The Packer's Prize

In the midst of the excitement and suspense surrounding the annual Archibald Prize each year, something I have always found interesting and understated is the importance of the Packing Room Prize. In the awarding of this prize it is the art gallery staff who are in charge of the unpacking of the various artworks whom vote on their favourite to win.

In contrast to the glorification and publicity I've always found it a little bit more exciting to see who wins the packer's prize. As an art student I think it's interesting to gain an artistic perspective from a variety of different viewers, whilst the judges of the Archibald prize are undoubtedly professional art critics with years of experience, it's interesting to see what the curators and 'unpackers' think.

The Packer's Prize

David Oliviera, a Lisbon born artist creates wire sculptures intended to look like manically sketched ink drawings superimposed over photographs. He often hangs them using fine line to give the appearance of hovering.

Retired artists come lawyer Lynn Skordal lives on a tiny island in Western Australia, her work features collage's and mixed medium to create images. She enjoys the process of combining seemingly unrelated images into a different reality that might startle, amuse or provoke.

The Denouement

Approaching the prospect of a sleepless, stressful and 'kind of' productive swot vac week we said goodbye to our lecture series for journalism. In our final lecture for Journalism 1111 we concluded the semester with an inspirational lecture on what journalism actually does for, how it prepares us for the exciting yet daunting world of perhaps becoming a journalist.

The guest speaker, Steve Molkington - a blogging sensation as well as television commentator/media fanatic gave us some words of wisdom and a bit of insight into his personal career in journalism.
Steve outlined ten predominant points of advice, that I think also summarise this subject pretty aptly;

1. What you do with your brand starts now
2. Bring a multitude of skills to the table
3. Consider ourselves lucky that Australia is so liberal with it's freedom of speech laws (compared to somewhere such as chine) and use this to your advantage
4. Mainstream media vs new media - in this day and age we have so many perspectives, technologies and opinions
5. Through social media we are able to communicate directly to the source without the hassle of managers/directors
6. Start now - show your prospective employer what you're all about and start writing stories now
7. Get the best story you can - find the gold!
8. remember that ego never hurt anyone
9. Start to form an opinion on everything
10. If you have something to say, say it on your blog.

As a journalism/law student I found it particularly interesting how Steve's career changed so dramatically from a degree in chemistry to the television industry. I found it inspiring that he was able to recognise a passion for what he essentially wanted to do and went for it and became so successful. Studying Journalism 1111 has changed my opinion of what I thought journalism was and now although I'm going to continue studying law I think my career will be more journalism based.

Investigative Journalism

This week we delved into the topic of investigative journalism which seems to be particularly contentious in light of the recent News of the World opprobrium and the subsequent parliamentary investigations into privacy laws.

We began by asserting that investigative journalism is intelligent, informed, intuitive, from the inside, sometimes intimate and has an invested interest in telling the story from an investigative stance. In this mode of journalism, the journalist is an active participant and makes a substantial effort to provide a voice for those without one and hold the powerful majorities to account. It is critical and thorough journalism that is a custodian of conscience in the media and acts as the fourth arm of government - a watchdog that reports and reviews.

Then Bruce gave us some examples of historical pieces of successful investigative journalism such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their expose of the Watergate scandal and the more contemporary uncovering of the corruption within the Queensland police force in the documentary "The Moonlight State," produced by Chris Master, Phil Dickie and Shaun Hoyt. We also discussed the investigative aspects of Julian Assange's Wikileaks site and whether it constitutes journalism or wether it is simply a database of information.

We then looked at the practicality of investigative journalism with Bruce explaining that it is vital in this field of journalism to check your facts, assume nothing and expect authorities to "go crazy" in relation to what you publish. The types of things that investigative journalists explore include interviews, observations, documents, briefing, leaks, trespass and theft which is done by interviewing, observing and analysing documents. It is important to consider the triangulation of whether what you saw, what you were told and what was recorded are congruent.

I found this lecture particularly interesting as last year one of my final pieces assessment included an essay on the quandary of of investigative journalism versus the the right to public privacy. Whilst I consider investigative journalism to be essential to the field in order to be a custodian of conscience and be a surrogate voice to the minority, it is interesting to note the current contentions surrounding Australian Privacy Laws and investigative journalism.

http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/training-resources/editorial-ethics/247-privacy-what-it-means-for-journalism

A Los Angeles based artist who operates under the alias of "A Common Name" has recently been working on a street art project in suburban Los Angeles. Her work is a series of 3D sculptures that are installed into inconspicuous locations such as wall cavities, pipes and cracked cement. The contrast of these 'geodes' in an urban location rather than in nature fascinates the artist and the aspect of their nature as only being visible to the astute makes the project even more exciting.

