Study Material
International Communication
Areas of study:
Nature of flow of global news and information
Cold war and post cold war world order
Post 9/11 world order
Global media coverage and images of world
Cultural colonialism and emergence of religious extremism
Since the first systems of mass media and telecommunications emerged, their control and structure have been political issues. It has been well understood that the control over the means of communication is an integral aspect of political and economic power. Perhaps the most striking feature of our current age is the increase in prominence -- for economics, politics, and culture -- of technologically advanced systems of communication and information that are often global in scope.
In conventional parlance, the current era in history is generally characterized as one of globalization and technological revolution. The process of globalisation, technology and automation are key components of new economic system and new industrial enterprise. In these areas media and communication play a central, perhaps even a defining, role. Economic and cultural globalization arguably would be impossible without a global media system that promote global markets and to encourage consumer values.
In the present epoch we often discover that diverse interests are at work, and what may appear at one level to be ‘globalization’ in the sense of ‘homogenization’, may appear at another level fragmentation and competition. The present process of globalization is a total package a kind of synchronization of international political, economic, social and cultural life. Dominant western powers in control of global media are setting the models and standards which in turn amounts new kind of cultural colonialism. Ideally speaking the globalization can be described as the worldwide interconnection between societies, cultures, institutions, and individuals; the compression of time and space.
The information technology, market forces, and globalization have created a dynamic for new ideas and wealth creation, for the rise of new actors, and for the vulnerability of markets and institutions that rely on this new information infrastructure. The consequences of the ongoing globalization of the media are difficult to disentangle from the effects of the parallel and closely related economic and technological changes in national and global economies. These are intertwined and reinforcing.
Never before in history has so much been communicated so rapidly to so many people. We have entered the age of the global flow of information and entertainment as a result of the technological innovation that followed World War II. The results may yet prove to be the most revolutionary experience that has ever happened to the human race. The end results could well be sweeping changes in politics, in cultures, in national systems, and in international relationships.
Massive advancement in the field of science and technology in last century pave the way for information revolution. Studies of development of science show that the last 65 years have produced 90 percent of the scientific knowledge accumulated by mankind throughout it history, and 90 percent of the people involved in the science during its development are our contemporaries.9 Major chunk of this accumulated scientific knowledge goes to information and communication sector which in turn largely remained within domain of multinational power structure.
In the information society (also terms has been used as post-industrial society, post-ideological society), the basic resource is information and information technology is the life-blood of many other technologies, and in fact often the carrying mechanism through which other technological developments become operational. The main feature of this transition is increased relevance of resource called ‘information’. In information society, this resource is basic to all processes.
The emergence of unipolar world dominated by the United States to a large extent controlled the global flow of information and news and thus acquired a dominant position in the politics of images. The United States in new order is no not only hub of information revolution but also headquarters of global news and information flow. The age of the global flow of information and entertainment as a result of the technological innovations that followed World War II is deeply rooted in the Unites States.
The issues of cultural domination and the concept of national sovereignty got new meaning in the wake of collapse of Soviet model and world becoming unipolar and with the intensification of neoliberal globalization. In addition to being material "have-nots", inhabitants of the ‘periphery’ nations have become "know-nots" when it comes to possession of important decision-making knowledge, since raw data is increasingly processed into knowledge in the ‘centre’.
Once the process of decolonization was completed, in the 1960s and 1970s the cause of development proved a failure while the process of cultural dependence intensified the receiving nations this losing out in both fields. What this depressing experience appears to have taught the leaders of the Third World is that independence, political, economic and cultural, is the crucial prerequisite for all forms of satisfactory growth and change. Without independence in information and culture the gains of political and economic independence are rapidly eroded. But as new technologies of communication inevitably spread deeper and deeper into the new societies it becomes ever harder to maintain local cultural autonomy.
NWICO & Balance versus Free Flow
In the 1970s movement of Third World nations to establish a New World Information and communication Order (NWICO) in conjunction with a New World Economic Order, got wide support. It was widely accepted that there is need to rectify the imbalances built into the global political economy after four centuries of colonialism and neo colonialism. The movement was squashed for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was adamant opposition from corporate media and the U.S. and British governments. The United States and Britain both withdrew from UNESCO in the mid-1980s in large part to express their dissatisfaction with that group's alleged desire to interfere with the freedom of operations of the global media corporations.
The NWICO ideals were collective right to communicate, the rights of sovereign entities to protect their cultures, and the concept of a plurality of information sources. The essential criterion of information freedom resides in the plurality of sources and in the free access to these sources and to all kinds of opinion. The flow of news is vital because it is dominant channel that help people to form perceptions and images of world. The news intrudes into the very culture societies.
The basic premise of the movement for a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO), was that an imbalance existed in the direction, volume, and types of information exchanged between adequately developed countries and the Third World, which was detrimental to development and systemic in nature. Of equal importance with, and logically prior to this conception, is the ethical notion that information should be viewed a shared resource or as a social good rather than as a commodity.
On the other hand, governmental dominance of news and information too often has been the handmaiden of dictatorships, oligopolies and generally repressive regimes in the Third World. Very few developing countries had free press to name. This provided substance to the argument of “free flow of news and information”. Many Third World leaders have a strong bias against free enterprise as the basis for maintaining the communication process that under girds their national destiny.
The major documents of the NWICO include the Unesco Media Declaration of 1978, Unesco's Statement on Journalistic Ethics, and the report of the International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems (MacBride Commission), published in 1980. NWICO premises included the assertion that information is necessary to economic development, and that any attempt to establish a New International Economic Order (NIEO) must incorporate, or even depend upon, reform in the world communications system.
In the wake of McBride Commission Report (1980), strong differences arose on “balance versus free flow” of international news and information. The free flow doctrine was essentially a part of the liberal, free market discourse that championed the rights of media proprietors to sell wherever and whatever they wished. As most of the world’s media resource and media-related capital , then as now, were concentrated in the West , it was the media proprietors in the Western countries , their governments and big corporations that had most to gain. There were differences between notions of "press freedom" or "free flow". Western countries were not sensitive towards imbalance in the flow of information and news and the kind of distorted images it was generating.
Concepts of Selection of News and Images of World
In regard to news content, news everywhere appears to be defined as the "exceptional event," with coups and catastrophes being newsworthy wherever they occur. The Western concepts that governed selection and dissemination of news had resulted into creation of negative images of developing countries. Images of Western audiences have become conditioned to a view of the Third World which is founded upon selective, wrong or ill-judged information and which can be characterized as "exploitive, patronizing, and distorted."
Moreover, because of the vast market for news and increasing commercialization of news media, it remained difficult to provide a balanced view of the Third World. Almost all major global news organizations are controlled by a few Western nations, the third world perspectives and alternative visions are almost missing.
Information users in the developed countries interpret, process, and act upon this information, redistributing it in turn to the client states, along with more information about their own activities, cultures, and politics. Thus, the Third World nations come to be viewed through the eyes of the information interpreters of the developed nations, whose organizations control both the finances and infrastructures of the distribution system, while the developing nations never quite receive the latest information, nor the latitude of interpreting it to their own advantage. As well, in terms of pure volume of information produced and consumed, the developing nations lag far behind.
The mediated communication has become very dominant and the process of filtration of information very refined. Thus people are increasingly getting exposed to highly selective information that lack context surrounding emergent issues and problems. The isolation of stories from each other and from their larger contexts so that information in the news becomes fragmented and hard to assemble into a big picture which results into generation of distorted and fragmented images of the world- people, places and cultures. The fragmentation of information begins by emphasizing individual actors over the political contexts in which they operate. This every event is an isolated happening.
The context of news and information is at least as important as content, since it allows the media to dilute and discredit information while still appearing to present it a fair manner. This is particularly problematic in media coverage of insurgency, war, and revolution since it means the public can be swayed to the needs of ‘national interests’ and policy.
The justification for the Gulf War began with 'balance of power' in the region, then moved on to protecting national interests and the access to oil, and finally settled on protecting “democracy, our friends, and stopping a new Hitler and liberation of Iraq people from a ruthless despot”. And, the American and global media played merrily along. This is particularly problematic when coverage concerns insurgencies and the like, since the nuances of the language tend to lend legitimacy to which ever side is more beneficial to the West and demonizing the other side.
The images of nations are primarily created by means of the news. News contributed to processes of the construction of national identities. It is the news media that present the world outside the domain of direct experience of people. Those who are in control of media also are in control of the process of image formation. That is how the North comes to know the South and the interests that control news are also in control of the images. The exporting nations reinforce their own cultural images in the client nations through many other "physical and cultural" exports. Films, tourism, and consumer products such as automobiles are possible examples.
With the emergence of global media, the flow of news is controlled by few big news organization and they are in control of news flows in all directions. However, because of the way in which news is constructed and marketed, emphasizing the most violent or dramatic images, the media present a selective or distorted image of the less developed nations.
In interpreting Third World events for domestic audiences, Western journalists apply their own standards of propriety. The very concept of event to qualify to be newsworthy has to be “interesting” and “eye-catching” has resulted into what is termed as ‘disaster-oriented journalism’. The process of information gathering and dissemination that is involved in practice results into selection of only or mostly negative events and thus create only negative images. Because of the way in which news is constructed and marketed, emphasizing the most violent or dramatic images, the media present a selective or distorted image of the less developed nations. Issues, personalities, and events appear before the public, only to vanish behind a bewildering glitter of new sensations, disasters, and miseries.
The most contentious area of current debate on international communication has been the role of the Western news agencies as the dominant creators and gatekeepers of news flows. It is widely known that almost over 90 percent of global flow of news (the events of the day and the first report generally became trend setter in rest of coverage of the event) is controlled by Western news agencies. These agencies control even domestic distribution of news in developing countries through exchange arrangements with domestic news agencies.
The Reuters of Britain, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Associated Press (AP) of USA, and Agence France-Presse (AFP) of France and DPA of Germany are major players in global news market that now control domestic markets in context of international news. These news agencies are the primary producers and controllers of news.
U.S. and U.K. media organizations provide and distribute much of the worlds new. The largest news services, the Associated Press and Reuters, cover news around the world from primarily western news centers. CNN is a 24/7 global news network available in more than 150 million households and 212 countries and territories worldwide and its part of the world's largest media conglomerate
The TV images of the Gulf War
Some important insights into television's biases and cultural power emerge:
TV viewers have already learned a complex visual code in which a close-up means intimacy or emotion, a shot from below means authority, a fadeout means the end of an episode. We have been taught the "meaning" of certain characters and objects: doctors represent authority; jet planes mean wealth and power, popular actors and athletes are trustworthy. Commercials rely heavily on significant images that link soft drinks with youth and beauty, automobiles with power, control and escape. Signification is the key to all effective selling.
What did the Gulf War sell? We were inundated with images of technology: powerful and exotic airplanes taking to the sky night after night, tanks speeding across the desert, stopping only to shoot at (and always hit) a distant target. In case we missed the point, news anchor narrators assured us the bombs were "smart" and the strikes "surgical." The signification was clear: technology not only bestows power and superiority but enables us to be humane, even in the conduct of war.
We also saw a great deal of interpretation as opposed to documentation. If Vietnam was the first TV war, the Gulf was the first anti-TV war. With the exception of a few exciting moments when a Scud missile was expected in Israel or Dhahran, correspondents were restricted to talking to us by radio or telephone while the camera focused on a map of the Middle East. Otherwise, various experts, mostly former military men, explained a particular weapon or tactic from a studio thousands of miles from the battlefield. Never was so much stock footage used to convey so little.
While newspeople described tank training, we saw familiar shots of tanks racing across the desert. If there was a report of new air sorties, we saw, for the dozens time, the same old pictures of planes leaving their airfields; and when the Patriot missiles were discussed, we were treated to endlessly repeated footage of Patriots being uncrated all cleared by the censors.
In sharp contrast to Vietnam no cameras went with the soldiers into ground combat. We never saw for ourselves that this war was quite separate from our daily lives. For all the rhetoric, the war was not a truly serious event for most TV viewers-which may have been why some entrepreneurs tried so hard to sell the war to others, through yellow ribbons, bumper stickers and even outdoor advertising.
We saw two other kinds of images, but they were far less visible and much less compelling. One was the image of warriors, the U.S. soldiers visited by TV in order to provide us with "human interest."
Media images of victims were even less in evidence. We saw family hardship back home in America, especially among "newsworthy" families (a father taking off from work to care for baby while mother was at war or families encountering economic loss while the breadwinner was away). But the real victims-the more than thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were fried and pulverized by hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, or the millions civilians experiencing nightly bombing raids and days with no water, food, electricity or sanitation-were virtually invisible.
Almost 25 years ago the German media critic Hans Magnus Enzenberger pointed out that all media are manipulated in some way: "There is no such thing as unmanipulated writing, filming or broadcasting. The question is, therefore, not whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates them.”
The celebration of technology in the Gulf War took place on stations increasingly owned and operated by multinationals deeply involved in the production of armaments. General Electric, the tenth largest corporation in the U.S. and one of the largest weapons producers, owns the NBC network and its stations. Westinghouse, another major defense contractor, owns one of the largest broadcast groups. Control is not limited to owners. Sponsors also greatly influence the way news is presented. Dupont, IBM, AT&T and ITT are all major television sponsors, and all have major stakes in the public support for high-tech armaments. Who benefits from coverage that celebrates smart bombs and surgical strikes?
Cultural domination and the backlash
As the messages do not originate in a vacuum but from a well defined political, economic and cultural position and the process of communication and its content acquire normative dimensions. The value-loaded messages tell how the world ought to be, and provides us with moral categories that indicate what kind of behavior are desirable and what kinds of acts are objectionable.
The Western/American domination over information and images has on the one hand let the western cultural domination of the world and at the same time it generated strong reaction and the burns of backlash are also being felt as domination does not allow “dissent’ and alternative visions or the gap between the dissent and alternative visions is not compatible any longer and the democratic institutions are failing to work as outlet of people anger and frustrations.
The flow of information form North to South has intensified and world is witnessing a new scenario in which small and weak cultures are finding if difficulty of ward off the information and cultural onslaught. This is one of the key reasons for emergence of negative resistance of new world order and terrorism also drawing a lot of strength from this situation.
The ‘rejection’ in the absence of ‘democratic outlet’ is heading in different directions. The resistance of negative dimensions of the new order is increasingly getting manifested in negative forms in the absence of any genuine ideological alternative. The most dominant form of negative rejection is religious fundamentalism that has become focal point in the wake of 9/11.The religious fundamentalism may not be creation of new order but is drawing a lot of strength from the new situation.
The threat to cultural identities is finding manifestations in various forms and in Islamic world dominantly in religious fundamentalist form and hardened attitudes in certain circles in the West. Ayatollah Khomeini used the word in Farsi that has been translates as "West toxification," literally like being poisoned by the West.
The intensification of one-way flow of news and information (images of world) tends to support a global process of cultural synchronization rather than autonomous diversity. Information techniques facilitate the emergence of an oligopolized leisure market that defines and produces cultural services. This leads to a rapid loss of self-defined mechanism through which people cope with their environment: the core of cultural development.
Undoubtedly intercultural interaction has been there for a long time but this age is witnessing an intense one-way information bombardment, which is creating a unique situation with all kind of complexities. Mahatma Gandhi said, “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.” The intense one-way flow is virtually seems to be acquiring “blowing dimensions”.
The media messages have become so complex by sheer quantity and quality that to comprehend their meaning has become beyond intellectual skills of man in the street. The other challenge comes from globalization, which means the development of worldwide networks of interdependence, or sometimes, in shorthand, it has been called the "shrinkage of distance” which is largely facilitating massive and intense one-way information flow.
The degree of interpretability of texts and the finite limits to consumer autonomy are still highly significant. Resistance by audience autonomy is frequently romanticized excess, and is, at most, some form of indirect autonomy over consumption, but never production. The free-flow doctrine simply legitimates and reinforces the capability of a few dominant economies to impose their cultural definitions and perspectives on the rest of the world
Ideological context of political discourse
The configuration of the international economy explains the broad outline of the global media system. The relationship between the world political economy and the new media has profound implications for the ideological context of political discourse.
Globalization is a phenomenon not possible without a particular kind of media environment and international news and information flow. In fact so pervasive have global media become that media that we are witnessing the onset of a "new form of global culture" in which globally produced images, sounds and spectacles help produce the fabric of everyday life providing the materials out of which people forge their very identities. Information flow in all kinds of forms and especially media are the source of knowing the world that is beyond the domain of their direct experience and thus, in major part of our knowing and knowledge is world of images.
The spread of a global culture and enhanced power of media are shaping identities and our images and views of the world. According to a number of media and cultural critics, this "global culture"--with the hallmarks of homogenization and convergence--is obliterating local cultures, creating in its wake mirrors of Western n consumer society.
