Voices of ACN

People's Power Won't Happen Again (in Philippines)

2006-03-05T10:40:00.000+08:00

The "People's Power Fatigue" !!!

People's Power Won't Happen Again (in Philippines)
http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=667
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FORMER president Fidel V. Ramos sees no immediate end to street protests "with the situation now exacerbated by the proclaimed ‘national emergency’ condition."

But, Ramos says, such protests will not spark a reprise of People Power 1986. "Another ‘People Power’ revolution will not again happen," Ramos writes in a column for the Manila Bulletin. The former president lists what he calls the "powerful factors" that work against another People Power uprising:

-- People are tired of the political bickering; they simply want to carry on with their lives and remain hopeful of a better future.
-- The primary concerns of the citizenry are economic, not political. They worry most about high prices and unemployment.
-- The opposition is "headless and scattered." Some militant groups may be well-organized, but overall, the anti-government forces are divided and confined to a few urban areas.
-- A nationwide outrage is still absent, and there has not been a spark large enough to trigger such outrage into a massive uprising. "The political opposition, civil society protesters and the coup plotters—whoever they are—seem to forget that Edsa I took place only after the passage of 13 years of strongman rule and kleptocracy," Ramos writes.
-- Still absent from among the anti-government forces is the involvement of significant elements of the Armed Forces and the National Police.

But while another People Power uprising is not likely to happen, Ramos says, the "Spirit of Edsa" must be perpetuated and institutionalized, as the country continues to face long-standing problems of poverty, corruption, injustice and inequity.

He traces the roots of these problems to what he describes as "the durable oligarchy"—the alliance between business and politics that allows wealthy and powerful families to use public authority for their own gain.

"This durable oligarchy has used the powers of the State to create opportunities for themselves to make money and more money—without having to create economic value for the common good," Ramos writes.

Ramos repeats his calls for charter change, a proposal he has long made. "Without further delay," he says, "let us do the Constitutional reforms, legislative policies and executive actions essential to sustained progress and development."

"Sons Without Umblical Cords..."

2006-03-04T22:10:00.000+08:00

The other day I was reading this about the Filipino culture:

"A cultural curtain was drawn between father and son. The old was steeped in Hispanic traditions. The new was a product of what was then called the 'violent saxonisation' of the youth. The former became 'fathers who had begotten no children;' the latter, 'sons without umblical cords..." (From Alejandro R. Roces, "From Spanish to English", The Sunday Times, 15th March 1958.)

This is a comment made in 1958. Imagine what the west-dominated modern mass media is doing to youth in large parts of Asia today -- creating Asian sons/daughters without umbical cords to Asia or more accurately Asian sons/daughters with umbical cords attached to America (or to the American way of life)!

A World Sandwiched Between a Food and Textile Stall

2006-01-08T17:16:00.000+08:00

A World Sandwiched Between a Food and Textile Stall (Bangkok)
A group of Thai children playing their video game (football) under a bench where their parents displayed (textile) goods for sale in the busy Chatuchak/Jatujak weekend market in Bangkok, Thailand. (Nat, January 2006).

BBC and PM Sharon

2006-01-08T09:14:00.000+08:00

I have been for sometime now watching (forced to watch, in a sense) BBC world news.

BBC's coverage of PM Sharon health status is really a great case study to make sense of how this network works. First, it seems to be "obsessed" with PM Sharon and last couple of days, that is its main headline news. Next it tries to promote the idea that the "world attention is focussed on PM Sharon". Just check out cursorily the national media around the regions of the world, either print or electronic, and you will realise that the world is not focussed on Israel or Sharon. You will see that the BBC is focussed on Sharon...It may want the world to be focussed on him but the world simply isn't. Yes, people around world may know about it to varying extent; that is all.

BBC simply lies through its numerous rather serious, committed, on-the-scene reporters who speak as if they are sharing with you an event that will make or break the world, that will destroy our everyday life everywhere. And with the help of technology, they are able to build an "EVENT" with a one familar narrative : grave illness of a leader (and possible death)-- perceived chaos -- absence of similar kind of leader to continue -- scramble for leadership -- "good guy" and "bad guy" opinions of the leader -- further perceived chaos -- "WHAT DO WE DO NOW?" -- Confusion and panic. Of course, there will be a real "solution" to this. And of course, BBC will inform us of that. And of course it will move on to help the world focus on events it focusses on and encourage you and I to be obssessed with what it is obsessed about.

Globalisation and Uniformisation of the Living Room

2005-12-19T21:21:00.000+08:00

The globalisation and uniformisation of the living room...In the company of the omnipresent TV.

Deep in the mountains of Northern Thailand and in the home of a member of the Karen people, an indigenous community.

There are both concerns -- engagement with the new form of entertainment/infotainment and the fear that it may eventually destroy their culture or at least create a distance between the people and their culture. There are no indigenous media in these areas which act as a cultural mirror...(Dec 2005)

Asking the Wrong Question !

2005-09-19T13:30:00.000+08:00

Free the Media

2005-09-19T13:22:00.000+08:00

Is There a World Out There? Is There Anyone Out There?

2005-09-07T13:50:00.000+08:00

Ever wondered whether we are experiencing the "real world
out there" or just images/sounds from a television network taken from
another network which are taken from yet another network....?

What a frightening thought?

Media Messages and "Our" Youth

2005-08-29T14:23:00.000+08:00

A Vision of Urban Asia/Pacific?
A Vision of Asia/Pacific in the Making?
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"The typical American home has the television turned on (but not necessarily viewed) for an average of 7 hours and 13 minutes per day. As more people gain access to satellite and cable stations, these numbers will probably increase.1 By age 70, most people will have watched television for between 7 and 10 years of their lives.

The average 18-year-old has already watched 22,000 hours of te1evision (21 to 23 hours per week)--more time than he or she has spent in school (12,000 hours by the end of high school)! Young people have been exposed to 350,000 commercials by the time they turn 21.

It is easy to conclude that, for most children, TV viewing has replaced play and other types of exercise, study, and reading--not to mention human interaction. As they are growing up, children will hear more spoken words from the television than from parents and teachers. Because of this, television has a vast and powerful influence on young people's basic worldview, as well as their attitudes toward sex, food choices, alcohol, and methods of conflict resolution. "

See Full Article at:
http://www.adventistreview.org/2003-1510/story5.html

Media and Broadcast - Fiji Update

2005-08-26T08:41:00.000+08:00

A delegation from femLINKpacific led by Nobel peace prize nominee Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls and Fiji Mediawatch lead by Vice President Peter Emberson recently met with Information Minister Marieta Rigamoto, CEO Emi Rabukawaqa, Director Information Eliki Bomani and Director of Communications Jo Turaganivalu.

They tabled 2 issues for the meeting:
a) Request for update on the broadcasting act
b) tabled letter requesting the reduction / waiver of femLINKpacific’s current community radio license fees (next payment due in October)

They had a very positive response from the Ministry - including from Turaganivalu and CEO who like the Minister acknowledged the work femLINKpacific have begun to undertake at the community level - he even hinted that they should consider community TV as part of the
expansion of femLINK's work (!!!) Turaganivalu actually said that there was no one else doing the type of work / community broadcasting with communities . Ms. Bhagwan-Rolls advised that further rural broadcasts were coming up in the western division of Fiji’s main island Viti Levu and that linked into the call for the need to ensure there are spaces on the FM dial for the expansion of community radio as other communities / groups may also want to start their own CR initiatives but cannot without having a space on the dial.

The group then also approached the issue of licence fee arrangements and MINFO reps have given an assurance that they are reviewing this request - in line with the other licensing arrangements.

Meanwhile the current Broadcast Bill being drafted by the Ministry of Information will address issues of censorship for television programmes and commercials, broadcasting standards and is also to look at cross media ownership.

A belated blog for Nat.

2005-08-26T08:39:00.000+08:00

Not withstanding the gentle pushes and nudges from Nat to keep blogging, last week I received a personal envoy from ACN in the person of Augy of SIGNIS. Over coffee as we discussed community radio, the media and the church and how Pacific Island churches would respond to the movie version of the Da Vinci Code, I was served a reminder from Nat by way of Augy to remember to blogg again once this millennium.

Seriously though, anyone with a brain for fact will be able to see the holes in the concepts that Dan Brown proposes in his book The Da Vinci Code. Likewise one can understand some of the underlying truths hinted at. However in the Pacific with a largely oral /audio-visual culture, the movie version of the book stands to impact the church universal in a profound way as questions will be asked. Who will be able to give concise understandable answers to the shattered and shaken many, with out simply criticizing and condemning the book, the film and the author to the fiery pits of hell? The Da Vinci Code Movie is slated for release on May 19, 2006.

Wages for Housework

2005-08-23T12:51:00.000+08:00

Using banner to Inform. Demand. Protest.

Human Rights on TV, Deaths in Real Life

2005-08-23T12:05:00.000+08:00

Protecting human rights? (An Arab point ofview)

SMS/Texting Abuse

2005-08-16T14:39:00.000+08:00

SMS/texting has become an important way of communicating in most parts of Urban Asia. It is useful in many ways but it can also be abused. The "help a suffering child" abuse that email was used yesterday has come to the mobile phone and texting/sms.

So I received a text message yesterday (16th August) from a friend:

"Help me sms as much as u can. God bles. u. TQ. Urgent! Child 4 years old.....need "O" negative blood at.......Hospital...."

I tried contacting the hospital. No website. Ok. I tried the telephone directory. No luck. I called the telephone directory help. I was told that there was no such hospital...I tried contacting my friend about her sms. She said she received it from a friend, who received it from a friend....So where does this take us?

The economic system we live in seems to help generate so many ingenious ways of "making money". 100 % for creativity. 0 % for morality.

Is TV Trash?

2005-08-08T09:29:00.000+08:00

Is TV trash? Is TV, culture or part of Culture? Is "TV culture", global or local? Who produces/owns TV programmes/networks? Are people producers/owners? How "free" and "competent" are we (children, teenagers, adults) to interpret TV messages? Are TV programmes totally dependent on the ability of audience interpretation for its influence? If TV has good and bad uses, so have guns. So, should we produce guns?

comical/ridiculous but meaningful

2005-08-01T08:49:00.000+08:00

Source Unknown.

(Distributed purely for educational purpose only.)

Comical and Ridiculous But Meaningful

2005-07-27T10:06:00.000+08:00

I am not sure of the source. Just received this
image and a few others from a friend. The pictures offer a contast that harbours on the comical and the ridiculous....They help us consider some issues. Will be posting other "meaningful" pictures in due course.

(Distributed purely for educational purpose only.)

Mediated: The Effects of Media on Human Consciousness

2005-07-21T06:38:00.000+08:00

Mediated: The Effects of Media on Human Consciousness
http://www.wie.org/voices/detail.asp?event=zengotita-aug19-05

Are you “mediated”? You probably are, but you just don't know it yet. That's fine, because the erudite and down-to-earth cultural critic, Thomas de Zengotita, has just written a highly acclaimed book on this very subject—how the media has created a mass culture of narcissists—and it will be hard to look at your life the same way after you've heard what he has to say. In this Voices event, de Zengotita will draw from his new book, Mediated, to provide a dazzling overview of how various forms of media have shaped the human psyche over time, focusing on the ultra-sophisticated multimedia culture of the present day.
Norman Mailer on de Zengotita's new book:

Mediated has the same liveliness and intense intellectuality as Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, which is a way of saying there are anywhere from three to ten stimulating ideas on every page. As McLuhan presented us with the realization that modernism was coming to an end, so de Zengotita has a great deal to say about the saturation of post-modernism in our existence today. Let me offer my salute to Thomas de Zengotita.

"The Goodness of TV"

2005-07-11T15:18:00.000+08:00

“The Goodness of TV”

Peter Thomas* - Australia
peter@signispacific.org

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* Core Member of Asian Communication Network (ACN)
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At the Monte Carlo Television Festival, June 27 – July 2, 2005 it was a delight to celebrate the very best of television from around the world. In my role as a jury member, judging the best television drama feature film, I felt a sense of pride that this truly great medium was producing quality drama with consistently high production values. As a media practitioner of over 30 years, working in print, radio and television, I am cautiously optimistic rather than relentlessly critical about the state of media content. This often puts me at odds with those who tirelessly crusade for change without acknowledging the high-quality that might already exist. That is not to say that I am not an advocate for improved quality, some media regulation to protect children, the preservation of public broadcasting and protection of local media ownership rules. As a content provider, a producer, a writer, a director, I am generally concerned with the aesthetics of media, particularly television. It is from this sympathetic point-of-view that I was delighted to read, “Everything I Know I Learned from TV”, a new book by Mark Rowland. (Random House, London 2005). Rowland, an unrepentant coach-potato is Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Herefordshire in England. He uses his favorite TV programs, “Seinfeld”, “The Simpsons”, “Sex in the City”, “The Sopranos”, “Friends”, “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and “Frasier” to explain the great questions of philosophy as they effect our lives. It seems that the only qualifications you require to join in this philosophical discussion are a sofa, a sense of humor and an enquiring mind.
.
The philosophy discussed is basic, even foundational. The essential question posed in Rowland’s book is: How do you decide between what is a good and moral life? “The Simpson’s” disagree over the right way to live with the philosophers Nietzsche and Epicurus on hand to take sides. What is the meaning of happiness and how is it obtained is a theme revisited time and time again. Aristotle fights Descartes for the heart and mind of ‘Sex in the City’s’ Carrie Bradshaw. Can a person do a bad thing? Kant and Socrates pay a call on Tony Soprano and his criminal mob from the series ‘The Sopranos’ to talk moral philosophy. Where does love and friendship begin? Rachel and Ross from “Friends” ask Plato about the philosophy of emotions and wonder if they’re just good friends. Is the pursuit of self-knowledge a good thing? Socrates helps Niles and Frasier Crane and their dad, from the series ‘Frasier’, deal with the relative merit of the examined and unexamined life. And so it goes on.

Twenty-five years ago I became a trainer for ‘Television Awareness Training’, a program to assist parents and teachers to discriminate between good and bad TV. During and following each session I was constantly amazed that the questions asked were not so much about TV but rather the moral dilemmas faced by parents in coping with the choices posed by modernity. Television was generally a scapegoat for all that was wrong with modern culture. It was a convenient whipping-horse for a society confused by choice. Plato claimed that in all of us there are three distinct parts: reason, spirit and appetite and our personality can only be healthy if the combination is right. It’s unlikely that TV is going to upset the balance except in those extreme cases of immature or dysfunctional personalities or in the case of small children before the age of reason. Today lots of media training programs and media ‘education’ curricula seem trite and embarrassing, as many of us have developed a sense that for the most part people are reasonably intelligent, and at the very least insightful enough to know when they are watching ersatz images playing themselves out on a little box that bears little or no relation to reality. There will always be those right-inclined curmudgeons still insisting that TV is basically evil and that viewers require their redemptive teaching and censorship to bring salvation or liberation.

