MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Essay Example For Students

MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Essay -THE NEWS MEDIAHorror movie right there on my TVShocking me right out of my brainsHorror movie, its the six thirty News. The Skyhooks. The news media is in our face each and everyday with immaculate women and fatherly men bringing us up to date around the clock. I am, of course, specifically talking about television news, however, much of what I will say is true for radio and print news as well. But what is news? Stuart Hall, 1978 quotes:At any given moment billions of simultaneous events occur throughout the worldAll of these occurrences are potentially news. They do not become so until some purveyor of news gives an account of them. The news is the account of an event, not something instringic in the event itself. When considering the social production of news we should also discuss what is thought to be newsworthy. By looking at headline news stories we can see that they contain elements of drama and intrigue. In this paper I will look specifically at the three commercial evening news programs in South Australia seen on channels 7, 9 and 10. In looking closely at the social production of news in South Australia I will reflect on the connections drawn between the news media, cultural meanings and everyday social life. As the quote in the first paragraph says, billions of events happen around the world everyday. What we are considering are the elements that make an event newsworthy, meaning the event is of enough interest to enough people to keep the audience watching and thus the companies buying their advertising time. News programs face problems of regularly producing and distributing a commodity that is both irregular and unpredictable. The production is governed by deadlines and what is referred to as the news hole which is the twenty two minutes each night that needs to be filled with news. So whether war breaks out or a cat gets stuck up a tree, whether it is a light news day or a heavy one the twenty two minutes gets filled nothing more nothing less. (Tiffen, R. 1989)We need to keep in mind that it is imperative that commercial news programs appeal to populist views. To keep selling advertising spaces at top dollar the news programs need to keep up the ratings. This in turn explains why com mercial news programs report events that will be of interest to the majority and never concentrate on stories which are relevant or interesting to a minority group only. Journalists render stories as newsworthy to fill the news hole, to fit the deadlines and appeal to the majority to keep ratings. There is also a whole set of news values which constitute good news. The most primary value is that the story is out of the ordinary, stories which in some way breach our normal expectations about social life.(Hall et al. 1978) Extraordinariness, however, is not the only news value in making good news. Other news values include events that happen to the elite and famous personalities, events which are dramatic or show human characteristics of humour, sadness or sentimentality etc. and events which have a negative consequence or events which are part of an existing newsworthy theme. Perennial themes such as football, the Melbourne Cup or Christmas find a regular place as good news. Also local news is considered very important and often stories will headline specifically because of their local content. (Hall et al. 1978)Before writing this paper I viewed all three commercial evening news programs in South Australia from Tuesday the 29th of October, I took notes on the type of events each station thought to be newsworthy. Sure enough the previously mentioned news values were evident in South Australian commercial news. All three news programs had approximately the same format, roughly eight important and short stories then an ad break, four or five global and general interest stories then another ad break followed by sport, ads and weather to conclude. Channel Ten was slightly different as it is an hour long, it included a recap on major stories and more general interest stories. At this stage I will look at the stories that are reported before the first ad break as these are considered to be the most newsworthy. It is clear to see just how well local stories rate if we look at the opening stories on each news program. Eight out of the ten opening stories on channel Nine were South Australian. The only national stories to come before the ad break were a murder case in Victoria and an increase in wages for the Coles Myer chief. Channel Seven was slightly more balanced with four national stories and four South Australian stories. However, it was interesting to see that channel Seven only reported one international story in the entire program. Channel Ten had six South Australian stories out of seven. It seems that South Australians only wish to hear about South Australians, even if this means hearing about the Christmas pageant before a fatal building collapse in Cairo, as we did on channel Nine. GAY MARRIAGES EssayTelevision news is, no doubt, dominated by visual aesthetics, what looks good is interesting and pleasing to watch. The visual back up of each story confirms it validity making television a trustworthy source of information. Every story in my observation contained pictures from both the event and/or the channel library. It has been said that if a story doesnt carry footage it is not considered newsworthy and may not run at all. This visual style of television news is typically American and is quite different to the traditional English style. In the 1950s the BBC had no moving pictures with their news coverage at all. It was simply the radio news played over a picture of the Big Ben. (Henningham, 1988)For communication to be possible you need a speaker and a listener to interact. We know a lot about news readers but what do they know about us? How do they view their viewers?It is said that journalists know little about their audience, partly because they dont have access to the information. Their opinion of their audience is low, deriving this opinion mainly from the people who call in to the show. One journalist said If the station callers are representative of their whole audience them we are all in big trouble. (Henningham, 1988)Television news is the most trusted form of news today. Yet most of us know we dont always get the whole truth and nothing but the truth. News programs are made in tight deadlines and the news hole has to be filled no matter what happened during the day. Journalists will organise programs by following news values to decide what stories are newsworthy. This is why Adelaide commercial news usually contains a great deal of local content, stories of drama, emotion and negativity, personalities, perennial themes, populist views and of course visuals, visuals, visuals. While television news has the facade of an honest and reliable form of news media it is quite clearly shows a misrepresentation of everyday social life, thus creating meaning and myth in our culture.