Media

Fredric Nachbaur on University Press Week

As I was preparing to write my post for University Press Week post-Hurricane Sandy, I reflected on how university presses have bonded together in the past during times of tragedy to help us all understand what is happening at and in the moment and how we can try to move forward. The Association for American University Presses (AAUP) created “Books for Understanding” soon after 9/11 to bring the latest and most valuable scholarship to readers in an easy-to-find and easy-to-use place. The AAUP instantly became a resource for people who wanted to know more and to find it from reliable sources — university presses, the pillars of knowledge.

Journalistic narratives of Gerald Ford

By James L. Baughman
It has been more than 25 years since Gerald Ford narrowly lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter. Ford’s presidency has become a dim memory. “The more I think about the Ford administration,” John Updike wrote in 1992, “the more it seems I remember nothing.” Taking office after Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974, Ford struggled to restore the public’s faith in the presidency, badly shaken by the numerous illegalities associated with the Nixon White House.

Nucleic Acids Research and Open Access

By Richard Roberts
In 2004, when the internet was pervading every aspect of science, the Executive Editors of Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) made the momentous decision to convert the journal from a traditional subscription based journal to one in which the content was freely available to everyone, with the costs of publication paid by the authors. There was great trepidation, by the editors and Oxford University Press, that authors would refuse to do this and instead would choose to publish elsewhere.

The articulate assault

By H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman
We’re at the Tacoma Theatre in Washington, DC. Packed house, predominantly Black crowd. Chris Rock struts across the stage: “You know how I could tell he can’t be President? Whenever he on the news, White people always give him the same compliments, always the same compliments. ‘He speaks so well.’ … Like that’s a compliment… What the fuck did you expect him to sound like?!”

The seven myths of mass murder

By J. Reid Meloy

For the past 15 years my colleagues and I have researched mass murder; the intentional killing of three or more individuals, during one event. Recent cases of mass murder have pointed to misconceptions about this rare and frightening act, and I would like to shed some light on some common myths.

Why are reference works still important?

Looking at the growing use of our online products, we know that many still choose to reach beyond first impressions on the web to delve further in a reference work from Oxford. Why is it still so important to do so?

Occupied by Images

By Carol Quirke
Media buzz about Occupy Wall Street’s first anniversary began by summer’s end. That colorful, disbursed social movement brought economic injustice to the center of public debate, raising questions about free-market assumptions undergirding Wall Street bravado and politicians’ pious incantations. Most watched from the sidelines, but polling had many cheering as citizens marched and camped against the corrosive consequences of an economically stacked deck.

How do you remember 9/11?

By Patricia Aufderheide
Documentary film both creates and depends on memory, and our memories are often composed of other people’s. How do we remember public events? How do you remember 9/11? On this anniversary of 9/11, along with your own memories, you can delve into a treasure trove of international television covering the event.

An Anatomy of #Eastwooding

By David Karpf

Clint Eastwood took the stage at the Republican convention last week and gave a… well, let’s call it a memorable performance. I’m not sure if there’s ever been such a bizarre prime time address given at a national convention. The celebrated actor/director spent eleven minutes in a mumbling debate with an empty chair representing President Obama. Political conventions are highly scripted events. Eastwood’s extended, failed ad lib was anything but scripted.

Avast, ye file sharers! Is Internet piracy dead?

The Internet has two faces. For every exercised freedom of speech and shared idea, there’s an act of fraud, counterfeiting, and copyright infringement. How is the law – in particular the English legal system – attempting to stem the tide of the last problem – online infringement – and take pirates down?

Networked politics in 2008 and 2012

By Daniel Kreiss
A recent Pew study on the presidential candidates’ use of social media described Barack Obama as having a “substantial lead” over Mitt Romney. The metrics for the study were the amounts of content these candidates post, the number of platforms the campaigns are active on, and the differential responses of the public.

So what is ‘phone hacking’?

By Professor Ian Walden
Over the past two years there has been much furore over journalists accessing the voicemail of celebrities and other newsworthy people, particularly the scandal involving Milly Dowler. As a result of the subsequent police investigation, ‘Operation Weeting’, some 24 people have since been arrested and the first charges were brought by the Crown Prosecution Service in July 2012 against eight people, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. The leading charge was one of conspiracy “to intercept communications in the course of their transmission, without lawful authority”. But what does ‘phone hacking’ mean and have the CPS got it right?

In this ‘information age’, is privacy dead?

By Raymond Wacks
Are public figures entitled to privacy? Or do they forfeit their right? Is privacy possible online? Does the law adequately protect private lives? Should the media be more strictly controlled? What of your sensitive medical or financial data? Are they safe and secure? Has the Internet changed everything?

How not to infringe Olympic intellectual property rights

By Rachel Montagnon
Since 2005, when London won the Host City contract for this year’s Olympics, there has been an intensity of interest in how the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) would go about the protection of the Olympic image and in the detail of the UK Government’s legislative attempts to exclude those who would attempt to take advantage of that image, without paying for the privilege.

The detrimental environmental impact of the media

By Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller
We’ve seen Earth Day pictures of our planet that highlight its symmetry, its chaos, and its beauty. We’ve learnt about the pollution and environmental decay that threaten us all. Media coverage of the environment over the last five decades has shown how natural beauty and human and animal health have been affected by mining and manufacturing, and the increasing danger of climate change. In this context, the media have generally been regarded as sources of information.

Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies

Developed cooperatively with scholars and librarians worldwide, Oxford Bibliographies offers students and researchers authoritative guides to the key literature in a wide variety of fields. Watch as Editor in Chief of Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies, Krin Gabbard, a professor at Stony Brook University, discusses his role in the project and how Oxford Bibliographies is revolutionizing the way students do research online.