Picking up where we left off in Part I of this post, exploring Sean Paul’s long (and successful!) history working with other artists across genre lines is a great way to understand the differences between a research question and a research hypothesis. Seriously, it is!
Read MoreNBD, but I think that I might have given one of the best lectures of my post-secondary teaching career last week in my Introduction to Research Methods course. And, not surprisingly, it involved Sean Paul.
This is Part I of II, and an example of how incorporating popular culture into classrooms makes complex topics easier to understand and discuss.
Read MoreAs per usual, the semester literally flew by and a lot happened over the past few months - from teaching to conferences, papers to publications, and other projects - and I think it’s important to take some time to reflect on the goals that I set for the past few months and what I accomplished.
A good place to start this reflection off is by taking a look back at my involvement with the Communication Graduate Students’ Association (CGSA). I have served on the CGSA for the past three years of my academic studies, first as Executive VP (2018-2019), then Co-President (2019-2020), and finally President (2020-2021). Having fondly remembered CGSA events during my Master’s degree and inspired by my extracurricular involvement at Queen’s University - and the community that existed among its faculty and students - I was excited to work towards creating a similar environment at the Department of Communication.
Read MoreContemporary propagandists often referred to as doctors of spin, are highly criticized for misleading their audiences in order to achieve a specific and desired outcome on behalf of their client. Propagandists and the very notion of propaganda were not always viewed in such a contemptuous manner. In fact, propaganda – which dates back to 1622 when the Roman Catholic Church was attempting to broaden the reach of its religious doctrine – became associated with deception and immorality following the First World War. It is therefore not surprising that much of the contemporary literature on propaganda examines the concept in the context of military operations and training exercises or describes propaganda techniques using traditional war terminology.
The objective of this paper is to dissect the concept of propaganda – examining the mediums used for communication, its functions, and its constitutive features – in order to situate the concept of propaganda as a form of mass communication and therefore differentiate it from other forms of mass communication.
Read MoreOn September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania. The World Trade Center towers, affectionately known as the Twin Towers, collapsed mere hours after impact. Two years after this tragic event occurred, CNN’s Phil Hirschkorn (2003) noted that the revised death toll of September 11 totalled 2,752 individuals, not including the 10 hijackers who crashed the airplanes.
The purpose of this essay is to determine how television might negatively affect democracy, politics, and government policy in the United States of America following the terror attacks of 9/11. In order to do so, this study begins by briefly examining the development of television technology and the origins of political broadcasting in the United States. This is followed by a discussion of theories on the negative effects of television news media on interpersonal trust, political trust, and policy support. After examining the effects of varying media forms, this essay shifts its focus to a post-9/11 evaluation of news media in the United States in order to examine the degree of influence that the media may have had on government policies, political attitudes, and public opinion. The essay concludes by discussing potential future impacts of information communication technologies on democracy, politics, and government.
Read MoreFurther to my previous blog post about digging through some of my old term papers from law school and my master’s degree, I’ve not only revised and updated one of my papers (and submitted it to a journal!) but I’ve also published the original draft on my website. The original version of the paper is titled “Inside and Outside of the House: The Relationship Between Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Speech and Parliamentary Privilege” - and you can find a sneak peek here!
INTRODUCTION:
Freedom of expression is a necessary condition for democracy. It ensures that issues of common concern are freely and openly debated and allows for the criticism of government actions. In this sense, its purpose is to “[promote] the free flow of ideas essential to political democracy and the functioning of democratic institutions”. Despite this important function, freedom of expression is not absolute. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [hereafter the Charter] permits limits on freedom of expression if they are reasonable and justifiable in a free and democratic society.
While it is possible to debate whether any limits to such a fundamental freedom are justifiable, and indeed the courts have done so many times, it is nevertheless commonly accepted that this is the case. Interestingly, freedom of expression is limited not only within society as a whole, but also within its governing democratic institutions. At first glance, such limitations appear counterintuitive. How can elected representatives properly deliberate and create laws if they do not have the ability to speak freely while doing so?
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