Annotated Bibliography - The Portrayal of the Burqa Ban in the Media

Schlesinger, P. (1993). Islam, postmodernity and the media: an interview with Akbar S. Ahmed. Media, Culture & Society, 15(1), 29-42. doi 10.1177/016344393015001003

Philip Schlesinger wrote this article while working in the Department of Film and Media Studies at University of Stirling, Scotland.  He conducts an interview with Pakistani anthropologist Akbar S. Ahmed.  Schlesinger is interested in Ahmed’s research into the media and postermodernity when it comes to Western perceptions of Muslims and vice versa.  Ahmed argues that the media and globalisation are making it impossible for groups in society to isolate themselves and live a traditional lifestyle.  Ahmed relates this to an East-West division that is built on thousands of years of history and social relations.  Schlesinger probes the argument put forward in Ahmed’s research about film and television media and their role in postmodernity in the Muslim world.  Ahmed essentially argues that postmodernity is culturally contextual, for Muslims it has to do with the changing world order after the Cold War.  He stresses that the global aspect of Western media is intruding on traditional values and providing Muslims with misleading images of Western society and causing tension.  Ahmed suggests that reconciliation between Western and Muslim cultures needs to be based on respect, cooperation and celebration of differences.  Schlesinger conducts the interview with respect to Ahmed’s views but does attempt to highlight his cultural bias and prejudices.

Barns, G. (2010, May 7). Cory Bernardi’s sinister plot to ban the burqa. Crikey. Retrieved from: http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/07/corey-bernardis-sinister-plot-to-ban-the-burqa/

Greg Barns has written something close to an editorial but with a heavy analysis of social and political commentary and Australian law.  Barns assesses the comments by South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi who made a claim that the burqa should be banned in Australia.  Senator Bernardi made this claim after an incident in Sydney when a thief used a burqa as a disguise.  Senator Bernardi links the wearing of the burqa to repression of women by Muslim society as well as criminality in Western society.  Barns writes that Senator Bernardi’s call for banning the burqa is more ‘sinister’ than claims from other countries.  He makes this assertion within the framework of racial vilification laws in Australia.  While these laws vary from state to state, Barns reviews each state and claims that Bernardi is in breach of racial vilification laws in Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria.  Barns claims that Senator Bernardi cannot defend himself against these laws by arguing that his comments were in good faith, as linking the burqa to oppression and criminality are deemed irrational.  Barns accuses Senator Bernardi of breaching these laws as he has incited ‘serious contempt’ for Australian Muslims.  This piece comes across as opinionated as Barns claims that Senator Bernardi’s comments are the most sinister ever made on the topic.  This statement is put forward before the legal and social justificatory framework.  This piece highlights that there is not a celebration of differences between Muslims and Australians.

French face veil ban comes into force (2011, April 11). Al Jazeera. Retrieved from: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/04/20114117646677858.html

This article was written after the French government implemented controversial laws that banned citizens from wearing face veils in public.  The writer highlights the immediate civil disobedience campaign against these laws by stating that two women, wearing niqab veils, were arrested.  However, according to French authorities, they were arrested for participating in an unauthorised demonstration.  The article includes comments from a variety of sources.  The French government said that the ban is due to male oppression of women.  Muslim leaders in France state that they are neither for or against the banning of face veils, as wearing these garments is a cultural, rather than religious practice.  Protestors claim that the ban is against their European and human rights.  The author analyses the reasoning behind the French government’s decision to ban face veils.  According to official rhetoric, it is to promote France’s secular values and educate the people about the responsibilities of French citizenship.  However, some human rights groups argue that it was a move by former French President Nicholas Sarkozy to win votes from far-right voters.  Al Jazeera is known for delivering news from a non-Western perspective and relies heavily on non-governmental sources in this piece, although it still does provide a balanced argument.  This piece highlights that there is not much respect between Western and Muslim culture and that differences are not being celebrated.