If you subscribe to the belief that TV is our culture then Mark Rowland’s book is not for you. If you position TV as part of our culture then you will enjoy his lively belief that stimulating philosophical ideas are found in even the most popular, and dare I say it, the most banal of programs.

The Monte Carlo Television Festival is an affirmation that imaginative production, like goodness, may triumph over the trite and superficial. Whilst some might consider Mark Rowlands, and for that matter my views, eccentric if not extreme, I deliberately choose to counter views that seek to disparage television rather than particular programs. A little philosophy, literally the love of wisdom and the study of the nature of being and our relation to the universe, is easily found on TV. Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am” is convincingly more important than “It must be real, it’s on TV.”

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Peter Thomas - Australia
peter@signispacific.org

Death of Innocent People: "Collateral Damage" OR "Barbaric Terrorism"?

2005-07-09T09:34:00.000+08:00

"It is easy for Tony Blair to call yesterdays bombings "barbaric" - of course they were - but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the countless innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints? When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism".

The Reality of This Barbaric Bombing by Robert Fisk

Iraqi Civilian Casuality (2003)

London Bombing (July 2005)

The Batman Begins...Again The West is Good and the East is Bad

2005-07-07T06:44:00.000+08:00

"....But then the story shifts to an undefined mountainous spot in the East, where Batman is trained in ninja arts by the real villain of the film. Those who cherish Eastern wisdom and a deep sense of warrior might be disappointed by the phony wisdom and brutal notion of power associated with this Tibet-like region.

In a sentimental scene we learn that Bruce doesn’t fit in with the bad guys because he’s compassionate and can’t execute a prisoner. He takes a noble position, of course, but the scene takes him away from the dark and into sweet sunshine. I would have expected his schooling in the high Eastern mountains to deepen his mysteriousness...." Thomas Moore in Beliefnet

Yazdi and I had been to see the film. The concern raised by Thomas Moore above was also ours. Somehow Batman learnt the warrior and spiritual arts from the East but uses it for the Good unlike the East that uses it for the Bad (or for the Good in a Bad Way, whatever that means).

Batman (the West/America) is framed as morally superior to the East. Through Hollywood, the West/America shows the world the way to do it Right (fighting Bad/Evil). The whole symbolic construction which is flimsy is given the "Hollywood Touch" and now available across Asia (and the world). And our young are forming their opinions....

Anti-Bush Bumper Stickers

2005-07-01T19:53:00.000+08:00

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
See more thought-provoking bumper stickers at:
http://www.antibushbumperstickers.com/

(Good idea to use for other issues too.)

Return of the Media Guerrilla: Propaganda Lives!!

2005-06-23T10:16:00.000+08:00

Bula (greetings) from the Fiji Islands. After a week of trying to login in and many bad thoughts regarding the life of a hitchhiker on the information superhighway, I finally managed to log on to this site and blog.

Here in the southwest Pacific, the latest rave is about the "Pacific Plan": strategies for Pacific Island countries to protect itself against the tidal waves of globalisation. Rumours of all Pacific island currencies being pinned to the Australian Dollar and visions of an economic trading block a la the European Union have rattled many an NGO. Pacific Island leaders will meet in a few months to ratify the plan.

But what has this to do with Media and Communications? Well the first time my small community of Pacific Islander theologians and pretty much the rest of Fiji heard about the Pacific Plan was via a television commercial promoting the plan. I say promoting and not informing about the plan because the TVC, funded by the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat, was a glossy, feel good 30-second ad telling of a need for the plan and that we should participate in it - Pacific Ownership. A public forum on the plan to raise awareness of something that will affect every man, woman and child in the Pacific and perhaps beyond, was held weeks later with only about 100 people in attendence, mainly from NGOs - not much public. The forum secretariat highlighted that media campaigns are and integral part of the plan, a statement followed by a 25-minute current affairs discussion programme on Fiji Television that Sunday night.

Access to information is still a commodity denied to many in the Pacific. It's a shame that those who purport to protect the interests of the Pacific deny their own people the information on which important decisions are made. Glossy ads are the propaganda of today. Short 30-second ads with information about the effect of the plan have yet to air...

The vision and mission of mainstream media?

2005-06-22T06:51:00.000+08:00

The vision and mission of mainstream media?
Sell the world to an audience and sell the audience -- you and I -- to big corporations.

(This is an ad by a telephone company for cheap international calls, KL(Malaysia), 21 June 2005. Useful service for more connectivity between people but consider the value on which the connectivity is being promoted.)

Demonising for Dummies (Malaysia)

2005-06-19T14:08:00.000+08:00

Demonising for dummies

by Mustafa K Anuar11:31:42 AM Sep 10, 2002
Malaysiakini.com

Hurling names and labels such as ‘extremists’ by government leaders against their perceived political foes has become a regular feature in Malaysia’s political culture over the years to a degree that demands unpacking, as writer James Wong Wing On had done recently, of this ugly phenomenon ( In need for an objective definition of 'extremism').

Labelling or (derogatory) categorisation of certain groups of people is symptomatic of a society where unequal power relations prevail. This is because labelling primarily involves language, and given that language is often a site of contestation, there’s bound to be a number of individuals and groups competing to influence, nay dominate, public discourses on certain issues of public interest and significance through discoursal devices such as labelling and stereotyping.
Those in a position of power and authority tend to have an edge over others in terms of popularising and perpetuating certain terms and labels whose original meanings may have been deliberately blurred.

This is why government leaders such as Dr Mahathir Mohamad are at a vantage point to not only vary meanings to certain labels and categories, but also to disseminate these modified definitions over a period of time when some of these terms may become eventually acceptable to some extent by a substantial number of people.

Hence, as rightly pointed out by James Wong, Dong Zong chairperson, Quek Soon Hiong and adviser, Sim Mou Yu were painted as ‘extremists’ by the prime minister over the proposal to teach science and mathematics in English in Chinese medium schools as well.

In contrast, Abdul Aziz Sheikh Fadzir of Umno Youth who threatened to burn the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall was not categorised as such by the ruling elite even though his planned action is anything but non-violent and democratic.

To use another example, students critical of the government are given a broad brush of ‘anti-government’ paint, a word that is impregnated with such negative connotations as nagging dogmatism, violence, ungrateful elements, misguided youths, radicals etc.

Cruel forms of social control

In this context, the mass media are a significant institutional tool that assists the group in power in spreading and legitimating labels.

Indeed, labels or categories that are produced have a high tendency to sustain themselves and to gain currency if they are propagated consistently and ingeniously especially through the mass media.

In this, opposition parties have an uphill task basically because they aren’t likely to get ‘help’ from the mainstream media.

But it’s more than just merely changing definitions, this labelling. It involves attempts by the groups concerned to offer their own ‘explanation’ about a particular issue or phenomenon so that at the end of the day members of the general public could make sense of things happening around them — through the former’s lenses.

Such a labelling — and its attendant explanation — is intended to give an impression to the rest of society that an ‘aberrant’ group has deviated from the norms, values, and beliefs that ‘we’ all share and treasure. In other words, this particular ‘deviant’ group is a threat to ‘society’ and therefore has to be dealt with accordingly by the authorities concerned.

To reiterate, labels that have connotations of deviance can evoke a strong sense of outrage in the public mind because ‘deviant’ people are often associated with people who break laws or transgress social values. They can bring havoc to peace and prosperity, and law and order in society. And therefore these demon-like people, so goes the argument, deserve harsh punishment. In other words, demonisation, via labelling, lends legitimacy to cruel forms of social control.

Legitimate dissent criminalised

Political developments of yesteryears suggest that ‘extremists’ and ‘extremism’, for instance, are categories that have been framed by the powers that be in such a way that they would also encompass other than those who are violently dogmatic in their worldviews and practices. That is, people who basically differ with the government in their views about how to run the country, and whose views are normally expressed in ways that are peaceful and persuasive. In other words, people who are seen to be a threat to the interests of the dominant groups in society.
It is generally accepted that people who are found to have worked towards destabilising the country especially through the use of violence, and thereby jeopardising the security and interests of the country and its people, deserve to be penalised.

In the case of Malaysia, the form of punishment meted out by the government to these people is the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA).

And yet, over the years we have noticed that those who have done anything but the above have been categorised or called rather liberally such as ‘anti-national elements’, ‘traitors’, and ‘a threat to national interests or security’ and given similar form of punishment Ô detention without trial under the ISA.

In other words, the ISA net has been widened to consciously lump together political dissidents, opposition leaders, social activists, religious leaders, intellectuals, students, etc. with individuals and groups who have no compunction about using violence in order to achieve their objectives. One implication of this merging of two different categories of people under the ISA is that it has criminalised legitimate dissent in the country.

Commonsensical notion

Labelling seeks to short-circuit serious attempt at trying to understand in a logical and composed manner certain groups and phenomena. What is on offer, usually via the mainstream mass media, is the ‘commonsensical’ or short-hand notion of who, in this case, these groups or what the phenomena are, an impression that is primarily geared at securing the consensus of the ordinary people in the context of the powers that be trying to ‘deal with’ such ‘recalcitrants’.
As intimated above, for a label to ‘stick’, the spin has to have some degree of plausibility or credibility. Otherwise, ordinary people may not necessarily be convinced of the label and definition offered.

To take a recent example, the sudden outburst by Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, who screamed ‘traitors’ and ‘communists’ at cab drivers who allegedly cheated tourists, would not carry much weight if the ordinary people thought that such an expression was downright stupid. This explains why the cabbies themselves, among others, have in turn boldly demanded an apology from the minister.

One of the dangers of labelling, as already implied above, especially when it is committed continuously over a considerable space of time and with its amplification by the mass media, is that, it could help build up in the popular imagination a picture of a society that is under siege by these ‘deviants’ or ‘law-breakers’.

If and when some degree of panic prevails as a consequence, members of the public could fall victim to the shenanigan of the powers that be by giving tacit or open support to the latter’s design to enforce religiously restrictive laws that are purportedly meant to maintain so-called law and order in society. In short, such a political climate provides a convenient pretext for the group in power to exercise social control as a way of protecting their vested interests.

War against terrorism

Unstable political situations across the globe, such as the case after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the US, can only serve to further heighten the sense of insecurity among the citizenry of a country.

US President George W Bush’s war against terrorism (the definition of which is being thrust upon the world), for example, has provided a convenient opportunity and ‘cover’ for certain national governments worldwide to weed out their opposition leaders, political dissidents and critics all under the guise of waging a war against terrorism and protecting national security. Overnight, one has seen a series of arrests made on individuals and/or groups deemed, for instance, ‘extremists’ or ‘supporters of terrorism’.

One can indeed be ‘bedevilled’ by the art of labelling.

A Licence to Control Journalists? (Malaysia)

2005-06-13T22:04:00.000+08:00

A licence to control journalists?

Mustafa K Anuar*
Malaysiakini.com
Aug 13, 2002
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* Mustafa Anuar is also one of ACN's core group members
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The idea floated by the indefatigable Zainuddin Maidin, parliamentary secretary of the Information Ministry, that a journalist should be licensed (malaysiakini, Aug. 1) may be casually brushed aside by many Malaysians as being ludicrous.

On close inspection, however, this suggestion may have to be dealt with seriously as it offers dangerous implications.

For one thing, this proposition is reminiscent of the notorious Zimbabwe’s recent ruling — under the dubious rubric of Freedom of Information Act — of licensing its journalists in a supposed desire to weed out ‘bad journalism’.

In essence, say human rights and media watchers, this law, which also requires journalists to follow a stringent ‘code of ethics’, makes the practice of investigative journalism difficult.

(Incidentally, the Zimbabwean regime is now locked in a legal battle with London’s The Guardian because it accuses the latter’s correspondent in Harare of ‘publishing falsehoods’ in its online service, a legal precedent that could persuade other countries to consider applying ‘local criminal jurisdiction over foreign web postings’ [The Guardian, June 17]).

Assumptions and implications

If there is a lesson to be learnt from the Zimbabwean experience, as already intimated above, the proposal to issue a sort of ‘certificate of fitness’ to Malaysian journalists via a certain institution suggests an attempt to control, nay tame, journalists who have been perceived as being too independent and critical.

This could apply to certain journalists in both the mainstream as well as alternative media. Through this formal procedure, a journalist who stoically sticks to her investigative journalism is likely to be ‘de-registered’ and made redundant while others may be encouraged to exercise an ever bigger measure of self-censorship.

But let’s pause a moment and assume that Zam, as the ex-journalist is popularly known, has the noblest of intentions to improve the professionalism of journalists in the country. As he further explained, the licensing institution concerned would uphold ‘certain criteria, structure and quality’.

And let’s suppose that in its yearning to upgrade journalistic standards, the proposed body would put emphasis on ethics and ‘good journalism’, which, we’d like to believe, would mean that journalists undergoing training would be instructed to exercise, among other things, fairness and seek truth in their reporting.

In other words, in reporting about a certain issue, all the parties concerned should be given an even platform, while parties that have been criticised or even maligned will be provided with the right to reply.

Realities of implementation

Based on these assumptions, how would, then, certain editors and journalists in the mainstream press and TV stations square with these dignified criteria that are supposedly upheld by the licensing body?

As many of us are well aware, the mainstream media are generally close to the government, have been biased towards the powers that be, have denied sufficient access, if at all, to the opposition, and have helped demonise critics of the government especially in the run-up to general elections or by-elections.

This is of course not to insinuate that journalists from the alternative media are incapable of committing reportorial misdeeds, such as being unfair and making factual errors.
So is Zam serious enough to promote and upgrade journalistic professionalism to the extent of cleansing the mass media, particularly the mainstream media, of such ugly but ‘useful’ elements?

We’re talking of ideological apparatuses, with warts and all, that the government considers important and influential in maintaining status quo, mind you.

Zam’s suggestion is indeed questionable. For recent events — such as the move on the part of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to compel political parties to seek its approval before making use of foreign media to explain their policies and views (malaysiakini, July 23) — only reinforces the suspicion that the government hasn’t opted to enhance freedom of expression and help improve mainstream media accessibility to the general public. If anything, the right to express and communicate one’s views is further curtailed.

Question of independence

This is why the proposal to license journalists casts some doubts. Whose interests would this body really serve?

What is equally crucial to this issue is, just as one would be highly cautious of the membership of the proposed Malaysian media council, one should also be concerned about who constitute the body that is empowered to grant the so-called ‘Certificate of Journalism Practice’. Would the members of this institution be independent of the powers that be?
This is certainly vital as it relates to the question of who will eventually be given the sole authority to define ‘good journalism’ or ‘truly professional journalists’ in the entire country?

What will be the criteria used to ‘ordain’ a person the title of journalist, or conversely, to ‘excommunicate’ someone who has been deemed ‘fake journalist’ from the journalistic fraternity?

Is this an effort to penalise those who are known not to have been intellectually ‘colonised’ by the powers-that-be?

