Indiana University School of Journalism » 2009 » February

Researcher explains ‘visual framing’ in politics, elections

Shannon Ross — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:01:26 +0000

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

Telecommunications associate professor Maria Elizabeth Grabe spoke to J210 students about how visuals influence politics and elections.

A visual analysis of presidential campaigns suggests that three television broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—favor the Republican Party, according Maria Elizabeth Grabe, an associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications. She discussed her new book about this topic Thursday in assistant professor Mike Conway’s J210 Visual Communications class Thursday.

Grabe and Eric Bucy, also an associate professor in telecommunications, are authors of Image Bite Politics: News and Visual Framing of Elections, which discusses image handling in the 1992 to 2004 presidential elections. Grabe formerly was an associate professor at the School of Journalism, where she conducted some of the research for this book as well as collaborated with other journalism professors on research projects.

The class already had been discussing how elements from camera angles to lighting to coloration can influence an image. Grabe explained the importance of character framing in the 2000 presidential election. Presenting the candidate as “a man of the people” played an influential role, she said. Images of George W. Bush relating with “regular” people was more believable than candidate Al Gore, who looked clearly “out of his element,” she said.

Grabe incorporated the use of imagery into character framing. Regarding the 2008 election, Grabe claimed that no reporter would have written a statement claiming Obama is a Muslim. However, Republican image handlers without hesitation would use the images of him dressed in Muslim clothing.

Grabe, who also is a research associate in political science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, said the most defining moments in elections are visually based. The 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was one of the first examples of the importance of media imagery in an election. Grabe stated that if one listened to the debate on radio, Nixon won, but if one watched the debate on television, Kennedy won. For the first time, people made judgments based on physical appearance and public poise.

According the Grabe, 68 percent of Americans get their election information from a television news source. The shrinking of sound bites and the expanding of image bites leads to a more influential media.

“We pick up visual images from the media unintentionally,” Grabe said.

Grabe and Bucy found Republicans overall were mostly shot in low camera angles, which demonstrate power, while Democrats were shot in high camera angles, which show weakness.

Photo by Andrew Dillon Bustin

Grabe said how images are handled in political coverage is more significant than the amount of coverage.

Grabe said it also is important to look at “favorable” coverage, not just the amount of coverage, when determining bias.

“There is no liberal bias in the amount of coverage,” she said. “It is more about how images are handled.”

In the questions session after Grabe’s talk, one student asked about Democratic image handlers in this past election, focusing on Obama as a celebrity figure. Grabe said the celebrity image “could back fire.” The idea of trying to turn Obama in to a celebrity “will not last” due to the fact that he has many very hard decisions to make in the near future.

One of Grabe’s previous research projects, conducted with Conway and doctoral student Kevin Grieves, also looked at media bias but in different way. In that project, researchers looked at broadcaster Bill O’Reilly’s use of language in influencing the tone and meaning of the material on his Fox News show.

Warner urges journalists to take leadin migration to blogosphere

Gena Asher — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:37:54 +0000

Photo by Riya V. Anandwala

University of Michigan visiting professor and 20-year journalist Fara Warner showed her audience her Flip video camera during her talk about multimedia a the IMU.

Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19)
Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17)
Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

Journalists need to be leaders, not followers, in an industry where new media is leaving newspapers behind, where blogs and citizen journalism are making headway.

That’s the advice of Fara Warner, a journalist with 20 years’ experience as a reporter who now is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan’s Department of Communication. She spoke to five classes at the School of Journalism Monday and Tuesday as well as addressed the Bloomington Press Club.

Warner, who reported for The Wall Street Journal, among others, said the blogosphere needs trained professionals. While many blogs started out as “rants and raves,” they now are turning to reporters to create fact-checked, transparent news reports.

“We have allowed this vacuum where blogs have entered, with rants and raves and business models that don’t work,” she told Press Club members Monday in the Coronation Room at the IMU. “Where have we been? We need to be in the forefront, influencing this.”

This means adapting to the new tools, something Warner said she has learned to do. Accustomed to reporting with a pen and notebook, in recent years she’s learned to use technology to enable multimedia reporting.

She showed her audience one of her favorite tools, a Flip camera that shoots video, then plugs into a USB port for easy download. Using two laptops, she projected several Web sites and blogs on a screen to demonstrate strong examples of multimedia stories. Some she showed and others she cited in her talk included VoiceofSanDiego.org, DailyBeast.com, HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com and Scoop44.com, a student-operated site.

