Sixth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

When we think about media ecology, a number of names arise. Walter Ong and Neil Postman are two of those. Their most popular works, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word and Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business have made immense contributions to the discipline of media ecology. This paper examines the similarities and differences between both media ecologists, mainly based on both books. It assesses their ideas on epistemology, psychodynamics, and theology and media communication. It also compares both authors to their contemporaries, Jacques Ellul and Marshall McLuhan. The paper evaluates how Ong and Postman, in particular, merged their faith with their scholarship. Both theorists privileged oral and written communication over visual or electronic means of communication, although their approaches to media ecology were different.

Room 1 : 2021-10-07 14:10

The Impact of Radio in Achieving Rural Development in Nigeria

Izuchukwu Raphael Onwusonye
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

This study examines the impact of radio in achieving rural development in Nigeria and Ikeduru local Government Area of Imo State was the focus. Finding out the factors that limit radio broadcasting aimed at improving the cultural, political and economic living standards of the rural people in Ikeduru is the course of study. Various literature relevant to this topic were reviewed, theories were also reviewed that shed more light on the research topic. The findings however, indicate that radio is the most referable, available, and accessible medium for development programmes for Ikeduru inhabitants and for rural communities. It was observed that radio is the only medium 95% of the people listen to; and the rural people who reside in the remote areas could be reached through radio as they use batteries to operate in the absence of electricity.

Room 4 : 2021-10-07 14:10

Health Communication and Data Journalism

Samuel Chukwuemeka Nwamini, Linus I. Ogbuoshi
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

The practice of health communication as a behavioural change mechanism aimed at convincing the general public and health policy maker to adopt new health behaviour and policy shift in support of better and improved health condition is still a challenge in most developing countries of the world. In Nigeria for instance, the prevalence rate of viral hepatitis is high and the rate at which it spreads is grossly under reported. Health statistics on the prevalence of Viral Hepatitis B in Nigeria shows that 75% of the population are at the risk of contracting HBV. Research report further shows that HBV prevalence among surgeons are 25.7%, voluntary blood donors, 23.4%, infants 16.3%, pregnant women 11%. Report from Kano State shows that out of 440 HIV positive patients; 12.3% of them were co-positive for HBV. It is also reported that HBV is the commonest cause of chronic liver disease in Nigeria. In the southern part of the country were this study will be conducted about 58.1% of the patients with chronic liver problems were found to be HBV positive. The study is anchored on Communication for Persuasion Theory and Communication for Behavioural Impact (COMBI) model to demonstrate how effective reportage of health related data in support of media campaign against hepatitis can help to curb the prevalence of hepatitis in the South East Nigeria. Qualitative method is adopted. Recommendations are made based on findings.

Room 2 : 2021-10-07 14:10

The Multimodal Annotation of Sex Scenes in Ghanaian Home Video Films

Daniel Edem Adzovie
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

There are mixed reactions and notions regarding the overt or covert discussion sexual intercourse, particularly, sexual intercourse portrayals in films/movies owing to the cultural underpinnings of most societies. Sex is a major issue in society because it is part of human existence. Films reflect society; hence how sexual intercourse is portrayed in films must be analysed. Aggregating both qualitative and quantitative methodological standpoints, this study describes an approach to the multimodal annotation and analysis of the portrayal of sexual intercourse in popular Ghanaian home video films through the use of ELAN annotation tool. The aim of this study is to present a conceptualised annotation scheme for the multimodal analysis of how sexual intercourse is depicted in Ghanaian home video films against the Ghanaian cultural tenets regarding sex. Various modes and aspects are considered so as to make apparent, how meaning is constructing regarding the conveying of sexual intercourse in scenes of Ghanaian home video films. The proposed annotation scheme deconstructs the sex scenes in order to make meaning. This would further the efforts of multimodality in audio-visual artefacts.