Media theorist Cees Hamelink believes that "the impressive variety of the world's cultural systems is waning due to a process of 'cultural synchronization' that is without historic precedent." This particularly pessimistic view of the obliteration of local cultures, a result of the impact of the globalization of (largely) American electronic media, has come to be known in media studies as the "media/cultural imperialism thesis."
The present process of cultural globalization has been set into the accelerated pace by global media that has emerged in the wake of information revolution. The global media controlled by multinational power structure is not facilitating a healthy cultural interaction- rather it is other way round. The global media is key to selling news ideas and dreams to vast population of the world. But for some the human race is entering a new Golden Age. All people need to do is sit back, shut up and shop, and let markets and technologies work their magical wonders.
Despite advances in communication technologies and massive outpouring of information in various forms it failed to facilitate bringing about a wider distribution of information, distribution is paradoxically restricted to those who already have more than their fair share of information. Now even questions are being raised that to what extent even the information-rich are informed or are they more misinformed? Are they intellectually skilled enough, to reveal the hidden meanings of the volume of images that are being communicated through intense bombardment of various types of information?
Information is becoming highly specialized and complex. It implies that despite volume of information available to people, it is not facilitating better understanding of contemporary issues. The resource information is far more difficult to exploit than land and capital. It requires highly developed intellectual and managerial skills that are unevenly distributed in the society.24/7 journalism (24-hourn news, 7 days a week) so quickly and rapidly shifting from one theme to other that it become difficult for viewer to make any meaningful sense of any event. A glaring example of the problem this method creates is the present state of TV news: most people prefer its simplistic presentation to a more complex and demanding one.
In the United State one study has reveled that more television people watch less they know. Heavy exposure to media coverage of a dominant issue leads to a stronger and/or more frequent activation of the though elements related to the issue. Media messages often directly influence individual-level attitudes but that such effects depend on the information environment and the individual’s exposure and resistance to persuasive messages.
When McLuhan, predicted more than 30 years ago the advent of the global village, many people thought the new technologies in communication would make it possible for us to access all sorts of information freely on our own without having to depend on newspapers. What we did not contemplate is that—instead of liberating us from intermediaries – inexpensive computers and universal access to the Internet would so inundate us with massive amounts of unsorted information that we would become even more dependent on those who could tell us what was important and accurate and what was not.
Some key concepts:
Cultural colonialism and information imperialism
Imperialism and Colonialism
Decolonization
Neo-colonialism
Internal colonialism
Liberalism
Neo-liberalism
Neo conservative
Cold war
New World Economic Order
New World Communication and Information Order
Capitalism (free market economy)
Socialism (controlled economy)
Capitalist democracy
Liberal democracy
Socialist democracy
Social democracy
End of history/ end of ideology
Clash of civilizations
Information society, post industrial society, post ideological society
Globalization
Political, economic and cultural synchronization
Corporate Globalisation
Post Cold War World Order
Post 9/ 11 World Order
Westernization, Americanization and Modernisation
CNN Effect
Embedded journalism
Subhash Dhuliya
Professor (Communication)
IGNOU
sdhuliya@gmail.com
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Saturday, 25 October 2008
अमेरिका : चुनाव और युद्ध
अमेरिका : चुनाव और युद्ध
सुभाष धूलिया
इन दिनों अमेरिका से मिल रहा हर संकेत एक ही दिशा में इशारा करता नजर आता है कि आने वाले कुछ महीने में विश्व राजनीति में कुछ बड़े परिवर्तन आने वाले हैं। अमेरिका में राष्ट्रपति के चुनाव में डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी के उम्मीदवार बराक ओबामा ने बुश प्रशासन को इस बात के लिए आड़े हाथों लिया है कि पाकिस्तान अरबों डॉलर की अमेरिकी मदद का इस्तेमाल आतंकवाद के बजाय भारत के साथ युद्ध की तैयारी में लगा रहा है। ओबामा पहले भी कह चुके हैं अगर बिन लादेन के अफगान सीमा से लगे पाकिस्तानी कबाइली इलाकों में छिपे होने की पुख्ता खुफिया जानकारी है तो अमेरिका को खुद ही सैन्य कार्रवाई कर देनी चाहिए। लेकिन स्थिति यह है कि बुश प्रशासन ने भले ही खुलमखुल्ला पाकिस्तान के खिलाफ बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई न की हो लेकिन पाकिस्तानी ज़मीन पर अमेरिकी की सीधी कार्रवाइयां लगातार बढ़ती जा रही है। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति के चुनाव में ओबामा और रिपब्लिकन पार्टी के उम्मीदवार मेक्कैन- दोनों ही बढ-चढ़कर कह रहे हैं कि वे नर्क के दरवाजे और पाकिस्तानी कबाइली इलाकों की गुफा तक बिन लादेन का पीछा करेंगे। लेकिन अफगानिस्तान की स्थिति जिस तेजी से बिगड़ रही है उससे यही लगता है कि जिस सैनिक अभियान की बात ओबामा और मेक्कैन कह रहे हैं वह बुश के सत्तासीन रहते ही शुरु हो जाएगा। पाकिस्तान में जरदारी जैसे कमजोर नेता राष्ट्रपति के पद पर आसीन हो गए हैं ऐसे में जरदारी से वह करने की उम्मीद कैसे की जा सकती है जो तानाशाह मुशर्रफ नहीं कर पाए थे ? जरदारी जैसे पाकिस्तानी नेता की नीयति यही है कि उनका सारा ध्यान अपना कुर्सी बचाने पर ही केंद्रित रहेगा इसलिए पाकिस्तान के आंतरिक सत्ता समीकरण को देखते हुए भी अमेरिकी सैनिक कार्रवाई की संभावना प्रबल हो जाती है।
अमेरिका की विदेश नीति इस वक्त इतने गहरे संकट में है कि यह कहा जा रहा है इस बार का राष्ट्रपति का चुनाव विदेश नीति पर ही केन्द्रित होकर रह जाएगा। बुश प्रशासन के दौरान अमेरिका सैनिक ताकत पर अधिकाधिक निर्भर होता चला गया और आज वह ऐसे मुकाम पर आ खड़ा हुआ है कि सैनिक कार्रवाईयों का विस्तार उसकी मजबूरी बन गयी है। ओबामा 'परिवर्तन' की चाहे कितनी भी बातें करे लेकिन युद्ध के मामले में उनका मानना है कि सैनिक प्रयासों को इराक के बजाय अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान पर केन्द्रित होना चाहिए।
अमेरिका की विदेश नीति का दूसरा सबसे बड़ा संकट रूस में उभरता राष्ट्रवाद है। ऐसे समय में जब अमेरिका जॉर्जिया और युक्रेन को नाटो में शामिल करने जा रहा था रूस ने जॉर्जिया पर आक्रमण कर दिया। इस आक्रमण के माध्यम से रूस ने अपनी सैनिक शक्ति का प्रदर्शन ही नहीं किया बल्कि यह भी साफ कर दिया कि सैनिक रूप से घेरे जाने की स्थिति में वह क्या कर सकता है। रूस सैकड़ों नाभिकीय हथियारों से लैस है। जॉर्जिया पर रूस के आक्रमण से यूरोप का नया नक्शा रचने की अमेरिकी रणनीति संकट में फंस गयी है।
अमेरिका का तीसरा बड़ा संकट ईरान को लेकर है। ईरान को नाभिकीय संबर्धन की प्रोद्योगिकी विकसित करने से रोकने के प्रयास लगभग विफल हो गए हैं। इस प्रोद्योगिकी का इस्तेमाल बिजली बनाने के अलावा नाभिकीय हथियार विकसित करने के लिए भी किया जा सकता है। अमेरिका को नाभिकीय क्षमता वाला ईरान स्वीकार्य नहीं है । इजराइल तो नाभिकीय क्षमता वाले ईरान को अपने अस्तित्व के लिए खतरा मानता है और अमेरिका के बिना भी ईरान की नाभिकीय क्षमता को ध्वस्त के इरादे साफ कर चुका है। ईरान भी इजराइल के अस्तित्व को स्वीकार नहीं करता और ईरान के राष्ट्रपति अहमदीनेजाद इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को मिटाने की धमकी देने का कोई अवसर नहीं चूकते। ईरान पर आक्रमण के मसले पर राष्ट्रपति बुश इस्राइल की सोच के सबसे ज्यादा करीब माने जाते हैं और अपना कार्यकाल खत्म होने से पहले ऐसा भी कुछ करना चाहते हैं कि उन्हें 'ऐतिहासिक' होने का दर्जा हासिल हो सके। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पद के डेमोक्रेटिक उम्मीदवार ओबामा ईरान से सीधी बात के पक्षधर हैं और इस्राइल का ये बी मानना है कि रिपब्लिकन मैक्केन भी अगर राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं तो वो सत्ता संभालते ही ईरान पर आक्रमण का फैसला नहीं करेंगे। ऐसे में इस्राइल का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने के लिए पर्याप्त समय मिल जाएगा। इजराइल के एक प्रभावशाली तबके की धारणा है कि अब से लेकर नए राष्ट्रपति के सत्तासीन होने के बीच का समय ईरान पर आक्रमण का 'अंतिम' अवसर है। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति का चुनाव प्रचार दो महीने चलेगा और 4 नवंबर को मतदान होगा। जनवरी में नए राष्ट्रपति सत्ता की बागडोर संभालेंगे।
इस वक्त अमेरिकी जनमत निर्णायक रुप किसी के भी पक्ष में नहीं है। कांटे की टक्कर है और यह कयास लगाए जा रहे हैं कि अगर ईरान और अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान में कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई न हो तो ओबामा का पलड़ा भारी हो सकता है। ईरान पर आक्रमण एक बड़े युद्ध की शुरुआत होगी। ऐसे में अमेरिका भूतपूर्व सैनिक मेक्कैन को चुनेगा या भूतपूर्व सामुदायिक समाजसेवी ओबामा को अमेरिकी सेना का कमांडर-इन-चीफ के पद पर आसीन करेगा- इसका अनुमान सहज ही लगाया जा सकता है। अगर राष्ट्रपति बुश इराक,अफगानिस्तान और ईरान को ऐसे ही छोड़कर जाते हैं जैसे वे आज हैं तो इतिहास में उनका नाम एक विफल राष्ट्रपति के रूप में ही दर्ज होगा। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ वैश्विक युद्ध छेड़े जाने के बावजूद बिन लादेन आजतक हाथ नहीं आया है। ये सच है कि बिन लादेन के साथ ही आंतकवाद के खिलाफ लड़ाई खत्म नहीं होगी लेकिन अमेरिका के लिए इसका बहुत प्रतीकात्मक महत्व है और इतिहास और राजनीति में प्रतीकों की भूमिका भी होती है। बुश इतिहास के पन्नों पर अपना नाम विफल नेता के रूप में दर्ज नहीं होने देना चाहते इसलिए बिन लादेन के मामले में वो कुछ करके ही जाना चाहते हैं और हाल ही में पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर बढ़ती सैनिक कार्रवाई इसी ओर इशारा करती है।
आज अमेरिका की राजनीति निश्चित रूप से बड़े परिवर्तन के दरवाजे पर खड़ी है। अगर मेक्कैन जीतते है तो वो युद्ध के विस्तार के ही राजनीतिक उत्पाद होंगे और अगर ओबामा अमेरिका के राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं, तो वे भले ही अमेरिकी युद्धों को कोई नई दिशा दें, लेकिन फिर भी वो एक नए उभरते अमेरिका के प्रतीक होंगे। ठोस परिवर्तन को लेकर ओबामा के दावे कितने ही अपरिभाषित क्यों न हों लेकिन वे नए अमेरिका में नई राजनीति के प्रतीक बन गए हैं और नई पीढ़ी उनमें अपने सपनों का अमेरिका देखती प्रतीत होती है। अमेरिका की मुख्यधारा राजनीति को ओबामा भले ही अच्छे लग रहे हों लेकिन लगता है अभी वह अपने को उनसे संबंद्ध नहीं कर पा रही है, अभी वह उन्हें पूरी तरह समझ नहीं पा रही और एक युद्धग्रस्त देश को ओबामा के हवाले करने के लिए पूरी तरह तैयार नहीं है। अब यह देखा जाना बाकी है कि अमेरिका की मुख्यधारा राजनीति इसके लिए तैयार हो पाती है या नहीं और कहीं एक नया युद्ध ओबामा और राष्ट्रपति पद के बीच में आकर तो खड़ा नहीं हो जाएगा ?