“As I’m thinking of stories, I’m deciding what piece will be a good podcast, what will be best as text,” she said. “I never thought I’d be doing this, but I jumped in and now I love it.”

Warner acknowledged the loss of journalism jobs and newspapers’ plight, but said she believes blogs are hiring such professionals as the blogs look to become more journalistically respectable.

And traditional journalists can’t afford to ignore what’s happening in blogs and on the Web. For one thing, research shows that most people – of all ages – get news online, she said. Second, technology is a great tool. During the Mumbai attacks last fall, news gatherers relied on Twitter posts for information, just as they did when the United Airlines plane ditched in the Hudson River in January.

Photo by Riva V. Anandwala

“I never thought I’d be doing this, but I jumped in and now I love it.” Warner told her audience at the Bloomington Press Club meeting Monday.

“Yes, some information may be wrong, but that happens in journalism,” she said. “And the blogosphere corrects itself. If you get it wrong, you have 1,000 people telling you immediately.”

Warner said she enjoys working with students at UM, especially those who want to be journalists. For the professionals who make up members of the Bloomington Press Club, she urged a “mindshift,” an open-mindedness toward what multimedia can add, not the perceptions of what it takes away.

“As I tell students, you can’t stay in silos of print or broadcast,” she cautioned. “I realize I bring 20-plus years of being a journalist to this, but I am a better journalist for having learned these tools.”

Auto PR exec describes effects of economic slump

Haley Bakker — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:15:57 +0000

Photo by Morgan Waters

Jaguar Land Rover communications director Simon Warr visited J460 International Public Relations students via teleconference Wednesday. He talked about his job during the economic downturn as well as offered students career advice.

Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19)
Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17)
Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

Tapping the School of Journalism’s state-of-the-art technology, the global director of communications for Jaguar Land Rover shared thoughts and insights Wednesday with international public relations students by teleconferencing from his office in London.

Jaguar Land Rover’s Simon Warr gave students in Ralph Winslow Visiting Professor Jim Bright’s J460 International Public Relations class a behind-the-scenes look at the two British brands and efforts to use public relations to help the company navigate during the global economic downturn. The students gathered in Ernie Pyle Lounge, where they could see and interact with Warr on the large flat screen TV.

Warr, who formerly worked for Mazda Corporate Communications in Hiroshima, also talked about his experiences in Japan. He praised the Japanese for their strong teamwork and work ethic. The 16 students will spend spring break in Japan, where they will meet with journalists and public relations professionals.

“Public relations is an exciting environment, and it’s always possible to retain a sense of fun in what you do,” Warr said, even with the profound effect of the economic slump that has the global auto industry on its heels.

Jaguar Land Rover, which experienced three straight years of record sales and growth before the worldwide economic downfall, is experiencing hardships like everyone else.

“It’s still fun,” he said, “but now it’s more the type of fun that you get from a roller coaster ride.”

As head of communications, Warr and his team strive to get journalists and other influential audiences into Jaguars and Land Rovers so they can drive them and talk about them.

Among other things, they conduct ride and drive events, giving journalists the opportunity to experience the cars in remote destinations. They also keep fleets of cars to loan out to journalists across the globe.

Warr offered tips about the PR industry to seniors searching for jobs and internships. For example, a degree can only take you so far, he said. Internships and summer jobs are critical to learn the business.

Warr said “instinct” often plays a big role in the tough decisions that public relations professionals have to make.

“As you rise through the profession, you’ll make lots of judgment calls,” he said.

Warr also emphasized the need to be open and honest with the media.

“It is really something you can’t understand until you go there,” he said.

Correspondent French to discuss working in Africa, China

Rosemary Pennington — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:47:56 +0000

Courtesy photo

Journalist Howard French visits Thursday.

Howard French started his career in Ivory Coast covering West and Central Africa for a number of news outlets in the 1980s.

By 1986 he was a staff writer for the New York Times and reporting from such diverse locales as the Congo, the Caribbean and Japan.

And, next Thursday, French will find his way to Bloomington.

The former Times Shanghai bureau chief and current Columbia University associate journalism professor will speak Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the Ernie Pyle Auditorium. The School of Journalism, the African Studies Program and the East Asian Studies Center are cosponsoring the talk, which is free and open to the public.

