In The News

The Medium Shapes the Message

Seth Fein May 7, 2004
The fact that US President George W. Bush addressed audiences on Arab television this week made clear to all that Washington sees a need to communicate better with people in the Middle East about its policies and programs. Nonetheless, says Yale historian Seth Fein, past US efforts to promote American foreign policy goals through the media have met only with skepticism and distrust. A news...

New Prison Images Emerge

New Prison Images Emerge May 6, 2004
The shocking images that have emerged from Iraqi prisons, showing American and British soldiers abusing and humiliating prisoners, have created a "combustible international scandal". The photos, taken with the digital cameras that soldiers brought with them to communicate with families back home, mimic tourist snapshots – except in their horrific content. Without this sort of...

Build an Encyclopedia: Everybody is Invited

Andrew Lih May 5, 2004
Many predicted that the rise of the Internet in the 1990s would herald an information technology 'revolution' that would change almost every aspect of human life. While the reality for many has proven less exciting than the hype, there is one small corner of cyberspace that is living up to the internet's potential as a free, democratic space for the exchange of ideas and...

Iraq Prisoner Abuse Draws Global Media Outrage

May 5, 2004
Revelations of Iraqi prisoner abuse and torture at the hands of Americans have shocked the world. A survey of 128 editorials in 44 countries compiled by the US Department of State's Office of Research finds great revulsion and contempt for the American actions. Some papers demand the US be charged with war crimes, while others see the torture as a "major defeat" for the US and...

US Cannot Tune Out Its Iraq Crisis

Ghida Fakhry May 2, 2004
As the violence in Iraq continues, the Bush administration is faced with a more difficult challenge, says news anchor Ghida Fakhry of Al-Hayat/LBC television network. In addition to the war on the ground, America must also fight its negative media image in the Arab world, which grows by the day thanks to broadcasts by independent Arabic news channels. Stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya...

Is a Do-Gooder Company a Good Thing?

Amy Harmon May 2, 2004
Is Google, the ubiquitous search-engine website, a completely neutral resource for users worldwide? The corporate motto of the company is “don’t do evil,” but as reporter Amy Harmon of the New York Times writes, Google is so influential that questions of morality are difficult to address. Rankings in search results, for example, can make or break small businesses selling through the internet....

The Hollowing-Out of Hollywood

Christina Klein April 30, 2004
The blockbuster "Kill Bill" films exemplify the increasingly global nature of Hollywood, and not solely because of director Quentin Tarantino's heavy incorporation of foreign stylistic elements, writes media scholar Christina Klein. Like a growing number of Hollywood productions, both "Kill Bill Volume 1" and "Volume 2" relied heavily on offshore labor. While...