‘Schooling’ the journalist

More questions are raised. For instance, would the training of the prospective journalists by the licensing body prior to their getting the certificates entail the internalising of certain journalistic and political values that are cherished by the powers that be?
In short, would the trainees be ‘schooled’ and chastised into believing — or at least to be constantly reminded of — that ‘good journalism’ is about always singing praises of the government?

Another question: would members of the general public (who are not ‘normal’ journalists) be required to apply for this certificate before they could make journalistic contributions in the media on a regular basis?

Wouldn’t this certification be construed as a means of discouraging people from expressing freely and of tampering with their democratic right to voice their opinions in public?

Curbs on critical thinking

To put in concrete terms, seen against this backdrop, is this proposal primarily aimed at putting out of circulation journalists and writers who have the penchant to exercise a good measure of independent and critical thinking, and who have been working with the country’s alternative media?

Would the likes of Lutfi, James Wong, Hishamuddin Rais, Lee Ban Chen, Fathi Aris Omar, Steven Gan and MGG Pillai, to name but a few, make the grade in this very certification of journalists?

For that matter, would the Indonesian Goenawan Mohamed of the Tempo fame be disqualified via the use of a certain measuring rod?

Given this scenario, the renewed assurance given by Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung (malaysiakini, Aug. 1) that the Internet would be free of governmental censorship doesn’t necessarily allay our fears.
Internet-based journalists particularly, as we could imagine, would not be spared the ugly implications of this licensing poser.

Erosion of free speech

If it were merely a concern for journalistic professionalism, wouldn’t it be sufficient to cajole journalistic novices to attend certain reporting courses that can be organised by journalists’ associations or media organisations?

At least in the past (and also to some degree in the present), there had been such courses organised, although not necessarily in a rigid, formal structure, for the benefit of the working journalists in our country.

The intricacies of this licensing proposition as well as other recent media developments relating to the further erosion of freedom of expression seem to suggest that they are part and parcel of a larger ‘preparation’ of the ruling Barisan Nasional to face the forthcoming general election.

In other words, it appears that steps have already been taken by the ruling coalition to mount an ideological onslaught against the opposition that seem to be bickering among themselves and consequently providing fodder for the BN-controlled media.

If, to quote Abdullah Ahmad, the boss of the establishment New Straits Times, ‘(j)ournalism is a calling that is essential to preserving participatory democracy’ (NST, July 31) then this Zam poser ought to be a primary concern for those whose love is journalism — and freedom of expression.
------------------------------------------------------

Dr MUSTAFA K ANUAR habitually reads in between the lines of what is offered by Malaysia's media. At the same time, he's easily distracted by the comical, the artistic, and the political (and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive) particularly in the context of Malaysian society.

From Attention to Understanding

2005-06-07T12:20:00.000+08:00

Poster created Cahayasuara Communications Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
for the 38th World Communications Day. Click here for the large version.

Manipulating the Fetus

2005-06-03T08:39:00.000+08:00

New understandings on foetal suffering (7 March 2005)
[...]

Research leader Professor David Mellor says there is no doubt that babies before birth react to a range of stimuli because the sense organs of fetuses in the uterus begin to work well before birth. Ever wondered how watching TV and films have influence over the fetus? And how much of children's present behaviour is juat playing out a script that is already written

"Touch, sound and other stimuli have various effects on the body, including eliciting movements. But the evidence, accumulated over the last 25-35 years, is that this does not occur at the conscious level. There are many other examples of sensory inputs that have effects on the baby (including body movements) that do not involve consciousness. For instance babies with no cerebral cortex (the part of the brain essential for consciousness) can respond with movements and hormone release and heart rate changes.

Sensory input (resulting from stimulation of touch, sight, sound, taste and other sensory nerves) does occur in the fetus and does have effects. Although the evidence is that this is not at the conscious level, it is possible, and some evidence suggests that it is in fact likely, that such effects persist well beyond birth."

Professor Mellor says such effects will be very significant in nervous system development: "There is reason to consider that some might very well be at least benign, and perhaps even positively advantageous, depending on what they are. Playing music and speaking softly could well have beneficial effects."

[...]

----------------------------------------

Imagine for a moment the impact of TV (and films) on the fetus. Some of the behaviour of children could be just "acting out" the script that is already "wired in" at the fetal stage.
These are behaviours that contribute to a highly consumeristic and crassly materialistic society. These are behaviours that show life as one big entertainment.

Critical media education must probably start with mothers and their habit of watching TV and films.

Live Television = Dead Rugby

2005-06-02T14:24:00.000+08:00

For many Pacific Islands (and former British Colonies) the sport of Rugby is a cultural activity (as a theologian, I am not convinced that it is a religion - yet). For developing nations it is a source of migrant employment as Pacific Islanders who are adept at oval ball skills often sign up to lucrative playing contracts in Europe, Asia and even Australia and New Zealand. Televised rugby of matches played overseas rake in big bucks for host rugby unions and broadcasters as fans (usually on pay TV) watch their heroes in action.

However for host unions in the Pacific this is sometimes detrimental to their profit (or breaking even) margin. Case in point: Fiji. This weekend the national Fiji 15-a-side rugby team takes on the New Zealand Maori side in Suva followed by the New Zealand national side (All Blacks) next weekend in Auckland. Both games were to be televised live on Fiji One (Fiji's only free to air channel). However, the financially-challenged national rugby union has blocked the live broadcast of the game to be played in Suva because of fears that it will lose out on ticket sales and much needed revenue, as most people will stay at home to watch!!

Lost in Transposition

2005-05-30T10:07:00.000+08:00

I often wonder about the state of journalists in Fiji. We have a journalism school here at the University of the South Pacific and a large number fo media outlets. I often feel that some young cadets get carried away with the title journalist and forget to just be a reporter. For example a press release was sent out regarding the death of a prominent community worker. The deceased had, during his career, been a Superintendent Radiographer at one of Fiji's hospitals. The following day the press release appeared as an orbiturary news item with a byline including the name of the young reporter who had obivously typed out the press release word for word with one glaring exception. The deceased had now become a former Superintendent of Police!!

A Fiji Islands Perspective on the Mass Media

2005-05-29T10:13:00.000+08:00

Bula (greetings) Friends!

Sorry I accidentally delete the blog earlier as I'm still a blogger in training. Any as said earlier, this is not a blog but an attempt to understand via a term paper, the influence of the media on Fiji Islands society by a Media Practioner turned-Theologian. I am in the process of researching for a thesis titled, "A Theological Reflection on the role of the Media in the Church's call to have a Prophetic Voice in Modern-Day Fiji." Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

I do promise to attempt real (as in short) bloggs, but for now this will have to do.

Happy reading, James....

The original use of media was to inform people of important announcements, news and current events. Gradually as technology developed, the media also became a means of mass education and entertainment. In the last half century, the impetus for information and education has taken a back seat to entertainment. New types of programming or formats developed such as info-tainment and edu-tainment which places a larger value on the pleasure derived from watching, reading or listening than what messages are communicated. We will look at what determines content later. Here in Fiji the media has continued to play a large part in not only informing the public but shaping public opinion and providing entertainment to a pluralistic society, which means finding the lowest common denominator, in other words playing down to its audience rather than trying to lift the standard of literacy and critical thinking of the people. Let’s take a brief look at the three major media divisions operating in Fiji today, commonly known as the mass media because of their collective ability to reach every citizen in this country, regardless of that person’s location or socio-economic status.

Print
The Fiji Times newspaper began publication in 1869. Today it is one of 3 daily newspapers as well as vernacular weekly news publications. The Fiji Times is owned by the transnational corporation, News Corporation, which also owns media outlets around the world, including the Fox TV Network (Fox News and Fox Sports) and motion pictures studios such as 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures. Until recently, News Corp. owned broadcast rights to all international rugby union matches played by members of the International Rugby Board as well as the Super 12 Competition, broadcast on the Fox and Sky satellite network and also broadcast here in the Pacific under Sky Pacific operated by Fiji Television Ltd. The Fiji Sun newspaper is owned by companies whose primary business is in the distribution of imported consumer products. The Daily Post newspaper, once with the Fiji Government as a major shareholder, has just been sold to an Australian company. The major revenue earned by newspapers is not sales to the public or subscriptions but advertising revenue from companies wanting to promote their goods and services to the readers. Newspapers have thus turned from informing the public on news and current events to acting as a print medium to deliver commercials for businesses. Information provided in newspapers is now designed to fit the spaces in between advertisements for shoes, clothes, cars, cosmetics, fashion, groceries and electronic goods. News is usually sensationalized to generate greater readership, a trend common in radio and television as well in an attempt to gain as large an audience as possible.

Radio
The Fiji Broadcasting Commission began radio transmission in 1954. Modeled on ruling England’s BBC, the FBC or Radio Fiji as it was known operated three public broadcasting services, Radio Fiji One in the Fijian Language, Radio Fiji Two in the Hindustani Language and Radio Fiji Three in the English Language. All three stations had matching formats of news, informational and educational programmes with music and light entertainment to fill in between. This continued until 1985 when FM96, a privately owned commercial radio station began to broadcast a format of music, news, entertainment news and gossip as well as sports. The competition for the ears of the public had begun. Faced with rising costs, Radio Fiji had to maintain listener-ship so began to change its format to compete. As government reform took place and funding for Radio Fiji decreased, the fight was on for advertising dollars. Public service broadcasting took back seat to profitability and economic viability. Today FBCL operates 2 vernacular Public Service stations and 3 commercial stations in the main languages; Communications Fiji Ltd, the owner of FM96 now operates 3 commercial stations, 1 Hindi public service station as well as a website and two radio stations in Papua New Guinea, with plans to expand into the Solomon Islands. The radio frequencies are further crammed with rebroadcasts of the BBC, Radio Australia, Radio France and four Christian stations operated by new religious movements as well as community radio stations.

Television
Television was introduced into Fiji not because of information, but demand for entertainment, during the 1991 Rugby World Cup. Fiji Television was given an exclusive license in 1994, and despite the exclusivity being revoked, still remains the sole commercial broadcaster of television programmes in Fiji. Today television has grown to be the dominant medium in the country, surpassing even radio which has ease of accessibility and until now greater range. Fiji Television now claims to have not only 80 percent of the population as viewers, but 100 percent coverage in the Fiji group.

Fiji TV operates Fiji One as a free to air channel and three pay TV channels as SKY Fiji. This year Fiji TV began operating SKY Pacific, a regional satellite based pay television service with up to 15 channels of movies, music, sports, entertainment gossip and programmes available. Fiji One is free-to-air; Sky Fiji costs $40 per month plus installation charges of $100 and SKY Pacific set up will set you back $400 to $500. Fiji TV has 15 programmes, which it claims are, locally produced broadcast a week. These include 5 daily news programmes from half hour news bulletins to 5 minute vernacular news breaks; 3 current event programmes, 1 weekly news roundup; 1 police information programme, 2 government propaganda programmes, a children’s programme of just local presenters between cartoons, sports programme and a music programme of a local presenter between foreign music videos. In contrast it broadcasts 34 overseas-produced programmes, including re-broadcasting ABC TV from Australia between 10.30pm and 3pm and 6 religious programmes produced and paid for by new religious movements. All programmes except the children’s programme, news and government programmes are sponsored.

Internet
Embraced by business as a communications revolution, the internet, which connected Fiji to the World Wide Web, became a reality here a decade ago. Primarily used for communications, the internet is also a source of information and entertainment. As such it is also used for advertising. Pop up ads and junk mail often clogs up internet mailboxes and clutters the screen . Another issue with the internet is the unfettered access to users to all sorts of material, especially children’s accessibility to adult rated sites and the fact that on the internet you are virtually anonymous which has led to pedophiles using the net to snare young children by pretending to be young children themselves. Apart from the high start-up cost, with a government backed monopoly to only one internet service provider, the cost of accessing internet is high, limiting the number of users.

The original use of media was to inform people of important announcements, news and current events. Gradually as technology developed, the media also became a means of mass education and entertainment. In the last half century, the impetus for information and education has taken a back seat to entertainment. New types of programming or formats developed such as info-tainment and edu-tainment which places a larger value on the pleasure derived from watching, reading or listening than what messages are communicated. We will look at what determines content later. Here in Fiji the media has continued to play a large part in not only informing the public but shaping public opinion and providing entertainment to a pluralistic society, which means finding the lowest common denominator, in other words playing down to its audience rather than trying to lift the standard of literacy and critical thinking of the people. For the purpose of this presentation, I will limit my study to the media of television, primarily because of it’s dominance in the global media industry but also because of the impact of the audio-visual media on media users. Television reaches a large group of people at the same time. It is emotionally involving. It gives a false sense of intimacy and has a perceived immediacy.

Mass Media the Global Scene:
Today technology has revolutionized the media industry, news stories can travel the world in an instant by email and pictures can reach millions of people. A good example of this is the recent Rugby Sevens World Cup. The tournament was televised in approximately 300 million homes with an estimated television audience of 700million people . Although the final game ended at almost midnight Sunday night, the Fiji Times published photos of the game and celebrations as well as reports and interviews and the paper was on the news stands by five o’clock the next morning. And technology is developing. A recent report suggested that soon we will be able to watch television and movies on our mobile phones.

Another impact of technology has been in the types of programmes produced for television audiences. In Fiji’s case, at least 69% of programmes broadcast a produced overseas, satisfying Fiji TV’s policy of a minimum of 10% local content. Yet these imported programmes are produced for a different audience, within a different society and different cultural values with different symbols and rituals. As a result these programmes distort our sense of reality. These images and realities are manipulated to shape our own values, to justify certain behaviour and lifestyle. Yet they for the majority are produced not to inspire, educate, inform or entertain us – these are merely the packaging in which capitalist values are transmitted. The reason is that the majority of TV programmes are produced by major television networks and studios, which in turn are owned by multinational and transnational corporations.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation owns a large slice of the global media cake. Others include Disney which owns ESPN –sports network, the Disney Channel, ABC network, Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and Miramax Pictures; General Electric owns the NBC network; Viacom owns CBS network and Time Warner owns CNN and Warner Brothers; Sony; Vivendi, a water company which owns Universal Studios and its subsidiaries among others. These corporations spend millions not only on making programmes and promoting them, but lobbying the US Government for concessions and favourable treatment, often using the same lobby groups as tobacco, pharmaceutical and weapons manufacturers . This reveals them not as mere television producer, interested in storytelling through an audio-visual medium but as calculating, manipulating, profit-makers. The corporations that own them also own companies that make products that we import and buy. From soft drinks, food and fashion to mobile phones and the unashamed promotion of capitalist values, transnational corporations work to generate profit, not just in selling their TV programmes but their products through these programmes.