For his first visit to IU, French said he’ll talk about the impact of rapidly increasing Chinese trade and investment on Africa. He is author of A Continent for the Taking, which reflects on his years as a correspondent in several African nations. In addition to his reporting work, he produced a collection of photos, “Disappearing Shanghai,” which has been featured in both solo and group shows around the world.

"I have always found it rewarding to challenge established narratives about the weak and underrepresented," he said in an e-mail interview. "Much that is written about Africa, for example, is shoddy and poorly informed, and yet it reinforces certain fixed narratives about Africa that need puncturing. If you can’t find ways to challenge the conventional wisdom as a journalist, you’re not really adding much value to the picture."

While in Bloomington, French will take part in the “China in Africa” conference running March 6 and 7 on IU’s campus.

Eichstaedt recounts experiences reporting on Ugandan child soldiers

Ariel Tung — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:29:42 +0000

Photo by Ariel Tung

Author Peter Eichstaedt read from his new book during a lecture Monday night at Ernie Pyle Auditorium.

Learn more about Eichstaedt's work at his blog.
Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19)
Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17)
Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

On a day when newspapers carried an Associated Press article recounting the Lord’s Resistance Army’s recent attacks on a Congolese town, journalist Peter Eichstaedt visited the School of Journalism to talk about his own experiences reporting on this insurgent group’s 20-year assault on Uganda and, more recently, Congo.

Eichstaedt, who is Africa Editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), shared his first-hand experience Monday evening with an audience in the Ernie Pyle Auditorium. Traveling as part of a book tour for his new work, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army, Eichstaedt spent the day visiting classes and talking to students before giving his public lecture about his experiences in Africa.

Eichstaedt’s work often tells of regional events as seen through the eyes of the people most affected by them. To help his audience understand, he began his talk by showing where Uganda lies on a map of Africa.

Eichstaedt said that his assignment with IWPR sent him to Uganda after a reporting stint in Afghanistan. In Uganda, he met and spoke to many child soldiers who work for the Lord Resistance Army. What he saw, experienced and felt propelled him to write his most recent book, published in February.

Eichstaedt read an excerpt to the audience, detailing the plight of child soldiers in Uganda. Thousands of children as young as eight were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army and forced to work as soldiers or sex slaves.

His book examines the little known 20-year war that the rebel LRA fought in northern Uganda and now the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the AP report, few national armies nor the United Nations factions have had success repelling the LRA. In small villages, residents armed with ancient firearms or even with large pestles used to mash yams into powder have had little success against the LRA’s assaults.

After his poignant account of child soldiers’ plight, Eichstaedt shifted to a more lighthearted mode, showing his audience pictures of the Ugandans’ daily lives, such as the kind of food they eat and sell, and the witch doctors who are believed to cure the sick. The audience was amused when Eichstaedt pointed out that peanuts are commonly referred as “g-nuts” in Uganda because they come from the ground.

During the Q&A session, a journalism student wanted to know how Eichstaedt got people to open up their lives to him. The author said that the Ugandans just want to talk and want to let the outside world know about their lives.

Another student asked Eichstaedt about the availability of journalism jobs in the current economy. Eichstaedt agreed that it is difficult time for journalists and those aspiring to be journalists as news organizations are cutting back jobs. But, he saw more opportunities for freelancers to fill in the gap.

However, Eichstaedt said that one cannot simply step into a foreign land to freelance without first building some contacts. It can be dangerous to go there without preparation, he warned.

Eichstaedt’s advice to students who are interested in a career in foreign correspondence is to go to Peace Corps for two years where they will be taught the local languages, culture, politics and history of the country.

“Doing voluntary work is also a good way to build contacts and knowledge in a foreign country,” he said.

During a talk earlier in the day to students and visitors to Roy W. Howard Professional-in-Residence Joe Coleman’s J560 International Reporting class, Eichstaedt said teaching English would be a good start to establish themselves in a different country.

Eichstaedt, whose next stop for his lecture and book tour is Ohio, said that he is currently working on his next book, which will portray the tension between North and South Sudan told through the experiences of the Sudanese.

Agency 7 chooses clients for semester work

Gena Asher — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:05:23 +0000

Students work with UPIU.com mentor (Dec. 12)
New class to look at WikiLeaks (Feb. 7)
Public affairs reporting students tackle biomass debate (June 22)

Agency 7, the student-managed marketing agency for the School of Journalism, has selected its clients for the spring semester.