बुश इतिहास में अपना नाम दर्ज कराना चाहते हैं,ओबामा इतिहास का पन्ना पलटना चाहते हैं, एक बड़ा युद्ध मेक्कैन को सत्तासीन करवा सकता है- हर स्थिति में अमेरिका एक नई तरह की राजनीति की ओर उन्मुख है। अमेरिका चाहे जो भी करवट ले, हर तरफ युद्ध का विस्तार है जिसका विश्व राजनीति पर गहरा असर होगा।
सुभाष धूलिया
इन दिनों अमेरिका से मिल रहा हर संकेत एक ही दिशा में इशारा करता नजर आता है कि आने वाले कुछ महीने में विश्व राजनीति में कुछ बड़े परिवर्तन आने वाले हैं। अमेरिका में राष्ट्रपति के चुनाव में डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी के उम्मीदवार बराक ओबामा ने बुश प्रशासन को इस बात के लिए आड़े हाथों लिया है कि पाकिस्तान अरबों डॉलर की अमेरिकी मदद का इस्तेमाल आतंकवाद के बजाय भारत के साथ युद्ध की तैयारी में लगा रहा है। ओबामा पहले भी कह चुके हैं अगर बिन लादेन के अफगान सीमा से लगे पाकिस्तानी कबाइली इलाकों में छिपे होने की पुख्ता खुफिया जानकारी है तो अमेरिका को खुद ही सैन्य कार्रवाई कर देनी चाहिए। लेकिन स्थिति यह है कि बुश प्रशासन ने भले ही खुलमखुल्ला पाकिस्तान के खिलाफ बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई न की हो लेकिन पाकिस्तानी ज़मीन पर अमेरिकी की सीधी कार्रवाइयां लगातार बढ़ती जा रही है। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति के चुनाव में ओबामा और रिपब्लिकन पार्टी के उम्मीदवार मेक्कैन- दोनों ही बढ-चढ़कर कह रहे हैं कि वे नर्क के दरवाजे और पाकिस्तानी कबाइली इलाकों की गुफा तक बिन लादेन का पीछा करेंगे। लेकिन अफगानिस्तान की स्थिति जिस तेजी से बिगड़ रही है उससे यही लगता है कि जिस सैनिक अभियान की बात ओबामा और मेक्कैन कह रहे हैं वह बुश के सत्तासीन रहते ही शुरु हो जाएगा। पाकिस्तान में जरदारी जैसे कमजोर नेता राष्ट्रपति के पद पर आसीन हो गए हैं ऐसे में जरदारी से वह करने की उम्मीद कैसे की जा सकती है जो तानाशाह मुशर्रफ नहीं कर पाए थे ? जरदारी जैसे पाकिस्तानी नेता की नीयति यही है कि उनका सारा ध्यान अपना कुर्सी बचाने पर ही केंद्रित रहेगा इसलिए पाकिस्तान के आंतरिक सत्ता समीकरण को देखते हुए भी अमेरिकी सैनिक कार्रवाई की संभावना प्रबल हो जाती है।
अमेरिका की विदेश नीति इस वक्त इतने गहरे संकट में है कि यह कहा जा रहा है इस बार का राष्ट्रपति का चुनाव विदेश नीति पर ही केन्द्रित होकर रह जाएगा। बुश प्रशासन के दौरान अमेरिका सैनिक ताकत पर अधिकाधिक निर्भर होता चला गया और आज वह ऐसे मुकाम पर आ खड़ा हुआ है कि सैनिक कार्रवाईयों का विस्तार उसकी मजबूरी बन गयी है। ओबामा 'परिवर्तन' की चाहे कितनी भी बातें करे लेकिन युद्ध के मामले में उनका मानना है कि सैनिक प्रयासों को इराक के बजाय अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान पर केन्द्रित होना चाहिए।
अमेरिका की विदेश नीति का दूसरा सबसे बड़ा संकट रूस में उभरता राष्ट्रवाद है। ऐसे समय में जब अमेरिका जॉर्जिया और युक्रेन को नाटो में शामिल करने जा रहा था रूस ने जॉर्जिया पर आक्रमण कर दिया। इस आक्रमण के माध्यम से रूस ने अपनी सैनिक शक्ति का प्रदर्शन ही नहीं किया बल्कि यह भी साफ कर दिया कि सैनिक रूप से घेरे जाने की स्थिति में वह क्या कर सकता है। रूस सैकड़ों नाभिकीय हथियारों से लैस है। जॉर्जिया पर रूस के आक्रमण से यूरोप का नया नक्शा रचने की अमेरिकी रणनीति संकट में फंस गयी है।
अमेरिका का तीसरा बड़ा संकट ईरान को लेकर है। ईरान को नाभिकीय संबर्धन की प्रोद्योगिकी विकसित करने से रोकने के प्रयास लगभग विफल हो गए हैं। इस प्रोद्योगिकी का इस्तेमाल बिजली बनाने के अलावा नाभिकीय हथियार विकसित करने के लिए भी किया जा सकता है। अमेरिका को नाभिकीय क्षमता वाला ईरान स्वीकार्य नहीं है । इजराइल तो नाभिकीय क्षमता वाले ईरान को अपने अस्तित्व के लिए खतरा मानता है और अमेरिका के बिना भी ईरान की नाभिकीय क्षमता को ध्वस्त के इरादे साफ कर चुका है। ईरान भी इजराइल के अस्तित्व को स्वीकार नहीं करता और ईरान के राष्ट्रपति अहमदीनेजाद इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को मिटाने की धमकी देने का कोई अवसर नहीं चूकते। ईरान पर आक्रमण के मसले पर राष्ट्रपति बुश इस्राइल की सोच के सबसे ज्यादा करीब माने जाते हैं और अपना कार्यकाल खत्म होने से पहले ऐसा भी कुछ करना चाहते हैं कि उन्हें 'ऐतिहासिक' होने का दर्जा हासिल हो सके। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पद के डेमोक्रेटिक उम्मीदवार ओबामा ईरान से सीधी बात के पक्षधर हैं और इस्राइल का ये बी मानना है कि रिपब्लिकन मैक्केन भी अगर राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं तो वो सत्ता संभालते ही ईरान पर आक्रमण का फैसला नहीं करेंगे। ऐसे में इस्राइल का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने के लिए पर्याप्त समय मिल जाएगा। इजराइल के एक प्रभावशाली तबके की धारणा है कि अब से लेकर नए राष्ट्रपति के सत्तासीन होने के बीच का समय ईरान पर आक्रमण का 'अंतिम' अवसर है। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति का चुनाव प्रचार दो महीने चलेगा और 4 नवंबर को मतदान होगा। जनवरी में नए राष्ट्रपति सत्ता की बागडोर संभालेंगे।
इस वक्त अमेरिकी जनमत निर्णायक रुप किसी के भी पक्ष में नहीं है। कांटे की टक्कर है और यह कयास लगाए जा रहे हैं कि अगर ईरान और अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान में कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई न हो तो ओबामा का पलड़ा भारी हो सकता है। ईरान पर आक्रमण एक बड़े युद्ध की शुरुआत होगी। ऐसे में अमेरिका भूतपूर्व सैनिक मेक्कैन को चुनेगा या भूतपूर्व सामुदायिक समाजसेवी ओबामा को अमेरिकी सेना का कमांडर-इन-चीफ के पद पर आसीन करेगा- इसका अनुमान सहज ही लगाया जा सकता है। अगर राष्ट्रपति बुश इराक,अफगानिस्तान और ईरान को ऐसे ही छोड़कर जाते हैं जैसे वे आज हैं तो इतिहास में उनका नाम एक विफल राष्ट्रपति के रूप में ही दर्ज होगा। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ वैश्विक युद्ध छेड़े जाने के बावजूद बिन लादेन आजतक हाथ नहीं आया है। ये सच है कि बिन लादेन के साथ ही आंतकवाद के खिलाफ लड़ाई खत्म नहीं होगी लेकिन अमेरिका के लिए इसका बहुत प्रतीकात्मक महत्व है और इतिहास और राजनीति में प्रतीकों की भूमिका भी होती है। बुश इतिहास के पन्नों पर अपना नाम विफल नेता के रूप में दर्ज नहीं होने देना चाहते इसलिए बिन लादेन के मामले में वो कुछ करके ही जाना चाहते हैं और हाल ही में पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर बढ़ती सैनिक कार्रवाई इसी ओर इशारा करती है।
आज अमेरिका की राजनीति निश्चित रूप से बड़े परिवर्तन के दरवाजे पर खड़ी है। अगर मेक्कैन जीतते है तो वो युद्ध के विस्तार के ही राजनीतिक उत्पाद होंगे और अगर ओबामा अमेरिका के राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं, तो वे भले ही अमेरिकी युद्धों को कोई नई दिशा दें, लेकिन फिर भी वो एक नए उभरते अमेरिका के प्रतीक होंगे। ठोस परिवर्तन को लेकर ओबामा के दावे कितने ही अपरिभाषित क्यों न हों लेकिन वे नए अमेरिका में नई राजनीति के प्रतीक बन गए हैं और नई पीढ़ी उनमें अपने सपनों का अमेरिका देखती प्रतीत होती है। अमेरिका की मुख्यधारा राजनीति को ओबामा भले ही अच्छे लग रहे हों लेकिन लगता है अभी वह अपने को उनसे संबंद्ध नहीं कर पा रही है, अभी वह उन्हें पूरी तरह समझ नहीं पा रही और एक युद्धग्रस्त देश को ओबामा के हवाले करने के लिए पूरी तरह तैयार नहीं है। अब यह देखा जाना बाकी है कि अमेरिका की मुख्यधारा राजनीति इसके लिए तैयार हो पाती है या नहीं और कहीं एक नया युद्ध ओबामा और राष्ट्रपति पद के बीच में आकर तो खड़ा नहीं हो जाएगा ?
बुश इतिहास में अपना नाम दर्ज कराना चाहते हैं,ओबामा इतिहास का पन्ना पलटना चाहते हैं, एक बड़ा युद्ध मेक्कैन को सत्तासीन करवा सकता है- हर स्थिति में अमेरिका एक नई तरह की राजनीति की ओर उन्मुख है। अमेरिका चाहे जो भी करवट ले, हर तरफ युद्ध का विस्तार है जिसका विश्व राजनीति पर गहरा असर होगा।
स्वतंत्र विदेश नीति पर संकट
स्वतंत्र विदेश नीति पर संकट
सुभाष धूलिया
भारत अमेरिका से काफी बड़े पैमाने पर सैनिक साजो-सामान की खरीद कर रहा है। आए दिन भारत और अमेरिका के संयुक्त सैनिक अभ्यास होते रहते हैं। अमेरिका भारत के सैनिक नाभिकीय कार्यक्रम में भी अप्रत्यक्ष रूप से मदद कर रहा है। दोनों देशों के बीच अरबों-खरबों का नाभिकीय व्यापार होने जा रहा है। ऐसे में यह सवाल उठना स्वाभाविक है कि क्या भारत के लिए स्वतंत्र और गुटनिरपेक्ष नीति पर चलना संभव रह पाएगा ? भारत को वैश्विक नाभिकीय समुदाय में शामिल करने के लिए अमेरिका ने असाधारण प्रयास किए और इन प्रयासों असाधारणा से ही यह स्पष्ट हो जाता है कि दोनों देशों के बीच नाभिकीय सहयोग का दायरा सिर्फ भारत की ऊर्जा जरूरतों को पूरा करना और अमेरिकी कंपनियों के लिए एक बड़ा नाभिकीय बाजार खोलने तक ही सीमित नहीं है बल्कि यह एक व्यापक और गहरी सामरिक रणनीति का हिस्सा है।
कुछ समय पहले तक ही ईरान और जार्जिया को एक बड़े युद्ध के कगार पर खड़ा देखा जा रहा था लेकिन हाल ही में अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान को लेकर अमेरिका ने जो आक्रमक रुख अपनाया है उससे तो यही लगता है कि अब दक्षिण एशिया एक बड़े और खतरनाक युद्ध के कगार पर खड़ा है। अमेरिका आतंकवाद के खिलाफ राजनीतिक युद्ध हारता चला जा रहा है और इस हार की भरपाई अधिकाधिक सैनिक हस्तक्षेप से करना चाहता है। अमेरिका में इस बात को लेकर राजनीतिक सहमति बन गयी है कि इराक के बजाय अफगानिस्तान पर ध्यान केन्द्रित करना होगा और अफगान युद्ध तब तक नहीं जीता जा सकता जब तक पाकिस्तानी जमीन पर सैनिक कार्रवाई कर सीमा से लगे कबाइली इलाकों से आतंकवादी गढ़ों को ध्वस्त नहीं कर दिया जाता।
पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका की सैनिक कार्रवाई एक बहुत बड़े टकराव की शुरुआत होगी। इस तरह के टकराव के उपरांत पाकिस्तान का जो राजनीतिक,सामाजिक और सैनिक मानचित्र उभरेगा उसकी सहज कल्पना की जा सकती है। पिछले काफी समय से भारत की पूरी विदेश नीति का ध्यान केवल अमेरिका के साथ नाभिकीय समझौते पर ही केन्द्रित रहा है और ऐसा आभास होता है कि पड़ोस में पनप रही खतरनाक स्थिति को लेकर कोई परिपक्व सोच विकसित नहीं की गयी है। पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका की सैनिक कार्रवाई में भारत की भूमिका क्या होगी ?
इराक और अफगानिस्तान में अमेरिका ऐसे युद्ध लड़ रहा है जिन्हें जीता ही नहीं जा सकता। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ अमेरिका का वैश्विक युद्ध की अवधारणा दिनोंदिन स्पष्ट होने के बजाय बोझिल होती जा रही है। आज अनेक हलकों में यह कहा जा रहा है कि आतंकवाद के खिलाफ अमेरिका के युद्ध में भले ही सैनिक रूप से आतंकवाद के गढ़ों को भारी नुकसान पहुंचाया गया है लेकिन राजनीतिक रूप से इस्लामी उग्रवाद आज इतना प्रबल हो गया है जितना इतिहास में कभी नहीं था। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ पांच सालों से अमेरिका युद्ध लड़ रहा है लेकिन आतंकवाद खत्म होना तो दूर और प्रबल हुआ है। अचरज की बात यह है कि अमेरिका में आतंकवाद के खिलाफ युद्ध का कोई व्यावहारिक मूल्यांकन नहीं किया गया है और इस्लामी दुनिया में अमेरिकी अवधारणाओं को रोपित करने की कोई जांच-परख नहीं की गयी है। इसी का परिणाम है कि केवल बुश प्रशासन ही नहीं समूचा अमेरिका सत्ता प्रतिष्ठान युद्ध को खत्म करने के बजाय युद्ध के विस्तार में ही अमेरिका के हित देख रहा है।
आज यह मानने के कारण लगभग क्षीण हो गए हैं कि पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई नहीं करेगा और अगर ऐसा होता है कि एक राष्ट्र-राज्य के रूप में पाकिस्तान के अस्तित्व पर प्रश्नचिन्ह लग जाएंगे। अटलबिहारी वाजपेयी समेत भारत के हर प्रधानमंत्री ने हमेशा ही कहा है कि स्थिर और संपन्न पाकिस्तान ही भारत के हित में है। पाकिस्तान में अमेरिकी हस्तक्षेप के विनाशकारी परिणाम होंगे। पाकिस्तान में एक हलके का मानना है कि भारत दोनों का फायदा उठाकर पाकिस्तान के खिलाफ कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई कर सकता है। इस संदर्भ में इस बात को नहीं भूला जाना चाहिए कि दोनों ही देशों के पास नाभिकीय हथियार हैं। हालांकि एक अत्यंत नाजुक स्थिति में अमेरिका संयुक्त राष्ट्र के घोषणापत्र के प्रावधान के तहत पाकिस्तान के नाभिकीय हथियारों को 'खतरनाक' घोषित करवा सकता है और इन पर नियंत्रण के लिए अंतर्राष्ट्रीय कार्रवाई भी की जा सकती है। अब सवाल यही उठते हैं कि इस तरह का परिदृश्य उभरने पर भारत कहां खड़ा होगा ?
आज बुश प्रशासन ने नाभिकीय समझौते के लिए असाधारण प्रयास किए हैं ऐसे में भारत से उसकी अपेक्षाएं बढ़ना स्वाभाविक ही है। इस बात को कैसे भूला जा सकता है कि अमेरिका के साथ नाभिकीय सहयोग की प्रक्रिया शुरु होते ही ऊर्जा एजेंसी की बैठक में भारत ने दो बार ईरान के खिलाफ वोट दिया जबकि रूस और चीन जैसे देश कम से कम अनुपस्थित रहने में सक्षम रहे थे। इस नाभिकीय सहयोग के उपरांत ही अरबों डॉलर की ईरान-पाकिस्तान-भारत गैस पाइपलाइन को ठंडे बस्ते में डाल दिया गया। ईरान को लेकर भारत से अमेरिका ये अपेक्षाएं रखता है तो पाकिस्तान के संदर्भ में क्या होगा इसका सहज अनुमान लगाया जा सकता है।
मनमोहन सिंह सरकार के दौरान भारत ने अनेक मोर्चों पर महत्वपूर्ण पहलों का लगभग परित्याग सा कर दिया है। शीतयुद्ध के बाद उभरी एकध्रवीय दुनिया में अमेरिकी ताकत पर अंकुश लगाने के लिए किसी नए सत्ता समीकरण की अपेक्षा की गयी थी। इस संदर्भ में भारत, रूस और चीन के बीच गठजोड़ कायम करने के लिए पहल की गई थी । रूस के राष्ट्रपति पुतिन ने यूरेशिया में अमेरिका के आक्रमक कूटनीति के जवाब में भारत, रूस, चीन और ब्राजील के गठजोड़ की वकालत की थी। रूस की सरहदों तक नाटो के विस्तार और जॉर्जिया पर रूस के आक्रमण से पहले ही नया शीतयुद्ध शुरु हो चुका है। चीन को लेकर अमेरिका हमेशा ही आतंकित रहा है और अब चीन की बढ़ती ताकत की वजह से आशंकाओं के बादल और घने होते जा रहे हैं।
मध्यपूर्व और मध्य एशिया पर नियत्रंण की अमेरिकी की रणनीति में भारत की क्या भूमिका होगी ? अगर ईरान के खिलाफ कोई सैनिक कार्रवाई होती है तो भारत किसके पक्ष में और कहां खड़ा होगा ? इन तमाम सवालों को मौजूदा सरकार संबोधित करती नजर नहीं आती और भारत की विदेश नीति एक शून्य में दिशाहीन सी प्रतीत होती है। विश्व राजनीति के इस अंतरिम दौर में भारत अपने आपको एक ऐसी महाशक्ति के साथ संबद्ध कर रहा है जो खुद ही ऐसे गहरे संकटों में फंसी है जिनके आसान तो दूर गूढ़ समाधान भी कहीं नजर नहीं आ रहे हैं।
नाभिकीय समझौते की आड़ में मनमोहन सरकार ने अमेरिका के साथ जिस तरह का सामरिक गठजोड़ कायम कर लिया है उससे अमेरिका पर भारत की निर्भरता इस हद तक बढ़ गयी है कि संदेह पैदा होता कि क्या आज भारत स्वतंत्र निर्णय लेने में सक्षम है ? भारत की विदेश नीति कितनी स्वतंत्र और गुटनिरपेक्ष रह पाती है इसकी परीक्षा जल्द होने वाली है।
सुभाष धूलिया
भारत अमेरिका से काफी बड़े पैमाने पर सैनिक साजो-सामान की खरीद कर रहा है। आए दिन भारत और अमेरिका के संयुक्त सैनिक अभ्यास होते रहते हैं। अमेरिका भारत के सैनिक नाभिकीय कार्यक्रम में भी अप्रत्यक्ष रूप से मदद कर रहा है। दोनों देशों के बीच अरबों-खरबों का नाभिकीय व्यापार होने जा रहा है। ऐसे में यह सवाल उठना स्वाभाविक है कि क्या भारत के लिए स्वतंत्र और गुटनिरपेक्ष नीति पर चलना संभव रह पाएगा ? भारत को वैश्विक नाभिकीय समुदाय में शामिल करने के लिए अमेरिका ने असाधारण प्रयास किए और इन प्रयासों असाधारणा से ही यह स्पष्ट हो जाता है कि दोनों देशों के बीच नाभिकीय सहयोग का दायरा सिर्फ भारत की ऊर्जा जरूरतों को पूरा करना और अमेरिकी कंपनियों के लिए एक बड़ा नाभिकीय बाजार खोलने तक ही सीमित नहीं है बल्कि यह एक व्यापक और गहरी सामरिक रणनीति का हिस्सा है।
कुछ समय पहले तक ही ईरान और जार्जिया को एक बड़े युद्ध के कगार पर खड़ा देखा जा रहा था लेकिन हाल ही में अफगानिस्तान-पाकिस्तान को लेकर अमेरिका ने जो आक्रमक रुख अपनाया है उससे तो यही लगता है कि अब दक्षिण एशिया एक बड़े और खतरनाक युद्ध के कगार पर खड़ा है। अमेरिका आतंकवाद के खिलाफ राजनीतिक युद्ध हारता चला जा रहा है और इस हार की भरपाई अधिकाधिक सैनिक हस्तक्षेप से करना चाहता है। अमेरिका में इस बात को लेकर राजनीतिक सहमति बन गयी है कि इराक के बजाय अफगानिस्तान पर ध्यान केन्द्रित करना होगा और अफगान युद्ध तब तक नहीं जीता जा सकता जब तक पाकिस्तानी जमीन पर सैनिक कार्रवाई कर सीमा से लगे कबाइली इलाकों से आतंकवादी गढ़ों को ध्वस्त नहीं कर दिया जाता।
पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका की सैनिक कार्रवाई एक बहुत बड़े टकराव की शुरुआत होगी। इस तरह के टकराव के उपरांत पाकिस्तान का जो राजनीतिक,सामाजिक और सैनिक मानचित्र उभरेगा उसकी सहज कल्पना की जा सकती है। पिछले काफी समय से भारत की पूरी विदेश नीति का ध्यान केवल अमेरिका के साथ नाभिकीय समझौते पर ही केन्द्रित रहा है और ऐसा आभास होता है कि पड़ोस में पनप रही खतरनाक स्थिति को लेकर कोई परिपक्व सोच विकसित नहीं की गयी है। पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका की सैनिक कार्रवाई में भारत की भूमिका क्या होगी ?