Human rights chief slams burqa ban. (2010, March 8). SBS World News Australia. Retrieved from: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1209342/Human-rights-chief-slams-burqa-ban      

This article discusses international and customary law regarding several countries’ attempts to ban the wearing of burqas.  This article consults human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, Thomsas Hammarberg, to discuss the social, legal and normative dimensions and implications of banning the burqa in European society.  According to Hammarberg, banning face veils would be an ‘unreasonable’ invasion of personal privacy and would not liberate oppressed women.  He argues that banning the burqa and other face veils would in fact do the opposite of what the supporters are trying to promote, it would actually lead to further alienation and segregation of society.  Hammarberg not only relies on this social and normative argument, but also on the basis of international and European law.  He states that banning the burqa would be against the European Convention of Human Rights depending on the context of the banning laws.  Hammarberg then analyses the situation in France where he denounces their approach and calls it undemocratic considering the circumstances.  SBS is known for presenting a multicultural view on current affairs and has often been criticised for having a left-wing bias.  This article calls for respect and cooperation between Western and Muslim cultures and to celebrate the differences.      

All the News That's Fit to Print

News values are one of the most opaque 

structures of meaning in modern society … 

Journalists speak of “the news” as if events 

select themselves … Yet of the millions of 

events which occur daily in the world, only 

a tiny proportion ever become visible as 

“potential news stories”: and of this 

proportion, only a small fraction are 

actually produced as the day’s news …

That's what a news value is. What deserves to receive attention.

I don't really know how to feel about that... I mean, I understand that there is just too much going on for it all to be reported. But everything that happens is going to have an affect that will impact someone. So shouldn't people know about this? What do I know? I'm a first year uni student, I'll learn in time.

In this modern age we need to make everything appealing, even the news, because lets face it, people need to know what's happening around them no matter how dull it is. So everything is transient according to the general public. Life is only a series of unrelated events...

As Arthur Evelyn Waugh puts it:

News is what a chap 

who doesn't care much 

about anything wants to 

read. And it's only news 

until he's read it. After 

that it's dead.

There are four main aspects of news values:

IMPACT

AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION

PRAGMATICS

SOURCE INFLUENCE

These aspects result in what news values is all about

NEWSWORTHINESS

Despite all sources of media trying to be relevant to the public, we can't say that news values are universal across all cultures and societies. And to me, that will make working in the media fun. I intend to travel and work overseas after uni, so I'm really looking forward to the challenge of working with a new culture and new people. My education is going to teach me to how report what is worthy of people knowing about, while travelling is going to teach me what is worthy to different people.

But there are two values that people who work in media across different cultures believe in:

If it bleeds, it leads

It it's local, it leads

People are drawn to tragedy. A sad and morbid fact. So, serious hard hitting stories are going to get people's attention. And of course, people want to know what's going on in their local community.

News values shape these ideas because news values determine them. News values are what makes journalists chose stories full of blood and tragedy, and at the same time, stories close to home. Values vary from place to place, but they serve the same function: to keep an audience.

I think John Sergeant sums up news values pretty well:

Journalists rely on 

instinct rather than 

logic when it comes 

to the defining a 

sense of news 

values.

There have been three main hypothesise about news values. Firstly by Galtung and Ruge, second by Golding and Elliot, and third by O'Neill and Harcup. They all try to explain what is newsworthy, essentially. And my first thought about them is that they appear very Western in their outlook... But that's just me and I haven't read anything else about them to really back up my claim.

However, news values have been threatened over the past couple of years by three factors:

Commercialisation of of Media and Social Life

Public Relations

Journalism's Ideals/Journalism's Reality

These three factors are limiting the reliability and quality of news in various forms of media. This then makes people question the values held by journalists and discredits the field.

One particularly interesting threat to news values is something called 'churnalism.' This is when journalists just churn out information from press and media releases by PR companies rather than write original reports that contain relevance to an audience.

Like I said in a previous blog post, I'm a massive fan of British comedy. It's just so much better than American comedy, and most Australian comedy for that matter. My favourite British comic (and lets face it, my favourite comic of all time) is Stephen Fry. I'm sure most of you know him from shows like Blackadder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie and QI. But he was in another show called Absolute Power, which is my favourite show with Stephen Fry in it.

Absolute Power is about a PR company, headed by Stephen's character Charles Prentiss, who disregard all forms of ethics and morals in order to do their job. I find hilarious as well as a quite thought provoking about the media. And it wasn't until I started JOUR1111 that I really began to fully understand the dynamics of the company and media in general.

In this episode, they are hired by a right-wing political party to handle their PR. Absolutely hilarious and raises questions about values in the media (sorry for the awful quality)

Part 1

Part 2

Another questionable client. They go ahead with it, by the way.

Another episode about politics

Part 1 This time with people that matter

Part 2 Taking it a step further...

Shaping public opinion

And my favourite episode. A comedy actor beats his heavily pregnant girlfriend in the car park at Ikea. And Charles takes on the challenge to sort out the wife beater's PR, with absolutely hilarious results.

