Publications & Conference Papers

Articles/Chapters/Reports

Taming the warblog.( 2009). In Stuart Allan & Einar Thorsen (Eds.) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives (pp.33-42). New York: Peter Lang.

Examines the evolution of the warblog genre since the Iraq war, including its incorporation into corporate media content and the information strategies of the military.  [Comments welcome at the book's website.]

Africa on YouTube: Musicians, Tourists, Missionaries, and Aid Workers. (2009). International Communication Gazette, 71(5), 393-407.

YouTube videos featuring the countries Ghana and Kenya were assessed, finding that this citizen media tool is allowing ordinary people to construct representations of African countries but that these are much more likely to come from Westerners. Although these African countries are not represented as chaotic and violent as has often been the case in the past, they continue to be stereotyped. Africans unaccompanied by Westerners are most likely to appear in entertainment, especially music, videos.

BBC News in the U.S.: A “Super-Alternative” News Medium Emerges. (Co-author Douglas Bicket.) (2009). Media, Culture & Society, 31(3), 365 – 384.

This article focuses on BBC News and its changing role in the United States. Recent developments suggest that a new, powerful hybrid BBC is emerging in the United States. This article examines a number of ‘faces’ the BBC presents to the United States. Three of these faces are more traditional, but the BBC has now added a fourth: as a ‘super-alternative’ news/information source in the United States, carrying an aura of credibility that sets it apart from US mainstream news media. It is the BBC’s ‘multifaceted’ nature, its reputation for honesty and integrity, and its independence from US political forces, that allows it to be considered in this way. All in all, it’s an attractive package for many US news consumers and, potentially, a powerful combination for influencing US public opinion.

The “Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation”: US conservatives take aim at the BBC. (Co-authored with Douglas Bicket). (2008). Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 9(2), 123-140.

This article assesses the US conservative attack on the BBC during the post 9/11 terrorism wars, finding conservative blogs, print media and think tanks notably hostile. The processes of media criticism taking place within this conservative triad are viewed through the analytical concepts of news repair and boundary maintenance. The findings suggest that the BBC’s perceived transgression was that it threatened to reveal the fallacy of an argument that conservatives had long worked to establish: that the US mainstream news media are liberal and harshly critical of conservatives. This conservative triad supported its attempt to repair this paradigm breach in three main ways: suggesting that reporting multiple viewpoints of the war was evidence of bias; magnifying any reporting errors; and warning against the perils of public ownership of news media.

“Window on Your World”: Rise of British News in the US. (Co-author Douglas Bicket). (2008). Journalism Practice. 2(1), 163-178.

Elite British news media such as the BBC, The Economist and the Guardian have experienced large increases in US audiences in the post-September 11 media environment. This article explores the nature and extent of this new “British invasion,” outlining key institutional, cultural and journalistic factors distinguishing mainstream US media from their UK counterparts. In particular, the British are seen as stepping into a void created by shrinking US international news coverage as well as providing a broader range of liberal political views that may contribute to expanding the US news agenda. The possible perils of the increased flow of their journalism into the United States for UK-based media are also considered.

YouTubing Africa: Old Patterns and New Possibilities. (2008). Rhodes Journalism Review, p. 67.  (.pdf version here)

Considers images of African countries on YouTube, focusing on how the election violence in Kenya in late 2007 and early 2008 influenced that country’s image.

Circling the Wagons: Containing the Downing Street Memo Story’s Impact in America. Co-authored with Douglas Bicket ). (2007). Journal of Communication Inquiry. 31(3), 206-22.

Within the context of a sharp rise in Americans’ access to foreign news, especially since September 11, 2001, this article examines the limits of effectiveness of such foreign news influences in influencing the public debate on major policy issues within the United States. With the focus on a major U.K.-originated news story—the “Downing Street Memo” and subsequent leaked U.K. government documents—the article applies and expands the concepts of boundary maintenance and news repair beyond the domestic news realm and considers these as mechanisms by which the U.S. mainstream news media can still contain and limit the effectiveness of such stories in the U.S. public sphere. This study shows that although the rise of the Internet provides substantial new openings for important foreign-originated news stories in the United States, U.S. news media retain some ability to close down stories perceived as threats to their journalistic credibility.

Social Movements and E-mail:Expressions of Online Identity in the Globalization Protests (2007). New Media & Society. 9(2), 258-277.

This study focuses on three email lists — one used by a professional organization (Friends of the Earth) and two by grass roots, street-level participants (Direct Action Network and People’s Global Action) — in the Seattle World Trade Organization protests. Each list was examined in terms of how it contributed to the expression of collective identities online. Each group’s list employed at least one of three processes identified here as key to collective identity: the Friends of the Earth list emphasized cognitive framing of the event; Direct Action Network focused on emotional investments among list members; and People’s Global Action stressed setting boundaries among movement participants.Yet overall, none of the lists was entirely successful as a vehicle for expressing movement identities, suggesting that while the internet may facilitate certain organizational activities of social movements, it appears to have less impact on their symbolic ones.

