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Teel, Wheeler Address Students on Media and Civil Society
MAY 10, 2000 The Adham Center hosted Dr. Leonard
Teel, Director of the Center for International Media Education (CIME) of Georgia
State University and Dr. Deborah Wheeler, Faculty Fellow, Center for Internet
Studies and Senior Lecturer, School of International Studies, University of Washington,
for a forum on media and civil society.
Dr. Wheeler gave a brief history of how the Internet was originally
developed as U.S. defense technology to maintain government communications in
case of nuclear war. The second role of the Internet was to serve as a means of
dialog and exchange of information between scientistsa role, she said, that would
eventually develop into what its commonly used for today: entertainment, commerce,
education, and communication.
Dr. Wheelers regional study was mainly on Kuwait and Egypt,
two countries that came online in 1990s. She drew comparisons between how the
Internet is used in the two countries, and profiled the typical Internet userin
both countries, a student or professional, well-off, educated, middle or upper-class,
under 30. She said in time this would change with more steps being taken by both
governments and private organizations to increase Internet usage among the poorer
classes.
She also discussed Internet 2, the next generation of communications,
which will be used mostly in the promotion and protection of academic knowledge
and information.
Dr. Teel discussed the role of the media in civil society based
on his case studies in Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and Jordan. NGOs, he said, operate
in the Middle East to help satisfy or meet the needs of the people. But these
organizations suffer not only government regulation but also problems with the
media. Many NGOs, he said, have negative attitudes towards media because of yellow
journalism or sensationalism, gossip, or distortion in coverage.
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Teel conceptualized three methods by which NGOs and the media
have learned to work together: concertive, collaborative, and conjunctive. In
the concertive method the media writer is a member of the NGO, thus helping to
ensure a favorable report. In the collaborative method the NGOs and the media
work together from the beginning of a campaign or issue. Finally, in the conjunctive
method an NGO and a news group join a campaign already underway to fight for a
certain cause or issue.
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