Bachelor in Media Science Notes

FDI in Indian Media

2008-10-29T09:54:00.002+05:30

FDI in Indian Media :-

What is FDI
Initial days
Current status
The debate: Good/ Bad
Who are welcoming/ opposing
Why
Opportunities

FDI in media :-

June 25, 2002: The Union Cabinet clears the much-debated proposal on the entry of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the print media.
Allows 26 per cent FDI in case of news and current affairs and 74 per cent FDI in case of non-news and non-current affairs (medical and technical journals).
The proposal by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry was accepted in toto then Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan announced.
Then I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj: “Logical, timely, unanimous and careful opening up”

What it meant:

Special safeguards to ensure that all editorial and management control remained in Indian hands.
Key editorial posts, including Chief Editor and Resident Editor, to be held by resident Indians.
Three-fourths of the Board of Directors would have to be resident Indians.
Managing Director to be resident Indian.
Precautions to ensure that management control does not go into foreign hands.
Prior permission of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry needed if anybody needs to change the shareholding pattern.
Prior permission of the ministry a must instead of post-disclosure.
Besides, the Indian shareholder will have significantly higher shareholding

Security considerations:
The government would verify the credentials of foreign investors.
Instances of Foreign institutional investors (FII’s) picking up shares of print media companies, to be decided on a case-to-case basis.
In 1954, the first Press Commission warned against foreign entry in print media.
A year later, the government decided to bar foreigners from running or investing in newspapers.
It also decided that foreign publications could not have Indian editions.
In 2001, a Cabinet note proposed part modification of the 1955 Cabinet resolution.

FDI in media: The debate:-
Political parties:
Owners
Editors
Investors

FDI in media: The political parties

Congress:
“The Congress’ position remains unchanged on FDI in print media, which has been reflected in the Cabinet Resolution of 1955. The party has been opposing FDI entry in print media”: party spokesman Anand Sharma said.
Left parties:
Government for handing over the media to “imperialist” powers.
CPI gen secy AB Bardhan: “Those who are selling away our national assets and interests in the economic and political field, in the foreign affairs and so forth, have now handed over our national identity and dignity even in the respect of the print media.”
All-India Forward Bloc gen sec Debabrat Biswas: The government had “misled” the people.
“Once the foreign players gained a foothold in any media establishment, they would eventually gain complete control in the decision-making body.”
CPI(M) gen secy Harkishen Singh Surjeet: The government’s decision is “dangerous.”
“It is a dangerous game the government is playing by handing over print media to imperialist forces which have been carrying out malicious propaganda.”

BJP:
BJP Economic Cell convener Jagadish Shettigar: The immediate outcome of the decision would be improvement in the quality of newspapers.
The service conditions of the employees were bound to improve.

FDI in media: Owners and Editors:-

Owners :
The Indian Newspapers Society (INS) and eminent editors denounced the “hasty” decision.
“It would compromise national interest and freedom of the Press.”
INS president Pratap Pawar: “It is a matter of surprise and consternation that the government has overlooked the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Print Media headed by Mr Som Nath Chatterjee and allowed the entry of the FDI in print.”

Editors:
Editors Guild of India president and editor of Tribune Hari Jaisingh: The matter was too sensitive and critical for such a “casual approach.”
“Apparently it (the government) has played into the hands of certain vested interests without realising the grave implications of such a decision on the freedom of the Press and the spirit of India.’’
Editors Guild of India president and editor of Tribune Hari Jaisingh: The matter was too sensitive and critical for such a “casual approach.”
“Apparently it (the government) has played into the hands of certain vested interests without realising the grave implications of such a decision on the freedom of the Press and the spirit of India.’’
Editors Guild of India president and editor of Tribune Hari Jaisingh: The matter was too sensitive and critical for such a “casual approach.”
“Apparently it (the government) has played into the hands of certain vested interests without realising the grave implications of such a decision on the freedom of the Press and the spirit of India.’’
HT Group: United Kingdom finance firm Henderson Global Investors has tied up with the Hindustan Times daily.

Business Standard: The Financial Times of London has entered into a strategic alliance with the Business Standard newspaper,

NDTV group: Singapore-based Standard Chartered Private Equity Ltd has invested US$11 million NDTV.

FDI in media: Employees

All India Newspaper Employees Federation, UNI Workers Union and the Federation of PTI Employees in a memorandum to PM Manmohan Singh on Nov 27, 2004: Indian media never wanted FDI.
“It is the foreign powers, especially the US and the UK, which have been obsessed with subverting the freedom of the press in India through the medium of FDI.”

FDI in media: Investors
European Union: In New Delhi on 28 November 2005 called for hiking the FDI cap in media from the present level of 26 per cent.
The Indian government adopting "protectionist thinking"
European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding: "The Indian government should change this protectionist thinking...broadcasting sector is still very closed…. The present FDI cap was too low.”
Wall Street Managing Editor Raju Narisetti: Print publications should be no different from other sectors when it comes to inviting foreign direct investment.
“It is a myth to think that somehow different ownership structures will downgrade the quality or professionalism of Indian publications. It is a protectionist attitude that has no real factual basis.”

FDI in media: The political parties
2004: Though FDI remained restricted at 26 per cent, but…
the government allowed facsimile edition of foreign newspapers FDI in both print and electronic…
foreign newspapers still not allowed to have Indian editions.
it has barred them from carrying any advertising or content specifically targeted at Indian audience.

FDI in media: Who is scared
Fear of political parties: Opposition for opposition sake.
Fear of owners: More resourceful foreign media/FIIs will swamp them
(The clause of no Ad aimed at Indian audience).
Fear of employees: Control in foreign hands might lead to restructuring, hence loss of jobs

FDI in media: Who stands to gain
The reader
The investor
Good, efficient employees
Smaller publications (BS, vernaculars)

FDI in media: Fact file
Some media sectors, such as film and advertising, are open to FDI of up to 100% on the automatic route.
Other sectors, such as print media and broadcasting, remain subject to stricter limits.
The 1955 Cabinet resolution banning foreign investment in magazines and newspapers in India, and that policy remained in place until 2002.
In 2002 the government allowed FDI of up to 26% in periodicals and newspapers dealing with news and current affairs.
Up to 74% in journals and specialty magazines.
Since the 2002 decision to allow FDI of up to 26% in news media, Indian media ventures have raised approximately $300 million in foreign funds,
An additional $250 million in foreign investment soon to follow.

An Overview

2007-08-31T16:56:00.000+05:30

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Daguerreotype

2007-08-10T17:17:00.001+05:30

Daguerreotype

The best-known image of Edgar Allan Poe was a daguerreotype taken in 1848, shortly before his death.

The first photograph ever taken of President Abraham Lincoln was a daguerreotype made in 1846 or 1847.
The daguerreotype is an early type of photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre, in which the image is exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. In later developments bromine and chlorine vapors were also used, resulting in shorter exposure times. Unlike later photographic processes that supplanted it, the daguerreotype is a direct positive image-making process with no "negative" original.

History

While the daguerreotype was not the first photographic process to be invented, earlier processes required hours for successful exposure, making daguerreotype the first commercially viable photographic process and the first to permanently record and fix an image with exposure time compatible with portrait photography.
The daguerreotype is named after one of its inventors, French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre, who announced its perfection in 1839 after years of research and collaboration with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, applying and extending a discovery by Johann Heinrich Schultz (1724): a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light. The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype process on January 9 of that year.

Daguerre's French patent was acquired by the French Government. In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on August 14, 1839. Almost simultaneously, on August 19, 1839 the French Government announced the invention a gift "Free to the World".

Daguerreotype process

The daguerreotype was a positive-only process allowing no reproduction of the picture. Preparation of the plate prior to image exposure resulted in the formation of a layer of photo-sensitive silver halide, and exposure to a scene or image through a focusing lens formed a latent image. The latent image was made visible, or "developed", by placing the exposed plate over a slightly heated (about 75C) cup of mercury.

The mercury vapour condensed on those places where the exposure light was most intense, in proportion with the areas of highest density in the image. This produced a picture in an amalgam, the mercury vapour attaching itself to the altered silver iodide. Removal of the mercury image by heat validates this chemistry. The developing box was constructed to allow inspection of the image through a yellow glass window while it was being developed.

The next operation was to "fix" the photographic image permanently on the plate by dipping in a solution of hyposulphite of soda – known as "fixer" or "hypo". The image produced by this method is so delicate it will not bear the slightest handling. Practically all daguerreotypes are protected from accidental damage by a glass-fronted case. It was discovered by experiment that treating the plate with heated gold chloride both tones and strengthens the image, although it remains quite delicate and requires a well-sealed case to protect against touch as well as oxidation of the fine silver deposits forming the blacks in the image. The best-preserved daguerreotypes dating from the nineteenth century are sealed in robust glass cases evacuated of air and filled with a chemically inert gas, typically nitrogen.

Proliferation

Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States but not in the United Kingdom, where Louis Daguerre controlled the practice with a patent. Richard Beard, who bought the British patent from Miles Berry in 1841, closely controlled his investment, selling licenses throughout the country and prosecuting infringers.
In the early 1840s the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph code. A flourishing market in portraiture sprang up, predominantly the work of itinerant practitioners who travelled from town to town. For the first time in history people could obtain an exact likeness of themselves or their loved ones for a modest cost, making portrait photographs extremely popular with those of modest means. Their wealthy counterparts continued to commission painted portraits by fine artists, considering the new photographic portraits inferior in much the same way their ancestors had viewed printed books as inferior to hand-scribed books centuries earlier. In some ways they were right, in other ways wrong; the vast bulk of 19th century portrait photography effected by itinerant practitioners was of inferior artistic quality, yet the work of many portrait painters was of equally dubious artistic merit, and although photographic images were monochrome, they offered a technical likeness of the sitter no portrait painter could achieve.

The first erotic photographs and the first experimenters in stereo photography also utilized daguerreotypes.
The daguerreotype is commonly, erroneously, believed to have been the dominant photographic process into the late part of the 19th century. Evidence from the period proves it was only in widespread use for approximately a decade before being superseded by other processes:
• The Calotype, introduced in 1841; a negative-positive process using a paper negative.
• The Ambrotype, introduced in 1854; a positive image on glass, with a black backing.
• The Tintype or Ferrotype.
• The Collodion process, introduced in 1848; a negative-positive process using silver salt impregnated Collodion on a glass plate.

Demise

The intricate, complex, labor-intensive daguerreotype process itself helped contribute to the rapid move to the ambrotype and tintype. The resulting reduction in economy of scale made daguerreotypes expensive and unaffordable for the average person. According to Mace (1999), the rigidity of these images stems more from the seriousness of the activity than a long exposure time, which he says was actually only a few seconds (Early Photographs, p. 21). The daguerreotype's lack of a negative image from which multiple positive "prints" could be made was a limitation also shared by the tintype and ambrotype, and was not a factor in the daguerreotype's demise until the introduction of the calotype. Unlike film and paper photography however, a properly sealed daguerreotype can potentially last indefinitely.

Daguerreotype cameras are expensive. In May 2007, an anonymous buyer paid 588,613 euros (792,000 USD) for an original 1839 camera made by Susse Frères (Susse brothers), Paris, at an auction in Vienna, Austria, making it the world's oldest and most expensive commercial photographic apparatus.

Living art

Some daguerreotypes—such as those by Southworth & Hawes of Boston, or George S. Cook of Charleston, South Carolina—are considered masterpieces in the art of photography. A daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe was featured on the PBS show Antiques Roadshow and appraised at US $30,000 to $50,000.

Daguerreotypy continues to be practiced by enthusiastic photographers to this day, although in much smaller numbers; there are thought to be fewer than 100 worldwide. Its appeal lies in the "magic mirror" effect of light reflected from the polished silver plate through the perfectly sharp silver image, and in the sense of achievement derived from the dedication and hand-crafting required to make a daguerreotype.

The Daguerreobase

The Daguerreobase is a database registration system (currently only available in Dutch) for daguerreotypes, developed by the Nederlands fotomuseum (Rotterdam, The Netherlands). It can be used by conservators and researchers as well as viewed by those interested. Its aim is to disclose historic and technical information about the daguerreotype on a worldwide level. The project was initiated by Hans de Herder, head of the conservation department of the Nederlands fotomuseum from its instigation in 1994 until 2005. It was further developed by Belgian photo conservator Herman Maes, De Herder's successor, Boudewijn Ridder and Nickel van Duijvenboden.

Communication Theory

2007-08-10T17:16:00.003+05:30

Communication theory

There is much discussion in the academic world of communication as to what actually constitutes communication. Currently, many definitions of communication are used in order to conceptualize the processes by which people navigate and assign meaning.
We might say that communication consists of transmitting information from one person to another. In fact, many scholars of communication take this as a working definition, and use Lasswell's maxim, "who says what to whom in what channel with what effect," as a means of circumscribing the field of communication theory.

A simple communication model with a sender transferring a message containing information to a receiver.

Other commentators suggest that a ritual process of communication exists, one not artificially divorceable from a particular historical and social context.
Communication stands so deeply rooted in human behaviors and the structures of society that scholars have difficulty thinking of it while excluding social or behavioral events. Because communication theory remains a relatively young field of inquiry and integrates itself with other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and sociology, one probably cannot yet expect a consensus conceptualization of communication across disciplines.

Currently, there is no paradigm from which communication scholars may work. One of the issues facing scholars is the possibility that establishing a communication metatheory will negate their research and stifle the broad body of knowledge in which communication functions.

History of Communication Theory

Communication as a named and unified discipline has a history of contestation that goes back to the Socratic dialogues, in many ways making it the first and most contestatory of all early sciences and philosophies. Aristotle first addressed the problem of communication and attempted to work out a theory of it in The Rhetoric. He was primarily focused on the art of persuasion.

Humanistic and rhetorical viewpoints and theories dominated the discipline prior to the twentieth century, when more scientific methodologies and insights from psychology, sociology, linguistics and advertising began to influence communication thought and practice.

Seeking to define "communication" as a static word or unified discipline may not be as important as understanding communication as a family of resemblances with a plurality of definitions as Ludwig Wittgenstein had put forth.

Communication Theory Framework

It is helpful to examine communication and communication theory through one of the following viewpoints:
• Mechanistic: This view considers communication to be a perfect transaction of a message from the sender to the receiver. (as seen in the diagram above)
• Psychological: This view considers communication as the act of sending a message to a receiver, and the feelings and thoughts of the receiver upon interpreting the message.
• Social Constructionist (Symbolic Interactionist): This view considers communication to be the product of the interactants sharing and creating meaning.
• Systemic: This view considers communication to be the new messages created via “through-put”, or what happens as the message is being interpreted and re-interpreted as it travels through people.
Inspection of a particular theory on this level will provide a framework on the nature of communication as seen within the confines of that theory.
Theories can also be studied and organized according to the ontological, epistemological, and axiological framework imposed by the theorist.
Ontology essentially poses the question of what, exactly, it is the theorist is examining. One must consider the very nature of reality. The answer usually falls in one of three realms depending on whether the theorist sees the phenomena through the lens of a realist, nominalist, or social constructionist. Realist perspective views the world objectively, believing that there is a world outside of our own experience and cognitions. Nominalists see the world subjectively, claiming that everything outside of one’s cognitions is simply names and labels. Social constructionists straddle the fence between objective and subjective reality, claiming that reality is what we create together.

Epistemology is an examination of how the theorist studies the chosen phenomena. In studying epistemology, objective knowledge is said to be the result of a systematic look at the causal relationships of phenomena. This knowledge is usually attained through use of the scientific method. Scholars often think that empirical evidence collected in an objective manner is most likely to reflect truth in the findings. Theories of this ilk are usually created to predict a phenomenon. Subjective theory holds that understanding is based on situated knowledge, typically found using interpretative methodology such as ethnography and interviews. Subjective theories are typically developed to explain or understand phenomena in the social world.
Axiology is concerned with what values drive a theorist to develop a theory. Theorists must be mindful of potential biases so that they will not influence or skew their findings (Miller, 21-23).

Mapping the theoretical landscape

A discipline gets defined in large part by its theoretical structure. Communication studies often borrow theories from other social sciences. This theoretical variation makes it difficult to come to terms with the field as a whole. That said, some common taxonomies exist that serve to divide up the range of communication research. Two common mappings involve contexts and assumptions.

Contexts

Many authors and researchers divide communication by what they sometimes called "contexts" or "levels", but which more often represent institutional histories. The study of communication in the US, while occurring within departments of psychology, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology (among others), generally developed from schools of rhetoric and from schools of journalism. While many of these have become "departments of communication", they often retain their historical roots, adhering largely to theories from speech communication in the former case, and from mass media in the latter. The great divide between speech communication and mass communication becomes complicated by a number of smaller sub-areas of communication research, including intercultural and international communication, small group communication, communication technology, policy and legal studies of communication, telecommunication, and work done under a variety of other labels. Some of these departments take a largely social-scientific perspective, others tend more heavily toward the humanities, and still others gear themselves more toward production and professional preparation.

These "levels" of communication provide some way of grouping communication theories, but inevitably, some theories and concepts leak from one area to another, or fail to find a home at all.

Assumptions

Another way of dividing up the communication field emphasizes the assumptions that undergird particular theories, models, and approaches. While this approach also tends to have as its basis institutional divisions, theories within each of the seven "traditions" of communication theory that Robert Craig suggests tend to reinforce one another, and retain the same ground epistemological and axiological assumptions. His traditions include:
• rhetorical - practical art of discourse
• semiotic – intersubjective mediation through signs
• phenomenological - experience of otherness, dialogue
• cybernetic - information processing
• sociopsychological - expression, interaction and influence
• critical - discursive reflection
• sociocultural - reproduction of social order (Miller, 13)
Craig finds each of these clearly defined against the others, and remaining cohesive approaches to describing communicative behavior. As a taxonomic aid, these labels help to organize theory by its assumptions, and help researchers to understand why some theories may seem incommensurable.

________________________________________
While communication theorists very commonly use these two approaches, it seems that they decentralize the place of language and machines as communicative technologies. The idea (as argued by Vygotsky) of communication as the primary tool of a species defined by its tools remains on the outskirts of communication theory. It finds some representation in the Toronto School of communication theory (alternatively sometimes called medium theory) as represented by the work of Innis, McLuhan, and others. It seems that the ways in which individuals and groups use the technologies of communication — and in some cases are used by them — remain central to what communication researchers do. The ideas that surround this, and in particular the place of persuasion, remain constants across both the "traditions" and "levels" of communication theory.

Some realms of communication and their theories•
message production: Constructivist Theory, Action Assembly Theory
• message processing: Elaboration Likelihood Theory, Inoculation Theory
• discourse and interaction: Speech Acts Theory, Coordinated Management of Meaning
• developing relationships: Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Social Penetration Theory
• ongoing relationships: Relational Systems Theory, Relational Dialectics
• organizational: Structuration Theory, Unobtrusive and Concertive Control Theory
• small group: Functional Theory, Symbolic Convergence Theory
• media processing and effects: Social Cognitive Theory, Uses and Gratifications Theory
• media and society: agenda setting, spiral of silence
• culture: Speech Codes Theory, Face-saving Theory (Miller, v-viii)
• Symbolic Convergence Theory
[edit] More information
There is a wealth of information available about communication and communication theory. Included here are some examples of texts, journals, and organizations focusing on communication theory.

The following list is a survey of Communication Theory texts currently available on Amazon.com:
• Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations by James A. Anderson
• Communication Theories: Origins, Methods and Uses in the Mass Media (5th Edition) by Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard
• Theories of Human Communication (9th Edition) by Stephen W. Littlejohn and Karen A. Foss
• Communication: Theories and Applications by Mark V. Redmond
• Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts by Katherine Miller
• Communication Theory: Media, Technology and Society by David Holmes
• Building Communication Theory by Dominic A. Infante, Andrew S. Rancer, and Deanna F. Womack
• The Communication Theory Reader by Paul Cobley
• Clarifying Communications Theories: A Hands-On Approach by Gerald Stone, Michael Singletary, and Virginia P. Richmond
• An Introduction to Communication Theory by Don W. Stacks, Sidney R. Hill, and Mark, III Hickson
Scholarly journals are also a great source for recent research and academic discussion of theory. Some communication journals that emphasize theory are as follows:
• Argumentation
• Asian Journal of Communication
• China Media Research
• Communication Abstracts
• Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
• Communication Education
• Communication Monographs
• Communication Quarterly
• Communication Research Reports
• Communication Research
• Communication Studies
• Communication Theory
• Communications and the Law
• Continuum - Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
• Critical Discourse Studies
• Critical Studies in Media Communication
• Discourse Studies
• Howard Journal of Communications
• Human Communication: A Journal of the Pacific and Asian Communication Association
• Human Communication Research
• Intercultural Communication Studies
• Journal of Applied Communication Research
• Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media
• Journal of Communication
• Journal of Communication Inquiry
• Journal of Intercultural Communication Research
• Journal of Language Identity and Education
• Journal of Mass Media Ethics
• Journal of Multicultural Discourses
• Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
• Journal of Public Relations Research
• Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
• Journalism - Theory Practice and Criticism
• Journalism History
• Journalism Studies
• Keio Communication Review
• Language in Society
• Listening - Journal of Religion and Culture
• Mass Communication and Society
• Media Asia
• Media, Culture and Society
• Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication
• New Media and Society
• Philosophy and Rhetoric : Paper for Muse Participants
• Political Communication
• PR Reporter
• Public Relations Quarterly
• Review of Communication
• Rhetoric and Public Affairs
• Rhetorica
• Southern Communication Journal
• Text - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse
• Vital Speeches of the Day
• Western Journal of Communication
• Women's Studies in Communication
• Word and Image
• Written Communication

Finally, there are many Communication Organizations that create a network of scholars who actively pursue and test theories. These organizations usually hold an annual conference showcasing the latest and best research in the field, as well as publish scholarly Journals. Examples of Communication Organizations with contact information are:
• American Communication Association
• Central States Communication Association
• Eastern Communication Association
• International Communication Association
• National Communication Association
• Southern States Communication Association
• Western States Communication Association

Communication

2007-08-10T17:16:00.001+05:30

Communication

Communication is a process that allows beings - in particular humans - to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that some kinds of symbols from a kind of language are exchanged. There are auditory means, such as speaking or singing, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch or eye contact.

Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for all beings, and some machines. Many or all, fields of study dedicate some attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspect of communication one is speaking about. Some definitions are broad, recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction.

Nonetheless, communication is usually described along a few major dimensions:
1. Content (what type of things are communicated)
2. Source (by whom)
3. Form (in which form)
4. Channel (through which medium)
5. Destination/Receiver (to whom)
6. Purpose/Pragmatic aspect (with what kind of results)
Between parties, communication content include acts that declare knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, including all variations of nonverbal communication. The form depends on the symbol systems used. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person (in interpersonal communication), or another entity (such as a corporation or group).
Depending on the focus (who, what, in which form, to whom, to which effect), there exist various classifications. Some of those systematical questions are elaborated in Communication theory.

Communication as information transmission

Communication can be seen as processes of information transmission governed by three levels of semiotic rules: Syntactic (formal properties of signs and symbols), pragmatic (concerned with the relations between signs/expressions and their users) and semantic (study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent). Therefore, communication is a kind of social interaction where at least two interacting agents share a common set of signs and a common set of semiotic rules. (This commonly held rule essentially ignores autocommunication, including intrapersonal communication via diaries or self-talk).

In a simplistic model, information or content (e.g. a message in natural language) is sent in some form (as spoken language) from a emisor/sender/encoder to a destination/receiver/decoder. In a slightly more complex form a sender and a receiver are linked reciprocally.

A particular instance of communication is called a speech act. A speech act typically follows a variation of logical means of delivery. The most common of these, and perhaps the best, is the dialogue. The dialogue is a form of communication where both the parties are involved in sending information. There are many other forms of communication but the reason the dialogue is good is because the dialogue lends itself to clearer communication due to feedback. (Feedback being encoded information, either verbal or nonverbal, sent back to the original sender (now the receiver) and then decoded.)

In the presence of "communication noise" on the transmission channel (air, in this case) received and decoded content can become faulty in the sense that it will contain errors and thus probably not cause the desired effect.
Theories of coregulation describe communication as a creative and dynamic continuous process, rather than a discrete exchange of information. Verbal communication is when we communicate our message verbally to whoever is receiving the message. Symbolic communications are the things that we have given meaning to and that represent a certain idea we have in place, for example, the American flag is a symbol that represent freedom for the Americans themselves, or imperialism and evil for some other countries.

Purposes

Put generally, communication is the exchange of information between members of a group of living beings that enables survival or improved living conditions for the sender or receiver of the message or both. As expressed in the theory of symbolic communication, the exchange of messages change the a priori expectation of events.

Since the beginning of time, the need to communicate emerges from a set of universal questions: Who am I? Who needs to know? Why do they need to know? How will they find out? How do I want them to respond? Individuals, communities, and organizations express their individuality through their identity. On the continuum from the cave paintings at Lascaux to digital messages transmitted via satellite, humanity continues to create an infinite sensory palette of visual and verbal expression.
As a process, communication has synonyms such as expressing feelings, conversing, speaking, corresponding, writing, listening and exchanging. Communication is often formed around the principles of respect, promises and the want for social improvement. People communicate to satisfy needs in both their work and non-work lives. People want to be heard, to be appreciated and to be wanted. They also want to accomplish tasks and to achieve goals. Obviously, then, a major purpose of communication is to help people feel good about themselves and about their friends, groups, and organizations. For these types of communication, there must be a transmission of thoughts, ideas and feelings from one mind to another.
Forms

Non-verbal

Nonverbal communication is the act of imparting or interchanging thoughts, opinions or information without the use of words, using gestures sign language, facial expressions and body language instead. Much of the “emotional meaning” we take from other people is found in the person’s facial expressions and tone of voice, comparatively little is taken from what the person actually says (More Than Talk).

Language

A language is a syntactically organized system of signals, such as voice sounds, intonations or pitch, gestures or , written symbols which communicate thoughts or feelings. If a language is about communicating with signals, voice, sounds, gestures, or written symbols, can animal communications be considered as a language? Animals do not have a written form of a language, but use a language to communicate with each another. In that sense, an animal communication can be considered as a separated language.

Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated. The word "language" is also used to refer to common properties of languages.

Language learning is normal in human childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them. There are thousands of human languages, and these seem to share certain properties, even though many shared properties have exceptions. Tell the world, learn a language.
There is no defined line between a language and a dialect, but Max Weinreich is credited as saying that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
Humans and computer programs have also constructed other languages, including constructed languages such as Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Klingon, programming languages, and various mathematical formalisms. These languages are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by human languages.

Channels / Media

The beginning of human communication through artificial channels, i.e. not vocalization or gestures, goes back to ancient cave paintings, drawn maps, and writing.

Our indebtedness to the Ancient Romans in the field of communication does not end with the Latin root "communicare". They devised what might be described as the first real mail or postal system in order to centralize control of the empire from Rome. This allowed for personal letters and for Rome to gather knowledge about events in its many widespread provinces.

The adoption of a dominant communication medium is important enough that historians have folded civilization into "ages" according to the medium most widely used. A book titled "Five Epochs of Civilization" by William McGaughey (Thistlerose, 2000) divides history into the following stages: Ideographic writing produced the first civilization; alphabetic writing, the second; printing, the third; electronic recording and broadcasting, the fourth; and computer communication, the fifth. The media effects what people think about themselves and how they perceive people as well. What we think about self image and what others should look like comes from the media.

