Media coverage of the developing world

Media coverage of the developing world: audience understanding and interest This paper examines key issues in the relationship between television news content and the manner in which audiences respond to it. In past research this relationship has been analysed from various theoretical perspectives. Some have seen news content as essentially ideological and as having the power to limit and structure audience belief (Glasgow Media Group 1976, 1980, Philo 1990, Herman and Chomsky 1998). Others have seen the news as a constant recurrence of routinised journalistic practice (Rock 1973, Enzensberger 1974). Still others have seen news content as primarily directed by commercial criteria, based on assumptions about what audiences ‘really’ want to watch (Stone, 2000). There is also a strong current in contemporary research which suggests that media are engaged in the mass production of social ignorance. There are three key issues emerging from these studies which I will outline here: 1.   That the decision made by broadcasters (on commercial criteria) about what viewers would desire to watch have in the long run produced very negative responses in TV audiences towards the developing world. That audiences are misinformed about the developing world because of the low level of explanations and context which is given in television reporting and because some explanations which are present are partial and informed by what might be termed ‘post-colonial beliefs’. That a change in the quality of explanation which is given can radically alter both attitudes to the developing world and the level of audience interest in the subject. Production decisions and assumptions about audiences There is a widespread belief in broadcasting that audiences are not interested in factual programming on the developing world, an extensive sample of 38 senior broadcasters, commissioning editors and programme makers were interviewed. The responses in these interviews highlighted the issue of audience demand and the assumptions which were made about this within broadcasting. As George Alagiah, a senior BBC journalist, notes: Programme editors are driven by audience interest, but this can lead to a fixation with home, leisure and consumer items instead of the broader agenda. (3WE, 2000: 160). His words find an echo in the comments of George Carey of the production company Menton Barraclough Carey: I try and guess what the audience wants. Most people switch on to be entertained not to get a message. Instinctively I feel domestic stories will be more interesting than foreign ones. (3WE) 2000:159. The point is spelt out more forcefully by Steve Hewlett, Director of Programmes at Carlton Television: I know from past experience that programmes about the developing world don’t bring in the audiences. They’re not about us, and they’re not usually about things we can do anything about. (3WE 2000:159). Commercial criteria are now a key consideration for programme makers and this comes down in part to providing what they assume the audiences will want to watch. As Charles Tremayne, controller of factual programmes at Granada TV puts it: We’re past the days of giving audiences what they should have – now it’s all about what they want. (3WE 2000:159). But the assumptions made are not necessarily well informed about why audiences watch and what conditions their level of interest. As Alex Holmes, editor of the programme Modern Times at the BBC admits: Audience interest is very important, second only to a good story, but we don’t know exactly what people want. I imagine what they want. It’s blissfully unscientific on Modern Times! (3WE 2000:159). One consequence of these assumptions on audience interest has apparently been the drastic reduction of factual programming about the developing world. A report by Jennie Stone for 3WE concluded that the total output of factual programmes on developing countries by the four terrestrial channels dropped by 50% in the 10 years after 1989. (Stone 2000:4). Our own study showed that when the developing world is featured on the news a high proportion of the coverage related to war, conflict, terrorism and disasters. This is especially so for the main television channels with over a third of coverage on BBC and ITN devoted to such issues. Much of the remaining coverage is given over either to sport or to visits by westerners to developing countries. For example, in our sample the Bahamas were in the news because Mick Jagger and Gerry Hall had visited and some countries were featured simply because Richard Branson’s balloon had floated over them (Glasgow Media Group 2000:20-21). Programmes such as BBC2’s Newsnight and Channel 4 News had a wider coverage of issues such as trade and politics but it was clear that the focus for mainstream TV news was more likely to be on dramatic and negative images of the developing world. The 3WE study for example found that although coverage had declined overall, the reporting of disasters had actually increased by 5% (Stone 2000:15). When disasters are covered journalist select news angles and visual images which they assume will compel audience attention, e.g. news of an earthquake will feature scenes of destruction, chaos, visuals of collapsed buildings, frantic rescue efforts and appeals for help. These become the basic themes of