इराक और अफगानिस्तान में अमेरिका ऐसे युद्ध लड़ रहा है जिन्हें जीता ही नहीं जा सकता। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ अमेरिका का वैश्विक युद्ध की अवधारणा दिनोंदिन स्पष्ट होने के बजाय बोझिल होती जा रही है। आज अनेक हलकों में यह कहा जा रहा है कि आतंकवाद के खिलाफ अमेरिका के युद्ध में भले ही सैनिक रूप से आतंकवाद के गढ़ों को भारी नुकसान पहुंचाया गया है लेकिन राजनीतिक रूप से इस्लामी उग्रवाद आज इतना प्रबल हो गया है जितना इतिहास में कभी नहीं था। आतंकवाद के खिलाफ पांच सालों से अमेरिका युद्ध लड़ रहा है लेकिन आतंकवाद खत्म होना तो दूर और प्रबल हुआ है। अचरज की बात यह है कि अमेरिका में आतंकवाद के खिलाफ युद्ध का कोई व्यावहारिक मूल्यांकन नहीं किया गया है और इस्लामी दुनिया में अमेरिकी अवधारणाओं को रोपित करने की कोई जांच-परख नहीं की गयी है। इसी का परिणाम है कि केवल बुश प्रशासन ही नहीं समूचा अमेरिका सत्ता प्रतिष्ठान युद्ध को खत्म करने के बजाय युद्ध के विस्तार में ही अमेरिका के हित देख रहा है।
आज यह मानने के कारण लगभग क्षीण हो गए हैं कि पाकिस्तान की जमीन पर अमेरिका कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई नहीं करेगा और अगर ऐसा होता है कि एक राष्ट्र-राज्य के रूप में पाकिस्तान के अस्तित्व पर प्रश्नचिन्ह लग जाएंगे। अटलबिहारी वाजपेयी समेत भारत के हर प्रधानमंत्री ने हमेशा ही कहा है कि स्थिर और संपन्न पाकिस्तान ही भारत के हित में है। पाकिस्तान में अमेरिकी हस्तक्षेप के विनाशकारी परिणाम होंगे। पाकिस्तान में एक हलके का मानना है कि भारत दोनों का फायदा उठाकर पाकिस्तान के खिलाफ कोई बड़ी सैनिक कार्रवाई कर सकता है। इस संदर्भ में इस बात को नहीं भूला जाना चाहिए कि दोनों ही देशों के पास नाभिकीय हथियार हैं। हालांकि एक अत्यंत नाजुक स्थिति में अमेरिका संयुक्त राष्ट्र के घोषणापत्र के प्रावधान के तहत पाकिस्तान के नाभिकीय हथियारों को 'खतरनाक' घोषित करवा सकता है और इन पर नियंत्रण के लिए अंतर्राष्ट्रीय कार्रवाई भी की जा सकती है। अब सवाल यही उठते हैं कि इस तरह का परिदृश्य उभरने पर भारत कहां खड़ा होगा ?
आज बुश प्रशासन ने नाभिकीय समझौते के लिए असाधारण प्रयास किए हैं ऐसे में भारत से उसकी अपेक्षाएं बढ़ना स्वाभाविक ही है। इस बात को कैसे भूला जा सकता है कि अमेरिका के साथ नाभिकीय सहयोग की प्रक्रिया शुरु होते ही ऊर्जा एजेंसी की बैठक में भारत ने दो बार ईरान के खिलाफ वोट दिया जबकि रूस और चीन जैसे देश कम से कम अनुपस्थित रहने में सक्षम रहे थे। इस नाभिकीय सहयोग के उपरांत ही अरबों डॉलर की ईरान-पाकिस्तान-भारत गैस पाइपलाइन को ठंडे बस्ते में डाल दिया गया। ईरान को लेकर भारत से अमेरिका ये अपेक्षाएं रखता है तो पाकिस्तान के संदर्भ में क्या होगा इसका सहज अनुमान लगाया जा सकता है।
मनमोहन सिंह सरकार के दौरान भारत ने अनेक मोर्चों पर महत्वपूर्ण पहलों का लगभग परित्याग सा कर दिया है। शीतयुद्ध के बाद उभरी एकध्रवीय दुनिया में अमेरिकी ताकत पर अंकुश लगाने के लिए किसी नए सत्ता समीकरण की अपेक्षा की गयी थी। इस संदर्भ में भारत, रूस और चीन के बीच गठजोड़ कायम करने के लिए पहल की गई थी । रूस के राष्ट्रपति पुतिन ने यूरेशिया में अमेरिका के आक्रमक कूटनीति के जवाब में भारत, रूस, चीन और ब्राजील के गठजोड़ की वकालत की थी। रूस की सरहदों तक नाटो के विस्तार और जॉर्जिया पर रूस के आक्रमण से पहले ही नया शीतयुद्ध शुरु हो चुका है। चीन को लेकर अमेरिका हमेशा ही आतंकित रहा है और अब चीन की बढ़ती ताकत की वजह से आशंकाओं के बादल और घने होते जा रहे हैं।
मध्यपूर्व और मध्य एशिया पर नियत्रंण की अमेरिकी की रणनीति में भारत की क्या भूमिका होगी ? अगर ईरान के खिलाफ कोई सैनिक कार्रवाई होती है तो भारत किसके पक्ष में और कहां खड़ा होगा ? इन तमाम सवालों को मौजूदा सरकार संबोधित करती नजर नहीं आती और भारत की विदेश नीति एक शून्य में दिशाहीन सी प्रतीत होती है। विश्व राजनीति के इस अंतरिम दौर में भारत अपने आपको एक ऐसी महाशक्ति के साथ संबद्ध कर रहा है जो खुद ही ऐसे गहरे संकटों में फंसी है जिनके आसान तो दूर गूढ़ समाधान भी कहीं नजर नहीं आ रहे हैं।
नाभिकीय समझौते की आड़ में मनमोहन सरकार ने अमेरिका के साथ जिस तरह का सामरिक गठजोड़ कायम कर लिया है उससे अमेरिका पर भारत की निर्भरता इस हद तक बढ़ गयी है कि संदेह पैदा होता कि क्या आज भारत स्वतंत्र निर्णय लेने में सक्षम है ? भारत की विदेश नीति कितनी स्वतंत्र और गुटनिरपेक्ष रह पाती है इसकी परीक्षा जल्द होने वाली है।
मध्यपूर्व में युद्ध के बादल
मध्यपूर्व में युद्ध के बादल
तीसरे विश्वयुद्ध की दस्तक
सुभाष धूलिया
मध्यपूर्व में क्या तीसरा महायुद्ध छिड़ने जा रहा है। क्या ईरान पर इस्राइल(अमेरिका) आक्रमण करने जा रहे हैं या यह सिर्फ दवाब डालने के हथकंड़े भर हैं पर आज धरातल की वास्तविकता ये है कि इस्राइल किसी भी कीमत पर ईरान को यूरेनियम संवर्धन की क्षमता विकसित नहीं करने देगा जिसका इस्तेमाल बिजली और नाभिकीय हथियार दोनों को बनाने के लिए किया जा सकता है। ईरान बिजली बनाने के लिए इस क्षमता को विकसित करने के अपने अधिकार का समर्पण करेगा ये भी उम्मीद नहीं की जा सकती।अमेरिका मध्यपूर्व पर अपना प्रभुत्व कायम करने के लिए ईरान को कभी की ये क्षमता हासिल नहीं करने देगा। ईरान को एक क्षेत्रीय महाशक्ति के रूप में उभरने से रोकना अमेरिका और इस्राइल की उस रणनीति का हिस्सा है जिसके तहत इराक-अफगानिस्तान में युद्ध लड़े जा रहे हैं और मध्यपूर्व में सैनिक अड्डों की भरीपूरी श्रृंखला कायम की गयी है
इस पृष्ठभूमि में ईरान की नाभिकीय क्षमता को ध्वस्त करने के लिए सैनिक आक्रमण की धमकियों को दवाब डालने की कोशिश के रूप में नहीं देखा जा सकता। इससे एक ऐसा माहौल तैयार किया जा रहा है जिससे विश्व की अन्य महाशक्तियों को इस आक्रमण के लिए तैयार किया जा सके। यह उसी तरह की रणनीति है जो इरना पर आक्रमण करने से पहले अपनाई गयी थी।ईरान को खलनायक साबित करने के लिए जबर्दस्त प्रचार अभियान छेड़ दिया गया है और ये साबित करने का प्रयास किया जा रहा है कि अगर ईरान को रोका नहीं गया तो विश्व शांति के लिए खतरा पैदा हो जाएगा। इसका असर भी होना शुरु हो गया है और यूरोपियन यूनियन द्वारा आठ बड़े देशों के पैकेज को ईरान ने स्वीकार नहीं किया है। इन पैकेज में यही प्रस्ताव था कि ईरान यूरेनियम संवर्धन के कार्यक्रम का परित्याग कर दे और बदले में आर्थिक मदद के साथ-साथ अपने नाभिकीय संयंत्रों से बिजली उत्पादन के लिए यूरेनियम की सप्लाई भी प्राप्त कर सकता है। पर ईरान ने यूरेनियम संवर्धन के अपने अधिकार का परित्याग करने से इंकार कर दिया है और अब यूरोपीय देश भी ये मानने लगे हैं कि ऐसे में इस्राइल को अकेले नहीं छोड़ा जा सकता है। इसके साथ ही इस्राइल ने मध्यपूर्व में ईरान के परंपरागत सहयोगियों के साथ तालमेल बिठाने के प्रयास भी किए हैं जिसमें गाजा में हमास,लेबनान में हिज़बुल्ला और सीरिया में असद की सत्ता शामिल है। इसका मकसद ईरान पर आक्रमण की स्थिति में इन्हें इस्राइल पर आक्रमण करने से रोकना है। यानि इराक की तरह ईरान को अलग-थलग करने के प्रयास सफल होते नजर आ रहे हैं और आक्रमण का आधार मजबूत हो रहा है। इस्राइल ने पिछले दिनों एक बहुत बड़ा सैनिक अभ्यास किया जिसमें 100 से भी अधिक लड़ाकू विमानों ने भाग लिया जिसका मकसद 1400 किलोमीटर की दूरा पर बड़ा हमला करना था। इस्राइल से ईरानी नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठान भी इतनी ही दूर हैं। इसके बदले में ईरान ने कई मिसाइलों का परीक्षण किया जो इस्राइल तक मारने की क्षमता रखती हैं। इस्राइल हालांकि स्वीकार नहीं करता पर ये सर्वविधित है कि इस्राइल के पास 100 से अधिक नाभिकीय बम है। लेकिन इस्राइल ईरान जैसे देश को नाभिकीय हथियार विकसित नहीं करने देगा जो इसके अस्तित्व को ही नहीं स्वीकार करता।
अमेरिकी प्रशासन के एक हल्के में में मानना है कि ईरान पर आक्रमण के विनाशकारी परिणाम होंगे जो द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के विनाश को भी बौना कर देंगे इसलिए राजनयिक तरीकों से ही ईरान को रोका जाना चाहिए। दूसरी और बुश प्रशासन का एक प्रभावशाली तबके का मानना है कि ईरान को राजनयिक तरीकों से राजी करने के सारे राजनयिक प्रयास विफल हो चुके हैं और अब युद्ध ही एकमात्र विकल्प है। राष्ट्रपति बुश के हाल ही के बयानों से स्पष्ट है कि वो आक्रमण के विकल्प की ओर झुक रहे हैं।
आज इतिहास अपने को दोहराता दिखाई देता है। ईरान के राष्ट्रपति अहमदीनेजाद इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को मिटाने की धमकी देने का कोई अवसर नहीं चूकते और इसी तरह की बयानबाजी से अमेरिका को ईरान को एक बड़ा खतरा साबित करने में सफलता मिली थी। ईरान को लेकर भी इराक जैसा परिदृश्य उभर रहा है। अमेरिका की सभी खुफिया एजेंसियों का आकलन है कि ईरान नाभिकीय हथियार बनाने के कार्यक्रम का 2003 में ही परित्याग कर चुका है लेकिन अमेरिका का राजनीतिक नेतृत्व इसे स्वीकार नहीं करता और उसका मानना है कि यूरोनियम संवंर्धन की क्षमता ही नाभिकीय हथियार बनाए जा सकते हैं।
नाभिकीय ईरान को न तो अमेरिका और ना ही इस्राइल स्वीकार करने को तैयार है। ईरान के पास नाभिकीय हथियारों होने भर से ही सत्ता समीकरण बदल जाएंगे और इनके इस्तेमाल की संभवना भर ही मध्यपूर्व में अमेरिका और इस्राइल के प्रभुत्व पर अंकुश लगा सकती है। नाभिकीय ईरान के उदय से तेल-संपंन्न मध्यपुर्व पर नियत्रंण कायम करने का अमेरिका का सपना पूरा नहीं हो पाएगा।ईरान एक नाभिकीय हथियारों के साथ-साथ अपने अकूत तेल संसाधनों के बल पर एक बड़ी क्षेत्रीय महाशक्ति बन जाएगा। नाभिकीय ईरान इस्राइल के लिए केवल सैनिक खतरा ही नहीं बल्कि अनेक तरह के संकट पैदा करेगा। इस वक्त मध्यपूर्व में इस्राइल ही एकमात्र नाभिकीय ताकत है और और नाभिकीय ईराम के बाद इसका एकाधिकार खत्म हो जाएगा। इस्राइल इतना छोटा देश है कि इसके अस्तित्व को मिटाने के लिए एक ही बम काफी है। नाभिकीय ीरान के उदय के बाद इस्राइल मध्यपूर्व में सैनिक कार्रवाइयों के लिए उतना स्वच्छंद नहीं रह पाएगा जितना अबतक रहा है और यह स्वच्छंदता इस्राइल का सबसे बड़ा हथियार रहा है। इस्राइल की रमनीति प्रतिरक्षा की बजाय आक्रमण पर टिकी रही है। नाभिकीय ईरान मध्यपूर्व में इस्राइल विरोधी तमाम इस्लामी और कट्टरवादी ताकतों के संगठित होने का केन्द्र बन जाएगा। इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को पैदा होने वाले खतरे से हर तरह के संसाधनों का पलायन शुरु हो जाएगा और इस्राइल का संपंन्न तबका भी अधिक सुरक्षित स्थानों की ओर कूच कर सकता है। इस स्थिति में सैनिक ताकत के बल पर भी इस्राइल को जर्जर होने से रोकना मुश्किल होगा
सैनिक रूप से इस्राइल के लिए ईरान के नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को ध्वस्त करना उतना आसान नहीं होगा जो उसने 1981 में इराक और पिछले सितंबर में सीरिया में किया था। लेकिन इस्राइली नेतृत्व का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने से रोकने के लिए कुछ तो जोखिम उठाना ही होगा। इस्राइल यह भी जानता है कि नाभिकीय ईरान मुख्य रूप से इस्राइल के लिए खतरा होगा लेकिन ईरान पर आक्रमण से जो परिस्थितियां पैदा होंगी उससे सारा विश्व संकट में होगा और इस्राइल अकेली नहीं रहेगा। अब चाहे आक्रमण इस्राइल करे या वो अमेरिका के सा ख मिलकर आक्रमण करे, ईरान दोनों ही स्थितियों में इस्राइल और खाड़ी में अमेरिकी सैनिक अड्डों, युद्धपोतों और इराक और अफहानिस्ता में अमेरिकी सैनाओं पर प्रति आक्रमण करेगा। ईरान ने होर्मुज जलडमरु मध्य को बी बंद करने की धमकी दी है जहां से विश्व की 40 प्रतिशत तेल की आपूर्ति होती है। अमेरिका ने चेतावनी दी है कि वो किसी भी कीमत पर इस सामरिक जलमार्ग को बंद नहीं होने देगा।
तेल संकट से जूझ रहे विश्व के लिए 40 प्रतिशत तेल आपूर्ति के बाधित होने से क्या असर पड़ेगा इसका सहज अनुमान लगाया जा सकता है फिर ईरान दुनिया का चौथा तेल उत्पादक देश है ऐसी स्थिति में क्या होगा इसका अनुमान इस बात से लगाया जा सकता है कि ईरान द्वारा मिसाइल परीक्षण करने पर तेल के दाम प्रति बैरल 135 से बढ़कर 140.6 डालर हो गए थे।
युद्ध के विनाशकारी परिणामों को सीमित करने के लिए अमेरिका और इस्राइल ऐसे आक्रमण की योजना बना रहे हैं जिससे ईरान की प्रतिआक्रमण की क्षमता को युद्ध के शुरुआती दौर में ही कुंद कर दिया जाए। इसके लिए एक बड़े आक्रमण की योजना बनाई जा रही है और ईरान के केवल नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को नहीं बल्कि तीन हजार से अधिक लक्ष्यों पर क्रूज मिसाइल से हमला किया जाएगा। यह बी कहा जा रहा कि ईरान के अतिसुरक्षित नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को ध्वस्त करने के लिए एक छोटे नाभिकीय बम का प्रयोग भी करना पड़ सकता है। इराक और अफगानिस्तान के अनुभव के बाद अमेरिका ईरान के युद्ध को चटपट खत्म करना चाहेगी और हां इसके लिए ईरान का इस हद तक विनाश जरूरी है कि वो जल्द उठ ना सके। इस पृष्ठभूमि में यही सवाल बचा नजर आता है कि आक्रमण कब होगा ? ईरान पर आक्रमण के मसले पर राष्ट्रपति बुश इस्राइल की सोच के सबसे ज्यादा करीब माने जाते हैं और अपना कार्यकाल खत्म होने से पहले ऐसा भी कुछ करना चाहते हैं कि उन्हें 'ऐतिहासिक' होने का दर्जा हासिल हो सके। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पज के डेमोक्रेटिक उम्मीदवार ओबामा ईरान से सीधी बात के पक्षधर हैं और इस्राइल का ये बी मानना है कि रिपब्लिकन मैक्केन भी अगर राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं तो वो सत्ता संभालते ही ईरान पर आक्रमण का फैसला नहीं करेंगे। ऐसे में इस्राइल का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने के लिए पर्याप्त समय मिल जाएगा। इसलिए ईरान पर आक्रमण के लिए सबसे उपयुक्त समय 4 नवंबर को मतदान और 20 जनवरी को अमेरिका में नए राष्ट्रपति के सत्तासीन होने के बीच का समय ही 'ऐतिहासिक मौका' है जब ईरान को ध्वस्त किया जा सकता है
इस पृष्ठभूमि में अगर युद्ध को रोकने का कोई भी रास्ता तैयार करना है तो इस्राइल,अमेरिका या अहमदीनेजाद के नेतृत्व वाले ईरान में से किसी ना किसी को तो झुकना ही होगा। लेकिन अब सवाल ये उठता कि जब हर पक्ष का इतना कुछ दांव पर लगा हुआ है तो झुकेगा कौन ?