While it could be argued that these "Epochs" are just a historian's construction, digital and computer communication shows concrete evidence of changing the way humans organize. The latest trend in communication, termed smartmobbing, involves ad-hoc organization through mobile devices, allowing for effective many-to-many communication and social networking.

Electronic media

In the last century, a revolution in telecommunications has greatly altered communication by providing new media for long distance communication. The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast occurred in 1906 and led to common communication via analogue and digital media:
• Analog telecommunications include traditional telephony, radio, and TV broadcasts.
• Digital telecommunications allow for computer-mediated communication, telegraphy, and computer networks.

Communications media impact more than the reach of messages. They impact content and customs; for example, Thomas Edison had to discover that hello was the least ambiguous greeting by voice over a distance; previous greetings such as hail tended to be garbled in the transmission. Similarly, the terseness of e-mail and chat rooms produced the need for the emoticon.

Modern communication media now allow for intense long-distance exchanges between larger numbers of people (many-to-many communication via e-mail, Internet forums). On the other hand, many traditional broadcast media and mass media favor one-to-many communication (television, cinema, radio, newspaper, magazines).

Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). It was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks and of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. The mass-media audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.

Who

Communication in many of its facets is not limited to humans or even primates. Every information exchange between living organisms, a transmission of signals involving a living sender and receiver, can count as communication. Most of this, necessarily, is nonverbal. Thus, there is the wide field of animal communication that is the basis of most of the issues in ethology, but we also know about, Cell signaling, Cellular communication (biology), chemical communication between primitive organisms like bacteria and within the plant and [[fungi|fungal kingdoms. One distinctive non-intrinsic feature of these types of communication in contrast to human communication is allegedly the absence of emotional features, and a limitation to the pure informational level.

Animal communication

Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. Of course, human communication can be subsumed as a highly developed form of animal communication. The study of animal communication, called zoosemiotics (distinguishable from anthroposemiotics, the study of human communication) has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition.This is quite evident as humans are able to communicate with animals especially dolphins and other animals used in circuses however these animals have to learn a special means of communication.

Animal communication, and indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly growing field, and even in the 21st century so far, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized.

Plant communication

Plant communication is observed (a) within the plant organism, i.e. within plant cells and between plant cells, (b) between plants of the same or related species and (c) between plants and non-plant organisms, especially in the rootzone. Plant roots communicate in parallel with rhizobia bacteria, with fungi and with insects in the soil. This parallel sign-mediated interactions which are governed by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules are possible because of the decentralized "nervous system" of plants. As recent research shows 99% of intraorganismic plant communication processes are neuronal-like. Plants also communicate via volatiles in the case of herbivory attack behavior to warn neighboring plants. In parallel they produce other volatiles which attract parasites which attack these herbivores. In stress situations plants can overwrite the genetic code they inherited from their parents and revert to that of their grand- or great-grandparents.

Communication Strategies

For effective communication in specialized contexts, certain strategies can be taken that will help people achieve their goals and can be seen as techniques for attaining the purpose of communication.

Marketing

Below is a list with explanations of effective communication strategies used in marketing and selling:

Adaptive Innovation
Building or improving products, services, and processes while working with a customer versus building products or services outside a customer engagement. Relates to service companies working with large enterprises.

Entrepreneurial Management
Describes a business where the employees are expected to work and relate to each other as self driven business partners versus expecting to be mentored by a command and control management structure. This assumes the phrase, "be the leader you seek."

One Voice
A skill used to manage customer team meetings where one person is designated the leader and other team members direct all their comments and questions through the designated OneVoice speaker rather than to the customer(s).

ShowTime
A term related to business people being "on stage" at all times during a meeting or customer visit.

Strategic speed
A term related to working fast and smart, constantly looking for opportunities to improve and innovate.

Discipline of Dialogue
A term related to controlling your words and conversations during a business meeting or presentation.

Care
SOLER (Egan, 1986) is a technique used by care workers. It helps the clients or patients to trust the care-giver and to feel safe and helps in effective communication.

SOLER is:
S – sit Squarely in relation to the patient
O – Open position
L – Lean slightly towards the patient
E – Eye contact
R – Relax

Metacommunication

Metacommunication is the process of communicating about communication, for example, to discuss a past conversation and to determine the meanings behind certain words, phrases, etc.. It can be used as a tool for sense making, or for better understanding events, places, people, relationships, etc.. The ability to communicate on the meta-level requires introspection and, more specifically what is called metacommunicative competence. It is not a distinct form of communication as seen from the five aspects mentioned in the introduction.

Cinematography

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Cinematography

The cinématographe is a film camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. It was invented in the 1890s.

There is much dispute as to the identity of its inventor. Some argue that the device was first invented and patented as "Cinématographe Léon Bouly" by French inventor Léon Bouly in February 12, 1892. It is said that, due to a lack of fee, Bouly was not able to pay the rent for his patent the following year, and Auguste and Louis Lumière's engineers bought the license.

Popular thought, however, dictates that Louis Lumière was the first to conceptualize the idea, and both Lumière brothers shared the patent. They made their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, in 1894. The film was publicly screened at L'Eden, the world's first and oldest cinéma (theater), located in La Ciotat in southeastern France, on September 28, 1895. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened in Paris on 28 December 1895 and was organized by the Lumière brothers.

The cinématographe Lumière in filming mode.
Several versions of cinématographes were developed, including ones by Robert Royou Beard, Cecil Wray, Georges Demenÿ, Alfred Wrench, and that of the Lumière brothers.

Film

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Film

Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful method for educating -or indoctrinating- citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication; some movies have become popular worldwide attractions, by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.
Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.

History

"Film" refers to the celluloid medium on which motion pictures are printed. Shown above is a reel of 8 mm film.
Mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images in motion were demonstrated as early as the 1860s, with devices such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally, the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect — and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. Early versions of the technology sometimes required the viewer to look into a special device to see the pictures. By the 1880s, the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures." Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques.

Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the twentieth century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell narratives. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music fitting the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and F. W. Murnau, along with American innovator D. W. Griffith and the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, continued to advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white,[citation needed] but as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of World War II, as the industry in America came to view color as essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium until the mid-1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm for film makers.

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. New Hollywood, French New Wave and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.

Theory

Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.

Criticism

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.
The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily-promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.
It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

Industry

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world. Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Production

The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required during filmmaking. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However, a low-budget, independent film may be made with a skeleton crew, often paid very little. Also, an open source film may be produced through open, collaborative processes. Filmmaking takes place all over the world using different technologies, styles of acting and genre, and is produced in a variety of economic contexts that range from state-sponsored documentary in China to profit-oriented movie making within the American studio system.

A typical Hollywood-style filmmaking Production cycle is comprised of five main stages:
1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle typically takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

Crew

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

Independent

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.
Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film. The cost of 35 mm film is outpacing inflation: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety. Film requires expensive lighting and post-production facilities.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

Open content film

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

Fan film

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Animation

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.
File formats like GIF, QuickTime, Shockwave and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.
Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Venues

The 1997 film Titanic holds the world record for the highest grossing film.
When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The first theater designed exclusively for cinema opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1905.Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years. In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. Recording technology has also enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision — see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.
The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).

Technology

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.
Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ per second) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 and 23 fps and projected from 18 fps on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown). When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras — allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design — allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters — three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher-concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black and white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are extremely beneficial to moviemakers, especially because footage can be evaluated and edited without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still recorded on film.

Future state

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts predicted the demise of local movie theaters. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s, such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past, only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again, industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier, quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.

Yellow Journalism

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Yellow journalism

Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features scandal-mongering, sensationalism, jingoism or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists. It has been loosely defined as "not quite libel".

The term originated during the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal from 1895 to about 1898, and can refer specifically to this period. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well. The New York Press coined the term "Yellow Journalism" in early 1897 to describe the papers of Pulitzer and Hearst. The newspaper did not define the term, and in 1898 simply elaborated, "We called them Yellow because they are Yellow."

Origins: Pulitzer v. Hearst
Joseph Pulitzer purchased the World in 1882 after making the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the dominant daily in that city. The publisher had gotten his start editing a German-language publication in St. Louis, and saw a great untapped market in the nation's immigrant classes. Pulitzer strove to make The World an entertaining read, and filled his paper with pictures, games and contests that drew in readers, particularly those who used English as a second language. Crime stories filled many of the pages, with headlines like "Was He A Suicide?" and "Screaming for Mercy." In addition, Pulitzer only charged readers two cents per issue but gave readers eight and sometimes 12 pages of information (the only other two-cent paper in the city never exceeded four pages).

While there were many sensational stories in the World, they were by no means the only pieces, or even the dominant ones. Pulitzer believed that newspapers were public institutions with a duty to improve society, and he put the World in the service of social reform. During a heat wave in 1883, World reporters went into the Manhattan's tenements, writing stories about the appalling living conditions of immigrants and the toll the heat took on the children. Stories headlined "How Babies Are Baked" and "Lines of Little Hearses" spurred reform and drove up the World's circulation.

Just two years after Pulitzer took it over, the World became the highest circulation newspaper in New York, aided in part by its strong ties to the Democratic Party.[5] Older publishers, envious of Pulitzer's success, began criticizing the World, harping on its crime stories and stunts while ignoring its more serious reporting — trends which influenced the popular perception of yellow journalism, both then and now. Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, attacked The World and said Pulitzer was "deficient in judgment and in staying power."

Pulitzer's approach made an impression on William Randolph Hearst, a mining heir who acquired the San Francisco Examiner from his father in 1887. Hearst read the World while studying at Harvard University and resolved to make the Examiner as bright as Pulitzer's paper. Under his leadership, the Examiner devoted 24 percent of its space to crime, presenting the stories as morality plays, and sprinkled adultery and "nudity" (by 19th century standards) on the front page. A month after taking over the paper, the Examiner ran this headline about a hotel fire:
HUNGRY, FRANTIC FLAMES. They Leap Madly Upon the Splendid Pleasure Palace by the Bay of Monterey, Encircling Del Monte in Their Ravenous Embrace From Pinnacle to Foundation. Leaping Higher, Higher, Higher, With Desperate Desire. Running Madly Riotous Through Cornice, Archway and Facade. Rushing in Upon the Trembling Guests with Savage Fury. Appalled and Panic-Striken the Breathless Fugitives Gaze Upon the Scene of Terror. The Magnificent Hotel and Its Rich Adornments Now a Smoldering heap of Ashes. The "Examiner" Sends a Special Train to Monterey to Gather Full Details of the Terrible Disaster. Arrival of the Unfortunate Victims on the Morning's Train — A History of Hotel del Monte — The Plans for Rebuilding the Celebrated Hostelry — Pariculars and Supposed Origin of the Fire.

Hearst could go overboard in his crime coverage; one of his early pieces, regarding a "band of murderers," attacked the police for forcing Examiner reporters to do their work for them. But while indulging in these stunts, the Examiner also increased its space for international news, and sent reporters out to uncover municipal corruption and inefficiency. In one celebrated story, Examiner reporter Winifred Black was admitted into a San Francisco hospital and discovered that indigent women were treated with "gross cruelty." The entire hospital staff was fired the morning the piece appeared.

New York
With the Examiner's success established by the early 1890s, Hearst began shopping for a New York newspaper. Hearst purchased the New York Journal in 1895, a penny paper which Pulitzer's brother Albert had sold to a Cincinnati publisher the year before.

Metropolitan newspapers started going after department store advertising in the 1890s, and discovered the larger the circulation base, the better. This drove Hearst; following Pulitzer's earlier strategy, he kept the Journal's price at one cent (compared to The World's two cent price) while providing as much information as rival newspapers.The approach worked, and as the Journal's circulation jumped to 150,000, Pulitzer cut his price to a penny, hoping to drive his young competitor (who was subsidized by his family's fortune) into bankruptcy. In a counterattack, Hearst raided the staff of the World in 1896. While most sources say that Hearst simply offered more money, Pulitzer — who had grown increasingly abusive to his employees — had become an extremely difficult man to work for, and many World employees were willing to jump for the sake of getting away from him.
Although the competition between the World and the Journal was fierce, the papers were temperamentally alike. Both were Democratic, both were sympathetic to labor and immigrants (a sharp contrast to publishers like the New York Tribune's Whitelaw Reid, who blamed their poverty on moral defects, and both invested enormous resources in their Sunday publications, which functioned like weekly magazines, going beyond the normal scope of daily journalism.
Their Sunday entertainment features included the first color comic strip pages, and some theorize that the term yellow journalism originated there, while as noted above the New York Press left the term it invented undefined. The Yellow Kid, a comic strip revolving around a bald child in a yellow nightshirt, became exceptionally popular when cartoonist Richard Outcault began drawing it in the World in early 1896. When Hearst predictably hired Outcault away, Pulitzer asked artist George Luks to continue the strip with his characters, giving the city two Yellow Kids.[15] The use of "yellow journalism" as a synonym for over-the-top sensationalism in the U.S. apparently started with more serious newspapers commenting on the excesses of "the Yellow Kid papers."

Spanish-American War

Male Spanish officials strip search an American woman tourist in Cuba looking for messages from rebels; front page "yellow journalism" from Hearst (artist: Remington)
Pulitzer and Hearst are often credited (or blamed) for drawing the nation into the Spanish-American War with sensationalist stories or outright lying. In fact, the vast majority of Americans did not live in New York City, and the decision makers who did live there probably relied more on staid newspapers like the Times, The Sun or the Post. The most famous example of the exaggeration is the apocryphal story that artist Frederic Remington telegrammed Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba and "There will be no war." Hearst responded "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." The story (a version of which appears in the Hearst-inspired Orson Welles film Citizen Kane) first appeared in the memoirs of reporter James Creelman in 1901, and there is no other source for it.

But Hearst was a war hawk after a rebellion broke out in Cuba in 1895. Stories of Cuban virtue and Spanish brutality soon dominated his front page. While the accounts were of dubious accuracy, the newspaper readers of the 19th century did not need, or necessarily want, his stories to be pure nonfiction. Historian Michael Robertson has said that "Newspaper reporters and readers of the 1890s were much less concerned with distinguishing among fact-based reporting, opinion and literature."

Hearst's treatment was more effective and focused on the enemy who set the bomb—and offered a huge reward to readers
Pulitzer, though lacking Hearst's resources, kept the story on his front page. The yellow press covered the revolution extensively and often inaccurately, but conditions on Cuba were horrific enough. The island was in a terrible economic depression, and Spanish general Valeriano Weyler, sent to crush the rebellion, herded Cuban peasants into concentration camps and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Having clamored for a fight for two years, Hearst took credit for the conflict when it came: A week after the United States declared war on Spain, he ran "How do you like the Journal's war?" on his front page. In fact, President William McKinley never read the Journal, and newspapers like the Tribune and the New York Evening Post, both staunchly Republican, demanded restraint. Moreover, journalism historians have noted that yellow journalism was largely confined to New York City, and that newspapers in the rest of the country did not follow their lead. The Journal and the World were not among the top ten sources of news in regional papers, and the stories simply did not make a splash outside Gotham. War came because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because conservative leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed directly to Cuba, when the invasion began, as a war correspondent, providing sober and accurate accounts of the fighting. Creelman later praised the work of the reporters for exposing the horrors of Spanish misrule, arguing, " no true history of the war . . . can be written without an acknowledgment that whatever of justice and freedom and progress was accomplished by the Spanish-American war was due to the enterprise and tenacity of yellow journalists, many of whom lie in unremembered graves."

After the war
Hearst placed his newspapers at the service of the Democrats during the 1900 presidential election. He later campaigned for his party's presidential nomination, but lost much of his personal prestige when columnist Ambrose Bierce and editor Arthur Brisbane published separate columns months apart that called for the assassination of McKinley. When McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901, the Republican press went livid, accusing Hearst of driving Leon Czolgosz to the deed. Hearst did not know of Bierce's column and claimed to have pulled Brisbane's after it ran in a first edition, but the incident would haunt him for the rest of his life and all but destroyed his presidential ambitions.
Pulitzer, haunted by his "yellow sins," returned the World to its crusading roots as the new century dawned. By the time of his death in 1911, the World was a widely-respected publication, and would remain a leading progressive paper until its demise in 1931.

In popular culture
In movies, sitcoms and other works of fiction, reporters often use yellow journalism against the main character, which works to set up the reporter character as an antagonist.
In the Spider-Man franchise, publisher J. Jonah Jameson smears the superhero in his Daily Bugle with headlines such as "Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?" despite having his suspicions repeatedly proven wrong. Likewise, in the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, an evil media magnate tries to start a war between Great Britain and China via sensationalized news stories; the villain alludes to Hearst's role in the Spanish-American War, using the apocryphal quote "You provide the pictures and I'll provide the war." (A paraphrase of this quotation -- substituting "prose poems" for "pictures" -- is also in Orson Welles' classic film "Citizen Kane.")

In Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, from the Hannibal Lecter series, a yellow journalist named Freddy Lounds, who writes for the National Tattler tabloid, is tortured and set aflame for penning a negative article about serial killer Francis Dolarhyde. In the movie Bob Roberts, Senator Roberts characterises media investigations into his business dealings as "yellow journalism". In Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, Rita Skeeter acts as a yellow journalist.

Currency

The term has largely fallen into disuse as the media world has grown both in scope and in complexity.
The gentler pejorative "infotainment" was coined more recently to refer to generally inoffensive news programming that shuns serious issues, but blends "soft" journalism and entertainment rather than emphasizing more important news values. When infotainment involves celebrity sex scandals, dramatic (or dramatized) "true crime" stories and similar trivia, it borders on the tricks of old-fashioned yellow journalism.

Corporate media is another recent pejorative, when applied to news conglomerates whose business interests critics see as counter to the public interest. For example, such media may avoid incisive reporting on influential corporations or limit public information about proposed government regulation of media industries. Collusion between political, business and media worlds sometimes brings allegations of illegal or unethical practices ranging from fraud to antitrust violations.
While bland infotainment and unethical corporate media practices may be considered "yellow" in the sense of "cowardly," the term yellow journalism traditionally refers to news organizations for whom some combination of sensationalism, profiteering, propaganda, journalistic bias or jingoism takes dominance over factual reporting and the profession's public trust. If one may construe gradations of bias, then Yellow journalism may be considered less subtle and coarser in content and execution than media bias, though bias is indeed evident.
A current perceived rift is therefore more akin to a segmentation according to definitions of "news." The public still attaches to "news" the connotations of "journalism." Because of these developments, the common definition of "news" no longer belongs in the domain of journalists, but to wider television and internet media outlets over a vast spectrum of target issues and audiences. The proliferation of web media has in a certain sense re-validated journalistic ethics: reports that conform best tend to be treated as more authoritative. "Pseudo-news" organizations draw general audiences, who tend to fall into market demographics that each favor particular blends of issues-based entertainment along with their "news."

Reporter

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Reporter

A reporter is a type of journalist who researches and presents information in certain types of mass media.

Reporters gather their information in a variety of ways, including tips, press releases, and witnessing events. They perform research through interviews, public records, and other sources. The information-gathering part of the job is sometimes called "reporting" as distinct from the production part of the job, such as writing articles. Reporters generally split their time between working in a newsroom and going out to witness events or interview people.

Most reporters working for major news media outlets are assigned an area to focus on, called a beat or patch. They are encouraged to cultivate sources to improve their information gathering.

Career

Reporters working for major Western news media usually have a university or college degree. The degree is sometimes in journalism, but in most countries, that is generally not a requirement. When hiring reporters, editors tend to give much weight to the reporter's previous work (such as newspaper clippings), even when written for a student newspaper or as part of an internship.

Reporters in the UK and the United States

In the United Kingdom, editors often require that prospective trainee reporters have completed the NCTJ (National College for the Training of Journalists) preliminary exams. After 18 months to two years on the job, trainees will take a second set of exams, known collectively as the NCE. Upon completion of the NCE, the candidate is considered a fully-qualified senior reporter and usually receives a (very) small pay raise.

Although their work can also often make them into minor celebrities, most reporters in the United States and the United Kingdom earn low salaries. It is not uncommon for a reporter fresh out of college working at a small newspaper to make $20,000 annually or less. Around £12,000 is a typical starting wage in the UK. In order to move to larger papers, it is common for reporters to start with newspapers in small towns and move their way up the ladder, though The New York Times has been known to hire reporters with only a few years experience, based on talent and expertise in particular areas. Many reporters also start as summer interns at large papers and then move to reporting jobs at medium sized papers.

The same job prospects fall into the television reporting business, with reporters starting in small markets and moving up the larger markets and to national news programs.

Public relations

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Public relations

Public relations (PR) is active managing of communication of an organization or business to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities.

Definition

The term Public Relations was first used by the US President Thomas Jefferson during his address to Congress in 1807.

One of the earliest definitions of PR was created by Edward Bernays. According to him, "Public Relations is a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interest of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."
Examples/users of public relations include:

• Corporations using marketing public relations (MPR) to convey information about the products they manufacture or services they provide to potential customers in order to support their direct sales efforts. Typically, they support sales in the short to long term, establishing and burnishing the corporation's branding for a strong, ongoing market.
• Corporations using public relations as a vehicle to reach legislators and other politicians, in seeking favorable tax, regulatory, and other treatment. Moreover, they may use public relations to portray themselves as enlightened employers, in support of human-resources recruiting programs.
• Non-profit organizations, including schools and universities, hospitals, and human and social service agencies: such organizations may make use of public relations in support of awareness programs, fund-raising programs, staff recruiting, and to increase patronage of their services.
• Politicians aiming to attract votes and/or raise money. When such campaigns are successful at the ballot box, this helps in promoting and defending their service in office, with an eye to the next election or, at a career’s end, to their legacy.
Today "Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organization's ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values." (Robert L. Heath, Encyclopedia of Public Relations).

Essentially it is a management function that focuses on two-way communication and fostering of mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its publics.

There is a school of public relations that holds that it is about relationship management. Phillips, explored this concept in his paper "Towards relationship management: Public relations at the core of organisational development" paper in 2006 which lists a range of academics and practitioners who support this view.

History
Precursors

Evidence of the practices used in modern day public relations are scattered through history. One notable practitioner was Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire whose efforts on behalf of Charles James Fox in the 18th century included press relations, lobbying and, with her friends, celebrity campaigning.

A number of American precursors to public relations are found in publicists who specialized in promoting circuses, theatrical performances, and other public spectacles. In the United States, where public relations has its origins, many early PR practices were developed in support of the expansive power of the railroads. In fact, many scholars believe that the first appearance of the term "public relations" appeared in the 1897 Year Book of Railway Literature.[citation needed]

Later, PR practitioners were—and are still often—recruited from the ranks of journalism. Some reporters, concerned with ethics, criticize former colleagues for using their inside understanding of news media to help clients receive favorable media coverage.

Despite many journalists' discomfort with the field of public relations, well-paid PR positions remain a popular choice for reporters and editors forced into a career change by the instability and often fewer economic opportunities provided by the print and electronic media industry.[citation needed]
Examples of prominent PR firms staffed by former journalists and television producers include organizations like Medialink, DS Simon and Mediahitman.

The first "names"

The First World War also helped stimulate the development of public relations as a profession. Many of the first PR professionals, including Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, John Hill, and Carl Byoir, got their start with the Committee on Public Information (also known as the Creel Commission), which organized publicity on behalf of U.S. objectives during World War I. Some historians regard Ivy Lee as the first real practitioner of public relations, but Edward Bernays is generally regarded today as the profession's founder. In describing the origin of the term Public Relations, Bernays commented, "When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans.. using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Council on Public Relations".
Ivy Lee, who has been credited with developing the modern news release (also called a "press release"), espoused a philosophy consistent with what has sometimes been called the "two-way street" approach to public relations, in which PR consists of helping clients listen as well as communicate messages to their publics. In the words of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), "Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other." In practice, however, Lee often engaged in one-way propagandizing on behalf of clients despised by the public, including Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. Shortly before his death, the US Congress had been investigating his work on behalf of the controversial Nazi German company IG Farben.

In the 1890s when gender role reversals could be caricaturized, the idea of an aggressive woman who also smoked was considered laughable. In 1929, Edward Bernays proved otherwise when he convinced women to smoke in public during an Easter parade in Manhattan as a show of defiance against male domination. The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the publicity stunt.

Bernays was the profession's first theorist. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays drew many of his ideas from Freud's theories about the irrational, unconscious motives that shape human behaviour. Bernays authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). Bernays saw public relations as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," he wrote in Propaganda. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

One of Bernays' early clients was the tobacco industry. In 1929, he orchestrated a legendary publicity stunt aimed at persuading women to take up cigarette smoking, an act that at the time was exclusively equated with men. It was considered unfeminine and inappropriate for women to smoke, besides the occasional prostitute, virtually no women participated in the act publicly.

Bernays initially consulted psychoanalyst A. A. Brill for advice, Brill told him: "Some women regard cigarettes as symbols of freedom... Smoking is a sublimation of oral eroticism; holding a cigarette in the mouth excites the oral zone. It is perfectly normal for women to want to smoke cigarettes. Further the first women who smoked probably had an excess of male components and adopted the habit as a masculine act. But today the emancipation of women has suppressed many feminine desires. More women now do the same work as men do.... Cigarettes, which are equated with men, become torches of freedom."
Upon hearing this analysis, Bernays dubbed his PR campaign the: "Torches of Liberty Contingent".
It was in this spirit that Bernays arranged for New York City débutantes to march in that year's Easter Day Parade, defiantly smoking cigarettes as a statement of rebellion against the norms of a male-dominated society. Publicity photos of these beautiful fashion models smoking "Torches of Liberty" were sent to various media outlets and appeared worldwide. As a result, the taboo was dissolved and many women were led to associate the act of smoking with female liberation. Some women went so far as to demand membership in all-male smoking clubs, a highly controversial act at the time.
For his work, Bernays was paid a tidy sum by George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company.

Standards

In 1950 PRSA enacts the first "Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations," a forerunner to the current Code of Ethics, last revised in 2000 to include six core values and six code provisions. The six core values are "Advocacy, Honesty, Expertise, Independence, Loyalty, and Fairness." The six code provisions consulted with are "Free Flow of Information, Competition, Disclosure of Information, Safeguarding Confidences, Conflicts of Interest, and Enhancing the Profession."
In 1982 effective Public Relations helped save the Johnson & Johnson Corporation, after the highly publicized Tylenol poisoning crisis.

The industry today

Modern public relations uses a variety of techniques including opinion polling and focus groups to evaluate public opinion, combined with a variety of high-tech techniques for distributing information on behalf of their clients, including satellite feeds, the Internet, broadcast faxes, and database-driven phone banks to recruit supporters for a client's cause. According to the PRSA,
"Examples of the knowledge that may be required in the professional practice of public relations include communication arts, psychology, social psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and the principles of management and ethics. Technical knowledge and skills are required for opinion research, public issues analysis, media relations, direct mail, institutional advertising, publications, film/video productions, special events, speeches, and presentations."
Although public relations professionals are stereotypically seen as corporate servants, the reality is that almost any organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena employs at least one PR manager. Large organizations may even have dedicated communications departments. Government agencies, trade associations, and other non-profit organizations commonly carry out PR activities.
Public relations should be seen as a management function in any organization. An effective communication, or public relations, plan for an organization is developed to communicate to an audience (whether internal or external publics) in such a way the message coincides with organizational goals and seeks to benefit mutual interests whenever possible.

