ஜர்னல் ஆஃப் மாஸ் கம்யூனிகேஷன் & ஜர்னலிசம்

This is an evaluation of ECOWAS members’ websites based on a modified version of the guidelines recommended by Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in 2009. The appraisal under several headings, are suggested to help parliaments plan and oversee their websites in a modern age where the internet provide a continuously significant platform for interacting and communicating with the general public. The study finds out that while most Member States websites score well on general information about their parliaments, they lacked progress in making their websites a one-stop point for political information about their countries, and a fulcrum for interaction between legislators and citizens and a real time deliberation on burning national and regional issues despite the current availability of suitable interactive tools on the internet.

Only when one has a correct understanding of them, can one conduct Internet news editing in accordance with its regulations and make a great impact of Internet news report to make good use of its characteristics. This paper discusses the essence and characteristics of Internet news editing

A/H1N1 emerged in Mexico in the spring of 2009, rapidly and globally spread, and was classed as a pandemic on June 11, 2009. In Japan, national newspapers are trusted by the public and have large subscription rates and play a major role in crisis communication. During crisis, it is for readers to receive information on not only factual data like prevalence or death but also the preventive measures which each individual can take. This research aims to explore what topics and how much the Japanese national newspapers covered the global pandemic and whether they provided the preventive measures for individuals. We analyzed Japanese newspaper coverage of the A/H1N1 pandemic using content analysis of 2,237 articles published in three national newspapers between March 2009 and May 2010. The articles peaked in May 2009 when the first possible case was found in Japan. In this period, most articles cited health authorities as the information source. The number of articles did not correspond to prevalence or number of deaths. Content analysis found that the national newspapers reported more factual information, while information about preventive measures was less frequently reported despite its importance for the public.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the USA jolted the world. Groups like Al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emerged as strong organizations with supporters from various countries of the world. America in an attempt to crackdown on Al-Qaeda leaders began a war in Afghanistan and later also carried out attacks in various other Middle Eastern states. Whether or not the US achieved its war goals, the Taliban on the other hand did succeed in winning the support of a big number of people, especially by capitalizing on media’s sensational reporting. The Taliban used media as one of the crucial tools and through it propagated their agenda. The strategy they adopted was to carry out terrorist attack and then accept the responsibility on media by releasing stance of their leaders to extend the scope of their terror by reaching out maximum people. Pakistan assumed the role of a front-line state in the war on terrorism but witnessed huge losses in terms of human causalities, infrastructure damage and economic recession from 2007 to 2014. However, there was one industry that saw boom in the country, the media. The war on terrorism and media’s mushroom growth took place side by side and apparently it seemed that media deliberately served the TTP by glorifying their activities, screening interviews of their leaders and creating sensationalism on terrorists’ incidents. By giving undue coverage to the TTP in the name of “freedom of expression”, the electronic media like in a thug of war for rating violated journalism ethics. This study posits that electronic media promoted pack journalism in Pakistan and every channel presented incidents of terrorism as breaking news for financial profit. They made it difficult for the government and security forces of a nuclear state to curb the menace of terrorism in the presence of an outspoken media industry

This study examines the coverage of Muslim news and issues in Tamil dailies and hence the representation of Islam & Muslims with special reference to Tirunelveli district. The Muslim people are considered and treated as a minority community in our nation, India. The media play a large part in the formation of positive and negative images and self-images of minorities. In Tamil Nadu portrayal of Islam and Muslim by Tamil media since the post Coimbatore bomb blast, created some negative impact among people about Islam and Muslims, and Muslims are being looked as suspicious people and portrayed as terrorists. This research is being carried out to scientifically explore the frequency of occurrences of Muslim news and issues in Tamil dailies and what images of Muslims are portrayed in the news. To meet the objectives, this study tests by using content analysis of four Tamil dailies Dinakaran, Dinamalar, Dinamani and Dina Thanthi. And these were selected in view of their popularity and circulation. The reference period of the study was taken from 1st April 2009 to 30th April 2009 to keep the findings free from any impact of news. Newspaper content analysis results based on a 12-day sample would be quite similar to those available from a sample of more than 12 days [1]. Keeping this in view, 12 issues of each newspaper drawn from the universe of 120 copies published during the reference period (a total of 48 newspapers) were selected randomly to make a representative sample. Ten variables were developed to test the hypothesis. Code sheets have been made to get the results in statistical form. Number of articles, Geographic Header, Page placement, visibility on the page, photographs and its size, column spread and number of words used for the article, and finally attitudes created towards Muslims i.e., positive, negative, mixed and neutral were the slants through which the contents analyzed. The word slant refers to the stance taken in the news articles. These slants show, whether the Tamil dailies portray Muslims as favorable, unfavorable and neutral. The overall results of these slants showed that out of 143 articles in all the four major newspapers, 47% of articles were given with negative attitude towards Muslims. Only 15% of articles were presented with positive attitude, 14% with mixed attitude and 24% of articles were given with neutral attitude towards Muslims [2].

