Category: Human interest related

Radio Documentary on the truth about Academic stress students face

In this programme, I will go on a journey to explore the stress and difficulties international students go through in adapting to the education system they are faced with. The education system is changing fast from being fun for students to becoming frustrating, stressful and tedious to most students. Being a student, I have discovered so far that it comes with a lot of emotional and physical stress. These stress if not properly handled can sometimes lead to depression and in extreme cases suicide. In Nigeria, recent studies have shown that most suicide by students majorly come from academic frustration.

This documentary will be an original approach to an old idea. It would focus on how international students adapt to the new education system which includes. Academic frustration among students is currently on the increase. Many students struggle to cope with the academic demands placed on them. In this programme, I will meet with students to hear about how they cope with the academic stress they go through also, academic counselors to hear what advice they have for students who are academically frustrated.

This story will be told by a student in Griffith college who have suffered academic frustration, stress, depression and how she was able to handle and move pass it. Students from other colleges such as; DBS, NCI and UCD will also be interviewed to make the documentary more informative.

This will be a mixed documentary with narration and interview. This will be a combination of both formal and informal documentary to make it light-hearted and fun filled. The English vocabulary will be non-formal to make it appeal to a wider range of people and more entertaining to listen.

First, I will meet with the student from Griffith college who will tell her story on academic frustration, then I will have a Vox pop session with students from other colleges and finally with an academic counselor who will share advice on how students can deal with academic frustration.

According to Rodero “Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind and you’re creating your own production” using audio to tell the story, Radio stings, eloquent characters, sound effects, music, sound shots and jingles will be used to evoke emotions, increase the level of mental imagery, establish a setting and develop characters which will cause listeners to pay more attention and advance the story’s plot. I will make use of appropriate low-key instrumental music, to build a connection with the listeners.

I have been in touch with the students that will tell their stories on how they handle academic frustration. I have also booked an appointment with an academic consultant who will give his advice on academic frustration students face and how they can handle it.

Radio Documentary on the truth about Academic stress students face

The different approaches to press regulation in the USA, Britain and Ireland

This essay details the different approaches to press regulation between USA, Britain, and Ireland along the lines of the different period in which press regulation took place, regulation bodies, principles, and control-ability.

Freedom of Speech, as a starting point of press regulation, will therefore always be one of the main topics regarding press regulation. Currently, Ireland is on place 15 (from total 180) of the World Press Freedom Index of 2019, the United Kingdom is on place 33 and the United States are on place 48 (RSF, 2019a). The ranking shows how the countries deal with those seven indicators: Pluralism (degree of opinion representation), media independence, environment and self-censorship (operation environment of the media), legislative framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information.

REGULATORY INSTITUTIONS

Britain has long established its press councils whereas the press council for Ireland is comparatively new. The USA is yet to set up a press council. There aren’t any active press councils in united states. Countries might not have press councils thanks to the politics, economics, legalization or within the culture of the country. Within the USA it’s mainly owing to the prevailing law system that they have, that handles a lot around media/press regulation. Some countries have ombudsmen, that are (mostly senior journalist/media) people that handle complains and recommends remedies. Since 1967 ombudsmen exist within the United States yet, when is compared to e.g. Japan (1922) is relatively late (ONO, 2018).

MEDIA PHILOSOPHIES

The main differences in the written principles are (1) where they are embedded, (2) range of validity, (3) number of principles, (4) content of the principles. In the USA they are embedded in the law system, unlike the principles in Britain and Ireland (UNESCO, 2014; Lewis, 2017). In the USA the principles have an absolutism status (Lewis, 2017), in Britain exist exceptions if the principles will be in huge confrontation with the public interest (the public interest outrank the principles). There is scarce information with respect to this for the Irish Principles. The number and the content of the principles differ extremely between the USA and Britain/Ireland. Britain is more precise in their principles (more separations between the principles) in comparison to Ireland. An example is that Britain has a special antidiscrimination principle:

  “The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or to any physical or mental illness or disability. Details of an individual’s race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless these are genuinely relevant to the story.” (IPSO, 2018)

