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Censorship and Journalist Blogs in China

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Journalists made up an important part in the first generation of bloggers. Robinson (2006) characterizes journalistic blogs in following ways: a reporter’s notebook of news tidbits and incidentals; a straight column of opinion; a question-and-answer format by editors; a readership forum; a confessional diary written by the reporter about his or her beat; a round-up of news summaries that promote the print publication; and a rumor-mill that reporter uses as an off-the-record account.  Robinson does not provide quantitative data to support his arguments. The categorization, however, indicates how blogs serve journalism in various ways. Several studies have focused on how blogs change journalists’ life and work practices. Carison (2007) notes that blogging presents journalists an opportunity to make journalism more transparent. Lowrey and Mackay (2008) pointed out that blogs affect the ways journalists practice their profession, such as reporting, using blogs as news sources and d
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Locating People, Places, and Things: Situating GIS in the Intelligent Network Landscape

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In a broad sense, a Geographic Information System – or GIS as it is commonly referred to – is a tool that allows for the storage, processing, and analysis of spatial data (DeMers, 1997; Tomlinson, 2003). At the same time, and especially in the contemporary context, the term GIS defies any singular definition.  Once primarily the domain of skilled users and dependent upon at least a relatively high level of computing capacity, GIS functionality is now present in many people’s daily lives, including in common mobile telecommunication devices. In short, in today’s world GIS has a vast array of applications and different types of users, and it is ever-evolving. Furthermore, GIS has increasingly grown to utilize, and benefit from, intelligent networks. These networks provide a key platform for much of the data that is utilized and shared in the use of GIS applications.   Read More>>>>>>
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Framing Messages of Democracy through Social Media: Public Diplomacy 2.0, Gender, and the Middle East and North Africa

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This study examines how U.S. public diplomacy directed toward the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and public diplomacy from the MENA to other regions, including the U.S., uses social media.  It analyzes how messages regarding recent events in the MENA are constructed for Western audiences, how public diplomacy rises from this construction, and the resulting the benefits and challenges within intercultural communication practice. Utilizing a framework for social media flow the processes of gatekeeping are examined, from both state and non-state actors representing MENA voices, and western actors who receive those voices, to illustrate public diplomacy from the MENA is a “glocal” construct of the traditions of both of those localities. Read More>>>>>>>
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Tackling the Challenge of Mobile in the Classroom: Using Boundary-Free Storytelling to Inspire Students' Professional Growth

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Students face immense challenges in developing the skills necessary to produce content for consumption in a mobile environment. Not only is it a quickly changing medium, requiring immense flexibility with the tools used to create content, but mobile devices are giving students the ability to tell a story in any way they see fit – be it text, photos, videos, or all of the above.  This study examined via pre- and post-test responses students’ perceptions of boundary-free storytelling—a limitless exploration of mobile devices, content delivery and message development. However, the act of pushing the students beyond their comfort zones uncovered some gaps in news consumption, technology exposure and confidence with traditional videography. Read More>>>>>>
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The Public Sphere and Network Democracy: Social movements and Political Change?

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For many Internet advocates the social media provides an electronic agora to allow for alternative issues to be raised, framed and effectively debated.  It is contended citizens may enjoy a real-time interactive access with one another to transmit ideas, by-pass authorities, challenge autocracies and affect greater forms of expression against state power. Thus, the social media allows for many-to-many or point-to point forms of communication. Most especially, online social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, have facilitated opportunities for grassroots communication, deliberation and discussion. Read More>>>>>>>>
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Hybridized, Glocalized and hecho en Mexico: Foreign Influences on Mexican TV Programming Since the 1950s

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Before entering the thickets of theory, it is worth pointing out that the latino americanidad of Latin American TV programming has long been a matter of great debate. With respect to an understanding of national origins and cultural values, there are commonly found three distinct views of such programming.  One view, common within regional scholarship, accentuates the foreign values of Latin American productions (Trejo, 1985; Muraro, 1987; Oliveira, 1990; Mazziotti, 1996). A second, more common within English-language scholarship, emphasizes the Latin-ness of local productions (Straubhaar, 1984 and 1991; Rogers & Antola, 1985; Tomlinson, 1991; Reeves, 1993; Martín-Barbero, 1993 and 1995), although occasionally cases such claims are based less upon programs’ content than on their success in displacing U.S. imports and in being sold as exports. Read More>>>>
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Indigenous language revitalization and new media: Postsecondary students as innovators

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Indigenous languages worldwide are in serious trouble. There is undisputable evidence put forth by researchers in a diversity of fields—from the social sciences to the natural sciences—that paints a dire picture of what the languaged world will look like within the next two decades. By acknowledging the work of community members, language education stakeholders and scholars who have called attention to endangered Indigenous languages (Fishman, 1991; 1996), this article addresses opportunities and tensions in Indigenous language revitalization through the learning activities of postsecondary student language innovators in the U.S. Read More>>>>>>
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