Digital Commons Network^™

All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Call: Fashion Victims In The New Look Telecom Industry, Maria Lohan

Irish Communication Review

The Telecom industry In Ireland is currently in training to tone itself up in preparation for both convergence and competition In the new look telecommunications Industry. Only those companies who have completed extenslve tummy tucks on staffing and removed the weight of subsidized charging may enter this new telecommunications club. Not only this, but you must of course have the right personality to attract partners with dowries of infrastructure. An important characteristic is a willingness to invest In anything electronic - but property will do too. And what should the fashion conscious Telecom player be sporting this season? Well POTS …

New Technologies And Changing Work Practices In The Media Industry: The Case Of Lreland, Ellen Hazelkorn

Irish Communication Review

The broadcasting environment in Ireland is the most competitive in Europe. RTE's revenue is strictly limited. The licence fee has not increased since 1986. Advertising revenue is controlled by law. The preservation of a comprehensive and effective radio and television service can only be sustained by the most efficient and cost effective approach to the production of programmes of quality.

Book Reviews Volume 5

Irish Communication Review

Book Reviews

D. Butler, The Trouble With Reporting Northern Ireland Aldershot, Reviewed by Catherine Curran.

K. Tester, Media Culture and Morality, Reviewed by Eoin Devereux

B. Gunter, J. Sancho-Aidridge and P. Winston, Television - The Public's View, Reviewed by Amanda Dunne.

R. Winsbury and S. Fazal (eds.) Vision and Hindsight: The first 25 Years of the International Institute of Communications, Reviewed by Desmond Fisher.

R. Silverstone, Television and Everyday Life, Reviewed by Richard Fitzsimons.

J. Tambling, A Night in at the Opera London, Reviewed by lan Fox.

S. Moores, Interpreting Audiences, An Ethnography of Media Consumption Livingstone and P. Lunt …

After The Green Paper: What Next For Broadcasting In Ireland? : Discussion, Ellen Hazelkorn

Irish Communication Review

On 27 April 1995, the long-awaited Green Paper on Broadcasting, drafted by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins. and entitled Active or Passive? Broadcasting in the future tense was published. Its publication carne one week after the publication of the Interim Report of the Competition Authority on the newspaper industry In Ireland. and preceded the publication of an examination of the skills requirements of lhe independent film and television production sector In Ireland. entitled, Training Needs to 2000 (June 1995). It is remarkable that within a very short space of time, three very substantial studies …

Freedom Of Access To Information On The Environment - The Reality In Ireland, Geraldine O'Brien

Irish Communication Review

A chink of light appeared on the horizon in 1990 with the lrish Government's laudable comments on the adoption of the EC Directive 90/313 on Freedom of Access to Information on the Environment. This commendable approach was contained in the Government's Programme for Action during its EC Presidency and appeared to herald new beginnings. The Directive would come Into force on 1 January 1993.

Saving Us From Ourselves: Contraception, Censorship And The 'Evil Literature' Controversy Of 1926, John Horgan

Irish Communication Review

In the history of Irish public policy on communications, the ban on the publication of information about contraception merits a special place. It existed for half a century. and the circumstances of its elaboration and implementation offer a special insight into the sensitivity of Irish governments on matters of sexual morality, as well as into public and media attitudes to the controversies involved.

Some Thoughts On Freedom Of Information And The Civil Service, Sean Dooney

Irish Communication Review

All new civil servants receive from the personnel unit of their department a number of circulars dealing with various aspects of their conditions of employment. One of these circulars. the receipt of which they are obliged to acknowledge, deals with official secrecy. The Circular draws attention to the obllgations of civil servants in relation to secrecy in the transaction of official business, which obligations are provided for in Section 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1963. That section, as readers are no doubt aware, provides that they shall not communicate any official information to any other person unless they are …

Scots Gaelic And Welsh Language Broadcasting In The Cultural Contexts: A Comparative Analysis, Fachna O'Drisceoil