As distinguished from USA and Britain, Ireland has one extra principle regarding the press regulation of the regulatory authority and complain body of the country. Another interesting point is that because the freedom of speech is embedded in the law in the USA, they can’t forbid also negative outcomes of freedom of speech, like hate speech (Lewis, 2017). With a closer look to online media/social press regulation in those three countries, we can see a hugely different approach between USA and EU (Britain, Ireland). The USA decided to not regulate or tax it (Lewis, 2017), but it exists a copyright clause: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, since 1998 (UNESCO, 2014). This Act supported the fundamentally no-restriction attitude because it enables the USA to restrain publications. Lewis (2017) opinion is that the pressure mainly comes from the Silicon Valley and all the big firms there: “Silicon Valley executives hate regulation and will move to block it”. As a result, the frustration level in the EU is high, which wants to regulate them. Their latest statement was: “regulate yourselves (and not just a charade), or we will regulate you” (Lewis, 2017). In Europe, the E-Commerce Directive handle internet intermediaries so far (UNESCO, 2014).

MEDIA CONTROL

The market is through ownership concentration controlled in all three countries. Differences occur in the different ways of content control. The US, Britain, and Ireland have a high to very high concentration of media plurality and ownership even though all of them have some restrictions on this issue. It is an ongoing concern.

Britain and Ireland are one of the main regulated countries of western Europe. In general counts everything above 30% of the market share that is owned by one person as excessive. In Europe, the main national and regional newspapers are typically divided between less than a half dozen owners. In the United States, there are more groups, but a small number have a very dominant position in the large city and regional press. McQuail (2010). In the USA Bertelsmann counts as the most suspicious case regarding ownership concentration. He owns over 30 radio stations, 280 publishing outlets, and 15 record companies (University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2010). In Britain 60-70% of the market is controlled by three companies, mainly newspaper publisher (RSF, 2019b), one of the famous person is Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Sun, News of the World, Daily Mirror (Brady, 2018), Times, Sunday Times, Sky Television, BSkyB and eventually more. In Ireland most is owned by Independent News and Media (INM) and RTE (Freedom House, 2016).

As an example, the FCC of the USA have the restriction that one person can (only) own one of the top-four local television stations but many undermine this restriction through Merger and Acquisitions or Joint Ventures (Freedom House, 2017a). In Britain exist the regulation that broadcaster can (only) own a limited amount of newspaper interest. This doesn’t include interest in satellite broadcasters (McQuail, 2010). In Ireland, one of the restrictions is that it is not allowed to own one of the fourth biggest radio and TV firms if you already own one of the biggest newspapers (Smyth, 2018). Media control is in each of the European countries/ states different. Each state of the EU has different rules under the umbrella of the EU rules. In the EU you don’t sell your product once, you sell it per country, e.g. once for Germany and once for Ireland (Smyth, 2018). In the USA in all the states the same, you sell your product (e.g. a movie) license only once to the country.

The Diary of a Scolombo Child

Photo credit: Pexels.com

The term “scolombo” is one I got to know about during my service days in Cross River state Nigeria. It is a word used to describe young kids from about 1-27 years of age. These children roam around the street of Calabar both at night and during the day committing grievous criminal offenses down to killing unsuspecting victims. Yes you read right a child as young as 1 kills his fellow human being just to survive this difficult world!

Many might wonder why are these children subjected to such life? Where are their parents that’s if they have any? What happened to their loved ones? Relatives? Friends? Why is the government silent about all of these?

Well here is a little story for you.

I was a young Corp member in Calabar and under the CDS group Media and communication, we decided to have an outreach with these children in order to get a better understanding of their predicaments and some of us had the opportunity to speak to some of these kids. The story of Christian(not real name) struck me hard.

Christian is a young boy of about 16years of age, he lived with his mother, father and two siblings, attended a very good school in Uyo another city not so far away from Calabar although in a different state, he received all the love a parent could shower on a child until tragedy struck in. Christian lost his mother to the cold hands of death and his father had to take another wife with the hope that she would help look after the kids his late wife left behind,

It was all rosey when she first moved in big immediately, when she bore her first child things changed she began treating Christian and his siblings very badly, she made him eat from the dustbin most times and on some days starved him, she beat him as much as she could and sometimes deprive this boy from going to school.

Being fed up and tired Christian decided to leave home at the age of 10, he traveled all the way to Calabar and met with other kids who have lived on the streets for long. Some were abandoned by their parents based on witchcraft allegations from pastors and family members, some were children not wanted from their mothers who abandoned them on the streets and some were just normal street rascals.

Faced with this kind of life Christian began to do despicable things in order to survive the streets.