As industry consolidation becomes more prevalent, many organizations and individuals are choosing to retain "boutique" firms as opposed to so-called "global" communications firms. These smaller firms typically specialize in only a couple of practice areas and thus, often have a greater understanding of their client's business. And because they deal with certain journalists with greater frequency, specialty firms often have stronger media contacts in the areas that matter most to their clients. Added benefits of smaller, specialty firms include more personal attention and accountability and as well, cost savings. This is not to say that smaller is always better, but there is a growing consensus that specialty firms offer more than once considered.

A number of specialties exist within the field of public relations, including:
• crisis management
• reputation management
• issue management
• investor relations and labor relations
• grassroots PR (sometimes referred to as "astroturf PR")

Methods, tools, and tactics

Public relations and publicity are not synonyms. Publicity is the spreading of information to gain public awareness in a product, service, candidate, etc. It is just one technique of public relations as listed here.

Audience targeting

A fundamental technique used in public relations is to identify the target audience, and to tailor every message to appeal to that audience. It can be a general, nationwide or worldwide audience, but it is more often a segment of a population. Marketers often refer to economy-driven "demographics," such as "white males 18-49," but in public relations an audience is more fluid, being whoever someone wants to reach. For example, recent political audiences include "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads."

In addition to audiences, there are usually stakeholders, literally people who have a "stake" in a given issue. All audiences are stakeholders (or presumptive stakeholders), but not all stakeholders are audiences. For example, a charity commissions a PR agency to create an advertising campaign to raise money to find a cure for a disease. The charity and the people with the disease are stakeholders, but the audience is anyone who is likely to donate money.

Sometimes the interests of differing audiences and stakeholders common to a PR effort necessitate the creation of several distinct but still complementary messages. This is not always easy to do, and sometimes – especially in politics – a spokesperson or client says something to one audience that angers another audience or group of stakeholders.

Press releases

Press release format The typical press release announces that the statement is "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" across the top (some may instead be embargoed until a certain date), and lists the issuing organization's media contacts directly below. The media contacts are the people that the release's issuer wants to make available to the media; for example, a press release about new scientific study will typically list the study's lead scientist as its media contact. The bottom of each release is usually marked with ### or -30- to signify the end of the text.
Five "W"s and an "H" There are 6 vital facts to convey in the first paragraph of a release to ensure that it doesn't end up in the bin.

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

A press release is a written statement distributed to the media. It is a fundamental tool of public relations. Press releases are usually communicated by a newswire service to various news media and journalists may use them as they see fit. Very often the information in a press release finds its way verbatim, or minimally altered, to print and broadcast reports. If a media outlet reports that "John Smith said in a statement today that...", the "statement" usually originated in a press release, or a direct quote from an interview with a John Smith.

The text of a release is usually (but not always) written in the style of a news story, with an eye-catching headline and text written standard journalistic inverted pyramid style. This style of news writing makes it easier for reporters to quickly grasp the message. Journalists are free to use the information verbatim, or alter it as they see fit. PR practitioners research and write releases that encourage as much "lifting" as possible.

Many journalists believe it is unethical to copy from a press release—they believe it is a lapse of good judgement (for instance, a direct quote, as in: Senator Smith said, "This is the most fiscally irresponsible bill that the Congress has passed since the Buy Everyone A Mercedes Act." In this case, a journalist may copy the quote verbatim into the story, although ethical reporters prefer to try soliciting an individual quote from the speaker before filing their story). Public relations professionals believe that press releases and other collateral material aid a journalist's job, and it is the job of the journalist to decide whether or not reprinting material verbatim tells the real story.

Since press releases reflect their issuer's preferred interpretation or positive packaging of a story, journalists are often skeptical of their contents. The level of skepticism depends on what the story is and who's telling it. Newsrooms receive so many press releases that, unless it is a story that the media are already paying attention to, a press release alone often isn't enough to catch a journalist's attention.

With the advent of modern electronic media and new technology, press releases now have equivalents in these media_video news releases and audio news releases. However, many television stations are hesitant to use VNR's that appear canned and are not newsworthy.

A new kind of press release—"optimized" for the Internet
The advent of the Internet has ushered in a new kind of press release known as an optimized press release. Unlike conventional press releases of yore, written for journalists' eyes only, in hopes the editor or reporter would find the content compelling enough to turn it into print or electronic news coverage, the optimized press release is posted on an online news portal. Here the writer carefully selects keywords or keyword phrases relevant to the press release contents. If written skillfully, the press release can rank highly in searches on Google News, Yahoo or MSN News (or the many other minor news portals) for the chosen keyword phrases.
Readers of optimized press releases constitute far more than journalists. In the days before news search engines, a press release would have landed only in the hands of a news reporter or an editor who would make the decision about whether the content warranted news coverage. Although the news media is always privy to online press releases in the search engines, most readers are end-users. Optimized press releases circumvent the mainstream media which is formerly—but no longer—the gatekeeper of the news.[citation needed]

Lobby groups

Lobby groups are established to influence government policy, corporate policy, or public opinion. These groups claim to represent a particular interest. When a lobby group hides its true purpose and support base it is known as a front group.

Spin

In public relations, spin is a sometimes pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics. Politicians are often accused of spin by commentators and political opponents, when they produce a counter argument or position.

The term is borrowed from ball sports such as cricket, where a spin bowler may impart spin on the ball during a delivery so that it will curve through the air or bounce in an advantageous manner.
The techniques of "spin" include:
• Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support one's position (cherry picking)
• Non-denial denial
• Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths
• Euphemisms to disguise or promote one's agenda
• Ambiguity
• Skirting
• Rejecting the validity of hypotheticals
• Appealing to internal policies

Another spin technique involves careful choice of timing in the release of certain news so it can take advantage of prominent events in the news. A famous reference to this practice occurred when British Government press officer Jo Moore used the phrase It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury, (widely paraphrased or misquoted as "It's a good day to bury bad news"), in an email sent on September 11, 2001. The furor caused when this email was reported in the press eventually caused her to resign.

Spin doctor

Skilled practitioners of spin are sometimes called "spin doctors", though probably not to their faces unless it is said facetiously. It is the PR equivalent of calling a writer a "hack". Perhaps the most well-known person in the UK often described as a "spin doctor" is Alastair Campbell, who was involved with Tony Blair's public relations between 1994 and 2003, and also played a controversial role as press relations officer to the British and Irish Lions rugby side during their 2005 tour of New Zealand.

The American radio and television talk-show host Bill O'Reilly has called his television show The O'Reilly Factor "The No Spin Zone", emphasizing his own purported dislike of the phenomenon. Some other American talk and radio-show hosts and commentators, such as Keith Olbermann, who maintains an on-going "feud with Bill O'Reilly", and who himself has been tagged with being more liberal in his views, mock O'Reilly's epithet "no spin zone" suggesting his own avoidance of "spin" to be just another instance of spin from "the other side". (Olbermann frequently labels O'Reilly as "The Worst Person in the World" in one of his segments on his own show Countdown, which airs at the same time as The O'Reilly Factor on rival cable network MSNBC.) Such commentators on politics, despite their prominent roles in mainstream-media journalism, which purports to maintain objectivity, at times and sometimes even often seem engaged in the very phenomenon of spin that they deride. Many such commentators and their featured on-air media consultants, commonly termed "talking heads" or pundits, come to programs on radio, television, and in publishing from prior professional careers in public relations and politics, sometimes even as former political campaign directors or speech writers for political figures; for those who do, mastering the "art" of spin has already been an important part of their past work experience, and it may lead not only to their acute understanding and critique of the phenomenon but also to their supreme ability to continue practicing it in ever-more subtle ways.

State-run media in many countries also engage in spin by selectively allowing news stories that are favorable to the government while censoring anything that could be considered critical. They may also use propaganda to indoctrinate or actively influence citizens' opinions.

Other

• Publicity events, pseudo-events, photo ops or publicity stunts
• The talk show circuit. A PR spokesperson (or his/her client) "does the circuit" by being interviewed on television and radio talk shows with audiences that the client wishes to reach.
• Books and other writings
• After a PR practitioner has been working in the field for a while, he or she accumulates a list of contacts in the media and elsewhere in the public affairs sphere. This "Rolodex" becomes a prized asset, and job announcements sometimes even ask for candidates with an existing Rolodex, especially those in the media relations area of PR.
• Direct communication (carrying messages directly to constituents, rather than through the mass media) with, e.g., newsletters – in print and e-letters.
• Collateral literature, traditionally in print and now predominantly as web sites.
• Speeches to constituent groups and professional organizations; receptions; seminars, and other events; personal appearances.
• The slang term for a PR practitioner or publicist is a "flack."

The process of public relations

Scott Cutlip, Allen Center and Glen Broom describe the public relations process in four steps (1994). The first step is "Defining Public Relations Problems," usually in terms of a "situational analysis," or what public relations professionals call a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). According to Cutlip, Center and Broom, this should answer the question, "What's happening now?" The next step in the public relations process is "Planning and Programming," where the main focus is "strategy," Cutlip, Center and Broom argue that this step should answer the question "What should we do and say, and why?" The third step in the public relations process is "Taking action and Communicating," also known as "Implementation;" this step should answer the question "How and when do we do and say it?" The final step in Cutlip, Center and Broom's Four-Step Public Relations Process is "Evaluating The Program," making a final "assessment," which should answer the question "How did we do," this is where public relations professionals make a final analysis of the success of their campaign or communication.
Another process model by Sheila C. Crifasi (2000) uses the acronym "ROSIE" to define a five-step process of "Research, Objectives, Strategies, Implementation and Evaluation (See Media evaluation)." Using another acronym, "ROPES," Dr. Kathleen S. Kelly explains a five-step process through "Research, Objectives, Program, Evaluation and Stewardship." Wilcox, Ault, Agee and Cameron (2002) define the public relations process through four steps of "Research, Action (Program Planning), Communication and Evaluation." Center and Jackson (1995) define the process of public relations through four steps: "Fact-finding and data gathering; Planning and programming; Action and communication; Evaluation."

People who are professionals in public relations use different methods for analyzing the results of their work such as focus groups, surveys, and one-on-one interviews. These same methods are used in defining what medium of communication will be used in the process of strategy and what tools will be used in relaying the message, such as press releases, brochures, Web sites, media packs, video news releases, news conferences and in-house publications.

Online PR is increasingly gaining prominence and credibility in its own right, as PR pros use new technologies including the Internet to further client goals. Online PR pros should be fluent in blogging, link-building, social media sites such as Digg, and SEO/SEM practices.

A subset of online PR is blogger relations, and the recognition of bloggers' prominence and importance in the world of digital content. Many online PR pros are themselves bloggers, to better understand this medium.

Politics and civil society
Defining the opponent

A tactic used in political campaigns is known as "defining one's opponent". Opponents can be candidates, organizations and other groups of people.
In the 2004 US presidential campaign, George W. Bush defined John Kerry as a "flip-flopper," among other characterizations, which were widely reported and repeated by the media, particularly the conservative media. Similarly, George H.W. Bush characterized Michael Dukakis as weak on crime (the Willie Horton ad) and as hopelessly liberal ("a card-carrying member of the ACLU"). In 1996, President Bill Clinton seized upon opponent Bob Dole's promise to take America back to a simpler time, promising in contrast to "build a bridge to the 21st century." This painted Dole as a person who was somehow opposed to progress.

In the debate over abortion, self-titled pro-choice groups, by virtue of their name, defined their opponents as "anti-choice", while self-titled pro-life groups refer to their opponents as "pro-abortion" or "anti-life". See Power word.
More recently, opponents of same-sex marriage in the U.S. have declared that their opponents are not the gay couples suing for the right to marry in various state courts, but rather the judges who rule in their favor. They are now calling them "activist judges," implying that they impose their personal beliefs instead of objectively interpreting the law. This sidesteps the thorny issue of making millions of gay people an "enemy," and instead focuses attention on the much smaller judiciary, who all Americans can ostensibly agree should be prevented from being "activists" on the bench.

Managing language

If a politician or organization can use an apt phrase in relation to an issue, such as in interviews or news releases, the news media will often repeat it verbatim, without questioning the aptness of the phrase. This perpetuates both the message and whatever preconceptions might underlie it.
"New Deal" became a description of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's anti-Depression economic plans, and "states' rights/state sovereignty" became near-code words for anti-civil rights legislation.

Recent examples include: "death tax" for estate tax, "racial preferences" for affirmative action, "faith-based" instead of religious, "climate change" for global warming, and "partial-birth abortion", a non-medical term used to describe the types of abortion performed late-term. The phrase "weapons of mass destruction" became extremely common in the lead-up the 2003 invasion of Iraq, often with little comment on what specific weapons those might be.

Entertainment and celebrity
Playing up weaknesses

Celebrities tend to be fans of the dictum "any publicity is good publicity". If a celebrity says or does something embarrassing, he or she will often turn it into a strength and make it part of his or her "image." This tactic is used just as much with favorable situations as much as with unfavorable ones.

A current (2004) example involves the entertainer Jessica Simpson, who gained nationwide prominence when she wondered aloud on a reality show if "Chicken of the Sea"-brand tuna fish was actually chicken or tuna, garnering her a reputation for being slow-witted. But by the summer of 2004, she was being paid to endorse a brand of breath mints called "Liquid Ice." In the product's television commercial, Simpson replicates her earlier confusion by debating whether the mint is really liquid or ice. So although she was previously ridiculed, she (and her advisers) turned her nationwide embarrassment into a lucrative endorsement deal.

Branching out

As Oscar Wilde said in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only thing worse than being talked about is not to be talked about at all. Many celebrities seem to take this truism to heart, because when their popularity (and income) wane, they take on new projects that attract media attention. Considering that a celebrity's celebrity is a brand unto itself, many celebrities are under constant pressure to "reinvent" themselves, as a prophylactic against obscurity.

A current trend among celebrities is the transformation of musicians, comedians, and almost every other sort of performer into children's book authors. Madonna, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Lawler, Keith Hernandez, Ricky Gervais and several other celebrities have recently written children's books, accompanied by much media coverage.

A more traditional way of branching out is the celebrity restaurant. This is especially common among professional athletes, whose time in the spotlight is often limited by the physical demands of their jobs. Basketball player Michael Jordan opened a restaurant in Chicago, and singer Britney Spears opened an ill-fated eatery in New York which closed a few months later.

Male celebrities like Tim Robbins, Sean Penn and Charlton Heston seem to gravitate toward politics, although some female celebrities, such as Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand, also become strong political voices.

Younger female celebrities on the other hand are often drawn into the fashion world. Hotel heiress Paris Hilton recently announced that she was starting her own line of jewelry, and Jennifer Lopez has started a line of clothing. And fading star Elizabeth Taylor launched a fragrance called "White Diamonds" several years ago, bringing renewed interest from the media. Britney Spears also kept herself in the public eye when she had her secretive marriage to Kevin Federline and bore his child. Although neither topic has to do with her career, audiences seemed to be just as intrigued to know about her personal life.

Some celebrities have also entered the world of self promotion by establishing other business ventures. St. Louis rapper Nelly's Vokal for men and Applebottoms for Women and Ludacris's "Disturbing the Peace" record company are both examples of celebrities taking public relations into their own hands.

Front groups

Many of the techniques used by PR firms are drawn from the institutions and practices of democracy itself. Persuasion, advocacy, and education are instruments through which individuals and organizations are entitled to express themselves in a free society, and many public relations practitioners are engaged in practices that are widely considered as beneficial, such as publicizing scientific research, promoting charities, raising awareness of public health concerns and other issues in civil society.

One of the most controversial practices in public relations is the use of front groups—organizations that purport to serve a public cause while actually serving the interests of a client whose sponsorship may be obscured or concealed. The creation of front groups is an example of what PR practitioners sometimes term the third party technique—the art of "putting your words in someone else's mouth." PR Watch, a non-profit organization that monitors PR activities it considers to be deceptive, has published numerous examples of this technique in practice. Critics of the public relations industry, such as PR Watch, have contended that Public Relations involves a "multi-billion dollar propaganda-for-hire industry" that "concoct[s] and spin[s] the news, organize[s] phoney 'grassroots' front groups, sp[ies] on citizens, and conspire[s] with lobbyists and politicians to thwart democracy."

Instances of the use of front groups as a PR technique have been documented in many industries. Coal mining corporations have created environmental groups that contend that increased CO2 emissions and global warming will contribute to plant growth and will be beneficial, trade groups for bars have created and funded citizens' groups to attack anti-alcohol groups, tobacco companies have created and funded citizens' groups to advocate for tort reform and to attack personal injury lawyers, while trial lawyers have created "consumer advocacy" front groups to oppose tort reform.

Localization of public relations

One should also pay attention to the impact of globalization has on the form and styles of public relations. We need to be aware of the localization of public relations in different regions and countries. An excellent example would be the Chinese public relations field. The early development of public relations in China is reflected in the 1989 national award winning TV series "Public Relations Ladies" written by Kuang Jianren. The concept of public relations was made-known through this original work, which also revealed the economic reform and social political changes in China in the 1980s.

Photojournalism

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Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, and in some cases to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such as documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by the qualities of:
• Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a published chronological record of events.
• Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict.
• Narrative — the images combine with other news elements, to inform and give insight to the viewer or reader.
Photojournalists must make decisions instantly and carry photographic equipment, often while exposed to the same risks (war, rioting, etc.) that are faced by text-only journalists. The fact that they rarely have the option to stand back or wait until the dangerous parts of an event are over means they may take even more risks.
Photojournalism as a descriptive term often implies the use of a certain bluntness of style or approach to image-making. The photojournalist approach to candid photography is becoming popular as a unique style of commercial photography. For example, many weddings today are shot in photojournalism style resulting in candid images that chronicle the events of the wedding day.
A similar and related term is reportage.

Etymology

The invention of the term photojournalism is often attributed to Cliff Edom (1907–1991), who taught at the University of Missouri School of Journalism for 29 years. Edom established the first photojournalism program there, and created the Missouri Photographic Workshop in 1946. Edom said, during the judging of the 1989 Pictures of the Year Contest (which he also founded), that the then-Dean of the School of Journalism, Frank L. Mott actually coined the word.

History

Foundation

The practice of illustrating news stories with photographs was made possible by printing and photography innovations that occurred between 1880 and 1897. While newsworthy events were photographed as early as the 1850s, printing presses could only publish from engravings until the 1880s. Early news photographs required that photos be re-interpreted by an engraver before they could be published.
The pioneering battlefield photographs from the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) by British press reporters such as William Simpson of the Illustrated London News and Roger Fenton were published as engravings. Similarly, the American Civil War photographs of Mathew Brady were engraved before publication in Harper's Weekly. Because the public craved more realistic representations of news stories, it was common for newsworthy photographs to be exhibited in galleries or to be copied photographically in limited numbers.

On March 4, 1880, The Daily Graphic (New York) published the first halftone (rather than engraved) reproduction of a news photograph. Further innovations followed. In 1887, flash powder was invented, enabling journalists such as Jacob Riis to photograph informal subjects indoors, which lead to the landmark work How the Other Half Lives. By 1897, it became possible to reproduce halftone photographs on printing presses running at full speed.

Despite these innovations, limitations remained, and many of the sensational newspaper and magazine stories in the period from 1897 to 1927 (see Yellow Journalism) were illustrated with engravings. In 1921, the wirephoto made it possible to transmit pictures almost as quickly as news itself could travel. However, it was not until development of the commercial 35mm Leica camera in 1925, and the first flash bulbs between 1927 and 1930 that all the elements were in place for a "golden age" of photojournalism.

Golden age

In the "golden age" of photojournalism (1930s–1950s), some magazines (Picture Post (London), Paris Match (Paris), Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (Berlin), Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (Berlin), Life (USA), Sports Illustrated (USA)) and newspapers (The Daily Mirror (London), The New York Daily News (New York)) built their huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography, and photographers such as Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith became well-known names.

In Migrant Mother Dorothea Lange produced the seminal image of the Great Depression. The FSA also employed several other photojournalists to document the depression.
Until the 1980s, most large newspapers were printed with turn-of-the-century “letterpress” technology using easily smudged oil-based ink, off-white, low-quality “newsprint” paper, and coarse engraving screens. While letterpresses produced legible text, the photoengraving dots that formed pictures often bled or smeared and became fuzzy and indistinct. In this way, even when newspapers used photographs well — a good crop, a respectable size — murky reproduction often left readers re-reading the caption to see what the photo was all about. The Wall Street Journal adopted stippled hedcuts in 1979 to publish portraits and avoid the limitations of letterpress printing. Not until the 1980s had a majority of newspapers switched to “offset” presses that reproduce photos with fidelity on better, whiter paper.

By contrast Life, one of America’s most popular weekly magazines from 1936 through the early 1970s, was filled with photographs reproduced beautifully on oversize 11×14-inch pages, using fine engraving screens, high-quality inks, and glossy paper. Life often published a United Press International (UPI) or Associated Press (AP) photo that had been first reproduced in newspapers, but the quality magazine version appeared to be a different photo altogether.

In large part because their pictures were clear enough to be appreciated, and because their name always appeared with their work, magazine photographers achieved near-celebrity status. Life became a standard by which the public judged photography, and many of today’s photo books celebrate “photojournalism” as if it had been the exclusive province of near-celebrity magazine photographers.
The Best of Life (1973), for example, opens with a two-page (1960) group shot of 39 justly famous Life photographers. But 300 pages later, photo credits reveal that scores of the photos among Life’s “best” were taken by anonymous UPI and AP photographers.

Thus even during the golden age, because of printing limitations and the UPI and AP syndication systems, many newspaper photographers labored in relative obscurity.

Farm Security Administration

From 1935 to 1942, the Farm Security Administration and its predecessor the Resettlement Administration were part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and were designed to address agricultural problems and rural poverty associated with the Great Depression. A special photographic section of the agency, headed by Roy Stryker, was intended merely to provide public relations for its programs, but instead produced what some consider one of the greatest collections of documentary photographs ever created in the U.S. Whether this effort can be called "photojournalism" is debatable, since the FSA photographers had more time and resources to create their work than most photojournalists usually have.

Acceptance by the art world

Since the late 1970s, photojournalism and documentary photography have increasingly been accorded a place in art galleries alongside fine art photography. Luc Delahaye, VII Photo Agency and Chien-Chi Chang are among many who regularly exhibit in galleries.

Professional organizations
The Danish Union of Press Photographers (Pressefotografforbundet) was the first national organization for newspaper photographers in the world. It was founded in 1912 in Denmark by six press photographers in Copenhagen.[5] Today it has over 800 members.

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) was founded in 1946 in the U.S., and has about 10,000 members. Others around the world include the British Press Photographers Association (BPPA) founded in 1984, then relaunched in 2003, and now has around 450 members. Hong Kong Press Photographers Association (1989), Northern Ireland Press Photographers Association (2000), Pressfotografernas Klubb (Sweden, 1930), and PK — Pressefotografenes Klubb (Norway).

News organisations and journalism schools run many different awards for photojournalists. Since 1968, Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded for the following categories of photojournalism: 'Feature Photography', 'Spot News Photography' and 'Capture the Moment'. Other awards are World Press Photo, Best of Photojournalism, and Pictures of the Year as well as the UK based The Press Photographer's Year

Ethical and legal considerations

Photojournalism works within the same ethical approaches to objectivity that are applied by other journalists. What to shoot, how to frame and how to edit are constant considerations.

Often, ethical conflicts can be mitigated or enhanced by the actions of a sub-editor or picture editor, who takes control of the images once they have been delivered to the news organisation. The photojournalist often has no control as to how images are ultimately used.

The emergence of digital photography offers whole new realms of opportunity for the manipulation, reproduction, and transmission of images. It has inevitably complicated many of the ethical issues involved.

The U.S. National Press Photographers Association, and other professional organizations, maintain codes of ethics to specify approaches to these issues.[8]
Major ethical issues are often inscribed with more or less success into law. Laws regarding photography can vary significantly from nation to nation. The legal situation is further complicated when one considers that photojournalism made in one country will often be published in many other countries.

The impact of new technologies

Smaller, lighter cameras greatly enhanced the role of the photojournalist. Since the 1960s, motor drives, electronic flash, auto-focus, better lenses and other camera enhancements have made picture taking easier. New digital cameras free photojournalists from the limitation of film roll length, as hundreds of images can be stored on a single microdrive or memory card.

Content remains the most important element of photojournalism, but the ability to extend deadlines with rapid gathering and editing of images has brought significant changes. As recently as 15 years ago, nearly 30 minutes were needed to scan and transmit a single color photograph from a remote location to a news office for printing. Now, equipped with a digital camera, a mobile phone and a laptop computer, a photojournalist can send a high-quality image in minutes, even seconds after an event occurs. Video phones and portable satellite links increasingly allow for the mobile transmission of images from almost any point on the earth.

There is some concern by news photographers that the profession of photojournalism as it is known today could change to such a degree that it is unrecognizable as image-capturing technology naturally progresses. There is also concern that fewer print publications are commissioning serious photojournalism on timely issues.

Journalism - Objectivity

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Objectivity (journalism)

Objectivity is a significant principle of journalistic professionalism, especially in the United States. According to scholars, objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship. The term therefore lacks a single meaning as journalists and the public use it in these varied ways. In many countries, advocacy journalism is considered as a legitimate sort of professional journalism.

Definitions

According to scholars of journalism, journalists and publics often tend to identify objectivity in its absence. Few journalists would make a claim to total neutrality or impartiality. However, most strive toward a certain modicum of detachment from their own personal biases in their news work. In Discovering the News (1978), sociologist Michael Schudson argues that "the belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation." In the United States, an objective story is typically considered to be one that steers a middle path between two poles of political rhetoric. The tenets of objectivity are violated to the degree to which the story appears to favor one pole over the other.
According to some, it refers to the prevailing ideology of newsgathering and reporting that emphasizes eyewitness accounts of events, corroboration of facts with multiple sources and "balance." It also implies an institutional role for journalists as a fourth estate, a body that exists apart from government and large interest groups.

Others hold it should mean reporting things without bias, as if one just came to Earth from another planet and had no preconceived opinions about our behavior or ways. This form of journalism is rarely practiced, although some argue it would lead to radical changes in reporting. (See, for example, Noam Chomsky, and The Journalist from Mars).

Still others hold it to mean that journalists should have something like a neutral point of view, not taking a stand on any issues on which there is some disagreement. Instead, journalists are simply to report what "both sides" of an issue tell them. Some even extend this standard to the journalist's personal life, prohibiting them from getting involved in political activities, which necessarily requires taking a stand.

Criticisms

Advocacy journalists and civic journalists criticize this last understanding of objectivity, arguing that it does a disservice to the public because it fails to attempt to find the truth. They also argue that such objectivity is nearly impossible to apply in practice — newspapers inevitably take a point of view in deciding what stories to cover, which to feature on the front page, and what sources they quote. Media critics such as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988) have described a propaganda model that they use to show how in practice such a notion of objectivity ends up heavily favoring the viewpoint of government and powerful corporations.

Another example of an objection to objectivity, according to communication scholar David Mindich (Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism, 1998), was the coverage that the major papers (most notably the New York Times) gave to the lynching of thousands of African Americans during the 1890s. News stories of the period often described with detachment the hanging, immolation and mutilation of men, women and children by mobs. Under the regimen of objectivity, news writers often attempted to balance these accounts by recounting the alleged transgressions of the victims that provoked the lynch mobs to fury. David Mindich argues that this may have had the effect of normalizing the practice of lynching.