You can check out her project here

An artist know as Jay, author of a quirky photographic blog titled "The Plug" recently embarked on a photography project coined "Stranger Photos Have Happened" in which the artist simply tied a disposable film camera to piece of string and attached it to inanimate objects such as a fence or park bench accompanied by a note instructing strangers and passers by to photograph themselves as they pass. The results, sometimes sweet, sometime vulgar are unknown until the film is developed.

Annotated Bibliography

Keith, S; Schwalbe, C; Silcock, W (2006) Images in Ethics Codes in an Era of Violence and Tragedy, Journal of Mass Media Ethics 21(4) pp 245-264.

Susan Keith, an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University brings over a decade’s worth of international experience to this article. Working at daily newspapers, reporting, editing and lecturing within the field of journalism and communications, this article, in collaboration with Keith’s former colleagues from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication within Arizona State University investigates a doctrinal approach to broadcasting and photojournalism codes in regards to images of violence and tragedy in an era of increased political turmoil and public trauma.  The text considers the ethical debates within contemporary technology and the emergence of the coined term; ‘citizen paparazzi’ which originated in the London Underground Bombing catastrophe, in which hand phone and video footage of the disaster were recorded by onlookers en masse. The central argument in the text is the dichotomy between whether graphic images critically affect viewers or whether certain explicit images attract people to news and determine how disasters are viewed publicly as they capture the ‘true dimensions of tragedy.’ To determine the role Ethical Code’s play in regulating photojournalism in an era of increased political conflict and tragedy, the author’s investigate the stipulations outlined in thirty-three Media Ethics codes (in the U.S.) in regards to photography, image release, image publication and the responsibilities of both photographers and publishers. Keith, Silcock and Schwalbe focus significantly on the digital manipulation as well as the ethical capturing of images in publishing and broadcasting, looking specifically at three predominant schools of thought that postulate the extent that images should be digitally manipulated in order to publish them in an ethical manner.

Hondros, C. (Interviewee) & Montagne, R (Interviewer) (2007, March 26) All Alone in the World (National Public Radio Interview Audio) Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9118474

The National Public Radio, a reputable non-profit membership media organisation that has been in operation for over three decades and acts as a syndicate for public radio stations in the U.S. In this interview which aired in 2007, Pulitzer Prize winning American photographer Chris Hondros describes the story behind his contentious image that features young Iraqi child, Samar Hassan cowering in the shadow of an Iraqi soldier, covered in her parents blood and screaming in terror moments after their fortuitous murder. In the dialogue, Hondros and Montage discuss how the internationally renowned image sparked widespread criticism of Hondros, with viewers questioning his personal morals as to whether he acted to comfort or aid the grieving child. It also received censure in regards to it’s composition, in looking at the child from above the image positions her as diminutive, helpless and “doll-like” in comparison to the soldier who towers above her and the blood streaks that shadow her face received criticism for the Christ-like resemblance. In the interview, Hondros argues that it is this connectedness with the viewer that essentially ‘brings people to the story,’ making the wider public increasingly aware of the cultural milieu in Iraq during 2007. The interview concludes with Hondros postulating the reason the image is so tangible to viewers. He suggests that it is the aspect of isolation, not only in composition but in the reality of the recent loss of her parents that renders the child completely alone. Similar to the initial presuppositions in Keith’s article, Hondros posits that this is why it is important that such images receive wider publication in the media rather than ethical censorship.

Visual Culture Blog (2011, January 21) Photojournalism, Ethics and a Trail of Blood (Web log post) Retrieved from http://visualcultureblog.com/2011/01/photojournalism-ethics-and-a-trail-of-blood/

“Five years after the image was shot, Hondros’ photograph represents the complex encounter of ethics and photojournalism with a trail of blood that is only getting longer.” (Visual Culture Blog)

