Over to You

Are you interested in one week's work placement in The Irish Times? Transition Year students can learn first-hand about the workings of this newspaper if their submission is published in Media Scope's weekly Over to You column. Just send us a 200-word piece on a media-related topic.

Paula Hamilton, Loreto College, Crumlin Road, Dublin

There is a lack of emphasis in the media on women's sporting achievements and, as a result, women are not receiving the long-awaited credit that rightfully belongs to them.

As I am a keen sportswoman, I am only too aware of the skill at national and international level that our country is so privileged to have. The name Angela McNally springs to mind: she has international caps for soccer and basketball and also represents Dublin in Gaelic football.

If a man were to have those achievements, he would be celebrated throughout Ireland as a hero. However, women such as Angela McNally are probably unknown outside their sporting clubs.

To the best of my knowledge, the Star and the Tallaght Echo are the only newspapers to publish the Dublin Women's Soccer League, and these columns are brief to say the least.

Sports are just as important to women as to men, so why should coverage of our events not be treated equally? This is ultimately up to the media, because it is they who can promote women's skills to the public in the same way that men's sports are celebrated.

John McDonnell, De La Salle College, Churchtown, Dublin

Computer games have gone from a loner kid in his bedroom playing his Commodore 64 to a multi-million-pound business. It also suffers the same drawbacks as the music and film industries: for example, games now feature the "good looks but bad content" syndrome.

The Dreamcast has proven this by selling a huge amount of consoles in very short time, despite a not very interesting line-up of release games. Sega attributes its success purely to itself, but Sony is mostly responsible: it made games "hip" and broke away from the "nerd in his bedroom" image of gaming. This transformation has breathed life into a previously dying market, but games are getting worse. New technology has provided better graphics and sound, but only a few companies are putting enough effort into original ideas and game-play.

FIFA 2000 has been released, about the 15th in its series; each time the game hardly changes but it still sells a huge amount of copies, earning Electronic Arts a tighter grasp on the market.

Soon only the best looking and best advertised games will be popular, just like films and music. It's a grim future.

Write to media scope by posting your comments to Newspaper in the Classroom, The Irish Times, 11-16 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2, or faxing them to (01) 679 2789. Be sure to include your name, address and school, plus phone numbers for home and school. Or you can use the Internet and e-mail us at mediapage@irishtimes.ie

media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools. Group rates and a special worksheet service (see `fax-back', right) are available: free-phone 1800-798884.

media scope is edited by Harry Browne.