Updates 2025

Leaning on a class to make sense

3rd September 2016 in Global Development, Global journalism, Media and terrorism, Media Watch, Notes from the classroom

Every fall semester I teach one of my classes in English, with about 20-30 foreign students visiting our university for a semester. We had our first meeting yesterday. And as always I wonder before class starts whether there is enough in the chosen lecture theme to get them out there on the floor, debating. They need to. A class with 55-60 students total and where no one talks for an entire semester is a failure. Have I hit the right buttons in my preparations? I was thinking that question to

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The future and the future of journalism

7th August 2016 in Global Development, Global journalism, Innovation, Internet, Journalism, Journalism's digital future, Media Watch

Understanding the globalization of journalism entails reflection on a wide range of factors – not just factors shaping journalism as such, like the coming of social media and the so-called “sharing economy”, with Google stealing alle the advertising with a smarter scheme. Discussions are found everywhere concerning these aspects of the future of journalism and how journalism is being affected by new technologies – disrupting established practices and financial models. Now, what about climate change as a phenomenon, escalating cultural and civilizational conflicts, the interlocking of the world into one

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Terrorism, attention and the media

6th August 2016 in Current issues, Global Development, Global journalism, Journalism, Media and terrorism, Media Watch

What determines news coverage and how does it apply to terrorism? The idea that terrorism is PR and journalism has a dramaturgical quality is an idea with a long history, but also a history made extraordinarily relevant with the attacks in the US on September 11th 2001, resulting in the epic, metaphorical – and also – fall of the Twin Towers on Manhattan, New York. Dramaturgy implies drama, but also staging. This having been said, we are reminded every day that the relationship between the media and terrorist organizations is

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Globalization – a challenge for journalism

2nd August 2016 in Global Development, Global journalism, Journalism, Journalism's digital future, Media Freedom, Media Watch, New media

  What is the idea of global journalism and the critical discussion all about? Why spend time researching and critiquing something that seems both inevitable and general, vast complex and subject to a myriad of interpretations? Journalism has been going global for centuries – it has been in the DNA since invention: Yet, it seems like the invention of the internet and the world wide web om key respects completely changes the point with the discussion concerning global journalism. Below are some reflections and resources for studying and reflecting on the

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On the life and death of innovation

2nd August 2016 in Economic growth, Global Development, Innovation

Listen to Robert Gordon talk about the future of growth and innovation – or the lack of it. This TedTalk, from February 2013, presents an argument that the US economy has been expanding wildly for two centuries, but is now slowing to a halt, if not a stop. Are we witnessing the end of growth? Economist Robert Gordon presents and explains factors like epidemic debt and growing inequality, which could move the US into a period of stasis we can’t innovate our way out of. The talk begins with a

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Artificial Intelligence; a journalism issue

13th May 2016 in Current issues, Global Development, Global journalism, Journalism's digital future, Media Freedom, Media Watch, New media

  •• MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. “In its quest to maintain a United States military advantage, the Pentagon is aggressively turning to Silicon Valley’s hottest technology — artificial intelligence.” This is how an article in the New York Times begins, on May 13th 2016. And there is a lesson here, for those of us with an interest in global journalism. But first – the story continues: “On Wednesday, Secretary of Defence Ashton B. Carter made his fourth trip to the tech industry’s heartland since being named to his post last year. Before that, it

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What is global journalism?

10th May 2016 in Global Development, Global journalism, Journalism's digital future

A few years back, there was much talk about global journalism. Academic programs came to life, and they looked like one another: There were references to a new globalist mentality. There were references to the rise of new social media. There were, in short, a signal of some sort of change to come. And in that reflection, founding both academic papers and more professional accounts, was the idea that the concept of “global journalism” deserved attention as a particular kind of approach to doing journalism and learning about journalism. Me,

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Education´s digital future?

28th April 2016 in Current issues, Education & Technology, Internet

As we are nearing the World Learning Summit June 14th – 16th; a few thoughts on how technology impacts on education and learning. We are all familiar with the debate on Massive Open Online Courses, and the history of MOOCs ascending, subsequent worries, commercialisation issues and more. We are familiar with the accelerating research and exploration on “flipped classroom”, and much more. But it still seems as if the way educational institutions and education research approaches the spectre of new learning forms, lacks a certain scope: What C.Wright Mills once

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Donald Trump and the media

27th March 2016 in Current issues, Media Watch, Opinions

Are the media to blame for Trump´s success? Few have any doubt that Donald Trump is good at playing the media. With his extreme points of view, his sense of timing, shooting from the hip and sense of what triggers gut reaction, he hits one home run after the other. If media exposure were the main criterion for explaining Trump, it would be easy: No one else even comes close. But looking more closely, we also find that a lot of the media attention is either negative or extremely negative. So,

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