Alternatives

Some argue that a more appropriate standard should be fairness and accuracy (as enshrined in the names of groups like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). Under this standard, taking sides on an issue would be permitted as long as the side taken was accurate and the other side was given a fair chance to respond. Many professionals believe that true objectivity in journalism is not possible and reporters must seek balance in their stories (giving all sides their respective points of view), which fosters fairness.

Notable departures from objective news work include the muckraking of Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens, the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, the underground press of the 1960s, and public journalism.

History

The term objectivity was not applied to journalistic work until the 20th century, but it had fully emerged as a guiding principle by the 1890s. A number of communication scholars and historians agree that the idea of "objectivity" has prevailed as a dominant discourse among journalists in the United States since the appearance of modern newspapers in the Jacksonian Era of the 1830s. The rise of objectivity in journalistic method is also rooted in the scientific positivism of the 19th century, as professional journalism of the late 19th century borrowed parts of its worldview from various scientific disciplines of the day.

Some have observed that "objectivity" went hand in hand with the need to make profits in the newspaper business by selling advertising. Publishers did not want to offend any potential advertising customers and therefore encouraged news editors and reporters to strive to present all sides of an issue.

News values

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News values

News values determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet. In practice such decisions are made informally by editors on the basis of their experience and intuition, and analysis shows that several factors are consistently applied across a range of news organizations. In 1965, Galtung and Ruge enumerated these factors. The following list is based on their analysis, which remains influential today. Boyd 1994 states that: "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as ‘newsworthiness’: events suitable for news which tend to be proximity, relevance, immediacy, and drama."

Impact

• Threshold: A big story is one which has an extreme effect on a large number of people. Where the immediate effect of an event is more subtle, the threshold may be determined by the amount of money involved.

• Frequency: Events which occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization's schedule are more likely to be reported than those which occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are not likely to receive much coverage.

• Negativity: Bad news is more exciting than good news. Bad news receives more attention because it shocks us and creates discussion. For instance, "what should be done about crime?".

• Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater effect than something which is an everyday occurrence. As Charles A. Dana famously put it: "if a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news!"

• Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background in which the events take place.

Audience identification

• Personification: Events which can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than one in which there is no such "human interest."

• Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic. "Cultural proximity" is a factor here -- stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.

• Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.

• Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.

Pragmatics of media coverage

• Consonance: Stories which fit with the media's expectations receive more coverage than those which defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Note this appears to conflict with unexpectedness above. However, consonance really refers to the media's readiness to report an item. The story may still violate the audience's expectations, although today's media savvy audiences are not easily impressed by prepared clichés.

• Continuity: A story which is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia. This is partly because the media organizations are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public (making it less ambiguous).

• Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news values but also on those of competing stories.

News style

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News style

News style or news writing is the particular prose style used for news reporting (ie. in newspapers) as well as in news items that air on radio and television. News style encompasses not only vocabulary and sentence structure, but also the way in which stories present the information in terms of relative importance, tone, and intended audience.

News writing attempts to answer all the basic questions about any particular event in the first two or three paragraphs: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? and occasionally How? (ie. "5 W's"). This form of structure is sometimes called the "inverted pyramid," to refer to decreased importance of information as it progresses.

Overview

While newspapers, like encyclopedias, generally adhere to an expository writing mode and style, this has changed over time as journalism ethics and standards have (debatably) increased to become more objective and less sensationalistic. There are debated degrees of professionalism among particular news agencies, and their reputability or public value, according to professional standards of idealism and depending on what the reader wants from a news story, may be tied to their ability to be objective. In its most ideal form, news writing strives to be intelligible to the vast majority of potential readers, as well as to be engaging and succinct. Within the limits created by these goals, news stories also aim for a kind of comprehensiveness. However other factors are involved, some of which are practical and derived from the media form, and others stylistic.

Among the larger and more respected newspapers, fairness and balance is a major factor for the presentation of information. Commentary is usually confined to a separate section, though each paper may have a different overall slant. Editorial policy dictates the use of adjectives, euphemisms, and idioms. Papers with an international audience for example, usually use a more formal style of writing.
The specific choices made by a news outlet's editor or editorial board are often collected in a style guide or stylebook; common commercial stylebooks are the "AP Style Manual" and the "US News Style Book". The main goals of news writing can be summarized by the ABCs of journalism: accuracy, brevity, and clarity.

Terms and structure

Journalistic prose is explicit and precise, and tries not to rely on jargon. As a rule, journalists will not use a long word when a short one will do. They use subject-verb-object construction and vivid, active prose. They offer anecdotes, examples and metaphors, and they rarely depend on colorless generalizations or abstract ideas. News writers try to avoid using the same word more than once in a paragraph (sometimes called an "echo" or "word mirror").

The most important structural element of a story is the lede —namely contained in the story's first sentence. Lede (pronounced /lid/) is a traditional spelling, from the archaic English, used to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from lead or the typographical term "leading". The lede is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. The top-loading principle applies especially to ledes, but the unreadability of long sentences constrains its size. This makes writing a lede an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lede should answer most or all of the 5 Ws, few ledes can fit all of these.

Media critics often note that the lede is often the most polarizing subject in the article. It can be said that often critics find "bias" based on an editors choice in headline and lede.

Inverted pyramid

Journalism instructors usually describe the organization or structure of a news story as an inverted pyramid. The journalist top-loads the essential and most interesting elements of his or her story, with supporting information following in order of diminishing importance.

This structure enables readers to quit reading at any point and still come away with the essence of a story. It allows people to enter a topic to the depth that their curiosity takes them, and without the imposition of details or nuances that they would consider irrelevant.

Newsroom practicalities represent another rationale. The inverted pyramid structure enables sub-editors and other news staff to quickly create space for ads and late-breaking news simply by cutting paragraphs from the bottom ("cutting", literally, at the papers that still use traditional paste up techniques). The structure frees sub-editors to truncate stories at almost any length that suits their needs for space.
Poor structure typically begins with a faulty lede. Steeped in the raw material of their interviews and research, apprentice news writers often fail to anticipate what readers will find most interesting or to sum up the information quickly. These elements of their story they present only after their lede and in an article's later paragraphs. This is the reason for the popular newsroom admonition: "Don't bury the lede!"

Some writers start their stories with the "1-2-3 lede". This format invariably starts with a 5W opening paragraph (as described above), followed by an indirect quote that serves to support a major element of the first paragraph, and then a direct quote to support the indirect quote.

Feature style

News stories aren't the only type of material that appear in newspapers and magazines. Longer articles, such as magazine cover articles and the pieces that lead the inside sections of a newspaper are known as features. Feature stories differ from straight news in several ways. Foremost is the absence of a straight-news lede, most of the time. Instead of offering the essence of a story up front, feature writers may attempt to lure readers in.

While straight news stories always stay in third person point of view, it's not uncommon for a feature magazine article to slip into first person. The journalist will often detail his or her interactions with his interview subjects, making the piece more personal.

A feature's first paragraphs often relate an intriguing moment or event, as in an "anecdotal lede". From the particulars of a person or episode, its view quickly broadens to generalities about the story's subject.

The section that signals what a feature is about is called the nut graf or billboard. Billboards appear as the third or fourth paragraph from the top, and may be up to two paragraphs long. Unlike a lede, a billboard rarely gives everything away. This reflects the fact that feature writers aim to hold their readers' attention to the end, which requires engendering curiosity and offering a "payoff." Feature paragraphs tend to be longer than those of news stories, with smoother transitions between them. Feature writers use the active-verb construction and concrete explanations of straight news, but often put more personality in their prose.

Feature stories often close with a "kicker" rather than simply petering out.

News propaganda

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News propaganda

News propaganda is covert propaganda packaged as credible news without transparency as to source and motivation. The lack of transparency is critical to distinguishing news propaganda from traditional press releases and video news releases.
As with any propaganda, news propaganda may be spread for purposes including political or ideological reasons, partisan agenda, religious motivation, and commercial motivation. In wartime, propaganda can be motivated by national security reasons.

United Kingdom
Government produced "news"
The British Satellite News web site claims to be "a free television news and features service", but is provided by World Television, a company that "provides rich communications solutions to corporations, non-profit organisations and governmental institutions." BSN is entirely funded by the UK Foreign Office, which spent £340m on propaganda activities in the UK alone in 2001. The Foreign Office is also the primary funder of the BBC World Service, but as part of the BBC it has complete editorial and managerial independence.

United States

Government produced "news"
In the United States, according to a report by The New York Times David Barstow, the George W. Bush administration has been increasingly criticized for the aggressive use of a tool typical of public relations: previously prepared, ready-to-serve news that big corporations regularly distribute to TV stations in order to sell products or services[citation needed]. What is referred to by the report as propaganda is usually distributed through the use of a Video news release (or VNR).
A New York Times editorial (March 16, 2005) entitled "And now, the counterfeit news" affirms that at least 20 U.S. federal agencies, like the Department of Defense and the U.S. Census Bureau, produced and distributed hundreds of TV news reports since 2001 that were aired as if they were produced by the media. The same report says that this practice was also utilized by the Clinton Administration. Another report [3] details the use of this practice by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Gannon aka Guckert
In early 2005, James Guckert worked under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon as a White House reporter for the GOP-linked Talon News. Guckert has stated that he obtained frequent daily passes to White House briefings. He attended four Bush press conferences, and appeared regularly at White House press briefings. Questions have arisen as to Guckert's relationship with the White House and with the Republican Party. Although he did not qualify for a Congressional press pass, Guckert was given daily passes to White House press briefings. After Guckert came under public scrutiny, in particular for his journalistic background, he resigned from Talon News. He is currently under investigation in the Valerie Plame affair.

News presenter

2007-08-10T17:00:00.003+05:30

News presenter

A news presenter is, broadly speaking, a person that presents a news show on television, radio or the Internet. The term is not commonly used by people in the industry as they tend to use more descriptive, and sometimes country-specific, terms. Examples include "newsreader", "newscaster", and "news anchor".

Different roles

Newscaster
A newscaster is a presenter of a news bulletin who is himself or herself a working journalist and news gatherer, and a participant in compiling the script to be delivered in a news bulletin.
The American use of the term is presumed to have been coined in the 1980s to distinguish active journalists from newsreaders, the previous type of news presenter.
However in the UK, ITN's presenters are referred to as newscasters[citation needed] (and have been since the 1950s), whilst those working at the BBC are called newsreaders.

News anchor
A news anchor is a television personality who presents material prepared for a news program and at times must improvise commentary for live presentation. The term is primarily used in the United States and Canada. Many news anchors are also involved in writing and/or editing the news for their programs. Sometimes news anchors interview guests and moderate panels or discussions. Some provide commentary for the audience during parades and other events.

The term anchor (sometimes anchorperson, anchorman, or anchorwoman) was coined by CBS News producer Don Hewitt. CBS cites its first usage as being on July 7, 1952 to describe Walter Cronkite's role at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. According to Hewitt, the term was in reference to the "anchor leg" of a relay race.

News agency

2007-08-10T17:00:00.001+05:30

News agency

A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to organizations in the news trade: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. They are also known as wire services or news services.
News agencies can be corporations that sell news (e.g. Reuters and All Headline News (AHN)), cooperatives composed of newspapers that share their articles with each other (e.g. AP), commercial newswire services which charge organizations to distribute their news (e.g. Market Wire, Business Wire and PR Newswire). Governments may also control "news agencies," particularly in authoritarian states, like China and the former Soviet Union or non-profit organizations operated by both professionals and volunteers. Australia, Britain, Canada, and many other countries also have government-funded news agencies. A recent rise in internet-based alternative news agencies like Scooplive and Scoopt, as a component of the larger alternative media have emphasized a "non-corporate view," as being largely independent of the pressures of business media.

News agencies generally prepare hard news stories and feature articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used telegraphy; today they frequently use the Internet). Corporations, individuals, analysts and intelligence agencies may also subscribe. The business proposition of news agencies might thus be responsible for the current trends in separation of fact based reporting from Op-eds.

Journalism - Fourth Estate

2007-08-10T16:59:00.003+05:30

Fourth Estate

In modern times, television reporters are part of the "fourth estate."
The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century.
Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made this observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estate General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'"

Alternative meaning

The term Fourth Estate has less frequently referred to the proletariat in opposition to the three recognized estates of the French Ancien Régime.
Fourth Estate has referred to "the public press" since at least as far back as the early 1800s. More generally, it has also been used to refer to any group other than the clergy, nobility, or commons that wields political power.

Advertising

2007-08-10T16:58:00.001+05:30

Advertising

Advertising is paid, one-way communication through a medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Variations include publicity, public relations, product placement, sponsorship, underwriting, and sales promotion. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including: television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and billboards.

Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, on the sides of buses, heard in telephone hold messages and in-store public address systems. Advertisements are usually placed anywhere an audience can easily and/or frequently access visuals and/or audio, especially on clothing.
Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services. Some organisations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising but do not strictly sell a product or service to the general public include: political parties, interest groups, religion-supporting organizations, and militaries looking for new recruits. Additionally, some non-profit organizations are not typical advertising clients and rely upon free channels, such as public service announcements. For instance, a well-known exception to the use of commercial advertisements is Krispy Kreme doughnuts which relies on word-of-mouth.

The advertising industry is large and growing. In the United States alone in 2005, spending on advertising reached $144.32 billion, reported TNS Media Intelligence. That same year, according to a report titled Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010 issued by global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, worldwide advertising spending was $385 billion. The accounting firm's report projected worldwide advertisement spending to exceed half-a-trillion dollars by 2010.
While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers.Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.

History

Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of ancient Arabia. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.

The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock-art paintings that date back to 4000 BCE. As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote: books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable due to the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called "quack" advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.

Edo period advertising flyer from 1806 for a traditional medicine called Kinseitan
As the economy expanded during the 19th century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States of America, classified advertisements became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print messages promoting various goods. The success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.
In 1841, the first advertising agency was established by Volney Palmer in Boston. It was also the first agency to charge a commission on ads at 25% commission paid by newspaper publishers to sell space to advertisers. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N.W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1875, and was located in Philadelphia.

At the turn of the century, there were few career choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household, advertisers and agencies recognised the value of women's insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman – for a soap product. Although tame by today's standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message "The skin you love to touch".

A print advertisement for the 1913 issue of the Encyclopædia Britannica
When radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920s, the programs were aired without advertisements. This was so because the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: schools, clubs and civic groups.[5] When the practice of sponsoring programs was popularised, each individual radio program was usually sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief mention of the business' name at the beginning and end of the sponsored shows. However, radio station owners soon realised they could earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses throughout their radio station's broadcasts, rather than selling the sponsorship rights to single businesses per show. This practice was carried over to television in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

A fierce battle was fought between those seeking to commercialise the radio and people who argued that the radio spectrum should be considered a part of the commons – to be used only non-commercially and for the public good. In Canada, advocates like Graham Spry were able to convince the federal government to adopt a socialist funding model. England followed suit with the development of the BBC. However in the United States, the capitalist model prevailed with the passage of the 1934 Communications Act which created the Federal Communications Commission. To placate the socialists, the U.S. Congress did require commercial broadcasters to operate in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity". Nevertheless, public radio does exist in the United States of America.

In the early 1950s, the Dumont television network began the modern trend of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, Dumont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually became the norm for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as the U.S. Steel Hour. In some instances the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show - up to and including having one's advertising agency actually writing the show. The single sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern, more scientific approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The Volkswagen ad campaign--featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and "Lemon" (which were used to describe the appearance of the car)--ushered in the era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind. This period of American advertising is called the Creative Revolution and its poster boy was Bill Bernbach who helped create the revolutionary Volkswagen ads among others. Some of the most creative and long-standing American advertising dates to this incredibly creative period.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a byproduct or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV.
Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search engine Google revolutionized online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the U.S. in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9%. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower -- about 2.4%.

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla promotions", which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social networking sites (e.g. MySpace).
Paul McManus, the Creative Director of TBWA\Europe in the late 90's summed up advertising as being "...all about understanding. Understanding of the brand, the product or the service being offered and understanding of the people (their hopes and fears and needs) who are going to interact with it. Great advertising is the creative expression of that understanding."

Branding

Although advertising has existed for a long time, explicit "branding" is a product of the late 1800s. Due to the prevalence of dangerous products and unregulated industries of the Industrial Revolution, brands were introduced to increase the reputation and value of a particular manufacturer. An identified brand often meant safety and quality. For example, Quaker Oats is among the oldest modern brands in continual use.

Lydia Pinkham was one of the true success stories of personality branding. Her family used her name and image to promote their patent medicine in the 1800s. The product was incredibly successful. Women wrote Lydia for advice; often the company would reply. Lydia herself was uninvolved; even after her death the company kept up appearances, continuing to answer letters addressed to her by consumers.

Mobile Billboard Advertising

Mobile Billboards are flat-panel campaign units in which their sole purpose is to carry advertisements along dedicated routes selected by clients prior to the start of a campaign. Mobile Billboard companies do not typically carry third-party cargo or freight. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including:
• Target advertising
• One day, and long term campaigns
• Convention
• Sporting events
• Store openings or other similar promotional events
• Big advertisements from smaller companies

Product advertising

Certain products use a specific form of advertising known as "Custom publishing". This form of advertising is usually targeted at a specific segment of society, but may also "draw" the attention of others. The lists are presented in the following box:

Public service advertising
The same advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as AIDS, political ideology, energy conservation, religious recruitment, and deforestation.

Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. "Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest - it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes." - Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy
Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques (generally associated with commercial enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.

In the United States, the granting of television and radio licenses by the FCC is contingent upon the station broadcasting a certain amount of public service advertising. To meet these requirements, many broadcast stations in America air the bulk of their required Public Service Announcements during the late night or early morning when the smallest percentage of viewers are watching, leaving more day and prime time commercial slots available for high-paying advertisers.
Public service advertising reached its height during World Wars I and II under the direction of several governments.

Types of advertising

Media

A DBAG Class 101 with UNICEF ads at Ingolstadt main railway station
Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human directional, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses or airplanes ("logojets"), taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.
Another way to measure advertising effectiveness is known as ad tracking. This advertising research methodology measures shifts in target market perceptions about the brand and product or service. These shifts in perception are plotted against the consumers’ levels of exposure to the company’s advertisements and promotions.The purpose of Ad Tracking is generally to provide a measure of the combined effect of the media weight or spending level, the effectiveness of the media buy or targeting, and the quality of the advertising executions or creative. Ad Tracking Article

Covert advertising

Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles, respectively. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Vaio, BMW and Aston-Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably, Casino Royale.

Television commercials

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached $2.7 million (as of 2007).

Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops[2] or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none existing in real-life. Virtual product placement is also possible.

Newer media and advertising approaches
Increasingly, other mediums such as those discussed below are overtaking television due to a shift towards consumer's usage of the Internet as well as devices such as TiVo.
Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.
E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam".

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages (see propaganda).

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun ("Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage.) -- these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object.

SMS (Short Message Service) text messages have taken Europe by storm and are breaking into the USA. The addition of a text-back number is gaining prevalence as a www address of yesterday. Used as part of your companies 'how to contact us' these can be very effective. These can be a (rented) keyword on a short-code or your own system on a standard number (like Mojio Messenger). The benefit of SMS text messages is people can respond where they are, right now, stuck in traffic, sitting on the metro. The use of SMS text messages can also be a great way to get a viral (word-of-mouth) campaign off the ground to build your own database of prospects see Viral marketing. Interstitial advertisement is a form of advertisement which takes place while a page loads.

From time to time, The CW airs short programming breaks called "Content Wraps," to advertise one company's product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered "content wraps" and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero 2, Cover Girl, and recently Toyota.

Measuring the impact of mass advertising

The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media advertising is the use of the rating point (rp) or the more accurate target rating point (trp). These two measures refer to the percentage of the universe of the existing base of audience members that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a particular moment in time. The difference between the two is that the rating point refers to the percentage to the entire universe while the target rating point refers to the percentage of a particular segment or target. This becomes very useful when focusing advertising efforts on a particular group of people.

Optimization

In an effort to improve messaging, and gain audience attention, advertisers create branding moments that will resonate with target markets, and motivate audiences to purchase the advertised product or service, advertisers copy test their advertisements before releasing them to the public.

Public perception of the medium

As advertising and marketing efforts become increasingly ubiquitous in modern Western societies, the industry has come under criticism of groups such as Adbusters via culture jamming which criticizes the media and consumerism using advertising's own techniques. The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption. Recognizing the social impact of advertising, Mediawatch-uk, a British special interest group, works to educate consumers about how they can register their concerns with advertisers and regulators. It has developed educational materials for use in schools. The award-winning book, How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know, by former Mediawatch (a feminist organization founded by Ann Simonton not linked to mediawatch-uk) president Shari Graydon, provides context for these issues for young readers.

Negative effects of advertising

An extensively documented effect is the control and vetoing of free information by the advertisers. Any negative information on a company or its products or operations often results in pressures from the company to withdraw such information lines, threatening to cut their ads. This behaviour makes the editors of the media self-censor content that might upset their ad payers. The bigger the companies are, the bigger their relation becomes, maximising control over a single piece of information.
Advertisers may try to minimise information about or from consumer groups, consumer-controlled purchasing initiatives (as joint purchase systems), or consumer-controlled quality information systems.

Another indirect effect of advertising is to modify the nature of the communication media where it is shown. Media that get most of their revenues from publicity try to make their medium a good place for communicating ads before anything else. The clearest example is television, where broadcasters try to make the public stay for a long time in a mental state that encourages spectators not to switch the channel during advertisements. Programs that are low in mental stimulus, require light concentration and are varied are best for long sitting times. These also make for much easier emotional transition to ads, which are occasionally more entertaining than the regular shows. A simple way to understand objectives in television programming is to compare the content of programs paid for and chosen by the viewer with those on channels that get their income mainly from advertisements.
In several books, articles and videos, communication professor Sut Jhally has argued that pervasive commercial advertising, by constantly reinforcing a bogus association between consumption and happiness and by focusing on individual immediate needs, leads to a squandering of resources and stands in the way of a discussion of fundamental societal and long-term needs.

Regulation

There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by regulating the content and the influence of advertising. Some examples are: the ban on television tobacco advertising imposed in many countries, and the total ban of advertising to children under twelve imposed by the Swedish government in 1991. Though that regulation continues in effect for broadcasts originating within the country, it has been weakened by the European Court of Justice, which had found that Sweden was obliged to accept foreign programming, including those from neighboring countries or via satellite.

In Europe and elsewhere, there is a vigorous debate on whether (or how much) advertising to children should be regulated. This debate was exacerbated by a report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in February 2004 which suggested that food advertising targeting children was an important factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States of America.

In many countries - namely New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and many European countries - the advertising industry operates a system of self-regulation. Advertisers, advertising agencies and the media agree on a code of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of such codes is to ensure that any advertising is 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'. Some self-regulatory organisations are funded by the industry, but remain independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes (like the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK).

Naturally, many advertisers view governmental regulation or even self-regulation as intrusion of their freedom of speech or a necessary evil. Therefore, they employ a wide-variety of linguistic devices to bypass regulatory laws (e.g. printing French words in bold and English translations in fine print to deal with the Article 12 of the 1994 Toubon Law limiting the use of English in French advertising); see Bhatia and Ritchie 2006:542. The advertisement of controversial products such as cigarettes and condoms is subject to government regulation in many countries. For instance, the tobacco industry is required by law in most countries to display warnings cautioning consumers about the health hazards of their products. Linguistic variation is often used by advertisers as a creative device to reduce the impact of such requirements.

Future

Global advertising

Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company’s speed of implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing ideas that travel.

Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or moments of an ad that contributes to its success is how economies of scale are maximised. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as Flow of Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding moments provide insight into what is working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the visual, not verbal, elements of the ad.

Integrated marketing communication (IMC)

In practice, the goal of Integrated Marketing Communications is to create and sustain a single look or message in all elements of a marketing campaign. “[It] permeate[s] every planned and unplanned communication at every contact point where the customer or prospect may receive an impression of the company.”

http://www.octgroup.com/articles/im.htm. Although integrated marketing communication is more than just the ad campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of the advertisements. Advertisers will be called upon to create images and moments that can cross media boundaries.

Other
With the dawn of the Internet come many new advertising opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, advergaming, and email advertisements (the last often being a form of spam) abound.
Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the Super Bowl, which is by most measures considered to be the most important American football game of the year. Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining so that members of the public would actually want to watch them.
Another phenomenon is the recording of shows on DVRs (ex. TiVo). These devices allow users to record the programs for later viewing, enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons or “Boxed Sets” come out of Television shows; fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are sold, means the company will receive additional profits from the sales of these sets. To counter this effect, many advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like Survivor.
Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them.
Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies' marketing products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice at any time, right from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they want to view.

In freelance advertising, companies hold public competitions to create ads for their product, the best one of which is chosen for widespread distribution with a prize given to the winner(s). During the 2007 Super Bowl, Pepsico held such a contest for the creation of a 30-second television ad for the Doritos brand of chips, offering a cash prize to the winner. Chevrolet held a similar competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs. This type of advertising, however, is still in its infancy. It may ultimately decrease the importance of advertising agencies by creating a niche for independent freelancers.

Embedded advertising or in-film ad placements are happening on a larger scale now than ever before. Films like Krrish had over a dozen placements including Lay’s, Bournvita, Samsung, Faber Castell and Hero Honda.
Last year 19 films had in-film placement and 44 films opted for co-branding activities. In all, 45 brands were advertised through films last year.
In 2005-06, advertisers spent 25-30 lakh on embedded advertising. This number has now increased to over 1 crore. Brands understand the market better than the films.
Prahlad Kakar, ad film director, Genesis Film Production, points out that if an actor endorses one brand, he can’t be handed a rival brand in a movie. For example, Shah Rukh Khan would refuse to hold a bottle of Coke in his films since he endorses Pepsi. So, problems arise around the right marriage of a brand to a movie.
Devil wears Prada is one of the best examples for the in-film placement internationally. If in India the in-film placement is not done intelligently, the movie may turn into a long commercial.

Sanjay Bhutani, CEO BR Films, is gung-ho about in-film placement. “Its strengths are low cost, no zapping and repeat viewing. Even well known media brands like AAJ TAK, The Times of India and NDTV are also taking the route of in-film placement.”
The brand has to be well connected to the movie. If there is a forced fit, it is like a ‘deranged marriage” and viewer is like a child from the marriage who is lost in between.”
A study showed that people tend to recognize the product with the movie than the brad ambassador. A striking 60% identified incorrect brand ambassadors. This reinforces the fact that in-film advertising helps in brand recall.
Cadbury’s power brands enjoy the privilege because the brand ambassadors and the product itself are very strong to make a successful in-film element. It can be carried forward to the daily soaps too.

Journalism ethics and standards

2007-08-10T16:56:00.001+05:30

Journalism ethics and standards

Journalism ethics and standards include principles of ethics and of good practice to address the specific challenges faced by professional journalists. Historically and currently these principles are most widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism." The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.
While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including the principles of — truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability — as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent reportage to the public.

Like many broader ethical systems, journalism ethics include the principle of "limitation of harm." This often involves the withholding of certain details from reports such as the names of minor children, crime victims' names or information not materially related to particular news reports release of which might, for example, harm someone's reputation.

Evolution and purpose of codes of journalism

The principles of good journalism are directed toward bringing the highest quality of news reporting to the public, thus fulfilling the mission of timely distribution of information in service of the public interest. To a large degree, the codes and canons evolved via observation of and response to past ethical lapses by journalists and publishers. Today, it is common for terms of employment to mandate adherence to such codes equally applicable to both staff and freelance journalists; journalists may face dismissal for ethical failures. Upholding professional standards also enhances the reputation of and trust in a news organization, which boosts the size of the audience it serves.