तीसरे विश्वयुद्ध की दस्तक
सुभाष धूलिया
मध्यपूर्व में क्या तीसरा महायुद्ध छिड़ने जा रहा है। क्या ईरान पर इस्राइल(अमेरिका) आक्रमण करने जा रहे हैं या यह सिर्फ दवाब डालने के हथकंड़े भर हैं पर आज धरातल की वास्तविकता ये है कि इस्राइल किसी भी कीमत पर ईरान को यूरेनियम संवर्धन की क्षमता विकसित नहीं करने देगा जिसका इस्तेमाल बिजली और नाभिकीय हथियार दोनों को बनाने के लिए किया जा सकता है। ईरान बिजली बनाने के लिए इस क्षमता को विकसित करने के अपने अधिकार का समर्पण करेगा ये भी उम्मीद नहीं की जा सकती।अमेरिका मध्यपूर्व पर अपना प्रभुत्व कायम करने के लिए ईरान को कभी की ये क्षमता हासिल नहीं करने देगा। ईरान को एक क्षेत्रीय महाशक्ति के रूप में उभरने से रोकना अमेरिका और इस्राइल की उस रणनीति का हिस्सा है जिसके तहत इराक-अफगानिस्तान में युद्ध लड़े जा रहे हैं और मध्यपूर्व में सैनिक अड्डों की भरीपूरी श्रृंखला कायम की गयी है
इस पृष्ठभूमि में ईरान की नाभिकीय क्षमता को ध्वस्त करने के लिए सैनिक आक्रमण की धमकियों को दवाब डालने की कोशिश के रूप में नहीं देखा जा सकता। इससे एक ऐसा माहौल तैयार किया जा रहा है जिससे विश्व की अन्य महाशक्तियों को इस आक्रमण के लिए तैयार किया जा सके। यह उसी तरह की रणनीति है जो इरना पर आक्रमण करने से पहले अपनाई गयी थी।ईरान को खलनायक साबित करने के लिए जबर्दस्त प्रचार अभियान छेड़ दिया गया है और ये साबित करने का प्रयास किया जा रहा है कि अगर ईरान को रोका नहीं गया तो विश्व शांति के लिए खतरा पैदा हो जाएगा। इसका असर भी होना शुरु हो गया है और यूरोपियन यूनियन द्वारा आठ बड़े देशों के पैकेज को ईरान ने स्वीकार नहीं किया है। इन पैकेज में यही प्रस्ताव था कि ईरान यूरेनियम संवर्धन के कार्यक्रम का परित्याग कर दे और बदले में आर्थिक मदद के साथ-साथ अपने नाभिकीय संयंत्रों से बिजली उत्पादन के लिए यूरेनियम की सप्लाई भी प्राप्त कर सकता है। पर ईरान ने यूरेनियम संवर्धन के अपने अधिकार का परित्याग करने से इंकार कर दिया है और अब यूरोपीय देश भी ये मानने लगे हैं कि ऐसे में इस्राइल को अकेले नहीं छोड़ा जा सकता है। इसके साथ ही इस्राइल ने मध्यपूर्व में ईरान के परंपरागत सहयोगियों के साथ तालमेल बिठाने के प्रयास भी किए हैं जिसमें गाजा में हमास,लेबनान में हिज़बुल्ला और सीरिया में असद की सत्ता शामिल है। इसका मकसद ईरान पर आक्रमण की स्थिति में इन्हें इस्राइल पर आक्रमण करने से रोकना है। यानि इराक की तरह ईरान को अलग-थलग करने के प्रयास सफल होते नजर आ रहे हैं और आक्रमण का आधार मजबूत हो रहा है। इस्राइल ने पिछले दिनों एक बहुत बड़ा सैनिक अभ्यास किया जिसमें 100 से भी अधिक लड़ाकू विमानों ने भाग लिया जिसका मकसद 1400 किलोमीटर की दूरा पर बड़ा हमला करना था। इस्राइल से ईरानी नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठान भी इतनी ही दूर हैं। इसके बदले में ईरान ने कई मिसाइलों का परीक्षण किया जो इस्राइल तक मारने की क्षमता रखती हैं। इस्राइल हालांकि स्वीकार नहीं करता पर ये सर्वविधित है कि इस्राइल के पास 100 से अधिक नाभिकीय बम है। लेकिन इस्राइल ईरान जैसे देश को नाभिकीय हथियार विकसित नहीं करने देगा जो इसके अस्तित्व को ही नहीं स्वीकार करता।
अमेरिकी प्रशासन के एक हल्के में में मानना है कि ईरान पर आक्रमण के विनाशकारी परिणाम होंगे जो द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के विनाश को भी बौना कर देंगे इसलिए राजनयिक तरीकों से ही ईरान को रोका जाना चाहिए। दूसरी और बुश प्रशासन का एक प्रभावशाली तबके का मानना है कि ईरान को राजनयिक तरीकों से राजी करने के सारे राजनयिक प्रयास विफल हो चुके हैं और अब युद्ध ही एकमात्र विकल्प है। राष्ट्रपति बुश के हाल ही के बयानों से स्पष्ट है कि वो आक्रमण के विकल्प की ओर झुक रहे हैं।
आज इतिहास अपने को दोहराता दिखाई देता है। ईरान के राष्ट्रपति अहमदीनेजाद इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को मिटाने की धमकी देने का कोई अवसर नहीं चूकते और इसी तरह की बयानबाजी से अमेरिका को ईरान को एक बड़ा खतरा साबित करने में सफलता मिली थी। ईरान को लेकर भी इराक जैसा परिदृश्य उभर रहा है। अमेरिका की सभी खुफिया एजेंसियों का आकलन है कि ईरान नाभिकीय हथियार बनाने के कार्यक्रम का 2003 में ही परित्याग कर चुका है लेकिन अमेरिका का राजनीतिक नेतृत्व इसे स्वीकार नहीं करता और उसका मानना है कि यूरोनियम संवंर्धन की क्षमता ही नाभिकीय हथियार बनाए जा सकते हैं।
नाभिकीय ईरान को न तो अमेरिका और ना ही इस्राइल स्वीकार करने को तैयार है। ईरान के पास नाभिकीय हथियारों होने भर से ही सत्ता समीकरण बदल जाएंगे और इनके इस्तेमाल की संभवना भर ही मध्यपूर्व में अमेरिका और इस्राइल के प्रभुत्व पर अंकुश लगा सकती है। नाभिकीय ईरान के उदय से तेल-संपंन्न मध्यपुर्व पर नियत्रंण कायम करने का अमेरिका का सपना पूरा नहीं हो पाएगा।ईरान एक नाभिकीय हथियारों के साथ-साथ अपने अकूत तेल संसाधनों के बल पर एक बड़ी क्षेत्रीय महाशक्ति बन जाएगा। नाभिकीय ईरान इस्राइल के लिए केवल सैनिक खतरा ही नहीं बल्कि अनेक तरह के संकट पैदा करेगा। इस वक्त मध्यपूर्व में इस्राइल ही एकमात्र नाभिकीय ताकत है और और नाभिकीय ईराम के बाद इसका एकाधिकार खत्म हो जाएगा। इस्राइल इतना छोटा देश है कि इसके अस्तित्व को मिटाने के लिए एक ही बम काफी है। नाभिकीय ीरान के उदय के बाद इस्राइल मध्यपूर्व में सैनिक कार्रवाइयों के लिए उतना स्वच्छंद नहीं रह पाएगा जितना अबतक रहा है और यह स्वच्छंदता इस्राइल का सबसे बड़ा हथियार रहा है। इस्राइल की रमनीति प्रतिरक्षा की बजाय आक्रमण पर टिकी रही है। नाभिकीय ईरान मध्यपूर्व में इस्राइल विरोधी तमाम इस्लामी और कट्टरवादी ताकतों के संगठित होने का केन्द्र बन जाएगा। इस्राइल के अस्तित्व को पैदा होने वाले खतरे से हर तरह के संसाधनों का पलायन शुरु हो जाएगा और इस्राइल का संपंन्न तबका भी अधिक सुरक्षित स्थानों की ओर कूच कर सकता है। इस स्थिति में सैनिक ताकत के बल पर भी इस्राइल को जर्जर होने से रोकना मुश्किल होगा
सैनिक रूप से इस्राइल के लिए ईरान के नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को ध्वस्त करना उतना आसान नहीं होगा जो उसने 1981 में इराक और पिछले सितंबर में सीरिया में किया था। लेकिन इस्राइली नेतृत्व का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने से रोकने के लिए कुछ तो जोखिम उठाना ही होगा। इस्राइल यह भी जानता है कि नाभिकीय ईरान मुख्य रूप से इस्राइल के लिए खतरा होगा लेकिन ईरान पर आक्रमण से जो परिस्थितियां पैदा होंगी उससे सारा विश्व संकट में होगा और इस्राइल अकेली नहीं रहेगा। अब चाहे आक्रमण इस्राइल करे या वो अमेरिका के सा ख मिलकर आक्रमण करे, ईरान दोनों ही स्थितियों में इस्राइल और खाड़ी में अमेरिकी सैनिक अड्डों, युद्धपोतों और इराक और अफहानिस्ता में अमेरिकी सैनाओं पर प्रति आक्रमण करेगा। ईरान ने होर्मुज जलडमरु मध्य को बी बंद करने की धमकी दी है जहां से विश्व की 40 प्रतिशत तेल की आपूर्ति होती है। अमेरिका ने चेतावनी दी है कि वो किसी भी कीमत पर इस सामरिक जलमार्ग को बंद नहीं होने देगा।
तेल संकट से जूझ रहे विश्व के लिए 40 प्रतिशत तेल आपूर्ति के बाधित होने से क्या असर पड़ेगा इसका सहज अनुमान लगाया जा सकता है फिर ईरान दुनिया का चौथा तेल उत्पादक देश है ऐसी स्थिति में क्या होगा इसका अनुमान इस बात से लगाया जा सकता है कि ईरान द्वारा मिसाइल परीक्षण करने पर तेल के दाम प्रति बैरल 135 से बढ़कर 140.6 डालर हो गए थे।
युद्ध के विनाशकारी परिणामों को सीमित करने के लिए अमेरिका और इस्राइल ऐसे आक्रमण की योजना बना रहे हैं जिससे ईरान की प्रतिआक्रमण की क्षमता को युद्ध के शुरुआती दौर में ही कुंद कर दिया जाए। इसके लिए एक बड़े आक्रमण की योजना बनाई जा रही है और ईरान के केवल नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को नहीं बल्कि तीन हजार से अधिक लक्ष्यों पर क्रूज मिसाइल से हमला किया जाएगा। यह बी कहा जा रहा कि ईरान के अतिसुरक्षित नाभिकीय प्रतिष्ठानों को ध्वस्त करने के लिए एक छोटे नाभिकीय बम का प्रयोग भी करना पड़ सकता है। इराक और अफगानिस्तान के अनुभव के बाद अमेरिका ईरान के युद्ध को चटपट खत्म करना चाहेगी और हां इसके लिए ईरान का इस हद तक विनाश जरूरी है कि वो जल्द उठ ना सके। इस पृष्ठभूमि में यही सवाल बचा नजर आता है कि आक्रमण कब होगा ? ईरान पर आक्रमण के मसले पर राष्ट्रपति बुश इस्राइल की सोच के सबसे ज्यादा करीब माने जाते हैं और अपना कार्यकाल खत्म होने से पहले ऐसा भी कुछ करना चाहते हैं कि उन्हें 'ऐतिहासिक' होने का दर्जा हासिल हो सके। अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पज के डेमोक्रेटिक उम्मीदवार ओबामा ईरान से सीधी बात के पक्षधर हैं और इस्राइल का ये बी मानना है कि रिपब्लिकन मैक्केन भी अगर राष्ट्रपति बनते हैं तो वो सत्ता संभालते ही ईरान पर आक्रमण का फैसला नहीं करेंगे। ऐसे में इस्राइल का मानना है कि ईरान को नाभिकीय क्षमता हासिल करने के लिए पर्याप्त समय मिल जाएगा। इसलिए ईरान पर आक्रमण के लिए सबसे उपयुक्त समय 4 नवंबर को मतदान और 20 जनवरी को अमेरिका में नए राष्ट्रपति के सत्तासीन होने के बीच का समय ही 'ऐतिहासिक मौका' है जब ईरान को ध्वस्त किया जा सकता है
इस पृष्ठभूमि में अगर युद्ध को रोकने का कोई भी रास्ता तैयार करना है तो इस्राइल,अमेरिका या अहमदीनेजाद के नेतृत्व वाले ईरान में से किसी ना किसी को तो झुकना ही होगा। लेकिन अब सवाल ये उठता कि जब हर पक्ष का इतना कुछ दांव पर लगा हुआ है तो झुकेगा कौन ?
