ACRC

The Economist has released a special report on telecoms in emerging markets, such as Africa, India and China. What’s interesting is how mobile money services have mushroomed in the developing world to enable the transfer of funds in a cheaper way than traditional banks:

“Mobile-money services allow these small retailers to act rather like bank branches. They can take your cash, and (by sending a special kind of text message) credit it to your mobile-money account. You can then transfer money (again, via text message) to other registered users, who can withdraw it by visiting their own local corner shops. You can even send money to people who are not registered users; they receive a text message with a code that can be redeemed for cash.” – from The Economist

Read more: The power of mobile money & the special report – ‘Mobile Marvels’ (26th September ‘09)

The perils of reporting have been highlighted in recent news:

• The most high profile case by far has been the two American reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling who were detained by North Korea along the border with China in March for engaging in “hostile acts”.  They were finally released after Bill Clinton visited North Korea and secured their release.  Since then, they have released a statement about their experience in captivity.
• The recent rescue of New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell from the Taliban has thrown up questions about the rescue priorities of international forces as his Afghan colleague Sultan Munadi died in the same rescue mission.  Concerns were also raised about the risks that Farrell and his translator Munadi undertook by venturing into a Taliban-controlled zone without any military escort.
• At least 17 journalists have been murdered in Russia in the past decade.  The one thing they had in common? They had “engaged in critical reporting that upset powerful interests – whether in government, business, law enforcement or organised crime”. CJP (Committee to Protect Journalists) has released a special report titled ‘Anatomy of Injustice – The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia’. Read it here.

Ever feel that movie sequels never really match up to their predecessors? Empire has compiled a list of the top 50 movie sequels:

Source: Empire

My favourite sequels are at #6, #3 and #1; incidentally, the last two are by the same director. Which are your favourites?

The Reuters Handbook of Journalism is now available online. Sections include:

1. Standards & Values
2. Guide to Operations
3. General Style Guide
4. Sports Style Guide
5. Specialised Guidance
6. Links

According to Dean Wright, this handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by. Head on over there to see what the “professionals” rely on.

According to The Economist, China’s government is taking steps to stop subsidies to publishers who are hemorrhaging in red ink. It had disabled the rights of 10,000-odd publishing houses to publish books and forced them to merge with only 600 private companies. Only these private companies, which have state-ties, will be allocated a quota of serial numbers that can be legally printed. This means that the final decision whether or not to publish a particular title lie on them.

The article seems to imply that this is another method used by the government to impose stringent control over information that is available to the citizens. These private companies are usually profit-driven and favour the production of bestsellers or popular textbook titles, rather than intellectual books that do not guarantee high sales. Even if the publishing house wants to publish a definite bestselling book but has controversial political views, few of these companies would allow this to happen because they risk being fined or suffer a reduction in book quotas .

A new binding; Publishing mergers in China: The Economist article

To read The Economist article in full,

1. Log into LexisNexis Academic under NTU database page
2. Under Search Terms, type in“A new binding; Publishing mergers in China”,
3. Select “Major U.S. and World Publications” under the Search Within field.
4. Determine the date range , e.g. Date is between May 23 2009 and May 29 2009.

Run the search and you will be able to retrieve all the articles in full text!

Another Final Year Project is in the spotlight!

Adeline Ong and Lim Chin Ping are holding a photo exhibition of their FYP, titled “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”, which is a photo documentary conducted over a 5 month period to capture the lives of mental health patients living in rehabilitation homes.

Venue: National Library Basement 1, 100 Victoria Street
Duration: 4 – 16 July 2009, 10am to 9pm daily

For more information, do visit their website or exhibition at NLB!

Another FYP of our recent graduates – David Lee, Tan Wei Xin & Muhd Nurluqman Suratman was also repackaged as a Saturday Special Report in The Straits Times on 13th June. The FYP was about the growing surrogacy industry in India and the group spent ten days in Gujarat and nine days in Mumbai, Maharashtra to file this report.

To read the Saturday Special Report in full,

1. Log into Factiva under NTU database page
2. Under Search Builder, run a search for Straits Times under “Source” and click on the little blue arrow next to it.
3. In the Free Text box, type “Saturday Special Report”.
4. Determine the date range , e.g. 06/13/2009.
5. Run the search and you will be able to retrieve all the articles in full text!

Congratulations to our recent graduates – Wong Jing Han, Lim Wei Yang, Alex Teh and Lim Rong Shan whose final year project was repackaged as a Saturday Special Report in The Straits Times! The FYP was about one-room rental housing in Singapore, focusing on Block 2 at Jalan Kukoh.

The new “homeless” in S’pore by Alex Teh: A ST blog entry

To read the Saturday Special Report in full,

1. Log into Factiva under NTU database page
2. Under Search Builder, run a search for Straits Times under “Source” and click on the little blue arrow next to it.
3. In the Free Text box, type “Saturday Special Report”.
4. Determine the date range , e.g. 06/20/2009.
5. Run the search and you will be able to retrieve all the articles in full text!

