Facing Challenges: Irish Public Television in the Digital Age

This paper traces some of the main challenges facing public television in Ireland

Some Problems with Marx\u27s Theory of Capitalist Penetration into Agriculture: the Case of Ireland

Marx and Engels\u27s writings on Ireland are usually associated with their positive support for Irish nationalism. This article seeks to examine the extent and depth of their knowledge of Ireland, politically and economically, by focusing attention on Marx\u27s analysis of post-famine agricultural readjustment. Comparing the latter\u27s comments in Capitaland elsewhere with actual developments, it is suggested that Marx and Engels\u27s understanding was less than accurate. The source of their misinterpretation lies principally with their inadequate analysis of tenants, agrarian capitalism, and land feve

Growth Strategies and Intellectual Capital Formation in New and Emerging HEIs

Higher educational institutions are being asked to contribute more effectively and efficiently to economic growth, innovation and intellectual capital. As they do so, the academy has also come under pressure. The content of academic work, the role of faculty, and the balance between teaching, research and service, have, arguably, been restructured, reconfigured and redefined. For academics within traditional universities, pressures for accountability and social relevance have challenged what many valued as ‘their autonomy’. But, for staff within new and emerging HEIs, those formed or reconstituted circa. 1970, there have been different pressures. Many were hired originally as teachers and now face increasing pressures to spend more time conducting research. Growing research is not without costs. Based on an international study, this chapter seeks to understand how new HEIs are responding to the challenges and the extent to which human resources issues impact on institutional and research strategy

Rising Popularity of Rankings

University rankings are creating a furore wherever or whenever they are published or mentioned. Politicians regularly refer to them as a measure of their nation’s virility or aspirations, universities use them to help set or define targets mapping their performance against the various metrics, while academics use rankings to bolster their own professional reputation and status. Despite their relatively short lifespan and mounting criticism of the methodologies employed, rankings have become a permanent feature of higher education in a growing number of countries around the world. Today, over 33 countries have some form of ranking system, operated by, interalia, government and accreditation agencies, higher education, research and commercial organisations, or the popular media. National rankings are being eclipsed by global rankings – the most prominent of which are the Times QS World University Ranking and the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). There may be over 17,000 higher education institutions worldwide, but rankings are driving an obsession with the world’s top 100. And Australia is not immune

After the Green Paper: What Next for Broadcasting in Ireland? : Discussion

On 27 April 1995, the long-awaited Green Paper on Broadcasting, drafted by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins. and entitled Active or Passive? Broadcasting in the future tense was published. Its publication carne one week after the publication of the Interim Report of the Competition Authority on the newspaper industry In Ireland. and preceded the publication of an examination of the skills requirements of lhe independent film and television production sector In Ireland. entitled, Training Needs to 2000 (June 1995). It is remarkable that within a very short space of time, three very substantial studies of the media Industry were published by the govemment. A public discussion on the Green Paper was held in the Dublin Institute of Technology. Aungier Street. 18 May 1995, and sponsored by Irish Communication Review. It brought together a wide-ranging group of broadcasting practitioners and commentators to discuss and exchange ideas on the future of broadcasting In Ireland. Over one hundred people attended. This is the edited proceedings of that discussion. I have sought to preserve, as much as possible, the actual words spoken by our guests, though some trimmjng has been necessary because of length. Any unevenness is a result of the inevitable differences between the spoken and the written word. Contributors were Joe Mulholland, Muiris MacConghail, Martha O\u27Neill, Jack Byrne, Andrew Hanlon & Wolfgang Truetzschler. The editing of the discussion was done by Ellen Hazelkom. Lecturer In Politcs. Department of Communications. Dublin Institute of Technology

Challenges of Growing Research at New and Emerging HEIs

Newer institutions are accused of adopting the accoutrements of traditional universities, actively copying their research profile and teaching programmes, and engaging in ‘academic’ or ‘mission’ drift. For others, however, these changes are part of the natural or inevitable process of institutional development and historical change, or a further step in the democratisation of the ‘Humboltian ethic’ (Neave, 2000, p265). If massification and expansion in 1960s differentiated the second stage in higher educational development from its elite origins, then the late 1990s marked the beginning of the third stage. By then, it was clear that a broadly educated population could no longer be formed by and within universities alone. In societies where knowledge and knowledge creation are highly privileged and integral to both national and institutional prestige, advanced learning and research capacity are allied and critical. Paradoxically, by seeking to conform to their mission, new and emerging HEIs soon outgrew the straitjacket of their birth. This chapter looks at these tensions and challenges