Journalistic codes of ethics are designed as guides through numerous difficulties, such as conflicts of interest, to assist journalists in dealing with ethical dilemmas. The codes and canons provide journalists a framework for self-monitoring and self-correction as they pursue professional assignments.

Codes of practice

While journalists in the United States and European countries have led in formulation and adoption of these standards, such codes can be found in news reporting organizations in most countries with freedom of the press. The written codes and practical standards vary somewhat from country to country and organization to organization, but there is a substantial overlap among mainstream publications and societies.

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:
...public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association, an organization exclusively centered on electronic journalism, maintains a code of ethics centering on -- public trust, truthfulness, fairness, integrity, independence and accountability.[2] RTDNA publishes a pocket guide to these standards.RTDNA publishes a pocket guide to these standards.

Examples of journalistic codes of ethics held by international news gathering organizations may be found as follows:
• British Broadcasting Corporation: Editorial Guidelines.
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Journalistic Standards and Practices
• Al Jazeera: Code of Ethics.
• Code of Journalists of the Republic of Slovenia

Common elements

The primary themes common to most codes of journalistic standards and ethics are the following.

Objectivity
• Unequivocal separation between news and opinion. In-house editorials and opinion (Op-Ed) pieces are clearly separated from news pieces. News reporters and editorial staff are distinct.
• Unequivocal separation between advertisements and news. All advertisements must be clearly identifiable as such.
• Reporter must avoid conflicts of interest — incentives to report a story with a given slant. This includes not taking bribes and not reporting on stories that affect the reporter's personal, economic or political interests. See envelope journalism.
• Competing points of view are balanced and fairly characterized.
• Persons who are the subject of adverse news stories are allowed a reasonable opportunity to respond to the adverse information before the story is published or broadcast.
• Interference with reporting by any entity, including censorship, must be disclosed.

Sources

• Confidentiality of anonymous sources (see news source).
• Avoidance of anonymous sources when possible.
• Accurate attribution of statements made by individuals or other news media.
• Pictures, sound, and quotations must not be presented in a misleading context (or lack thereof). Simulations, reenactments, alterations, and artistic imaginings must be clearly labelled as such, if not avoided entirely.
• Plagiarism is strongly stigmatized and in many cases illegal (see copyright).
Accuracy and standards for factual reporting
• Reporters are expected to be as accurate as possible given the time allotted to story preparation and the space available, and to seek reliable sources.
• Events with a single eyewitness are reported with attribution. Events with two or more independent eyewitnesses may be reported as fact. Controversial facts are reported with attribution.
• Independent fact-checking by another employee of the publisher is desirable
• Corrections are published when errors are discovered
• Defendants at trial are treated only as having "allegedly" committed crimes, until conviction, when their crimes are generally reported as fact (unless, that is, there is serious controversy about wrongful conviction).
• Opinion surveys and statistical information deserve special treatment to communicate in precise terms any conclusions, to contextualize the results, and to specify accuracy, including estimated error and methodological criticism or flaws.
Slander and libel considerations
• Reporting the truth is never libel, which makes accuracy and attribution very important.
• Private persons have privacy rights that must be balanced against the public interest in reporting information about them. Public figures have fewer privacy rights.
• Publishers vigorously defend libel lawsuits filed against their reporters
Harm limitation principle
During the normal course of an assignment a reporter might go about — gathering facts and details, conducting interviews, doing research, background checks, taking photos, video taping, recording sound -- should he or she report everything learned? If so, how should this be done? The principle of limitation of harm means that some weight needs to be given to the negative consequences of full disclosure, creating a practical and ethical dilemma. The Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics offers the following advice, which is representative of the practical ideals of most professional journalists. Quoting directly:[5]
• Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
• Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
• Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
• Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy.
• Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
• Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
• Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
• Balance a criminal suspect's fair trial rights with the public's right to be informed.

Presentation

Main articles: News writing, Journalism,
Ethical standards should not be confused with common standards of quality of presentation, including:
• Correctly spoken or written language (often in a widely spoken and formal dialect, such as Standard English)
• Clarity
• Brevity (or depth, depending on the niche of the publisher)

Self-regulation

In addition to codes of ethics, many news organizations maintain an in-house Ombudsman whose role is, in part, to keep news organizations honest and accountable to the public. The ombudsman is intended to mediate in conflicts stemming from internal and or external pressures, and to maintain accountability to the public for news reported. Also, to foster self-criticism and to encourage adherence to both codified and uncodified ethics and standards. This position may be the same or similar to the public editor, though public editors also act as a liaison with readers and do not generally become members of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen.
An alternative is a news council, an industry-wide self-regulation body, such as the Press Complaints Commission, set up by UK newspapers and magazines. Such a body is capable perhaps of applying fairly consistent standards, and of dealing with a higher volume of complaints, but may not escape criticisms of being toothless.
Ethics and standards in practice

There are also some wider concerns, as the media continue to change, for example that the brevity of news reports and use of soundbites has reduced fidelity to the truth, and may contribute to a lack of needed context for public understanding. From outside the profession, the rise of news management contributes to the real possibility that news media may be deliberately manipulated. Selective reporting (spiking, double standards) are very commonly alleged against newspapers, and by their nature are forms of bias not easy to establish, or guard against.
This section does not address specifics of such matters, but issues of practical compliance, as well as differences between professional journalists on principles.

Standards and reputation

Among the leading news organizations that voluntarily adopt and attempt to uphold the common standards of journalism ethics described herein, adherence and general quality varies considerably. The professionalism, reliability and public accountability of a news organization are three of its most valuable assets. An organization earns and maintains a strong reputation, in part, through a consistent implementation of ethical standards, which influence its position with the public and within the industry.

Genres and ethics

Advocacy journalists — a term of some debate even within the field of journalism — by definition tend to reject "objectivity", while at the same time maintaining many other common standards and ethics.

Creative nonfiction and Literary journalism use the power of language and literary devices more akin to fiction to bring insight and depth into often book-length treatment of the subjects about which they write. Such devices as dialogue, metaphor, digression and other such techniques offer the reader insights not usually found in standard news reportage. However, authors in this branch of journalism still maintain ethical criteria such as factual and historical accuracy as found in standard news reporting. Yet, with brilliant prose, they venture outside the boundaries of standard news reporting in offering richly detailed accounts. One widely regarded author in the genre is Joyce Carol Oates, as with her book on boxer Mike Tyson.

New Journalism and Gonzo journalism also reject some of the fundamental ethical traditions and will set aside the technical standards of journalistic prose in order to express themselves and reach a particular audience or market segment.
Tabloid journalists are often accused of sacrificing accuracy and the personal privacy of their subjects in order to boost sales. Supermarket tabloids are often focused on entertainment rather than news. A few have "news" stories that are so outrageous that they are widely read for entertainment purposes, not for information. Some tabloids do purport to maintain common journalistic standards, but may fall far short in practice. Others make no such claims.

Some publications deliberately engage in satire, but give the publication the design elements of a newspaper, for example, The Onion, and it is not unheard of for other publications to offer the occasional, humorous articles appearing on April Fool's Day.

Relationship with freedom of the press

In countries without freedom of the press, the majority of people who report the news may not follow the above-described standards of journalism. Very often non-free media are prohibited from criticizing the national government, and in many cases are required to distribute propaganda as if it were news. Various other forms of censorship may restrict reporting on issues the government deems sensitive.

Variations, violations, and controversies

There are a number of finer points of journalistic procedure that foster disagreements in principle and variation in practice among "mainstream" journalists in the free press. Laws concerning libel and slander vary from country to country, and local journalistic standards may be tailored to fit. For example, the United Kingdom has a broader definition of libel than does the United States.

Accuracy is important as a core value and to maintain credibility, but especially in broadcast media, audience share often gravitates toward outlets that are reporting new information first. Different organizations may balance speed and accuracy in different ways. The New York Times, for instance, tends to print longer, more detailed, less speculative, and more thoroughly verified pieces a day or two later than many other newspapers. 24-hour television news networks tend to place much more emphasis on getting the "scoop." Here, viewers may switch channels at a moment's notice; with fierce competition for ratings and a large amount of airtime to fill, fresh material is very valuable. Because of the fast turn-around, reporters for these networks may be under considerable time pressure, which reduces their ability to verify information.

Laws with regard to personal privacy, official secrets, and media disclosure of names and facts from criminal cases and civil lawsuits differ widely, and journalistic standards may vary accordingly. Different organizations may have different answers to questions about when it is journalistically acceptable to skirt, circumvent, or even break these regulations. Another example of differences surrounding harm reduction is the reporting of preliminary election results. In the United States, some news organizations feel that it is harmful to the democratic process to report exit poll results or preliminary returns while voting is still open. Such reports may influence people who vote later in the day, or who are in western time zones, in their decisions about how and whether or not to vote. There is also some concern that such preliminary results are often inaccurate and may be misleading to the public. Other outlets feel that this information is a vital part of the transparency of the election process, and see no harm (if not considerable benefit) in reporting it.

Taste, decency and acceptability

Audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or to people in any other situation that is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws (such as the consumption of alcohol, homosexuality, illegal drug use, scatological images, etc.). Even with similar audiences, different organizations and even individual reporters have different standards and practices. These decisions often revolve around what facts are necessary for the audience to know.

When certain distasteful or shocking material is considered important to the story, there are a variety of common methods for mitigating negative audience reaction. Advance warning of explicit or disturbing material may allow listeners or readers to avoid content they would rather not be exposed to. Offensive words may be partially obscured or bleeped. Potentially offensive images may be blurred or narrowly cropped. Descriptions may be substituted for pictures; graphic detail might be omitted. Disturbing content might be moved from a cover to an inside page, or from daytime to late evening, when children are less likely to be watching.
There is often considerable controversy over these techniques, especially concern that obscuring or not reporting certain facts or details is self-censorship that compromises objectivity and fidelity to the truth, and which does not serve the public interest.

For example, images and graphic descriptions of war are often violent, bloody, shocking and profoundly tragic. This makes certain content disturbing to some audience members, but it is precisely these aspects of war that some consider to be the most important to convey. Some argue that "sanitizing" the depiction of war influences public opinion about the merits of continuing to fight, and about the policies or circumstances that precipitated the conflict. The amount of explicit violence and mutilation depicted in war coverage varies considerable from time to time, from organization to organization, and from country to country. (See also: Military journalism.)

Reporters have also been accused of indecency in the process of collecting news, namely that they are overly intrusive in the name of journalistic insensitivity. War correspondent Edward Behr recounts the story of a reporter during the Congo Crisis who walked into a crowd of Belgian evacuees and shouted, "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?"

Campaigning in the media

Many print publications take advantage of their wide readership and print persuasive pieces in the form of unsigned editorials that represent the official position of the organization. Despite the ostensible separation between editorial writing and news gathering, this practice may cause some people to doubt the political objectivity of the publication's news reporting. (Though usually unsigned editorials are accompanied by a diversity of signed opinions from other perspectives.)
Other publications and many broadcast media only publish opinion pieces that are attributed to a particular individual (who may be an in-house analyst) or to an outside entity. One particularly controversial question is whether media organizations should endorse political candidates for office. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflict of interest.

Investigative methods

Investigative journalism is largely an information-gathering exercise, looking for facts that are not easy to obtain by simple requests and searches, or are actively being concealed, suppressed or distorted. Where investigative work involves undercover journalism or use of whistleblowers, and even more if it resorts to covert methods more typical of private detectives or even spying, it brings a large extra burden on ethical standards.

Anonymous sources are double-edged - they often provide especially newsworthy information, such as classified or confidential information about current events, information about a previously unreported scandal, or the perspective of a particular group that may fear retribution for expressing certain opinions in the press. The downside is that the condition of anonymity may make it difficult or impossible for the reporter to verify the source's statements. Sometimes sources hide their identities from the public because their statements would otherwise quickly be discredited. Thus, statements attributed to anonymous sources may carry more weight with the public than they might if they were attributed. (See also: news source.)

The Washington press has been criticized in recent years for excessive use of anonymous sources, in particular to report information that is later revealed to be unreliable. The use of anonymous sources increased markedly in the period before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Science issues

The mainstream press is often criticized for poor accuracy in reporting science news. Many reporters are not scientists, and are thus not familiar with the material they are summarizing. Technical information is also difficult to contextualize for lay audiences, and short-form reporting makes providing background, context, and clarification even harder. Food scares are an example of the need for responsible science journalism, as are stories connected with the safety of medical procedures.

Examples of ethical dilemmas

One of the primary functions of journalism ethics is to aid journalists in dealing with many ethical dilemmas they may encounter. From highly sensitive issues of national security to everyday questions such as accepting a dinner from a source, putting a bumper sticker on one's car, publishing a personal opinion blog, a journalist must make decisions taking into account things such as the public's right to know, potential threats, reprisals and intimidations of all kinds, personal integrity, conflicts between editors, reporters and publishers or management, and many other such conundrums. The following are illustrations of some of those.
• The Pentagon Papers dealt with extremely difficult ethical dilemmas faced by journalists. Despite government intervention, The Washington Post, joined by The New York Times, felt the public interest was more compelling and both published reports. (The cases went to the Supreme Court where they were merged and are known as New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713.
• The Washington Post also once published a story about a listening device that the United States had installed over an undersea Soviet cable during the height of the cold war. The device allowed the United States to learn where Soviet submarines were positioned. In that case, Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee chose not to run the story on national security grounds. However, the Soviets subsequently discovered the device and, according to Bradlee, "It was no longer a matter of national security. It was a matter of national embarrassment." However, the U.S. government still wanted The Washington Post not to run the story on the basis of national security, yet, according to Bradlee, "We ran the story. And you know what, the sun rose the next day."
• The Ethics Advice Line, a joint venture, public service project of Chicago Headline Club Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice, provides some examples of typical ethical dilemmas reported to their ethical dilemma hotline and are typical of the kinds of questions faced by many professional journalists.

A partial listing of questions received by The Ethics Advice Line:
• Is it ethical to make an appointment to interview an arsonist sought by police, without informing police in advance of the interview?
• Is lack of proper attribution plagiarism?
• Should a reporter write a story about a local priest who confessed to a sex crime if it will cost the newspaper readers and advertisers who are sympathetic to the priest?
• Is it ethical for a reporter to write a news piece on the same topic on which he or she has written an opinion piece in the same paper?
• Under what circumstances do you identify a person who was arrested as a relative of a public figure, such as a local sports star?
• Freelance journalists and photographers accept cash to write about, or take photos of, events with the promise of attempting to get their work on the AP or other news outlets, from which they also will be paid. Is that ethical?
• Can a journalist reveal a source of information after guaranteeing confidentiality if the source proves to be unreliable?

Freedom of the Press

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Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the press (or press freedom) is the guarantee by a government of free public press for its citizens and their associations, extended to members of news gathering organizations, and their published reporting. It also extends to news gathering, and processes involved in obtaining information for public distribution. Not all countries are protected by a bill of rights or the constitutional provision pertaining to Freedom of the Press.

With respect to governmental information, a government distinguishes which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information as sensitive, classified or secret and being otherwise protected from disclosure due to relevance of the information to protecting the national interest. Many governments are also subject to sunshine laws or freedom of information legislation that are used to define the ambit of national interest.

Basic principles and criteria

In developed countries, freedom of the press implies that all people should have the right to express themselves in writing or in any other way of expression of personal opinion or creativity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicates: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers"
This philosophy is usually accompanied by legislation ensuring various degrees of freedom of scientific research (known as scientific freedom), publishing, press and printing the depth to which these laws are entrenched in a country's legal system can go as far down as its constitution. The concept of freedom of speech is often covered by the same laws as freedom of the press, thereby giving equal treatment to media and individuals.

Besides said legal environment, some non-governmental organizations use more criteria to judge the level of press freedom around the world. Reporters Without Borders considers the number of journalists murdered, expelled or harassed, and the existence of a state monopoly on TV and radio, as well as the existence of censorship and self-censorship in the media, and the overall independence of media as well as the difficulties that foreign reporters may face. Freedom House likewise studies the more general political and economic environments of each nation in order to determine whether relationships of dependence exist that limit in practice the level of press freedom that might exist in theory. So the concept of independence of the press is one closely linked with the concept of press freedom.
The media as a necessity for the government.

The notion of the press as the fourth branch of government is sometimes used to compare the press (or media) with Montesquieu's three branches of government, namely an addition to the legislative, the executive and the judiciary branches. Edmund Burke is quoted to have said: "Three Estates in Parliament; but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth estate more important far than they all."
The development of the Western media tradition is rather parallel to the development of democracy in Europe and the United States. On the ideological level, the first advocates of freedom of the press were the liberal thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries. They developed their ideas in opposition to the monarchist tradition in general and the divine right of kings in particular. These liberal theorists argued that freedom of press was a right claimed by the individual and grounded in natural law. Thus, freedom of the press was an integral part of the individual rights promoted by liberal ideology (see the History section below).
Freedom of the press was (and still is) assumed by many to be a necessity to any democratic society. Other lines of thought later argued in favor of freedom of the press without relying on the controversial issue of natural law; for instance, freedom of expression began to be regarded as an essential component of the social contract (the agreement between a state and its people regarding the rights and duties that each should have to the other).

Status of press freedom worldwide

Worldwide press freedom index

Freedom of the press worldwide according to Reporters Without Borders. Lower numbers stand for better press freedom.

Every year, the Reporters Without Borders organization establishes a ranking of countries in terms of their freedom of the press. The list is based on responses to surveys sent to journalists that are members of partner organisations of the RWB, as well as related specialists such as researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and the media as well as other indirect sources of pressure against the free press, such as pressure on journalists by non-governmental groups. RWB is careful to note that the index only deals with press freedom, and does not measure the quality of journalism.
In 2003, the countries where press was the most free were Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway.

In 2004, apart from the above countries, Denmark, Ireland, Slovakia, and Switzerland were tied at the top of the list, followed by New Zealand and Latvia. The countries with the least degree of press freedom were ranked with North Korea having the worst, followed by Burma, Turkmenistan, People's Republic of China (mainland only), Vietnam, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Non-democratic states

According to Reporters Without Borders, more than a third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Overwhelmingly, these people live in countries where there is no system of democracy or where there are serious deficiencies in the democratic process.

Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus. To this end, most non-democratic societies employ state-run news organisations to promote the propaganda critical to maintaining an existing political power base and suppress (often very brutally, through the use of police, military, or intelligence agencies) any significant attempts by the media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues. In such countries, journalists operating on the fringes of what is deemed to be acceptable will very often find themselves the subject of considerable intimidation by agents of the state. This can range from simple threats to their professional careers (firing, professional blacklisting) to death threats, kidnapping, torture, and assassination.
Reporters Without Borders reports that, in 2003, 42 journalists lost their lives pursuing their profession and that, in the same year, at least 130 journalists were in prison as a result of their occupational activities.
In 2005, 63 journalists and 5 media assistants were killed worldwide.
• The Lira Baysetova case in Kazakhstan.
• In Nepal, Eritrea and China (mainland only), journalists may spend years in jail simply for using the "wrong" word or photo.
• The Georgiy R. Gongadze case in Ukraine.

History

England

The English revolution of 1688 resulted in the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown and, above all, the right of revolution. The main theoretical inspirator of Western liberalism was John Locke. Having decided to grant some of his basic freedoms in the state of nature (natural rights) to the common good, the individual placed some of his rights in trusteeship with the government. A social contract was entered into by the people, and the Sovereign (i. e. government) was instructed to protect these individual rights on behalf of the people, argues John Locke in his book Two Treatises of Government.

Until 1694, England had an elaborate system of licensing. No publication was allowed without the accompaniment of a government-granted license. Fifty years earlier, at a time of civil war, John Milton wrote his pamphlet Areopagitica. In this work Milton argued forcefully against this form of government censorship and parodied the idea, writing "when as debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailer in their title." Although at the time it did little to halt the practice of licensing it would be viewed later a significant milestone in press freedom.

Milton's central argument was that the individual is capable of using reason and distinguishing right from wrong, good from bad. In order to be able to exercise this ration right, the individual must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in “a free and open encounter”. From Milton’s writings developed the concept of “the open market place of ideas”: When people argue against each other, the good arguments will prevail. One form of speech that was widely restricted in England was the law of seditious libel that made criticizing of the government a crime. The King was above public criticism and that statements critical of the government were forbidden, according to the English Court of the Star Chamber. Truth was not a defense to seditious libel because the goal was to prevent and punish all condemnation of the government.

John Stuart Mill approached the problem of authority versus liberty from the viewpoint of a 19th century utilitarian: The individual has the right of expressing himself so long as he does not harm other individuals. The good society is one in which the greatest number of persons enjoy the greatest possible amount of happiness. Applying these general principles of liberty to freedom of expression, Mill states that if we silence an opinion, we may silence the truth. The individual freedom of expression is therefore essential to the well-being of society.
Mill’s application of the general principles of liberty is expressed in his book On Liberty: "If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and one, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind".

Nazi Germany

Nazi propaganda was used to glorify Adolf Hitler and stifle dissenting viewpoints.
The dictatorship of Adolf Hitler largely suppressed freedom of the press through Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. As the Ministry's name implies, propaganda did not carry the negative connotations that it does today (or did in the Allied countries); how-to manuals were openly distributed by that same ministry explaining the craft of effective propaganda. The Ministry also acted as a central control-point for all media, issuing orders as to what stories could be run and what stories would be suppressed. Anyone involved in the film industry -- from directors to the lowliest assistant -- had to sign an oath of loyalty to the Nazi Party, due to opinion-changing power Goebbels perceived movies to have. (Goebbels himself maintained some personal control over every single film made in Nazi Europe.) Journalists who crossed the Propaganda Ministry were routinely imprisoned or shot as traitors.

India

The Indian Constitution, while not mentioning the word "press", provides for "the right to freedom of speech and expression" (Article 19(1) a). However this right is subject to restrictions under subclause, whereby this freedom can be restricted for reasons of "sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offence". Laws such as the Official Secrets Act and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PoTA) have been used to limit press freedom. Under PoTA, person could be detained for up to six months for being in contact with a terrorist or terrorist group. PoTA was repealed in 2006, but the Official Secrets Act 1923 continues.
For the first half-century of independence, media control by the state was the major constraint on press freedom. Indira Gandhi famously stated in 1975 that All India Radio is "a Government organ, it is going to remain a Government organ..." [3] With the liberalization starting in the 1990s, private control of media has burgeoned, leading to increasing independence and greater scrutiny of government. Organizations like Tehelka and NDTV have been particularly influential, e.g. in bringing about the resignation of powerful Haryana minister Venod Sharma.

United States

John Hancock was the first person to write newspapers in the British colonies in North America were published "by authority," that is, under license from and as the mouthpiece of the colonial governors. The first regularly published newspaper was the Boston News-Letter of John Campbell, published weekly beginning in 1704. The early colonial publishers were either postmasters or government printers, and therefore unlikely to challenge government policies.

The first independent newspaper in the colonies was the New-England Courant, published in Boston by James Franklin beginning in 1721. A few years later, Franklin's younger brother, Benjamin, purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette of Philadelphia, which became the leading newspaper of the colonial era.
During this period, newspapers were unlicensed, and able freely to publish dissenting views, but were subject to prosecution for libel or even sedition if their opinions threatened the government. The notion of "freedom of the press" that later was enshrined in the United States Constitution is generally traced to the seditious libel prosecution of John Peter Zenger by the colonial governor of New York in 1735. In this instance of jury nullification, Zenger was acquitted after his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argued to the jury (contrary to established English law) that there was no libel in publishing the truth. Yet even after this celebrated case, colonial governors and assemblies asserted the power to prosecute and even imprison printers for publishing unapproved views.

During the American Revolution, a free press was identified by Revolutionary leaders as one of the elements of liberty that they sought to preserve. The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) proclaimed that "the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments." Similarly, the Constitution of Massachusetts (1780) declared, "The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth." Following these examples, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution restricted Congress from abridging the freedom of the press and the closely associated freedom of speech.
John Locke’s ideas had inspired both the French and American revolutions. Thomas Jefferson wanted to unite the two streams of liberalism, the English and the French schools of thought. His goal was to create a government that would provide both security and opportunity for the individual. An active press was essential as a way of educating the population. In order to be able to work freely, the press must be free from control by the state. Jefferson was a person who himself suffered great calumnies of the press. Despite this, in his second inaugural address, he proclaimed that a government that could not stand up under criticism deserved to fall.
Jefferson said: "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth".

In 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Near v. Minnesota used the 14th Amendment to apply the freedom of the press to the States. Other notable cases regarding free press are:
• New York Times Co. v. United States: The Supreme Court upheld the publication of the Pentagon Papers.
• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: The Court decided that in order for written words to be libel, it must be, first of all, false. It must also be published with the deliberate intent to ruin someone's reputation.
In Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Court placed limits on the ability of the Press to refuse a subpoena from a Grand Jury by claiming Freedom of the Press. The issue decided in the case was whether a reporter could refuse to "appear and testify before state and Federal grand juries" by claiming such appearance and testimony "abridges the freedom of speech and press guaranteed by the First Amendment." The 5-4 decision was that such a protection was not provided by the First Amendment.

Notable exceptions

• In 1798, not long after the adoption of the Constitution, the governing Federalist Party attempted to stifle criticism by means of the Alien and Sedition Acts. (It was notable that the Sedition Act made criticism of Congress, and of the President, a crime, but not criticism of the Vice-President. Jefferson, a non-Federalist, was Vice-President at the time the Act was passed.[citation needed]) These restrictions on freedom of the press proved very unpopular and worked against the Federalists. Thomas Jefferson was among those who opposed the Acts, and he was elected President in the election of 1800. Jefferson then pardoned all those convicted under the Acts. He made it a principle not to ask what they had done, but only whether they had been charged under the Acts.

In his first Inaugural Address in 1801 he reiterated his longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and of the press: "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
• The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, which amended it, imposed restrictions on the free press during wartime. It carried fines of $10,000 and up to 20 years imprisonment for people publishing "... disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States ..." In Schenck v. United States (1919), the Supreme Court upheld the laws, setting the "Clear and present danger" standard. Congress repealed both laws in 1921, and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) revised the "Clear and present danger" test to the "Imminent lawless action" test, which is less restrictive.
• 1988: Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier: The Supreme Court upheld that the principal of a school has the right to review and block controversial articles of a school paper funded by the school and published in the school's name.
• In the United States in 2005, interpretation of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act may consider political statements as being the equivalent of campaign donations. Because access to Internet statements are weakly controlled, the campaign value of statements is not known in advance and a high ultimate value may trigger large fines for violations. This particularly threatens Internet statements by individuals, and ambiguous definitions of membership in the press make the possible effects ambiguous.

Implications of new technologies

Many of the traditional means of delivering information are being slowly superseded by the increasing pace of modern technological advance. Almost every conventional mode of media and information dissemination has a modern counterpart that offers significant potential advantages to journalists seeking to maintain and enhance their 'freedom of speech'. A few simple examples of such phenomena include:
• Terrestrial television versus satellite television: Whilst terrestrial television is relatively easy to manage and manipulate, satellite television is much more difficult to control as journalistic content can easily be broadcast from other jurisdictions beyond the control of individual governments. An example of this in the Middle East is the satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera. This Arabic language media channel operates out of the 'relatively liberal' state of Qatar, and often presents views and content that are problematic to a number of governments in the region and beyond. However, because of the increased affordability and miniaturisation of satellite technology (e.g. dishes and receivers) it is simply not practicable for most states to control popular access to the channel.

