Category Archives: Uncategorized

Knight Center director reports on soft propaganda from Moscow, protests in Tbilisi

By Eric Freedman

A short article on the website of Georgia Today, an English-language newspaper, was headlined “Journalism and Youth: The South Caucasus Media Forum” and read like an innocuous advance story about an upcoming conference “where lectures of prominent figures of journalism and political science for young journalists and observers will be featured.” It said the main topics of the Sept. 4-7 forum would include regional political culture and media trends.

I saw the story two days before leaving the U.S. to spend the fall teaching and doing research in the Republic of Georgia. Sounded useful to give me a better sense of the mediascape in the South Caucasus. Continue reading

Knight Center researchers win National Science Foundation grant

Knight Center research director Bruno Takahashi and center affiliate Manuel Chavez have won a $404,873 grant from the National Science Foundation for the project “Infrastructure Collapse and its Effects on News Practices During Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.”

Student interviewing on radio

Nieves interviewing a radio host at WKAQ-Univisión Radio during preliminary fieldwork in December 2017.

This two-year project will examine media content before, during and after Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico in September 2017. The researchers will also investigate the ways audiences sought and used the limited information provided by the news media.

Takahashi and Chavez will collaborate with Yadira Nieves, a professor at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico and a recent MSU Ph.D. graduate, Professor Luis Rosario Albert of the Universidad del Turabo and Professor Federico Subervi of the University of Leeds.

The project will build on preliminary research conducted by Nieves, Takahashi and Chavez examining radio practices in Puerto Rico during the disaster. They conducted in-depth interviews in December 2017 with funds from a Quick Response Grant awarded by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

 

Student scholarships available to attend Society of Environmental Journalists conference

Michigan State University students can apply for scholarships to attend the Oct. 3-7 Society of Environmental Journalists national conference in Flint. The support is offered by the Cooperative Institute of Great Lakes Research.
Students at the nine universities that make up the cooperative are eligible:

Continue reading

Knight Center director publishes new book on international journalism

Global JRN coversmallerEric Freedman is a co-editor of a new book on challenges facing international journalism. Critical Perspectives on Journalistic Beliefs: Global Perspectives was just published by Routledge.

It provides case studies, many incorporating in-depth interviews and surveys, that examine such issues as journalists’ attitudes toward their contributions to society; the impact of industry and technological changes; culture and minority issues in the newsroom and profession; the impact of censorship and self-censorship; and coping with psychological pressures and physical safety dilemmas.

The book also highlights journalists’ challenges in national and multinational contexts. International scholars, conducting research within a wide range of authoritarian, semi-democratic and democratic systems, examined journalistic practices in the Arab World, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States.

Freedman’s co-editors are Robyn S. Goodman, a professor of Communication Studies at Alfred University, and Elanie Steyn, an associate professor and head of Journalism in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Goodman earned her Ph.D. at MSU’s College of Communication Arts & Sciences.