Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Padova-Poznan: Task 3

Purpose: The aim of this week’s task is to compare the news regarding the elections in newspapers and magazines from three different countries.

Task
:

1 – Look for 3 online newspapers, news magazines, news radios or news websites from 3 different countries (1 source per country). You may choose a ‘center’ news source or go to the more partial newspapers, such as Unità or Il Giornale, depending on whether you are right or left.

2 – Follow the news about the two elections for a few days. You are welcome to follow just ‘your candidates’ or the elections in general. Observe differences and similarities in the way the news is presented, the words used, the images used, the amount of coverage, the location of the news (e.g. front page or embedded somewhere hard to find), etc.

3 – Write a post about your observations on your personal blogs. Also link to the sources you've used. If you notice differences, try and formulate a hypothesis or two about why the differences exist, e.g. is it country? culture? politics?

Deadline: Monday, March 17, 2008

9 comments:

veronica bozzato said...

Hi Sarah!
Yesterday I left 5 minutes before the end of the lesson. I don't fully understand the task and I have three questions:
- can we look at Italian websites?
- are we supposed to analyze the language in general or according to the topic posted in our "comment"?
- As far as the comment, my group chose to work on characteristics: speeches, gestures, style. How are we supposed to analyze this aspect? I mean, I don't understand how can we analyze these gestures, style etc. in articles. Should we look at the characteristics of the candidates according to the journalists? Or should we analyze the direct quotations of the candidates?
Thank you very much
Veronica

Sarah said...

@ Veronica - thanks for your questions.
- of course you can look at an Italian source and I think it would be a good idea to use it as a reference point.
- about the analysis: it is not directly related to the topic you will be developing as a group on the wiki, it's more generic so please do use the suggestions I give in the task (point 2) to guide you.
Hope I've answered your Qs :-)
Sarah

Silvia Lovato said...

Dear Sarah, can I speak about Spitzer's case in my post? almost any newspaper speak about this fact. So it's quite easy to compare them!

To be true, it's very difficult to compare articles regarding different news!
see you on Monday
silvia

elenas said...

We got some information about the American electoral system and we learnt that there are two kinds of vote: the popular and the electoral vote. The electoral vote seems to be much more important than the popular. As a matter of fact if a candidate doesn’t win the popular vote but wins the electoral they are elected. We think that this is not democratic and rather strange for a country which is supposed to be exporting democracy where needed. So what do you think about it?

Davide Nicola Elena

elisac said...

Question to American students: "In Italy very few women are involved in politics, and Italians don't seem to be ready to have a female President. Do you feel that the USA is prepared to have Hillary as President? Please give your reasons.

Group 1

chiara said...

If you know what "parcondicio" means, is it followed in the United States?
Is there any law in the USA which rules candidates' political campaigns on the media?
Is there any type of political advertisement in the college or at university?

Valeria said...

Here in Italy, it is almost impossible to have clear opinions about the candidates in the elections because they are too many and you should follow them every day in order to be informed enough. Since we know that in America you have a less number of candidates, does the same problem exist or not?

sara said...

GROUP 3: We know that the war in Iraq is a crucial issue in the political debate in your country. In our opinion, the future of Iraq depends on the result of the elections since we read that the two candidates have different approaches towards Iraqi situation. What do you think about it? Do you agree with us?

Sara Elena

Letizia said...

Padova-Poznan '08 Group 6
Veronica Bozzato
Camilla Zulian
Letizia Malacarne
Lisa Belluco

European medias are really interested in the American elections and their attention is particularly focussed on the race between Hillary and Obama, while they rarely talk about McCain. Does the same thing happen with the American press? And is the American press interested in foreign election campaigns (Italian elections in particular)?