Room 4 : 2021-10-07 11:35

A Linguistic Study of Headlines in Media Discourse

Khushboo Sahrawat
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

In the on-going pandemic, the migrant workers in India were stranded in different parts of the country when the states went under lockdown. This crisis is heavily reported by the news media houses even today. However, the month of May 2020 was the last month of the lockdown in India, where news outlets reported heavily on the politics of migrant workers who were struck or attempted to reach their hometowns on foot. For this purpose, this paper offers a comparative study of the headlines of two English medium digital newspapers of India, The Quint and Scroll. This paper, firstly, has a textual analysis of headlines, and secondly, identifies the registers through which the language links up to particular imagined audiences and social types. Through conducting a textual analysis and examining registers in selected headlines in the corpus, the paper determines the created reputations of migrant workers and propagates "public words" through the medium of newspapers. For this linguistic analysis, this study takes the headlines that have bigram "migrant workers" in its headlines to narrow down their meaning and identify a migrant worker's position in the pandemic crisis. Based on the analysis of the data, the paper concludes that The Quint's headlines are in contrast to Scroll with the classification of the words and expressions used in their headlines. There are certain differences in the linguistic linkages and textual strategies used by these two digital journalism platforms.

Room 3 : 2021-10-07 11:35

Legitimising a Global Fight for a Shared Future

Yating Yu
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

“A community with a shared future for humankind” has become a dominant concept in China’s foreign policy in the last decade. Although this concept has been investigated by several studies in different domains, little attention has been given to its discursive legitimation in China’s media communication from a linguistic perspective. To fill this gap, the present study employs critical metaphor analysis to investigate how the aforementioned concept is legitimised via the predominant discourses associated with COVID-19 in 111 news articles collected from China Daily, a state-owned Chinese English-language newspaper. The findings show that COVID-19 is represented as a common enemy of humankind, other nations of the world are constructed as China’s allies, and the World Health Organisation is depicted as the leader of the global fight against the pandemic. These representations are constructed by the interplay of “war” metaphors and other linguistic processes, and hold ideological implications for collectivism and humanitarianism. The findings shed light on the use of language by China Daily in promoting official ideologies, projecting China’s national image, and improving China’s international relations amid a global health crisis.

Room 2 : 2021-10-07 11:35

The Use of Mass Media by Think Tanks in China

Dechun Zhang
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

With the rapid growth of China as a regional and global power, think tanks in China have received increasing attention, mostly due to the achievements of academic and processing policies. Recently, collaborations between the media and think tanks have become increasingly tight. Thus, in order to determine how the think tanks in China utilize media, this study used the case of the Charhar Institute (one of the most significant independent international relations think tanks in China) to explain this situation. This study finds that Chinese think tanks regard the media as the main conduit to disseminate their ideas. While Chinese think tanks utilize the social media as an alternative way to get publicity to attract officials since they are hard to contact officials. This study suggests that think tanks as in China regard media as a public sphere to express their interest, while still follow the traditional media logic which helps to further disseminate the government’s interests when utilize the media.

Room 1 : 2021-10-07 11:35

Mediation of Techno-capital: Space of Contestation

Abu Haque
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Technological mediation of capital produces spatial practices that are the new terrain of contestation. The infiltration of neoliberal ideology into these spaces for control over bodies sets the resistance in motion. Techno-capital produces new opportunities but is also the agent of power and control against which Franklin argues to enforce limits in the practice of justice, as the exclusionary practice of technology creates a different division of labor through control and compliance. The new technology-based business models like UberEats do not render personal growth for the marginal bodies but ensure capital accumulation. This is within the realm of new media of visual screens, converging media, internet, GPS, mobile app-based business techniques, etc. These techno-capitals are changing our relations to production and social communication, where the delegation of duties is transformed first into an app, then to an intermediary, and subsequently to a motor vehicle, to roads and highways, to the communications network and thus binding people to non-humans. Unlike in a fiction where we can be here and elsewhere, be ourselves and someone else, in a delegation, a long lost action of an actor remains active today: “I live in the midst of technical delegates; I am folded into nonhumans” (Latour 189). Hence, the shifting of delegation through the app moves further away from the body, from the real to the online, toward a vanishing existence. Even though, it remains active as a traceable subject within the app like a moving dot—within the realm of the visual.

Room 1 : 2021-10-07 11:15

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