Representation and gatekeepers
The term ‘gatekeeper’ refers to people in the media who make important decisions about what reaches the audience.
The News Editor is the main gatekeeper in TV news and decides what stories will be covered that day.
Is news biased?
TV news is supposed to be balanced and fair but has been accused of bias.
A gatekeeper can create certain representations in TV news through the decisions they make. For example, gatekeepers can create bias in TV news:
- Bias through selection/omission
- Bias through placement
- Bias through images/video
- Bias through names or titles
- Bias by choice of words
News and narrative theory
News gatekeepers also try to create narrative to make TV news more accessible. Remember our narrative theories from Assignment 2:
News gatekeepers also try to create narrative to make TV news more accessible. Remember our narrative theories from Assignment 2:
Todorov: news is largely concerned with disequilibrium.
Propp: news creates heroes and villains to make stories easy to follow.
Barthes: news uses enigma codes to keep people watching until the end.
Citizen journalism and bias
Citizen journalism has been credited with adding balance to coverage as people can film events on their phones to ensure a fair report is shown.
There have been important examples recently in America such as the killing of Walter Scott in South Carolina. This Sky World News report has the story:
Citizen journalism removes the power of the gatekeepers in TV news because video can be put on YouTube and audiences can share it using social media.
Other examples include the Chelsea fans in Paris and Eric Garner who died while being arrested in New York (“I can’t breathe”). Once the video is on YouTube and goes viral, it is very difficult for TV news not to cover the story in some way.
Watch this Sky News report from the London riots in 2011 and answer the questions below:
1) Whose perspective have Sky News used to present the story? (Clue: it’s in the opening line)
2) How are the police represented in this coverage?
3) How are young people represented in this coverage?
4) What images and videos are selected by Sky News to accompany the story?
5) What choice of words is used to present this news event?
6) What aspect of the story is chosen as the most important detail and included at the very beginning of the report?
7) How is narrative used to engage the audience with this news story?
8) How can we apply Todorov’s equilibrium theory to this coverage?
9) What examples of Propp’s character types can we find in this coverage? Are there heroes and villains?
10) How might citizen journalism have been used to provide a different angle on this story?
Extension task: Find another news story on YouTube that offers a particular representation of young people. You could look for a story such as the three South London schoolgirls who ran away to Syria to join ISIS. Embed the video on your blog and write an analysis of the representation of different people and groups in the clip.
Complete for homework if you don’t get this finished in the lesson - due next Thursday.
Extension task: Find another news story on YouTube that offers a particular representation of young people. You could look for a story such as the three South London schoolgirls who ran away to Syria to join ISIS. Embed the video on your blog and write an analysis of the representation of different people and groups in the clip.
Complete for homework if you don’t get this finished in the lesson - due next Thursday.
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