An example of this is the Viacom-owned MTV (Music Television) Channel’s “Spring Break” coverage broadcast globally, including Fiji. The ten most frequent sponsors included Sony, Timer Warner, General Electric and Viacom with 497 commercials promoting DVDs, music CDs, films, and television programmes. Other commercials included Colgate toothpaste; Pepsi and Shwepps soft drinks; Max Factor, Old Spice, Tampax, Johnson and Johnson and Cover Girl cosmetics and toiletries; cleaning products; Hersheys and Mars sweets; Virgin mobile phone services, Burger King food chain and shoes from the Foot Locker. A survey of 171 hours of programming found that MTV featured an average of thirteen sexual scenes per hour on reality programmes and 32 instances of foul language per hour in music videos.

Fiji:
You may ask, why these programmes are broadcast in Fiji when they have little or no relevance to our culture, values and society and in fact are reshaping them. Again the answer is profit. All programmes on Fiji One have commercials played during their broadcast. The price of one 30-second television commercial played once during Fiji One News ranges from $300 to $400 broadcast. With 3 commercial segment within the news of 2½ minutes each, a total of 7½ minutes that is an average of 15commercials and a revenue of $4,500 for a half hour news programme – well 22½ minute news programme. Entertainment programmes may also be sponsored by companies wishing to reach a certain market.

For example let’s look at the Saturday night Coke Power Jammer music programme.
Coca Cola and its rival, Pepsi target youths around the world as their primary consumer, not surprising when research shows that the average child watches 3hours 40mins of television a day. So they sponsor programmes that have an audience that targets their market. This is a global marketing policy of a multinational corporation. The same sponsorship pattern occurs around the world and is followed by all multinational and transnational corporations. In some instances a programme sponsored by a particular product in one country, say the US, will be sponsored by the same product in Fiji because that programme is a vehicle for promoting that particular product. What is more, if these programmes are not being broadcast, then many multinational or transnational companies will actively seek to produce programmes that are designed to promote values that will assist the marketing of their products. This was the case with the Power Jammer programme. But what exactly is being promoted on Power Jammer apart from Coca Cola? What are the effects of television on unsuspecting viewers, who just switched on to be entertained? The answer is a materialistic and individualistic lifestyle, sexual promiscuity and instant gratification.

Through television and the mass media, global capitalism reduces people to consumers. By standardizing production and taste and by homogenizing cultural values to match capitalist values of individualism and materialism, there is a shift in the original value system. The effects of programmes with high contents of violence, sex or immoral scenes, negative portrayal of women and emphasis on material wellbeing as the key to happiness has resulted in the diminution of personal and corporate integrity, the acceptance of the “might is right” or justified violence philosophy, consumer acquisitiveness, the breakdown of law and order, trivialization of sex, increase prevalence of abuse and the commoditization of women, promotion of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as racism as part of the loss of human dignity.

Global symbols of consumerism or capitalism have replaced the symbols of our cultures, of Christianity. Logos and brand names are worn with pride as marks of identification with the new culture, the new society, the new religion. This reshaping of our values, faith and culture represents a shift from dealing with human questions to utilitarian questions. Today the cross, a symbol of suffering, redemption and salvation is replaced by the Nike logo, a symbol of achievement sporting achievement and style.

Looking at the Power Jammer Show as an analogy, this shift in values and impact of global consumerism can be illustrated by the move from drinking a fresh coconut, which is at the most $1.00 or free if you climb the tree and healthy for you providing not just a natural drink but nutritious flesh; to the choice to buy and drink a bottle of chemically enhanced water and syrup as Coke for $1.20 and up because of the promotion of the product and the status, symbolism and accessibility associated with it.

Representing contemporary idea of media war

2005-05-23T04:09:00.000+08:00

Media war on Iraq (by Khaldoun Gharaybeh, 4/6/03).
(Original in colour. Source: page: Click Here ; cartoon: Click Here)

Nice representation of the idea of "media war" or the notion of contemporary "culture war".

(Distributed for non-profit educational purpose only.)

A Difficult Reality: Inter-Faith Togetherness

2005-05-17T09:11:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN/05

Bombay, India (2004): Images of the World of ACN

Killing of Journalists

2005-05-05T09:40:00.000+08:00

Killing of Journalists
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52 journalists killed in Philippines since 1986.

Picture Source: Click Here

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Picture Source: Click Here

For more information on killing of journalist:
Visit this site

Press Freedom Barometer

2005-05-05T09:24:00.000+08:00

From:
Reporter Without Borders

Press Freedom Barometer: Click Here

Promoting a Culture of Peace Through Communicative Action

2005-05-02T12:04:00.000+08:00

From:

Signis Asia Charter
Promoting A Culture of Peace Through Communicative Action (2004)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]

With the purpose of promoting authentic and dynamic unity, genuine advancement of peoples and sustainability of societies, we urge that the following forms of communication be used to foster a Culture of Peace.

5.2.1 Exposé Communication

The culture of violence manifests itself in many ways. In some cases, what is visible hides a more pernicious reality. Latent causes are, therefore, not available for public scrutiny and attention. In some other cases, acts/events of conflict or violence are far away from social attention. (Asia has regions and spaces that have not been explored, and therefore, are not available for public attention.) Such acts/events need to be drawn and presented for public attention and intervention. Both the situations above require investigative and exposé communication, which involves the important aspect of ‘backgrounding’ the issues.

5.2.2 Transparency in communication

Genuine communication requires exchanges where the intentions and purposes of those engaged in communication, whether individual or mass, are clear and honest. While this principle may not be applied in life-threatening situations, it is a general principle that promotes trust between communicators, and therefore, promotes a Culture of Peace

5.2.3 Reconciliatory Communication

Inter-communal, inter-religious and inter-state conflicts are a reality in contemporary Asia. This reality involves people living as neighbours and having to interact with each other on a day-to-day basis. Many of the conflicts are civil and they are between ‘brothers and sisters’ within a locality or region. They are also between neighbours, and not an invading army. This general situation in Asia needs to be addressed through reconciliation. Reconciliatory communication is an urgent need to heal communal wounds and scars.

5.2.4 Participatory Communication

In the political arena in contemporary Asia, full and involved political participation of people in public life is still an unrealised reality. The expression of democracy cannot be fully achieved without people’s participation in decision-making that has implications for them and their communities. Participatory communication requires a free and open media. It is an urgent need for the evolution of a democratic Asia and will contribute to overcoming conflicts between individual/communities and the state. It will also contribute to the development of an active civil society.

5.2.5 Dialogical Communication

Asia is multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual; it is a rich multi-cultural haven. This cultural diversity offers a great future for Asia. There is a need to appreciate and to accept the differences in culture and religion without attempting to create a hegemonic standard. A sound but difficult way of resolving differences is through dialogue. Dialoguing requires that people and communities meet as equals, and negotiate their differences for the common good. This is also the message of the New Way of Being Church in Asia, which proposes the dialoguing Church.

[...]

For Copies Write To:

Director
Cahayasuara Communication Centre
No. 5, Jalan Robertson, Pudu
50150 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Email: ccckl@po.jaring.my

If the salt loses its savour

2005-04-28T16:49:00.000+08:00

Essay by Sashi Kumar: If the salt loses its savour: The media may be corporatised. But journalism must be at the centre of it

Full article: Click Here (or the title above). (Tehelka: The People's Paper)

"Faci-pulation"

2005-04-28T16:00:00.000+08:00

Augy recently returned from Europe after attending a SIGNIS World meeting. While having a conversation with him in a taxi in Kuala Lumpur (KL--27-4-05), he used a word that sounded strange-and-familiar at the same time. So Canute (of CahayaSuara Communication Centre in KL), asked what the word was. Augy uttered the word again: "faci-pulation".

Wow ! A new word...Instantly we realised the word described certain person(s) in the NGO/civil society sector rather accurately. "Faci-pulation" describes "faci-litation" that subtly aims at "mani-pulation". Thus, it involves a faci-litator who mani-pulates or a mani-pulative faci-litator.

I think the word is copyright free. It is actually copyleft-enabled. Go forth and spread it !!!

The New Multitaskers

2005-04-26T10:15:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN/O5

The World of ACN: A Common Sight in Urban Asia.

The growing bespectacled, t-shirt and jeans wearing young of Asia, playing video games on a handphone while adults are busy attending to other "more important" things. A generation of multi-taskers is being created for whom the new Information and Communication Technologies are merely an extention of its Being.

A Muslim in a Church

2005-04-19T09:05:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN/April2005

The World of ACN: A Muslim in a Church.

I attended the wedding of a colleague of mine in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah recently. While photographing the wedding, I came across the above scene and photographed it. For me, the image belongs the world imagined by ACN (through its inter-religious concerns). There were many muslims in the church that day who were friends or business associates of the groom.

Workshop on “Development Implications of the Diffusion of Information Technology”

2005-04-14T06:38:00.000+08:00

Workshop on
“Development Implications of the Diffusion of Information Technology”
Chennai, India, November 4 & 5 2005

Jointly Organised by The Media Development Foundation, The Hindu and The Economic Research Foundation
--------------------------------------

The performance of India’s information technology industry is widely held up as an example of the significant and positive effects on economic development of the ICT revolution, both for India’s domestic economy and for India’s position in the international economic order.

Domestically, the IT revolution is expected to have both direct and indirect growth-inducing effects. Directly, the IT sector’s contribution to GDP is expected to rise to 8 per cent and its share in exports to about 30 per cent by 2008. Indirectly, the new technologies and the accompanying falling costs of computing power, data storage and information transmission is expected to transform productive capacities and organisations in almost all sectors, in the process raising productivity, increasing investment and hence spurring GDP growth.

Internationally, the rapid expansion of IT output, employment and exports in countries like India is (optimistically) seen as the basis for a redistribution – at the margin – of the benefits of globalisation to the developing countries. IT growth could make the distribution of world income more egalitarian, provided the technological barriers to the entry of small firms, particularly firms from developing countries, are low.

It is often presumed that entry barriers are indeed low compared to non-ICT sectors because of the following features of the two principal components of the sector:

· In downstream hardware production: (i) the knowledge base for innovation is in the public domain and can be easily transmitted across countries; (ii) levels of investment are lower and less “lumpy” than in non-IT manufacturing sectors; and (iii) products are more “heterogenous”, consisting of varying combinations of sub-systems, components and peripherals.

· In software production: (i) knowledge is easily acquired; (ii) innovations are easily replicated; and (iii) capital requirements are small.

Furthermore, it is argued that there are factors that stimulate the spread of ICT (and of software development and services in particular) to developing countries, including: (a) the availability of cheap skilled labour in developing countries such as India; and (b) the shortage of software professionals in the OECD countries.

If these arguments are valid they are extremely significant for two reasons. First, ICT sector growth may be one of the few viable ways to raise employment in labour-surplus countries such as India, where labour absorption in many non-ICT sectors (agriculture and manufacturing) appears to have reached saturation levels in many parts of the country. Second, the export growth (of hardware, software and IT-enabled services) accompanying the ICT sector growth can be an effective means to reduce balance of payments vulnerability, which has been a crucial constraint on development and is even more so in today’s globalised world..

Workshop concerns

The workshop would seek to assess these arguments based on an examination of the diffusion of information technologies and the growth of the IT sector in both developed and developing countries. It would use the comparative experience with ICT-sector development in the US, Europe and India to examine three specific and interrelated questions. First, how valid is the hypothesis that unlike the old industries based on “routinised” technologies in which barriers to late entry were substantial, especially for developing countries, the IT sector is in large part an “entrepreneurial” industry in which the nature of technology is such that cross-border diffusion is easy, quick and sustainable, with attendant implications for international inequality? Second, is the observed comparative experience with cross-border diffusion such that we can expect the growth of the ICT sector itself to be rapid and sustainable, with positive income, employment and balance of payments effects? Third, is the transformative impact of the IT sector on productivity and competitiveness in the rest of the economy likely to to be substantial? If so what, impact would this have for “net” employment generation since the gains in employment in the IT sector could be partly neutralised by the employment losses associated with the IT-induced gains in productivity in the rest of the economy?

Workshop sessions would focus on the following themes:

(1) The “ICT Revolution” in the US

-- Competition, consolidation and monopoly: The evolution of IT in the US.
-- Horizontal diffusion of the IT into non-ICT manufacturing, agriculture and services and the implications for system-wide productivity and growth.
-- The implications of IT stock booms and telecom bubbles in recent stock market history for the real economy?

(2) ICT Diffusion and Development in Europe

-- The extent of, the constraints to and the ease of cross-border diffusion of ICT into late-entrant developed countries.
-- The extent of horizontal diffusion of information technology and the implications for system-wide productivity
-- ICT diffusion and the structural transformation of economies in the EU

(3) ICT Diffusion and Development in Asia

-- The extent of, the constraints to and the ease of cross-border diffusion of IT into late-entrant developing countries.
-- The extent of horizontal diffusion of information technology and the implications for system-wide productivity
-- IT and IT-enabled exports as growth engines

i. The current and future implications of outsourcing.

(4) ICT Diffusion and the Service Economy

i. IT, services and the new capitalism
ii. The outsourcing wave and its implications

(5) ICT, Convergence and the Media

-- Digital Capitalism and the Media Monopoly

(6) ICT and human development

-- The “external” human benefits of ICT-based growth.
-- Could enhanced (vertical) ICT reach improve governance, make the state more citizen-friendly, empower the poor and ensure the better delivery of improved social services?

From: Sashi, Chennai

Hooking Children to TV (Malaysia)

2005-04-13T16:48:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN/April2005

A common sight in Malaysia...watching (American) cartoon programmes. To keep children occupied, very often parents make them watch television. Many parents also feed their children while they (the children) are busy watching television. Parents claim that in this state of distraction, feeding children is easier.

Getting Away With Murder

2005-04-11T23:08:00.000+08:00

Getting Away with Murder

Paris, 11 April 2005
For immediate release:
http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
.
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Hundreds of journalists have been killed in the past decade, and in the vastmajority of cases the killers walk free. The World Association ofNewspapers and World Editors Forum focus on this problem in the annualpackage of materials offered to newspapers world-wide for publication onWorld Press Freedom Day.

Interviews, articles, infographics, cartoons and advertisements on pressfreedom themes are now available without charge from WAN athttp://www.worldpressfreedomday.org/ . Newspapers world-wide are encouragedto download the materials and publish them on 3 May.

The theme of the 2005 campaign is "Impunity - Getting Away with Murder."

"More than 500 journalists have been killed in the past decade. In more thantwo-thirds of the cases, no one has been brought to justice, much lessconvicted," said Timothy Balding, Director General of WAN.

"Today the general public is becoming more aware of the life-threateningrisks journalists take while doing their job. However, few are aware thatthe vast majority of crimes against journalists go unpunished, most oftenthrough the negligence, deliberate or otherwise, of governments and theiragencies," he said.

Newspapers worldwide are being asked to help draw attention to the problemby commemorating World Press Freedom Day on 3 May by publishing thematerials offered by WAN and WEF.

