The Mediation and Remediation of Disaster: Hurricanes Katrina and Felix in/and the New Media Environment

Hurricanes Katrina and Felix made landfall in 2005 and 2007 on the Gulf Coast of the US and the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua respectively. Despite many economic, political and cultural differences between these two sites, they share a number of interesting similarities. Their inhabitants are subject to similar modes of racialized Othering and internal colonialism, and both places have vital links with the transnational cultural consciousness that Gilroy referred to as the Black Atlantic. Katrina and Felix also occurred at a time when centralized forms of media are increasingly perceived to be in crisis. This crisis is creating new spaces for the development of alternative ways of knowing, watching and making media. This paper draws on recent literature on decolonization by Mignolo, Escobar, Quijano and others to explore the prospects for decolonizing energies within the new media environment and a context of devastation wrought by neoliberalism and disaster. This research examines disasters in/and the new media environment, and suggests that activists should understand the distinctions between mainstream (or corporate) and alternative media, between top‐down and grassroots media, and between “old” and “new” media, in relational and non‐categorical rather than absolute terms. These media realms should be engaged from an awareness of how they interact with and impact upon one another. This research also suggests that disasters must be understood as ongoing and open‐ended events embedded within historical, social, cultural, economic and political processes and systems. Media, policymaking and emergency management practices that are informed by an awareness of this complex embedding, and which are therefore able to take a long‐term view of the unfolding of disasters, will be best equipped to engage effectively, and in democratically responsive ways, with disasters and in particular with the needs of those populations most vulnerable to their impacts.     

Neoliberalism and the Economic Utility of Immigration: Media Perspectives of Germany's Immigration Law

Abstract: Germany's new immigration law, which took effect in 2005, was hotly debated over a period of four years. This paper follows the debate on the law through the newsprint media, examines the representation of immigration as an economic utility, and investigates the contents of this economic‐utility perspective of immigration in light of neoliberal restructuring in Germany. The analysis focuses on 609 articles sampled from five major German daily newspapers published between July 2001 and August 2005. A discourse analysis suggests that the newsprint media represented immigration on the one hand as an economic necessity to replenish the labor market and ensure the international competitiveness of key industrial sectors. On the other hand, immigration was depicted as an economic liability that raises unemployment rates and burdens the public welfare system. Although the media emphasized the economic necessity of immigration, the final law does not permit any significant immigration of labor. The paper resolves this contradiction by situating media discourse in a wider context of neoliberal reforms and European Union expansion.     

Asymmetry of power and attention in alliance politics: the US–Republic of Korea case

While power asymmetry typically defines security relationships between allies, there exist other forms of asymmetry that influence alliance politics. In order to illustrate how they can shape policy outcomes that cannot be explained solely through the lens of power capabilities, the authors examine the role of relative attention that each side pays to the alliance. It is their central argument that since the client state has a greater vested interest in the alliance and given that attention depends on interest/need, the client state can leverage attention to get its way. By analysing two specific cases, the 2002 South Korean schoolgirls tragedy and the 2008 beef protests—instances where the South Koreans succeeded in compelling US concessions—the authors show that because the alliance was more central to the client state's agendas, there existed an asymmetry of attention that offered leveraging opportunities for the weaker ally. In this study, the authors emphasise the role of media attention as a key variable, and seek to contribute to debates on weaker party leverage in asymmetrical alliances.     

Digital not diversity? Changing Aboriginal media policy at the National Film Board of Canada

Using Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) as a case study, this paper highlights a paradigm shift in media policy away from supporting diverse content in favor of new digital formats. Historically the NFB has supported Aboriginal media production as a hallmark of the institution’s founding commitment to representing Canada’s people and culture. However, in recent years the institution has shifted its focus to digital technologies and interactive productions. This research is rooted in both a quantitative and qualitative examination of NFB official reports and related press coverage. The examination demonstrates a decrease in emphasis on Aboriginal production and an increase in attention to new technologies.     

