Workshops

You are also expected to attend 10 workshops during which you will take part in class assignments and discussions.

To see which workshop you’re in, click here

Workshop Times:

1) Tue: 10.40-11.30

2) Tue 11.40 – 12.30

3) Tue 2 – 2.50

4) Wed 10.40 – 11.30

5) Wed 11.40 – 12.30

Workshop 1 (Tue 13th Feb, Wed 14th Feb)

Introduction

Discussion: What is Journalism? What information do we need to be “free and self-governing”?

Workshop 2 (27,28 Feb):

Part I: The “journalistic truth”

Is there an absolute truth?

For example, with the UK-Iran stand-off, what would be the truth? Say if some believe they were in Iranian waters, whilst others believe they were in Iraqi waters, does it mean there are two “truths”?

Part II, group exercise:

News is not found or gathered, but selected and created.

Read these three press releases:

1. Jobs fair

2. Bus Uncle nomination

3. CU CE Poll results

Questions: which story, or stories, if any, would you include in your newspaper if you were the editor? Why?

How were these stores “created”?

What actually happened? Which stories were “selected”? And how were these presented, or “framed”?

Workshop 3 (6,7 March):

Answers to March 1 Quiz.

Exercise: North Korea announced its nuclear testing – could this be verified?
Reaction Story. How was this framed? Does the story represent the “truth”?

Midterm Assignment: CE Election Forum coverage.

Workshop 4 (13, 14 March):

What is Wikipedia? Where does the word come from? What is meant by “open content”?

The uses of the Discussion and History Pages;

What does NPOV stand for?

Collaborative effort towards an entry on the CE Election debates.

Workshop 5, March 27th, 28th:

Debate: Online Newspapers: to Charge of Not to Charge?

Questions to ask ourselves: what are the aims of newspapers? To maximize profit? Or to provide citizens with the truth? Are these mutually exclusive?

What are the sources of income for newspapers?

For example, see Next Media’s Annual Report.

For audited circulation numbers, see HKABC

Workshop 6, Apr 3rd, 4th.

1. Commercial vs. Public Broadcasting:

What are the key differences between commercial and public broadcasting? (E.g. in terms of funding, target audience). What are the main criticisms towards each one?

2. HK’s PSB review/ surrounding issues:
The Committee on Review of PSB submitted its report to the CE on March 28th – what are the key issues at stake here?

Workshop 7, Apr 10th, 11th.

Final projects:

The government says it will consult the public later this year (click here for the press release). What, as HKU students, would you have to say? What are the key issues involved? What do you expect in PSB in Hong Kong? What kind of programmes do you want?

First part:

To prepare 10-minute presentations based on objective(s) jointly set by your team, based on the PSB review and/ or what, as HKU students, you would expect from the new broadcaster.

Progress reports, due 9am, Monday 16th April, to include:
(1) A brief description of the assignment; (2) your objectives [it helps to set your objectives using verbs such as these] , (3) what you’ve done so far, and (4) what you plan to do.

Suggestions:

Imagine you are preparing to submit to the Government your views on PSB in Hong Kong – what do you need to do? What decisions do you need to make? Do you think there should be PSB in Hong Kong? Should there be a new public broadcaster, or to make use of RTHK?

If you believe that Hong Kong needs PSB, then as we’ve discussed, one major challenge is to retain and attract young viewers like yourselves. So what kind of programmes would you, as HKU students, want a public broadcaster to produce? Why?

  • Do you want to split up the reading/ research between the group members?
  • Share information.
  • Decide on which area(s) to focus on, the objective(s) of your presentation.
  • Prepare presentation.

Workshop 8, Apr 17th, 18th.

Continuation of final projects.

Individual group comments on progress reports.

Points to consider in the presentations:

  • Content (points made, sources of reference, materials used. Any analysis? Supported?);
  • Structure (e.g. Intro, body, conclusion);
  • Achievement of objective(s);
  • Time management (10mins) : don’t try and do TOO much. Better to make fewer solid points, then to cramp the ppt. What you don’t include you can use later;
  • Others

Workshop 9, Apr 24th, 25th.

Presentations.

Listen and fill in this form to learn from each other’s work. Whilst I fill in this one.

Workshop 10, May 8th, 9th.

Ethics exercise