As in past years, WAN is providing personal testimonies, editorials,interviews, photos, graphics, advertisements and illustrations as well ascase studies on killed and imprisoned journalists. The package is availablein English, French, Spanish, German and Russian.

For the first time, WAN is offering a public service video clip on thesubject of impunity for use by broadcast media and by newspaper web sites.Advertising agencies worldwide have also contributed to the package ofmaterials by providing print advertisements on the theme of impunity.

Among the materials offered to newspapers are:

- The Philippines has emerged as one of the most dangerous countries forjournalists. Jose Torres, Jr, senior editor of abs-cbnNEWS.com, provides apersonal overview of the dangers in an article entitled, "I Pack a Pistol."

- John Sweeney, a BBC reporter, remembers his friend and colleague JamesMiller, perhaps the best television documentary maker of his generation, whowas shot dead while shining a flashlight on a white flag and shouting "Weare British journalists" as he and two colleagues approached an Israeliarmoured vehicle.

- Rodney Pinder, Director of the International News Safety Institute,examines the reasons why the culture of impunity exists, and what is beingdone to combat it.- Details of the unsolved cases of murdered journalists in Belarus, Serbia,Canada, Indonesia, Sierra Leone and the Philippines.

- Editorial cartoons by the French cartoonist Michel Cambon on the theme ofimpunity, and infographics showing where journalists have been murdered, andwhere they are being held in prison world-wide.

- Photographs of violations against journalists around the world from majornews agencies and newspapers, available free for publication.

- And much more (http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org/ ).WAN is also organising an international conference on the theme of impunity, to be held at the Frontline Club in London, on 3 May, 2005. Major mediabased in London, Paris and Brussels will be invited to the event, which willinclude testimonies, presentations and panel discussions.

The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations,individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nineregional and world-wide press groups.

WEF is the organisation within WAN that represents senior news executives.

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue GeoffroySt Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 4948. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr

---

Larry Kilman
Director of Communications
World Association of Newspapers
7 Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire
75005 Paris France
Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00
Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48
E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr
Visit our web site at http://www.wan-press.org/

------------------------------------------------------------------
Distributed for non-profit educational purpose.

Google News Creator at the World Editors Forum

2005-04-06T21:10:00.000+08:00

Google News Creator at the World Editors Forum

http://www.wan-press.org/article6771.html
Paris, 6 April 2005

.

Is Google News a threat to newspapers? It is a question that editors from around the world can ask the creator of Google News, Krishna Bharat, when he takes the podium at the World Editors Forum in Seoul, Korea, in June.

Mr Bharat, a Principal Scientist at Google Inc. and head of Google's Research & Development Centre in Bangalore, India, will be a keynote speakerin a session on "New frontiers for journalism" at the Forum, the global meeting of senior news executives to be held from 29 May to 1 Juneconcurrently with the World Newspaper Congress.

Mr Bharat describes Google News as "a computer-generated newspaper that unifies news from online newspapers worldwide with an emphasis on diversity and balance." It is a continuously updated news site that allows users to search and browse 4,500 news sources (http://news.google.com/ ).

Mr Bharat says people use Google News in addition to their usual news sources."Google News' focus is on diversity, and that's where the real added valueis," he said in a recent interview. "It's a bit like a bookstore that takes content on a single subject and puts it all on the same shelf. People useGoogle News to complement their favourite source, like CNN. You come toGoogle News when you want a wide range of articles -- in both opinions and style -- on that subject."

Mr Bharat will share the stage with Dan Gillmor, author of "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People", who is developing a citizen-generated, grassroots journalism project.

Mr Gillmor, a noted technology columnist and "blogger", has frequently commented on the rise of Google News, and takes exception to the contention that the automated nature of Google News makes it free of bias. "Since humans programmed the computers, human biases -- or at least mistakes --inevitably creep into the results," he says.

The debate begins.

The 12th World Editors Forum, 58th World Newspaper Congress and Info Services Expo 2005 are the global meetings of the world's press, drawing more than 1,000 newspaper executives to a unique annual gathering organisedby the World Association of Newspapers.

For the evolving conference programme, a participants list and other information, consult the WAN web site at http://www.wan-press.org/seoul2005

Other highlights of the WEF conference include:-

- An examination of "Tabloid Fever: Is the temperature going down?" withJan-Eric Peters, Editor of Germany's Die Welt, Welt Kompakt and BerlinerMorgenpost, newspaper designer Mario Garcia, Didier Pillet, the Editor ofOuest France, Robb Montgomery, Visual Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, and George Brock, Saturday Editor of The Times of London.

- A session entitled "What makes Asian newspapers different?", featuring Asian success stories from Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director of The HindustanTimes in India; Keiko Chino, Senior Editorial Writer for the Sankei Shimbunin Japan; and Sang-Seok Lee, Executive Director of The Korea Times. The session will be chaired by Andrew Lynch, Editorial Director of the Shapingthe Future of the Newspaper project for the World Association of Newspapers and founder of the pan-Asian newspaper trade magazine, Asian NewspaperFocus.

- A session on infographics and visual journalism featuring Alberto Cairo,the Infographics editor at El Mundo in Spain, Jeff Goertzen, theInfographics Editor at the St. Petersburg Times in the United States, PeterEspina, the Infographics Editor of the China Daily, and Katie Ratcliffe, theAsia Pacific Manager for Graphics for Agence France-Presse.

- A session on using editorial networks to expand news coverage efficiently,with Miguel Angel Basteiner, International Affairs Director of El Pais,Spain, and Director of the Le Monde/El Pais/La Repubblica network, RistoUimonen, Editor of Kaleva in Finland, and Imtiaz Alam, General Secretary ofthe South Asian Free Media Association.

- A discussion of the "citizen journalist" movement, with panelists Barry Sussman, Director of the Nieman Watchdog Project, Joichi Ito, CEO of Japan's Neoteny, and Andrew Nachison, Director of the US-based Media Center.

- A look at "new legal dangers: privacy issues and sports rights" with KaiDiekmann, Editor of Bild in Germany, Ko Yamaguchi, Advisor for International Affairs for Japan's Kyodo News Service, Monique Villa, Senior Vice Presidentfor Reuters, and Ari Valjakka, Editor of Finland's Turun Sanomat.

- And many others.

For the full conference programme, consulthttp://www.wan-press.org/seoul2005/

The Paris-based WEF is the organisation of the World Association ofNewspapers that represents senior news executives. WAN, the globalorganisation for the newspaper industry, represents 18,000 newspapers; itsmembership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaperexecutives in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nine regional andworld-wide press groups.

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 7 rue GeoffroySt Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 4948. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr

---
Larry KilmanDirector of Communications
World Association of Newspapers
7 Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire
75005 Paris France
Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00
Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48
E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr
Visit our web site at http://www.wan-press.org

----------------------------------------------------------------
Distributed for non-profit educational purpose only.

Pope: The Person and the Institution

2005-04-04T22:21:00.000+08:00

A very symbolic picture of the Pope (Poland 1979).
Source: Click Here

A media superstar with sense of drama

2005-04-04T07:00:00.000+08:00

A media superstar with sense of drama

BY BOB KEELERNewsday
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/11298399.htm

Combining moral authority, communications skill and theatrical talent, Pope John Paul II was the first pontiff to become a media superstar.

In the four decades before his 1978 election, the papacy had gradually become more visible. Pope Pius XII appeared in newsreels. Pope John XXIII, "Good Pope John," and Pope Paul VI, the first modern pope to travel outside Italy, including the United States, arrived in the early decades of the television era.

"But then, what you get with John Paul II is this tremendous escalation, partly because of all these trips," said the Rev. John O'Malley of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. "All at once, you've got this figure who's making these spectacular visits which bring cities to a halt."

Beyond attracting huge crowds on those frequent trips, John Paul knew how to get across his moral message with consummate skill, and in many languages. "One would maybe not call him one of the great orators of the 20th century, but compared with most political leaders, he's a wonderfully effective rhetorician," said O'Malley, who was asked before the pope's death to evaluate him as a media figure. "He has a sense of drama."

That sense of drama came from his love of theater as a young man in Nazi-occupied Poland. From his time under the Nazis, and later under communist rule, he also learned the importance of mass media.

"He came from a world where the media was against him and used against him and the church," said Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, director of communications for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. That helped him understand the media's crucial role.

In his 1990 encyclical, "Redemptoris Missio" (The Mission of Christ the Redeemer), John Paul compared the media to the Areopagus, the Council of Athens, where St. Paul preached.

"The first Areopagus of the modern age is the world of communications, which is unifying humanity and turning it into what is known as a 'global village,' " John Paul wrote. "In particular, the younger generation is growing up in a world conditioned by the mass media. To some degree perhaps this Areopagus has been neglected."

John Paul did not neglect it.

Long before he became pope, he wrote plays (one of which became a 1988 movie, "The Jeweler's Shop," starring Burt Lancaster), as well as poetry and books, such as "Love and Responsibility," on sex and marriage.

After his election, he continued to embrace the media, producing works of his own, including a 1994 bestseller, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," his responses to questions on faith and life, and a 1996 memoir of his priesthood, "Gift and Mystery." He also allowed his voice, in prayers and homilies, to be used on a 1999 CD, "Abba Pater," meaning "father" in Aramaic and Latin. And, during his papacy, the Vatican launched its own Web site, www.vatican.va.

But his primary media mastery was not as an entrepreneur. It was as a spiritual leader, endowed with a compelling personal biography and the ability to transcend the dense tangles of his philosophical thought to convey his message clearly. Adding weight to his message, Maniscalco said, John Paul had more seniority in his role than many world leaders had in theirs.
"He's kind of rewritten the script," O'Malley said. "Popes have spoken out on moral issues and to some extent on world issues, but nobody like this man."

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Distributed for non-profit educational purpose.

The ACN E-Institute

2005-03-27T16:17:00.000+08:00

Dear Team,

Easter is a good day to start something. I have taken it as a challenge to start the ACN E-Institute at: http://www.freewebs.com/acninstitute/ (a free web hosting service).

The ACN E-Institute will organise communication/media-related online courses, building them basically with web resources. I have created the first course entitled: Beyond the Mass Media.

The courses at the ACN E-Institute will have the following structure:

(1) Title of course
(2) Modules that make up the course ( about 3 -- 5).
(3) Each main module will have a set of critical web resources (URLs of about 10 sites).
(4) The modules will be organised in a sequence calling the "Learning Path".
(5) Each course is expected to be a growing, interactive enterprise, with inputs from users.
(6) Eventually the courses are expected to be collectively owned by ACN and the users.
(7) There are no tests or examination to pass.
(8) The course is purely self-paced and voluntary effort at learning communication issues.

This is a trial run of another service we can offer that does not cost much money. Hope you will have a look at it and start building it or other courses. Your support is critical.

Thanks,
Nat

THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!

2005-03-27T00:16:00.000+08:00

The Lord is risen indeed!

And are the tidings true?

Yes, we beheld the Savior bleed,

And saw Him living, too.

The Lord is risen, indeed!

Then Justice asks no more;

Mercy and Truth are now agreed

Who stood opposed before.

The Lord is risen indeed!

Then is His work performed;

The captive surely now is freed,

And death, our foe, disarmed.

The Lord is risen indeed!

Then hell has lost his prey;

With Him is risen the ransomed

seedTo reign in endless day.

The Lord is risen indeed!

He lives, to die no more;

He lives, the sinner’s cause to plead,

Whose curse and shame He bore.

The Lord is risen indeed!

Attending angels, hear!

Up to the courts of heaven with speed

The joyful tidings bear.

Then take your golden lyres,

And strike each cheerful chord;

Join, all ye bright celestial choirs,

To sing our risen Lord.

Background Readings on Easter

2005-03-26T15:27:00.000+08:00

Power of Public and Participatory Journalism

2005-03-25T03:45:00.000+08:00

What We Heard, What We Learned:
Exploring the Fusion Power of Public and Participatory Journalism

Full Report at: http://www.pjnet.org/documents/FusionPowerReport_000.pdf

[...]

•Wiki is a Web site where anyone can edit any page. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is not perfect, but is increasingly credible and is the first absolutely open-source journalism project that I can name in every respect. If you know something about a subject, and you go up here to see what it says, I would predict the odds are strong that you’ll find they’ve done a very good job. And if you don’t like it, you can change it. And if you change it and someone
doesn’t like your change, they can change it back. It gets into very interesting wars over subjects, but basically people tend to agree and you have to remember that you’re writing something that people of all persuasions
will agree with.

[...]

"I think that future news for journalists and educators is something different. It’s very much about learning how to deconstruct the stories. It’s about building components that are going to help people participate in the news. It’s about building the components that help users co-author, co-make their stores. If it’s online, future news is not just something you read, it’s very much something you do. It’s an experiential kind of thing. It’s a news experience."

[...]

Full Report at: http://www.pjnet.org/documents/FusionPowerReport_000.pdf

Thanks Nat

2005-03-25T02:36:00.000+08:00

Dear Nat,
Thanks for this instruction. The previous ones did not have the facility of going directly into 'Voices of ACN'. And that's the reason I kept creating my own blog because there was no 'clicking on' becoming operational on the 'new post'. And this is what I sent to you to explain the difficulty. Anyhow I hope this one works. If so then am real happy for succeeding at last. I hope I am not so dumb after all. Thanks once again.
Regards,
Conrad

Mobile Phone Users: Small Study

2005-03-23T02:20:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN (2005)

Mobile Phone Users: A Small-Scale Observational Study
by Zoe Laughlin
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/zgl9901.html

[.....]

It is not uncommon to see a group of people (usually twenty-something's) sitting at a table in a pub or café, with their mobiles out on the table in front of them. After asking my peers about this pattern of behaviour, there appear to be a variety of reasons for this. Some people said that it was uncomfortable to have the telephone in their pocket, others said that they were expecting a call and so it was easier if it was out, whilst others werent really sure why they did it, it was essentially automatic.

From further observing these groups of people, the conversation would genuinely come round to their mobiles and they would be passed around for examination or demonstrations. In these situations it is not uncommon to see owners comparing the size, features, and ring tones of their respective telephones. Like all technology today it appears size does matter, and the smaller the better -an unusual twist on the traditional symbols of masculinity.

Sometimes people in the group would abstain from the conversations for a few minutes to fiddle with their telephones. One might assume the conversation was not interesting them and they found more amusement playing with the games that can be found on mobiles, but after questioning, this appeared not to be the case. They were in fact texting other friends to see if they were coming out and telling them where the group was. Although some may argue that lose of communication with the people around them occurred, during the act of texting, but to some extent this shows that people are using the mobile as a means to a more sociable ends. The very fact of having something to fiddle with is suspected to be one of the reasons why the numbers of teenager boys taking up smoking is falling. Those not interested in football may have previously joined the smoking group but now gather together in the playground with their mobiles as the focus. Many smokers cite one of the difficulties in giving up is the need to have something in their hand. This suggests that part of the creation of a regular 'mobile habit' could actually be as an outlet for fidgeting nervous energy of boredom.

