politics — AEJMC Hot Topics

FCC to Vote on Political Ad Data Posting

April 26, 2012 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

The FCC is set to vote tomorrow on whether or not TV stations will have to post political ad information online. To get the word out about this, Bill Moyers asked journalism professors and students to visit local television stations and gather information on political ad funding. Moyers recently posted on his site:

“Two intrepid journalism students from Kent State — Megan Closser and Shanice Dunning — took me up on my challenge to visit their local TV stations and uncover data behind the political ads they run. Naturally, they took their cameras, but faced a surprising amount of resistance to using them.”

You can view the request Moyers made on his show below. You can also view the video Kent State students made about their trip to four local television station here: http://billmoyers.com/2012/04/24/ohio-journalism-students-answer-call-to-uncover-political-ad-data/

Filed Under: Hot Topics Tagged With: Advertising, Bill Moyers, FCC, higher ed, Journalism students, politics

FlackCheck.org uses humor to reveal false political advertising & how political campaigns are portrayed

April 5, 2012 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

From the FlackCheck.org website –

“Headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, FlackCheck.org is a video-based counterpart to APPC’s award-winning program FactCheck.org. FlackCheck.org uses parody and humor to debunk false political advertising, poke fun at extreme language, and hold the media accountable for their reporting on political campaigns.”

Go to FlackCheck.org

Filed Under: Hot Topics Tagged With: parody, politics, video

Book Review – Watchdog Journalism: The Art of Investigative Reporting

May 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Watchdog Journalism: The Art of Investigative Reporting. Stephen J. Berry. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. 304 pp.

Even seasoned journalism instructors with substantial industry experience face the same problem year after year—how can journalistic writing, particularly about complex topics, be “taught?” Having students read example after example of interpretive stories, investigative stories, or other samples of long-form journalism — complete with discussion — seems like the simplest way, although many students quickly get bored with this case-study approach.

Book Review – Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era

May 17, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson, eds. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009. 283 pp.

Humor is delicate to dissect. If you explain a joke, it may cease to be funny and the humor falls apart. But taking apart satire leads to understanding humor’s critical capacity to attack and disarm its subjects. This is especially true when it comes to the politically and socially oriented humor addressed in Satire TV. Dissecting satire—and similar humor tropes such as parody and irony —requires careful work. And the editors as well as authors of this collection do just that, working to understand satire as a form of critique, as challenger to the status quo of news and politics, and as contributor to political and civic discourses.

Book Review[s] – International Media Communication in a Global Age & Negotiating in the Press

May 16, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

International Media Communication in a Global Age. Guy J. Golan, Thomas J. Johnson, and Wayne Wanta, eds. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. 480 pp.

Negotiating in the Press: American Journalism and Diplomacy, 1918-1919. Joseph R. Hayden. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. 320 pp.

These texts present two opposite but equally important foci of research in the growing field of international communication—the edited collection takes a macro view, tackling news flow theories, international journalism, and strategic communication in a globalized world, while the monograph delves in depth on a very narrow episode, the peace negotiations after World War I. Both introduce fruitful research avenues about concerns as different as the role of the news media in diplomacy and strategies for global branding. While two of the three parts of Golan, Johnson, and Wanta’s volume are valuable enough that the book could be used as textbook in an introductory class on international communication, Hayden’s work is most helpful as a spur to further research on the important issues it raises.

Book Review[s] – The Obama Victory & Blogging the Political

May 11, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election. Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2010). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 378.

Blogging the Political: Politics and Participation in a Networked Society. Antoinette Pole (2010). New York: Routledge. pp. 161.

Political communication scholars and educators are well aware of how new developments in social media, e-mail, blogging, and the microtargeting of messages to niche audiences have altered American politics and political campaigns. Two new books delve into these topics, one by focusing on the presidential campaign of 2008 and the other by examining political blogging by minorities, women, and political elites.