Assignment Zero: A new frontier in Journalism?

So you want to be a published journalist? Assignment Zero takes the field of journalism and opens it up to all budding writers. By posting an ‘assignment’, the editor of Assignment Zero gives multiple individuals the ability to post reports on the topics. Multiple reports on a topic will make all interpretations represented.

The question this raises for the media major is, how will this effect the profession in the future. Is this a fad or the future?

For more information, see the New York Times article ‘All the World’s a Story’

Wikipedia under siege!

While Wikipedia has always been a lighting rod for criticism, the latest Media coverage concerning the website has left its staff and supporters in crisis.

First, Middlebury College’s History Department banned the use of the site in papers and exams. This after a serious factual error was quoted by numerous students on an exam–their communal source was Wikipedia (Read the Middlebury College weblink concerning this issue) .

Now the latest scandel to rock the website is the fact that a ‘Professor of Theology’ who published thousands of entries on the site is in fact a college dropout. This has led Wikipedia to change its policy and philosophy concerning authors (Read the CNN report on this issue).

So what is the moral in all this? Well, although I personally love Wikipedia for it overall high quality, I would NEVER consider it for serious research. Trivia—yes, Scholarship–no.

Finally, the bias of Wikipedia has been questioned by users who feel there is a liberal slant. To counter this Conservapedia has been created to represent the Conservative point of view.

Media Issues Explored

The Canadian site Media Awareness Network is a media education website that is international in scope. Available in both French and English, the materials on this site range from games for K-12 to research and special initatives.The themes of media violence, media stereotyping, online hate and information privacy are covered in a series of essays. Under stereotypes, how the media portrays Ethnic and Visible Minorities, Aboriginal People, Girls and Women, Men and Masculinity, Gays and Lesbians and Whiteness and White Privilege are all explored in seperate reports.

The essay ‘Beauty and Body Image in the Media’ is of particular interest for those exploring the popular topic of women and body image.

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