Annotated Bibliography

ODonnell, M. (2009). Gay-hate, Journalsim and compassionate Questioning: Journalsim's Response to the Matthew Shepard Case. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 19, pp. 112-125.

Marcus O’Donnell lectures in journalism at the University of Wollongong. He is the former editor of the Sydney Star Observer, Australia’s oldest gay and lesbian weekly newspaper. This indicates a knowledge and understanding of journalism and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) issues. O’Donnell begins by discussing the details of the murder of Matthew Shepard; a gay, 21 year old student from Wyoming. The author continues on to highlight the limited or negative media representations of GLBT persons, and the paucity of scholarly articles on the issue. O’Donnell argues that when GLBT hate-crimes are reported, journalists adapt a “tragic framing” angle to alleviate social guilt and bring closure to the public, hence discouraging active engagement in social and political reform. O’Donnell progresses to critique a 20/20 report by Elizabeth Vargas, claiming its sensationalised manner, which brought outrage and grief to the GLBT community, is a poor form of ethical journalism. O’Donnell instead promotes JoAnne Wpyijewski’s “compassionate questioning” and anecdotal style of article, which makes mention a wide array of theories on the case but provides no substantive argumentation in favour of any one in particular. The paper closes with the notion that all journalism articles regarding minority groups must be reported in a compassionate and moralistic way. O’Donnell has cited numerous sources, however, their use is sporadic. Therefore, some conclusions are reached without evidence or examining opposing views, causing the article to lose some credibility.

 

Kennedy, S. (2012, May 10). Obama Backs Same-Sex Marriage. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-10/obama-backs-same-sex-marriage/4001992

Stephanie Kennedy has over 20 years of journalism experience with many as the American foreign correspondent for an array of ABC shows; albeit not specifically versed on the human rights issues surrounding the GLBT community. Kennedy, directly after the lead, makes comment to the proximity of Obama’s announcement to the upcoming election, already pushing the angle of the story. She apportions much of the article to Obama quotes which outline his family as the catalyst for change. Midway through the article she brings attention to the Australian debate over same sex marriage with a quote from Julia Gillard claiming she will not change her stance. Kennedy highlights Obama’s previous and changing stances, mentioning Vice-President Joe Biden’s statement, and the abolishment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation. Kennedy argues Obama’s stance will hurt his re-election bids as he will lose support of swing-states previously won (for example, North Carolina which approved a constitutional amendment to forbid any gay union or marriage) and of the “black” community who are opposed to gay rights. This article is very information based for Obama and Democratic Party, not making mention to the Republican’s stance on gay marriage. It is also the only article cited to include the Australian gay marriage issue as it is an Australian publication.

 

Baker, J. C. (2012, May 9). Obama Says Same-Sex Marriage Should be Legal. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from New York Times Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/politics/obama-says-same-sex-marriage-should-be-legal.html?pagewanted=all

Jackie Calmes has worked for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for over 25 years as the White House political and economic correspondent. Peter Baker is a political author and journalist for The Washington Post and The New York Times. This indicates these authors have vast experience with political issues. This article is written with highly emotive language, not using the inverted pyramid structure; something not typical to New York Times articles. Much of this article focuses on the speculation of the announcement after Joe Biden’s statement to the press, and critique of Obama’s lengthy “evolving” stance on gay marriage. It also analysed pro-GLBT legislative reforms, such as the abolishment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy, and the promotion of overlooking the Defence of Marriage Act in the judicial system. This article takes issue with Obama’s religious stance as a Christian. Furthermore, much speculation is cast over the outcome of the upcoming election, claiming Obama has lost support from the African American community, older generations, white-collar workers and political swing states. It concludes with a promotion of the upcoming gay-rights fundraisers and Obama’s promotion of this human-rights based issue.  Unlike the other online article (ABC cited above), this articles agenda is more efficiently hidden in its lengthy nature.

 

The Economist. (2012, May 12-18). Puntuated Equilibrium. The Economist, p. 40.

The Economist is a weekly British economic and political magazine. While publically announcing its traditional liberal views, the magazine is held in fairly high regard for its journalistic integrity. The first part of the article defends Obama’s “evolving” view on gay marriage; an aspect which the other sources have critiqued Obama for. It does, however, notion that Obama’s stance was most likely a result of Joe Biden and Arne Duncan’s public statements in favour of gay marriage. Emphasis is placed on the pro GLBT actions that the Obama administration has enacted, such as repealing the federal Defence of Marriage Act and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. The last third of the article examines the North Carolina constitutional ban on same-sex unions and marriage, and the failed attempts of Colorado to be the first state which banned gay-marriage to allow civil-unions for same sex relationships. It finishes by citing a statistic that 50% of Americans support gay marriage, and that the Republican Party should also “evolve” in its views on GLBT issues. As this article is printed, it is limited in its words, such lacking some of the examples the internet articles contained.

