Gabriel Figueroa Curto

London, 29 November 2020

Assessment 1

Questions

1. Define Journalism
2. What do you think is the role of journalism?
3. Define “Electronic Journalism”
4. Provide a name of a journalist you admire and discuss why
5. What is the Johari window? Discuss

Answers

1. Journalism is a discipline, which collecting, analysing, verifying and presenting news

communicates about events of public interest to an audience. Any topic could be subject
matter of journalism.

2. The journalist is the first contact point with the facts and events, and through his work, the
facts are transformed into news, being capable to reach the public delivering them
information. In modern societies governed by political and economic elites, the elites are the
source not only of public policies but also of most of the actions that affect the people of a
territory. Is in the middle point of this relationship where the journalist should stand –and this
would be, in my opinion, the role of journalism, being the middle man of the two sides-, not
as propagandist or enemy of the power, but as a filter and verifier of the information given or
related to the elites. Under this description we can find the main conflict of journalism,
understanding it by its relation with the public and with the elites. Deliver news is not an easy
task, especially when we have to consider how important is the interest of the public in the
topics managed, knowing that media is a business and requires a public, and also the internal
and external pressures that can affect how news is presented. People are not always interested
-more than in their own life- in important and complex events that affect society. The
independence of a media gives them prestige and respect in the field, and how governments
around the world let their media work is a good indicator of how democratic or authoritarian
they are.

3. Electronic Journalism is the predominant type of journalism of these modern times, which
uses electronic devices as tools to record, produce and display news. This is the case for
Television and Broadcasting and also for Digital Media (also known as Online Journalism)
using cameras for audio or video, audio recorders, computers, animations, tapes and
cassettes, graphics, etc.

4. I would like to speak about the Colombian Nobel Prize, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a
celebrated author who started his path in literature through journalism. Pointing to his
chronicles -where probably he could express the most of his writing skills, in journalism,
given to the freedom that offers this format- we can find very vivid stories written with a very
sharp language, where not only the facts appear, but we can appreciate how side-stories build
the magical realism atmosphere, introducing the fiction, that makes of his work something
more than a journalist report, like for example, in the chronicle “Caracas without water”,
where he described a water shortage in the Venezuelan capital during April of 1958, with the
story focused on the german engineer Samuel Burkart trying to bear these dry days –using
peach juice as water to shave his beard- and his mental impressions and imagination –like the
image of the ship in Hamburg arriving to the docks symbolizing the water coming back to
Caracas”, but at the same time mixing general events occurring in Caracas and how it citizens
act during the shortage; this omniscient narrator told us a story, entertained us, informed us
and also created a particular universe.

5. The Johari window is a communication model that can be used to improve the
understanding between individuals in a group. This communication model developed by
Joseph Luft and Harry Ingman is based on disclosure, self-disclosure and feedback resulting
in self-discovery and shared-discovery; the developers believed that individuals can build
trust between themselves in a group or team, by disclosing information about themselves, and
also that they can learn things that they ignored or they couldn’t see about themselves, thanks
to a feedback from others. This model divides the communication process of each person in
four quadrants: The Quadrant 1 is the Open Area –what the person knows about him/herself
and is also known by others. The Quadrant 2, the Blind Area or Blind Spot, is what the
person doesn’t know about him/herself, but others know –usually things that the person are
not capable to see by himself, or are hard to see directly, but at the same time is visible to
others. The Quadrant 3 is the Hidden or Avoided area, what the person knows about
him/herself but others don’t know. And the Quadrant 4, the Unknown Area is what is
unknown by the person and also by others.