I really hope that the students taking the Multimedia Degree in Tipperary Institute are getting some guidance on diversity and incitement to hatred.

Output from these students taking the PR module part of this degree can be heard in podcasts from podcasting.ie

I listen to most of these podcasts, (Entitled Educasts) they are a trial at times to listen to but improve as students ‘get with the programme’ and production and content improves. There is still a long way to go!

However today I was listening to a podcast entitled Freedom and Safety – Educast 88. Niall O’Brien and Laura Keeley discuss some ‘funny’ things they found on Bebo (9 minutes and 30 Seconds into the ‘cast).  The usage of the terms Itinerant and Knacker caught my ears and my breath –  in particular they were flagged as Bebo pages worth checking out whilst the presenters were laughing. Padraig Nally killed a man, a Traveller – not an itinerant – that language left us many many years ago. 

Possibly it might have been worth looking at the net/new media/social networks and racism? Or mentioning that Travellers have long rejected the usage of those terms and organisations like the NUJ, the NCCRI, and probably the PRII would also advise against using the terms in a journalistic/media exercise.  And indeed a discussion on freedom of speech would also be useful and defining hatred and incitement and whether legislation is the right way to go about limiting speech and promoting diversity.

These students are supposed to be learning about PR – and indeed do analysis of PR in reference to the FG Councillor Michael Fitzgerald and his views on Drink Driving. However they need to know about other rules of PR – and the power of language and laughter and inferences that can be taken from how things are said.

*The title  of this post comes from the podsafe music used at the beginning of the piece.