"Why is there so much violence portrayed in the media? What meanings are attached to representations of violence in the media? Can media violence encourage violent behaviour and desensitize audiences to real violence? Does the ‘everydayness’ of media violence lead to the ‘normalization’ of v
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iolence in society? Violence and the Media is a lively and indispensable introduction to current thinking about media violence and its potential influence on audiences. Adopting a fresh perspective on the ‘media effects’ debate, Carter and Weaver engage with a host of pressing issues around violence in different media contexts - including news, film, television, pornography, advertising and cyberspace. The book offers a compelling argument that the daily repetition of media violence helps to normalize and legitimize the acts being portrayed. Most crucially, the influence of media violence needs to be understood in relation to the structural inequalities of everyday life. Using a wide range of examples of media violence primarily drawn from the American and British media to illustrate these points, Violence and the Media is a distinctive and revealing exploration of one of the most important and controversial subjects in cultural and media studies today." (Back cover)
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"Aimed at reporters in conflict zones and hostile areas, this report provides an overview of security issues and includes information on training courses, protective equipment, and insurance policies. It also offer useful tips on assessing, minimizing and managing risk. This guide should be read not
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just by those in the field and those covering dangerous assignments, but also by the media managers who send journalists on those assignments. For managers, the safety of their journalists should be paramount. This means discouraging unwarranted risk-taking, making assignments to war zones or other hostile environments voluntary, and providing proper training and equipment." (http://www.reliefweb.int)
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"1. Filled an Important Supporting Role to Indigenous Civil Society: Centre Lokole work supported indigenous civil society, providing them with information and services that enabled them to be more effective and informed in their work. This is important as it reinforces the sustainability of indigen
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ous agencies. Further consideration should be given to providing open and equal access for all local groups. 2. Developed a Highly Popular and Effective Radio Medium: The radio soap opera Jirani Ni Ndugu is the jewel in the Centre Lokole crown. This radio programme is highly popular and effective, with what appears to be a dedicated listenership that takes to heart many of the messages of the programme. Not all the radio programmes have avid followings however and further consideration needs to occur as to the strategic purpose these shows make. 3. Programming Initiated a Multiplier Effect: The results of CL programming went beyond those directly engaged participants. Independent initiatives resulting from engagement in a CL activity or project were clearly visible." (Executive summary)
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"Analyzing the “clues to conflict” in vulnerable societies can enable policymakers to identify societies that are particularly vulnerable to media abuse and decide on the most appropriate type and timing of media interventions. These clues are divided into two categories. Structural indicators c
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oncern media outlets, media professionals, or government institutions concerned with media; these indicators can include media variety and plurality, degree of journalist isolation, and the legal environment for media. Content indicators concern content designed to create fear (such as a focus on past atrocities and history of ethnic hatred) or content designed to create a sense of inevitability and resignation (such as discrediting alternatives to conflict). In response to the clues to conflict, a number of opportunities for intervention are suggested. These media interventions fall into three categories: structural interventions, such as strengthening domestic and international journalist networks; contentspecific interventions, such as issue-oriented training; and aggressive interventions, such as radio and television jamming." (Summary)
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"This article explores (1) the cultural nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; (2) the "intractability" of cultural conflicts; (3) conflict management models: reconciliation/"end-of-conflict" versus "conflict transformation" and their relation to cultural conflict; (4) the serious consequences
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of the wrong matching of models and conflicts, such as using the reconciliation model in cultural conflict; (5) the changing role of the media in international relations, and their contribution to the "crisis of expectations" that came to fruition in September 2000, with the eruption of the Intifada; (6) the possibility of the media contributing to peace processes; and (7) implications of the media adoption of the conflict transformation model. The premises are that, unlike other violent confrontations, the Middle Eastern conflict is fundamentally cultural, particularly in its Palestinian-Israeli version; that cultural conflicts are "intractable" (Lederach, 1998; Burgess&Burgess, 1996; Kraybill, 1995), in the sense that they are very difficult, perhaps impossible to resolve; that reconciliation is not the only possible or desirable outcome of conflict: transformation (Vayrynen, 1991) is another viable option; that mistaken interpretations of conflict-resolution strategies can lead to "crises of expectations" in policy-making, in the media, and in public opinion; and that the media can play important roles in these processes." (Abstract)
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