The text message has indeed become an accepted and every day method of communication for the younger generation of mobile telephone users, who are exploring the possibilities of the medium, creating purpose and relevance to both the caller and the receiver. In the same way as people commonly say "Ill give you a ring" for what ever reason, now one increasingly hears "Ill text you", showing that this habit, it is becoming more frequently used.

For some, text messaging adds an extra dimension to conversations and communication in general, for they can enable people to exchange snippets of information, that may not in them selves warrant a full call. This appeared to be the attitude of many of my male friends supporting the research that suggest that men view telephone communication as a method of relaying information. One of the limitations of text messaging is that one has only 160 characters available -meaning that it suits short and to the point transactions, or in other words, a more stereotypically masculine style of user. One person told me that he sent 870 text messages in the first month and a half of owning his mobile, perhaps as a result of a 'honeymoon period' of usage, but also as an indication of how he has continued to use text messaging. When questioned, those male users for whom texting was a regular part of their communication habits, estimated they sent on average 100 to 200 texts a month. This is in contrast to the 50 to 100 messages their female contemporaries claim to send.

Irrespective of subtleties, the mobile telephone does cuts across gender differences. Both young men and women, as well as teenagers and even pre-teens, look upon the text messaging as mode of communication that not only fits their budgets, but which can be integrated into the cultural framework of there lives. They can be discreet, fun, rude, silly, practical, and versatile, whilst also enabling the user to communicate in situations where a traditional call may be inappropriate.. It is interesting how people can create individualities and nuances within their text messages, resulting in a texting vernacular.

The Guardian newspaper launched a poetry competition on Thursday March the 29th 2001 that called on their readers to text them a poem, bearing in mind that "the possibilities are infinite but the text can only have 160 characters." This demonstrates an understanding of the fact that people can use new technology in a creative way. If nothing else this competition confronts the issues of the text message genre subverting traditional rules of grammar, spelling and sentence construction. The article accompanying the competition makes reference to Marshall McLuhans famous mantra (McLuhan & Fiore 1967) by stating that "in this competition, the medium really is the message."

[....]

Source: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/zgl9901.html

Nat/ACN (2005)

Inter-Faith Websites

2005-03-22T09:40:00.000+08:00

Inter-Faith Websites

A Selection of interfaithWeb-sites and Online Indices.
www.nain.org/links/interfaith.htm

(Not sure if all the links are still working -- Nat)
-----------------------------------------------------

ALLfaiths Press : http://www.allfaithspress.com
Interreligious information, news, polls.

BeliefNet : http://www.beliefnet.com
A variety of of information and resources about religion and various religious traditions, news and resources, and links to other religion sites, including sacred texts

Center for Global Ethics: http://astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/geth.htm
Coordinates the work of thinkers, scholars and activists who are working to define, implement and promote policies of responsible global citizenship.

CoNexus Press : http://www.conexuspress.com
Offers books, calendars, CD-ROM, and other resources for inter-religious understanding, wisdom and cooperation.

Council for a Parliament of World Religions: http://www.cpwr.org
The mission of CPWR is to foster inter-religious dialogue and cooperation in metropolitan Chicago and around the world.

Exploring Religions : http://august.uwyo.edu/ReligioNet/er
Exploring Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

Faith and Values Network: http://www.faithandvalues.com/
A primarily Christian media organization but with membership from a few other religions: provides online and television broadcasting content supportive of interfaith communications and understanding.

Fellowship of Reconciliation:http://www.forusa.org
Explores the idea that we, humanity, are the Earth becoming aware of itself. Also affirms the Great Spirit of Oneness found at the heart of all the world's great spiritual traditions.

Global Dialogue Institute: http://astro.temple.edu/~dialogue
Promotes dialogue in the broadest sense among individuals and groups of different religions and cultures, focusing especially on scholars, professionals, and institutional & business leaders.

Inner Explorations : http://www.innerexplorations.com
Where Christian mysticism, theology and metaphysics meet eastern forms of meditation, Jungian psychology and a new sense of the earth.

Institute on Religion and Public Policy: http://www.religionandpolicy.org
Online community and book source for integral culture and spirituality.

Interfaith Calendar: http://www.interfaithcalendar.org
An interfaith calendar produced with dates of sacred importance to major historic faiths.

Interfaith Voices for Peace & Justice: http://interfaithvoices.org/ifv.cfm
Directory of faith-based and interfaith activist organizations.

International Interfaith Centre: http://www.interfaith-center.org/oxford
Aims to support the work of organizations and individuals to further peaceful relations, respect and understanding between people with different faith beliefs.

International Committee for the Peace Council: http://www.peacecouncil.org/
The Peace Council is a diverse group of religious and spiritual individuals who work together so that "those of us who profess belief in our respective faiths can work for the common cause of humanity."

Jewish-Christian Relations: http://www.jcrelations.net/frmain.htm
Concerning issues in the on-going and expanding Jewish-Christian dialogue, with history, bibliography and links to organizations world-wide.

Movement for Beloved Community: http://home.earthlink.net/~rflyer/index.html
Our dream is the creation of a global network of individuals, villages, neighborhoods, and communities who share a vision of a beloved community—and want to realize it.

Multifaith Prayers : http://www.silcom.com/~origin/sbcr/sbcr453
Reflections from many traditions.

Museum of World Religions: http://www.mwr.org.tw
An online version of the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan. Information about Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions. Includes chatroom, music, graphics, and numerous interactive elements.

Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org
Major multi-faith site has three main purposes: 1) To disseminate accurate religious information. 2) To expose religious fraud, hatred and misinformation. 3) To disseminate information on "hot" religious topics.

Our Faiths: http://www.OurFaiths.org
Multi-faith education website offering articles, chat, message boards for all faiths.

The Pluralism Project : http://www.pluralism.org
Developed at Harvard University to study and document the growing religious diversity of the United States, with a special view to its new immigrant religious communities. This site includes a growing survey and database of interfaith organizations, compiled by Affiliate Researcher Joel Beversluis.

The Rumi Forum for Interfaith Dialogue: http://www.rumiforum.org/main.htm
Rumi Forum for Interfaith Dialogue is a non-profit organization dedicated to mutual understanding among different faiths and cultures, located in Washington D.C.,

Regional Interfaith Chaplaincy Services: http://www.interfaithchaplaincy.org
A regional ministry of pastoral care, education, and research serving healthcare facilities in southwestern Pennsylvania

Religion Depot : http://www.edepot.com/religion.html
A listing of religions from the perspective of the point of origin and the source of influence (what religion did it adapt from, and the religions that it spawned).

Religious Diversity Faire: www.religiousdiversityfaire.org
The purpose of this organization is to promote respect, understanding andappreciation among the many faith traditions in our communities. We produce an annual Religious Diversity Faire.

Religions in Renewal : http://www.usao.edu/~facshaferi/relren/relren4.htm
Dedicated to efforts by people all over the globe to renew their religions or ideologies in such a way that they will be open to ongoing transformation while remaining solidly rooted in what is essential in their past.

SpiritWeb : http://www.spiritweb.org
Spiritual consciousness on World Wide Web: Largest spiritual web-site of its kind; a major hub for connecting to global network of spirit-conscious truth-seekers.

The Tannenbaum Center for InterReligious Understanding: http://www.tanenbaum.org/
Mission: to defuse verbal and physical violence perpetrated in the name of religion

The Temple of Understanding: http://www.templeofunderstanding.org/
Non-profit located in New York at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, founded to promote understanding among the worlds religions.

United Communities of Spirit: http://origin.org/ucs.cfm
A global interfaith network, linking people of diverse faiths and beliefs who want to work with others to build a better world.

United Religions Initiative: http://www.uri.org
A global initiative to bring diverse religions to a common table so they might work together for the good of all life and the healing of the world.

Vision Television: http://www.visiontv.ca/
Canada's multifaith, multicultural television network

Virtual Religion Index: http://religion.rutgers.edu/vri/index.html
Rutgers University tool for students with little time. It analyzes and highlights important content of religion-related web-sites to speed research.

World Conference on Religion and Peace: http://www.wcrp.org
The largest interfaith peace organization, its programs, chapters, links and reports.

World Congress of Faiths: http://www.worldfaiths.org/ .
A pioneering fellowship dedicated to bringing people of different faiths together.

World Network of Religious Futurists: http://www.wnrf.org/index.html
Professional association dedicated to understanding and advancing the future of religion.

World Scripture : http://sbnetwork.com/ucs/ws/ws.cfm
A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts.

Resume of Christ

2005-03-22T01:47:00.000+08:00

Beautiful way to prepare for the Easter Season

The Resume of Jesus Christ
Address: Ephesians 1:20
Phone: Romans 10:13
Website: The Bible. Keywords: Christ, Lord,
Savior and Jesus

Hello. My name is Jesus -The Christ. Many call me
Lord! I've sent you my resume because I'm seeking
the top management position in your heart.
Please consider my accomplishments as set forth in my
resume.

Qualifications
€ ¦· I founded the earth and established the
heavens,
(See Proverbs 3:19)
€ ¦· I formed man from the dust of the ground,
(See Genesis 2:7)
€ ¦· I breathed into man the breath of life,
(See Genesis 2:7)
€ ¦· I redeemed man from the curse of the law,
(See Galatians 3:13)
€ ¦· The blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant
comes upon your life through me, (See Galat! ians
3:1 4)

Occupational Background
€ ¦· I've only had one employer, (See Luke
2:49).
€ ¦· I've never been tardy, absent,
disobedient, slothful or disrespectful.
€ ¦· My employer has nothing but rave reviews
for me,(See Matthew 3:15-17)

Skills Work Experiences
€ ¦· Some of my skills and work experiences
include: empowering the poor to be poor no more,
healing the brokenhearted, setting the captives
free, healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind
and setting at liberty them that are bruised,
(See Luke 4:18).
€ ¦· I am a Wonderful Counselor, (See Isaiah
9:6). People who listen to me shall dwell safely
and shall not fear evil, (See Proverbs 1:33).
€ ¦· Most importantly, I have the authority,
ability and power to cleanse you of your sins, (See
I John 1:7-9)

Educational Background
€ ¦· I encompass the entire breadth and length
of knowledge, wisdom and understanding, (See
Proverbs 2:6).
€ ¦· In me are hid all of the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge, (See Colossians 2:3).
€ ¦· My Word is so powerful; it has been
described as being a lamp unto your f! eet and a lamp
unto your path, (See Psalms 119:105).
€ ¦· I can even tell you all of the secrets of
your heart, (See Psalms 44:21).

Major Accomplishments
€ ¦· I was an active participant in the
greatest Summit Meeting of all times, (See Genesis
1:26).
€ ¦· I laid down my life so that you may live,
(See II Corinthians 5:15).
€ ¦· I defeated the archenemy of God and
mankind and made a show of them openly, (See Colossians
2:15).
€ ¦· I've miraculously fed the poor, healed the
sick and raised the dead!
€ ¦· There are many more major accomplishments,
to many to mention here. You can read them on my
website, which is located at: www dot - the
BIBLE. You don't need an Internet connection or
computer to access my website.

References
€ ¦· Believers and followers worldwide will
testify to my divine healings, salvation,
deliverance, miracles, restoration and supernatural
guidance

In Summation

Now that you've read my resume, I'm confident
that I'm the only candidate uniquely qualified to
fill this vital position in your heart. In
summation, I will properly direct your paths, (See
Proverbs 3:5-6), and lead you into everlasting life,
(See John 6:47). When can I start? Time is of the
essence, (See Hebrews 3:15). !!!!

Send this resume to everyone you know, you never
know who may have an opening! Thanks for your
help and may God bless you!

I just sign in

2005-03-21T20:57:00.000+08:00

Dear Nat, thank you for your invitation again! I just sign in.

Best wishes

Maryliu

2005-03-21T19:46:00.000+08:00

The multi-cultural space we live in in most of Asia...Religious co-existence in Malaysia. (Wesak Day, Kuala Lumpur, 2003)
Nat/ACN (2005)

2005-03-21T14:12:00.000+08:00

Nat/ACN, 2004 The highly media-ted environment we really live in. Increasingly,we come "to know" about the world only through highly profit-motivated/oriented media organisations. With whose "eyes" do we see ourselves? How are we re-presented? How do we engage with such an environment critically? Any alternative ways of coming to know, so as to act? Nat/ACN, 2004

I'm in

2005-03-20T08:18:00.000+08:00

Dear Nat and all,

Just to let you know that finally, after a few wrong attempts and more precise information from Nat, I got in the blog CORRECTLY!

Joe

Reflections on the Consumer Culture - where do we go?

2005-03-18T19:29:00.000+08:00

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings Again!

Peter Thomas, responding to the article “Consumerism at Christmas” says,

“Forget Christmas, with Easter approaching our stores not only have eggs of every shape and size but encourage people to buy their 'loved' ones Easter gifts.” Consumerism gone mad!

A friend from Korea says that in Korea and Japan big business have created a counterpart to Valentine’s Day. It is called ‘White Day” and it falls on March 14. It seems on that day the young women buy gifts and chocolates for their boyfriends. Reverse expression of Love. Business is brisk.

News is out that in many colleges in the US an average college student may have as many as two to three credit cards and when he leaves college is already thousands of dollars in debt. What a way to start life.

This is indeed great news for credit card companies. Hooked forever. Buy now ‘die’ later.

A Culture of Death?

I am sure this is becoming a pattern in many more countries in our regions. The question is what’s to be done? Go with the flow? Blame somebody, everybody?

Whose responsibility is it to protect our Children and Youth from these unscrupulous business practices? Parents? Teachers?Church?Government? Youth themselves?

As members of the SIGNIS Family we have our work cut out for us. I would very much like us to share with each other responses to these challenges from the context of our own regions and local cultures. Most of the research data is coming out of the US and this is understandable as much research goes on there.

Do we have local data on this phenomena that we can share among ourselves. Seems to be a crisis of Globalization. Anyone doing research on this?

In our parts of the world in the Asia/Pacific Region we have Del of PAME (Philippines) Fr. Larry Hannan and Agatha of Fiji Media Watch (Fiji), Fr. Ambrose Periera (Solomon Islands), Santhosh of Mediact and Magimay (India) and Lawrence John of Cahayasuara (Malaysia). There are also others who are doing excellent work in Media Education. These friends of ours have been developing unique approaches to Media Education suitable for local situations. It is possible that this group can contribute to the efforts of building a local information base on the issue of the Impact of Media Technology on Society. Such efforts have already started, for instance, in Brazil and Argentina.

Someone from India told me that we should ask the Youth themselves to do a research on themselves on how they see their life, liferstyles, and the impact and meaning of the technological environment they live in. The question is raised, “why should adults research us?” Aren’t they the ones who are buying and selling us all the time? Even the research they do on us is for their benefit. We want to tell our side!

