Mass Media and Communication

Pino Nano reconstructs the history of the Rhegium Julii International Prize by recounting the personal life of its President, the Calabrian poet Pino Bova, and does so through the critical comments of two other very well-known Italian poets, Corrado Calabrò and Dante Maffia. 56 years of the Prize are also the history of Italian literature and essays of the last half century.
/-Pino Nano ricostruisce la Storia del Premio Internazionale Rhegium Julii raccontando la vita personale del suo Presidente, il poeta calabrese Pino Bova, e lo fa attraverso i commenti critici di altri due poeti italiani molto noti, Corrado Calabrò e Dante Maffia. 56 anni di Premio, sono anche la storia della letteratura e della saggistica italiana di questo ultimo mezzo secolo.

The Khasis, a matrilineal tribe in Meghalaya, in the northeast of India, are the adherents of a peculiar matriline social structure. However, it is going through a period of transformation from tradition to modernity that can help to favour the status of women. The basic purpose of the analysis is to understand the transition that has taken place in the Khasis of Meghalaya over a span of time. It is also important to examine the path in which the role and status of women are heading towards the advancement of society. As a result, the present paper aims to examine the complexities of the role and place of Khasi women in the growth of society indifference with the patriarchal society. And, to understand the working of the Meghalaya Succession to Self-Acquired Property Act, 1984 (referred to as the Succession Act). This paper is examined through the number of social, economic, political, cultural, psychological, and attitudinal indicators based on secondary data such as articles, book...

This study explored the Life Satisfaction of the youngest daughters in West Jaintia Hills District, Meghalaya. It explored the different experiences encountered by the youngest daughters and the factors that contributed to their different experiences. This study comprised of 30 respondents from age 21 to 60 years. In-depth Interview is used. Findings indicated that most of the youngest daughters are happy and find it helpful for them in their daily life, however some of the individuals faced hard-time experiences with the responsibilities they have to take. The factor led to hard time experiences is because of financial problems and not receiving enough support from the family and for those who are content, it was because their family members are willing to help.

Meghalaya is a very small state in the northeast India but its tradition and culture has something to inspire the rest of the country. Meghalaya is inhabited by three tribes, namely, the Khasis, the Garos and the Jaintias, but the state and its people are one of the few surviving matrilineal society. The women of these tribes enjoy more freedom and respect than the women in the rest of the country. In Meghalaya, women are considered superior than men, which is a rare culture in our country. The tribes of this state celebrates the birth of a daughter in the family because daughters are considered as an asset to the family, unlike the rest of the country where female foeticide is taking its toll and a daughter is considered as a burden for the family. The inheritance laws of the state of Meghalaya are in the favour of women instead of men. The daughters in Meghalaya inherit the property from their mothers unlike other Indian societies where the ancestral property is passed from father...

For identity to be the subject of a focus, it must first become a problem, a point asserted by Sartre in 1954, who said that "it's not the Jew that creates the anti-Semite; it's the anti-Semite that makes the Jew." The matrilineal system has long been the most important distinctive marker of the Khasi socieh; and the other elements of the culture have been absorbed within this aspect. The Khasi identity, the very raison-d'etre of the group, was forced to come into focus when there was a felt threat-the threat of Bn'tish colonialism and Christianity in this case. Prior to the coming of the British, the identity markers of the Khasis were not structured, as there was no differentiation within the group and the mere intermittent interaction with outsiders. Structuring the elements making up the essential cultural identity of the group came into focus with their perception of threat to it. This perception of a real threat ensured that the elements of Khasi culture that were considered to be unique and most threatened be classified and then protected through assertion. This classification attempted to structure, enumerate and create a 'Great Tradition' out of the inchoate elements of Khasi life as it was practiced. A group coalesced around this attempt, which was called the Seng Khasi. The Seng Khasi then became the reference group around which the elements of a distinct Khasi identihj began to be organized. This paper charts the progress of this event through various instances and ethnographies from Khasi society.

The mass media constitute an inevitable instrument in a democracy. Their efficiency and or lack of it depends to a great extent on their control mechanism. This discourse on media control mechanism and democracy is on how media control mechanism enhances democratic values and how media censorship hampers or stifles democracy. For collection of data and analysis, the paper relied extensively on focused group discussion and observation. The theoretical model adopted was the Neo-Marxian political economy approach. The paper recommends a free but responsible media.