Irish Communication Review

This paper will be a presentation and comparative analysis of the experiences of Welsh and Scots Gaelic broadcasting. The intention is to draw conclusions regarding broadcasting strategies in those languages and to identify the implications of those conclusions for Irish language broadcasting strategy. It was decided that a brief discussion of a wider range of lesser used languages would be superficial in nature, and of little real benefit to understanding the Irish situation. Instead, a more detailed presentation will be given of the Welsh and Scots Gaelic cases on the basis that their cultural and historical experience has most similarity …

On Gendered Knowledge In Communication: Women In The Film Industry, Michele Martin

Irish Communication Review

Studies in communication have shown that, in the fllm industry. women as directors obtain less financial support than men. They find themselves in a peculiar situation: the discrimination they suffer obliges them to innovate. and hence they often find themselves at the 'avant garde' of cinematographic production. This is specifically true in the area of documentary film-making. To use Carle's words, In film 'the revolution passes through women'.

Feature Writing In Women's Magazines: A Limited Ideological Challenge, Susan Liddy

Irish Communication Review

Since the emergence of the International women's movement in the early 1970s. women's magazines have increasingly popularized feminist Ideas. The fragmented format of the genre ensures that a debate on feminist issues can surface in features side by side such old reliables as beauty tips, recipes or advice on how to attract and keep a man. In 1991, over one third of feature writing in Woman's Way and three quarters in U, reflected items from the Irish feminist agenda. Issues like the wage gap, the absence of state funded childcare, the need for equal status legislation , rape and domestic …

New Media Technologies In Europe: The Politics Of Satellite, Hdtv And Dab, Hans J. Kleinsteuber

Irish Communication Review

It has been lhe tradition in Europe to develop media technologies at national level with close cooperation between the state and the private sector, and frequently with competition between different states and their industrial Infrastructures. The creation of new technologies mostly occurred within lhe electric, and later the electronics industry and included studio equipment, transmitters and receivers; it also included those industries supplying equipment to areas such as telecommunications. optics and the aerospace indus try. The state has always provided some of the central players. for example, Post Office administrations (Telecoms), research ministries, the military sector and in particular, the …

Thatcher, The Iba And Death On The Rock, Tony Fleck

Irish Communication Review

Since its beginnings in the 1920s. broadcasting in these islands has always been considered by the vartous governments of the day. whatever their political complexion. to be too important to be left solely to the broadcasters. Successive administrations have attempted to regulate and control what is heard or seen over the airWaves by a series of acts of the British Parliament or Dail E!reann. These acts have been drafted so as to give designated ministers the power to decide on the composition and membership of the Authorities. Boards of Governors or Commissions established by law - and to dismiss them …

Devils And Angels: The Rise Of Irish Telethon Television, Eoin Devereux

Irish Communication Review

In this article I wish to examine the issue of how the media portray the lrlsh poor with particular reference to the emergence of fund-raising or telethon television. This study Is part of a larger project which examines how the Irish national public service broadcasting organization, Radio Teiefis Elreann (RTE), portrays poverty and the poor through an examination of fund-raising television, factual television (news, current affairs and documentaries) and fictional accounts of poverty (television drama) over a twelve month period. My project represents a significant departure from the existing debate about poverty and the media in an Irish context in …

Political Communication And Broadcasting: Theory, Practice And Reform, Colum Mccaffery

Irish Communication Review

The origins of this research project lie in the writer's dissatisfaction with the growing library of work which frets aimlessly about the effects of broadcasting on political communication. Missing from the shelves, It is argued, is a clear statement of w Is achievable by way of political communication. In other words, if television's contribution to political communication is to be criticized, a set of criteria - a specification - for adequate public debate is long overdue.

