You can search through publicly available data/statistics on Google!! This is useful because the U.S. government collects A LOT of data in order to enact legislation..
For this project you will need to use a variety of resources.
Describe your assigned country—its location, people, type of government, economy, and education system. Here you are looking for the historical background of your assigned country. You can look at the resources on the History subject guide as well as some of our reference resources. I would also suggest looking at the government web sites of your country as well. Here is one directory. Does the government in your country run or regulate the media industry?
Describe the media system of your assigned country: structure of its media--commercial and or non-commercial etc.; type of media--radio, television, film, Internet, newspapers, magazines. Here you are searching for information on media in your assigned country. Try searching communication databases using a combination of terms such as: [name of your country] and structure and media; or types and media or radio, television, etc. Your professor has given you quite a few search terms to try.
State whether your assigned country has a constitutional provision for freedom of expression and freedom of the media; are the media expected to support government policies and actions or criticize government policies and actions or a combination of both? This topic covers both communication and political science. Use the search terms suggested by your professor to search the Communication databases, as well as the Political Science databases. (ETA: This may also include legal information. We have limited resources in regards to legal information. You will probably have to make use of Interlibrary Loan to borrow materials from other libraries on this topic)
Describe any measures (successful or not) by government or civil society organs in your assigned country in the last decade to (a) improve the ability of citizens to engage the media, and (b) limit media freedom. This topic covers both communication and political science. Use the search terms suggested by your professor to search the Communication databases, as well as the Political Science databases.
Using systems approach, state how the media have positively or negatively impacted the culture, people, politics and economy of your assigned country in the last five years. Can you clearly define what a 'systems approach' is and how it related to this topic? If not, try looking up the term in a reference resource. Once you have, try searching various databases, focusing your search on scholarly articles or media coverage from the last five years.
A: Public domain = Not protected by copyright law. Basically, if it is a U.S. government document published at any time, or if it is a text was published in the U.S. before 1923, it is in the Public Domain. Here is a chart that explains it.
This video has a really good explanation of why ONLY searching Google or Google Scholar is not the best idea when you are looking for scholarly articles.
Short reason: Copyright issues
Slightly longer explanation: You will miss out on a lot of stuff that is either: not indexed by Google because the publisher said NO!, OR it is indexed by Google but the publisher wants $$ to let you read it.
Longer explanation: Watch the video below.
If you just want to jump to the explanation of what exactly is a scholarly article (also called peer-reviewed or refereed) watch 0:23-1:00 of the video below.
After watching this video you might say: Wait! This video seems to be implying that the current way of publishing scholarly articles is not the best! Everything should be publicly indexed and available and I should be able to use Google Scholar or some other index to find and read articles! And I would agree with you, that is what it is arguing, but we are so far from that, so for now, use the library databases.
Sometimes you are just not sure how a journal is classified,andyou want to double check what kind of journal it is (popular, trade, scholarly, etc) .
Here are some ways to tell if an article is popular or scholarly from UTAustin.
You can also use the Ulrichswebdatabase to find that information. Search for the journal by title and the results will tell you how that journal is classified (is it peer reviewed or not)
Oh, Archive.org, you are totally non non non heinous. (Note: Use Urban Dictionary at your own peril. It is a really good resource for current slang, but some things, once learned, CAN NEVER BE UNLEARNED. You have been warned.)
Okay, on to the Moving Images Archive -- the amount of content here is pretty incredible from a research perspective -- or even possibly, maybe, the perspective of entertainment. I must admit I cannot really take a look at an ephemeral film and not MST3K* it in my head.
Remember, copyright law is still in effect for most newer releases, but if a film is in the public domain, or it was created by the U.S. government, or if it was released under a Creative Commons license it can be in this archive. (Click here for the FAQ)
Here are just some of the collections (descriptions taken from the site):
Film Noir: "Expressionistic crime dramas of the 40s and 50s: tough cops and private eyes, femme fatales, mean city streets and deserted backroads, bags of loot and dirty double-crossers."
Animation & Cartoons: Contains "classic cartoons from a bygone era, Brick Films made with your favorite building toys, Machinima patched together from video games, or the artful computer animations selected for the 2001 SIGGRAPH competition"
Cultural & Academic Films: "This library of academic and cultural films features collections from the Academic Film Archive and the Media Burn Independent Film Archive, as well as a selection of documentaries created by Dorothy Fadiman." ...and more! News & Public Affairs: "An analysis of news and public affairs independent from traditional corporate media is available from this diverse video library. From Democracy Now's daily news program, to three days of TV news coverage following the 911 attacks, to Mosaic’s timely clips of Middle East newscasts, to UCSF's Tobacco Industry Videos"
* Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) was a GENIUS SHOW. We don't have any DVDs of episodes at the library, but we do have an academic text on it! (at least, one of the chapters is on it)
This is one of my favorite MST3K clips that dealt with a ephemeral film. If car commercials were still like this, I might be more interested in cars.
In this case, I think the weird combination of frivolous and important is what makes social media like Twitter amazingly useful in spreading information...or as Ethan Zuckerman puts it
Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.
Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.
........
With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. as a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on – the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.
If you would like to integrate a library presence into your department or class web page, I would be happy to provide you with the code for a LibGuides widget. This code will enable you to embed LibGuides content into any web page in the same way you would embed a YouTube video or a chat widget.
I can make adjustments based on:
What color widget box you prefer (blue, gray, orange, etc.)
What size widget box you prefer (small:190 x 270 px, large:400 x 370 px or wide: 500 x 200 px) The example on this page is small: 190 x 270 px
What libguides you want included. Right now it specifically lists the Communication LibGuide, as well as the FAQ and Technology workshops LibGuides, but I can link to all the library LibGuides if you like.
Please click here to see an example of what this would look like on a web page.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to discuss this with you. I also check comments on the blog, so you can also leave a comment here and I will respond.
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