This episode needs to be watched to be believed. The degree of manipulation and moral cowardice is enough to make you cringe yet piss laugh hysterically. Truth be told, Absolute Power is what got me interested in the media. I was really tempted to study PR. But I decided against because I knew I would never be as brilliant as Charles Prentiss, even though I lack a moral compass.

In our tute for JOUR1111 on ethics and news values, Carmel showed us this video about churnalism and the relationship between PR and journalism (I couldn't link the video like I did with the others for some reason...).

See any connections between Absolute Power and Chris Atkins' investigation?

Watch a full episode of Absolute Power. It will blow your mind how similar it is to Chris Atkins' video. And it's bloody hilarious. More than anything, watch it because it's funny and has Stephen Fry in it.

Values underpin everything in society. Not only do I have values as a (future/aspiring) journalist, I also have values as a student.

I went with good grades and enough sleep. I'm going to be a socially inept journalist/foreign affairs adviser one day. I try to make the right decision and I'm still disadvantaging myself.

My Dream

Forget about being a journalist or working for the UN.

THIS is what I want to do with my life.

This is probably one of the best things I've ever seen.

James 'Spoons' Turner ;-)

They Didn't Change My Mind About Climate Change

I can't sleep and don't want to work on my International Relations essay so I'm just going to blog some stuff and listen to All The Rowboats by Regina Spektor on repeat.

Because I've been busy I only watched the ABC's documentary I Can Change Your Mind About Climate and the following Q&A discussion last night.

My God, that was a PAINFUL two hours where I had to resist yelling at my laptop...

I seriously had hope for this. The ABC usually produces balanced and intelligent programs. Yet they cast two polar extremes in the climate debate where there was absolutely no chance that either of them would change their minds.

Nick Minchin is a moron. There I said it. And Anna Rose is annoying, despite myself being a member of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

They both arranged meetings with people that agreed with their respective views. It was pathetic.

Nick was just facetious the whole time and did nothing but try to discredit legitimate science with some of the most absurd claims I have ever heard.

His first interview with 'experts' was a couple in Perth who used to believe in anthropogenic climate change but are now sceptical of the idea. They said that one of thermometers that they use to measure temperatures around the world is located next to an airport and that the results are skewed. That means that every thermometer in the world can't be trusted...

Yeah, because scientists are that stupid...

And that atmospheric physicist who has taken money from groups with agendas about climate change. Nick only furthered Anna's point by not being able to produce anyone really reliable. Although his last guest, Bjorn Lomborg, suggested an investment over time in green technology made the most sense out of them all.

While Anna did have a lot of respectable scientists to help her case, she herself didn't do much for it. She just repeated herself over and over again. But I will concede that once you state the science behind climate change, there isn't really much else you can say.

The thing that annoyed me most was when Nick brought Marc Morano on...

Anyone who knows who Marc Morano is knows that he is definitely the most UNreliable source when it comes to ANYTHING to do with climate change.

Morano has been called one of the 25 most influential right wing journalists in the world. So clearly, the fact that he has a bias shows that he isn't a good journalist. He runs a blog called Climate Depot that only spreads climate change denial propaganda.

According to Source Watch, Morano has no scientific qualifications whatsoever. He has protectionist views of American industry and thinks that regulation for sustainability will endanger 'American values.' Morano continuously lists costs, figures and statistics that he does not reference. And a simple search for his information reveals no source. Morano lies in order to push his agenda. He is a narcissist and a disgrace to journalists everywhere.

My favourite guest on the show was scientist and writer Ben Goldacre. He said that anthropogenic climate change is almost universally accepted by scientists. Very rarely is there completely universal acceptance of something in science, so this is as good as we're going to get. Goldacre said that we shouldn't waste our breath with climate deniers. Debating something that is pretty much universally accepted only creates room for scepticism.

This raises an important point, should journalists allow for both sides of the argument to be represented in the media?

I think climate deniers should be kept out of the media. Yes they have the right to free speech and should be allowed to make their voices heard as that is a core tenet of liberal democracy that I hold dear. But, the media should only report on actual scientific evidence that supports anthropogenic climate change. I don't think this because I believe in climate change, I believe this because journalism is about reporting the truth. Anthropogenic climate change is pretty much universally accepted in the scientific community. You can't really get much closer to complete acceptance when you deal with idiots, and some scientists are idiots.

