J492 International Journalism Final Examination Fall 2005 50
points
DEADLINE: Completed tests must be turned in by 5 p.m. Monday,
Dec. 5, to the J492 drop box in the hallway outside 216 Allen Hall.
No e-mail submissions will be accepted
REQUIRED: Typed, (12-point), double-spaced answers to four of the
following five questions. Maximum length: two pages per answer, eight
pages total.
GRADES: Based on (1) clearly organized, logical responses that
(2) use identified sources or examples from the readings, lectures,
videos and other class presentations to defend answers that (3)
approach professional standards of composition.
1. What do you think should be the proper role of a journalist in
wartime? Should peacetime objectivity be set aside to promote the war
effort and to accept government restraints on negative information?
Or, as Walter Lippmann argued during the Vietnam War, should truth be
a journalist’s overriding goal, despite pressures from the government
and a patriotic public? Consider the findings of Stuart Allan and the
opinions of journalists in Reporting America At War.
2. Although U.S. citizens have greater access to international
news than ever before from television, newspaper and Internet
sources, the latest Pew survey finds Americans returning to
isolationism and only partially informed about the rest of the world.
Discuss this apparent contradiction, drawing on Greg Philo’s
discussion of British television audiences and other materials in the
course. What solutions can you offer?
3. Promoters of new communications technologies argue that global
television and new Internet sources can resolve imbalances of news
communication within and among nations at differing phases of
development. Is this likely? Consider the views of Prasun Sonwalkar
on India and Daya Kishan Thussu on media poverty.
4. What is the “CNN Effect?” How does the political scientist
Steven Livingston suggest live global television images might affect
policymakers, as outlined in class? Give examples of at least one of
his three suggested theoretical “effects.” Consider also the views of
Christiane Amanpour in Reporting America at War.
5. Danny Schecter and Jake Lynch both advocate reforming
international news, one by outside criticism and the other by working
with journalists. Evaluate the assumptions behind their approaches
and the issues they hope to address. What commonalities and
contradictions do you find?