The Visual Culture Blog has been in operation for over two years, delivering readers with insights into popular aesthetic culture, visual politics and photographic meaning. Whilst the blog uses academic articles, evidence and primary sources to support it’s claims, the author chooses to remain anonymous, which does attest to a degree of questionability in regards to the sites credibility.  In the article the author embarks on a more artistic elucidation of Hondros’ photograph, comparing it to the visual and auditory works of artist Edvard Much’s piece “The Scream” and Vietnam War photographer Nick Ut’s prominent photograph of Kim Phut during the napalm bombing of her village. Similar to Hondros’ interview, the articles explores the significance that the photo of Samar Hassan has in raising awareness about the Iraqi War – how her captured scream is one of not only physical but psychological pain. The blood that seemingly forms running teardrops down her face is mirrored in a single drop of blood on the soldiers left foot, the author suggests this is symbolic of the fact that ‘we are all marked by the experience of war.’ Similar to Keith and Hondros’ postulations, the author of the blog explores the inextricable link of photojournalism to modern warfare and how it is usually images of children that ensue the strongest reactions. The article explains how the photograph of Samar not only reverberates with viewers due to its insight of the war from a child’s perspective but it also reverberates with the governments involved with war, creating a call to action to cease such tragedy. Similar to Keith’s article the blog looks at the ethics involved with the image, in particular Samar’s isolation and blood stains and the way in which the soldier towers over the child, armed with a gun – seemingly adding a different context to the term ‘shooting’ in photography. Applying the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Code of Ethics to Hondros’ photograph the author concludes that although Samar fits the criteria of being a ‘vulnerable subject,’ ‘victim of tragedy,’ and ‘experiencing a private moment of grief’ the code of ethics does not apply because the public has an overriding and justifiable need to view the image, establishing that ethics codes are dependent on the viewer rather than the image.

Arango, T (2011, May 7) Face That Screamed War’s Pain Looks Back, 6 Hard Years Later, The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/middleeast/07photo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

American Journalist Tim Arango brings over six years of journalism experience to his current role as the Baghdad Bureau Chief of The New York Times. This article appeared in the Middle Eastern News section of the New York Times as a reflection of Samar Hassan’s life six years after her iconic photograph was captured. Arango interviews Samar about her siblings and the events that took place on the day the photograph was taken as she views it for the first time. In conjunction with Keith, Hondros and the Visual Culture blog, Arango notes how photojournalism increases the media reception of images of tragedy and how because of Hondros’ image, the arbitrary act of violence against Samar’s family reached discussion in the highest offices of Pentagon. Arango interviews Liam Kennedy, a professor at University College in Dublin who specializes in conflict photography, Kennedy suggests that in an age of saturated media coverage and decreasing attention spans it is difficult to publish images that incite enough attention to be memorable. Like the Visual Culture Blog, he compares Hondros’ image to Nick Ut’s photo of the napalm bombing, elucidating that the photographs through the perspective of children in tragedy are ones that stand out in history. Although Arango touches on issues of ethics surrounding Hondros’ photograph, the predominant argument, similar to the aforementioned articles is that regardless of ethics codes, photographs educate the public about atrocities as they capture the true dimensions of tragedy.

Recommended Reading: The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence by Susie Linfield

                                                   Regarding the Pain of Other By Susan Sontag

Reference List

Keith, S; Schwalbe, C; Silcock, W (2006) Images in Ethics Codes in an Era of Violence and Tragedy, Journal of Mass Media Ethics 21(4) pp 245-264.

Hondros, C. (Interviewee) & Montagne, R (Interviewer) (2007, March 26) All Alone in the World (National Public Radio Interview Audio) Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9118474

Visual Culture Blog (2011, January 21) Photojournalism, Ethics and a Trail of Blood (Web log post) Retrieved from http://visualcultureblog.com/2011/01/photojournalism-ethics-and-a-trail-of-blood/

Arango, T (2011, May 7) Face That Screamed War’s Pain Looks Back, 6 Hard Years Later, The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/middleeast/07photo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

Agenda Setting

Hurrying back to uni after a day trip to the lovely suburb of Paddington for a belated Mother’s Day lunch, I arrived for this weeks lecture on agenda setting and how the media constructs reality.

We began with an investigative discussion on how each individuals perception of reality is constructed by communication and shared language. Though reality does exist, our awareness of it is formulated through empirical social interaction and experiences.  The media is the major force in sculpting the publics view of reality and thus the media has a significant role in constructing what people think.

There are four interrelated areas of agenda setting – the public agenda, policy agenda, corporate agenda and media agenda. The mass media do not only reflect society but sculpt and form it and thus the media’s tale on issues can influence the publics reaction to them – creating the images we form in our minds. Bruce used the classic example of the 9/11 image of the plane making contact with the World Trade Centre.

Discussing the historical origins of agenda setting we explored the use of propaganda to develop a public opinion. Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany was an expert in the art of using images to project a certain message to the wider population. In 1968 a survey conducted during The Presidential Campaign in North Carolina indicated that the mass media set the agenda by emphasizing certain topics.

There are two predominant types of agenda setting theory; the ‘what’ and the ‘how.’ The first level agenda setting theory which emphasizes the salience of certain issues looks at what the public should focus on through coverage. The second level agenda setting theory is essentially the way the media determines how the public should think about an issues.