The Demonization Of Women In Popular Culture: Some Recent Examples, Ciaran Mccullagh

Irish Communication Review

Until recently the study of popular culture .was dominated by the perspective of the Frankfurt School. For them all mass culture was identical. Cultural products were 'cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types' (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1 977:352}. They were the products of the 'assembly-line character of the culture industry' (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1977:380}. The similarities extended beyond plotlines and genre-types to the consistent promotion of conventional values. This culture was primarily a form of social control. It was, to quote De Tocquevil!e, ·a tyranny (which} leaves the body free and directs its attack at the soul' (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1 …

Thirty Years A' Growing: The Past, The Present And The Future Of Irish Broadcasting, Vincent Finn

Irish Communication Review

Way back in the early months of 1960, the then British Prime Minister, Harold · McMillan - whose most memorable phrase until then had been his salutation to the British public 'You've never had it so good' - made a six-weeks tour of the African continent. By the time Mr. McMillan arrived in Cape Town he was geared up for another phrase-making speech, this time to the assembled members of the South African Parliament: 'The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of the national consciousness is a political fact. …

Media Education In Ireland: An Overview, Brian O'Neill

Irish Communication Review

The Irish educational system is frequently celebrated as a world class system that is held in high domestic esteem, has contributed substantially to Ireland’s economic success and been compared very favourably with our counterparts elsewhere in the European Union. Such contentment belies the fact that it has also been a system very slow to change, is notoriously centralised and has only in the last decade instituted significant legislative reform that will enable and facilitate the growth of new curricular areas such as media studies – the topic of this article – an area in which Ireland lags substantially behind our …

Patterns Of Irish Viewing, Tom Harper

Irish Communication Review

Analyses of the way people view programmes have been examined extensively in the USA and in the UK. For example, work by Barwise et al (1988). Collins et al (1982) and Ehrenberg (1990) is generally well known In the broadcasting area. Much of their work has to do with segmentation of the TV audience, audience flow, repeat viewing and audience duplication. This paper examines some of these concepts using Irish data from the AGB TAM panel.

Attitudes On Tv Advertising For Children: A Survey Among Flemish Parents Of Children Aged 6 - 12 Years., Els De Bens, Patrick Vyncke, Peter Vandenbruane

Irish Communication Review

The issue of 1V advertising and children has always been quite controversial. From I the early 1970s until now, hundreds of studies have been conducted on this topic. Some of these studies are based on the observation of children in experimental situations. By their use of a non-verbal research method, these studies have the advantage of avoiding misrepresentation caused by some children's verbal skills when responding to verbal tests.2 The disadvantage of this type of experimental research, however, is that the real-life validity of the results is sometimes quite low: the skillfully constructed research-experiments In which children's short-term reactions to …

Government, Propaganda And The Irish News Agency, John Horgan

Irish Communication Review

The theme of identity forged in adversity has bulked large on the agenda of the founders of many small nation states, and the case of Ireland is no exception. The extent and nature of the Irish diaspora, in addition, has given this theme an added dimension: its propagation to the world at large. Bending the world's ear to the cause of righting . Ireland's wrongs has been a constant, if rarely successful, strand in Irish nationalist policy for over two centuries. It is only in more recent times, however, that it has become more formally associated with the official structures …

The Political Lobby System, Michael Foley

Irish Communication Review

At the heart of the political system in Ireland, inside Leinster House, is a small groQp of journalists who cover politics. They are the political correspondents. They have a privileged position, their own rooms, access to politicians in their place of work, access to government ministers and regular briefings from the government press secretary and from the press officers of the other political parties. It is these few journalists, working together, who write the first story on any event, who decide what to cover and how stories should be covered. It is to these journalists that the government press secretary …

Social Scientists And Journalists: Are The Former Really So Different From The Latter?, Liz Fawcett

Irish Communication Review

As a journalist who has recently begun carrying out sociological research, I have been struck by the parallels between social science and journalism. I have also been intrigued by some sociological studies of the media which seem to me to suggest that we are little more than a bunch of jumped-up charlatans. This article seeks to examine whether journalism is, in fact, so very different from the social sciences and to ask what might motivate some social scientists to wish to establish a firm differential between the two occupations.