So, I Can Change Your Mind About Climate pissed me off unbelievable as the debate went absolutely nowhere. They came to 'common ground' at the end and then just went back to their polar extremes on the following Q&A discussion, which just rendered it pretty much pointless.

I can feel the rage build inside me as I write this so I'll be brief about the Q&A forum. Anna and Nick annoyed me because they just repeated themselves again. Chief executive of the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark, social researcher and writer, Rebecca Huntley, and all round corporate fat cat Clive Palmer joined the panel.

Megan and Rebecca were by far the best that night. They were respectful with their answers, to the point and thought provoking with their commentary. Clive Palmer, don't get me started. And then to find out today that he's challenging Wayne Swan's seat... The last thing we need is his agenda being supported by Australian politics.

My opinion about the debate between climate alarmists and deniers can be summed up with the eloquent, funny and oh so true words of Ben Goldacre:

"I would rather slam my cock in a door than debate with someone who doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change!"

Regina Spektor Obsession

IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE 

29 MAY

I MUST SHARE THIS WITH THE WORLD!!!!!

ENJOY FRIENDS!

Is it Acceptable to Kill a Whale in Order to Save Two Pandas?

Well, is it?

Five years of Catholic education and learning about morals and ethics, I'm an atheist and lack a moral compass...

I guess what this lecture asked us to look at is whether or not media is unethical or just in bad taste.

I am very hard to offend due to my amoral status (if anything Catholic education just makes people more cynical, that was definitely the case with my school). However, I understand that other people have different feelings and thoughts than me, so I do try to tread lightly around controversial issues.

Returning to the media, I think there's a weird juxtaposition when it comes to ethics and taste.

Take for instance this ad for the World Wildlife Fund.

To compare an act of violence against civilians to a natural disaster is immensely insensitive, even I know that. And this doesn't even help the cause of WWF. They talk about how the world is more powerful than people (using the worst analogy ever) and then say that we have to conserve the world... Following the logic of this ad, the world should be able to take care of itself (I am all for ecological sustainability and conservation don't get me wrong, this ad is just stupid).

Now, I'm going to keep talking about the media but I'm going to bring up something personal. In any religion class I did at school we learnt about ethical and moral frameworks, and we were given real life examples were we could apply them. Every example was abortion. Abortion is the easiest thing to condemn using an ethical framework.

People are allowed to have opinions and views that differ from me, I'm not expecting everyone to be pro choice like me. However, I won't stand by and let people be indoctrinated into following something that they don't understand fully. Admittedly I was at a Catholic school where life is considered sacrosanct. However, I won't stand by and let biased opinions (be them religious or otherwise) try to persuade our secular media.

There are so many things surrounding the issue of abortion that we can't just have a blanket rule that says they shouldn't be allowed. Why should women who have been abused have to have a child that will remind them of that terrible experience? Why should a woman give birth if it is going to endanger her own life?

Thinking about it maybe I do have some sort of moral compass... At least some sort of egalitarian one.

I think it comes down to this:

Media is meant to be unbiased and secular. People can use media to represent their ideas, but not to indoctrine people or force their agenda upon them. I think in the case of the Ron Paul ad, he is trying to appear both rational (as a doctor) and moral (as a Christian) which shows that he is trying to push his agenda by hiding behind this facade. 

I'm in a weird place when it comes to ethics and morality. I don't really follow any moral codes apart from respecting others and treating others as I want them to treat me. I think when I work in the media one day I need to understand the various views and perspectives in the community or order to convey information and ideas properly. I also want to one day work in foreign affairs (hence doing an arts degree) and that too requires a moral approach. I have an obligation to do what is best for my country as well as for others in this world.

Ethics and morals are both the bane of my existence and what underpin how I act and view the world... 

R2P

Here's my factual storytelling exercise.

I'm not interesting enough to have a feature story about and I don't know anyone who would want me to share their story with my cohort (or the rest of the internet for that matter).

Instead I chose a group that I first heard about on Market Day during O Week. Seeing as I study International Relations and Peace & Conflict Studies in my arts degree it makes sense that I look into groups like this and explore my interests. I'm already really interested in areas like human rights and human security.

Learning about R2P has really inspired me to achieve my study goals. One day I want to work with someone like them and try to make a positive difference in the world.

Getting a 7 on this assignment isn't important to me anymore (even though I would love one) because I've learnt more about myself and where I want to go in life. So enjoy and tell me what you think!