A Note from the Guest Editor for This Issue

Greetings:

This Spring 2006 issue of Global Media Journal presents leading papers from the Global Fusion 2005 conference and papers submitted separately for inclusion in this edition.  The Global Fusion conference took place in September 2005 in Athens, Ohio, on the campus of Ohio University.  Papers for the conference were blind-refereed and selected by members of the conference organizing committee. These papers were produced by researchers from across the globe, and represent a varied cross-section of current scholarship on international communication. 

The papers in this set, as usual, represent diverse theoretical and methodological approaches but collectively they result from uniformly committed efforts.  At least one was the product of three years of intensive fieldwork.  Another presented findings of fieldwork in the one of the world’s most difficult environments.  The authors all deserve special acknowledgement for their courage and hard work.

The winning paper in the conference’s faculty competition was produced by Tee Tuan Foo of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.  Titled Malaysian Drama TV:  Producer, Network Executives and the Commissioning Process, this paper concerns the complex negotiation between producers representing independent private production companies and the Malaysian state broadcasting organization Radio Television Malaysia.  This paper tells of the story of how accommodation is reached between the creative goals of producers and the political concerns of managers in the government networks.

Two additional peer-reviewed papers are included from the Global Fusion Conference. Thomas B. Christie, Andrew M. Clark, and Lara Zwarun, of the University of Texas at Arlington present their work, Finding a Credible Message to Win the Hearts and Minds of the Muslim World.  Their project studied the effectiveness of public relations messages about US “shared values” between Muslims and non-Muslims.  The paper reports on several types of communication, including ones used in Iraq, examining particularly the effect family heritage has on perceptions of those messages. Looking also at the Middle East and North African region, the paper authored by Laura Lengel, Catherine Cassara, Fatma Azouza, and Hamida El Bour presents an encouraging view of international collaboration in media education and training. In their work Building a Shared vision:  Developing and Sustaining Media Education Partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa, the authors report on the positive results achieved in partnerships that cross cultural, religious, and geographic divisions.

Three invited papers maintain a theme of studies on differing aspects of conflicts around the globe. Gaby Fröhlich continues her four-part paper Emotional Intelligence in Peace Journalism with Section Two: The Evolution of Peace Journalism.  The first part appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Global Media Journal.  This portion of the work describes historical antecedents of the Peace Journalism movement and the professional responses to this approach.  Peace Journalism is a method and philosphy of reporting on conflict in ways that produce positive outcomes, rather than contributing further to cycles of conflict.  New York University’s Maria Helena Barrera-Agarwal also studied conflicts in Iraq. Her paper on Media Coverage of Private Military Contractors Recruitment Activities in Latin America examined the presentation of stories about contractors being hired for Iraqi service in leading Latin American newspapers. Her work reveals how national and supranational concerns resonate in those newspaper accounts.  Finally, Arjun Banjade’s examination of rural development journalism efforts in conflict-ridden Nepal is presented in Gaunle Deurali: Barefoot Community Journalism in Western Nepal.  This paper found that the small newspaper in his case study stressed reporting on non-formal development stories, rather than formal infrastructural reporting so common in major newspapers of urban areas, and this permitted it to serve as a true community voice. 

We hope that your own research plans will be inspired by the reports presented here and that we will find you in our company at the Global Fusion 2006 conference.  I look forward to meeting you then.

Sincerely,

Drew McDaniel, Ohio University
Guest Editor

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