Department of Communication

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/17

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Walt Disney's true lo$v$e: tales of dizzying misogyny
(1999) Wurfel, Marlene
Marlene Wurfel used feminist textual analysis to deconstruct Disney princesses from Snow White to Pocahontas. Historical context for the fairy tale genre and the transition from an oral tradition to a film tradition was examined using critical discourse analysis. How a European folk tradition was reproduced and appropriated by Disney for American audiences in order to inculcate young minds with white, patriarchal class values was critically examined. The Disney formula for “true love” as synonymous with female self-abnegation, meekness, purity, and whiteness and resulting in an always financially rewarding marriage of a “natural” princess to a rich prince was exposed in Cinderella and The Little Mermaid. Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Lion King, and 20th Century Fox’s Anastasia are critically examined for evidence of how systemic class oppression and privilege are coded as being part of a natural law. The importance of fairytales to pre-modern, modern and post-modern children in communicating values, asserting sex roles, and rewarding certain behavioral patterns while punishing others was critically argued. The author asserted that fairytales, while often dismissed as unimportant or merely entertaining, are produced to educate, inform, and indoctrinate children with culturally specific belief systems.
El verdadero $amor$ de Walt Disney
(1999) Wurfel, Marlene; Sola, Alfred
Value pack
(2000) Wurfel, Marlene
In response to a call for poems by Blue Moon Press, Value Pack is about sensible underwear for the practical girl, as foundational garments that support good values and judgement.
Shade seeker
(2000) Wurfel, Marlene
Preserves
(2000) Wurfel, Marlene
Slice of life fiction for the Wascana Review's "Life Writing" volume. A prairie family experiences a marriage, a birth, and a death. What changes and what stays the same is narrated by a teenager in "Preserves."
House guest
(2003) Wurfel, Marlene
Sunday
(2005) Wurfel, Marlene
Woman born fully formed
(2005) Wurfel, Marlene
A woman is reborn after 528 years and finds a new life in Calgary, Alberta.
Canadian post-secondary players in India: obstacles, issues, opportunities
(2008) Scherf, K.; Macpherson, Iain
In November 2007, the Canadian Bureau of International Educationorganized, along with the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, a Forum on Canada-India Higher Education Linkages. At that Forum, it became evident that Canadian post-secondary institutions conducting academic business with and in India are facing a number of problems, both operational and policy-related. This paper seeks to identify those common problems, discuss remedies, and suggest the best ideas for moving forward with a view to improving the situation for Canadian institutions that wish to work in and with India. Findings, while drawing on secondarysource readings, are based especially upon 17 interviews, conducted during Spring 2008 with key figures in the field, from professors and postsecondary administrators to promotional agents and political officials. An interesting range of problems emerged, but most striking is the fragmented, scattershot approach to conducting academic business in India, both by the government and academic institutions. This lack of coordination is uncharacteristic of countries whose international education portfolios run sleekly and effectively. The federal government’s recent changes to visa policy related to international education is a very positive move, however. Our recommendations focus on continuing improvements to visa service and, especially, on addressing the lack of co-ordination in and between governments and post-secondary institutions.
Foreword
(2010) Macpherson, Iain; Nault, Derrick M.
Foreword written as the guest editor for an issue of the Asia Journal of Global Studies.
From dissemination to response: in search of new strategies for broadcast media in terms of cyclone warnings for Bangladesh
(2010) Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Ullah, Mohammad Sahid; Akhter, Rawshon
Media and communications technologies play a significant role in disaster management procedures in regards to the mobilization of resources in emergency situations. While the dissemination of warning messages relayed via broadcast technologies have had some positive outcomes in terms of reducing casualties in emergency situations in Bangladesh, there remain some specific problems in regards to the manner in which these messages are distributed within this developing nation. These problems are addressed within this paper. Examining the existing cyclonic warning dissemination system and the manner in which warning information is distributed and received, this study addresses citizen responses to mediated warning messages in the vulnerable coastal regions of Bangladesh. The results indicate that attitudes towards mediated warnings held by Bangladeshi citizens in these environs differ depending upon their access to media, type of dwelling and differing levels of literacy. This study also provides recommendations for media professionals and policymakers in regards to disseminating more effective warnings to the inhabitants of Bangladesh's cyclone-prone coastal belt.
