as magazines, namely Forbes and Seventeen and occaisionally Heat for a good laugh!

I would like to further explain what Section 16 of the Constitution means to me, Freedom of the Expression means to me, specifically freedom of the press. To me, freedom of expression means the ability to be able to speak ones mind, the ability to share ones thoughts and view points as well as beliefs on certain aspects without being restricted. We live within a democratic society so likewise people should be able to have freedom of expression and be able to share anything that is on their mind, with this being said I do believe in freedom of the press. Although I do believe in freedom of the press,I also believe that with freedom there should always be responsibility. I believe that the press should be able to strongly and vastly express their views as well as opinions as long as they do so in a manner that is non offensive and as truthful as possible. So basically I believe that there should be minor restrictions with regards to freedom of the press.