We then looked at the agenda setting family, each member of this special family plays a different role;

Media gatekeeping: how individuals control the flow of messages through a communication channel.

Media advocacy: the purposive promotion of a message

Agenda cutting: most of the truth or reality that is going on in the world isn’t represented

Agenda surfing: the media follows the crowd and trends

The diffusion of news: the process through which an important event is communicated to the world

The portrayal of an issue: how the media can show a topic in disparate lights.

We also looked at the contemporary shift in the 24 hour news cycle and the changing ‘prime times’ over the last few decades. It is interesting to note how the media plays such a large part in societal interest through agenda setting.

All the news that's fit to print

In today’s lecture we looked at three topics; News Values, Agenda Setting and The Political Economy. News values are defined as ‘The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that is paid by an audience.’

News values include impact, audience identification, pragmatics and source influence. Impact is what gives something the ‘gee whiz’ factor, audience identification is telling stories that relate to the reader and the cultural milieu, pragmatics are ethics, facticity and the twenty-four hour news cycle and source influence is the inter-relatedness of journalism with PR, enabling both to write better stories.

We explored how news values are disparate across different news stations and in different cultural contexts and arriving back at the old inverted triangle of newsworthiness we looked at how predominantly, the structure stays the same. Colloquially, the saying in terms of newsworthiness has always been ‘If it bleeds it leads,’ however Bruce informed us that in terms of local media there has been a shift in values and the importance of immediacy in gaining attention - now the saying has altered to ‘if it’s local it leads.’ There are no official guidelines to newsworthiness, it is simply up to the journalist to decide which story will incite public attention.

There are several theorists who propose hypotheses’ in regards to newsworthiness such as Golding and Elliot who outline a series of elements of newsorthiness Galtung and Ruge and their postulations of additivity, complementarity and exclusion.  We also looked at Murray Masterson’s ‘Big 6’ news values which are

• Significance
• Proximity
• Conflict
• Human interest
• Novelty
• Prominence

Bruce then outlined some contemporary tensions in terms of newsworthiness such as the commercialization of media and social life, the relationship journalism and public relations and the ideals versus reality contention in journalism. 

An Ethical Quandary

This week we embarked upon the issue of ethics within the media with a particular emphasis on advertising

After showing us a few slides featuring controversial billboard advertisements Bruce asked us to plot our opinion on an ethical plane, indicating how ethical we thought each image was and if it was in good or bad taste. Looking at my subjective interpretation if each image compared to my peers made me realize how variant an individuals reaction to an image can be and how fine the line is between what is and isn’t ethical in the media.

To determine the difference between what is essentially ethical and what is just crude we explore three ethical theories – deontology, consequentialism (teleology) and virtue.

The ideology of deontology is structured by rules, principles and duties and postulates that the right thing will eventuate if the rules are followed, predominantly all ethics codes are deontological.

Consequentialism is a utilitarian approach that suggests that getting a “good” or “right” outcome is all that matters, it disregards how the outcome was reached, it states that the end may justify the means. Our Guest Speaker gave an example of a consequentialist approach in the statement – “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

The theory of Virtue ethics posits that ‘goodness’ and happiness are derived from good habits and disposition of character. The virtues include courage, justice, temperance and prudence which formulate the ‘golden mean’ of behaviour. The golden mean establishes a balance between the virtues, for example courage is the mean between rashness and cowardice.

We then revisited the early school of thought – deontology to discuss ethics codes in Australia. Various codes of ethics in journalism practice and professional communication include the MEAA, PRIA, AFA and AANA which regulate assorted aspects of the Australian media.

This lecture got me thinking about the distinction between what is art and what is unethical advertising. In our tutorial we discussed eminent South African photographer, Kevin Carter’s renowned image of a starving Sudanese child struggling to reach a food station as a vulture looks on. Personally, from an artistic background I couldn’t see anything wrong with the image, obviously I felt empathy for the child but I saw it in it’s entirety as an artistic expression rather than an unethical form of media. This made me even more aware of how grey the area of ethics is.

I remember a few months ago reading about one of Diesel’s notoriously banned advertising campaigns. Teenage photographer Nirrimi Hakanson was awarded the SOYA award for photography in Australia in 2010 and her success lead her to an opportunity to shoot a campaign for Diesel called ‘Be Stupid.’ The playfully sexual images were banned for their inappropriateness and sexual exploitation. 

Nirrimi's Blog: http://www.theroadishome.com/

Newspaper Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/30/diesel-asa-advertising