Is TV News a Window on the World?

There are probably many arguments to whether or not TV News is a Window on the World. but as much as the News try and be unbiased, I feel that the interpretations of the news are definitely structured and biased. Why might I say this, well lets's take a look at why the news things that they are truthful. Though when you think of news, you think that it's being told to you exactly how it is or was or in a balanced way, like looking through a window, seeing the transparency, the news, the connection between us and what happened. Well you see how it may be asking is TV News a Window on the World, yet you wonder how true that may be. Of course the news wants to tell you that it is true, which is why the question is there, is it true, and unbiased, does the news tell you everything, it's a window on the world.

I mean, the news has certain representations to keep it neutral and truthful as they show you the intro and the newsreaders portray the neutrality, but all of this is written about in my other post where I have analysed the introduction of BBC news and newsreaders to how they are truthful and honest about their window on the world. On the other hand though, there are laws that back up points where even though the news is meant to be truthful Ofcom states that the news has to be impartial (the link to this statement can be found here). I think that this makes it obligatory to be a window on the world as they have to be impartial, giving a neutral view upon all matters. Not only that but looking at the BBC guidelines for impartiality, it;s rules are quite similar.  

As you can see in the image beside it states that the news has to be impartial, but furthermore they've extended it to be impartial on all subject matters, this means that everything has to be neutral and no matter what the news will be seen transparent and balanced. These codes of practice are linked in with each other to make it so that the news is impartial. Although this may be the case there are still problems as there are cases where the BBC has been seen to be unbiased, the example of this is when Margaret Thatcher died and there were over 700 complaints that the coverage was biased.  There were various coverage's about this and here is a link to one (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307211/Margaret-Thatcher-dead-Readers-fury-biased-BBC-website-articles.html) where this was said that they covered it without the neutrality. Though it wasn't and then it went further into the radio where a song went into the chart 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' but they only aired five seconds of the song. This was a huge bias situation where the BBC were not neutral about the situation at all. Although this may be in a bolder matter, and not to the selective stories, it was down to the newsreaders and how they presented the matter.

However, saying that the news is a window on the world is a mistake because it isn't. Although I just mentioned a story of the news being biased, there are other factors that enforce that news can't simply show reality, for many reasons, there is a gatekeeping process which is processed on a piece of news even before it makes its way onto the TV, so things are already being narrowed down. If you look at the image below you can see the drawn version of the gatekeeping process.

After looking at that, you can see that there are various ways of getting out of the TV News, in fact, there's more chance to have a story go into the 'dustbin' rather than actually make it on the TV. All of these factors are really important to how a new story is determined to whether or not it is screened, I find this to be quite interesting to know the features that come into play to whether a story is 'worthy' or not to be shown and that there are certain people who feel that other stories have priority. Looking back on these points that determine what gets to go on TV or not, firstly with the news sources, there are always certain terms that have higher importance, such as; police stations, other news companions, social media, court houses, Parliament, other political buildings and more, these will be monitored more than many other things and will always have priority over other stories. Having such a wide amount of stories in the news, how do you pick and chose what actually makes it onto the news?

Looking at the process of this, firstly the routinely monitored sources are only in certain areas, such as the parliament or in police, therefore there are usually news reporters standing by ready to get the story, whereas if a huge story breaks out in New Guinea, it's likely that the story won;t be covered because it's not somewhere news reporters are on stand by. So there are no sources and the story goes into the 'dustbin'. After that is the news values, the higher the importance the more likely the news story will be in the news, if the story has no values then there is no point in showing it because there are better stories out there. After selecting the stories with the most values they are then 'packaged' together in time slots with everything prepared, so you can't pick a 'package' apart. If there is a late breaking story, you can't shave time off of each story, you just cut one out entirely and that story is lost forever. Also, the Ministery of Defence may not allow a story to be shown for national security reasons and the law. Leading onto the next point of cost where the more expensive the story, the less likely it is to show it. An occurrence has happened before where the ITV couldn't afford the costs and therefore couldn't show it, but the BBC covered it, making it a competitive world with the news stories and because of the competition, if you are filming on story and there are a group of others filming somewhere near-by you're going to want to see what they are filming and try and get the better story out of it, this competition makes the window narrower because everyone can be fighting for the same story. Finally, if there is a technical problem and something happens then this could lead to the story just being dropped completely.