This study explored the Life Satisfaction of the youngest daughters in West Jaintia Hills District, Meghalaya. It explored the different experiences encountered by the youngest daughters and the factors that contributed to their different experiences. This study comprised of 30 respondents from age 21 to 60 years. In-depth Interview is used. Findings indicated that most of the youngest daughters are happy and find it helpful for them in their daily life, however some of the individuals faced hard-time experiences with the responsibilities they have to take. The factor led to hard time experiences is because of financial problems and not receiving enough support from the family and for those who are content, it was because their family members are willing to help.

Tiplut Nongbri, a well known Khasi scholar, in an article published in 2000, explores the relationship between gender and matriliny in the specific context of her own tribe, Khasi. She argues here that while Khasi women enjoy relative security due to matriliny they are not equal to their men, who have successfully created an ideology that helps them subjugate their women. She notes that the exclusion of women from traditional political domain has been to their disadvantage. Enlarging her focus and drawing her ethnographic materials from the Khasi, Garo and Tiwa tribes of Northeast India she writes in a more recent article (2003) that the asymmetry in these societies between the principles of descent and structure of authority is responsible for subordination of their women (Nongbri 2003). The purpose of this article, however, is not to question the conclusions Nongbri has drawn but to look at the very poor reproductive health among the Khasi women and see if it is a possible consequ...

Terrorism by an Islamist group known as Boko Haram has been raging in Nigeria since 2009 and has spilled over into neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Consequently, two million people have been displaced, 100,000 lives lost and properties worth N3.2 trillion ($9 billion) destroyed in the three-worst hit northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. The Federal Government has been collaborating with the international community in the counter-terrorism, gaining huge successes including the rescuing of nearly 200 of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 and dislodging the terrorists from their base in the infamous Sambisa Forest. However, the Government’s militarized approach toward the counter-terrorism has been critiqued in the literature, with suggestions for a multi-dimensional approach. This book recommends a research approach and proposes the Adoption and Use of Cyber Technology by Terror Groups Model (AUCTTGM). The model is expected to explain and predict factors determining terror groups’ cyber technology usage to threaten the peace and spread annihilative extremist propaganda in society as well as proffer clues to the ways of ending terrorism for good.

Khasi society like many other distinctive societies saw political foundations of the society as the space of complete monopoly of men while women are, as some would argue, forced to the part of homemakers. Traditionally, women were viewed as incapable to manage the versatile nature of administrative issues. In the past, the traditional political bodies in the Khasi society were most likely accommodative, inclusive, and participatory in nature. However, these days, there are only a few female members in these nearby or village and local body political organisations. Studies have demonstrated that women are expressing unequivocally that it " s high time to bring about change and women too should be permitted to participate in these local body political organisations and also should make their presence felt at all level of modern administration and law making organisations. There is no doubt that in all possibilities these local, urban and modern legislative bodies will remain male dominated organizations, at least in the near future. But, voices are being raised. Certainly some change can be expected in the coming years.

Mindanao is the Philippine's second largest island in the south. Identifying Mindanao-based documentaries that have development themes remain unknown or unacknowledged. Using Phenomenology as theoretical framework and method, as a result, the researcher found out that similar to other documentary films in other parts of the country and the world, the themes showed by Mindanao-based documentaries reflect  in agriculture, health, women and children, environment and population.
However unlike its other foreign and local counterparts, a number of Mindanao-based documentaries anchor the mentioned development themes under the context of peace and conflict situation, human rights, indigenous peoples and their ancestral domains.

There are certain tribes in India with some uniqueness and peculiarities in terms of social and cultural values. Studies on such tribal population of India are not many and still less are on matrilineal population, where women enjoy higher status. The present paper aims to provide the socio-cultural overview of the matrilineal tribe, the Jaintias of the Jaintia Hills district of the state of Meghalaya. The Jaintias are unique, because they have a traditionally altogether different system of marriage, the ‘Night Visit Marriage System’ (NVS).

This paper is based on a part of a Ph.D thesis. This study was based on the data collected from two rural areas, namely; Nartiang and Mihmyntdu villages and from the only urban center, Jowai of the Jaintia Hills district during 1992-93. A total of 847 numbers of households (431 from the urban area and 416 from the rural areas) were surveyed.

The study mainly emphasized on the unique marriage system of the Jaintias.