earthquake/disaster coverage. The problem arises when these are the only themes in the coverage and they become routinised and occur each time there is a similar disaster. Then, for the viewer there is in practice little to distinguish one such crisis from another in the developing world other than the name of the country. Such stories and those of conflict and violence are visually striking and in fact constitute a high proportion of the coverage. So it is not surprising that viewers perceive the developing world to be not much more than a series of catastrophes. Another key problem with such coverage is the very limited nature of explanations which are given (if at all) of events such as political conflict and war. In our study of TV news coverage of the Rwandan refugee crisis of 1994, we found a very large number of references (122 in our sample) which stressed the scale of the flight and the huge number of people involved but gave no account of why any of these events were occurring. As we showed, Africa was referred to on the news as a place of ‘tribal conflict’, ‘tribal enemies’, ‘ethnic war’, ‘insanity’, ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’, inhabited by ‘wild men’. Against these descriptions are put explanations of why the West is concerned about military intervention in the region. For example: ‘Reporter: There remained extreme caution about being sucked into the region’s blood-thirsty politics’ (BBC1 2100 1st, 8th and 13th November 1996). On ITN the people of Africa were compared to the topography of the landscape which they inhabited. The volcanoes were described as being ‘far more predicable as the people they watch over’ (ITN 2200 18 Nov 1996). But in the absence of more complex social and political explanations, it is possible to fall back on images of ‘tribal passions’. The BBC for example showed shots of Africans dancing in grass skirts at a border post, and described them as ‘the wild men of the murderous interahamwe militia’. (BBC1 2100 1 Nov 1996). They were not in fact Rwandans at all but were apparently Zairian border guards who had dressed in this way in order to insult the Rwandan army.  I asked a focus group what image came into their minds when they heard the word ‘tribe’. They replied that it would be people with grass skirts and spears standing in front of huts. At the end of that group meeting I explained to them something of the history of Rwanda and commented that the Hutu military regime in 1994 had killed all opposition groups including moderate Hutus, Belgium nationals and soldiers with the UN as well as the Tutsi population. In Butare, a city in the south of the city which was known for its tolerance and liberalism the Hutu students and lecturers at the University were killed because they were assumed to be in opposition to the Hutu government. One woman in the focus group commented ‘Oh you don’t think of them as having universities’ (29 June 1998, St Albans Group). Audience Responses A key finding of our research was that the images which audience groups recalled of the developing world were overwhelmingly negative (including famine, poverty, refugees, war and conflict). The source of these images was given routinely as the media (press and television) as in this comment from a woman in a focus group in London: Well every time you turn on the TV or pick up a paper, there’s another (war) starting or there is more poverty or destruction. It is all too much (retired group, London, cited in Glasgow Media Group 2000:137) A small number of people had experienced living and working in the developing world or in occupations which gave them a different perspective. As one woman from Glasgow commented: I do some voluntary work for Oxfam so I hear a lot about things from there. I mean, you wouldn’t believe half of what is going, really positive things, I mean that you wouldn’t hear about anywhere else. I watch the news sometimes and think oh yeah, here we go again, why don’t you tell us about the people who are trying to change things and the huge advances that are being made. (Low income focus group, Glasgow, Glasgow Media Group 2000:137). People in the groups readily admitted that they simply did not understand the news and thought that the external world was not being properly explained to them. As one group member expressed it: I have a constant sense of not being properly informed about background to issues and things like that. (Middle class, London, Glasgow Media Group 2000:139). There is now some recognition of these problems by professional broadcasters and a desire to find new ways of structuring news and other programmes so that viewers may be better informed. The 3WE research project recorded these comments from Ian Stuttard a documentary producer at the BBC: The whole angle is wrong. We look at the results of things most of the time instead of the causes. Wars rather than the arms trade is an example of this so we’re conditioned to think of the developing world in a distorted way because we don’t look behind the scenes. It’s a challenge because viewers are less politically aware (this isn’t helped by television!), and because ‘causes’ are not always very visual. How do you film money-laundering and arms deals? But it can be done! (3WE 2000:162). ‘How’ it could be done was the subject of the next phase of our work. Audience Understanding