Two psychologists, Galtung and Ruge created a list of twelve values which they identified and use to justify what they found to be the occurring themes in news. A fair few of these values can be compared with the Rolf Harris case, the reason I'm using this story is because he definitely fits in with the values, a main one being elite persons, as he is considered an important person, not only that but the negativity of the incident has lead to it being searched into for an ongoing time, which then links into the threshold and continuity and this story is already in the news, as it started back last year and then it went on and the story got bigger as it continued, as the BBC reported more stories, which can be found here and here and I think that this story has been so big in news purely because even though he is seen as an elite person he is also a really meaningful individual to a lot of people, purely because he's been such a role model and he relates to a lot of the audience.

Not only is there the gatekeeping process but there is also another way that news goes about telling their stories, and they do this by making a fictional narrative alongside the story, this is where continuity editing is used and there is a kind of 'quest' in the little news story. There is a prime example of this when we watched an interview about a man who was about to be evicted from his home and he went on a little quest about the whole issue, although this is seen to be real life and actually happening, if there are such continuity techniques being used then that means the whole clip had to be staged and makes the story fake (in terms of the quest happening there and then). The reason these narratives are done is to make a little background and pull out the heartstrings on the audience as there is a little emotional heartfelt for the guy in this situation.

Also news tends to use a lot of actuality footage, which is real footage but the problem is that this footage that is used on a certain news story is not what they went out and filmed specifically for that story, they probably went down to the archive and used something that would fit well. This makes the news story unrealistic and not true to what it could actually be making the clips used, selected ones making the window on the world a little smaller because the news companions are choosing certain clips to pull on those heartstrings a little more.

Overall, it's clear that there is a window on the world, it's just a really tiny window on the world because there are so many processes and values that go on to make a piece of news to finally be selected to then appear on the news. As true and unbiased as the news would like to be, it's really clear that it isn't and then you wonder what if these other stories were shown? There are lots of things to influence the news stories that appear and it's clear that this 'window' is opaque.

Connotations of Newsreaders

News is newly received information about events that have recently occurred or even updating ongoing matters where newsreaders display themselves in a neutral way to tell us about these matters. News is important for everyone and is displayed in a sense of transparency as the news comes directly from the source and is told to its viewers. Before we picked a clip to analyse as a class we went through some iconography features that our found within the news starting sequences; We came up with the following things:

-Clocks and Time
-Rushing Graphics
-Technology
-World from Space
-Transparecy
-Landmarks from cities
-Music
-Voice overs
-Colours (scheme)

Looking at the introduction of BBC and it's news, I will be analysing it's starting sequence. The clip above is what I will be looking at and the first I notice is for a starting sequence sixteen seconds is a good time to try and portray the news in a whole, not only that but BBC have done it with the most obvious thing, the world. Also referring back to the list of features that usually appear, in this, I would say there are six out of the nine that appear and this is clearly of high importance. The first thing about this is the colour scheme as there are a few colours, red, white and black with a few hints of orange and yellow. This is the most basic structure where these colours easily pick up the viewers attention, not only that but it then further captivated by the speed of the world, this is also seen as urgency as the news is meant to be rushing to you fast to get the most recent and new information to you and having this kind of intro means that the sense of urgency is definitely there. Another important feature for news is transparency, as this indicates truthfulness, this motif is emphasised by the fact that the world in the intro is repeatedly seen through and only landmarks are highlighted, yet we know that it is the world, we are just 'seeing through it', the truth that the news what to display. I find this to be quite interesting as the world is see through but there are also other red rings that are circulating the world, showing that the news covers the entire world, every little feature in the sequence is rushed in the sixteen seconds yet it still grabs your attention and draws you in. After grabbing your attention it moves in to a beautiful shot of (usually two) newsreaders who are ready and waiting, with their urgency in the most neutral and unbiased way to tell you the news.