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Study Material-DJ-IIMC 2008
Concepts of News/Journalism
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
1. News is new information
2. News is looking at a subject from a new perspective
3. The gap between "How things work" and "How things are supposed to work"
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
1. News is new information
2. News is looking at a subject from a new perspective
3. The gap between "How things work" and "How things are supposed to work"
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Study Material-DJ-IIMC 2008
Concepts of News/Journalism
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
1. News is new information
2. News is looking at a subject from a new perspective
3. The gap between "How things work" and "How things are supposed to work"
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
1. News is new information
2. News is looking at a subject from a new perspective
3. The gap between "How things work" and "How things are supposed to work"
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
DJ Course IIMC: Study Material on Story Ideas
Developing News Story Ideas
Development Journalism Programme, IIMC, August 2008
Source: BBC-IIMC
i-Learn Programme
An idea is an angle about a subject that you believe will interest the readers of your newspaper. Without new ideas the editorial pages would be pretty dull. But where do ideas come from? And how do you find them?
When you are lucky, an idea can sometimes find you. But more often you have to search for ideas. This sounds difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Every writer has their own way of developing ideas. The longer you work for a particular newspaper, the more attuned you will become to the type of ideas that will interest your readers.
By cultivating an alert mind and training your powers of observation, you will acquire the skill of spotting suitable material. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, think about every person, every experience and every event in terms of a potential story. Talk to people. Be interested in new subjects. There are feature ideas everywhere. It’s just a case of realising them. When you find them, write them down.
People relate to a wide range of subjects. Many are common to everyone, including relationships and emotional issues, work, money, family, health, education, self-improvement, local and community issues, children, transport…..The list is endless. The only limits are your imagination and your ability to make an idea relevant
Ideas from newspapers
When you read each edition of any newspaper, including your own, ideas for features should leap out at you from almost every page, provided you think laterally and allow your imagination to wander a little.
Let’s start with news stories, which can provide a wealth of feature ideas. Read the news with a feature journalist’s eye. Think about the story and the people who are quoted. Is there a wider issue that needs to be discussed? Is there an interesting personality who emerges from a news story and is worthy of a feature in their own right? Is there an element missing from the news story, one which could be expanded into a feature? And the most important question of all – will your readers be interested in it?
Here’s an example:
Your newspaper has carried a story about a community which has held a sale to try to raise money for the treatment of a child who is suffering from a rare disease that is causing her to gradually lose here eyesight. A new technique, only practised in one hospital in a city many miles away, might help her. Women and children in her community have taken a stall at a market where they sell home-baked bread, fruit from their land and craft items to raise funds.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from this story and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
Examples of feature ideas from a news story
There are at least three potential feature ideas in the story about the child with the eye condition that would be likely to interest your readers.
1. The child. Although the news story focused on the community effort, we learned little about the child and how her family coped with her illness. This angle gives us the opportunity to engage readers who enjoy human interest stories. An interview with the mother of the girl will give us enough material to write a feature.
2. The specialist treatment. In the news story we learn that one hospital offers hope for this child. But there is very little detail. We can expand this angle into a feature. A telephone interview with the specialist who has devised the technique will give us sufficient material. He may also tell us about other people who have benefited from his expertise and we can telephone them. Their stories could be used as case studies to run alongside the main feature.
3. The market: This is the most lateral-thinking of the three ideas. It really has very little to do with the sick child, who is central to the original story. But her community raised money using their talents to find items to sell on a market stall. How could your readers do something similar, either to raise money for a specific project or for their own family needs?
Provide them with a ‘How To’ feature guide – how to identify their talent for producing items of food, clothes, paintings or wood carvings, for instance. How can they make their stall stand out? How can they safeguard the money they take from customers? Ask readers who follow your advice to write and tell you about their stalls, so that you can photograph them and tell their individual stories at a later date.
4 Ideas from newspapers: Advertisements
Although you are more likely to find feature ideas from news stories, there are other sections of a newspaper which will give you inspiration. Reading the advertisements often sparks the imagination.
Here’s an example: You notice that a number of shops are advertising cut-price sales at an unusual time of the year. When you think about it, you wonder whether people are short of cash, causing a down-turn in trade. You telephone a couple of shop managers who confirm that their profits are suffering and that they are trying to boost trade by offering bargains.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from these advertisements and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
5 Examples of feature ideas from advertisements
There are a number of feature ideas from these cheap sales that would interest your readers. Here are two examples, one serious, one frivolous:
1. What is causing the economic down-turn? Investigate why people are not spending as much as they normally do at this time of year. Speak to shoppers, to organisations that represent traders and to experts in economics. Is this a local problem – in which case, find out the reason behind it - or is it affecting the whole country?
2. What is a bargain? Just seeing the word ‘sale’ in a shop window makes some people want to buy. Give your readers a questionnaire to test them on whether or not they get carried away by the idea of a bargain, but end up wasting their money.
6 Ideas from newspapers: What’s On Guide
In addition to news stories and advertisements there is another key element of a newspaper that will provide ideas for features. Many publications carry a What’s On guide to events that are happening in the area over the coming days or even weeks.
Here’s an example: You spot an item in the list about a popular touring theatre group that is coming to your town. They are well known in the country for exploring controversial issues in their plays. Their latest production is no exception. It is about adultery.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from this play and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
7 Example of feature ideas from “What’s On” guide
This play suggests at least two very different feature ideas:
1. Contact the leader of the theatre group in advance of their visit and write a feature about their history and why they choose such controversial subjects. How do they pick their subjects? Who writes their plays? Why do they think they are so popular?
2. The effects of adultery. Ask a relationship or family expert and a doctor to list all the adverse affects. Speak to one person who admits to adultery and use their story as an example at the side of the main feature. Use the forthcoming play as a peg for the feature.
8 Other printed material – books and magazines
If books and magazines are sent into your office, make a point of reading them, with a view to finding ideas. If they aren’t, buy them or find them in a library. In addition to books, libraries usually keep copies of national and foreign magazines and newspapers, plus reports and academic journals.
Books can provide ideas because they are likely to have been researched over a long period of time and authors will have dug out interesting stories on a wide variety of issues.
For example, if the history of a shipwreck off the coast of your country had been uncovered in a new book, you could interview the author for a feature. You could also talk to the team of divers who uncovered the secrets of the wreck, and even seek out descendants of any survivors of the disaster.
Magazines may focus on subjects as diverse as economics and politics or fashion and beauty. They might be glossy, national publications or stapled, community-based pamphlet-style magazines. They are useful background reading.
By using lateral-thinking skills, you will find a whole range of ideas to develop and adapt. For example, women all over the world enjoy buying clothes and looking their best. If your newspaper has a feature page which is geared towards fashion and beauty, magazines will help you spot trends to pass on to your readers.
9 The Internet Overview
The World Wide Web is an invaluable and unprecedented tool for journalists. Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips.
Search engines are useful in helping you to unearth masses of information on the subject you are researching. And, of course, you can remain instantly up to date on current affairs by using reputable international news sites, such as the BBC.
There is, however, a downside. The internet throws up so much information that it can take valuable hours to sift through the mass of data to find what you need. And not all internet content is reliable. Pick and choose your sites carefully, cross-checking your facts with other information sources when you are in doubt.
In general, however, looking for feature ideas on the internet can be far more convenient than any other method of research. Many newspapers and magazines publish their own websites.
10 The Internet Content
There are more ways to find feature ideas on the internet than just looking through search engines. Here are a few examples of where you can look.
Chat Rooms These are forums where you can ‘chat’ online with other people. You type in a message and it is displayed instantly. Other people then respond. If you already have a subject area in mind, choose a chat room appropriate to that topic and discover what the audience is talking about. Even going into a general chat room might enable you to pick up ideas.
Forums and Message Boards These are a bit like message boards in a university faculty or a sports hall, but they are based on the web. People post text messages about a particular subject – chemistry or basketball, for example – and wait for replies. Rather like the chat room, this is a way for journalists to join topical conversations on all kinds of issues. By discovering what your readers are talking about, you can tap in on the ideas and transfer them to newspaper features.
Newsgroups and Discussion Lists Like forums, each newsgroup or discussion list is made up of people interested in the same subject. The aim is to spread knowledge and information. The groups are classified by subjects – humanities, for example. They are then categorised by topic – fine art, philosophy, music, literature. Each topic has its own thread of conversations about specific aspects of the topic.
Individual websites Sometimes the ideas for features are just staring us in the face on the internet. It’s the websites themselves that are worth writing about. Take two of our basic list of target feature topics that appeal across the spectrum of readers – relationships and money. Two of the most successful websites in the UK in recent years have been Friends Reunited – aimed at putting together old friends from school, college and work – and ebay, which enables people to sell anything, even plastic carrier bags
11 Television and Radio
The world continues to shrink as the internet and satellite broadcasting bring people on different continents in instant contact with information and news reports of events as they unfold.
If your readers have access to television and radio, you should keep a keen eye on the content they are watching. It is forming an additional agenda in their lives, of which the newspaper needs to be aware.
People who appear on TV become popular with your readers. These personalities are useful to interview for features. Television and radio also produce documentaries, which are the elongated versions of newspaper features. Programmes such as these can fuel new ideas.
12 Contacts
When you have read all your newspapers, magazines and useful websites, listened to the radio and watched TV, yet find yourself still struggling for a good idea, what can you do next? Pick up the telephone and start talking to some real people!
From the outset of their careers every journalist should have established a contacts book or file. Each time you meet someone new, carry out an interview or find out background information, record the details in your book or on your computer file. The file should be organised in an alphabetical system, so that the data is easy to retrieve.
Enter the full name of the contact, their occupation, their home and business addresses and all phone numbers. If the person is not someone whose name you are likely to recall easily, but they have helped you with their expertise on business issues, for instance, cross-reference their entry under ‘business’ too.
Your contacts book should be jealously guarded. People give you their private phone numbers and details because they trust you. Some people lead very private lives and do not want to be pestered by constant phone calls. Don’t leave your book lying around for others to use.
If you treat them courteously, contacts become one of the best sources of new ideas and information because they multiply. You may have 100 contacts and each one of those 100 will have 100. The numbers start to build dramatically.
On days when it is difficult to find inspiration, make a few random calls to people in your book. Ask them what is happening. Are they doing anything new? Have they heard information about anything in general?
This is hugely useful when you write for a specialist feature section, like health, for instance, since your contacts will work and socialise with many hundreds more in that field, giving you the best chance of a scoop
13 Ideas File
If budding authors had money for every plot they have thought up for a brilliant novel in the middle of the night, but failed to write down, they might all be rich. It is the same with features.
When an idea occurs to you, write it down that instant. You can be sure you will not remember it if you leave it to chance.
Keep the ideas in one notebook or one computer file, so that you can browse through it from time to time. The idea may not be useful immediately, but something may happen in the future to trigger its use.
Organised journalists will take their ideas file one step further by filing away relevant newspaper and magazine cuttings, press releases, emails and website printouts in folders with each idea.
Chances are that if you get excited by an idea – and so do the people around you – then your readers will too
14 PR Departments
Public Relations or Press Relations departments in government organisations and businesses are staffed by people who have a three-way function in life.
These PR departments will set up interviews and supply background information for your features, which is useful and saves you time.
The same staff will also ‘sell’ you a story. They will telephone, email and send you press releases. They will also invite you to events to celebrate the launch of new products or premises, or policies.
It is important to realise when you are simply being sold an advert and when there is a real story worth printing. There is sometimes a fine dividing line between the two. You must decide whether there is a story worthy of public attention or whether it would be giving a product or organisation free publicity by mentioning it. Decide too whether you need to question the basis of the PR department’s story.
15 PR Departments: advertisement or story?
Let’s look at an example of how a PR exercise might work.
You are sent a press release about a new type of bed. The PR department for the manufacturer claims that it has been proved to be better for your back and that it is only half the price of other, similar beds because of a manufacturing breakthrough.
If you wrote a feature, based on this alone, you would simply be advertising the product. But, when a PR officer rings she tells you that the company are so confident of their claim that they have asked a man with chronic back pain to sleep in their factory for a week, to see if his condition improves.
Since back pain is one of the most common ailments in the world, this will be a feature that will interest readers. If we get the man to write a diary of how he slept and how his back reacted, it should make good copy and is a genuine test of the bed (albeit a very small-scale test with no statistical significance).
But PR departments do not simply survive on putting out press releases. Sometimes a company – or a government – find themselves in trouble. The PR officers are there to try to limit the damage.
So, let’s stay with the example of our bed. We discover that the man with the bad back who is testing the new product is less than happy. The bed collapsed when one of its legs gave way in the middle of the night.
The PR department, desperate to avoid bad publicity, is keen to try to pass the blame to a rogue supplier who put together the frame. Your job as a journalist is not to be swayed by these claims, but to get to the truth of the story.
16 Diary Events
Every newspaper should have a diary, which contains details of planned future events. These may include visits from government ministers, press conferences, court trials, sporting events, business announcements, anniversaries etc.
Each time you receive an interesting press release with a future date, enter the details into the diary. Each time you have a tip-off that something is about to happen, enter it into the diary. If you go to a court hearing and a date is set for trial, enter that too. Each entry should include a date, time, place and contact name with telephone number.
Even though most diary entries relate to news stories, it is useful for a feature writer to be able to look through the list. On some occasions a job will lend itself to both news and feature treatment. This is particularly so in the case of high profile court cases. The proceedings will be covered by news reporters, but there may be an interesting background feature which can be prepared in advance of the end of the trial.
Give yourself enough time to match up with a diary event. If you are aiming a feature to coincide with the anniversary of the death of someone important, it will be no use producing it for the week after the commemoration.
Ideas
Ideas are not difficult to conceive if you open your mind to the possibility that they can come from all around you. Be alert and train your powers of observation. Start to question everything that you see. Ask yourself how, what, where, who, when and why? You will start to look at the world in a different light. But when you are thinking of ideas, don’t select only the ones that appeal to you. Writing features is not a self-indulgent pastime. Think of your readers. Are they likely to buy your newspaper to read the feature you are planning?
Newspapers Both your own, and other people’s newspapers are a constant source of features ideas. Read news stories to look for missed or new angles. Read advertisements and look through the What’s On diary of events.
Magazines, books and other publications Read through magazines to spot trends and features that might adapt for a newspaper readership. Books often produce good story angles, particularly if they focus on real-life events.
The Internet The World Wide Web is an invaluable sources of information. But not all of the information contained in it is reliable. When in doubt, cross-check with another source.
TV and Radio Both television and radio are popular worldwide since satellite technology made them more accessible. If your readers are watching TV, it is useful to know what they are likely to view. Features can include interview with personalities from TV or spin-offs from documentary and factual programmes
Contacts There is no better source of ideas that are likely to produce exclusive material than your own contacts. Every journalist should cultivate contacts from the moment they start in the job. Keep a book or a file with the personal details of everyone interesting you meet or interview.
Ideas File The world is full of people who had a brilliant idea in the middle of the night, but forgot to write it down. Organised journalists jot down ideas for features immediately. Even better, they create files, with cuttings from newspapers and magazines, printouts from the internet, emails and other relevant background information.
PR Departments These will try very hard to ‘sell’ you an idea for a feature. The more space they gain for their client, without having to pay advertising charges, the happier the client becomes. Although good PR departments do come up with well-targeted ideas, beware that you are not being duped into carrying advertising material. Remain objective.
Diary Events All newspapers keep a diary in which to record the dates, times and places of future events. These may include visits by government ministers, major criminal trials, protest meetings, sporting events etc. Writers will find it useful to browse through this list, making a note of events that might lend themselves to feature treatment.
Development Journalism Programme, IIMC, August 2008
Source: BBC-IIMC
i-Learn Programme
An idea is an angle about a subject that you believe will interest the readers of your newspaper. Without new ideas the editorial pages would be pretty dull. But where do ideas come from? And how do you find them?
When you are lucky, an idea can sometimes find you. But more often you have to search for ideas. This sounds difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Every writer has their own way of developing ideas. The longer you work for a particular newspaper, the more attuned you will become to the type of ideas that will interest your readers.
By cultivating an alert mind and training your powers of observation, you will acquire the skill of spotting suitable material. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, think about every person, every experience and every event in terms of a potential story. Talk to people. Be interested in new subjects. There are feature ideas everywhere. It’s just a case of realising them. When you find them, write them down.