and Interest This is an account of a pilot study in which senior BBC news personnel took part in focus group discussions. The purpose was to investigate how changes in the structure and content of programming might affect audience comprehension and levels of interest. In the event, Vin Ray, the world news editor and David Shukman, a world news correspondent both took part. The method used for the focus groups had three elements. First, the group was given a series of still photographs which had been taken off screen from an actual news story. The story was chosen in conjunction with the BBC and they also provided the video material which was used for the taking of the still pictures. These were chosen to represent the main elements of the story and this selection was done in collaboration with a BBC news journalist. In the research exercise, the focus group members are asked to look at the photographs and then to imagine that they are journalists and to write their own news story using only the pictures as a stimulus. The story is then read out but the group and there is a brief discussion about the sources of information which they have used and their level of knowledge of the area. In the second part of the session the actual news item from which the photographs were taken was shown to the group. This was then followed by a moderated discussion which focussed on six specific points: 1.    What was the knowledge base which was used for the story which was written by the group members? What was their level of comprehension of the issues involved in the story? How much was added to their understanding of the story by the viewing of the actual news item? What would need to be added to their knowledge to produce a better understanding of the issues involved? How does the manner in which the content of the story is shaped or presented affect levels of interest? How might such interest by affected by changes in presentation and content? Conclusions There are a number of key issues which emerge from our research. The first is that TV audiences have in general very little understanding of events in the developing world or of major international institutions or relationships. This is in part the result of TV coverage which tends to focus on dramatic, violent and tragic images while giving very little context or explanation to the events which are being portrayed. The development of television organised around crude notions of audience ratings is likely to make this situation worse. The irony is that in seeking to grab the attention of audiences, programme makers are actually fostering very negative attitudes towards the developing world and other international issues and in the long run will reduce audience interest. We also found that in the absence of other explanations on the news, audiences (and some journalists) will ‘fill in the gaps’ with what are effectively post colonial beliefs about Africa and the innate faults of Africans. Our new research with BBC journalists showed that the explanation of the core relationships which link the industrial countries to the conflicts of the developing world can produce a distinct change in the understanding and attitudes of audience groups. The crucial point is that the conflict in Angola was located in a world system of commercial and political relationships in which the group members themselves played a part. The importance of this is that it was the understanding of the core relationships which made a difference and meant that audience members could link different elements of the news story to produce a coherent explanation. For some years now, within broadcasting, there have been arguments about the need to better inform and explain in news programmes. These have resulted in demands for longer bulletins, in-depth interviews and more detailed accounts. Such changes can indeed play a part but we should remember that audiences can get lost in detail and longer interviews with prevaricating politicians may simply add to the confusion. The important point for the journalist is the need to summarise the key relationships that explain the events which they are reporting, to say why these matter and how they relate to the audience. These relationships then need to be referred to routinely in news accounts as it cannot be assumed that audiences will have heard and understood them the first time or indeed that they carefully watch each bulletin. A key result of our work was that the audience groups showed an increase in their level of interest when they did understand the economic and political links which underpinned the continuing war. The reports by David Shukman had been extremely powerful and had produced a very strong emotional response towards the victims of the conflict. But this was accompanied by feelings that the situation was hopeless and essentially an ‘African’ problem. It was the change in this perception that produced the increased interest. Finally, if we look at world news as a whole it does seem clear that many of the problems which viewers experience result from the actions and practices of the broadcasters themselves. If they are not to be held responsible for the mass production of ignorance then it is they who will need to redress the balance between the current priorities of reporting and the need to properly inform their audience.