Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/dblackall Recent documents in Dr. David Blackall en-us Sun, 31 May 2009 05:15:11 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/8 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/8 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:42:09 PST A new 24 credit point Graduate Certificate in Multicultural Journalism is being offered by the University of Wollongong. Developed in consultation with Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) Radio division, the course emphasises cultural sensitivity in the presentation of news and current affairs. The curriculum is tailored to provide skills for news media professionals in translating news from English to other languages. This is the case in SBS radio where mainstream English language (sourced from AAP and similar wire and online services) is translated into 68 different languages. Thus in developing the curriculum, SBS Radio becomes a valuable resource for case studies and experience. P. White http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/7 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/7 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:42:04 PST Mark Davis, former presenter for the Special Broadcasting Service international current affairs program, Dateline, is about to go back on the road, returning to what he does best as a sole-camera investigative journalist. After two years presenting for the program he looks forward to again travelling and attending the whole production of sole camera journalism - research, interviewing, camera and editing. Before becoming a television journalist Davis was a documentary filmmaker and before then, a lawyer. He is one of Australia's foremost sole operating camerajournalists, after significant stories with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs programs, Foreign Correspondent and Four Corners. He has won five Walkley's (Australian award for excellence in journalism), including the prestigious Gold Walkley for Blood Money - a sole camera 'brand-name' report on the funding of pro-Indonesian militias in East Timor. In 1997 he won a World Medal at the New York Film and Television Festival for his television current affairs journalism in Afghanistan. His other Walkley Awards were for stories on the famine in North Korea, the aftermath of the tsunami in Papua New Guinea and Blood on the Cross, a remarkable investigation into the killing of West Papuan villagers by British SAS, with the complicity of the Red Cross. Arriving into current affairs through an across profession osmosis, Davis has a range of perspectives and skills of use to journalism. Documentary filmmaker and journalism educator, David Blackall filed this report after an interview with Davis in a Sydney alfresco café on a sunny Tuesday November morning, as a nationally significant horse race in Melbourne was getting underway. D. Blackall http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/6 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/6 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:41:59 PST Cunningham, Stuart; Elizabeth, Jacka; and Sinclair, John (eds) (1996) New Patterns in Global Television -Peripheral Vision. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-871122-0, 238 pages. Reviewed by David Blackall This book holds a brave position, both in its analyses and its freedom from political, ideological or theoretical encumbrances. It contributes to the necessary erosion of a false notion that television and its effects are simplistic because television is young, simple and stupid. The book is reflexive in its acknowledgement of its own observational and analytical position. This runs a danger of superior posturing, yet "New Patterns in Global Television" pulls itself free of such dangers through its strong research. D. Blackall http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/5 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/5 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:41:53 PST This article highlights the imperative of developing multiple media literacy skills in high school students to prepare them for work in a world plagued by complex social, political, economic and environmental issues. These skills can be imbued through the integration of the concepts of journalism ethics with journalism's role in a democracy within the practical aspects of production of digital television community news. This idea is to be explored in an Australian Research Council Linkage project (2005 to 2007) - a collaborative initiative between Apple Computer Australia, WIN Television and the University of Wollongong (UOW). The ARC School News project investigates the notion that high school students' creation of digital video news about their school and community, facilitated by innovative technology and expert advice, can lead to their acquisition of multiple literacy skills. As the students' skills develop in constructing television news, they will then begin to appreciate a set of multiple literacy resources that should serve them as young participants in a democratic system. In a changing news media landscape, dominated by deception, spin and public relations, these resources are critical and young people require them to effectively exercise their rights, now and into the future. In the making of community oriented television news, young people will develop a critical ability to read the media products for what they are: constructions that are often persuasive and propagandist, disguised as news and loitering on the boundaries of the pornographic and the violent. Young people will develop their critical abilities in multi literacy, finding that news and current affairs often serve singular political and commercial interests, rather than what journalism purports to serve - balance, fairness, independence, investigation, pluralism and democracy. D. Blackall http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/4 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/4 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:41:47 PST Chomsky, Noam (2003) Hegemony Or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Allen & Unwin, Sydney. 278 pp. ISBN 1 74114 162 1 Reviewed by David Blackall This book is most likely to polarize readers - those whose arguments are reinforced or those who see it as essentially conspiracy theory. If for some time you have agreed with Noam Chomsky's journalism and his other books and essays, then you will most likely agree with the pitch on the back cover - "from the world's foremost intellectual activist, an irrefutable analysis of America's pursuit of total world domination and the catastrophic consequences that will follow". As an institute professor of philosophy, linguistics and linguistic theory, Chomsky's discourse analysis drives the contention that America's superpower mindset is hell bent on domination and this is pitched against the second superpower - world public opinion. Public relations and propaganda are the weapons used to serve the power elite: largely, the US oil companies and their greedy thirst for oil and other energy resources. The exploitation of other peoples' fossil fuels and a militaristic foreign policy in gaining access to the same, attracts terrorism, which justifies the clamping down on domestic civil rights in the name of homeland security. D. Blackall http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/3 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/3 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:41:43 PST Greene, Joyce & Reber, Deborah (eds) (1996) Drawing Insight -Communicating Development Through Animation, Southbound Sdn. Bhd., Penang Malaysia. ISBN 983-9054-14-7 Reviewed by David Blackall Using case studies, Drawing Insight is best described as a stimulator and provider of ideas for the process and design of animated film and video. Potential animators and those interested in animation's communicative powers are granted a delightful journey through many aspects of film animation and its place as a universally understood communication tool. The book's contributors, from a range of cultural backgrounds, have successfully shown the importance of animation in global communication, particularly in relation to the role UNICEF plays in providing information about health and social issues to marginalised communities. D. Blackall http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/2 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/2 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:41:37 PST Hong Kong is one of the world's freest places not just in its market economy, but also in the spirit of its public discourse and expressions of its popular culture. Much of the Western media are predicting the demise of this freedom when China takes over the British colony on July 1. While Western journalists anticipate eagerly the final changing of the guards, their counterparts in Hong Kong juggle shakily with the pragmatics of how they can work within the "one country two systems" interpretation of media freedom and responsibility. C. Lloyd http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/1 http://works.bepress.com/dblackall/1 Wed, 28 May 2008 12:30:11 PDT Can It Hurt Less? is a 26 minute long documentary film about juvenile justice alternatives to the court system in New South Wales, Australia, through family conferencing. This process can deal with minor offences instead of the other process via the courts which can often lead to criminal records. The film presents case studies and interviews with police and criminologists who are also involved in the family conferencing process. It contains lively sections of animation designed to illustrate difficult legal concepts with the view of making these accessible to younger people - the focus of the film. D. Blackall