People relate to a wide range of subjects. Many are common to everyone, including relationships and emotional issues, work, money, family, health, education, self-improvement, local and community issues, children, transport…..The list is endless. The only limits are your imagination and your ability to make an idea relevant
Ideas from newspapers
When you read each edition of any newspaper, including your own, ideas for features should leap out at you from almost every page, provided you think laterally and allow your imagination to wander a little.
Let’s start with news stories, which can provide a wealth of feature ideas. Read the news with a feature journalist’s eye. Think about the story and the people who are quoted. Is there a wider issue that needs to be discussed? Is there an interesting personality who emerges from a news story and is worthy of a feature in their own right? Is there an element missing from the news story, one which could be expanded into a feature? And the most important question of all – will your readers be interested in it?
Here’s an example:
Your newspaper has carried a story about a community which has held a sale to try to raise money for the treatment of a child who is suffering from a rare disease that is causing her to gradually lose here eyesight. A new technique, only practised in one hospital in a city many miles away, might help her. Women and children in her community have taken a stall at a market where they sell home-baked bread, fruit from their land and craft items to raise funds.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from this story and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
Examples of feature ideas from a news story
There are at least three potential feature ideas in the story about the child with the eye condition that would be likely to interest your readers.
1. The child. Although the news story focused on the community effort, we learned little about the child and how her family coped with her illness. This angle gives us the opportunity to engage readers who enjoy human interest stories. An interview with the mother of the girl will give us enough material to write a feature.
2. The specialist treatment. In the news story we learn that one hospital offers hope for this child. But there is very little detail. We can expand this angle into a feature. A telephone interview with the specialist who has devised the technique will give us sufficient material. He may also tell us about other people who have benefited from his expertise and we can telephone them. Their stories could be used as case studies to run alongside the main feature.
3. The market: This is the most lateral-thinking of the three ideas. It really has very little to do with the sick child, who is central to the original story. But her community raised money using their talents to find items to sell on a market stall. How could your readers do something similar, either to raise money for a specific project or for their own family needs?
Provide them with a ‘How To’ feature guide – how to identify their talent for producing items of food, clothes, paintings or wood carvings, for instance. How can they make their stall stand out? How can they safeguard the money they take from customers? Ask readers who follow your advice to write and tell you about their stalls, so that you can photograph them and tell their individual stories at a later date.
4 Ideas from newspapers: Advertisements
Although you are more likely to find feature ideas from news stories, there are other sections of a newspaper which will give you inspiration. Reading the advertisements often sparks the imagination.
Here’s an example: You notice that a number of shops are advertising cut-price sales at an unusual time of the year. When you think about it, you wonder whether people are short of cash, causing a down-turn in trade. You telephone a couple of shop managers who confirm that their profits are suffering and that they are trying to boost trade by offering bargains.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from these advertisements and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
5 Examples of feature ideas from advertisements
There are a number of feature ideas from these cheap sales that would interest your readers. Here are two examples, one serious, one frivolous:
1. What is causing the economic down-turn? Investigate why people are not spending as much as they normally do at this time of year. Speak to shoppers, to organisations that represent traders and to experts in economics. Is this a local problem – in which case, find out the reason behind it - or is it affecting the whole country?
2. What is a bargain? Just seeing the word ‘sale’ in a shop window makes some people want to buy. Give your readers a questionnaire to test them on whether or not they get carried away by the idea of a bargain, but end up wasting their money.
6 Ideas from newspapers: What’s On Guide
In addition to news stories and advertisements there is another key element of a newspaper that will provide ideas for features. Many publications carry a What’s On guide to events that are happening in the area over the coming days or even weeks.
Here’s an example: You spot an item in the list about a popular touring theatre group that is coming to your town. They are well known in the country for exploring controversial issues in their plays. Their latest production is no exception. It is about adultery.
Think about what feature ideas you might get from this play and write them down before going onto the next page to see how your ideas match ours.
7 Example of feature ideas from “What’s On” guide
This play suggests at least two very different feature ideas:
1. Contact the leader of the theatre group in advance of their visit and write a feature about their history and why they choose such controversial subjects. How do they pick their subjects? Who writes their plays? Why do they think they are so popular?
2. The effects of adultery. Ask a relationship or family expert and a doctor to list all the adverse affects. Speak to one person who admits to adultery and use their story as an example at the side of the main feature. Use the forthcoming play as a peg for the feature.
8 Other printed material – books and magazines
If books and magazines are sent into your office, make a point of reading them, with a view to finding ideas. If they aren’t, buy them or find them in a library. In addition to books, libraries usually keep copies of national and foreign magazines and newspapers, plus reports and academic journals.
Books can provide ideas because they are likely to have been researched over a long period of time and authors will have dug out interesting stories on a wide variety of issues.
For example, if the history of a shipwreck off the coast of your country had been uncovered in a new book, you could interview the author for a feature. You could also talk to the team of divers who uncovered the secrets of the wreck, and even seek out descendants of any survivors of the disaster.
Magazines may focus on subjects as diverse as economics and politics or fashion and beauty. They might be glossy, national publications or stapled, community-based pamphlet-style magazines. They are useful background reading.
By using lateral-thinking skills, you will find a whole range of ideas to develop and adapt. For example, women all over the world enjoy buying clothes and looking their best. If your newspaper has a feature page which is geared towards fashion and beauty, magazines will help you spot trends to pass on to your readers.
9 The Internet Overview
The World Wide Web is an invaluable and unprecedented tool for journalists. Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips.
Search engines are useful in helping you to unearth masses of information on the subject you are researching. And, of course, you can remain instantly up to date on current affairs by using reputable international news sites, such as the BBC.
There is, however, a downside. The internet throws up so much information that it can take valuable hours to sift through the mass of data to find what you need. And not all internet content is reliable. Pick and choose your sites carefully, cross-checking your facts with other information sources when you are in doubt.
In general, however, looking for feature ideas on the internet can be far more convenient than any other method of research. Many newspapers and magazines publish their own websites.
10 The Internet Content
There are more ways to find feature ideas on the internet than just looking through search engines. Here are a few examples of where you can look.
Chat Rooms These are forums where you can ‘chat’ online with other people. You type in a message and it is displayed instantly. Other people then respond. If you already have a subject area in mind, choose a chat room appropriate to that topic and discover what the audience is talking about. Even going into a general chat room might enable you to pick up ideas.
Forums and Message Boards These are a bit like message boards in a university faculty or a sports hall, but they are based on the web. People post text messages about a particular subject – chemistry or basketball, for example – and wait for replies. Rather like the chat room, this is a way for journalists to join topical conversations on all kinds of issues. By discovering what your readers are talking about, you can tap in on the ideas and transfer them to newspaper features.
Newsgroups and Discussion Lists Like forums, each newsgroup or discussion list is made up of people interested in the same subject. The aim is to spread knowledge and information. The groups are classified by subjects – humanities, for example. They are then categorised by topic – fine art, philosophy, music, literature. Each topic has its own thread of conversations about specific aspects of the topic.
Individual websites Sometimes the ideas for features are just staring us in the face on the internet. It’s the websites themselves that are worth writing about. Take two of our basic list of target feature topics that appeal across the spectrum of readers – relationships and money. Two of the most successful websites in the UK in recent years have been Friends Reunited – aimed at putting together old friends from school, college and work – and ebay, which enables people to sell anything, even plastic carrier bags
11 Television and Radio
The world continues to shrink as the internet and satellite broadcasting bring people on different continents in instant contact with information and news reports of events as they unfold.
If your readers have access to television and radio, you should keep a keen eye on the content they are watching. It is forming an additional agenda in their lives, of which the newspaper needs to be aware.
People who appear on TV become popular with your readers. These personalities are useful to interview for features. Television and radio also produce documentaries, which are the elongated versions of newspaper features. Programmes such as these can fuel new ideas.
12 Contacts
When you have read all your newspapers, magazines and useful websites, listened to the radio and watched TV, yet find yourself still struggling for a good idea, what can you do next? Pick up the telephone and start talking to some real people!
From the outset of their careers every journalist should have established a contacts book or file. Each time you meet someone new, carry out an interview or find out background information, record the details in your book or on your computer file. The file should be organised in an alphabetical system, so that the data is easy to retrieve.
Enter the full name of the contact, their occupation, their home and business addresses and all phone numbers. If the person is not someone whose name you are likely to recall easily, but they have helped you with their expertise on business issues, for instance, cross-reference their entry under ‘business’ too.
Your contacts book should be jealously guarded. People give you their private phone numbers and details because they trust you. Some people lead very private lives and do not want to be pestered by constant phone calls. Don’t leave your book lying around for others to use.
If you treat them courteously, contacts become one of the best sources of new ideas and information because they multiply. You may have 100 contacts and each one of those 100 will have 100. The numbers start to build dramatically.
On days when it is difficult to find inspiration, make a few random calls to people in your book. Ask them what is happening. Are they doing anything new? Have they heard information about anything in general?
This is hugely useful when you write for a specialist feature section, like health, for instance, since your contacts will work and socialise with many hundreds more in that field, giving you the best chance of a scoop
13 Ideas File
If budding authors had money for every plot they have thought up for a brilliant novel in the middle of the night, but failed to write down, they might all be rich. It is the same with features.
When an idea occurs to you, write it down that instant. You can be sure you will not remember it if you leave it to chance.
Keep the ideas in one notebook or one computer file, so that you can browse through it from time to time. The idea may not be useful immediately, but something may happen in the future to trigger its use.
Organised journalists will take their ideas file one step further by filing away relevant newspaper and magazine cuttings, press releases, emails and website printouts in folders with each idea.
Chances are that if you get excited by an idea – and so do the people around you – then your readers will too
14 PR Departments
Public Relations or Press Relations departments in government organisations and businesses are staffed by people who have a three-way function in life.
These PR departments will set up interviews and supply background information for your features, which is useful and saves you time.
The same staff will also ‘sell’ you a story. They will telephone, email and send you press releases. They will also invite you to events to celebrate the launch of new products or premises, or policies.
It is important to realise when you are simply being sold an advert and when there is a real story worth printing. There is sometimes a fine dividing line between the two. You must decide whether there is a story worthy of public attention or whether it would be giving a product or organisation free publicity by mentioning it. Decide too whether you need to question the basis of the PR department’s story.
15 PR Departments: advertisement or story?
Let’s look at an example of how a PR exercise might work.
You are sent a press release about a new type of bed. The PR department for the manufacturer claims that it has been proved to be better for your back and that it is only half the price of other, similar beds because of a manufacturing breakthrough.
If you wrote a feature, based on this alone, you would simply be advertising the product. But, when a PR officer rings she tells you that the company are so confident of their claim that they have asked a man with chronic back pain to sleep in their factory for a week, to see if his condition improves.
Since back pain is one of the most common ailments in the world, this will be a feature that will interest readers. If we get the man to write a diary of how he slept and how his back reacted, it should make good copy and is a genuine test of the bed (albeit a very small-scale test with no statistical significance).
But PR departments do not simply survive on putting out press releases. Sometimes a company – or a government – find themselves in trouble. The PR officers are there to try to limit the damage.
So, let’s stay with the example of our bed. We discover that the man with the bad back who is testing the new product is less than happy. The bed collapsed when one of its legs gave way in the middle of the night.
The PR department, desperate to avoid bad publicity, is keen to try to pass the blame to a rogue supplier who put together the frame. Your job as a journalist is not to be swayed by these claims, but to get to the truth of the story.
16 Diary Events
Every newspaper should have a diary, which contains details of planned future events. These may include visits from government ministers, press conferences, court trials, sporting events, business announcements, anniversaries etc.
Each time you receive an interesting press release with a future date, enter the details into the diary. Each time you have a tip-off that something is about to happen, enter it into the diary. If you go to a court hearing and a date is set for trial, enter that too. Each entry should include a date, time, place and contact name with telephone number.
Even though most diary entries relate to news stories, it is useful for a feature writer to be able to look through the list. On some occasions a job will lend itself to both news and feature treatment. This is particularly so in the case of high profile court cases. The proceedings will be covered by news reporters, but there may be an interesting background feature which can be prepared in advance of the end of the trial.
Give yourself enough time to match up with a diary event. If you are aiming a feature to coincide with the anniversary of the death of someone important, it will be no use producing it for the week after the commemoration.
Ideas
Ideas are not difficult to conceive if you open your mind to the possibility that they can come from all around you. Be alert and train your powers of observation. Start to question everything that you see. Ask yourself how, what, where, who, when and why? You will start to look at the world in a different light. But when you are thinking of ideas, don’t select only the ones that appeal to you. Writing features is not a self-indulgent pastime. Think of your readers. Are they likely to buy your newspaper to read the feature you are planning?
Newspapers Both your own, and other people’s newspapers are a constant source of features ideas. Read news stories to look for missed or new angles. Read advertisements and look through the What’s On diary of events.
Magazines, books and other publications Read through magazines to spot trends and features that might adapt for a newspaper readership. Books often produce good story angles, particularly if they focus on real-life events.
The Internet The World Wide Web is an invaluable sources of information. But not all of the information contained in it is reliable. When in doubt, cross-check with another source.
TV and Radio Both television and radio are popular worldwide since satellite technology made them more accessible. If your readers are watching TV, it is useful to know what they are likely to view. Features can include interview with personalities from TV or spin-offs from documentary and factual programmes
Contacts There is no better source of ideas that are likely to produce exclusive material than your own contacts. Every journalist should cultivate contacts from the moment they start in the job. Keep a book or a file with the personal details of everyone interesting you meet or interview.
Ideas File The world is full of people who had a brilliant idea in the middle of the night, but forgot to write it down. Organised journalists jot down ideas for features immediately. Even better, they create files, with cuttings from newspapers and magazines, printouts from the internet, emails and other relevant background information.
PR Departments These will try very hard to ‘sell’ you an idea for a feature. The more space they gain for their client, without having to pay advertising charges, the happier the client becomes. Although good PR departments do come up with well-targeted ideas, beware that you are not being duped into carrying advertising material. Remain objective.
Diary Events All newspapers keep a diary in which to record the dates, times and places of future events. These may include visits by government ministers, major criminal trials, protest meetings, sporting events etc. Writers will find it useful to browse through this list, making a note of events that might lend themselves to feature treatment.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
The investigative process
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias
Objectivity and Bias
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias
Objectivity and Bias
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Introduction to Journalism
Introduction to Journalism
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
News: Product
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
Information +Entertainment
Combining Factors:
MARKET
INVESTORS
ADVERTISERS
MARKET DRIVEN MEDIA: some key elements
PRIMARY PURPOSE OF NEWS IS TO EMPOWER PUBLIC BY MAXIMIZING ITS UNDERSTANDING OF CURRENT ISSUES AND EVENTS THAT SHAPE ITS ENVIRONMENT. ONCE NEWS IS TREATED AS COMMODITY LOSE ITS INFORMATIONAL VALUE
Profit
Competition
Winning Audience Game
Entertainment becomes dominant replacing informational value of news which in turn might encourage ignorance at the Cost of UNDERSTANDING
MARKET JOURNALISM GATHERS AN AUDIENCE NOT TO INFORM BUT TO SELL IT TO ADVERTISERS. FEW POWERFUL CORPORATIONS WIN AND PUBLIC LOSES
-BEN BAGDIKIAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTER POINT
MARKET CONTAINS ADEQUATE SAFEGUARDS AGANST ABUSE
-PHILIP MAYER, UNIV. OF NORHT, COROLINA
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias: Concepts of “misinformed consumer” and “informed citizen” (Consumer and citizen are one and the same but role differs)
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Objectivity and Bias
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Some Key Concepts
Journalism: Reporting on government, politics, policies, economics, and other news and issues.
Political Journalism: Reporting on the political process and other government and political entities.
Generate new ideas about scientific reasoning, democracy, and rule by consent of the governed and free criticism of government.
Journalism of Exposure: The process of uncovering information about practices those usually are illegal or unethical.
Objectivity: Looking at a story as though through a perfect lens uncolored by a reporter's thoughts about a subject; trying to view a story from a neutral perspective. Some critics believe pure objectivity is impossible and that fairness and balance are more important.
Narrative Tradition: Journalism as story. Many writers employ fictional techniques in writing nonfiction material.
Knowledge Gap and Media: Some studies show that those with information and access to technology are more likely to increase their knowledge more rapidly than those without access. Technological delivery of information, therefore, can increase the gap between those with information and those without.
Agenda-Setting Research: Media research that seeks to understand the relationship between readers' determination of important issues and politicians' and press's treatment of them. The research focuses not on how media cover an issue but on how they set an agenda through the choice of the issues they cover.
News Values: Newspaper editors and owners try to develop standards of value for determining which events and issues are newsworthy---that is, deserving of being given space in the paper.
