Week 7: Is Al Jazeera a counter to Western media imperialism or a mirror version of FOX news style propaganda?

Al Jazeera is the most famous Arabic media today. This is because they have done some unique reports about The War in Afghanistan and the Iraq war. For example, Al Jazeera reported about that local civilians have been injured by the American side in the Iraq war and also reported a message from Osama bin Laden. Al Jazeera is unique; therefore many people might believe that Al Jazeera is a fair organization. However, there are several reasons against this opinio. This post will discuss about the difference an the similarities between the Western media and Al Jazeera.

Is Al Jazeera biased?

The media is restricted by a lot of elements such as politics, economics and culture; therefore, the media is always influenced by the situation. In other words, bias and the media are strongly related anyway. Al Jazeera was founded in the Arabic countries and by Arabic people; therefore it is biased toward Arabic culture (El-Nawawy 2003).

Their base of view is Arabic culture; therefore it is a different reporting style and the content of Al Jazeera is different to contents from western media. However, even if the style is different still the stance that biased towards the own culture is the same.

Al Jazeera is biased towards Arabic cultures; however, it might still bring positive effects to our society because when Al Jazeera reports about the Arabic side of the view about a war or other political issues, people could compare between Western reports and Arabic reports. It might cause multiple choices for people and it will be good source of critical thinking.

The media should try to avoid bias; however, this might be difficult. Therefore, people need to be critical and the Al Jazeera is a good source of comparison.

 Image source:

http://www.september11news.com/OsamaSpeeches.htm

http://scrippsmediaethics.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/bias-at-heart-of-journalism.html

Refelences:

El-Nawawy, M. 2003, ‘The battle for the Arab mind’, Al-Jazeera, the story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism 2003, Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69, 217-218

Al Jazeera 2012, retrieved 28 August 2012,<http://www.aljazeera.com/>

September 11 News.com 2009, retrieved 28 August 2012, <http://www.september11news.com/>

Week6: What is the Blogsphere?

There are over one billion blogs in existence worldwide. It includes microbloggings such as Twitter. 

In our grandparents’ generation, public sphere was only limited because it needed to be face to face; however, the style of public sphere was changed by the internet and blogging is one of the most popular public spheres today.

The blog is overlapped between public and private (Weber  2007). Human society was changed a lot by the internet and especially blogging changed the human’s communication style. People could blog about anything; therefore it is private and there is no responsibility. However, a blog could be published to public society and everyone could read it.

There are a lot of elderly people in a local cafe in an afternoon. People communicate with each other and get a lot of local information including gossips from the local cafe. That information might not be accurate but it is only shared with a limited amount of people. However, many young people are using blogs and that is the public sphere for them today; therefore inaccurate information could be published for everyone worldwide.

What is the difference between a local cafe and blog?

The difference is only the audience of the population. But the difference has a great effect.

For example, first name last name, a Japanese celebrity wrote her blog about criticism for a criminal with the criminal’s photo in July 2012. However, the photo was not the criminal’s photo, it was a completely different person. Many people criticise the blog.

The celebrity wrote the information on the blog and this caused a big problem; however, if she talked about the same topic only with friends or workmates, it would not have been a big problem.

Blogsphere is one of most popular public spheres today; however, there are still a lot of problems.

image source: http://www.lisaneun.com/MT/archives/2006_06.html

Reference:

Weber, S, Weber, J 2007, ‘Technology in the everyday lives of 'tweens'’, Growing up online: young people and digital technologies 2007, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, N.Y, pp. 49-65

Hat trick associates 2012, ‘So How Many Blogs Are There, Anyway?’, retrieved 23 August 2012, <http://www.hattrickassociates.com/tag/how-many-blogs-exist/>

Yahoo news 2012 'Angry Dewi Sukarno', retrieved 23 August 2012,
<http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120803-00000010-rbb-ent>

Week 5 Making Culture: How do you participate in national, international, transnational or global culture?

Today, 5,993,945 (26.8%)of the Australian resident population were born outside Australia. There are a lot of people with different backgrounds and those cultures are mixed and becoming the new Australian culture. This post will discuss about how people participate in global culture.

The media connects many countries. People could watch international TV shows, listen to different language programs on the radio and read many types of foreign books in local libraries in Australia today. However, the most familiar tool of participating in global culture might be the internet. The internet could connect a lot of people, many countries and cultures.
For example, there is a large amount of blogs worldwide. According to Cross (2011, p.6), paradigm was changed by blogs because everyone who never had the chance to explain their opinion to the public, could publish their own opinion today; therefore, the traditional publication style such as newspaper or television lose their power in modern society. Everyone could explain their opinion, idea, products or anything on the internet and many new cultures which are not dependent on a country could be made on the internet.

No doubt, there are still many technical and legal problems such as human rights, legal rights or ethical issues; therefore, the internet must be controlled by someone officially. However, the internet has so many opportunities for mixed and creates new borderless cultures.

There are a lot of opportunities for many cultures to participate on the internet.

Image source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_10927368_global-computer-network.html

Reference:

Cross, M 2011, Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter Are Transforming Popular Culture, Praeger Publishers Westport, CT, USA

Australia Bureau of Statistics 2011, 'Migration, Australia, 2009-10', retrieved 15 August 2012, <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/52F24D6A97BC0A67CA2578B0001197B8?opendocument>

Week4: The Olympics as a positive or negative global event

In 27 July 2012, the 2012 summer Olympic Games were started in London. Over 10,000 peoplefrom 204 countries or regions enter the event. Therefore, the event could be a good source for globalisation. This post will discuss about a positive effect of Olympic Games in globalisation and the problem.

In the opening ceremony, we could see all participating nations and regions in one ground. Also the ceremony was relayed throughout worldwide. It could be good opportunity to know each country and regions because that includes somewhere inconspicuous areas in economical or political scene. Those areas are not focused by media very often; therefore Olympic Games could be a good opportunity for them. 

However after the opening ceremony, main media report only specific games or match; for example, almost all relays are related with Australian athlete or popular sports in Australia. In other words, people could not watch many events if it is not related with Australia athlete. No doubt, many people are interested in own country; however, it is not good for the point of introduce other countries because the information is controlled by main media.

According to Short( 2008, p.325), “The Olympic Games is one of the truly global media events in which people around the world watch the same event in real time for two weeks every four years”.

If the media is not lean into only own country, the Olympic Game would be a great global event.

Image source:
http://www.weebirdy.com/2012/07/wee-obsession-the-hill-at-the-london-2012-opening-ceremony.html/148280581sm00395_2012_olymp

http://au.eurosport.com/rowing/olympic-games-london/2012/oz-rower-held-by-police_sto3371576/story-london.shtml

Reference:

Short, J 2008, ‘City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action’, Vol.12, Issue.3, pp. 321-340, retrieved 8 August 2012, < http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13604810802478888>