Independent Local Radio: How Local?, Seamus White

Irish Communication Review

1988 marked a new era in Irish broadcasting history. Up until then independent broadcasting services consisted of unlicenced and unregulated pirate radio stations. The 1988 Radio and Television Act created the Independent Radio and Television Commission, giving It powers to establish and supervise legal and independent local radio. By the end of 1991, twenty one such local stations were In operation. In deciding who would be awarded local radio franchises, the 1988 Act Instructed the IRTC to take Into consideration a range of criteria. Judging from the guide which the IRTC provided for applicants and the nature of the questioning …

Through A Glass, Darkly ... Reflections On Secrecy And Censorship In Ireland, Paddy Smyth

Irish Communication Review

Censorship, whether justifiable or not, is first and foremost a denial of a part of reality. In Ireland traditionally, it has been about the denial of the sensual. Today, less so. Our censors in 1993 are concerned predominantly with the consequences of sex and the causes of political violence. Above all, they are driven by the conviction that supposedly unshakeable value systems will fail the test of contact with the harshness of real life, and that people are so weak-willed, that they, like children, must be protected from their baser instincts, for their own good. People must be protected from …

The European Media Programme - A Producer's Experience, Gerry Gregg

Irish Communication Review

In 1988 the European Media programme was launched to encourage film and television production in Europe for European audiences. The same year the Irish Film Board was abolished. As 1992 approached, such was the perceived success of the Media Programme, the European Commission decided to extend and expand the media initiative until 1995. Meanwhile, in Ireland the Government had followed up the coup de grace on the Film Board with the cap on RTE advertising revenue. Ostensibly the cap was designed to encourage advertisers to place their bets on the new national independent radio channels airtime and on TV3. By …

Interview With Keith Donald, Popular Music Officer Of The Arts Council, Rose Downes, Barbara Bradby

Irish Communication Review

No abstract provided.

Documenting The Troubles: A Question Of Perspective, David Butler

Irish Communication Review

The main aim of this essay is to analyze British documentary coverage of the conflict In Northern Ireland (NI) with a view lo assessing whether there are detectable patterns of explanations across the range of output . The argument has been formed In relation to the discourse of 'Media Studies' research. To this end, there are, it seems to me, three key factors to stress by way of introduction.

Cinema Film Distribution And Exhibition In Ireland, Damien O'Donnell

Irish Communication Review

This study of cinema film distribution and exhibition practices In Ireland examines key aspects of the Industry: firstly, the basic mechanics of the Industry and Its operations: secondly, the various alignments between exhibitors and distributors and consequences of those alignments: thirdly, the impact of the arrival of British multiplex companies: fourthly, the costs of film censorship; and finally, the idea of an 'art-house' circuit In Ireland.

Book Reviews : Volume 1

Irish Communication Review

Book Reviews

James Lull: Inside family viewing: ethnographic research on television's audiences reviewed by Martin Mcloone

Josephine Langham: Teachers and television - a history of the IBA 's educational fellowship scheme reviewed by Brian O'Neill

Mary E. Brown: Television and women's culture: the politics of the popular reviewed by Patsy Murphy

Jean Baudrillard:Cool memories. Translated by Chris Turner, reviewed by Richard Kearney

Television Without Frontiers: The Economic Dimension, Mario Hirsch

Irish Communication Review

With the establishment of a single market in broadcasting for audiences throughout the EC. which Is the main aim of the EC Television Directive of 1989. conditions are supposed to be created for the full development of broadcasting activities. Supporters of this initiative. which Is In line with the general internal market philosophy. believe that an enlarged market In broadcasting will bring economies of scale and improve the International trading position of member states in both the software and the hardware aspects of broadcasting.