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.