The popular slang “nomi phone” is quite popular in Calabar because it is used by these children to steal from their victims. It simply means “give me your phone” and when the victim gets defensive and refuse to corporate they get stabbed.

His only wish is to return to school achieve something great and become responsible in life. How? can this dream be achieved when the government does not provide for these kids, instead they are maltreated and some left to die by the road side when they get ill with no proper care.

Featured

Black folks don’t get depressed. They all say…

Photo credit: Kay Frimpong

Black people are believed to be mentally, physically and emotionally strong and white folks illness are difficult to find among us. But if you’re spooked off your ethnic identity or heritage was erased cause you leave in a White’s man world, you tend to do and leave life their way.

It was in 11th grade this African boy realized he was getting depressed cause of school. It was obvious he was going through it being the only black African boy his grade in a white kids school. This affected his academics activities both at school and home.

He told his father about it and as an African father he is told the boy to man. He couldn’t bare the load any longer, he finally opened to his mother about it. His mother went to the school and told the principal she’s taking her son out of school until he feels like himself again.

The principal told her she can’t do that, the boy will be forced to repeat that year. All the teachers told her was crazy… she said “My son is not okay. I don’t care if he gets expelled. My boy is DEPRESSED.” And took the son home.

For a month she will leave work early everyday. Kept his son out of school, spent time hanging out and having thoughtful conversations together. Once she realized he was mentally ok, she took him back to school. The boy thrived, excelled and finished top of his class. The principal called the mother over to apologize.

Lessons learnt, parents especially Africans should  listen to their kids more. My mother has always been big a mental health advocate. She didn’t care about what people thought or expected of her… all she wanted was to get her son back. If it wasn’t for the month off… who knows what have been this boys faith today to share his story.

–Kay Frimpong 

Halloween to Africans

By Ufuoma Ughakpoteni

In my video, I had a round table interview and a Vox pop session about the upcoming celebration ‘Halloween’. This interview was done with international students (Nigerians) who have never celebrated this festival which makes it more interesting to get information about the festival and get their take on it.

I made use of the medium close up shot and wide shot for the production of my video.

Before I began shooting my video, I had to ensure my phone battery was fully charged then I set out to produce the interview video. Since I already had an idea in mind, I met with some Nigerians with whom I shared my assignment ideas and with their consent had an interview session with them.

To shoot this interview properly, I set and locked my camera focus and exposure to make sure the lightning for the video was perfect since I was going to be shooting indoors, after that I checked my audio settings and ensured the iPhone Mic (back) was turned on and I used 48.0kHz which is the standard sample rate for video production in the Filmic pro App, to get the right framing the video was shot in 24 capture FPS and 24 Playback FPS, I shot the video with resolution 16: 9 with HD 1080p in FiLMiC Quality in order to get a good framing. I also had to make sure my subject was well positioned before I began to shoot the video.

For the Vox pop I shot outdoor, I ensured the iPhone Mic (back) was turned on, my major challenge shooting outdoor was the wind disruption. Although, I tried to avoid the wind interfering with the interview session, but it was almost inevitable as the wind was so much as reflected in my video although my interviewee was very audible, so it wasn’t much of a problem.

Halloween To Africans

MOJO Final Project Proposal

Photo credit: channelweb.co.uk

Domestic Violence against men

  • This video is going to be human interest related.
  • The story is going to be majorly centered on domestic violence against men in the society. The main characters and interviewees are going to be mostly males, one or two women will also be asked questions like what they think about domestic violence against men? And so on. But generally, this story/interview is generally going to be about men.
  • This video is going to be a formal interview. It would be conducted as a face-to face interview with the victims of Domestic abuse. There would also be a Vox pop where questions based on Domestic abuse against men will be asked. The story is essentially going to be based on men telling their experiences of Domestic abuse whether physical or verbal.
  • Four shots will be used in the production of this video. The close-up shot, extreme close-up shot, reverse over shoulder shot and medium close-up shot will be used to produce this story.
  • The genre of the video piece is going to be in form of a documentary where the victims tell their stories and experiences of Domestic violence.
  • I have reached out to Anyman Ireland support service for men who are facing domestic violence. Anyman is an organisation which handles domestic violence against men in Ireland. I have also met with some few male friends who mentioned they have suffered Domestic violence from ladies in the past and most of these guys are willing to tell their story.