The Rwanda crisis: An Analysis of News Magazine Coverage. (2007). In A. Thompson (ed.) The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Toronto: International Development Research Centre/Pluto Press. (You can download the book for free.) The Journal of Modern Africa Studies has a review.

American media traditionally have created one-dimensional portraits of intracountry conflict in Africa. Worldwide changes since the end of the Cold War have given many media observers hope that African violence might be covered more insightfully. To see whether this was true, news magazine coverage of the 1994 Rwanda crisis was analyzed. Findings suggest that some patterns such as viewing African events through an East-West frame have disappeared, but other types of simplification prevail.

Blogging Gulf War II. (2006). Journalism Studies. 7(1), 111-126.

This frame analysis of blogs active during the second Gulf War found that overall, bloggers worked within existing discourses about the war, primarily employing pro-war and anti-war frames. The blogs also promoted blogging itself as a solution to the problems of reporting on war as some bloggers saw themselves as improvements on mainstream media.

Blogs over Baghdad: A New Genre of War Reporting. (2006). In R. Berenger (ed.) Cybermedia Go to War-Role of Non-traditional Media in the 2003 Iraq War and its Aftermath (pp.294-303). Spokane, WA: Marquette Books

Blogs of War: Weblogs as News. (2005). Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 6(2), 153-172.

This article examines current events weblogs or blogs that were particularly active during the second US war with Iraq, in the spring of 2003. Analysis suggests that these blogs are a new genre of journalism that emphasizes personalization, audience participation in content creation and story forms that are fragmented and interdependent with other websites. These characteristics suggest a shift away from traditional journalism’s modern approach toward a new form of journalism infused with postmodern sensibilities.

Electronic Iraq: A case of transnational alternative media. (2005). Journal of Middle East Media, 1(1), 9-20

Constructing the Kurds in the Turkish Press: A Case Study of Hurriyet Newspaper. (Co-authored with Dilara Sezgin) (2005). Media, Culture and Society, 27(5), 787-798.

“Asterix repelling the invader”: Globalization and nationalism in news coverage of Jose Bove and the McDonalds incident. (2005). Popular Communication, 3(2), 97-115.

This article examines Associated Press and Agence France-Presse wire service coverage of Frenchman Jose Bove’s 1999 ransacking of a Millau, France, McDonald’s, as well as his subsequent trial. News media coverage of this incident represents an opportunity to examine deeper issues surrounding globalization, nationalism, and the media’s-in this case, international news agencies’-role in constructing and maintaining both. Analysis suggests that both services covered the Bove incidents similarly, downplaying the broader context of corporate capitalism and the global movement to resist it, while elevating Bove to be a key representative of the movement. At the same time that they anointed Bove as a French icon (contributing to “Bovemania”), the wire services constructed a comical caricature of him, which ultimately discredits the activists and the movement he represents.

Blogs as black market journalism: A new paradigm for news. (2004, March). Berglund Center for Internet Studies.  Available online.

Puppets or press conferences: NGOs’ vs. Street Groups’ communication in the Battle of Seattle. (2003). Javnost/The Public, 10(1), 1-16. Available online. This article analyzes the types of communication tactics and frames employed by various groups leading up to and during the massive resistance to the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999. Participant observation and frame analysis are employed to analyze the communication practices and messages of those groups protesting against the WTO. Organized institutions such as NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs) tended to adopt a reformist frame, using professional communication routines and bureaucratic language designed in part to appeal to mainstream news media. Decentralized “street movement” groups often employed a radical frame and and grass-roots, participatory communication tactics, which drew in part on a post-modern culture jamming ethos that sought to disrupt and resist the very existence of the WTO. These findings suggest that this new global movement should not be analyzed as a monolith and that ultimately, a social movement’s approach to to media embodies important messages beyond mere content.

Social movements and the ‘Net: Activist journalism goes digital. (2003). In K. Kawamoto (Ed.) Views from the horizon: Perspectives on digital journalism (pp. 113-122). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

The Battle in Seattle: How Nongovernmental Organizations used websites in their challenge to the WTO. (2002). In Eytan Gilboa (Ed.) Media and conflict: Framing issues, making policy and shaping opinions (pp. 25-43). Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers.

KFC into India: A case study of resistance to globalization discourse. (2000). In Robin Andersen and Lance Strate (Eds.), Critical studies in media commercialism (pp. 291-309). Oxford: Oxford University Press. See International Journal on Media Management 11/01 for review.