The commercial misrepresentation of environmental issues: Comparing environmental media coverage in the first world and developing nations
(2011) Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Sreekumar, Rohini
Over the past three decades the steady encroachment of business interests into the international media environments and the increasing monopolization of media ownership resulted in the escalation of commercial imperatives in media production which directly paved to a shifting representation of environmental issues. This article offers a critical appraisal of the contemporary global commercial media and its coverage of environmental issues. Influenced by the market values and the ongoing monopolization of media ownership, business interests played a key role, and resulted in a drastic change in the representation of environmental issues by the global media. Concomitant with these developments is a shift in emphasis within news and current affairs media which become distorted by the twin pressures of commercialization and market competition, giving way to an emphasis on entertainment values at the expense of reasoned and informed coverage. However, some third world media practitioners offer environmental news coverage that is informed by sustainable forms of developmentalism, while recognizing environmental issues as being both local and global phenomena. Nowadays environmental movements are purposely confined by the media as geographical and cultural identity. It miserably fails to correlate, equate, and investigate it beyond the boundaries of a nation state or personalized perspectives. This research paper analyses the practice of environmental communication by media, where news is highly influenced, and sometimes biased by policy decision, economic and financial causes, making it limited to a particular geographical and cultural realm. This essay addresses environmental communication first as a global practice transformed by commercialism, before examining more salient and creditable forms of environmental journalism utilized in developing nations that are informed by the 'glocal' nature of these issues. This research paper is based on qualitative textual analysis, interpretation and literature review on news published by the main stream media.
Journey of a woman through home, hearth and heart: a reading of Jaishree Misra’s ancient promises
(2012) Jose, Soumya; Raj, Sony Jalarajan
This paper endeavours to render a feminist reading to Ancient Promises. The article analyses how Janaki, a woman moulded according to the dictates of Manusmrithi emerges as a new empowered woman who controls her destiny. Janu disrupts the mould in which she has been created by the patriarchal society. The novel ends optimistically and the author's note in fact reveals the ultimate gift that Janu receives at the end as an ancient promise fulfilled.
Covenant cog or functional fourth estate: a survey of Malaysian journalists’ attitudes towards their profession
(2012) Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Sreekumar, Rohini
In Malaysia, the idealistic notion of the news media as 'watchdog' is largely redundant due to the external and institutional realities associated with its functioning in a heavily regulated, monitored and controlled media system. There has been little analysis of Malaysian journalists' perceptions of their profession. Operating within an authoritarian mediascape, Malaysian journalists have to surrender their journalistic values and principles of practice thereby pervading a culture of self-censorship. This study draws from a survey of Malaysian journalists between January 2010 and January 2011 and reveals about a fourth estate struggling to assert itself within the complex and flawed processes of Malaysian democracy. The study addresses the professional aspirations, restrictions, attitudes, and motivations of Malaysian journalists and utilizes Bourdieu's theories of field and habitus to highlight the relative levels of independence, professionalism experienced by journalists within the structured social spaces of Malaysian newsrooms.
Music, song lyrics, philosophy and human values: exploring poet Kannadasan's contributions to the Tamil community worldwide
(2012) Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Muniapan, Balakrishnan
For thousands of years music and songs have played an important role in the Tamil community. Tamil song lyrics are mostly written for cinemas, and research reveals that Tamil cinemas in the twentieth century have formed a major part of mass communication and have also served as mass-entertainment to people mainly due to the stories and song lyrics. Among the great lyric writers of Tamil songs from 1944 to 1981 was the legendary Poet Kannadasan (1927 - 1981) who was also known as Kavi Arasu or king of poets. However Poet Kannadasan's contributions are yet to be highlighted sufficiently in media literatures. Therefore the objective of this paper is to explore Poet Kannadasan's contribution in teaching philosophy and human values through his songs which are relevant to the Tamil community even today. This paper is considered to be the first to explore Poet Kannadasan's philosophy and human values in an academic journal of the English language although several articles have been written in the Tamil language. In presenting this paper, hermeneutics (a qualitative research methodology) which includes content (song) analysis is used by the authors. The authors hope that this paper will provide the framework for studying Poet Kannadasan's song lyrics in many areas apart from philosophy and human values. This paper is expected to contribute and enrich the English language literatures on Poet Kannadasan's contributions in the Indian context.
A qualitative review of literature on peer review of teaching in higher education: An application of the SWOT framework
(2013) Thomas, Susan; Chie, Quiu Ting; Abraham, Mathew; Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Beh, Loo-See
The issues of professional accountability, faculty member development, and enhancing higher education quality in universities are gaining importance. A strategy that could increase personal control over teaching practices in addition to improving professional development among faculty members is peer review of teaching (PRT). Five themes that are important in determining the feasibility of PRT are (a) benefits of peer review in developing faculty members, (b) barriers to peer review of teaching, (c) gaps in literature, (d) potential problems to teaching practice, and (e) opportunities. Of the 65 studies identified, 34 were selected for further analysis, and drawing on PRT and the SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) framework, 27 studies were selected for content mapping. Textual narrative synthesis was used to further categorize the review findings into the four quadrants of the SWOT framework. This analysis highlights a positive strategy in promoting PRT in higher education.
