How to research GLOBAL MEDIA: A Systems Analysis of the Media of Selected Countries.

For this project you will need to use a variety of resources.

1. 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?
   
2. 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.
   
   Remember, for articles you search our databases; for books search our catalog.
   
3. 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)
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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.
   

Online, FULL text, FREE books! Through Google Books, Project Gutenberg, or Hathitrust

If you are looking for literary works or primary resources that are in the public domain, you can probably find the full text online at Google Books Advanced Book Search , Project Gutenberg

or Hathitrust

Q: What is Public Domain?

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.



Link to video

video & outreach & librarians

Eric and I were talking about our library and wrote a blog entry on how we think our library is doing in terms of outreach. When you type it all out, we are not doing too badly!

The importance of videos in library outreach and instruction is something that seems to be getting more and more important, with the rise of YouTube as the second most popular search engine as well the likely increase in distance education.

Anecdotal support for the importance of video in libraries (which is point number 4 here):

• I have been recognized by students who have seen one of our library videos of their own free will! (Not even in a classroom setting.) They came across our videos when they happened to be doing a YouTube search on 'UT Arlington' or 'UT Arlington libraries.'
  
  
• This mention of our videos in this post on teaching through video at In the Library With a Lead Pipe.
  
  

  The University of Texas at Arlington has started a series of “Librarian vs. Stereotype” videos that are engaging and informative while still getting their message across.

What is a Catalog? What is a Database? What kind of resources will you find in each?

This diagram explains what you will find in our catalog! Clink on image to embiggen.

This diagram explains what you will find in our databases! Click on image to embiggen.


Here is a clickable link to our complete list of databases.

I used bubbl.us to make these digrams, and I really found it useful. Also, Embiggen is totally a word