Factual Story Telling

Personal Media Use and Production Diary

Media, through use and production, has become an integral part of our daily lives. With technological advancements we are no longer limited to the “traditional media” forms such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television; instead we have high speed access through the internet, as well as capabilities in our mobile phones. Over a ten day period, from the 12^th to 23^rd of March, I recorded the media I used and produced. Throughout the course of this dossier I will examine my relationship to journalism and communication in relation to that recorded information, as well as compare it to the media use of my peers.

Table of Media Use

Media use in mins	Mon 12th	Tues 13th	Wed   14th	Thur 15th	Fri 16th	Sat 17th	Sun   18th	Mon 19th	Tues 20th	Wed   21st	Total
Internet											1602
*Facebook	25	23	56	102	74	59	7	11	91	17	465
*Twitter	-	-	-	16	4	-	-	-	19	9	48
**Blog	-	-	-	-	56	-	-	-	-	7	63
*Email	14	5	29	15	14	5	12	-	-	9	103
Banking	3	-	11	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14
Youtube	-	-	-	45	-	-	-	-	25	-	70
Online Uni Readings	145	50	-	99	58	189	78	-	54	71	744
Online News	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	21		21
General/Google	4	5	-	-	65	-	-	-	-	-	74
Television											992
ABC news 24	55	42	11	53	41	89	-	23	-	32	346
Other News	-	-	-	11	23	-	-	-	-	9	43
Entertainment	144	-	30	29	135	90	145	30	-	-	603
Phone											47
Facebook	10	7	-	-	-	-	-	13	17	-	47
Total	400	132	137	369	470	432	242	77	227	154	2641
Unless otherwise indicated, media is only used    * indicates media both used and produced     ** indicates media only produced

Overall I found the results quite surprising, with 2641 minutes of my time over the ten days used up by media. Of that time, 60.66% was in the form of internet, 37.56% in television and 1.78% was on my phone’s Facebook app. In addition to this media use, I further participated in 204 text messages, that is, 117 received and 87 sent. Critically speaking, however, the vast majority of the time was spent consuming, rather than producing media.

Clearly it can be seen that I predominantly use “new media” with the majority of my communication (through means such as Facebook, Twitter and Email) and information (through online university readings, Google and YouTube) coming from the internet on my laptop. It should be noted that most of my time was spent doing university readings, followed closely by Facebook. While some may consider spending this much time on Facebook as ridiculous, it only really encapsulates how a large portion of society are communicating and socialising; this social aspect is what lies behind my use of Facebook and consequently also Email and Twitter. According to the survey results, 91.9% of my peers also predominately use the internet for Facebook, with 94.7% only having one account, which is how many I have (fig. 1). My other internet media usage, including banking, YouTube, blogging and online news were seldom during this time period and usually relies on my daily activity. As such, no real pattern is able to be established for these activities. Overall, my internet usage averaged to 160 minutes per day, which is the time that the largest group of my peers are spending online (fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2
Peers - Hours Spent Online 

Furthermore, despite 37.56% of my media use coming from Television, I have no other form of “traditional media”. Evidently this highlights a lack of diversity in my media consumption as I do not receive any information from newspapers, magazines or radio. As such, this limits the amount, and style, of information that I am exposed to. Surprisingly, still 51.6% and 39.1% of students get their news from newspapers and radio respectively (fig. 3). However, over the course of the ten days I did view 346 minutes of ABC News 24 and a further 43 minutes of local news. I feel that by watching ABC News 24 I am exposed to far more news stories than I would reading a newspaper, with TV able to keep me more up-to-date during the day. Obtaining the news from TV once again places me in the majority of my peers with 71.4% also getting their news this way. My other TV usage during this time I have defined as “entertainment” as this time was spent watching shows and movies on free-to-air TV. Despite being called “entertainment” during this time I was exposed to large amounts of advertising, in the form of adverts or even product placement in shows, as well as regular news updates. Therefore, even during this time I was open to, both consciously and subconsciously, media and journalism. With my total TV time averaging to 99 minutes per day, I am grouped with 29.9% of my peers.

Fig. 3
Peers- Source of News

In regards to my phone, it is evident that this is only a small part of my daily media usage. With it not being a smart phone, it severely limits the activity I can participate in, and therefore only contributes to 1.78% of my total usage; with a non-smart phone Facebook app being my only use. However, the survey result shows that just over a fifth of my peers also do not have smart phones (fig. 4), indicating that while smart phones seem to now dominate within the journalism cohort, I am not completely behind the times. In addition, as stated before, over the ten days 204 texts were exchanged between me and friends, signifying that I also use this as base for my communication. While, at the moment, my relation to communication and journalism is not greatly impacted by not having a smart phone, surely as media progresses further into the “3.0 semantic web” not having the internet capabilities on my phone will start to impact the communication and journalism I am exposed to.

Fig. 4

As can be seen from the above analysis and evaluation, my media use generally falls in line with the majority of my peers in the journalism cohort. However, my deficit of “traditional media” and smart phone capabilities reduce my variation of, and contact to, communication and journalism as a whole. As technology further progresses, surely “traditional media” will become further out-dated and my ability to use phone related media will increase; moving me and society further into the “sematic media” that is progressing.