Mothering,digital media and emotional geographies in Hamilton,Aotearoa New Zealand

This article traces a line between two literatures that can usefully be drawn into deeper conversation: geographies of digital media, and geographies of emotion. Its broad theoretical aim is to ascertain what insights might be gleaned by increasingly bringing together these two literatures. The more specific and primary aim, however, is an empirical one and that is to offer a materially grounded example of 35 mothers who live in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand who use digital media to communicate with their children. Particular attention is paid to the capacities of different digital media, both individually and combined, to help facilitate, but certainly not guarantee, different emotions. The research is informed by a feminist geographical reading of theories of digital media and emotion. Findings illustrate that increasingly mothers are making use of digital media, both singularly and collectively, to increase the chances of a particular desired emotional outcome with their child or children. This article concludes that bodies, devices, screens, sounds and images comingle to mediate emotions over time and space.     

Japanese archaeology in the 1990s

As scientific archaeology takes hold in Japan, our understanding of the nature and content of Japanese prehistory is changing radically. All of the period boundaries of Japanese prehistory are being rewritten, and many new “archaeologies” are growing up around particular scientific techniques. New publications in English give greater access to archaeological thinking in Japan, while Japanese publications focus on ever-narrowing aspects of prehistoric lifeways. Policy changes are giving archaeologists more access to the imperial tombs, and rescue teams are under less obligation to “save everything” as selective preservation is instituted.     

Tuvalu and Climate Change: Constructions of Environmental Displacement in The Sydney Morning Herald

Tuvalu, a place whose image in the ‘West’ is as a small island state, insignificant and remote on the world stage, is becoming remarkably prominent in connection with the contemporary issue of climate change‐related sea‐level rise. My aim in this paper is to advance understanding of the linkages between climate change and island places, by exploring the discursive negotiation of the identity of geographically distant islands and island peoples in the Australian news media. Specifically, I use discourse analytic methods to critically explore how, and to what effects, various representations of the Tuvaluan islands and people in an Australian broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald, emphasize difference between Australia and Tuvalu. My hypothesis is that implicating climate change in the identity of people and place can constitute Tuvaluans as .tragic victims. of environmental displacement, marginalizing discourses of adaptation for Tuvaluans and other inhabitants of low‐lying islands, and silencing alternative constructions of Tuvaluan identity that could emphasize resilience and resourcefulness. By drawing attention to the problematic ways that island identities are constituted in climate change discourse in the news media, I advocate a more critical approach to the production and consumption of representations of climate change.     

世界新闻史上的丑闻与笑料——日本新闻传媒对侵华日军进攻南京战役的多次不实报道

在日本侵华战争中,被军国主义狂热笼罩的日本新闻传媒失去了理智与道德.在1937年12月侵华日军进攻中国首都南京的战役中,日本随军记者与日本各大新闻传媒多次作了不实报道:既凭空捏造中国军民防守的南京"完全变成了一个鬼魂哭叫的死亡街道",又在日军尚被阻击在南京远郊时,几次虚报日军"占领"南京的"胜利消息",引起了日本的"举国狂欢".此举遭到一些知情者的质疑与批驳,成为世界新闻史上的丑闻与笑料.     

社会网络的空间化:以深圳传媒产业为例的社会地理网络研究

经济社会学对于经济活动所根植的社会关系网络的揭示,引发了网络思想的普遍关注。本文从经济社会学与文化经济地理学相结合的跨学科视角,探讨如何使用社会网络分析技术,将文化经济活动的地域关系网络可视化,提出"社会地理网络"的概念。论文以深圳传媒产业"大事记"作为数据来源,详细叙述了如何将影响深圳传媒产业发展历程的社会地理关系网络可视化的方法,揭示了传媒产业"社会地理网络"的存在;初步说明了社会地理网络研究的方法论意义和政策含义。     

国外社会化媒体在旅游业中的应用研究进展及启示

随着信息技术在旅游业中的广泛应用,新技术和新应用对旅游业的发展产生了深远影响,并促使旅游研究范式发生转变。基于社会化媒体与旅游业紧密结合的现实,通过对国外社会化媒体和旅游相关研究进行梳理,从社会化媒体概念界定、社会化媒体类型划分、社会化媒体对旅游主客体的影响、社会化媒体在旅游业中的应用四个方面进行了归纳和综述。研究发现,目前国外关于社会化媒体与旅游的相关研究处于快速发展阶段;社会化媒体对旅游业的多方面深刻影响也逐渐被学者认识,但是研究的广度和深度还有待加强。最后,从基础理论和实际应用角度提出相关的研究启示。