The exponential advance of social media has touched all areas of society, not least the professional and personal lives of health care professionals. The issue to be considered is not whether or not social media are being used, but how they are used. The line between proper and improper use, and even abuse, of social media is a fine one. Thus, the key issue is to be aware of the tool that is being used and this should be supported with suitable training for health care professionals and, at an even earlier stage, for students at health care training institutions during their studies. To describe the use of social media by teachers and students on training courses through an integrative review of the literature. An integrative review of the literature was conducted in October 2014. The literature search was conducted by consulting the main biomedical databases: PubMed, CINAHL and Embase. The literature search brought up 854 citations. 804 abstracts were excluded as they were not relevant. Of the remaining 50, 31 were excluded for not meeting the general criteria and, hence, only 19 articles were included: 6 evidencebased documents and 13 non-evidence-based documents. Two aspects emerged from the works selected: the use and potential of social media in nursing education and the ethical and professional implications of their use. The analysis of the literature reveals two areas for further investigation: evaluating the level of moral awareness in nursing education with regards to the use of Web 2.0 communication tools and implementing teaching methods to promote the construction and development of moral reasoning in professionals.

Whiles some use the internet basically for commerce, other use for educational purposes whiles to others, it is all about entertainment. The internet can therefore be likened to a blank check, which serves different purposes as and how a person wants to define it. The user variety of the internet notwithstanding, recent studies have actually confirmed that an aspect of internet usage that seem to have caught up with over 70% of all internet users is the phenomenon of social media networking. The research paper was conducted with the aim of finding the privacy risks associated with the use of social networking sites and for the practice of social media networking. To realize this aim, five major objectives were set, based on which research questions were developed. The research questions became a guide for the researcher to collect primary and secondary data, with particular emphasis on primary data collection, where a questionnaire was prepared for 50 respondents selected from a university campus. All 50 respondents were users of social networking sites and had strong academic background in journalism and communication, putting them in a position to providing well informed answers to the questions on the respondent. The primary data collection emphasized largely on the attitude of the respondents towards privacy issues whiles using social networking sites. The primary data collection exercise was also committed to knowing the depth of knowledge on privacy issues with social media networks. Through secondary data collection also, the researcher had the opportunity of knowing what the hosts of social networking sites are doing to protect the privacy of users.

Whiles some use the internet basically for commerce, other use for educational purposes whiles to others, it is all about entertainment. The internet can therefore be likened to a blank check, which serves different purposes as and how a person wants to define it. The user variety of the internet notwithstanding, recent studies have actually confirmed that an aspect of internet usage that seem to have caught up with over 70% of all internet users is the phenomenon of social media networking. The research paper was conducted with the aim of finding the privacy risks associated with the use of social networking sites and for the practice of social media networking. To realize this aim, five major objectives were set, based on which research questions were developed. The research questions became a guide for the researcher to collect primary and secondary data, with particular emphasis on primary data collection, where a questionnaire was prepared for 50 respondents selected from a university campus. All 50 respondents were users of social networking sites and had strong academic background in journalism and communication, putting them in a position to providing well informed answers to the questions on the respondent. The primary data collection emphasized largely on the attitude of the respondents towards privacy issues whiles using social networking sites. The primary data collection exercise was also committed to knowing the depth of knowledge on privacy issues with social media networks. Through secondary data collection also, the researcher had the opportunity of knowing what the hosts of social networking sites are doing to protect the privacy of users.