• Web-based publishing (e.g., blogging) vs. traditional publishing: Traditional magazines and newspapers rely on physical resources (e.g. offices, printing presses) that can easily be targeted and forced to close down. Web-based publishing systems can be run using ubiquitous and inexpensive equipment and can operate from any global jurisdiction. To get control over web publications, nations and organisations are using Geolocation and Geolocation software.

• Voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) vs. conventional telephony: Although conventional telephony systems are easily tapped and recorded, modern VOIP technology can employ sophisticated encryption systems to evade central monitoring systems. As VOIP and similar technologies become more widespread they are likely to make the effective monitoring of journalists (and their contacts and activities) a very difficult task for governments.

Naturally, governments are responding to the challenges posed by new media technologies by deploying increasingly sophisticated technology of their own (a notable example being China's attempts to impose control of through a state run internet service provider that controls access to the Internet) but it seems that this will becomes an ever increasingly difficult task as nimble, highly motivated journalists continue to find ingenious novel ways to exploit technology and stay one step ahead of the generally slower moving government institutions that they necessarily do battle with.

Organizations for press freedom

• ARTICLE 19
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Internationale Medienhilfe
• OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
• Reporters Without Borders
• World Association of Newspapers

Defamation Redefined

2007-08-10T16:55:00.001+05:30

Defamation

There is a need to balance the public right to free speech & expression with the private right to reputation. Legislation about defamation is an attempt to do the same.

Defamation is a Civil as well as a criminal offence. Under Criminal Law, Indian Penal Code, defines defamation as - "Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter excepted, to defame that person."

Explanations in IPC-
Explanation 1- It may amount to defamation to impute anything to a deceased person, if the imputation would harm the reputation of that person if living, and is intended to be hurtful to the feelings of his family or other near relatives.
Explanation 2- It may amount to defamation to make an imputation concerning a company or an association or collection of persons as such.
Explanation 3- An imputation in the form of an alternative or expressed ironically, may amount to defamation.
Explanation 4- No imputation is said to harm a person's reputation, unless that imputation directly or indirectly, in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, or lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste or of his calling, or lowers the credit of that person, or causes it to be believed that the body of that person is in a loath some state, or in a state generally considered as disgraceful.

Essentials :
Under Criminal Law three essentials are to be proved to establish wrong of
Defamation -
1. There should be existence / publication of an imputation made by a person.
2. Such imputation may be words spoken or written signs, or visible representation.
3. It should be made to injure or having knowledge to believe that it will injure reputation of a person.
Civil Law about Defamation is still governed by English Common Law rules, according to which 4 essentials are to be proved -
1. The statement is defamatory.
2. Reference of it to the plaintiff.
3. Publication of it by defendant.
4. Statement must be substantially untrue.

Exceptions :
There are ten exception mentioned in Indian Penal Code under which a person can escape his liability from an action of Defamation:
1.True Imputation made / published for the public good "It is not defamation to impute anything which is true concerning any person, if it be for the public good that the imputation should be made or published. Whether or not it is for the public good is a question of fact." It is also sometimes referred as plea for justification , according to which its not only essential to prove that the imputation was substantially true but also that it was made / published for the public good.
2. Public conduct of public servants "It is not defamation to express in a good faith any opinion whatever respecting the conduct of a public servant in the discharge of his public functions, or respecting his character, so far as his character appears in that conduct and no further." It is essential that it should be necessarily an expression of opinion and not that statement of fact, and further expressed in good faith - ' done honestly' { Sec.3(22) of General clauses act } & 'with due care and attention' { sec.52 } whose measure can be that of a prudent man.
3. Public Question of a Person "Conduct of any person touching any public question- It is not defamation to express in good faith any opinion whatever respecting the conduct of any person touching any public question, and respecting his character, so far as his character appears in that conduct, and no further" here also it's essential that the statement be an opinion and made in good faith.
4. Publication of reports of proceedings of Courts- "It is not defamation to publish substantially true report of the proceedings of a Court of Justice, or of the result of any such proceedings." It's essential that it be just a report and no further expression of statements on conduct of persons or proceedings and further it must be substantially true.
5. Merits of case decided in Court or conduct of witnesses and others concerned- "It is not defamation to express in good faith any opinion whatever respecting the merits of any case, civil or criminal, which has been decided by a Court of Justice, or respecting the conduct of any person as a party, witness or agent, in any such case, or respecting the character of such person, as far as his character appears in that conduct, and no further." it's essential that the statement be an opinion and made in good faith.
6.Merits of public performance- "It is not defamation to express in good faith any opinion respecting the merits of any performance which its author has submitted to the judgment of the public, or respecting the character of the author so far as his character appears in such performance, and no further." A public performance can be work like a book, drama, movie etc, and statement made should be an opinion and that too expressed in good faith.
7.Censure passed in good faith by person having lawful authority- "It is not defamation in a person having over another any authority, either conferred by law or arising out of a lawful contract made with that other, to pass in good faith any censure on the conduct of that other in matters to which such lawful authority relates." Censure cannot be considered to be a defamation if it's passed in course of exercising authority like the authority of a father over son, a teacher's over student.
8. Accusation preferred in good faith to authorized person- "It is not defamation to prefer in good faith an accusation against any person to any of those who have lawful authority over that person with respect to the subject-matter of accusation". The accusation should be made in good faith and that too within extent of lawful authority over the other person.
9. Imputation made in good faith by person for protection of his or other's interests- "It is not defamation to make an imputation on the character of another provided that the imputation be made in good faith for the protection of the interests of the person making it, or of any other person, or for the public good." Though it is a vague exception but the Imputation should be made in good faith and for interest of own or some other person concerned.
10. Caution intended for good of person to whom conveyed or for public good- "it is not defamation to convey a caution, in good faith, to one person against another, provided that such caution be intended for the good of the person to whom it is conveyed, or of some person in whom that person is interested, or for the public good" It is generally a warning to someone for protection of his / public good about another persons character in good faith.

Under Civil Law all the general defenses, which are available for an action of Torts, can be pleaded for action of defamation too but there are three additional defenses for Defamation.
1. Truth / Justification Being true of a defamatory statement is a complete defense in civil action unlike criminal action the reason being that the law allows no one to claim damages for a character which one never possessed or to presume undeserved dignity, thus plea of justification; truth of the statement published is a complete defense.
2. Fair Comment It is necessary that the imputation be expression of opinion or a comment rather than being a statement of fact, it should be fair ie. Honestly expressed and without any malice further it is necessary that the statement should be made / publicised for public good; all these are matter of facts.
3. Protection of interest When the statement is made for general or public interest, without any malice no action for defamation lies.
4. Privilege There are circumstances when the Law grants Privilege to a person to express himself, in these occasions Right to speech and expression overshadows or eclipses one's right to reputation. There are two kinds of privileges which can be pleaded - Absolute and Qualified privilege. Absolute privilege can be taken by-
(a) Members of parliament of both the houses about anything stated in course of Parliamentary proceedings in side four walls of the house.{Art.105(2) for Lok Sabha & 194(2) for Rajya Sabha }
(b) Statements made by Judges, counsels, witnesses, or parties in course of judicial proceedings before any court of Law provided that the statements are not such that have no relevance at all in the case.
(c) Communication relating to affairs of state made by one officer of state to another in course of duty. In these circumstances no civil action for defamation lies even though the statement is absolutely false and is made with malafied intentions.
Qualified Privilege can be pleaded in these cases -
(a) Statement made in performance of a duty may be legal, social, or moral duty.
(b) Statement made for protection of general or public interest.
(c) Fair report of Public proceedings like judicial, parliamentary proceedings and public meetings. In these cases privilege is only considered when the statement is made without any malice.
Kinds of Defamation
Though Indian Law does not distinguish, but defamation is of two types, as contained in English too -
Slander and Libel ; when an defamatory imputation is made on a temporary source of communication like verbally defaming someone then it is classified as Slander ; when defamatory imputation is made on a permanent source of communication like publication in a newspaper or on electronic source, its called as Libel.
Liabilities of different persons
Author: of an article or book, is primarily liable for any illegality in the work like obscenity, defamation.

Contributor: would be liable if the article contributed by him have legal discrepancy.

Editor: is individually liable for any illegal matter published in his paper, magazine, etc.

News - Vendor / Bookseller: Under Civil Law a Bookseller is not liable for defamatory publication of material sold by him unless he actually knew it was defamatory, or he could have with due diligence, come to know that it was defamatory. Under Criminal Law IPC Sec 502, he shall be liable only if he knew about defamatory property of the material he sold at the time of selling it.
Printer: is individually liable for printing of objectionable matter.

Proprietor: can be made liable for any matter published in his paper, magazine, etc only if there's positive proof that he was responsible for publishing it or for its selection for publication.

Publisher: is liable for anything published in his paper, magazine, etc which is defamatory.

Reporter: is liable like printer, publisher, editor, if he sends some work which is defamatory in character.
Defamation - Recent Law
Information Technology Act, 2000 - Defamation through E-Mails will be punishable with liability for compensation. Threat may result in imprisonment up to 2 years.

Case Law

Khushwant Singh v. Maneka Gandhi AIR 2002 Delhi 58
Judges : Devinder Gupta, Sanjay Kishan Kaul
"It cannot be said that an autobiography must relate to the person concerned directly. An autobiography deals not only with the individual by whom it is written but about the people whom he claims to have interfered with. This is a matter between the author and the people who want to read him. Fetters cannot be put on to what an author should and should not write. It is the judgment of the author." Para 73

Slander and libel

2007-08-10T16:54:00.002+05:30

Slander and libel

In law, defamation is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against criticism.

The common law origins of defamation lie in the torts of slander (harmful statement in a transitory form, especially speech) and libel (harmful statement in a fixed medium, especially writing but also a picture, sign, or electronic broadcast), each of which gives a common law right of action.

"Defamation" is the general term used internationally, and is used in this article where it is not necessary to distinguish between "slander" and "libel". Libel and slander both require publication. The fundamental distinction between libel and slander lies solely in the form in which the defamatory matter is published. If the offending material is published in some fleeting form, as by spoken words or sounds, sign language, gestures and the like, then this is slander. If it is published in more durable form, for example in written words, film, compact disc (CD), DVD, internet blogging and the like, then it is considered libel.

Vocabulary and general concepts

• "Libel" comes from Latin : libellus ("little book")
• Even if a statement is derogatory, there are circumstances in which such statements are permissible in law.

Truth

In many, though not all, legal systems, statements presented as fact must be false to be defamatory. Proving a defamatory statement to be true is often the best defense against a prosecution for libel. Statements of opinion that cannot be proven true or false will likely need to apply some other kind of defense. The use of the defense of justification has dangers, however. If the defendant libels the plaintiff and then runs the defense of truth and fails, he may be said to have aggravated the harm.

In some systems, however, notably the Philippines truth alone is not a defense.[3] It is also necessary in these cases to show that there is a well-founded public interest in the specific information being widely known, and this may be the case even for public figures.

Public interest is generally not "that which the public is interested in," but rather that which is in the interest of the public.

Privilege and malice

Privilege provides a complete bar and answer to a defamation suit, though conditions may have to be met before this protection is granted.

There are two types of privilege in the common law tradition:
• "Absolute privilege" has the effect that a statement cannot be sued on as defamatory, even if it were made maliciously; a typical example is evidence given in court (although this may give rise to different claims, such as an action for malicious prosecution or perjury) or statements made in a session of the legislature (known as 'Parliamentary privilege' in Commonwealth countries).
• "Qualified privilege" may be available to the journalist as a defense in circumstances where it is considered important that the facts be known in the public interest; an example would be public meetings, local government documents, and information relating to public bodies such as the police and fire departments. Qualified privilege has the same effect as absolute privilege, but does not protect statements that can be proven to have been made maliciously.

Similar but different delicts and torts

Some jurisdictions have a separate tort or delict of "verbal injury," "intentional infliction of emotional distress," or "convicium," involving the making of a statement, even if truthful, intended to harm the claimant out of malice; some have a separate tort or delict of "invasion of privacy" in which the making of a true statement may give rise to liability: but neither of these comes under the general heading of "defamation". Some jurisdictions also have the tort of "false light", in which a statement may be technically true, but so misleading as to be defamatory. There is also, in almost all jurisdictions, a tort or delict of "misrepresentation", involving the making of a statement which is untrue even though not defamatory; thus if a surveyor states that a house is free from the risk of flooding, he or she has not defamed anyone, but may still be liable to someone who purchases the house in reliance on this statement.

Criminal libel

Many nations have criminal penalties for defamation in some situations, and different conditions for determining whether an offense has occurred. For example, in Zimbabwe, "insulting the President" is, by statute, (Public Order and Security Act 2001) a criminal offense. The European Court of Human Rights has in some instances placed restrictions on libel laws by reason of the freedom of expression provisions of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[5] An important example is Lingens v. Austria (1986) 8 E.H.R.R. 407. Lingens was fined for publishing in a Vienna magazine comments about the behavior of the Austrian Chancellor, such as 'basest opportunism', 'immoral' and 'undignified'. Under the Austrian criminal code the only defense was proof of the truth of these statements. Lingens could not prove the truth of these value judgments. The European Court of Human Rights stated that a careful distinction needed to be made between facts and value judgments/opinions. The existence of facts can be demonstrated, whereas the truth of value judgments is not susceptible of proof. The facts on which Lingens founded his value judgments were not disputed; nor was his good faith. Since it was impossible to prove the truth of value judgments, the requirement of the relevant provisions of the Austrian criminal code was impossible of fulfilment and infringed article 10 of the Convention.

Origins of defamation law

In most early systems of law, verbal defamations were treated as a criminal or quasi-criminal offense, its essence lying not in pecuniary loss, which may be compensated by damages, but in the personal insult which must be atoned for: a vindictive penalty coming in the place of personal revenge. By the law of the Twelve Tables, the composition of scurrilous songs and gross noisy public affronts were punished by death. Minor offenses of the same class seem to have found their place under the general conception of injuria, which included ultimately every form of direct personal aggression which involved abuse or insult.

In the later Roman jurisprudence, from which many of modern laws descend, verbal defamations are dealt with in the edict under two heads. The first comprehended defamatory and injurious statements made in a public manner (convicium contra bonos mores). In this case the essence of the offense lay in the unwarrantable public proclamation. In such a case the truth of the statements was no justification for the unnecessarily public and insulting manner in which they had been made. The second head included defamatory statements made in private, and in this case the offense lay in the imputation itself, not in the manner of its publication. The truth was therefore a sufficient defense, for no man had a right to demand legal protection for a false reputation. Even belief in the truth was enough, because it took away the intention which was essential to the notion of injuria.
The law thus aimed at giving sufficient scope for the discussion of a man's character, while it protected him from needless insult and pain. The remedy for verbal defamation was long confined to a civil action for a monetary penalty, which was estimated according to the significance of the case, and which, although vindictive in its character, doubtless included practically the element of compensation. But a new remedy was introduced with the extension of the criminal law, under which many kinds of defamation were punished with great severity. At the same time increased importance attached to the publication of defamatory books and writings, the libri or libelli famosi, from which we derive our modern use of the word libel; and under the later emperors the latter term came to be specially applied to anonymous accusations or pasquils, the dissemination of which was regarded as particularly dangerous, and visited with very severe punishment, whether the matter contained in them were true or false.

Defamation laws by country
English law

Development of English defamation law

Modern libel and slander laws as implemented in many but not all Commonwealth nations, in the United States, and in the Republic of Ireland, are originally descended from English defamation law.

The earlier history of the English law of defamation is somewhat obscure. Civil actions for damages seem to have been tolerably frequent so far back as the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). There was no distinction drawn between words written and spoken. When no pecuniary penalty was involved such cases fell within the old jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, which were only finally abolished in the eighteenth century. It seems, to say the least, uncertain whether any generally applicable criminal process was in use.

The crime of scandalum magnatum, spreading false reports about the magnates of the realm, was established by statutes, but the first fully reported case in which libel is affirmed generally to be punishable at common law is one tried in the Star Chamber in the reign of James I. In that case no English authorities are cited except a previous case of the same nature before the same tribunal; the law and terminology appear to be taken directly from Roman sources, with the insertion that libels tended to a breach of the peace; and it seems probable that not very scrupulous tribunal had simply found it convenient to adopt the very stringent Roman provisions regarding the libelli famosi without paying any regard to the Roman limitations. From that time we find both the criminal and civil remedies in full operation.

English admiralty law

In admiralty law, a libel was the equivalent of a civil lawsuit. The plaintiff was referred to as the "libellant". The verb "to libel" means "to sue [in admiralty]". Similar terminology was used in the United States legal system. The term has been rendered obsolete by the merger of the admiralty courts with tribunals of general jurisdiction and the adoption of simplified rules of civil procedure that specify "one form of action" for all claims.

Modern law

English law allows actions for libel to be brought in the High Court for any published statements which are alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual or individuals in a manner which causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of him, her or them.
A statement can include an implication. A large photograph of Tony Blair above a headline saying "Corrupt Politicians" might be held to be an allegation that Tony Blair was personally corrupt.

The allowable defences against libel are:
• Justification: the defendant proves that the statement was true. If the defence fails, a court may treat any material produced by the defence to substantiate it, and any ensuing media coverage, as factors aggravating the libel and increasing the damages. A statement quoting another person cannot be justified merely by proving that the other person had also made the statement: the substance of the allegation must be proved. The defence fails if the statement concerns spent convictions.[6]
• Fair Comment: the defendant shows that the statement was a view that a reasonable person could have held, even if they were motivated by dislike or hatred of the plaintiff.
• Privilege: the defendant's comments were made in Parliament or under oath in court of law or were an accurate and neutral report of such comments. There is also a defence of 'qualified privilege' under which people, who are not acting out of malice, may claim privilege for fair reporting of allegations which if true were in the public interest to be published. The leading modern English case on qualified privilege in the context of newspaper articles which are claimed to defame a public figure is now Reynolds v. Times Newspapers Ltd and Others, 1999 UKHL 45,[7] and the privilege has been widened by Jameel v. Wall Street Journal Europe 2006 UKHL 44, which has been described as giving British newspapers protections similar to the US First Amendment.

An offer of amends - typically a combination of correction, apology and/or financial compensation - is a barrier to litigation in the courts.
The 2006 case of Keith-Smith v Williams confirmed that discussions on the Internet were public enough for libel to take place.

Burden of proof on the defendant

In most legal systems the courts give the benefit of the doubt to the defendant. In criminal law, he or she is presumed innocent until the prosecution can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; whereas in civil law, he or she is presumed innocent until the plaintiff can show liability on a balance of probabilities. However, the common law of libel contains a kind of reverse-onus feature: a defamatory statement is presumed to be false unless the defendant can prove its truth. Furthermore, to collect compensatory damages, a public official or public figure must prove actual malice (knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth). A private individual must only prove negligence (not using due care) to collect compensatory damages. In order to collect punitive damages, all individuals must prove actual malice. The definition of "public figure" has varied over the years.

The English laws on libel have traditionally favored the plaintiffs. A recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights (in the so-called "McLibel case") held that, on the (exceptional) facts of that case, the burden on the defendants in the English courts was too high. However, it is unlikely that the case will provoke any considerable change in substantive English law, despite strong academic criticism of the current position.

In 1990, McDonald's Restaurants sued Morris & Steel (called the McLibel case) for libel. The original case lasted seven years, making it the longest-running court action in English history. Beginning in 1986, London Greenpeace, a small environmental campaigning group, distributed a pamphlet entitled What’s wrong with McDonald’s: Everything they don’t want you to know. The pamphlet claimed that the McDonald's corporation sells unhealthy food, exploits its work force, practices unethical marketing of its products towards children, is cruel to animals, needlessly uses up resources and creates pollution with its packaging and is responsible for destroying the South American rain forests. Although McDonald's won two hearings, the widespread public opinion against them turned the case into a matter of embarrassment for the company. McDonald's announced that it has no plans to collect the £40,000 it was awarded by the courts, and offered to pay the defendants to drop the case.

United States law
Development
Laws regulating slander and libel in the United States began to develop even before the American Revolution. In one of the most famous cases, New York publisher John Peter Zenger was imprisoned for 8 months in 1734 for printing attacks on the governor of the colony. Zenger won his case and was acquitted by jury in 1735 under the counsel of Andrew Hamilton. The case established some precedent that the truth should be an absolute defense against libel charges. Previous English defamation law had not provided this guarantee. This impacted the later formers of the U.S. constitution, including Gouverneur Morris, who said
The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America.
Zenger's case also established that libel cases, though they were civil rather than criminal cases, could be heard by a jury, which would have the authority to rule on the allegations and to set the amount of monetary damages awarded.[11]
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed specifically to protect freedom of the press. However, for most of the history of the United States, the Supreme Court neglected to use it to rule on libel cases. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional common law of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states.

In 1964, however, the court issued an opinion in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, dramatically changing the nature of libel law in the United States. In that case, the court determined that public officials could only win a suit for libel if they could demonstrate "actual malice" on the part of reporters or publishers. In that case, "actual malice" was defined as "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." This decision was later extended to cover "public figures", although the standard is still considerably lower in the case of private individuals.
In 1974, in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., (418 U.S. 323), the Supreme Court suggested that a plaintiff could not win a defamation suit when the statements in question were expressions of opinion rather than fact. In the words of the court, "under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea". However, the Court subsequently rejected the notion of a First Amendment opinion privilege, in Lorain Journal Co. v. Milkovich. In Gertz, the Supreme Court also established a mens rea or culpability requirement for defamation; states cannot impose strict liability because that would run afoul of the First Amendment. This holding differs significantly from most other common law jurisdictions, which still have strict liability for defamation.

In 1988, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, (485 U.S. 46), the Supreme Court ruled that a parody advertisement claiming Jerry Falwell had engaged in an incestuous act with his mother in an outhouse, while false, could not allow Falwell to win damages for emotional distress because the statement was so obviously ridiculous that it was clearly not true; an allegation believed by nobody, it was ruled, brought no liability upon the author. The court thus overturned a lower court's upholding of an award where the jury had decided against the claim of libel but had awarded damages for emotional distress.

After Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy, 1995 N.Y. Misc. Lexis 229 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995), applied the standard publisher/distributor test to find an online bulletin board liable for post by a third party, Congress specifically enacted 47 U.S.C. § 230 (1996) to reverse the Prodigy findings and to provide for private blocking and screening of offensive material. §230(c) states “that no provider or user of an interactive computer shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” thereby providing forums immunity for statements provided by third parties. Thereafter, cases such as Zeran v America Online, 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), and Blumenthal v Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44 (D.D.C. 1998), have demonstrated that although courts are expressly uneasy with applying §230, they are bound to find providers like AOL immune from defamatory postings. This immunity applies even if the providers are notified of defamatory material and neglect to remove it, due to the fact that provider liability upon notice would likely cause a flood of complaints to providers, would be a large burden on providers, and would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech on the Internet.

In November of 2006 the California Supreme Court ruled that 47 USC § 230(c)(1) does not permit web sites to be sued for libel that was written by other parties.

Defamation law in modern practice

Defamation law in the United States is much less plaintiff-friendly than its counterparts in European and the Commonwealth countries, due to the enforcement of the First Amendment. One very important distinction today is that European and Commonwealth jurisdictions adhere to a theory that every publication of a defamation gives rise to a separate claim, so that a defamation on the Internet could be sued on in any country in which it was read, while American law only allows one claim for the primary publication.

In the United States, a comprehensive discussion of what is and is not libel or slander is difficult, because the definition differs between different states, and under federal law. Some states codify what constitutes slander and libel together into the same set of laws. Some states have criminal libel laws on the books, though these are old laws which are very infrequently prosecuted.

Most defendants in defamation lawsuits are newspapers or publishers, which are involved in about twice as many lawsuits as are television stations. Most plaintiffs are corporations, businesspeople, entertainers and other public figures, and people involved in criminal cases, usually defendants or convicts but sometimes victims as well. Almost all states do not allow defamation lawsuits to be filed if the allegedly defamed person is deceased. No state allows the plaintiff to be a group of people.

In the various states, whether by case law or legislation, there are generally several "privileges" that can get a defamation case dismissed without proceeding to trial. These include the allegedly defamatory statement being one of opinion rather than fact; or being "fair comment and criticism", as it is important to society that everyone be able to comment on matters of public interest. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected the opinion privilege outright and has declined to hold that the "fair comment" privilege is a Constitutional imperative.

Defamation per se

All states except Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee recognize that some categories of statements are considered to be defamatory per se, such that people making a defamation claim for these statements do not need to prove that the statement was defamatory. In the common law tradition, damages for such statements are presumed and do not have to be proven. Traditionally, these per se defamatory statements include:

• Allegations or imputations "injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession"
• Allegations or imputations "of loathsome disease" (historically leprosy and sexually transmitted disease, now also including mental illness)
• Allegations or imputations of "unchastity" (usually only in unmarried people and sometimes only in women)
• Allegations or imputations of criminal activity (sometimes only crimes of moral turpitude)

Singapore law

Singapore has perhaps the world's strongest libel laws. The country's leaders have clearly indicated to the public that libel, as they choose to define it from time to time, on the Internet will not be tolerated and that those they deem responsible will be severely punished. On March 6, 1996, the government made providers and publishers liable for the content placed on the Internet. Even the owners of cybercafes may be held liable for libelous statements posted or possibly viewed in their establishments.

In 2001, a Singapore bank was fined SG$2 million (approx. 1 million euros or 1 million US$ at the time) for accidentally publishing a mildly libelous statement during the heated discussion of a takeover bid. The mistake was corrected very quickly, and there was no intent to do harm. In fact, it was reported that no harm seems to have been done. Nevertheless, the offended parties were awarded SG$1 million each. Apparently confirming the stringency of Singapore’s defamation law, Business Times declined to report on the matter because one of the libeled parties objected.

Australian law

Australian law tends to follow English law on defamation issues, although there are differences introduced by statute and by an implied constitutional limitation on governmental powers to limit speech of a political nature. As with England, Australia defines slander as communicating false or insulting words about someone directly or indirectly, verbally or through script.
A recent judgment of the High Court of Australia has significant consequences on interpretation of the law. On 10 December 2002, the High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v Dow Jones. The judgment, which established that Internet-published foreign publications that defamed an Australian in his or hers Australian reputation could be held accountable under Australian libel law, has gained worldwide attention and is often (although inaccurately, see for example Berezovsky v Forbes in England[16]) said to be the first of its kind; the case was subsequently settled.
Slander has been occasionally used to justify (and with some success) physical reaction, however usually the punishment for assault is only slightly reduced when there is evidence of provocation.
Among the various common law jurisdictions, some Americans have presented a visceral and vocal reaction to the Gutnick decision.On the other hand, the decision mirrors similar decisions in many other jurisdictions such as England, Scotland, France, Canada and Italy.

Criminal defamation

Defamation as a tort does not infringe the freedom of expression guarantee under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Coates v. The Citizen (1988), 44 C.C.L.T. 286 (N.S.S.C.). Defamatory libel is equally valid as a criminal offense under the Criminal Code, according to the Supreme Court of Canada: R. v. Lucas, [1998] 1 S.C.R. 439.
• Dom Martin v. The Times of India

Defenses

Defenses to claims of defamation include:
• Truth is an absolute defense in the United States as well as in Canada. In some other countries it is also necessary to show a benefit to the public good in having the information brought to light.

