Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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this week, we're going to be considering methods for researching
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how media industries work by closely studying the people who
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work in them.
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Now. The purpose off doing this is to show how
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media work and creativity quite often embraces social issues.
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So what we're trying to do is we're trying to
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move away from what we would call normative questions about
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made your industries towards more cultural understandings off how media
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work gets done.
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And this is a powerful way off relating media industries
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to the wider political, economic and social context within their
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within which they work.
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And the case we're going to make is that it
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doesn't really make any sense to separate media work from
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those factors.
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So one of the important things that were going to
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appreciate when we finished this session is that it isn't
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very realistic, very practical or indeed very interesting to approach.
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Media, industries and media industries work as a set of
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processes that are there to be done in a particular
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way. It's really more interesting and more insightful to study
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how at work is done in relation to other things
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and particularly the personality and experiences off the people who
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are working in major industries.
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And to get to this, we're going to focus very
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specifically on a particular media industry, the world off, journalism
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and experiences off gender they're in now.
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Why are we focusing in on this?
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Well, I suppose if we were going to talk about
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normative approaches to meet your industries, journalism is one of
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the professions that we might approach from the most normative
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point of view.
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That is, most of us would think and for understandable
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reasons, that journalism is about a set off professional practices
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that are to be applied in the same way, regardless
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off who's doing them.
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So it shouldn't really matter with your male female whether
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you're born in Australia, born in India, born in China,
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whatever it is, you should be able to do journalism
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in the same way that you should be able to
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write the same story using the same source of professional
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practices and the fact of the matter races that a
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close analysis of journalism in practice has shown that that's
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never really been true.
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And one of the interesting things that we're going to
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see is that the last few years have seen rising
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interest and a rise in the number off female journalists.
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But that rise is tthe e production is happening in
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certain parts of the world and is happening for certain
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political, economic and cultural reasons.
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And all of those things have really changed our perceptions
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off journalism in the nature of what journalism is and
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that is, that certain women journalists have really been responsible
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for changing understandings off how journalism should should operate in
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in affecting different methods off during journalism which have afforded
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different perspectives on the world to their audiences.
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But the interesting thing in close studies off these female
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journalists, this is that those changes aren't simply the product
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of imagination.
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They are the product off many of the conditions and
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restraints that female journalist work underneath.
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And very often, many of the changes that women journalists
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have brought into the profession have reflected the dangers that
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they face by virtue off the agenda.
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And so what this does is it serves as a
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really useful case study on two things.
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Firstly, on the purpose off doing media industry research on
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the purpose off, studying how media people exercise their creativity
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within particular constraints and media industries.
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Secondly, it demonstrates a really useful method, which is the
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method off selecting a key informant in looking at evidence
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about how female researchers how women journalists do their work.
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What we can see is a broader principle, the value
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off taking particular people who work in media industries and
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using them as a symbol off the wider dynamics that
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affect that industry.
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And then finally, what we're going to do is we're
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going Teoh focus in on a particular journalist, a British
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journalist. Call that Kate 80 although we are going to
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be talking about with women, journalists and other parts of
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the world, particularly Iraq.
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But we're going to be studying Kate, 80 as a
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kind of an exemplar of a case study off a
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particular media worker who whose experiences reflect particular changes in
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the journalism industry but who is also a case study
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in how journalism has been afflicted by sexism, which has
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created different working conditions in different working expectations for the
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men and women who practice in that field.
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So at the end of this, we're going to be
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understanding how we can approach media work from a cultural
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perspective, one which places creativity in an organisational framework, which
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is affected by culture, politics and history.
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And we're also going to be being introduced to the
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roll off gender in understanding as a kind of a
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sensitizing topic in understanding how media industries work.
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And we're going to be doing that through looking at
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the question off.
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How to understand the concept of creativity in media industries
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were going to be thinking about why gender has become
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a particular issue in changing media practices over the last
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20 years or so.
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We're going to be looking at Katie and discussing why
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we should look at her.
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What or what does she teach us about not only
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journalism and gender, but about where we can find evidence
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to talk about how major industries work.
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And then we're going to be ending with the discussion
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on gender and media industries and just knocking around a
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few ideas about some other places where we can apply
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some of these ideas.
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So that's the plan for this week