Follow up to my "Documenting Facts?" lecture looking at the ways in which documentaries have sought to expose the limitations of news when dealing with the 'war on terror' (focussing on Israel/Gaza).
There's an accompanying video playlist here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRCHqijqFjGtbN0T8TSizGvuDA0NmEPk9
2. Global media
ï€ We live in the global age. We live in a world that has
become radically interconnected, interdependent and
communicated in the flows of information and culture â
including, importantly, news journalism.
ï€ Simon Cottle, 2009: 1
2
3. Global media
ï€ âwe have a consciousness of the world, as a whole. That
is a bounded, holistic and finite place.â (emphasis
added)
ï€ Cottle, 2009: 1
3
4. Ideology
ï€ In exercising their symbolic and communicative
power, the media today can variously exert pressure and
influence on processes of public understanding and
political response or, equally, serve to dissimulate and
distance the nature of the threats that confront us and
dampen down pressures for change. In such
ways, global crises become variously constituted within
the news media as much as communicated by them
ï€ Cottle, 2009: 2
4
11. âUnpeopleâ
ï€ âThe great moral citadels in London and Washington
offer merely silent approval of the violence and tragedy.
No appeals are heard in the United Nations from themâŠ
The distant voices from there should be heard, urgentlyâ
ï€ (Pilger, 2009)
11
13. Ideology
ï€ In recent years a substantial amount of research has
been carried out by various organisations in order to
discover what the British public thinks about immigration
and asylum. Most of this research has discovered that
public opinion tends to be significantly hostile towards
asylum seekers. For example, a MORI poll conducted in
2001 found that 44% of people agreed that Britain should
not take any more asylum seekers. The same poll also
estimated that 74% of people believed that refugees
came to the country because they thought Britain was a
âsoft touchâ (http://www.icar.org.uk/?lid=5054).
ï€ Saeed, 2007: 182
13
14. Propaganda
ï€ Propaganda is mainly perceived in the
West as an aspect of Communist, Fascist
or totalitarian regimes where the media is
controlled by the state. It is assumed that
in the West, where much of the media is
in the hands of private enterprise, that
formal propaganda is absent.
ï€ Saeed and Laverty (2006)
ï€ On Sunspace
14
16. The American Dream?
ï€ We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach
village children. We're the America that sends out missionaries and
doctors to raise up the poor and the sick. We're the America that
gives more than any other country, to fight aids in Africa and the
developing world. And we're the America that fights not for
imperialism but for human rights and democracy. âŠ
ï€ My fellow Americans I want you to know that I believe with all my
heart that America remains "the great idea" that inspires the world.
It's a privilege to be born here. It's an honor to become a citizen
here. It's a gift to raise your family here to vote here and to live
hereâŠ
ï€ Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican National
Convention 31/08/04
16
18. Media power?
ï€ McQuail describes the mass media as âthe
means of communication that operates on a
large scale, reaching virtually everyone in a
society to a greater or lesser degree" (2000:4).
ï€ According to Allan, "journalists [âŠ] news
accounts shape [âŠ] our perceptions of the
'world out there' beyond our immediate
experience" (2010:94)
18
19. Primary definers
ï€ Stuart Hall (1978) considers that the primary
definers of what is âimportant newsâ and
what the âcorrectâ perspective on what news
should be (such as from politicians, business
leaders etc.) are in fact very important.
ï€ The ideas of such people have hegemonic
value in society and in the media, the latter
because their ideas become integrated into
concepts of news values, and professional
journalism and so on.
ï€ See Saeed (2007: 7)
19
20. Machinery of representation
ï€ âwhat and who gets represented and what
and who routinely gets left out (and) how
things, people, events, relationships get
represented ... the structure of access to the
media is systematically skewed towards
certain social categoriesâ
ï€ Hall (1978: 95)
20
21. Media and the public sphere
ï€ Who gets access?
ï€ How do news sources influence the news agenda, which
in turn can influence public opinion
ï€ (video to follow: Unseen Gaza and Reuters)
ï€ The news media, both press and broadcasting, are said
routinely to privilege the voices of the powerful and
marginalize those of the powerless
21
22. Representations of social groups
ï€ How social groups and interests are defined is also part
and parcel of factual content production.
ï€ For example whether social groups are representationally
legitimized or symbolically positioned as âotherâ or
deviant can have far reaching consequences.
22
23. Representations of social groups
ï€ In recent years and in specific contexts we
could observe the emergence of
âinformation warsâ or âmedia warsâ, a
situation where news media becomes a
battleground of images where the
information flow is often controlled and spun
by the states in power
ï€ (see Cottle, 2006; Miller, 2004)
23
24. Agenda Setting: PR
ï€ Moloney (2006) notes that âmanipulative
activitiesâ have been a part of the public
relations history
ï€ Philips and Young (2009: 227) âtelling partial
truths is inherent to PR practiceâ
ï€ Stauber and Rampton (1995: 2) argue that
âthe best PR is never noticedâ
24
25. Agenda Setting: PR
ï€ Wilcox (2003) refers to this as the âtechnicianâs
mentalityâ, which means that PR practitioners are solely
concerned about how the message is
communicated, and not about the content of the
messages. This argument can be supported by a survey
published in the PR Week in May 2000. The findings
showed that 25% of PR executives admitted lying, 39%
said they exaggerated the truth, 44% was unsure about
the ethics of tasks they would be asked to perform and
62% believed they compromised in their work
ï€ http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q2/liars.html
25
26. Third Party Technique
ï€ Involves placing pre-formed message in the hands of the
media:
ï€ Hiring of journalists or bloggers to write favourable copy
ï€ Using in-house scientists to dispute studies
ï€ Industry sponsored front groups
ï€ Astroturfing
26
29. âOccupiedâ Palestine
ï€ According to Philo and Berry (2004), there is a strong
tendency in the media to report the conflict from the
Israeli perspective and to omit the historical context of
the events.