• Statements made in a good faith and reasonable belief that they were true are generally treated the same as true statements; however, the court may inquire into the reasonableness of the belief. The degree of care expected will vary with the nature of the defendant: an ordinary person might safely rely on a single newspaper report, while the newspaper would be expected to carefully check multiple sources.

• Privilege is a defense when witness testimony, attorneys' arguments, and judges' decisions, rulings, and statements made in court, or statements by legislators on the floor of the legislature, or statements made by a person to their spouse, are the cause for the claim. These statements are said to be privileged and cannot be cause for a defamation claim.

• Opinion is a defense recognized in nearly every jurisdiction. If the allegedly defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, defamation claims usually cannot be brought because opinions are inherently not falsifiable. However, some jurisdictions decline to recognize any legal distinction between fact and opinion. The United States Supreme Court, in particular, has ruled that the First Amendment does not require recognition of an opinion privilege.

• Fair comment on a matter of public interest, statements made with an honest belief in their truth on a matter of public interest (official acts) are defenses to a defamation claim, even if such arguments are logically unsound; if a reasonable person could honestly entertain such an opinion, the statement is protected.

• Consent is an uncommon defense and makes the claim that the claimant consented to the dissemination of the statement.

• Innocent dissemination is a defense available when a defendant had no actual knowledge of the defamatory statement or no reason to believe the statement was defamatory. The defense can be defeated if the lack of knowledge was due to negligence. Thus, a delivery service cannot be held liable for delivering a sealed defamatory letter.

• Claimant is incapable of further defamation–e.g., the claimant's position in the community is so poor that defamation could not do further damage to the plaintiff. Such a claimant could be said to be "libel-proof," since in most jurisdictions, actual damage is an essential element for a libel claim.

In addition to the above, the defendant may claim that the allegedly defamatory statement is not actually capable of being defamatory—an insulting statement that does not actually harm someone's reputation is prima facie not libelous.
Special rules apply in the case of statements made in the press concerning public figures. A series of court rulings led by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) established that for a public official (or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case, the statement must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard to its truth, (also known as actual malice).
Under United States law, libel generally requires five key elements. The plaintiff must prove that the information was published, the defendant was directly or indirectly identified, the remarks were defamatory towards the plaintiff's reputation, the published information is false, and that the defendant is at fault.
The Associated Press estimates that 95% of libel cases involving news stories do not arise from high-profile news stories, but "run of the mill" local stories like news coverage of local criminal investigations or trials, or business profiles. Media liability insurance is available to newspapers to cover potential damage awards from libel lawsuits.

Cyber law

2007-08-10T16:54:00.001+05:30

Cyber law

Cyber law is a term used to describe the legal issues related to use of communications technology, particularly "cyberspace", i.e. the Internet. It is less a distinct field of law in the way that property or contract are as it is an intersection of many legal fields, including intellectual property, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction. In essence, cyber law is an attempt to integrate the challenges presented by human activity on the Internet with legacy system of laws applicable to the physical world.

Jurisdiction and Sovereignty

Issues of jurisdiction and sovereignty have quickly come to the fore in the era of the Internet. The Internet does not tend to make geographical and jurisdictional boundaries clear, but Internet users remain in physical jurisdictions and are subject to laws independent of their presence on the Internet. As such, a single transaction may involve the laws of at least three jurisdictions: 1) the laws of the state/nation in which the user resides, 2) the laws of the state/nation that apply where the server hosting the transaction is located, and 3) the laws of the state/nation which apply to the person or business with whom the transaction takes place. So a user in one of the United States conducting a transaction with another user in Britain through a server in Canada could theoretically be subject to the laws of all three countries as they relate to the transaction at hand.
Jurisdiction is an aspect of state sovereignty and it refers to judicial, legislative and administrative competence. Although jurisdiction is an aspect of sovereignty, it is not coextensive with it. The laws of a nation may have extra-territorial impact extending the jurisdiction beyond the sovereign and territorial limits of that nation. This is particularly problematic as the medium of the Internet does not explicitly recognize sovereignty and territorial limitations. There is no uniform, international jurisdictional law of universal application, and such questions are generally a matter of conflict of laws, particularly private international law. An example would be where the contents of a web site are legal in one country and illegal in another. In the absence of a uniform jurisdictional code, legal practitioners are generally left with a conflict of law issue.
Another major problem of cyber law lies in whether to treat the Internet as if it were physical space (and thus subject to a given jurisdiction's laws) or to act as if the Internet is a world unto itself (and therefore free of such restraints). Those who favor the latter view often feel that government should leave the Internet community to self-regulate. John Perry Barlow, for example, has addressed the governments of the world and stated, "Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different" (Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace ). A more balanced alternative is the Declaration of Cybersecession ("Human beings possess a mind, which they are absolutely free to inhabit with no legal constraints. Human civilization is developing its own (collective) mind. All we want is to be free to inhabit it with no legal constraints. Since you make sure we cannot harm you, you have no ethical right to intrude our lives. So stop intruding!"). Other scholars argue for more of a compromise between the two notions, such as Lawrence Lessig's argument that "The problem for law is to work out how the norms of the two communities are to apply given that the subject to whom they apply may be in both places at once" (Lessig, Code 190).
Though arguably rhetorically attractive, "cybersecession" has had little real impact on the Internet or the laws governing it. In practical terms, a user of the Internet is subject to the laws of the state or nation within which he or she goes online. Thus, in the U.S., Jake Baker faced criminal charges for his e-conduct (see Free Speech), and numerous users of peer-to-peer file-sharing software were subject to civil lawsuits for copyright infringement. This system runs into conflicts, however, when these suits are international in nature. Simply put, legal conduct in one nation may be decidedly illegal in another. In fact, even different standards concerning the burden of proof in a civil case can cause jurisdictional problems. For example, an American celebrity, claiming to be insulted by an online American magazine, faces a difficult task of winning a lawsuit against that magazine for libel. But if the celebrity has ties, economic or otherwise, to England, her or she can sue for libel in the British court system, where the standard of “libelous speech” is far lower.

Net Neutrality

Another major area of interest is net neutrality, which affects the regulation of the infrastructure of the Internet. Though not obvious to most Internet users, every packet of data sent and received by every user on the Internet passes through routers and transmission infrastructure owned by a collection of private and public entities, including telecommunications companies, universities, and governments, suggesting that the Internet is not as independent as Barlow and others would like to believe. This is turning into one of the most critical aspects of cyber law and has immediate jurisdictional implications, as laws in force in one jurisdiction have the potential to have dramatic effects in other jurisdictions when host servers or telecommunications companies are affected.

Free Speech in Cyberspace

In comparison to traditional print-based media, the accessibility and relative anonymity of cyber space has torn down traditional barriers between an individual and his or her ability to publish. Any person with an internet connection has the potential to reach an audience of millions with little-to-no distribution costs. Yet this new form of highly-accessible authorship in cyber space raises questions and perhaps magnifies legal complexities relating to the freedom and regulation of speech in cyberspace.

Recently, these complexities have taken many forms, three notable examples being the Jake Baker incident, in which the limits of obscene Internet postings were at issue, the controversial distribution of the DeCSS code, and Gutnick v Dow Jones, in which libel laws were considered in the context of online publishing. The last example was particularly significant because it epitomized the complexities inherent to applying one country's laws (nation-specific by definition) to the internet (international by nature). In 2003, Jonathan Zittrain considered this issue in his paper, "Be Careful What You Ask For: Reconciling a Global Internet and Local Law" .
In many countries, speech through cyberspace has proven to be another means of communication which has been regulated by the government. The Open Net Initiative, , whose mission statement is "to investigate and challenge state filtration and surveillance practices" in order to "...generate a credible picture of these practices," has released numerous reports documenting the filtration of internet-speech in various countries. While China has thus far proven to be the most rigorous in its attempts to filter unwanted parts of the internet from its citizens , many other countries - including Singapore, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia - have engaged in similar practices. In one of the most vivid examples of information-control, the Chinese government for a short time transparently forwarded requests to the Google search engine to its own, state-controlled search engines. These examples of filtration bring to light many underlying questions concerning the freedom of speech, namely, does the government have a legitimate role in limiting access to information? And if so, what forms of regulation are acceptable? The recent blocking of "blogspot" and other websites in India failed to reconcile the conflicting interests of speech and expression on the one hand and legitimate government concerns on the other hand.

In the UK the case of Keith-Smith v Williams confirmed that existing libel laws applied to internet discussions.

Governance

The unique structure of the Internet has raised several judicial concerns. While grounded in physical computers and other electronic devices, the Internet is independent of any geographic location. While real individuals connect to the Internet and interact with others, it is possible for them to withhold personal information and make their real identities anonymous. If there are laws that could govern the Internet, then it appears that such laws would be fundamentally different from laws that geographic nations use today.

In their essay "Law and Borders -- The Rise of Law in Cyberspace," David Johnson and David Post offer a solution to the problem of Internet governance. Given the Internet's unique situation, with respect to geography and identity, Johnson and Post believe that it becomes necessary for the Internet to govern itself. Instead of obeying the laws of a particular country, Internet citizens will obey the laws of electronic entities like service providers. Instead of identifying as a physical person, Internet citizens will be known by their usernames or email addresses. Since the Internet defies geographical boundaries, national laws will no longer apply. Instead, an entirely new set of laws will be created to address concerns like intellectual property and individual rights. In effect, the Internet will exist as its own sovereign nation.

Even if the Internet represents a legal paradigm shift, Johnson and Post do not make clear exactly how or by whom the law of the Internet will be enforced. Instead, the authors see market mechanisms, like those that Medieval merchants used, guiding Internet citizens' actions like Adam Smith's invisible hand. Yet, as more physical locations go online, the greater the potential for physical manifestation of electronic misdeeds. What do we do when someone electronically turns off the hospital lights?

However, there is also substantial literature and commentary that the internet is not only “regulable,” but is already subject to substantial regulation, both public and private, by many parties and at many different levels. Leaving aside the most obvious examples of internet filtering in nations like China or Saudi Arabia (that monitor content), there are four primary modes of regulation of the internet described by Lawrence Lessig in his book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace:
1. Law: Standard East Coast Code, and the most self-evident of the four modes of regulation. As the numerous statutes, evolving case law and precedents make clear, many actions on the internet are already subject to conventional legislation (both with regard to transactions conducted on the internet and images posted). Areas like gambling, child pornography, and fraud are regulated in very similar ways online as off-line. While one of the most controversial and unclear areas of evolving laws is the determination of what forum has subject matter jurisdiction over activity (economic and other) conducted on the internet, particularly as cross border transactions affect local jurisdictions, it is certainly clear that substantial portions of internet activity are subject to traditional regulation, and that conduct that is unlawful off-line is presumptively unlawful online, and subject to similar laws and regulations. Scandals with major corporations led to US legislation rethinking corporate governance regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

2. Architecture: West Coast Code: these mechanisms concern the parameters of how information can and cannot be transmitted across the internet. Everything from internet filtering software (which searches for keywords or specific URLs and blocks them before they can even appear on the computer requesting them), to encryption programs, to the very basic architecture of TCP/IP protocol, falls within this category of regulation. It is arguable that all other modes of regulation either rely on, or are significantly supported by, regulation via West Coast Code.

3. Norms: As in all other modes of social interaction, conduct is regulated by social norms and conventions in significant ways. While certain activities or kinds of conduct online may not be specifically prohibited by the code architecture of the internet, or expressly prohibited by applicable law, nevertheless these activities or conduct will be invisibly regulated by the inherent standards of the community, in this case the internet “users.” And just as certain patterns of conduct will cause an individual to be ostracized from our real world society, so too certain actions will be censored or self-regulated by the norms of whatever community one chooses to associate with on the internet.

4. Markets: Closely allied with regulation by virtue of social norms, markets also regulate certain patterns of conduct on the internet. While economic markets will have limited influence over non-commercial portions of the internet, the internet also creates a virtual marketplace for information, and such information affects everything from the comparative valuation of services to the traditional valuation of stocks. In addition, the increase in popularity of the internet as a means for transacting all forms of commercial activity, and as a forum for advertisement, has brought the laws of supply and demand in cyberspace.

Internet Regulation in Other Countries

While there is some United States law that does restrict access to materials on the internet, it does not truly filter the internet. Many Asian and Middle Eastern nations use any number of combinations of code-based regulation (one of Lessig's four methods of net regulation) to block material that their governments have deemed inappropriate for their citizens to view. China and Saudi Arabia are two excellent examples of nations that have achieved high degrees of success in regulating their citizens access to the internet (for further reading, please see ONI's studies on both: http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/saudi/ and http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/)

Intercultural Communication Defined

2007-08-10T16:53:00.001+05:30

Intercultural Communication Defined

Intercultural Communication is the management of messages for the purpose of creating meaning across cultures. Culture, according to Philipsen, is defined as “A socially constructed and historically transmitted pattern of symbols, meanings, apprentices, and rules.” In other words, culture is a code.

Zoetrope

2007-08-10T16:52:00.000+05:30

Zoetrope

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.

It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. Beneath the slits, on the inner surface of the cylinder, is a band which has either individual frames from a video/film or images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder's interior. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, so that the user sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, the equivalent of a motion picture. Cylindrical zoetropes have the property of causing the images to appear thinner than their actual sizes when viewed in motion through the slits.

Invention

The zoetrope was invented in 1834 by George Horner, who called it a "daedalum" or "daedatelum". Horner based his device on the Phenakistiscope built in 1832 by Joseph Plateau. A device similar to Horner's was described by John Bate in The Mysteries of Nature and Art in 1634. In fact, the earliest elementary zoetrope was created in China around 180 A.D. by the prolific inventor Ting Huan (丁緩). Driven by convection, Ting Huan's device hung over a lamp. The rising air turned vanes at the top, from which were hung translucent paper or mica panels. Pictures painted on the panels would appear to move if the device spun fast enough.

Modern times

The praxinoscope was an improvement on the zoetrope that became popular toward the end of the nineteenth century.

The earliest projected moving images were displayed by using a magic lantern zoetrope. This crude projection of moving images occurred as early as the 1860s. A magic lantern praxinoscope was demonstrated in the 1880s.

Zoetrope development continues into the twenty-first century, primarily with the "Linear zoetrope." A linear zoetrope consists of an opaque linear screen with thin vertical slits in it. Behind each slit is an image, often illuminated. One views the motion-picture by moving past the display.

Linear zoetropes have several differences compared to cylindrical zoetropes that derive from their different geometries. They can have arbitrarily long animations. They also cause images to appear wider than their actual sizes when viewed in motion through the slits.

In September 1980, independent film-maker Bill Brand installed a type of linear zoetrope he called the "Masstransiscope" in an unused subway platform in Brooklyn, New York. It consisted of a linear wall with 228 slits in the face. Behind each slit was a hand-painted panel. Riders in subways moving past the display saw a motion-picture within.

Joshua Spodek, as an astrophysics graduate student, conceived of and led the development of a class of linear zoetropes that saw the first commercial success of a zoetrope in over a century. A display of his design debuted in September 2001 in a tunnel of the Atlanta subway system and showed an advertisement to riders moving past. That display is internally lit and nearly 300 meters long. Its motion-picture was about twenty seconds long.

His design soon appeared in subway systems elsewhere in North America, Asia, and Europe. Joshua has also participated in a renaissance in zoetrope related art and other noncommercial expression.

In April 2006, the Washington Metro installed advertising using the zoetrope system between the Metro Center and Gallery Place subway stations.[5] A similar advertisement is installed on the PATH train in New Jersey, between the World Trade Center and Exchange Place stations.

The term zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, "life" and trope, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life" or "living wheel."

Zoetrope is a theatrical production created by Kinematic Theatre, utilising aerial artists. Debuted at the Rose Theatre, Rose Bruford College. Score composed by Simon Slater, Lighting Designed/Co-Directed by Karl Lawton, Directed and Designed by Andy Sinclair-Harris.

The Ghibli Museum hosts a zoetrope using 3D figures on a rotating disk. Rather than slits or mirrors, a strobing LED is used. The animation on this zoetrope is inspired by My Neighbour Totoro.

Pixar created a zoetrope inspired by Ghibli's for its 20th anniversary celebration at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring characters from Toy Story.
In 1998, following the success of the movie Titanic, a rumor started on the internet that the film was going to be released on the zoetrope. Although this was clearly impossible, it was picked up by a Delaware radio station as a real news story. The presenter said 'and it's coming out on the zoetrope, whatever that is.'

Printing

2007-08-10T16:51:00.000+05:30

Printing

The folder of newspaper web offset printing press
Printing is a process for production of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.

History

Block printing

Block printing in China
Woodblock printing on paper, whereby individual sheets were pressed against wooden blocks with the text and illustrations carved into them, was first recorded in China in the Tang Dynasty, although as a method for printing patterns on cloth the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220[1] , and from Egypt to the 6th or 7th centuries.

In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first mentioned in his book "Yuan Xian San Ji" that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist scripture during the Zhenguan years (627~649 A.D.). The oldest known surviving printed work is a woodblock-printed Buddhist scripture in Chinese of Wu Zetian period (684~705 A.D.); discovered in Tubofan, Xinjiang province, China in 1906, it is now stored in a calligraphy museum in Tokyo, Japan. The oldest surviving documented printed book, a copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, is dated 848 AD, but a recent excavation at a Korean pagoda may have unearthed an even earlier Buddhist text dating to AD 750-751. In the modern Chinese historiography, printing is considered one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China.

In a memorial to the throne in 1023, Northern Song Dynasty China, it recorded that the central government at that time used copperplate to print the paper money also the copper-block to print the numbers and characters on the money, nowadays we can find these shadows from the Song paper money. Later in the Jin Dynasty, people used the same but more developed technique to print paper money and formal official documents, the typical example of this kind of movable copper-block printing is a printed "check" of Jin Dynasty in the year of 1215.

Block printing in Europe

Block printing came to Christian Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the medium transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onwards.

Around the mid-century, block-books, woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with moveable type. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the range of estimated dates being between about 1440-1460.

The volume of Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China dealing with Paper and printing has a chapter that suggests that "European block printers must not only have seen Chinese samples, but perhaps had been taught by missionaries or others who had learned these un-European methods from Chinese printers during their residence in China.", but he also admitted that the "only evidence of European printing transmitted from China is a lack of counterevidence".

Movable type printing.

Movable type allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing.
In East Asia
For a description of
• the oldest surviving metal type
• early books printed with such metal type
• the oldest surviving movable metal print book printed in Korea in 1377,
• the Korean font casting process as recorded by Song Hyon in the 15th c., and
• problems due to the nature of the Chinese language
Movable type printing was first invented in 1041 by Bi Sheng in China. Sheng used clay type, which broke easily, but Wang Zhen later carved a more durable type from wood by 1298 AD, and developed a complex system of revolving tables and number-association with written Chinese characters that made typesetting and printing more efficient.

The transition from wood type to metal type occurred during the Goryeo Dynasty of Korea and is credited to Chae Yun-ui (채윤의). Records indicate that by 1234, books were being printed in Korea with movable metal type, though the earliest surviving text is from 1377. In China metal movable type was not pioneered until the work of the printer Hua Sui in 1490 AD. Movable type was widely used in China in both wooden and metal type printing, yet the European-style printing press introduced to China in relatively recent times greatly increased the efficiency and speed of printing.
East Asian printing technology may possibly have diffused into Europe through the trade routes from China through India or the Arabic world. There is no actual evidence that Gutenberg may have known of the Korean processes for movable type. However, some authors admit this possibility,[7] and argue that movable metal type had been an active enterprise in Korea since 1234 and there was communication between West and East.

In Europe
Johann Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz, developed European printing technology in 1440, with which the classical age of printing began. Also, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer experimented with him in Mainz. Genealogically, all modern movable type printing can be traced back to a single source, Gutenberg's printing press which he derived from the design of long known agricultural presses. East Asian style movable type printing, which was based on laborious manual rubbing and which had been scarcely used, practically died out after the introduction of European style printing in the 15th century.

Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than previously used water-based inks. Having worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. Gutenberg was also the first to make his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, which was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books, and proved to be more suitable for printing than the clay, wooden or bronze types used in East Asia. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what some considered his most ingenious invention, a special matrix wherewith the moulding of new movable types with an unprecedented precision at short notice became feasible. Within a year after his B42, Gutenberg also published the first coloured prints.

Gutenberg's invention of the printing press revolutionized communication and book production leading to the spread of knowledge. Rapidly, printing spread from Germany by emigrating German printers, but also by foreign apprentices returning home. A printing press was built in Venice in 1469, and by 1500 the city had 417 printers. In 1470 Johann Heynlin set up a printing press in Paris. In 1473 Kasper Straube published the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 in Kraków. Dirk Martens set up a printing press in Aalst (Flanders) in 1473. He printed a book about the two lovers of Enea Piccolomini who became pope Pius II.In 1476 a printing press was set up in England by William Caxton. Belarusian Francysk Skaryna printed the first book in Slavic language on August 6, 1517. The Italian Juan Pablos set up an imported press in Mexico City in 1539. Stephen Day was the first to build a printing press in North America at Massachusetts Bay in 1638, and helped establish the Cambridge Press.

Printing houses

Early printing houses (near the time of Gutenberg) were run by "master printers." These printers owned shops, selected and edited manuscripts, determined the sizes of print runs, sold the works they produced, raised capital and organized distribution. Some master printing houses became the cultural centre for literati such as Erasmus.
• Print shop apprentices: Apprentices, usually between the ages of 15 and 20, worked for master printers. Apprentices were not required to be literate, and literacy rates at the time were very low, in comparison to today. Apprentices prepared ink, dampened sheets of paper, and assisted at the press. An apprentice who wished to learn to become a compositor had to learn Latin and spend time under the supervision of a journeyman.

• Journeyman printers: After completing their apprenticeships, journeyman (so called from the French "journée" for day) printers were free to move employers. This facilitated the spread of printing to areas that were less print-centred.

• Compositors: Those who set the type for printing.

• Pressmen: the person who worked the press. This was physically labour intensive.
The earliest-known image of a European, Gutenberg-style print shop is the Dance of Death by Matthias Huss, at Lyon, 1499. This image depicts a compositor standing at a compositor's case being grabbed by a skeleton. The case is raised to facilitate his work. The image also shows a pressman being grabbed by a skeleton. At the right of the printing house a bookshop is shown.

Financial aspects

Court records from the city of Mainz document that Johannes Fust was, for some time, Gutenberg's financial backer.

By the sixteenth century jobs associated with printing were becoming increasingly specialized. Structures supporting publishers were more and more complex, leading to this division of labour. In Europe between 1500 and 1700 the role of the Master Printer was dying out and giving way to the bookseller – publisher. Printing during this period had a stronger commercial imperative than previously. Risks associated with the industry however were substantial, although dependent on the nature of the publication.

Bookseller publishers negotiated at trade fairs and at print shops. Jobbing work appeared in which printers did menial tasks in the beginning of their careers to support themselves.

1500 – 1700: Publishers developed several new methods of funding projects.
1. Cooperative associations/publication syndicates—a number of individuals shared the risks associated with printing and shared in the profit. This was pioneered by the French.

2. Subscription publishing—pioneered by the English in the early 17th century.[citation needed] A prospectus for a publication was drawn up by a publisher to raise funding. The prospectus was given to potential buyers who signed up for a copy. If there were not enough subscriptions the publication did not go ahead. Lists of subscribers were included in the books as endorsements. If enough people subscribed a reprint might occur. Some authors used subscription publication to bypass the publisher entirely.

3. Installment publishing—books were issued in parts until a complete book had been issued. This was not necessarily done with a fixed time period. It was an effective method of spreading cost over a period of time. It also allowed earlier returns on investment to help cover production costs of subsequent installments.
The Mechanick Exercises, by Joseph Moxon, in London, 1683, was said to be the first publication done in installments.

Publishing trade organizations allowed publishers to organize business concerns collectively. Systems of self-regulation occurred in these arrangements. For example, if one publisher did something to irritate other publishers he would be controlled by peer pressure. Such systems are known as cartels, and are in most countries now considered to be in restraint of trade. These arrangements helped deal with labour unrest among journeymen, who faced difficult working conditions. Brotherhoods predated unions, without the formal regulations now associated with unions.

In most cases, publishers bought the copyright in a work from the author, and made some arrangement about the possible profits. This required a substantial amount of capital in addition to the capital for the physical equipment and staff, Alternatively, an author who had sufficient money would sometimes keep the copyright himself, and simply pay the printer for the production of the book. For further developments, see main article:copyright

At the end of the eighteenth century there were several remarkable innovations in the graphic techniques and those that were utilized to make their materials. Bewick developed the method of using engraving tools on the end of the wood. Senefelder discovered lithography. Blake made relief etchings.

Nineteenth century innovations

Early in the nineteenth century Stanhope, George E. Clymer, Koenig and others introduced new kinds of type presses, which for strength surpassed anything that had previously been known.

Bryan Donkin developed a commercial application of the Fourdrinier machine and invented the composition roller.

Modern printing technology

In 2006 there were approximately 30,700 printing companies in the United States, accounting for $112 billion, according to the 2006 U.S. Industry & Market Outlook by Barnes Reports. Print jobs that move through the Internet made up 12.5% of the total U.S. Printing market last year, according to research firm InfoTrend/CAP Ventures.
Books and newspapers are printed today using the technique of offset lithography. Other common techniques include
• flexography used for packaging, labels, newspapers
• relief print, (mainly used for catalogues),
• screen printing from T-shirts to floor tiles
• rotogravure mainly used for magazines and packaging,
• inkjet used typically to print a small number of books or packaging, and also to print a variety of materials from high quality papers simulate offset printing, to floor tiles; Inkjet is also used to apply mailing addresses to direct mail pieces
• hot wax dye transfer
• laser printing mainly used in offices and for transactional printing (bills, bank documents). Laser printing is commonly used by direct mail companies to create variable data letters or coupons, for example.

Gravure

For gravure printing, the image to be printed is made up of small holes sunk into the surface of the printing plate. The cells are filled with ink and the excess is scraped off the surface, then a rubber-covered roller presses paper onto the surface of the plate and into contact with the ink in the cells. The printing plates are usually made from copper and may be produced by engraving or etching.
Gravure printing is used for long, high-quality print runs such as magazines, mail-order catalogues, packaging, and printing onto fabric and wallpaper. It is also used for printing postage stamps and decorative plastic laminates, such as kitchen worktops.

Digital printing

Printing at home or in an office or engineering environment is subdivided into:
• small format (up to ledger size paper sheets), as used in business offices and libraries
• wide format (up to 3' or 914mm wide rolls of paper), as used in drafting and design establishments.
Some of the more common printing technologies are
• line printing — where pre-formed characters are applied to the paper by lines
• daisy wheel — where pre-formed characters are applied individually
• dot-matrix — which produces arbitrary patterns of dots with an array of printing studs
• heat transfer — like early fax machines or modern receipt printers that apply heat to special paper, which turns black to form the printed image
• blueprint — and related chemical technologies
• inkjet — including bubble-jet — where ink is sprayed onto the paper to create the desired image
• laser — where toner consisting primarily of polymer with pigment of the desired colours is melted and applied directly to the paper to create the desired image.
Vendors typically stress the total cost to operate the equipment, involving complex calculations that include all cost factors involved in the operation as well as the capital equipment costs, amortization, etc. For the most part, toner systems beat inkjet in the long run, whereas inkjets are less expensive in the initial purchase price.