There we go!

Best,
Augy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Another report for your reading and reflection!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Electronic world swallows up kids' time, study finds

By Marilyn Elias,
USA TODAY
Thu Mar 10, 7:10 AM ET

The USA's children live in an increasingly heavy stew of media, spending about 6½ hours a day mostly watching TV, using computers and enjoying other electronic activities. And they are spending relatively little time reading or doing homework, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey reported Wednesday.

Kids watch about the same amount of TV - nearly four hours a day - as they did based on a Kaiser survey five years ago, but they're adding newer technology to the mix, such as downloading music and instant-messaging. When multi-tasking is factored in, children are exposed to 8½ hours of media a day, up about an hour from five years ago.

A record 68% have TVs in their rooms, and an increasing number own DVD and video-game players, according to the survey of 2,000 children in grades three through 12.

"We have changed our children's bedrooms into little media arcades," survey co-director Donald Roberts of Stanford University says. "When I was a child, 'Go to your room' was punishment. Now it's 'Go to your room and have a ball.' "

Children with TVs in their rooms watch about 90 minutes more a day and do less reading and homework than those without their own TVs. About half say their families have no TV rules; if there are limits, they're usually not enforced.

"It's alarming, because parents ... should be setting clear rules and monitoring media use," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a self-described conservative public policy group.

The survey results come amid concern about the soaring rate of childhood obesity. The more kids watch TV, the more likely they are to be heavy, other studies have shown.

Glorified violence on TV is another concern, Roberts says. And new research suggests that violent video games might be even more likely than TV to spur aggression.

But even more serious could be changes in still-developing brains from the constant multi-tasking, says psychologist Jane Healy, author of Endangered Minds. "When you divide attention like this, it becomes harder to focus deeply on any one thing. They may develop habits of mind that make it hard to do in-depth thinking."

The survey underestimates multi-tasking because kids typically have four screens open on a computer, adds Sherry Turkle, an MIT expert on how technology affects people.

But media psychologist Stuart Fischoff of California State University-Los Angeles says all this concern is "premature hysteria." He says he has seen no changes in students' critical thinking during 38 years as a professor, "and TV and the Internet have been around long enough that it would show up by now."

Going Beyond...and

2005-03-18T11:48:00.000+08:00

Dear all,

Wednesday night I rediscover the meaning of “going beyond”. This time, is really way…beyond any other experience in my three-decade life, and probably far beyond the safe line.

In short, I walked in the dark, holding a 13-year-old rebel-soldier’s hand, trusting my life in his hand...

The details should be told later when I get back in my safe Jakarta home. But one thing I can share: the meeting gave me new meaning of Friday's walk to the Calvary. Fighting and ready to die for what you believe now have new meaning. The news and politics now have faces. And their faces were so beautifully human....

adeline

What Jesus Wouldn't Do

2005-03-17T07:29:00.000+08:00

What Jesus Wouldn't Do

By Jim Wallis,
AlterNetPosted on March 9, 2005, Printed on March 16, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21428/

Editor's Note:
The following is an edited excerpt from Jim Wallis' new book,
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Harper San Francisco).

-----------------------------------------------------

The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious right.

In Matthew’s 25th chapter, Jesus speaks of the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, prisoners, and the sick and promises he will challenge all his followers on the judgment day with these words, “As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.” James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, concludes from that text that, “Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor!” How many of America’s most famous television preachers could produce the letter?

The hardest saying of Jesus and perhaps the most controversial in our post–Sept. 11 world must be: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” Let’s be honest: How many churches in the United States have heard sermons preached from either of these Jesus texts in the years since America was viciously attacked on that world-changing September morning in 2001? Shouldn’t we at least have a debate about what the words of Jesus mean in the new world of terrorist threats and pre-emptive wars?

[......]

The religious right’s grip on public debates about values has been driven in part by a media that continues to give airtime to the loudest religious voices, rather than the most representative, leaving millions of Christians and other people of faith without a say in the values debate. But this is starting to change as progressive and prophetic faith voices are speaking out with a confidence and moral urgency not seen for 25 years. Mobilized by human suffering in many places, groups motivated by religious social conscience (including many evangelicals not defined by the religious right) have hit a new stride in efforts to combat poverty, destructive wars, human rights violations, pandemics like HIV/AIDS, and genocide in places like Sudan.

See full article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21428/

Why we find it so difficult to use new technology?

2005-03-16T22:48:00.000+08:00

Several emai;s later and much urging from Nat, the motto since last week was Get BLOGGING...but all his emails didnt seem to work. Maybe his instructions are lousy?

Now, as I type this blog...on my left is a person terrorising me to ensure that I blog. ...and do so correctly. This not an experience you will enjoy....so I suggest you get blogging before you too are traumatised by Sec Gen of ACN !!!!!!

Nat has given some procedural instructions, do give it a try and its not as bad as it sounds.
With Nat here registration was easy...I guess it was just my mental block.

So look forward to this new world of BLOG...please talk to me.
Good luck and bye for now.
Yazdi

Meanings and Values of Our World

2005-03-16T15:13:00.000+08:00

A nice visual commentary on our world...what it really communicates to some of us.
Are these the values we and our children are picking up?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a peace poster by Ramirez. Please check the ANTI-WAR.US Website (from the site):
"It is dedicated to the free distribution of anti-war graphic material. As creative individuals trained in methods of mass communication, we can make a real difference by providing clear anti-war messages."

http://www.anti-war.us/gallery/index.php
http://www.anti-war.us/gallery/detail.php?artist=108&artwork=0

Hello from Eljay

2005-03-15T18:19:00.000+08:00

Hi Guys!
I just got back from a Media Camp for teens over the weekend (11th March05).....boy its getting more and more difficult to engage with them. However it is challenging and encourging us to always keep changing our approaches!

Kids are always with their Handphones. Interestingly they seem to be messaging to each other within the class while the session was in progress, conmenting on the session and formators. We had our eyes (actually our friendly spies) on their screens!

By the way i know i promised the Media Education structure.....soon...well its coming.

Regards/lj

Mass Media’s Mythic World: At Odds with Christian Values

2005-03-15T16:51:00.000+08:00

Interesting article below. The introduction seem to challenge Joe and Jose.

For the full article, click on the link:
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1131
(Cultural base: US)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mass Media’s Mythic World: At Odds with Christian Values
by William F. Fore

Few tasks are more important for the church today than that of shaping a theology of communication; that is, reflecting on the relation of Christian beliefs to the process which mediates contemporary life and thought. We have failed to examine our religious heritage and our sense of the holy in a systematic way, and to relate them to our lives in a complex social environment. In order to do this we need first to look at the nature of society.

(....)

The Central Myths

We are dealing with a complex society, and it would be impossible to detail all the images and symbols that go into creating its commonality. However, there are a few central myths and values from which most of the images and symbols spring.

1. The fittest survive.
According to sociologist Marie Augusta Neal, the major myth of our Western culture is the social-Darwinian theory initiated by Herbert Spencer -- the concept that between ethnic groups there exist genetic differences large enough to justify programming for unequal natural capacities for responsible decision-making, specifically in the interests of the group one represents. Sister Marie points out that social Darwinism dominates our policy-making regarding education, jobs, geographical residential allotments, provision for recreation, health services and the uses of human beings to carry on wars.
It is no accident that in Gerbner’s TV-violence profile, lower-class and nonwhite characters are especially victimization-prone, are more violent than their middle-class counterparts, and pay a higher price for engaging in violence.8 As our myth suggests, the fittest survive, and the fittest in our mass-media world are not lower-class, nonwhite Americans.

2. Power and decision-making start at the center and move out.
The political word comes from Washington; the financial word comes from New York. While watching television, one has the sense of being at the edge of a giant network where a single person at the center pushes the right button and instantaneously millions of us “out there” see what has been decided.
Of course, there are alternatives to the myth of power moving from the center to the edges. Our own Declaration of Independence proposed that government derives its power from the consent of the governed -- in other words, that the flow of power should be from the periphery to the center. But the opposite model was much more supportive of the needs of the industrial revolution and the rise of a major nation-state, and today it is clearly essential to the maintenance of both a centralized governmental bureaucracy and a capitalist economy.
In our society, people at the center make decisions about what the others need and what they get. Mass production means standardization: whether people want it or not, the items on the shelves of our supermarkets become more and more the same, while mass advertising convinces us that we are getting more and more diversity. The idea that people in the power center should plan for others extends from corporate home offices to national church bureaucracies to the social welfare agencies. The result is that corporate business leaders wonder why they are so low in the credibility polls, church leaders wonder why they are losing their jobs and their budgets, and social workers wonder why the poor don’t appreciate the plans that have been worked out for them.

3. Happiness consists of limitless material acquisition.
This myth has several corollaries. One is that consumption is inherently good -- a concept driven home effectively by the advertising industry. Another is that property, wealth and power are more important than people. We need only consider the vast following for Ronald Reagan’s proposition that the Panama Canal is ours because we bought and paid for it to see how far this myth has made its way into our consciousness. We did, after all, pay for the Canal Zone. The fact that our control of the canal today results in depriving people of Panama of their human rights is regrettable, but a deal is a deal. Or recall the city riots in the late ‘60s. It was when looters started into the stores that the police started to kill. Both human life and property may be sacred, but in our mythology property rights are just a little more sacred.

4. Progress is an inherent good.
At one level this myth is symbolized by the words “new and improved” attached periodically to every old product. But the myth goes much deeper than that. Lewis Mumford believes that the “premise underlying this whole age, its capitalist as well as its socialist development, has been ‘the doctrine of Progress.’ ” Progress, he writes, “was a tractor that laid its own roadbed and left no permanent imprint of its own tracks, nor did it move toward an imaginable and humanly desirable destination.” Rather, “the going is the goal” -- not because there is any inherent beauty or usefulness in going, but because to stop going, to stop wasting, to stop consuming more and more, to say at any given moment that “enough is enough” would spell immediate doom.9

5. There exists a free-flow of information.
Of course the whole import of this analysis is that instead of a genuine free-flow there is consistent, pervasive and effective propaganda and censorship. Such a view is resisted most of all by the men and women who spend their careers reporting the news. But they are the very ones least able to judge the matter, for they were selected and trained by the system so that they could be depended upon to operate within its assumptions and myths.
This is not to condemn newsmen and newswomen any more than others of us who function uncritically within the system year in and year out. When Walter Cronkite says, “And that’s the way it is,” he is summing, up mostly the information our society wants and needs to hear that particular day.

Consider the flap when Roger Mudd, on the campaign trail with Ronald Reagan, filed a story on how the telenews for all three networks had covered Reagan that day. Reagan had said nothing new or newsworthy, and he had indeed talked before a total of only about 2,000 people at shopping centers. But that morning he appeared before the network cameras so each could have something to send back as the day’s “news.” Mudd’s story about the manufacture of news was killed by Cronkite, because it reflected negatively on the profession. But when Cronkite’s rejection itself began to be circulated around the nation’s pressrooms, CBS decided to run the Mudd story on the morning news; only a small fraction of viewers saw it, but CBS averted revelation of censorship which could have been even more harmful to its “free-flow” image than the original story.

Full Article at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1131

Hello From Augy

2005-03-14T17:49:00.000+08:00

I am the new blogger in town.
Stand by for regular reflections and comments on Media Education.

Regards,
Augy

Church Gunman Said Upset Over Sermon

2005-03-14T15:51:00.000+08:00

From: Fidel
------------------------------------------------------
Jose and Conrad's zeal to put Social Communications as a main course inthe seminary is admirable. I am encouraged. Aside from their advice, Ithink I might just use this clipping to convince our priests-to-be totake seriously the work of honing their homiletic skills.

Church Gunman Said Upset Over Sermon
By JULIET WILLIAMS and RYAN NAKASHIMA,
Associated Press Writers

BROOKFIELD, Wis. - The man who fatally shot seven people during a quietchurch service before turning the gun on himself was on the verge oflosing his job and upset over a sermon he heard two weeks ago, TerryRatzmann, 44, left no suicide note and gave no explanation for thekillings during Saturday's weekly meeting at a suburban Milwaukeehotel. It was unclear what specifically upset him, but Ratzmann was amember of the Living Church of God, a denomination whose leaderrecently prophesied that end times are near........For the complete article, check out...http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050314/ap_on_re_us/hotel_shooting

---------------------------------------------
From: Fidel

2005-03-14T12:14:00.000+08:00

Media for People (WSF, Bombay 2004)
Nat/ACN

2005-03-13T21:22:00.000+08:00

Harvesting Signals: Astro, Malaysia
Nat/ACN

Who Owns the Media ? (Book Review)

2005-03-13T15:41:00.000+08:00

From: Sashi
---------------------------------------------------------------

Who Owns the Media ?
Global trends and local resistances

-Edited by Pradip N. Thomas and Zaharom Nain
Published by Southbound Penang; Zed Books (London & New York) & WACC (London)
Copyright, World Association for Christian Communication, 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------
See http://www.southbound.com.my/media/media_cn.htm for details on the book
----------------------------------------------------------------
We suspect we know the answer to that question even as we launch into this collection of essays. But the collusive, battening, disembodied and overarching nature of that ownership is frightening in its different manifestations across the world. The tone is set by media scholar Robert McChesney as he takes on the self- righteousness with which the free market appropriates the media: “In the corporate view, their privileges were won by seemingly immaculate conception, and should be regarded as natural and inviolable thereafter”.

The frenzied phase of acquisitions and mergers through the first half of 2000 already set up a new ownership pyramid (forget the inverted pyramid journalism goes by) with nine transnational corporations controlling every thing we see, hear and read in the represented world. Technological convergence has dovetailed into vertical integration in the industry and corporate consolidation has spawned giantism on an unprecedented scale, so much so that, as Peter Chernin, President of Newscorp, points out, “ There are great arguments about whether content is king or distribution is king. At the end of the day scale is king”.

The global institutions created to ensure equitable and democratic media have, where they do not subserve the grand privatization agenda, been elbowed out of the way. Sean O’ Siochru, takes stock of the ascendance of the trade paradigm and the sidelining of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and UNESCO, much of their role now being handled by the WTO. The worldwide web has remained outside the purview of the UN system, with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the body that assigns names and numbers for the Internet IP address and Domain Name System, literally operating under the US Department of Commerce.

Cees J. Hamelink looks at how the notion of intellectual property rights has been hijacked from its original public interest context to become a restrictive trade practice so that “ a few mega-companies become the global gatekeepers of the world’s cultural heritage”. He urges a return to first principles, reminding us that Intellectual Property Rights are construed as human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and commends the example of Larry Lessig who argues that a ‘copy right’ must entail a ‘copy duty’ to make the right holder accessible to the public.

In Eastern and Central Europe, as Slavko Splichal points out, a new nexus between the State and the corporate sector has proved lethal for independent media. But it is a heady, win-win mix for both partners - more political power for the state and more profit for the firm. Berlusconi’s State-cum-media power pack in Italy typifies this new brand of “political capitalism”.