ï€ Likewise Thussu and Freedman (2003) suggest that the
news as the power to make the viewer take sides in
conflict through news journalistic representation.
ï€ Moreover it could be argued, Israel is also supported
ideologically, particularly by the Orientalism discourse
that constructs Palestinians as a foreign âotherâ.
29
31. Gaza, 2008/9
ï€ 3RD party Technique
ï€ Organisations such as BICOM invited and
funded journalists to Israel for âfact findingâ
trips.
ï€ Philo and Berry (2009) note that during the
Gaza war the Israeli National Information
Directorate made sure that everyone
âspoke the same message with the same
wordsâ.
31
36. Social media
ï€ Israel government recruited 1,000 volunteers with the
objective of flooding news websites and blogs that the
ministry term as anti-Israeli with pro-Israeli opinions.
ï€ Israel government held a World Citizens Press Conference
via Twitter only 4 days after the initial onslaught
(Chomsky, 2009).
ï€ Silverstein suggests that there has been a concerted
effort on Israelâs part to flood the web and news media
with crafted materials in an attempt to turn public
opinion toward Israel (Silverstein, 2009: 1).
36
37. How to make sense of this?
ï€ Factual media, despite claims to truth, are a
battleground for ideological warfare
ï€ Documentary film-makers and news outlets are implicitly
involved in shaping and re-shaping public understanding
of events
37
40. 1 - Manufacturing Consent
Five news âfiltersâ:
ï€ 1. Ownership and profit orientation
ï€ 2. Funding via advertising
ï€ 3. Over-reliance on âofficialâ sources
ï€ 4. âFlakâ targeting the media
ï€ 5. The need to engage a âcommon enemyâ (via anti-ideologies)
40
41. 2 - Media of contest
1.
Political protest more influential than media but there is giveand-take
2.
Political voices do not always maintain dominance
3.
The power of the media/politics fluctuates
4.
News is framed in cultural contexts and âreadâ differently
5.
Dissidents can combat unequal resources and use news
media as a tool for political influence
41
42. 3 - Media culture
ï€ Media permeates all aspects of popular culture and
impacts upon identity formation
ï€ Local engagement/reception of media spectacles
ï€ âSocial and political conflicts are increasingly played out
upon the screens of media culturesâ (Kellner, 2003:1)
42
43. Media as cultural industries
manufacturing consent in support
of dominant interests
Media as multi-purpose arenas
in which strategic and symbolic
conflicts are waged
Media culture as pervasive, meaningful and
contested, and constitutive of identities
43
43
44. Media as cultural industries
manufacturing consent in support
of dominant interests
Media as multi-purpose arenas
in which strategic and symbolic
conflicts are waged
Mainstream media
Public sphere(s)
Minority and Alt. media
âpublic spheraculesâ
New media
âcounter public spheresâ
Public Screens
Media culture as pervasive, meaningful and
contested, and constitutive of identities
44
44
46. Questions to consider:
ï€ To what extent can documentaries expose the âtruthâ or
combat propaganda?
ï€ To what extent are they able (or not) to go beyond the
limitations of mainstream news?
ï€ Consider pressures of: funding; time; scheduling; scale; risk
ï€ How might documentaries be critiqued as ideological?
ï€ Are all formats as culpable as each other in offering
specific versions of reality?
46
Hinweis der Redaktion
The last decade has seen the tabloids present the âtruthâ of immigration one way
This totaled ÂŁ1.2 billion over the year 2012HMRC consistently estimates the UK's tax gap â the gap between what HMRC thinks it should receive versus what it actually gets â at more than ÂŁ30bn per year. Others estimate this is far, far higher.
Astroturfing: As President Barack Obama drew attention to the issue of global warming in 2009, research from the Pew Research Centre found that front groups like the Heartland Institute created hesitation among constituents about global warming by distributing materials that cast doubt on the consensus among the scientific community.
Irrespective of what we think about the theory of âpenis envyâ the notion that people are motivated subconsciously by abstract symbols, language and ideas has some currency.http://vimeo.com/67977038 10 mins mark
http://vimeo.com/2955689Video run time: 17:30
Centre (Bicom) helped pressurize even the BBC and various news channels decided to omit showing a DEC appeal to help Gaza on the grounds that it might be seen to be impartial.
Centre (Bicom) helped pressurize even the BBC and various news channels decided to omit showing a DEC appeal to help Gaza on the grounds that it might be seen to be impartial.