Professional digital printing (using toner) primarily uses an electrical charge to transfer toner or liquid ink to the substrate it is printed on. Digital print quality has steadily improved from early color and black & white copiers to sophisticated colour digital presses like the Xerox iGen3, the Kodak Nexpress and the HP Indigo Digital Press series. The iGen3 and Nexpress use toner particles and the Indigo uses liquid ink. All three are made for small runs and variable data, and rival offset in quality. Digital offset presses are called direct imaging presses; although these receive computer files and automatically turn them into print-ready plates, they cannot insert variable data.

Small press and fanzines generally use digital printing or more rarely xerography. Prior to the introduction of cheap photocopying the use of machines such as the spirit duplicator, hectograph, and mimeograph was common.

New folk media

2007-08-10T16:50:00.000+05:30

New folk media

New Folk Media is a developing movement in experimental film and video art which is concerned with the use of existing media for artistic expression without regard for copyright or ownership. The movement traces it's roots in Joseph Cornell and his film Rose Hobart and other found footage films. It can also be traced to Sergei Eisenstein's aborted film project Que Viva Mexico which has been edited by countless filmmakers and artists including Kenneth Anger. Other early examples that have influenced the development of New Folk Media can be found in the works of Bruce Conner, Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, Craig Baldwin and Kenneth Anger.

New Folk Media is a reaction to the growing ownership of every form of media. Practitioners of New Folk Media consider existing media to be the same as paint or words that can be used by the artist to create a new work.

New Folk Media is also often concerned with issues such as post-colonialism and ownership of culture. Often the works involve world cultural events that are broadcast on television, but according to practitioners of New Folk Media are not truly owned by anyone because they are part of world culture. Through there works this group of artists seek to represent these televised cultural events in a personal way, creating a new meaning for the media as it relates to their own experience of the event.

Youtube can be seen as part of the New Folk Media movement, as many videos are mash-ups of pre-existing content given new meaning. Snakes on a Plane is also considered by some to have some relationship to New Folk Media, although there is no consensus regarding it's inclusion in the movement.

The earliest definitive examples of the movement include Inauguration (2004), Brooklyn Waterfront/North Sixth (2004) and Televised Pope Funeral (2004).
Other influences on the movement include the sampling in music such as the KLF and Negativeland.

New Folk Media is also seen as a descendant of Pop Art and Post-Modernism, but it is generally considered a 21st Century art movement.

Interpersonal Communication Defined

2007-08-10T16:47:00.000+05:30

Interpersonal Communication Defined

An interactional process between two people (a dyad),
either face-to-face or through mediated forms.

Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis for interpersonal communication is the dyad or the relationship itself.

Interpersonal Perspectives

There are four specific perspectives from which to study interpersonal communication:
Relational (Qualitative)

Communication in which the roles of sender and receiver are shared
by two people simultaneously in order to create meaning.

Situational (Contextual)

Communication that occurs between two people in a specific context.

Quantitative

Dyadic interactions, including impersonal communication.

Functional (Strategic)

Communication for the purpose of achieving interpersonal goals.

History of Broadcasting

2007-08-10T16:43:00.000+05:30

History of broadcasting
Broadcasting around the World
United States

Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait.
Defining exactly when broadcasting first began is difficult. Very early radio transmissions only carried the dots and dashes of wireless telegraphy. One of the first signals of significant power that carried voice and music was accomplished in 1906 by Reginald Fessenden when he made a Christmas Eve broadcast to ships at sea from Massachusetts. He played "O Holy Night" on his violin and read passages from the Bible. However, his financial backers lost interest in the project, leaving others to take the next steps. Early on, the concept of broadcasting was new and unusual—with telegraphs, communication had been one-to-one, not one-to-many. Sending out one-way messages to multiple receivers didn't seem to have much practical use.
Charles Herrold of San Jose, California sent out broadcasts as early as April 1909 from his Herrold School electronics institute in downtown San Jose, using the identification San Jose Calling, and then a variety of different call signs as the Department of Commerce began to regulate radio. His station was first called FN, then SJN (probably illegally). By 1912, the United States government began requiring radio operators to obtain licenses to send out signals. Herrold received licenses for 6XF and 6XE (a mobile transmitter) in 1916.

He was on the air daily for nearly a decade when World War I interrupted operations. After the war, the Herrold operation in San Jose received the callsign KQW in 1923. Today, the lineage of that continues as KCBS, a CBS-owned station in San Francisco.
Herrold, the son of a farmer who patented a seed spreader, coined the terms broadcasting and narrowcasting, [verification needed] based on the ideas of spreading crop seed far and wide, rather than only in rows. While Herrold never claimed the invention of radio itself, he did claim the invention of broadcasting to a wide audience, through the use of antennas designed to radiate signals in all directions.

A few organizations were allowed to keep working on radio during the war. Westinghouse was the most well-known of these. Frank Conrad, a Westinghouse engineer, had been making transmissions from 8XK since 1916 that included music programming.

However, a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison headed by Professor Earle M. Terry also had permission to be on the air. They operated 9XM, originally licensed by Professor Edward Bennett in 1914, and usually sent Morse code weather reports to ships on the Great Lakes, but they also experimented with voice broadcasts starting in 1917. They reportedly had difficulties with audio distortion, so the next couple of years were spent making transmissions distortion-free.
Following the war, Herrold and other radio pioneers across the country resumed transmissions. The early stations gained new call signs. 8XK became KDKA in 1920. Herrold received a license for KQW in 1921 (later to become KCBS). 9XM became WHA in 1922.

The National Broadcasting Company began regular broadcasting in 1926, with telephone links between New York and other Eastern cities. NBC became the dominant radio network, splitting into Red and Blue networks.
The Columbia Broadcasting System began in 1927 under the guidance of William S. Paley.

Several independent stations formed the Mutual Broadcasting System to exchange syndicated programming, including The Lone Ranger and Amos 'n' Andy.
A Federal Communnications Commission decision in 1939 required NBC to divest itself of its Blue Network. That decision was sustained by the Supreme Court in a 1943 decision, National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, which established the framework that the "scarcity" of radio-frequency meant that broadcasting was subject to greater regulation than other media. This Blue Network network became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Around 1946, ABC, NBC, and CBS began regular television broadcasts. Another TV network, the DuMont Television Network, was founded earlier, but was disbanded in 1956.

Britain

The first experimental broadcasts, from Marconi's factory in Chelmsford, began in 1920.

Two years later, a consortium of radio manufacturers formed the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This broadcast continued till its licence expired at the end of 1926. The company then became the British Broadcasting Corporation, a non-commercial organisation. Its governors are appointed by the government but they did not answer to it.

Lord Reith took a formative role in developing the BBC, especially in radio. Working as its first manager and Director-General, he promoted the philosophy of public service broadcasting, firmly grounded in the moral benefits of education and of uplifting entertainment, eschewing commercial influence and maintaining a maximum of independence from political control.

Commercial stations such as Radio Normandie and Radio Luxembourg broadcast into the UK from other European countries. This provided a very popular alternative to the rather austere BBC. These stations were closed during the War, and only Radio Luxembourg returned afterward.

BBC television broadcasts in Britain began on November 2, 1936, and continued until wartime conditions closed the service in 1939.

Germany

Before the Nazi assumption of power in 1933, German radio broadcasting was supervised by the Post Office. A listening fee of 2 Reichsmark per receiver paid most subsidies.

Immediately following Hitler's assumption of power, Joseph Goebbels became head of the Ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. Non-Nazis were removed from broadcasting and editorial positions. Jews were fired from all positions.
The Reichsrundfunk programming began to decline in popularity as the theme of Kampfzeit was continually played. Germany was easily served by a number of European mediumwave stations, including the BBC and domestic stations in France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Sweden, and Poland. It became illegal for Germans to listen to foreign broadcasts. (Foreign correspondents and key officials were exempt from this rule).

During the war, German stations broadcast not only war propaganda and entertainment for German forces dispersed through Europe and the Atlantic, but provided air raid alerts.

Germany experimented with television broadcasting before the Second World War, using a 180-line raster system beginning before 1935. German propaganda claimed the system was superior to the British mechanical scanning system, but this was subject to debate by persons who saw the broadcasts.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has the oldest radio station in Asia. The station was known as Radio Ceylon. It developed into one of the finest broadcasting institutions in the world. It is now known as the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.
Sri Lanka created broadcasting history in Asia when broadcasting was started in Ceylon by the Telegraph Department in 1923 on an experimental footing, just three years after the inauguration of broadcasting in Europe.

Gramophone music was broadcast from a tiny room in the Central Telegraph Office with the aid of a small transmitter built by the Telegraph Department engineers from the radio equipment of a captured German submarine.

This broadcasting experiment was a huge success and barely three years later, on December 16, 1925, a regular broadcasting service came to be instituted. Edward Harper who came to Ceylon as Chief Engineer of the Telegraph Office in 1921, was the first person to actively promote broadcasting in Ceylon.
Edward Harper launched the first experimental broadcast as well as founding the Ceylon Wireless Club together with British and Ceylonese radio enthusiasts. Edward Harper has been dubbed ' the Father of Broadcasting in Ceylon.'
The 1950s and 1960s

United States

Television began to replace radio as the chief source of revenue for broadcasting networks. Although many radio programs continued through this decade, including Gunsmoke and The Guiding Light, by 1960 networks had ceased producing entertainment programs.

As radio stopped producing formal fifteen-minute to hourly programs, a new format developed. "Top 40" was based on a continuous rotation of short pop songs presented by a "disc jockey." Famous disc jockeys in the era included Alan Freed, Dick Clark, Don Imus and Wolfman Jack. Top 40 playlists were theoretically based on record sales; however, record companies began to bribe disc jockeys to play selected artists, in what was called payola.

In the 1950s, American television networks introduced broadcasts in color. (The Federal Communications Commission approved the world's first monochrome-compatible color television standard in Dec., 1953. The first network colorcast followed on Jan. 1, 1954, with NBC transmitting the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. to over 20 stations across the country.) An educational television network, National Educational Television (NET), predecessor to PBS, was founded.
Shortwave broadcasting played an important part of fighting the cold war with Voice of America and the BBC World Service augmented with Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty transmitting through the "Iron Curtain", and Radio Moscow and others broadcasting back, as well as jamming (transmitting to cause intentional interference)the western voices.

Britain

Radio Luxembourg remained popular during the 1950s but saw its audience decline as commercial television and pirate radio, combined with a switch to a less clear frequency, began to erode its influence.
BBC television resumed on June 7, 1946, and commercial television began on September 22, 1955. Both used the pre-war 405-line standard.

BBC2 came on the air on April 20, 1964, using the 625-line standard, and began PAL colour transmissions on July 1, 1967, the first in Europe. The two older networks transmitted in 625-line colour from 1969.

During the 1960s there was still no UK-based commercial radio. A number of 'pirate' radio ships, located in international waters just outside the jurisdiction of English law, came on the air between 1964 and 1967. The most famous of these was Radio Caroline, which was the only station to continue broadcasting after the offshore pirates were effectively outlawed on August 14, 1967 by the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act. It was finally forced off air due to a dispute over tendering payments, but returned in 1972 and continued on and off until 1989. The station still broadcasts, nowadays using satellite carriers and internet.

Germany

When the Federal Republic of Germany was organized in 1949, its Enabling Act established strong state government powers. Broadcasting was organized on a state, rather than a national, basis. Nine regional radio networks were established. A technical coordinating organization, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der offentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ARD), came into being in 1950 to lessen technical conflicts.

The Allied forces in Europe developed their own radio networks, including the U.S. American Forces Network (AFN). Inside Berlin, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became a key source of news in the German Democratic Republic.
Germany began developing a network of VHF FM broadcast stations in 1955 because of the excessive crowding of the mediumwave and shortwave broadcast bands.

Sri Lanka

Radio Ceylon ruled the airwaves in the 1950s and 1960s in the Indian sub-continent. The station developed into the most popular radio network in South Asia. Millions of listeners in India for example tuned into Radio Ceylon.

Announcers like Livy Wijemanne, Vernon Corea, Pearl Ondaatje, Tim Horshington, Greg Roskowski, Jimmy Bharucha, Mil Sansoni, Eardley Peiris, Shirley Perera, Bob Harvie, Christopher Greet, Prosper Fernando, Ameen Sayani (of Binaca Geetmala fame),Karunaratne Abeysekera, S.P.Mylvaganam (the first Tamil Announcer on the Commercial Service) were hugely popular across South Asia.

The Hindi Service also helped build Radio Ceylon's reputation as the market leader in the Indian sub-continent. Gopal Sharma, Sunil Dutt Ameen Sayani, Hamid Sayani, were among the Indian announcers of the station.

The Commercial Service of Radio Ceylon was hugely successful under the leadership of Clifford Dodd, the Australian administrator and broadcasting expert who was sent to Ceylon under the Colombo Plan. Dodd hand picked some of the most talented radio presenters in South Asia. They went on to enjoy star status in the Indian sub-continent. This was Radio Ceylon's golden era.
The 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s

United States

The introduction of FM changed the listening habits of younger Americans. Many stations such as WNEW-FM in New York City began to play whole sides of record albums, as opposed to the "Top 40" model of two decades earlier.
In the 1980s, the Federal Communications Commission, under Reagan Administration and Congressional pressure, changed the rules limiting the number of radio and television stations a business entity could own in one metropolitan area. This deregulation led to several groups, such as Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel to buy many stations in major cities. The cost of these stations' purchases led to a conservative approach to broadcasting, including limited playlists and avoiding controversial subjects to not offend listeners, and increased commercials to increase revenue.

AM Radio declined throughout the 1970s and 1980s due to various reasons including: Lower cost of FM receivers, narrow AM audio bandwidth, and poor sound in the AM section of automobile receivers (to combat the crowding of stations in the AM band and a "loudness war" conducted by AM broadcasters), and increased radio noise in homes caused by fluorescent lighting and introduction of electronic devices in homes. AM radio's decline flattened out in the mid 1990s due to the introduction of niche formats and over commercialization of many FM stations.

Britain

A new Pirate station, Swiss-owned Radio Nordsee International, broadcast to Britain and the Netherlands from 1970 until outlawed by Dutch legislation in 1974 (which meant it could no longer be supplied from the European mainland). The English service was heavily jammed by both Labour and Conservative Governments in 1970 amid suggestions that the ship was actually being used for espionage. Radio Caroline returned in 1972 and continued until its ship sank in 1980 (the crew were rescued). A Belgian station, Radio Atlantis, operated an English service for a few months before the Dutch act came into force in 1974.
Land-based commercial radio finally came on air in 1973 with London's LBC and Capital Radio.

Channel 4 television started in November, 1982. Britain's UHF system was originally designed to carry only four networks.
Pirate radio enjoyed another brief resurgence with a literal re-launch of Radio Caroline in 1983, and the arrival of American-owned Laser 558 in 1985. Both stations were harassed by the British authorities; Laser closed in 1987 and Caroline in 1989, since when it has pursued legal methods of broadcasting, such as temporary FM licences and satellite.

Two rival satellite television systems came on the air at the end of the 1980s: Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting. Huge losses forced a rapid merger, although in many respects it was a takeover of BSB (Britain's official, Government-sanctioned satellite company) by Sky.
Radio Luxembourg launched a 24-hour English channel on satellite, but closed its AM service in 1989 and its satellite service in 1991.
The Broadcasting Act (1990) in UK law marked the establishment of two licencing authorities - the Radio Authority and the Independent Television Commission - to facilitate the licencing of non-BBC broadcast services, especially short-term broadcasts.
Channel 5 went on the air on March 30, 1997, using "spare" frequencies between the existing channels.

Sri Lanka

The Government of Sri Lanka opened up the market in the late 1970s and 1980s allowing private companies to set up radio and television stations.
Sri Lanka's public services broadcasters are the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), Independent Television Net Work (ITN) and the affiliated radio station called Lak-handa. They had stiff competition on their hands with the private sector.
Broadcasting in Sri Lanka went through a transformation resulting in private broadcasting institutions being set up on the island among them Telshan Network (Pvt) Ltd, (TNL ,Maharaja Television -TV, Sirasa TV and Shakthi TV, and EAP Network (Pvt) Ltd - known as Swarnawahini - these private channels all have radio stations as well.

The 1990s saw a new generation of radio stations being established in Sri Lanka among them the 'Hiru' radio station. In the 1980s public service broadcasters like the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation set up their own FM arm.
Sri Lanka celebrated 80 years of broadcasting in December 2005. In January 2007 the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation celebrated 40 years as a public corporation.
Europe

In 1987, stations in the European Broadcasting Union began offering Radio Data System (RDS), which provides written text information about programs that were being broadcast, as well as traffic alerts, accurate time, and other teletext services.
The 2000s

The 2000s saw the introduction of digital radio and direct broadcasting by satellite (DBS) in the USA.

Digital radio services, except in the United States, were allocated a new frequency band in the range of 1,400 MHz. In the United States, this band was deemed to be vital to national defense, so an alternate band in the range of 2,300 MHz was introduced for satellite broadcasting. Two American companies, XM and Sirius, introduced DBS systems, which are funded by direct subscription, as in cable television. The XM and Sirius systems provide approximately 100 channels each, in exchange for monthly payments.

In addition, a consortium of companies received FCC approval for In-Band On-Channel digital broadcasts in the United States, which use the existing mediumwave and FM bands to provide CD-quality sound. However, early IBOC tests showed interference problems with adjacent channels, which has slowed adoption of the system.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission plans to move all Canadian broadcasting to the digital band and close all mediumwave and FM stations.

European and Australian stations have begun digital broadcasting (DAB). Digital radios began to be sold in the United Kingdom in 1998.
Regular Shortwave broadcasts using Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), a digital broadcasting scheme for short and medium wave broadcasts have begun. This system makes the normally scratchy international broadcasts clear and nearly FM quality, and much lower transmitter power. This is much better to listen to and has more languages.

In Sri Lanka in 2005 when Sri Lanka celebrated 80 years in Broadcasting, the former Director-General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, Eric Fernando called for the station to take full advantage of the digital age - this included looking at the archives of Radio Ceylon.
Ivan Corea asked the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse to invest in the future of the SLBC.

Doordarshan

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Doordarshan

Type Broadcast television network

Country India

Availability National
Owner Prasar Bharati

Key people K S Sarma (CEO)
Launch date 1959

Past names All India Radio

Website www.ddindia.gov.in

Doordarshan (sometimes DoorDarshan; दूरदर्शन) is the public television broadcaster of India and a division of Prasar Bharati, a board nominated by the Government of India. It is one of the largest broadcasting organisations in the world in terms of the infrastructure of studios and transmitters. Recently it has also started Digital Terrestrial Transmitters.

Beginning

Doordarshan had a modest beginning with the experimental telecast starting in Delhi in September 1959 with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio. The regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio. The television service was extended to Mumbai (then Bombay) and Amritsar in 1972. Till 1975, seven Indian cities had television service and Doordarshan remained the only television channel in India. Television services were separated from radio in 1976. Each office of All India Radio and Doordarshan were placed under the management of two separate Director Generals in New Delhi. Finally Doordarshan as a National Broadcaster came into existence.

Going national

National programme was introduced in 1982. In the same year, colour TVs were introduced in the Indian markets with the live telecast of the Independence Day parade on 15 August 1982, followed by the Asian Games being held in Delhi. The 80s was the era of Doordarshan with soaps like Hum Log (1984), Buniyaad (1986-87) and mythological dramas like Ramayan (1987-88) and Mahabharat (1988-89) glued millions to DoorDarshan. Other popular programs included Hindi film songs based programs like Chitrahaar and Rangoli and crime thrillers like Karamchand (starring Pankaj Kapoor), Byomkesh Bakshi and Janki Jasoos. Recent programs include the serial drama Lal Kothi Alvida (2006), based on the novel by Sharat Kumar. Other exteremely popular and critically well received were 'Mungerilal key haseen sapne', 'vikram aur betal', 'malgudi days', 'tamas', 'chanakya' and ' Neem ka ped'.
Now more than 90 percent of the Indian population can receive DoorDarshan (DD1) programmes through a network of nearly 1400 terrestrial transmitters.
About 46 DoorDarshan Studios are producing TV programs today. Presently, DoorDarshan operates 19 channels – two All India channels, 11 Regional Languages Satellite Channels (RLSC), four State Networks (SN), an International channel, a Sports Channel and two channels (DD-RS & DD-LS) for live broadcast of parliamentary proceedings.

On DD-1 National programmes, Regional programmes and Local Programmes are carried on time-sharing basis. DD-News channel, launched on 3 November 2003, which replaced the DD-Metro Entertainment channel, provides 24-Hour news service. The Regional Languages Satellite channels have two components – The Regional service for the particular state relayed by all terrestrial transmitters in the state and additional programmes in the Regional Language in prime time and non-prime time available only through cable operators. Sports Channel is exclusively devoted to the broadcasting of sporting events of national and international importance. This is the only Sports Channels which telecasts rural sports like Kho-Kho, Kabbadi etc. something which private broadcasters will not attempt to telecast as it will not attract any revenues.

Social significance

Doordarshan is known for its news value and heavily plays down on sensationalism, which has become a part of most of the current age news channels. Being a government owned enterprise it is not motivated to cover stories heavily doused with entertainment. While most of the news channels have turned into providing infotainment kind of news, Doordarshan has held on to its reins and news value. Being a champion of rural rights, Doordarshan's special programmes on agriculture helped the farmer familiarise with the new age techniques to save their crop from weeds, soil erosion and helped them to turn into prosperous farmers. The special series of farmers programme, even after decades are a favourite with the rural sector.
While the news channels involve in yellow journalism and with breaking news, being broken every minute, and amongst the bombardment of heavy dosage of distrorted news, Doordarshan comes as a great relief.

All India Radio

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All India Radio

All India Radio (AIR for short), officially known as Akashvani is the radio broadcaster of India and a division of Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India), an autonomous corporation of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. It is the sister service of Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan, the national television broadcaster.
All India Radio is one of the largest radio networks in the world. The headquarters is at Akashwani Bhavan, on the Parliament Street next to the Indian parliament. Akashwani Bhavan houses the drama section, the FM section and the National service. The Doordarshan Kendra (Delhi) is also located on the 6th floor of Akashvani Bhavan.
History
Radio broadcasting began in India in 1927, with two privately owned transmitters at Mumbai and Calcutta. These were nationalised by the British Raj in 1930 and operated under the name Indian Broadcasting Service until 1936, when it was renamed All India Radio (AIR). AIR was officially renamed to Akashwani in 1957, however all English usage refers to it as All India Radio.
In the era of government control, All India Radio was known for taking an overwhelmingly government line. Indira Gandhi famously stated in 1975 that All India Radio is "a Government organ, it is going to remain a Government organ..."[1]
Despite the growth of private radio channels since the 1990s, All India Radio (AIR) remains a popular media resource, being accessible even in the remotest parts of the country.
Coverage
AIR covers 99.37% of India's populace of over one billion. AIR maintains approximately 225 broadcasting centres around the country including one in the capital of every state, a total of 384 channels and transmits in 24 different languages and dialects. In spite of recent penetration by other media such as Cable TV, AIR remains the most common means of gaining access to information and entertainment, as the radio receivers are relatively cheap and affordable.
AIR in popular Culture
Broadcasting House is an old building next to Akashwani Bhavan. The News Service Division of All India Radio under the Director General (New) functions from this building. Built during the British rule, it is a very popular location and easily recognised building in New Delhi.
Several scenes of Dil Se, a popular Bollywood film starring Shahrukh Khan, were shot in and around this building; in the film Khan plays a reporter for All India Radio. All India Radio also featured prominently in the film Rang De Basanti.
Services
AIR has many different services each catering to different regions/languages across India. One of the most famous services of the AIR is the Vividh Bharati Seva (roughly translating to "Multi-Indian service"). This service is the most commercial of all and is popular in Mumbai and other cities of India. This service offers a wide range of programmes including news, film music, comedy shows, etc. The Vividh Bharti service operates on different MW band frequencies for each city as shown below.
Some programs broadcast on the Vividh Bharti:
• Hawa-mahal - Skit based on some novels/plays.
• Santogen ki mehfil - Jokes & humour.
External services
The External Services Division of All India Radio broadcasts in 27 languages to countries outside of India, primarily by high powered Short wave broadcasts although Medium wave is also used to reach neighbouring countries. In addition to broadcasts targeted at specific countries by language there is a General Overseas Service which broadcasts in English with 8 1/4 hours of programming each day and is aimed at a general international audience.
Yuv-vani: The voice of youth
The Yuv-vani service of AIR provides an enriching and novel radio-experience by encouraging youth participation and experimenting with varied script ideas.It is broadcast at 1017 kHz which corresponds to 294.9 meter. Its Broadcast begins every evening at 7pm. With shows like "Mehfil", "In the groove" and "The Roving Microphone" which have been around for more than three decades, Yuv-vani still holds a firm ground of its own.
Some of the big names on the Indian media scene began their journey with Yuv-vani. Comments Praful Thakkar, a well known documentary maker - "Yuv-vani came as a breath of fresh air in our reckless college days. It was a great learning experience for me and it made me realize that radio is not all about goofy quotes and PJs."
Some of the other names that have been associated with Yuv-vani in the past include Celebrity game show host Roshan Abbas, VJ Gaurav Kapoor, DJ Kaushal Khanna, Emcee Kshitij Sharma and DJ Pratham among others.
News-on-phone service
All India Radio, after launching the news-on-phone service on 25th February 1998 from New Delhi, is running the service from Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Patna and Bangalore also. The service is accessible through STD, ISD and local telephone calls. The service is going to be started from 9 more cities — Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Imphal, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Raipur, Simla and Thiruvanthapuram shortly.
English and Hindi hourly news bulletins can be heard live on http://www.newsonair.com/. The news in MP3 format can be directly played from the site. In the file name the hourly time of news is mentioned. Text of the English and Hindi bulletins can be read from http://www.newsonair.com/BulletinsInd.html.
AIR news bulletins are available in 9 regional languages (Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, North East, Punjabi, Telugu, Urdu) from http://www.newsonair.com/regional.html.

Agenda Setting Theory

2007-08-09T16:19:00.000+05:30

Agenda Setting Theory

Explanation of Theory:
The Agenda-Setting Theory says the media (mainly the news media) aren’t always successful at telling us what to think, but they are quite successful at telling us what to think about.

Theorist: Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw
Date: 1972/1973
Individual Interpretation:
This theory is good at explaining why people with similar media exposure place importance on the same issues. Although different people may feel differently about the issue at hand, most people feel the same issues are important.
Critique:
The Agenda-Setting Theory comes from a scientific perspective, because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will place importance on the same issues. According to Chaffee & Berger’s 1997 criteria for scientific theories, Agenda-Setting is a good theory.
• It has explanitory power because it explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important.
• It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important.
• It is parsimonious because it isn’t complex, and it is easy to understand.
• It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important.
• It’s meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side
• It is a springboard for further research
• It has organizing power because it helps organize existing knowledge of media effects.
Example:
Actions surrounding the O.J. case and the Clinton Scandal are both excellent examples of Agenda-Setting in action. During these historic events, the media was ever-present. The placement of full page, color articles and top stories on news programming made it clear that Americans should place these events as important issues. Some people believed O.J. was guilty, and others believed he was innocent. Some believed Clinton should have been impeached, and others thought otherwise. Therefore, the media wasn’t extremely successful in telling us what to think on these issues, but most Americans did believe these were both important issues for a long period of time.