Newsreaders are a very powerful role in the world of news because they are also seen in certain ways, just like the intro, each newsreader is the same. Firstly their are usually two newsreaders, one a male and the other is a significantly younger female, the reason for this is because the man is meant to connotes wisdom, authority and maturity, where as the women is based on physical attraction, a very sexist point, but that's the way that it is. The importance of these two newsreaders who are ready and waiting to deliver the news to us is what draws us in with there sense of urgency shuffling papers and being ready, though they aren't rushing around in a messy state, it's waiting for us as they address us directly to the camera making us feel like the news is coming straight from it's source through them and to us. The newsreaders are a conduit in the way there deliver the news in a neutral way, pronunciation of words is always done with standard English as they use a limited range of facial expressions to deliver the news they always address the camera (well us directly). All of these represent the neutrality of the newsreaders making it more truthful and as unbiased as it can be without their own personalities being inflicted onto the news matter.

Finally there is the mise-en-scene within the studio, and this is also stripped back to the bare minimum, as there is a very large desk situated in the center of the room with a large wide background which is usually plain or has images of the ongoing news or places (depending on what the newsreaders are talking about). Back to the desk, this is the main feature in the room and is always seen as high importance, especially with those two newsreaders behind it, thus making us believe that what the newsreaders are telling is truthful. The room is also highly lit so that there are no shadows in the room, this is to connote the truthfulness even further as there is nothing to hide as the light beams into all cracks into the room leaving nothing hidden. Overall there are many features that make the news seem important, and the BBC definitely follow some of the common themes that occur in all news intros and then the delivery.

Documentary Evaluation

The Nature and Purposes of Research in the Creative Media Industries

Research is an important feature to all areas of creative media as it becomes the starting point of every production, the collection of data that is gathered over time and then analysed to give a further understanding into one (or more) topic or area that are being studying into (such as a production). Being a fundamental point in any production research can be collected in multiple ways and majority of the time all productions will gather the information in a range of ways, the main two ways of gathering information are through primary and secondary sources.

Primary Research is a really reliable way of gathering data as the data is acquired first hand rather than obtaining it from other sources. Primary research is done through various ways such as interviews, questionnaires, observations, focus groups and those kinds of interactive face-to-face bases. For my documentary I gathered primary research by going to Kayla and talking to her family about her, and just getting a little background knowledge, not only that but having an interview with her prior to the documentary was another source of primary research. I also did a survey where I gathered information from the college about self harm and this was done on Smart Survey in which I had a range of questions that were asked to find out more about what I wanted to research and how it affected others. The link to the survey can be found at http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/107713KWJPH where the questions I asked are.

Secondary Research is then the flip side where this is information that has already been collected from somebody else and you are basically using their results for your knowledge, these can be from books, journals, newspapers, searching the internet forums and others, all of which you just use someones information. The internet was my main form for gathering secondary information as I went across various websites to find information, such as statistics that I would find useful to me, some of these websites were from http://www.youngminds.org.uk/training_services/policy/mental_health_statistics which is a website I found to be very useful as it gave me a lot of information that I didn't know about, and mainly just a little knowledge that has really helped me in understanding the topic a little more. I probably could have further backed my knowledge by going to the library and looking at books and seeing other people's perspectives that had been published and not sourced from the internet.

Moving on from the main two types of ways to collect data, you can then move on to the data you've collected and how well it is, such as in quality and quantity. Sometimes it is difficult to achieve a good balance between the two to get a really thorough and reliable set of results.

Firstly there is Quantitative Data, which is data that is collected in more of a quality, amount or range, such as program ratings, box office figures, sales and other numerical based ways. It's done on a larger scale of gathering a lot of information and just throwing the figures together, it's a way of collecting data and looking at the general overview with the numbers rather than looking into it further for detail. Doing the surveys was my way of collecting a numerical amount of data in which I got a lot of responses which were easy to look at and tell, the numbers which distinguished which answer was more appropriate and also it gave me a chance to see what the opinions of lots of students were.

