Media plays a very important role in the
society as it informs the public about what is going around the world. In this
essay, I will analyse the media using 3
news (4th July, 2011) and how
the media presents the news to the audience which shapes the way audience
interprets the media. The tools of analysis I will be using is content analysis
(Content Analysis in Communication Research, Berelson B, 1952) , discourse
analysis (Analysing Media Discourses, Richardson and Burridge,2011) , semiotic
analysis (Media Literacy, Potter, 2005) and framing analysis (Framing Public
Life, Grant, 2003). The purpose of my analysis is to find out how the content
of the news bulletin is being presented and how does it frame the audience to
see the news from the media’s perspective.
News producers use various technical
aspects to produce the news and broadcast it live to the targeted audience. Entman
(1996 : 78) suggested that reporting is a form of rhetoric in that it is a way
of persuading the audience to believe in what is reported on the news. What we
see as news is what is presented through the eyes of the media. According to
Potter ( 2005 :103 ), news is not a reflection of reality but rather a
construction by journalists. Therefore,
it is difficult to achieve 100 percent objectivity in media presented, which is
the purpose of conducting the media analysis.
In the opening sequence of the news
bulletin, the graphics appear to resemble the world map. The background light
is bright and the music is also fast in order to build up the anticipation of
the audiences eagerness to watch the news. The world map perhaps resembles the
connection of 3 news to the world and how the news connects people around the
world. The news presenters Hillary Berry and Simon Shephard are both dressed in
a formal outfit using a black coat which connotes their authority over
controlling and reading the news. Towards the end of the news bulletin, the
weather
forecast shows graphics in small squares with photographic images of the earth taken from outer space. The graphics
connotes the different forecasted weather around New Zealand for the particular
week. The graphic then turns into a moving globe where audience can see the animated
images of clouds which connotes the weather pattern. The moving image of the
graphics gives the audience a realistic effect of immediacy towards the weather.
The changing colour of the weather graphics connotes daylight weather when the
background is bright and connotes
evening weather forecast when it changes to dark.
Next, a content analysis is conducted on
the TV Bulletin. According to Berelson (1952 :18), Content analysis is often
‘done to reveal the purpose, motives and other characteristics of the
communicators as they are reflected in the content’. The content analysis shows
that the TV news bulletin has a total of 25 news items including weather
reports and economy. Only 14 out of 25
items in the news category contains interviews.
It is noticed that the news items with longer duration tend to contain
interviews than those with shorter duration. 4 of the newsclips contained interviews with the public and the other 10
news contains interviews with people of authority or directly linked to the organization. According to Street, ( 2011 :188 ) the job of the spokesman is to make sure
that the coverage they get from the media is in their favour. For example, in
the case of “Kronik synthetic cannabis withdrawn”, the spokesman denies any
claims of knowledge that a very powerful sedative is present which cause the
withdrawal of the product from the market.” Here we can see that the spokesman
is speaking on behalf to protect his organization and the audience is made to
believe whatever is being spoken on the news.
My findings also identified that out of
all the 25 news items covered, only 7 item are considered hard news of which
focuses on crime, economics and politics. The
others are soft news which follow up recent news or focus on human interest. According
to Schudson ( 2003 : 107), soft news has increased from 35% in the 1980’s to
50% in 1998 in television networks
because people seem to be more interested in soft news and the news organizations tend to cater to the demands
of the market. This shows that the news organization chose their selected news
based on what they think the public will be interested in.
Next, I will perform a discourse
analysis to explore the language used in the news media. According to Conboy (2007 :118) , “Discourse analysis
demonstrates how the language of the news media constructs social knowledge
which allows its audience to locate itself socially, politically and culturally”.
I will focus on the verbs, adjectives and the words used in the TV bulletin by
the journalists to illustrate how the
use of discourse analysis is able to identify the language of journalist to emphasize
on a particular issue. In “Mother of 3
Killed in Melbourne”, the correspondent journalist repeated the word
“manslaughter” three times to emphasize the act of the killer. The adjective
“manslaughter” can evoke emotional
response from the audience which will create hatred towards the killer. The
journalist’s intonation was also high when she mentioned the word ‘killed’ to
emphasize on the tragedy. She also mentioned “Asian teenagers” which can cause an issue of
racism because the victim is a ‘white woman’. This is how the media uses
language to frame a certain news and to evoke emotional response from the
audience.
