Mass Media
Most people gain their information about politics through the mass media – television, radio and newspapers.
The growth of the mass media in the 20th century has brought a new era in the conveying of political information. In effect, it has resulted in the manufacture of a second-hand version of reality. The media decides what is newsworthy and then explores the issues which are thrown up by the news. By the time a news item appears on the television or in the newspaper, what actually happened at the original event has necessarily been altered by the involvement of media professionals. No matter how long the real event, for example, the news item on TV will probably be over within 5 minutes and it is unlikely to be allotted more than a page in a newspaper. That means that what happened has to be edited down to fit the slot. For example, only part of a politician’s speech is given verbatim. The remainder is summarized by the reporter. And by doing so, the reporter is providing a particular viewpoint or interpretation.
The media is also considered to encourage apathy rather than active political participation. Whilst someone who attends a political meeting is able to respond to what is said by asking questions, applauding or heckling, the mass media’s audience has limited feedback – letter writing, or phone-in programmes.
Despite these drawbacks, the various media outlets have become a major source of information in general and of political information in particular. Whether or not people are better informed about politics, however, is a matter of debate. The media provides entertainment, not just information, and some critics claim that the amount of serious political reporting as a proportion of total media output has diminished.
Democracy requires the informed participation of the people. Yet, for many people it just means to cast a vote every 5 years. Between elections, only a minority of people take an active interest in politics. It is, therefore, no surprise to find that political ignorance is widespread, particularly among young people. If people are not well informed, they are unable to tell when information is being manipulated for certain ends.
Explanations of political ignorance vary according to ideological stance. Those on the left argue that people in power have a vested interest in maintaining ignorance and trivializing political matters to avoid debate. Those on the right, however, tend to argue that most people have no need to develop a political understanding. Indeed, many people are not capable of so doing and thus politics should be left to those who are really concerned about it.
Taking a historical perspective, it is clear that those in power have always sought to limit the amount of political information that is available to ordinary people. What was blatant control of political information in the 18th and 19th centuries has evolved into more varied and perhaps more subtle forms of what is now known as “news management” or “spin”.
Information is itself rarely neutral. Those who present political information are themselves rarely disinterested observers. In a “free” society, it tends to be assumed that there should be a free trade in ideas. This, however, ignores the fact that some individuals, groups or institutions may be in a more powerful position to give their definitions of reality.
Governments, in particular, are in a powerful position to provide their version of reality and in doing so they often justify their actions by claiming to have acted “in the national interest”. This claim is frequently made during times of conflict – such as in the middle of a major strike or during a war. Though some critics have argued that certain censorship and control over what information should be made publicly available is not confined to times of crises only.
Today, much of the press in Britain is owned by multinational, multimedia corporations. These huge companies operate in a number of countries; tend to own a range of media outlets (for example, television stations as well as newspapers) and some have business interests which are nothing to do with the media.
The press does not simply represent the political views of its owners. Newspapers are owned by capitalist organizations and so the creation of profit is an important motivation. And unless newspapers provide what the public (or at least a sufficiently large section of the public) wants, they will not survive. Since newspapers are in competition with each other, their actions and their content are determined by the need to maintain or improve their market share. One result of this is that much of what newspapers cover has a minimal political content. This is especially the case with the tabloid press. But, even the quality press has reduced its political coverage, especially its coverage of Parliament.
But, perhaps, the most dramatic change of all is the growing impact of the internet. Unfortunately for newspapers, the internet is better at delivering some of the content than paper is. It is easier to search through job and property listings on the web, so classified advertising and its associated revenue is migrating onto the internet. Some other information, too, works better on the internet—news and share prices can be more frequently updated, weather can be more geographically specific—so readers are migrating too. In order to adapt to this trend news organisations are currently bearing two sets of costs—those of printing and distributing their product for the old world, and providing digital versions for the new. Up to now, most have been offering their content free online, but that is unsustainable, because there isn’t enough advertising revenue online to pay for it. So some publications already charge for con-tent. With news available free on Google and Yahoo!, readers may, of course, not be prepared to pay even for deeper or more specialised stuff; but since they do in the paper world, where free-sheets and paid-for publications coexist, there seems no reason why they wouldn’t online. Better mobile devices coupled with new payment systems may encourage them to do so and enable news to flourish in the digital age.