Qualitative Data is where you then go into more detail and it's more quality rather than quantity realistically. This is where topics are gone into in much more depth and more analysis rather than looking at the figures of something, this is a really good way to get detailed data though it does take a lot more time and effort as the data needs to be detailed and that takes time. This come be done in the sense of film reviews, game reviews, responses to news coverage and discussions. With my work with some of my survey questions instead of clicking yes or no, it was an open ended answer therefore each individual had the chance to right what they thought, this gave me a view of each person and see what the problems were in their situations, but the data was detailed and qualitative.


After looking at the types to collect and the way it's analysed, there are also Data Gathering Agencies which are in place to share the information with people that are searching for certain things, though this data is gathered over time it is then always used to look back onto for later information or for when new things arise, a main data gathering agency is the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) which is a company that gathers audience measurements and television ratings in the UK. The data that is on there website is gathered from various participants who have a box on top of their TV sets which tracks the programs that they watch, giving BARB a view of what programs are popular. BARB has further companies which then design and measure certain things within the company to make sure that all the viewings are right so that the data gathering is done properly.


There are also various other data gathering agencies which approach different sectors such as IMDb which is an online database for movies, television and online games. This has been an ongoing site for twenty-three years and has over 2,912,553 titles in it;s database. This site has the chance for each individual to submit their own material and also make edits to any existing data that is already on the site, though this has to be checked by higher authorities first, the website has been known to make errors but takes control of situations by making it's data as true as it can possibly be. A subsidiary of IMDb is a smaller company that tracks box office revenue's is Box Office Mojo, a smaller company that has been part of IMDb since 2008.

Audience and Market research is the next step where you have to see if the product you are about to produce is going to be suitable or any good for the public and therefore you need to test the product by reaching out to your target audience, this is classed as audience and market research. For my documentary I had to think about who my documentary would be suitable for in terms of demographics and looking at the age I thought that it would be appropriate for adults, to see this as something to learn from and also if they thought that their child may be suffering or having problems not only that but it could also apply to teenagers of Kayla's age because they could relate or once again learn from her experience. Saying this, the adult is more appropriate also in terms of the times that the documentary would be shown as this would be on around 7:55pm as a three minute wonder I also had to think about the fact that adults are more likely to be watching the TV at this time.

Production Research consists of the identification of the resources you will need to carry out the production, in some way it's the final gathering and analysis of all of the data and information you have already collection. Before filming begun for my documentary I had produce an array of information that would make my documentary doable, such as collecting consent from Kayla's parent and making sure she would sign the location release form and also making sure that I knew what dates I would be filming with the production schedule, these were important pieces of pre-production that not only me but every production no matter how big or small would need to do.

After gathering all the research and assessing it you then need to know how reliable and valid the data is. The reliability is finding out how reliable the data is and is a very important process in all productions. With my work I had to make sure that the results of my survey were reliable but with some of the answers people gave I knew that they were not as reliable as they were being rude and inconsiderate and therefore this made my results less reliable.
Reliability is an important factor, for example if a teacher asks it's class how many hours a week it spends at home working on that subject, it's likely that the student(s) that are asked will exaggerate there answer because they should be spending a lot of time and it's likely they aren't. This makes the results less reliable because they aren't the truth.

On the other hand, I still feel with the outlying answers that my data can still be reliable. This is further backed by how valid the data is, and this is how things are tested. With the survey that I created you can agree that my results are valid, but if I had done this test again or even repeated it on other occasions to get a more general range of answers then it would make my data more valid.
With Validity, you want to see how valid the data is, for example, when testing a method of 'How many Christians go to church' and you count the percentage of how many people went to church that week in various places, that doesn't then mean that the percentage that went to church are the percent of Christians because they may not be all Christians, this makes the method less valid.

Finally, I think that generalising my data is quite difficult, as I can't generalise it to the entire world purely because I only did my surveys on college students, and therefore I can't say that everybody else is the same to what I found out, though I have the change to make my data represent the college or even colleges in general as I have had around one hundred responses, and this is a wide sample which I can generalise.
Represenstativeness is another area of assessing data and with this you have to see if the data can repreent everyone, as in my example above, if you do a study on one class of 16-19 year olds, you can't generalise the results to all students 16-19 because that one single class can't represent the entire load of teenagers and they can't be generalised.