Communication Commons^™

Making The Headlines: Africa In The News, Mary Van Lieshout

Irish Communication Review

Familiar images of emaciated, dying children from Sudan and Somalia once again found the front pages of our national dailies and the headlines on the RTE Six-One News. Perhaps the authors of such footage and photographers of these pictures justify capturing children in this way because they feel that showing the awful truth about those lives will do more good than harm, convinced that invading the privacy of a dying individual and his or her family is in some way 'worth it'. If that logic is correct why do these photographs bear such close resemblance to those of the mid-l980s …

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 …

Canadian Television Broadcasters And National Audiovisual Production: The Attitude Of The Private Sector, Michel Saint-Lauren, Gaetan Tremblay

Irish Communication Review

This article examines the financial contribution of private television companies to the development and production of authentic Canadian programmes. Until the beginning of the 1980s, all Canadian television stations were under an obligation to produce as well as broadcast the great majority of their programming. This constituted a distinctive feature of Canadian broadcasting when compared to what had always been the case in the United States, not to mention a fundamental aspect of Canadian broadcasting policy since 1958. (It is important to note, however, that for the past several years private US television stations have been obliged to use Independent …

The Future Of Channel Four After The Broadcasting Act 1990, Amanda Dunne

Irish Communication Review

Television operates in the mutually-influencing realms of economics, politics and culture. Across Europe, huge changes have occurred at the indefinable point where culture and economics meet, and politics seeks to mediate or, more often, impose an agenda. This has brought about the deregulation of the television industry and, in its wake, re-regulation (Siune and McQuail 1992: 192, Silj l992: 1 7).

Promoting A Healthy Lifestyle Through Public Communication: Experiences And Results Of The Kilkenny Health Project, Peter Murray

Irish Communication Review

In 1985 the Kilkenny Health Project was initiated with the aim of reducing coronary heart disease among the people of County Kilkenny. Coronary heart disease is the biggest single cause of death in Ireland (Kilkenny Health Project 1992: 4-10). The risk of developing it is widely agreed to be related to how people live their everyday lives - to the diet they eat, to whether or not they take exercise, to cigarette smoking, etc. (World Health Organization 1982). Many premature deaths and episodes of serious illness could therefore be prevented by changes in currently prevailing lifestyles. The Kilkenny Health Project …

Science And Technology: The Media's Blind Spot, John Sterne, Brian Trench

Irish Communication Review

University-based scientists began to display an unprecedented militancy during 1993. The newly formed Irish Research Scientists Association (IRSA) complained of cutbacks In the already low level of state funding for basic research projects. IRSA members highlighted the inadequate grants for postgraduate students and the need for more money to equip their laboratories. They argued that the erosion of scientific research was inhibiting the long-term vitality of Irish industry and lobbied government ministers for a change of policy. By early 1994 the IRSA campaign had achieved results. In particular, when Minister of State Seamus Brennan' established a new advisory body - …

Television And The Irish Language, Triona Quill

Irish Communication Review

The controversy which greeted the announcement by Minister for Arts. Culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D. Higgins of the forthcoming establishment of Teilifis na Gaellge (TnG) - particularly in view of its cost - has once again put the Issue of Irish language television broadcasting under the spotlight.

The Audio Format War, Derek Cronin

Irish Communication Review

Recently, two new music carriers have made their way on to the market, both vying to replace the common cassette tape which has been in use for thirty years. These new formats are Phillps/Matsushita's digital compact cassette (DCC) and Sony's mini disc (MD). Both companies have invested large sums of money into the development and marketing of these products. Both are aiming their product at the same market, wanting their format to be a companion to the recently established compact disc (CD), the accepted standard playback medium. The new formats would be its more compact, recordable, robust cousin, convenient but …

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 …

Book Reviews Volume 2

Irish Communication Review

Book review by Tony Fahy of Ian Ang: Desperately Seeking the Audience

Book review by Greta Jones of Thomas Richards The commodity culture of Victorian England: advertising and spectacle, 1851-1914

Book review by Colum Kenny of Broadcast and electronic media in Western Europe

Book review by Mary Maher of Ann Shearer Survivors and the media

Book review by Mary Maher of Andrea Millwood Hargrave Taste and Decency in Broadcasting

Book review by Henry McClave of Joan Mulholland The language of negotiation - a handbook of practical strategies for improving communication

Book review by Jim Nolan of W. Leiss, S.Kline and …

The Parameters Of The Permissible: How Scrap Saturday Got Away With It, Helena Sheenan

Irish Communication Review

From October 1990 to December 1991, weekends had to be organized carefully. If you were not listening to RTE Radio l on Saturday morning, did not catch the repeat on Sunday or make arrangements for it to be recorded for you, you were at a loss during the next week. The word spread like wild fire and Scrap Saturday became central to the public discourse. Talk of audience fragmentation was forgotten. Here was a society talking to Itself, coming to terms with Itself, laughing at itself. We were connected to each other In a particular way through It. There is …

Television And Schools, Sheelagh Drudy

Irish Communication Review

No abstract provided.

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

Irish Communication Review

No abstract provided.

On Public Service Broadcasting: Against The Tide, Helena Sheenan

Irish Communication Review

The defence of public service broadcasting has become so unfashionable in recent years. Despite an international climate bearing down upon Its economic base from without and an erosion of its ethos from within, I seem to be among an ever dwindling number who want to defend It.

Independent Local Radio: An Irish Success Story, Denis O'Brien

Irish Communication Review

An outsider taking a cursory glance at independent broadcasting in Ireland in 1991 could be forgiven for thinking that the performance of the sector as whole was at best, disappointing and at worst disastrous. The collapse of the national radio licence holder Century Radio, and the removal of the independent television franchise from the TV3 consortium were landmarks in the recent history of independent broadcasting and, not unexpectedly, dominated most of the public focus, comment and debate on the fledgling sector in the past year.

The Nordic Model Of Broadcasting Liberalization, Olof Hulten

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.

Not Purely An Academic Matter: Relating Critical Theory And Production Practice Within Media Studies, Des Bell

Irish Communication Review

In this article I explore the relation of crtical theory to the teaching of media practice within Media Studies. Or, to reverse the question, I ask in what ways could an enlightened pedagogy of media production engender radical practices of criticism within our Media Studies courses appropriate to the contemporary period?

Media Images Of Disability, Brian Trench

Irish Communication Review

No abstract provided.