Roots, tendrils, seeds and shoots: a case study of Parkallen’s community garden, a permaculture project
(2013) Wurfel, Marlene
The first growing season of Edmonton’s Parkallen Community Garden began in Spring 2012. We transformed an unused strip of lawn bordering our hockey rink into a loamy, thriving “edible food forest” of corn, beans, squash, kale, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, apple trees, and mammoth sunflowers. It is unlike most community gardens in that individual plots are not tended by individual gardeners; rather, the PCG is tended communally, by the community. The garden is open and accessible to the community, always, and all are welcome there, from the toddler whose only contribution is to chomp on a snowpea and water a dandelion, to the senior who wants to plant a tree in his community that he knows will outlive him. Hundreds of Parkallen residents have planted something, admired something, or munched on something there. In its first year Parkallen’s garden won The City of Edmonton’s top community gardening award from Communities in Bloom. This article is a case study of the Parkallen Community Garden. Through the lenses and observations of the author, it details how Parkallen’s permaculture design came, literally, to fruition and how permaculture has been interpreted and how it informs our garden and our gardening community.
The devil's cinema: the untold story behind Mark Twitchell's kill room
(2013) Lillebuen, Steve
On the night of October 10, 2008, Johnny Altinger was heading to his first date with a woman he had met online. He was never seen again. Two weeks earlier, aspiring filmmaker Mark Twitchell, a young father with a devotion to the television series Dexter, began a three-day shoot for his latest short film. His horror story featured a serial killer who impersonates women on an online dating site to lure unsuspecting men to his suburban kill room. But was his script actually the blueprint for a real-life murder? And what of Twitchell's other writings, including the elaborate and shocking document titled "S. K. Confessions"? Was it a work of fiction or a diary detailing his dark transformation into a would-be serial killer? A powerfully gripping narrative, The Devil's Cinema is the definitive account of the notorious "Dexter Killer," a case and trial that captured the world's attention. Steve Lillebuen takes us deep into the extraordinary police investigation and the lives of everyone involved, while unveiling never-before-revealed details, all drawn from extensive and exclusive interviews -- including months of contact with the killer himself.
Generational dissension in August Wilson’s Fences
(2014) Jose, Soumya; Raj, Sony Jalarajan
August Wilson, the celebrated author of the Pittsburgh Cycle, has always opposed the assimilation of African Americans into the mainstream American society. Wilson has used his plays as a medium to uphold the African American culture. This article explores his play, Fences, and it unwinds how he employs the father-son conflicts as a strategy to prevent the assimilation of a young black man into the mainstream American society. The play revolves around a father-son conflict which springs from the son’s desire to play football in whites’ team. David Marriot in the book, On Black Men posits on the problematic relationship between fathers and their sons: “[. . .] the mark that the black father leaves,” is “ a mark that is both ineffaceable and irremediable." Marriot observes further: “Typed, in the wider culture as the cause of, and cure for, black men’s ‘failure,’ his father’s apparently lost and untellable, life is the story that the son must find and narrate if he is to begin to understand how, and why, blackness has come to represent an inheritable fault."
‘Tweeting’ the news: Twitter journalism as a new age crowd news disseminator in India
(2014) Raj, Sony Jalarajan; Sreekumar, Rohini; Kalorth, Nithin
Not restraining itself as a social networking service, Twitter conquered the realm of ‘journalism’ with its tweet- news, brushing aside erstwhile news rulers. Within a short period since its inception in 2006, it created a tremendous hype proving it to be the best platform for citizen journalists. Its incomparable service during some breaking events like the Mumbai terrorist attack and Iran election is laudable which in fact helped in its popularity. But the biggest concern of this medium of short messaging service is its authenticity and fairness of reporting, which should be at the heart of a good Fourth Estate. The surveillance took upon by these social sites, the part and parcel of our routine, is creating a network of unauthenticated information. It is integrating with our daily activities the way cellphone and the Internet already have crept into. Hyper activism that these social sites show in disseminating news- from breaking events to celebrity gossips- creates indefinite threat to the fair flow of information. This paper tries to explore the ethical concern in twitter journalism when compared to traditional and other new media platforms. This article also tries to analyze the adaptability of the combination of Instant Messaging (IM) and mobile phone text messaging and try to explain the multi- faceted dimensions of risk as far as Internet Telephony in Twitter Journalism is concerned. The article mainly relies on text analysis and content analysis of scholarly articles.

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