Keywords:  Matrilineal tribe, unique, Night Visit Marriage System, socio-cultural overview

Over the past decade, particularly with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, we have seen an increase in the popularity of social media such as forums, weblogs and wikis and social media applications and services such as Facebook and YouTube along with the proliferation of open publishing initiatives and social news websites. This vibrant upsurge of participatory values and practices can be understood as a sign of a general cultural trend whereby audiences increasingly become active media producers. This participatory culture challenges the top-down model of journalism by allowing anyone to post and upload content without formal editorial moderation or filtering processes, while the boundaries between professional journalists and their audience begin to blur as audiences actively increase their control and involvement over their news consumption, becoming both consumers and creators of media content. Citizens are no longer passive receivers but rather are actively engaged in (re)creating, challenging, questioning, correcting, and personalizing news media.

As a means of combating revenue loss and reconnecting with their audiences, mainstream news media throughout Western democracies have begun tapping into this digital media culture by increasingly adopting participatory forms of journalism. However, these new forms have yet to be study in any great detail. The empirical research that does exist focuses mostly on gauging the opinions, motives and perceptions of editors/journalists, mapping the current trends and forms, and ethnographic studies on newsroom practices. What is needed to take this body of research further is an analysis of the content. This chapter moves in this direction by addressing the question of whether user-generated content within mainstream news media today is improving the quality journalism, i.e. enhancing the public sphere.

One of the most popular forms of user-generated content within mainstream news media is comment fields attached to news articles. Such spaces provide citizens the opportunity to react, debate, and comment on articles (or blogs) written by journalists. The focus of this chapter is on how people are engaging in these spaces. The aim is two fold. First, it is to see to what extent such spaces are facilitating deliberative communicative practices crucial to the public sphere. Are comment fields opening up spaces for citizen deliberation? Second, it is to see whether this type of user-generated content is improving the quality of journalism. Are citizens bringing new ideas, perspectives, facts, and sources to journalistic content?

In order to address these questions, postings from comment fields were examined and assessed within the British online newspaper the Guardian. The sample consisted of 3,169 postings (comments) taken from all those articles/blogs (by Guardian journalists) on the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen during a two week period in December 2009. A case study design with normative and descriptive characteristics was utilized. A content analysis was employed as the primary instrument for examination. The coding scheme focused first on gauging the type and level of interaction. Are participants engaging with the content, journalist, or fellow participants, and are such spaces hosting critical-reciprocal exchange between participants? Second, the analysis identified the purpose of the postings; i.e. are participants providing an opinion/argument, posing a question, providing information, calling for action, and/or degrading or acknowledging another? Finally, the analysis focused on the level to which such spaces bring new and alternative opinions, arguments, facts, and sources to the article, to journalism.

Twitter has become a convenient, cheap and effective beat for journalists in search of news and information. Reporters today increasingly aggregate information online and embed it in journalism discourse. In this paper, we analyse how tweets have increasingly been included as quotes in newspaper reporting  during the rise of Twitter from 2007 to 2011. The paper compares four Dutch and four British national tabloids and broadsheets, asking if tabloid journalists are relying more on this second-hand coverage than their colleagues from quality papers. Moreover,
we investigate in which sections of the paper tweets are included and what kinds of sources are quoted. Consequently, we present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports. Reporters do include these utterances as either newsworthy or to support or illustrate a story. In some cases, individual tweets or interaction between various agents on Twitter even triggers news coverage. We argue that this new discursive practice alters the balance of power between journalists and sources.

While the newspaper industry is in crisis and less time and resources are available for newsgathering, social media turn out to be a convenient and cheap beat for (political) journalism. This article investigates the use of Twitter as a source for newspaper coverage of the 2010 British and Dutch elections. Almost a quarter of the British and nearly half of the Dutch candidates shared their thoughts, visions, and experiences on Twitter. Subsequently, these tweets were increasingly quoted in newspaper coverage. We present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports: they were either considered newsworthy as such, were a reason for further reporting, or were used to illustrate a broader news story. Consequently, we will show why politicians were successful in producing quotable tweets. While this paper, which is part of a broader project on how journalists (and politicians) use Twitter, focuses upon the coverage of election campaigns, our results indicate a broader trend in journalism. In the future, the reporter who attends events, gathers information face-to-face, and asks critical questions might instead aggregate information online and reproduce it in journalism discourse thereby altering the balance of power between journalists and sources.