The agency teams will be working with Boy Scouts of America, Hoosier Council, for the group’s 100th anniversary; Boys and Girls Clubs for a new fundraising model and planning for the opening of a new facility; Oliver Winery for a new strategic advertising plan; and Cancer-Free Lung Foundation for market research, micro Web site and literature development.

Managing directors for the projects are seniors Jordan Gertler, Sean Snow, Max Yoder and Teddy Johnson; juniors Elana Kelber and Erica DeVasier; and graduate student Jayne Jeffries.

The agency was created as an ongoing class project in fall 2007. Lecturer Craig Wood oversees the agency, which is part of .

UM’s Warner to talk on new media impact

Gena Asher — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:04:39 +0000

Fara Warner of the University of Michigan’s Department of Communication visits campus Monday and Tuesday to talk to several classes about the impact of new media. She also will talk to the Bloomington Press Club at noon in the Coronation Room at the IMU.

Warner has 18 years of experience in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, including three years in Singapore covering business for the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of The Power of the Purse: How Smart Companies Are Adapting to the World’s Most Important Consumers. She also works as a freelance journalist contributing to Mother Jones Magazine, Forbes Asia and The New York Times.

Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19)
Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17)
Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

Parameswaran co-organizing preconference ICA session on India

Gena Asher — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:36:04 +0000

Associate professor Radhika Parameswaran is one of four organizers of the "India and Communication Studies" preconference session at the International Communication Association conference in Chicago, May 20-21. The ICA conference is May 21-25.

Parameswaran, who is a visiting faculty member this spring at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said this is among the first pre-conferences in the communications field devoted entirely to India-related teaching and research.

She said the goals of the preconference are to create partnerships and research opportunities and to provide greater awareness of the impact of India on global communications and popular media production and reception. Organizers also hope the preconference will provide a platform for forming an ICA-International Association for Media and Communication Research network of scholars dedicated to understanding, researching, and advancing communications studies in and about India.

The first day of the preconference will consist of competitive research presentations by graduate students and senior scholars. On the second day, leading researchers in communications from the United States, India and other locations abroad will speak about cutting-edge areas and opportunities for future research on India.

Parameswaran also will moderate a panel, "How to Map Scholarship about India," which features Hemant Shah, Ph.D. ’87, who now is a professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The preconference is organized by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University for Pennsylvania, and the Center for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Johnson to serve as Big Ten announcer

Gena Asher — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:31:14 +0000

Associate professor Owen V. Johnson will serve as the chief announcer at the Big Ten Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships at Purdue University Feb. 26-28. This will be Johnson’s eighth Big Ten championship announcing assignment.

Routledge publishes The Global Journalist (May 13)
School research group launches survey (May 10)
Faculty, student work set for AEJMC presentation (May 10)

Latham-Brown wins design honor

Gena Asher — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:29:51 +0000

Latham-Brown’s winning design reflected the upheavals of the IU men’s basketball team.

Corya wins Counts photojournalism award (May 14)
Students celebrate Hearst achievements (May 3)
Students interested in magazines find several options to learn, network (May 2)

Indiana Daily Student graphic designer Ellis Latham-Brown’s front page for the basketball section, “Clean Slate,” has won an award of excellence in the Society for News Design competition for 2008.

Latham-Brown’s design, a mostly blank page with the words "Clean slate" in red, reflected the uncertainties of the IU men’s basketball program after many players left the program, a new coach was hired and the athletic director had announced his resignation. This page was the cover of the basketball season special section. At the bottom of the page, in small font, were the words "We don’t know what to expect either."

“It’s quite rare for collegiate journalists to crack this commercial competition, which honored 1,100 of 13,000 entries in the 2007 competition,” said Student Media Director Ron Johnson.

Indiana University School of Journalism » 2009 » February

Researcher explains ‘visual framing’ in politics, elections

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Warner urges journalists to take leadin migration to blogosphere

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Auto PR exec describes effects of economic slump

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Correspondent French to discuss working in Africa, China

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Eichstaedt recounts experiences reporting on Ugandan child soldiers

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Agency 7 chooses clients for semester work

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UM’s Warner to talk on new media impact

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Parameswaran co-organizing preconference ICA session on India

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Johnson to serve as Big Ten announcer

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Latham-Brown wins design honor

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