The only certainty about the future of news is that it will be different from the past. It will no longer be dominated by a few big titles whose front pages determine the story of the day. Public opinion will, rather, be shaped by thousands of different voices, with as many different focuses and points of view. As a result, people will have less in common to chat about around the water-cooler. Those who are not interested in political or economic news will be less likely to come across it; but those who are will be better equipped to hold their rulers to account. Which is, after all, what society needs news for.
The attempt to manage the news had become more professional and more important as news coverage has grown and become more immediate. Mistakes by politicians – a slip of the tongue, for example – can be seen round the world within hours. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that politicians should employ press officers or “spin doctors” (so-called because they doctor information so that it has a sympathetic angle or “spin”) in an attempt to manage the news. Whilst the term “spin doctor” gained great currency in the run-up to the 1997 general election and after it, there has been a long history of the main political marketing techniques to ensure that their messages are presented in the best possible light. What is, perhaps, new is the scale of spin doctors’ activity.
Spin doctors use the following techniques:
• they give advice on the content of speeches and the likely implications of votes and decisions
• they make themselves available to journalists after major political developments – so that there is an authoritative voice giving an instant interpretation of what has happened
• they engage in private conversations with journalists, in an attempt to persuade them of a particular line
• if a tricky political development is about to occur, they guide and distort the focus of news coverage by slipping out some well-placed leaks
• they pay special attention to particular journalists and give them inside information in the hope of gaining their favour, etc.
Of course, journalists understand what spin doctors are trying to do and they are not necessarily taken in by the spin doctors’ art.
1. Why is there a need for news management?
2. Why is it getting more professional?
3. Who specializes in news management?
4. Who do these people work for?
5. When did this profession appear?
6. What’s spin doctors’ job in periods of “tricky political developments”?
7. How and why do spin doctors communicate with journalists?
8. How powerful do you believe spin doctors to be?
B. Language and broadcasting
The language used by broadcasting institutions indicates their implicit viewpoint. For example, in news broadcasts during 1984-85, the National Union of Miners always “claimed” while the National Coal Board, police or government “said”. “Claiming” implies a degree of doubt while “saying” implies certainty. Also, the very phrase “miners’ strike” is not neutral. It puts the blame on the miners’ shoulders and, therefore, masks the real reasons for the dispute and the government’s role in it. Consider for example the following statement: “Electricity loses £2 billion because of the miners’ strike”. This implies that the miners are to blame for this loss, not the National Coal Board or the government which was determined to prevent a negotiated settlement.
Use of a word with positive or negative connotations rather than a more neutral synonym can form a biased picture in the audience’s mind. It makes a difference whether the media calls a group «terrorist» or «freedom fighters» or «insurgents». For example, a 2005 memo to the staff of the CBC states:
Rather than calling assailants «terrorists,» we can refer to them as bombers, hijackers, gun-men (if we’re sure no women were in the group), militants, extremists, attackers or some other appropriate noun.
Even more subtle is the preference of the word «terrorist» in one context, not another. For example, searching the CBC web site, the string «Palestinian suicide» was used 14 times more frequently than the string «Palestinian terrorist», but «Al Qaeda suicide» was 23 times less frequent than «Al Qaeda terrorist» (in contradiction to the memo cited above). Clearly, CBC editors want their readers to judge these acts differently, depending on the origin of the people targeted for killing. This particular word bias is not unique to the CBC, but can also be found in many western news sources.
Another example of language bias would be using the phrase «freedom fighters» instead of «insurgents.» The former phrase creates an image of a noble struggle, while the latter is more neutral.
1. Who did broadcast institutions support during the 1984-85 miners’ strike?
2. What does the phrase “miners’ strike” imply?
3. What are the techniques for creating a biased picture in the audience’s mind?
4. What examples of word bias in western news sources can you make?
5. Can you think of some examples of biased language not mentioned in the text?