giovedì 19 novembre 2009
venerdì 13 novembre 2009
CAN YOU BUILD A MORE CRITICAL SOCIETY THROUGH THE POLITICAL REMIX?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibCZMqjOAI8
mercoledì 14 ottobre 2009
Comparing contrasting articles
Consultation has rejected the Lodo Alfano for violating Article 138 of the Constitution, namely the obligation to resort to a constitutional law (and not ordinary as that used by lodo to suspend proceedings against the four highest offices of state). The Lodo Alfano has been rejected also for violation of Article 3 (equality principle).
The effect of the decision of the consultation will be the reopening of two trials against Prime Minister Berlusconi for corruption in judicial and lawyer David Mills for corporate crimes in the sale of TV rights of Mediaset.
During these days I read many articles on the Lodo Alfano, on Silvio Berlusconi and the law against him. Many of these articles were in Italian, but then I decided to broaden my horizons and begin to read also articles of foreign journalists on international newspapers.
All this because I think for my project is important to have an overview and understand what the world thinks about him and Italian politics.
For the Italian newspapers I read 2 articles in newspapers on the right political party and 2 articles in newspapers on the left political party. However, I decided to put the link of all the articles that I have studied.
About Italy I can tell to you that the newspapers of the left or center-left were IL MSNIFESTO and REPUBBLICA while the newspapers right or center-right were LIBERO and IL GIORNALE.
The differences are striking and jump in the eyes ... the articles are completely conflicting.
Despite the newspapers and especially the journalists should not express their opinions, but rather should be limited to recount the events, I see many differences in various newspapers.
Newspapers of the Left parties tell the story with a bit of joy between the lines (well understood even by a child), while the newspapers of the right-wing parties are much more critical and ready to accuse the judges of a a process not true (our prime minister's own words).
But this might almost seem normal considering that these papers, althought they should not be partisan, but they are and they follow the thinking of their political party.
Instead analyzing the international newspapers articles I don’t found conflicting articles, but they agree with the articles that follow the thinking of our left parties. Articles were in fact hiding between the lines, the contentment with the outcome of the process and the rejection of the Lodo Alfano.
I chose this story because it happened a short time and has had worldwide resonance and so I could also compare the views of newspapers and foreign journalists.
So, why the whole world has realized that we have a Prime Minister who seems ridiculous caricature of himself but we didn’t noticed this things?
Why we continue to vote for a man gangster that seems to be born in a holiday village next the sea that looks like the protagonist of a nasty cartoon?
All these thing are strengthening the idea that I carry on with my project.
Now the policy has no meaning, it is just a huge game of money and power, where those who govern do not think about the welfare of his people but but they govern for their own purposes, without thinking of the nation that is leading to disaster, day by day.
Sorry to be so critical and sharp but I live in Italy and my comments stem from the experience. Now if I think the policy I have to laugh ... the same mocking smile that I have when I watch a nasty cartoon.
Links of the articles that I read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/europe/08italy.html?scp=1&sq=berlusconi%20alfano&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09fri3.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=berlusconi&st=cse
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6867105.ece
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/sombra/dimision/Berlusconi/planea/Italia/elpepuint/20091005elpepuint_8/Tes
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,653854,00.html
http://www.lefigaro.fr/editos/2009/10/09/01031-20091009ARTFIG00299-le-cas-berlusconi-.php
Things to notice in the articles:
1) Notice how quickly El Pais writes about the resignation of Prime Minister while in Italy this was never spoken.
2) The German newspaper article begins immediately remembered the story of underage girls and prostitutes, as if they were beginning to diminish the image of our beloved Prime Minister and make it seem less serious than its waiver of immunity.
3) In the newspaper Le Figaro they wrote that was won a battle but not the war; I think this is a clear sign of their position against Berlusconi.
Michela Menghini
giovedì 24 settembre 2009
...COPYRIGHT...
I want to thank all my team a lot because we work well together, we try to win the case "Walt Disney" against Eric S. Faden with all our hearts and maximum effort. We were brilliant and we had all the chance to win but unfortunately we know that the defenders had bribed the jury ... (I refer of course to Maties and Thais!!!).
But speaking of serious things, the discourse on copyright is very important for people, like me, would like to work in the field of journalism or writers.
Copyright gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.
Copyright has been internationally standardized, lasting between fifty to a hundred years from the author's death, or a shorter period for anonymous or corporate authorship.