In “Charity for the earthquake dogs”, the
journalist uses the term ‘forgotten best friends’ to refer to the dogs of
Christchurch. The term ‘condemned dogs’ is also used as well as ‘tough shaky
times’. These words used in the news clip by the journalist is for the purpose
of evoking sympathy from the audience due to the Christchurch earthquake.
In the sports section “Women’s
football”, the reporters used words like ‘bizzare’ and ‘ peculiar’ to refer to
the news clip where the referee didn’t blow the whistle for the handball. These
words use by the journalist to highlight the flaws of the referee in the game.
The journalist also used words such as
‘runaway, flee, attempts to run, escape and leave’ to describe how the Monaco
princess wanted to runaway. The use of these repeated synonyms as a negative
connotations is obvious in trying to
highlight the actions of the Monaco princess , giving her a negative image
towards the audiences. This is also a rhetorical technique where the same
meaning of different types of words are used to influence the thinking of the
viewers.
Here, we can see how the use of language
in the media plays an important role in shaping the audience perception towards
the news because it can evoke emotional response of the audience and shape a
person’s understanding of the story.
Framing is also one of the tools of
analysis used to analyse the media. According to Robert Entman, ( Street :51),
“ A frame operates to select and highlight some features of reality and obscure
others in a way that tells a consistent story about problems, their causes
moral implications and remedies.” The effects of framing are “achieved through
various techniques such as metaphors, catchphrases, visual images which acts as
examples of the ‘reasoning devices’ that offer the view cause that animates the
story”. (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989:.3 ). In the news item that highlights the
2 year old toddler in China that fell from the 10 storey building, the story is
framed in a way that makes the audience think that the grandmother is to be
blamed for the fall. The news focuses on the heroic actions of the neighbour
who rescued the child and images of her lying in the hospital bed was focused .
Low camera angles were used to focus on the height of the building to connote
the extreme danger the fall could have caused. The news is framed for the
audience to express their sympathy to the woman and blame the grandmother for
her carelessness. The report of what happened to the grandmother after the
incident has been ignored. Here, there is an evidence of unwitting bias where
reporters may think that the story of the grandmother is less important and
might have been omitted due to constraints of time and space according to
journalistic values.
The news item ‘Thailand’s first Woman Prime Minister’, uses an “episodic framing”
( Iyenger , 1991 : 106) which focuses on the former Prime Minister and his
strong supporters. The use of insert clips of the rallies going on in Thailand
highlights the previous political unstability in Thailand. Interviews with the
exile former Prime Minister also highlights the ongoing situation. Here, the news is framed to show audience that Thaksin Shnawathra is a very influential
political figure and that his sister has won the elections because of his
supporters.
The news on the visit of the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge to Quebec, Canada was also focus from a different
perspective when journalists inserted
some hints of a Royal baby where the
official visit also becomes a platform for the public to gossip about the
pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge. According to Potter (2005 :107), the
news has now become a marketing perspective and that journalists will present
the news in a way that attracts large audience by highlighting the unusual. He
further argues that “news stories have become shorter, and more focus on
personalities than genuine leaders as well as focus on more gossips than news”.
This is part of the news –framing influence where the focus of the news is
framed in such a way to make the audience focus on a particular issue.
Overall, the media is important as it shapes how the
audience sees the world. It is important that the media tries as much as
possible to be objective in its reports in order for the audience to be well
informed about the surroundings and not misinterpret the information portrayed
through the media. As we can see throughout the analysis, the media is able to
shape the news through the use of various discourses, the use of camera shots
and images, as well as framing the story from a different angle. These factors
are very crucial for journalist to be aware of as these can play a major
influence in shaping the public awareness of news and politics. Nevertheless,
the public needs to be aware that journalists have constraints and conventions
that cause the news to be shaped in a particular way. Hence, the audience
should be educated into becoming an active audience of the news rather than a
passive audience by understanding the way media works.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berelson, B. 1952. Content Analysis In Communication Research. (New York, Hafner
Publishing Company.)
Conboy, M. 2007. The
Language of The News. (New York, Routledge)
Potter,
J. 2005. Media Literacy. 3rd
Ed. , (USA, Sage Publication.)
Reese, S. Gandy, O & Grant, A. 2003. Framing
Public Life : Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World.
(USA, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.)
Richardson, J & Burridge, J. 2011. Analysing Media Discourses (New York,
Routledge)
Street, J.2011. Mass Media, Politics and Democracy.2nd ed.UK, (Macmillan
Publisher.)
3
News 2011 [Video
recording]. AV Library University of Auckland. [4 July 2011]
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