Started in 2002, Month of Photography Asia is an annual exhibition presenting works by international and Singaporean photographers in accordance to the theme for the year.  The theme for this year is “Engaging Asia”, with talks and workshops given by lensman Steve McCurry who is world-renowned for his picture “Afghan Girl”:

The exhibitions will run from 18 June to 18 July at the following places: Asian Civilisations Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art at the Lasalle-College of the Arts , SMU Gallery, SG Private Banking Gallery at the Alliance Francaise de Singapour and The Cathay Gallery.

Do visit the official Month of Photography website for more information.

When French composer Maurice Jarre passed away on 28th March, sociology student Shane Fitzgerald took the opportunity to test “how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news”. He amended the composer’s Wikipedia page with a fake quote which was used by many newspapers and new blogs all over the world. No one called his bluff till he announced it a month later, showing that media outlets are often reliant on Internet sources to produce news stories quickly under pressure.

Read more about it here. A lesson for aspiring journalists to always double check their sources!

	Anti-war activism : new media and protest in the information age Gillan, Kevin Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Call No: JZ5584.G7G475
	Instant messaging reference : a practical guide Bridgewater, Rachel Chandos, 2009. Call No: Z711.45.B851
	Censorship Paxton, Mark Greenwood Press, 2008. Call No: Z658.U5P342

Read the rest of this entry »

	Library ethics Preer, Jean L Libraries Unlimited, 2008. Call No: Z682.35.P75P923
	Blogging Jill Walker Polity Press, 2008. Call No: HM851.R439
	New knowledge creation through ICT dynamic capability creating knowledge communities using broadband Kodama, Mitsuru IAP – Information Age Pub. Inc, 2008. Call No: HD30.2.K76N

Read the rest of this entry »

This TV advertisement is about encouraging fathers to be more involved in their children’s lives. I think it delivered the message wonderfully. What do you think?

Which are the top search engines in Asia? You will be surprised to know that it’s not Google in some countries such as South Korea, Japan or China. You can find out which are the top search engines in those countries in this Economist article.

How to read the other issues of The Economist online:

1) Go to E-journals page.
2) Click on A-Z list.
3) Run a search on the journal title, i.e. The Economist.
4) Click on the database links to access the e-journal.
5) Search for a specific article by looking for year, volume, issue and page numbers.

About ADText from Advertising Educational Foundation:


ADText: Advertising Curriculum is an online textbook about advertising.

It aims to enrich the understanding of advertising and its role in culture, society, history and the economy.

There are 20 units and they constitute a broad overview of the place of advertising in society.

1. What is advertising
2. A brief history of advertising in America
3. “Subliminal” Advertising
4. High Culture / Low Culture
5. Advertising in the Public’s eye
6. Public Service Advertising
7. Representations of Masculinity and Femininity in Advertising
8. Advertising and Christmas
9. The Interpretation of Advertisements
10. The role of research in advertising
11. Multiculturalism in the marketplace
12. The management of Brands
13. Ethics and Advertising
14. Advertising in China
15. Creativity in Advertising
16. Advertising in Brazil
17. Advertising in India
18. Children and Advertising
19. Global Advertising

ADText is free and can be accessed via www.adtextonline.org

In America, most major cities usually have a few local newspapers to supply the local news. The New York Times recently reported that more and more of these local newspapers have been closing down due to the declining ad revenue and the onset of the recession:

“Nearly every large paper in the country prints fewer pages and fewer articles, and many have eliminated entire sections. Bureaus in foreign capitals and even Washington have closed, and papers have jettisoned film criticism, book reviews and coverage of local news outside their home markets.”

Even the New York Times is not spared. In a recent Bloomberg article, the NYT Chairman has suggested that they may revisit charging fees to web users for access to online content to “combat the “grim” economic outlook”.

“The immediate future looks, at a minimum, grim,” Sulzberger, 57, said at the event. “Traditional revenue streams are anemic and getting worse.”

With the current economic climate, there is a pressing need for newspapers now to explore ways of generating alternative revenue streams.

Is all hope lost? Some writers/bloggers have suggested ways in which newspapers must evolve to survie. Read: How Newspapers Must Change to Survive and 10 Ways Newspapers are using Social Media to Save the Industry

As seen on the Photojojo website about getting into photojournalism:

Like any other job field, establishing a career in photojournalism takes time and effort. It’s a competitive business, controlled by editors who are often over-worked and involving a certain amount of subjectivity. In other words, even if you think highly of your photographs, others might not agree.

We’ve got nine tips to help you get your news photos out of your camera and into the public eye. Next stop: Pulitzer Prize!

The nine tips are: 

1. Get schooled
2. Focus on people
3. Foot patrol
4. It’s ok to be a copycat
5. Hey, Hemingway!
6. Create a website
7. Start a blog
8. Get your work seen
9. Be persistent

For more details about what each tip means, visit photojojo.

In a recent post on Journalism.sg, Prof Cherian George writes about the future of journalism in a post-newspaper world and describes how the content in newspapers may be replaced and by who. What impact does this have on the profession or industry? Read more about it here.

Not sure where to start your research?

You may like to check the newly updated subject guides for Communication Research and Journalism for some ideas.