But however the culture of the Read-Write of the web is based on remixes and Mash Up and it is redesigning the network as we know it, using imagination and creativity of young people that often ignoring the copyrights laws.
This culture is threatened by those who would like to maintain some economic control on creativity and, while there are many who support this new collaborative and democratic currents, the old entertainment industry continues to increasingly consolidate its grip on intellectual property through restrictive laws on copyright.
Each country still has its own copyright laws and I think that everyone should know them, because it is very easy to break them.
So so be careful when you create videos for the project DIKULT 204 or if you put on your blog music videos. Be careful also because we are in Norway and the laws are very rigid and strict!
Michela Menghini
lunedì 21 settembre 2009
...reflections on the text of Henry Jenkins!
But really I never stopped to think about why these might be important.
About my project, they are important because they often are videos of a complaint or political satire, such as the video that we saw in class about the political party in Norway.
But there are some fan videos, even in Italy. In particular, I saw one of this fan video on the movie "The Downfall".
Virtually all of Hitler's speech is on our beloved Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. I’ll post the video even if it is in Italian.
Michela Menghini
venerdì 18 settembre 2009
My opinions: bloggers vs journalists
In this Internet era, blogs are the new journalism. Someone loves them and some people hate them.
But the most important thing that we can say is that internet changed one of the greatest obstacles to true freedom of the press by eliminating or greatly reducing the cost of production and distribution.
However the function of traditional media remains undeniable and irreplaceable for now, and the blogs tend not to replace but to complement the traditional media.
A blog can be a diary. If you invite just a few people to post, and those same people are all who can read it, a blog is groupware; a blog can be a community. Let a lot of people offer posts, organize the comments, add polls and ratings. A blog can be your picture collection. It can be a record of what you saw today. So, as you can see, is difficult to give a precise definition of blogs because blogs are many different things. What appear to be clear, however, is that blogs need mainstream media, and that, today, the mainstream media also need blogs.
From the perspective of journalism, blogs can be seen as a new category of news and current affairs communication. But is blogging journalism? I don’t think that the answer is always no. To say a blog is journalism is like saying web pages are journalism. Journalism can happen on Web pages, and on blogs, in lots of places. Not everything that's printed is journalism. Not everything that's on a blog is journalism. I think that the definition of a journalist depends on the activity, not on the medium. Infact, in my opinion, if you seek factual, contemporary truths for an audience (of any size) and write well, you are a journalist!
Today popular blogs are hosted on the websites of major newspapers, journalists learn to monitor blogs as information sources and bloggers, in turn, learn to monitor the media constantly to follow news and events that are beyond the radar of so-called "mainstream" media.
We must also consider the possibility that in the future be born a new trade, close to the journalist: the profession of professional bloggers. Infact, the readers of the future, those who today are young, even now read more blogs than read newspapers or watch the news on television.
Today, blogs seem to be everywhere, in and around journalism: the
media publish blogs as one item in their online content repertoire; individual journalists have taken up blogging, and an array of amateurs (with regard to journalism) are maintaining blogs that at least to a certain extent resemble news journalism.
The interesting thing is that today there is an interpolation between journalists and bloggers, in fact many journalists keep their own blogs. But another important thing is that blogs have allowed people to share ideas and build resistance in non-democratic countries such as China and Iran, where censorship is heavy but blogs are able to slip through.
An example is the Iran’s spontaneous street demonstrations over Friday’s “stolen election” has ignited a storm of information on social networking sites such as Twitter and the photographic facilities of Flickr.
This is an example of a blog of an Iranian boy who, thanks to his articles keeping us informed about what really goes on in his country: http://shooresh1917.blogspot.com/
But also in Moldova students are using Twitter as a tool to mobilize opposition against a communist victory in Moldovian elections. According to reports, close to 10,000 protesters gathered at Moldova’s parliament in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital and were able to eventually break through police lines to storm into the building. But twitter is just one example of many blogs or social network in the world used to communicate events that would otherwise be prohibited. So I believe that the use of blogs is fundamental, because thanks to the internet and blogs now everyone can freely express their point of view. In this way they can reach all the masses and all citizens can be informed about what really happen in the world.
The blog phenomenon is exiting the amateur stage, which still is not mature, but which is characterized by a tendency towards the integration of blogs in mainstream media.
Mediasphere and blogosphere are learning to live togheter, adapting to each other, in a world where you need both.
Michela Menghini