Crisis in the Media, Media in Crisis

Text by Tijana Stolic and Photographs by Hector Montes Correa
Photo gallery

Photo gallery _ Seminar photographs

Photo-gallery_ Coffee Break

The International Master’s degree programme in Media and Global Communication was delighted to host the Crisis in the Media, Media in Crisis seminar on 23 September 2011. Introduced by the MGC Programme Director Mervi Pantti, and with Kaarle Nordenstreng, Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication, at the School of Communication, Media and Theatre at University of Tampere as chairman, the keynote speakers included Professors Simon Cottle and Clifford Christians, with PhD candidates Lilly Korpiola and Laura Juntunen as respondents. The presenters focused their discussions on the ethical challenges facing news journalists in the globalized, interconnected world of social media communications.

Riots, Rebellions and Uprisings: Reflections on Mediated Dissent in a Changing Communications Environment

Professor Simon Cottle, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University

When thinking about the politics of connectivity, Professor Cottle noted that the contemporary world news ecology consists of world news media, alternative media and government-owned media, and the real story lies neither solely in the voice of political media nor alternative voices coming through a civilian surge, but in the interpenetration between these two news outlets. In his analysis of the Arab Spring of 2011, often entitled the ‘Twitter Revolution’, Cottle cautioned against technological determinism, stressing the importance of various other media factors involved in the organization and execution of demonstrations as well as the ensuing reportage. Some of these factors include the idea that news media outlets are responsible for shedding a light, or choosing to turn a blind eye on certain issues. Media might also help facilitate demonstrations, but this technology can likewise be deployed by repressive governmental forces for their own purposes. Media channels can be further utilized to bring about international recognition and legitimize protests, as well as to facilitate the organization of further protests that, in the case of the Arab Spring, spread like wildfire. Nevertheless, Professor Cottle noted, that we must not fall into the trap of technological determinism, and reminded again that it was not media, but the existing politics and bravery of people, that started these uprisings.

In the context of riots and uprisings, Professor Cottle further emphasized the importance of studying the manner in which news media uses language as a way of framing events. The recommended reading on this topic is Raymond Williams’s Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. He also elaborated on the importance of images in framing events in a negative or positive manner, and as an example showed images of the London riots in 2011, used to frame the demonstrators in a highly negative light, which resulted in the prosecution and severe sentencing of many protesters.

Listen to Simon Cottle's keynote speech:

1. Introduction (mp3 file, duration 05:34m)
2. The Arab uprisings in connection with the history of communication and demonstrations
(mp3 file, duration 11:27m)
3. Falling into the technology determination trap (mp3 file, duration 02:33m)
4. Two dimensions of the way media can accommodate images (mp3 file, duration 02:39m)
5. New and old paradigms about media systems (mp3 file, duration 07:24m)
6. Conclusion-Not just a twitter revolution ( (mp3 file, duration 10:42m)

Respondent, Lilly Korpiola, PhD candidate, University of Helsinki

Korpiola set out to demonstrate the significance of the public sphere in various Middle Eastern countries, where social media is thought to have played an instrumental role in recent urban uprisings. For Korpiola, a successful revolution in the making needs mainstream media in order to inform the public opinion, while social media can act an entryway into the mainstream. However, although social media is a strong entry point into the global news market, once media networks are shut down, Korpiola argues, people start to come out of their homes, and this is when uprisings gain in numbers. Thus, for Korpiola, media is an important resource, but due to the restrictions in media channels, and high illiteracy rates in the Middle East, the public sphere is still created in coffee shops.

Truth in an Age of Global Technology

Clifford Christians, Professor Emeritus of Media Studies, Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Professor Christians’ discussion was anchored in the definition of truth as the Greek ‘aletheia’, meaning ‘openness’ and ‘disclosure’, and the idea that truth and transparency should be at the forefront of the information revolution. In an excerpt from the film Betrayal by Technology, social Philosopher Jacques Ellul alerted to the idea that technology does not easily tolerate the expressions of moral judgment, and that the expression of ethical, moral judgment is the highest freedom people can have. Technologies demand and condition, and, Christians proposes, in the process of making the digital order, the world loses a moral dimension. Quoting Nietzsche, Christians called the era we live in “the era beyond good or evil”, a world of sliding norms.

Taking Al Jazeera, WikiLeaks, and the suicide of photojournalist Kevin Carter as an example, Professor Christians argued that raw fact must be placed in context to satisfy the standard of authentic disclosure, and that photographs should not just produce pity in the viewer, but aid in the healing process. Thus, Professor Christians ventured, data is a means to an end, and needs to be accompanied by archives, quotes, analyses, interpretation and context in order to fulfill the standard of truth as ‘aletheia’.

Listen to Clifford Christians' keynote speech:

1.The truth in the technology system (mp3 file, duration 05:53)
2. Recovering and redifining the idea of truth ( (mp3 file, duration 07:18)
3. Increase in quantity - decrease in quality (mp3 file, duration 03:35)
4. A vacuum of normlessness (mp3 file, duration 06:36)
5. Alatheia in newsrooms (mp3 file, duration 05:37)
6. A tragic imagethat won the Pulitzer Price (mp3 file, duration 06:59)
7. Legitimacy of information (mp3 file, duration 02:17)
8. Wikileaks as an example (mp3 file, duration 07:12)
9. Conclusion - Alatheia (mp3 file, duration 02:58)

 

Respondent, Laura Juntunen, PhD candidate, University of Helsinki

For Juntunen, journalism is facing an era of great accountability, especially in the age when mainstream media is accompanied by civil journalism and social media. She raised the question of how aletheia relates to notions like accuracy, neutrality, balance, fairness, which are not interchangeable with ‘truth’ and should be defined and implemented in journalism. However, in her research, Juntunen noted that journalists are more concerned with practical matters of truth than the philosophical notion of aletheia as authentic disclosure. Finally, since truth is a process in which the audiences have become active members, Juntunen ended the seminar by noting that searching for truth in contemporary society is a conversation.