For the the Caribbean, globalisation in the media meant a stronger dose of Americanisation. Dealing with this experience, Hopeton Dunn notes that even by the mid eighties the region had been inundated by US-led TNCs who had already set up as many as 1723 branches there. But this acute neo-colonial thrust has had its recoil in distinctive cultural assertions which, in turn, reach out to the world; like Reggae music with its indigenous Rastafarian inspiration, or the peculiarly Caribbean assimilation of cricket which, as C.L.R James contextualises it, moves “Beyond a Boundary” into society and politics.

The situation gets murkier as we move on to Africa where regulation and, often, censorship are posed as developmental imperatives and where the local media has not yet been subverted or supplanted on a large scale by foreign investment. William Heuva , Keyan Tomaselli and Ruth Teer- Tomaselli analyse the classic ‘trilemma’ faced by countries in southern Africa: accelerating service delivery by attracting foreign investment versus moving towards universal service with little economic returns versus retaining a measure of national sovereignty.

Looking at the rest of Africa, Francis Nyamnjoh finds both overt state control and an undercurrent of resistance. He cites the reputation of Radio Trottoir as “ the poor man’s bomb” and “weapon of the powerless” across a swathe of African states. Again, the internet, with the multiplier effect of the tam tam at the village level, has proved an effective tool of resistance in much of the continent. “Ordinary Africans”, says Nyamnjoh conclusively, “have refused to celebrate victimhood.”

The media mayhem in Latin America is vividly captured by Ana Fiol. Out there in the backyard of the US, the media are enmeshed in the prop-up-and-destruct game the US administration plays with the local political leadership, even as they carve out large domestic and export markets for their cultural products. That the region is fertile ground for media is evident from the second-ranking global firms that have emerged from here: Televisa from Mexico, the Globo group from Brazil, Venevision Cisneros group from Venezuela, and the Clarin group from Argentina. For all that, and there lies the dig, the media capital of Latin America continues to be Miami in Florida.

Among the other significant area studies in the collection is one by Yuezhi Zhao who describes how the state-subsidised and party-controlled media in China
are neatly reinventing themselves as advertisement-based, market driven enterprises. Zaharom Nain and Wang Kim recount the travails faced by the Malaysian media under Mahatir Mohammed and the relative tolerance of the current administration.

Pradip Thomas, who coedits the compilation, has a rather superficial and inadequate piece on the Indian media scene, but redeems himself with another researched and informative input on the innovative ways in which privatization is pursued, including debt-equity swaps that have meant sale of local assets for a song.

Standing on par with McChesney at the head of this body of work is Dan Schiller, who raises the implication of the glut that follows the hype of digital capitalism. Overall it is a fascinating, if at times slightly bumpy, tour de horizon from which we can draw a poor sense of comfort- that we are not alone in this crisis of our media.

– Sashi Kumar

"Message" from a children movie

2005-03-12T10:28:00.000+08:00

Dear all,
Just sharing a short review & reflection...

Yesterday I watched a movie "Robots" with my little sweetheart.

The movie reminds meof the discourse on technology and human life, a discourse also addressed in Charlie Chaplin's 1936 "Modern Life".

In brief, there's an old "humane" character -- leader of a robot company --that have a motto, 'You can shine no matter what you're made of...' But he was replaced -- coopted actually -- by a new force who is after money moneyand money. The new leader changes the motto to, 'Why be you when you can benew?' So, the company stop selling spare parts and instead, they sell upgrades. Those who can't afford the upgrades are doomed to become scrap metal, finished by modernisation.

The best part of this children's movie is that the whole robot society was saved by a young robot who believe that, 'A dream you don't fight for would haunt you for the rest of your life...'

Hmm... easy ending, yes. But well, it's good to know that Hollywood produceda tool for an 8-year-old elementary student to understand a bit on how thedemon of neo-liberalism works :-)

adeline

A Message, A Martyr and the Media

2005-03-12T09:40:00.000+08:00

From: Prof. Chainarong

Dear Team,

The following piece was written by Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski, MHSH, of the University of Dayton, USA and an ACN adviser, as a reflection on the killing of Sr Dorothy Stang in Brazil. In it she raises important questions about the role of the media. Though the piece is directed to a specific group of Catholic educators it may stir reflections and action among a wider group of people including each and everyone of us in the ACN.

Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski can be reached at AngelaAnnZ@aol.com

Take care.
Chainarong

A Message, A Martyr and the Media

The evening before the bullets vibrated through her body and crescendos around the world Sr. Dorothy Stang, SND de Namur, 74 years old, spoke enthusiastically and passionately with her brother David concerning her mission the following day. For over 38 years Sr. Stang dedicated her life to the Amazon people located in Anapu, Brazil speaking out for the sustainable development of the region. She understood fully and deeply the pain, oppression, despair, anguish, joy, love and desire for a quality life that daily embraced the Amazon people. Committed to human dignity and the rights of the poor, Stang faced loggers and land speculators in the region over new land-use and ownership regulations that was leaving the indigenous people homeless, destitute and often dead. Daily she embraced the moral imperative of the social gospel. I was startled by the news: "An American nun and environmental activist was shot to death in the Amazon jungle on Saturday, heightening tensions between land speculators and peasant settlers in the region and bringing a government pledge to crack down on lawlessness." (NYT 2/14/05). Members of the Stang family have been my friends for over 35 years. The escapades of Sr. Stang frequented our meals and her occasional presence further animated our imaginations about a faith filled, bold and passionate missionary endeavors. Stunned I embraced the news of another woman who was courageous enough to be a prophetic voice among her people not fearing for her own life. For years Sr. Stang had been protesting the logging industries destruction of the rainforest and the negative impact on the environment, agriculture and the lives of the indigenous people. She strove to capture the local, national and international governments and media attention to these issues and concerns. A month before her death, responding to new government regulations of land use and ownership, loggers blocked highways and rivers, burned buses, threatened to pollute rivers with chemicals and warned that "blood will flow" if the government did not suspend decrees they fond objectionable. Over ten years ago she became a Brazilian citizen weaving herself in the fabric of her Amazon family. We speak and teach about the importance for an option for the poor, being advocates for the oppressed, putting one’s life on the line and all these Sr. Stang embraced with a conviction that was contagious for all those who met her. She was an animated medium of the Gospel’s moral imperative (message). She strove to call the attention of the Brazilian, United Nations, US President and government officials and copious other groups to the reality being created by their lack of conscientization in the support of human dignity and ecological issues and concerns. The government’s vision and focus concentrated on the economy and wealth of the few versus the common good of the many never lost its impact on her. What does it take to raise the universal consciousness of the world for an alternative way of thinking, believing and living that benefits all? Saturday morning dawned and with her cloth bag that contained important papers documenting her consistent advocacy initiatives including the names of persons who disappeared or were killed, as well as names of those who were perpetuators of the violence in the region, she left her village and joined the local farmers to protest again. While the day may have been like any ordinary day in her life – if any day could be considered ordinary in the life of Sr. Stang – the car she and farmers were driving was ambushed. The passengers are forced out of the car. As Sr. Stang steps out a witness hears someone shout: "There she is!" We do not have a record of what passed through her mind and heart at that moment. We know she had already been alerted to the reality that she was marked for possible assassination. How does a disciple of Jesus live knowing there is a price on their head because they embrace the moral imperative of the gospel? In December 2004 she received the 'Honorary Citizenship of the State' award for her environmental work from the Brazilian government and appeared on Brazilian television. This event itself may have set in motion the count down of Sr. Stang’s life. The media event that surrounded this award only jettisoned her into a dangerous position. Yet, through the media of the moment her message was released into the fabric of the Brazilian culture throughout the country. The Brazilian Order of Lawyers, a nationwide lawyers group by now had included Stang on a list of human rights workers who faced possible assassination. Less than two months later she faced her assassins. As in every such past situation, she pulls out of her satchel 'her weapon' – the scriptures and proclaims the Good News. A witness reports that these were final words: "This is the Word of the Lord!" In the next instant shots rang out and a martyr was born! Today we are reminded of so many other documented and undocumented martyrs in our time. You may wonder why I am sharing this story with you in this column? I do not want us to forget what her life meant to the Amazon people, or, the meaning and message of her life for us today. She is a martyr. She has witnessed to us what is the ultimate reality for one who responds to the call of discipleship in the 21st century. How willing are we to accept and embrace this call to discipleship? How do we prepare our students to possibly face the ultimate moral imperative? Furthermore, I share this story because it was through the tragic giving of her life that the media finally determined to tell her story – if even slightly colored to protect their interests. In a matter of hours the Internet, newspapers and some television and radio stations began communicating her assassination. Once
media personnel began asking the question: "What were the circumstances of this tragic death?" her advocacy efforts burst upon the world. It took her death to capture the imagination of the media and governments around the world. Yet, for how long a time would this imagination be held captive for action and change? Media has the power to focus our attention and call us to action. It can be sensational for the moment and then as quickly as it appeared fade into the background of history; however, Catholic educators cannot allow this to happen. We need to educate our students to be alert to the realities of contemporary martyrs and ask the question: "What does this mean for being a disciple of Jesus?" Would the slaying of an American Catholic Sister, who devoted her life to human dignity and the rights of the poor, galvanize action and world opinion? What is the role you and I have for incarnating and advancing her message to a new level within the lives of our students? How we can teach our students to use the media to advance the moral imperative of the social gospel? This is a teachable moment for Catholic educators. We need to embrace, ground and actualize her message in a concrete and practical way in our lives. There is no better time for us to wake up and face the call of the social gospel – the call to discipleship. One immediate way to begin is to engage our students in monitoring the media researching the moral imperative Stang’s life and death represented. Media questions we need consider are: What and where do we discover information that expresses the reality of her commitment? Who communicated the stories? Who avoided he stories? Why? What specific actions have occurred by Brazilian, US or world governments to respond to the tragedy and address the moral issue? What action can we take to challenge the powers that be not to ignore but to advance the causes she gave her life? What steps might we use through our local media to communicate our advocacy research and commitment to work for the oppressed in the world. I don’t think I need to tell our readers how to go about this task. You have the tools and the skills! It is up to us to make a difference to write the next chapter with our own lives. Sr. Dorothy Stang’s life is not simply a brief shooting star that passed through our lives for a single moment with the bullets of her assassin. Her life can have meaning for so many others if we are willing to utilize the opportunities we have to speak out through all forms of media: letters, storytelling, media classroom or school events, engagement with advocacy groups and raising our own consciousness to a new world order. I have been amazed at how many and yet how few media accounts or stories have embraced the assassination of Sr. Stang, or, expanded upon the message for which she gave her life. We cannot be silent! We cannot allow the media world to focus on those factors that uphold our ‘so called patriotic values’ at the expense of the Gospel’s moral imperative. I encourage you to explore Amnesty International, Social Justice and other information websites for engaging in proactive advocacy. Here are a few to begin with:

www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details, www.amazonia.org.br/english/guiadetalhes.cfm,
http://www.lcwr.org/,
www.sndohio.org/dotstang.htm,

or go to Google and type in Dorothy Stang. You are encouraged to take action by contacting the following persons expressing your voice concerning this terrible act of brutality and the issues for which Sr. Stang gave her life: President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Comment line: 202-456-1111 Fax: 202-456-2461 President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva President of the Republic of Brazil Palacio do Planalto, Praca dos 3 Poders Brasilia – DF – Brasil http://www.presidencia.gov.br/ Secretary of State Condeleza Rice U.S.Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_formsecretary.html Brazil Desk at the US Department of State US Ambassador to Brazil, The Honorable John Danilovick Fax 011-55-61-312-7676 http://www.useembassy.org.br/

Brazilian Ambassador to the US The Honorable Roberto Abenur 3006 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008-3634 Acting Representative of the US to the United Nations Ambassador Anne W. Patterson www.un.int/usa/patterson.htm

May each of us spend quality time in the coming months to define ways to become proactive in using every form of communication technology to be authentic proactive disciples of Jesus’ Social Gospel by expressing our prophetic voice against the injustices in the world. For "If not you, who!"

From: Prof. Chainarong

English, Children and TV

2005-03-12T09:30:00.000+08:00

From: Mary Lui
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For the augy's messages actually I have some reactions but I will have one exam this afternoon. please visit the following pages, and see some insights there must be halpful.

http://www.fcc.gov/parents/childrenstv.html
http://www.earlyonmichigan.org/articles/5-04/WashPost5-18-04.htm

Mary Lui

Politics of language

2005-03-11T07:04:00.000+08:00

.

Learning English is, I suppose, necessary.
But just a side thought: How much attention are we paying to our own language(s) to express ourselves? What is the status of mother tongue education in Asia? In the global society we live, we need to be multic-culturally competent. We need to be able to belong to different linguistic communities. But how come we pay so much attention to English?

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"Throughout the ages, the Word has always being regarded as a potent weapon. All societies, all cultures, all races, all religions allocate unparalleled reference to the spoken word. The spoken word is communication's most prominent vehicle, its conveyor of images, the ogbonno soup that draws its amala through the esophagus to the stomach. When chanted, the word becomes incantation; when rhymed and undulated, it becomes a song; when solemnized, it becomes a prayer; and, when vulgarized, it becomes an offence.

Idioms, proverbs, puns and onamtoepea are all built with uncanny use of the word by master craftsmen, architects who draw pictures with words as a spider weaves its web. Every situation, every effort, every object, virtually everything that the mind conjectures has a word that best describes it, and yet within the same scenario, two words, one favourable and the other less flattering may be employed to describe a single object or express a single sentiment. And this is where the politics of language begins."
http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/language.htm

Whither English among school children in Malaysia

2005-03-11T00:20:00.000+08:00

From Augy (March 10)

There was this headline in yesterday's Malaysian STAR newspaper (March9) that read something like this...due to the poor state of English among youth and children, children are encouraged to watch more English Programs on TV including cartoons. This from a senior Government official in the Education Department. I am sure you want to react to this. We alreay know from our researches that excessive TV watching, including cartoons, has its own consequences. Already a veteran teacher in Malaysia has reacted by saying children are already watching enough TV. What they should do is to read more books.

Kids are also probably spending a lot of time on the Internet and Internet Eglish is no English! What about the millions of SMS messages that drive English teachers to the nut house. So How do children improve thier English?

There is also a survey in today's STAR (March 10) that says that people over 40, in Malaysia are watching more TV than children. Could this be true? What is hapening? Have parents have anything to do with this?

Welcome

2005-03-11T00:01:00.000+08:00

Dear Core Team,

Greetings.
I have created this blog for you to file in any observations, comments or refelections on the communication and media scene in your locality and community. Of course, you can also blog on the Asian media and communication scene.

Remember this is a diary. So, blog as regularly as you can.

More "power" to ACN.

Warm Regards,
Nat