The use of computer technology to gather and analyze information for news reports and articles includes the use of the Internet, spreadsheets, and databases. (To be covered in the next session)
Public Journalism: By creating a public conversation through journalism, modern news media hope to inspire “consumers” of news to become more involved in their own communities. The media encourage citizens, officials, reporters, and editors to identify and respond to the issues that confront their neighborhoods and their cities.
Media Convergence Case Studies
The idea of convergence means the combining of communication technologies to deliver a message. Media convergence is a phenomenon as revolutionary to communication as the invention of movable type or electronic communication. Such a monumental revolution has caused media owners, analysts and regulators to re-think the entire structure of information delivery to mass audiences.
The computer has made this convergence technologically possible. Large computers are used to gather, digitize, store, package and transmit information. Smaller, yet still powerful personal computers are used as receivers to bring words, sounds and sights to the audience.
Many scholars and analysts argue that someday people won’t need separate media to receive information. The messages delivered to previous generations through newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, and film will come to future generations through a single delivery system – and it will be digital.
True to their instincts as players in a free market economy, the owners of traditional media saw the future early and in the last two decades have positioned themselves to take advantage of the coming revolution.
In the marketplace of ideas, the marketers of those ideas, and the methods of delivering them, are converging, too. This creates a second definition of the new generation’s term "media convergence."
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
News: Product
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
Information +Entertainment
Combining Factors:
MARKET
INVESTORS
ADVERTISERS
MARKET DRIVEN MEDIA: some key elements
PRIMARY PURPOSE OF NEWS IS TO EMPOWER PUBLIC BY MAXIMIZING ITS UNDERSTANDING OF CURRENT ISSUES AND EVENTS THAT SHAPE ITS ENVIRONMENT. ONCE NEWS IS TREATED AS COMMODITY LOSE ITS INFORMATIONAL VALUE
Profit
Competition
Winning Audience Game
Entertainment becomes dominant replacing informational value of news which in turn might encourage ignorance at the Cost of UNDERSTANDING
MARKET JOURNALISM GATHERS AN AUDIENCE NOT TO INFORM BUT TO SELL IT TO ADVERTISERS. FEW POWERFUL CORPORATIONS WIN AND PUBLIC LOSES
-BEN BAGDIKIAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTER POINT
MARKET CONTAINS ADEQUATE SAFEGUARDS AGANST ABUSE
-PHILIP MAYER, UNIV. OF NORHT, COROLINA
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias: Concepts of “misinformed consumer” and “informed citizen” (Consumer and citizen are one and the same but role differs)
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Objectivity and Bias
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Some Key Concepts
Journalism: Reporting on government, politics, policies, economics, and other news and issues.
Political Journalism: Reporting on the political process and other government and political entities.
Generate new ideas about scientific reasoning, democracy, and rule by consent of the governed and free criticism of government.
Journalism of Exposure: The process of uncovering information about practices those usually are illegal or unethical.
Objectivity: Looking at a story as though through a perfect lens uncolored by a reporter's thoughts about a subject; trying to view a story from a neutral perspective. Some critics believe pure objectivity is impossible and that fairness and balance are more important.
Narrative Tradition: Journalism as story. Many writers employ fictional techniques in writing nonfiction material.
Knowledge Gap and Media: Some studies show that those with information and access to technology are more likely to increase their knowledge more rapidly than those without access. Technological delivery of information, therefore, can increase the gap between those with information and those without.
Agenda-Setting Research: Media research that seeks to understand the relationship between readers' determination of important issues and politicians' and press's treatment of them. The research focuses not on how media cover an issue but on how they set an agenda through the choice of the issues they cover.
News Values: Newspaper editors and owners try to develop standards of value for determining which events and issues are newsworthy---that is, deserving of being given space in the paper.
The use of computer technology to gather and analyze information for news reports and articles includes the use of the Internet, spreadsheets, and databases. (To be covered in the next session)
Public Journalism: By creating a public conversation through journalism, modern news media hope to inspire “consumers” of news to become more involved in their own communities. The media encourage citizens, officials, reporters, and editors to identify and respond to the issues that confront their neighborhoods and their cities.
Media Convergence Case Studies
The idea of convergence means the combining of communication technologies to deliver a message. Media convergence is a phenomenon as revolutionary to communication as the invention of movable type or electronic communication. Such a monumental revolution has caused media owners, analysts and regulators to re-think the entire structure of information delivery to mass audiences.
The computer has made this convergence technologically possible. Large computers are used to gather, digitize, store, package and transmit information. Smaller, yet still powerful personal computers are used as receivers to bring words, sounds and sights to the audience.
Many scholars and analysts argue that someday people won’t need separate media to receive information. The messages delivered to previous generations through newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, and film will come to future generations through a single delivery system – and it will be digital.
True to their instincts as players in a free market economy, the owners of traditional media saw the future early and in the last two decades have positioned themselves to take advantage of the coming revolution.
In the marketplace of ideas, the marketers of those ideas, and the methods of delivering them, are converging, too. This creates a second definition of the new generation’s term "media convergence."
News Sources
News Sources
Examples of sources include:
1. official records
2. publications or broadcasts
3. officials in government or business, organizations or corporations
4. witnesses of crime, accidents or other events
5 people involved with or affected by a news event or issue
Reporters are expected to develop and cultivate sources. This applies especially if they regularly cover a specific topic, known as a "beat".
However, beat reporters must be cautious of becoming too close to their sources. Reporters often, but not always, give greater leeway to sources with little experience.
As a rule of thumb, but especially when reporting on controversy, reporters are expected to use multiple sources. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as a "news source".
Examples of sources include:
1. official records
2. publications or broadcasts
3. officials in government or business, organizations or corporations
4. witnesses of crime, accidents or other events
5 people involved with or affected by a news event or issue
Reporters are expected to develop and cultivate sources. This applies especially if they regularly cover a specific topic, known as a "beat".
However, beat reporters must be cautious of becoming too close to their sources. Reporters often, but not always, give greater leeway to sources with little experience.
As a rule of thumb, but especially when reporting on controversy, reporters are expected to use multiple sources. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as a "news source".
Thursday, 1 May 2008
News: Definitin and Concepts
Concepts of News/Journalism
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
News: Product
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
Information +Entertainment
Combining Factors:
MARKET
INVESTORS
ADVERTISERS
MARKET DRIVEN MEDIA: some key elements
PRIMARY PURPOSE OF NEWS IS TO EMPOWER PUBLIC BY MAXIMIZING ITS UNDERSTANDING OF CURRENT ISSUES AND EVENTS THAT SHAPE ITS ENVIRONMENT. ONCE NEWS IS TREATED AS COMMODITY LOSE ITS INFORMATIONAL VALUE
Profit
Competition
Winning Audience Game
Entertainment becomes dominant replacing informational value of news which in turn might encourage ignorance at the Cost of UNDERSTANDING
MARKET JOURNALISM GATHERS AN AUDIENCE NOT TO INFORM BUT TO SELL IT TO ADVERTISERS. FEW POWERFUL CORPORATIONS WIN AND PUBLIC LOSES
-BEN BAGDIKIAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTER POINT
MARKET CONTAINS ADEQUATE SAFEGUARDS AGANST ABUSE
-PHILIP MAYER, UNIV. OF NORHT, COROLINA
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias: Concepts of “misinformed consumer” and “informed citizen” (Consumer and citizen are one and the same but role differs)
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Objectivity and Bias
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
A presentation by Prof. Subhash Dhuliya
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Some Key Concepts
Journalism: Reporting on government, politics, policies, economics, and other news and issues.
Political Journalism: Reporting on the political process and other government and political entities.
Generate new ideas about scientific reasoning, democracy, and rule by consent of the governed and free criticism of government.
Journalism of Exposure: The process of uncovering information about practices those usually are illegal or unethical.
Objectivity: Looking at a story as though through a perfect lens uncolored by a reporter's thoughts about a subject; trying to view a story from a neutral perspective. Some critics believe pure objectivity is impossible and that fairness and balance are more important.
Narrative Tradition: Journalism as story. Many writers employ fictional techniques in writing nonfiction material.
Knowledge Gap and Media: Some studies show that those with information and access to technology are more likely to increase their knowledge more rapidly than those without access. Technological delivery of information, therefore, can increase the gap between those with information and those without.
Agenda-Setting Research: Media research that seeks to understand the relationship between readers' determination of important issues and politicians' and press's treatment of them. The research focuses not on how media cover an issue but on how they set an agenda through the choice of the issues they cover.
News Values: Newspaper editors and owners try to develop standards of value for determining which events and issues are newsworthy---that is, deserving of being given space in the paper.
The use of computer technology to gather and analyze information for news reports and articles includes the use of the Internet, spreadsheets, and databases. (To be covered in the next session)
Public Journalism: By creating a public conversation through journalism, modern news media hope to inspire “consumers” of news to become more involved in their own communities. The media encourage citizens, officials, reporters, and editors to identify and respond to the issues that confront their neighborhoods and their cities.
Media Convergence Case Studies
The idea of convergence means the combining of communication technologies to deliver a message. Media convergence is a phenomenon as revolutionary to communication as the invention of movable type or electronic communication. Such a monumental revolution has caused media owners, analysts and regulators to re-think the entire structure of information delivery to mass audiences.
The computer has made this convergence technologically possible. Large computers are used to gather, digitize, store, package and transmit information. Smaller, yet still powerful personal computers are used as receivers to bring words, sounds and sights to the audience.
Many scholars and analysts argue that someday people won’t need separate media to receive information. The messages delivered to previous generations through newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, and film will come to future generations through a single delivery system – and it will be digital.
True to their instincts as players in a free market economy, the owners of traditional media saw the future early and in the last two decades have positioned themselves to take advantage of the coming revolution.
In the marketplace of ideas, the marketers of those ideas, and the methods of delivering them, are converging, too. This creates a second definition of the new generation’s term "media convergence."
DEFNITION OF NEWS
News is a report of any current event, idea or problem which interest large number of people BUT it acquires different meanings and concepts in different political, economic and socio-cultural environment.
ELEMENTS OF NEWS
A News report must answer following questions:
WHO
WHAT Generally
WHEN Factual
WHERE
WHY Element of Interpretation
HOW is introduced
CREDIBILITY
Principles to be observed while reporting an event or editing news report
Accuracy
Fairness
Balance
Attribution
Objectivity
NEWSWORTHINESS
How to decide newsworthiness of an event, idea or problem (Evaluating information or any information package)
Audience
Impact
Proximity
Timeliness
Prominence (Size)
Context
Policy Parameters
Specific Informational Value
Unusualness
STRUCTURE OF A NEWS STORY
INTRO
EXPLANATORY DETAILS
DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ETC.
(In order of descending importance)
Various Types of Journalistic Writings
FACTS
ANALYSIS
VIEWS
News item
News Report
News Analysis
Interpretative Reporting
Feature/Featured Reporting
Interview
Commentary
Article
Editorial
Profile, Review, Review Article etc.
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
Functions of Media
Information
Education
Entertainment
Agenda Setting
Three streams of new media
News- “Page One” journalism
Entertainment – “Page Three” journalism
Education- “Page Seven journalism”
Emergence of infotainment
Commercialization of Media
News: Product
Media as a Profit making business venture
Reader/ Viewer/Listener as Consumer
Information +Entertainment
Combining Factors:
MARKET
INVESTORS
ADVERTISERS
MARKET DRIVEN MEDIA: some key elements
PRIMARY PURPOSE OF NEWS IS TO EMPOWER PUBLIC BY MAXIMIZING ITS UNDERSTANDING OF CURRENT ISSUES AND EVENTS THAT SHAPE ITS ENVIRONMENT. ONCE NEWS IS TREATED AS COMMODITY LOSE ITS INFORMATIONAL VALUE
Profit
Competition
Winning Audience Game
Entertainment becomes dominant replacing informational value of news which in turn might encourage ignorance at the Cost of UNDERSTANDING
MARKET JOURNALISM GATHERS AN AUDIENCE NOT TO INFORM BUT TO SELL IT TO ADVERTISERS. FEW POWERFUL CORPORATIONS WIN AND PUBLIC LOSES
-BEN BAGDIKIAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTER POINT
MARKET CONTAINS ADEQUATE SAFEGUARDS AGANST ABUSE
-PHILIP MAYER, UNIV. OF NORHT, COROLINA
For citizens and information consumers, it is important to develop the skill of detecting bias: Concepts of “misinformed consumer” and “informed citizen” (Consumer and citizen are one and the same but role differs)
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Two Major Streams in Journalism
Episodic Journalism
Thematic Journalism
Reporting Event: What was happening
Reporting the process that goes into happening of the event
Explain why it was happening
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
The investigative process
Tip –Tipsters
Formation of story idea
Formulation of the problem
Preliminary research feasibility study
Plan of action-Synopsis
Minimum and maximum story
BASE BUILDING: THE SPIRAL OF RESEARCH
Written sources
Experts- the sources of knowledge
Sources of experiences
Reportage- Field trips- Observations
Key interviews
Assessment and analysis
• Conclusions
• Outline of story
• Writing and revising
• Hand in before deadline
Objectivity and Bias
Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message
Human communication always takes place in a context
Through a medium, and among individuals and groups
Who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially
Journalist attempts to be objective by two methods:
Fairness to those concerned with the news
A professional process of information gathering that seeks fairness, completeness, and accuracy
Critical questions for detecting bias
The media applies a narrative structure to ambiguous events in order to create a coherent and causal sense of events
What is the author's / speaker's socio-political position?
Does the speaker have anything to gain personally from delivering the message?
Who is paying for the message? What is the bias of the medium? Who stands to gain?
What sources does the speaker use, and how credible are they? Does the speaker cite statistics? If so, how and who data gathered the data? Are the data being presented fully?
How does the speaker present arguments? Is the message one-sided, or does it include alternative points of view?
If the message includes alternative points of view, how are those views characterized? Does the speaker use positive words and images to describe his/her point of view and negative words and images to describe other points of view?
Kinds of Biases
Commercial bias
Visual bias
Bad news bias
Narrative bias
Status Quo bias
Fairness bias
Glory bias
A presentation by Prof. Subhash Dhuliya
Dominant Models in Today’s Journalism
The Watchdog
CNN Effect
News Management
Thought control
Manufacturing Consent
Mutual Exploitation
Role of News Media
How things work
How things are supposed to work
How things normally work
Some Key Concepts
Journalism: Reporting on government, politics, policies, economics, and other news and issues.
Political Journalism: Reporting on the political process and other government and political entities.
Generate new ideas about scientific reasoning, democracy, and rule by consent of the governed and free criticism of government.
Journalism of Exposure: The process of uncovering information about practices those usually are illegal or unethical.
Objectivity: Looking at a story as though through a perfect lens uncolored by a reporter's thoughts about a subject; trying to view a story from a neutral perspective. Some critics believe pure objectivity is impossible and that fairness and balance are more important.
Narrative Tradition: Journalism as story. Many writers employ fictional techniques in writing nonfiction material.
Knowledge Gap and Media: Some studies show that those with information and access to technology are more likely to increase their knowledge more rapidly than those without access. Technological delivery of information, therefore, can increase the gap between those with information and those without.
Agenda-Setting Research: Media research that seeks to understand the relationship between readers' determination of important issues and politicians' and press's treatment of them. The research focuses not on how media cover an issue but on how they set an agenda through the choice of the issues they cover.
News Values: Newspaper editors and owners try to develop standards of value for determining which events and issues are newsworthy---that is, deserving of being given space in the paper.
The use of computer technology to gather and analyze information for news reports and articles includes the use of the Internet, spreadsheets, and databases. (To be covered in the next session)
Public Journalism: By creating a public conversation through journalism, modern news media hope to inspire “consumers” of news to become more involved in their own communities. The media encourage citizens, officials, reporters, and editors to identify and respond to the issues that confront their neighborhoods and their cities.
Media Convergence Case Studies
The idea of convergence means the combining of communication technologies to deliver a message. Media convergence is a phenomenon as revolutionary to communication as the invention of movable type or electronic communication. Such a monumental revolution has caused media owners, analysts and regulators to re-think the entire structure of information delivery to mass audiences.
The computer has made this convergence technologically possible. Large computers are used to gather, digitize, store, package and transmit information. Smaller, yet still powerful personal computers are used as receivers to bring words, sounds and sights to the audience.
Many scholars and analysts argue that someday people won’t need separate media to receive information. The messages delivered to previous generations through newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, and film will come to future generations through a single delivery system – and it will be digital.
True to their instincts as players in a free market economy, the owners of traditional media saw the future early and in the last two decades have positioned themselves to take advantage of the coming revolution.
In the marketplace of ideas, the marketers of those ideas, and the methods of delivering them, are converging, too. This creates a second definition of the new generation’s term "media convergence."
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