Turning training into exchanging: Recommendations for Western-funded journalism programs. (1999). Journal of Development Communication, 10(2), 54-64

A “pernicious new strain of the old Nazi virus” and an “orgy of tribal slaughter”: A comparison of U.S. news magazine coverage of the crises in Bosnia and Rwanda. (1997). Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, 59(6), 121-134.

This study compares US news magazine coverage of conflict occurring in Bosnia and Rwanda. Bosnia’s violence was characterized as an aberration for Europeans, while Rwanda’s violence was presented as typical of Africans. Coverage suggests that in Bosnia, participants made a logical, albeit evil, decision to commit violence in an attempt to seek revenge for past grievances. In contrast, Rwanda’s violence is depicted as having no logical explanation and is portrayed as irrational and so alien from Western understanding as to defy explanation.

The Rwanda Crisis: An analysis of news magazine coverage. (1997). Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, 59(2), 411-428.

Reviews

Review of Out of the Box:Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike. (2007). Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 84(4), 860-861.

Review of Global Activism, Global Media. (2006). Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 83(4), 937-939.

Conference papers

War reporting 2.0. : Social Media and Soldier Content, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago, May 2009.

The blogosphere and Africa: Enhancing the continent’s voices or perpetuating the same old marginalization? Union of Democratic Communications, Vancouver, 2007.

Mainstream News & Blogger Criticism: Expanding Journalism’s “Interpretive Community.” World Journalism Congress, Singapore, June 2007.

(Co-author D. Bicket). (2007, May). BBC news in the U.S.: A “super-Alternative” news medium emerges. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.

(Co-author D. Bicket). (2006, August). “Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation”: U.S. conservatives take aim at the BBC. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco.

(Co-author D. Bicket). (2006, August). Circling the wagons: Containing the impact of the Downing Street Memo story in the United States. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco.

The Rise of NGOs as Alternative News Providers part of the panel, Alternative Media Reframing of the Media Mainstream, International Communication Association, New York, May 2005

Fisking the British media: US blogs and British reporting. Panel: New roles for British media in the United States. International Communication Association, New Orleans, May 2004.

*Blogs of war: The changing nature of news in the 21st century, International Communication Association, New Orleans, May 2004.

The NGO news sphere, part of the panel, Infos sans Frontières: Reframing Alternative Media. Global Fusion, St. Louis, 2004.

Constructing the Kurds in the Turkish Press. Co-author Dilara Sezgin. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Toronto, August 2004.

“Asterix repelling the invader”: How the media covered Jose Bove and the McDonalds incident, International Communication Association, New Orleans, May 2004.

“Like feeding time at the zoo”: Analysis of U.S. newsmagazine coverage of the Iraqi Kurds. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, July-August, 2003.

*Blogs over Baghdad: Postmodern journalism and the Iraqi war. Global Fusion. Austin, Texas, October 2003

Visions of the African press in colonial Kenya: What the nationalists imagined. International Communication Association, San Diego, May 2003.

Cyberactivism: Constructing social movement identities through e-mail. International Communication Association, San Diego, May 2003.

Journalism training as ritual. National Communication Association, New Orleans, November 2002.

Repertoires of resistance: Communication tactics of the reformists and radicals in the Battle of Seattle. National Communication Association, New Orleans, November 2002.

The Battle in Seattle: Constructing movement identities. International Association for Media and Communication Research, Barcelona, July 2002.

The Battle in Seattle: How NGOs used websites to challenge the WTO. International Communication Association, Washington, D.C., May 2001.

The Westernizer, the Developer and the Azmari: Ethiopian journalists’ discourses. International Communication Association, Acapulco, June 2000. Top student paper, Development Communication Division.

“More Barney than Buddhist”: How the media framed the story of the little lama. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New Orleans, August 1999.

Turning training into exchanging: Recommendations for Western-funded journalism programs. International Communication Association, San Francisco, May 1999.

Masiye Pambili: An African township magazine across four decades. International Communication Association, San Francisco, May 1999.

New models for teaching assistants: The Research Mentor Program. Co-authors Hilary Karasz and Paula Reynolds. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago, August 1997. Best student paper, best overall paper, Small Groups Division.

A “pernicious new strain of the old Nazi virus” and an “orgy of tribal slaughter”: A comparison of U.S. news magazine coverage of the crises in Bosnia and Rwanda. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago, August 1997. Markham Award for best student paper, International Communication Division.

KFC into India: A case study of resistance to globalization discourse. International Communication Association, Montreal, May 1997.

Nigerian journalists, 1945-1966: “Nationalist campaigners,” “makeshifts,” or “professionals?” Western Journalism Historians, Berkeley, February 1997.