Maybe It's Okay to Fight Fire with Fire

We have spent a lot of class time discussing the effects and responses to violence in media. Many of us seem to feel that the violence should be limited and/or regulated. This is particularly in light of the concern that we as a society are becoming desensitized to violence, because we are bombarded with it daily on television, in movies, and in the news. I have to come to the defense of the news, though, by pointing out that we have to remain informed, and the news must provide us that service, no matter how scary its content is.

A previous blog post discussed the lesser amounts of local news coverage here in England and the role local news coverage plays in the creation of Mean World Syndrome through its constant coverage of local crime, distorting viewers’ perception of the world as a more violent place than it is. I actually believe, though, that this lack of local coverage could potentially be a major loss.

Through research for my second application paper, I came across a study that looked into whether using a public health model to frame violent news content would bring a purpose to news channels’ coverage beyond just informing. Using a public health model would just mean adding context to the issue at hand, the way news covers diseases and medical issues. Through this framing method, viewers are presented with more than just a horrifying school shooting, but also with what needs to be done to prevent such aggression from happening again.

When local violence is covered in this way, the community majorly benefits. Keeping that in mind, I feel that having less local news coverage in England could be a problem. I am pessimistically doubtful that crime and violence is less prevalent throughout England than it is in America. If so, presenting communities not only with the violence that is taking place within it, but also with what needs to be done to stop it, is a role news channels should be playing, here and everywhere. Because they can focus on smaller areas, rather than an entire country as the BBC does, local news channels would be best at this.

Ebola Virus and Media Coverage

     Today, my sister got back from a mission trip in Ghana, Africa. When the news of the Ebola outbreak was spreading last week, she had been there for about four days. I was immediately concerned and with my parents being the only ones talking to her, I had no idea what the current situation was in the community she was in. I had personally never heard of the seriousness of Ebola, so I searched all over the internet for information and statistics on the disease.
     Since it is easily spread by blood and body fluids, with some people even claiming it can be spread by a cough, I was naturally worried for her health. After reassuring myself it was very unlikely for the disease to spread to Ghana, I was very interested to see how the media portrayed the outbreak around the world.
     Most of the immediate information I receive regarding updates related to the virus come from Twitter. I follow WSBTV, so when the American patients were returning to the US last week and yesterday morning, I could follow their arrivals very easily. The backlash about bringing the Americans to Emory has also been present all over Facebook. Because I "like" the 11 Alive news page, many of the top stories appearing on my timeline have to do with the care of these patients. On these articles, there have been harsh comments from people around the US responding negatively to their transfer home. Although I haven't been able to watch CNN live, on their US online homepage, there is whole section specifically dedicated to the virus. Whereas, when I went to the BBC homepage, the Ebola outbreak isn't mentioned once.
     Noticing this difference, I asked my sister today what the reports were like in Africa regarding the virus. She said that they only knew about the virus from parents calling their children on her mission trip checking up on them and mentioning the disease. They would have had no idea that something like that was spreading if it hadn't been from news from the US. She also told me: "The only time I remember hearing about it was at an Internet cafe when these guys were on their Facebook and seeing people with pictures of it on there".
      When I asked her whether it was on local news or in their newspapers she told me she hadn't noticed it. Also, she said that when she was waiting at the airport it was the first time she actually saw live reporting about it, but it was through a CNN coverage. When I went online to try to find some examples of Ghanaian media content, two of their TV stations, TV3 and GBC Ghana (government run news), the Ebola outbreak wasn't mentioned at all in bold letters like it was on CNN.
     Although this is just my sister's account of what she noticed while being over there, I think it does show the importance we place on media content in comparison to how other countries do. With our advanced research and the capabilities of the CDC, I think the emphasis on learning more about Ebola makes sense, but it also is drastically scaring some of the American public when it shouldn't be.

Jaw Dropping or Line Crossing?

This weekend, I adventured down Oxford Street and Regent Street in London to do some shopping with friends. We had been walking for hours. I was so exhausted that my eyes were glued to my feet as we walked the final few blocks to Selfridge's. I just happened to glance up right as we were passing a clothing store, French Connection, with an advertisement displayed on their window that made many passersby, myself included, stop and take a second look. The ad that we saw is pictured above.

I had to stop and snap a picture because I couldn't believe what it said. As an advertising major, I'm always pretty conscious of the advertisements around me, while other people may just walk by them without noticing. But I was definitely not the only one giving this specific ad some attention. You can even see the guy in the reflection of the display window stopping to read the advertisement.

We have learned about violence and sexual content in the media, and I'm not sure this really fits into either of those categories. But I couldn't help asking myself, was it really necessary? Yes, using this (misspelled) profane word in ads draws attention, but at what cost? In my opinion, using language like this in an advertisement really casts a shadow on the brand and has the potential to drastically decrease the size of your consumer base. Even though the actual word wasn't used, everyone knows what is implied by the ad. And if a child walked by and read the word aloud, it would still sound like the profanity that it is. 

With so many media outlets for people to be exposed to advertisements in today's world, it is important for advertisers to create material that continues to push the envelope and draw the attention of the public. But where do we differentiate between jaw dropping and line crossing in today's advertising?

The Luxury of Choice

Visiting the British Broadcasting Company is something I have been anticipating since the moment I sent in my UGA at Oxford Study Abroad program application – last December. Needless to say, by the time we finally arrived that Thursday a couple of weeks ago, I was rather, rather excited.

During the tour, as we were looking out at the gigantic (awesome) newsroom, the tour guide compared the BBC to America’s CNN. This made me think of other news organizations we have in America – and there are quite a few – and imagine what their news operations look like. We have CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News…and the list goes on.

We’ve discussed in class, and it’s been mentioned in previous blog posts, what the pros and cons are of having a government-sponsored news organization like BBC, as well as what the BBC’s equivalent would be in America.

But I have a different question – where do British people go for their TV news, besides BBC? The British, for sure, love their BBC. Who wouldn’t – it’s awesome. But are there many other big-name news channels here?

Another topic that has come up in class has been the dangers of choosing a blatantly sided news source simply because it caters to and reaffirms one’s views. My dad, an über conservative, drives me crazy by refusing to get his news from any place other than Fox News. Clearly, this can be a problem, when one so rarely sees another side of the story and equally rarely changes their views on issues because of it.

But. We at least have that luxury – to be informed the way we would like to be. The liberals have their MSNBC, the republicans their Fox, and then CNN is there to provide middle ground. We’ve got plenty of options when it comes to choosing a news provider in America. The UK, however, seems to have a much limited list of choices.

The question I’m left with is:

Which country’s news consumer, in the end, is better off?

Scottish Independence: A Case Study in Framing

When you visit the website of any UK newspaper, there's a good chance you'll see some sort of category for news stories on the movement for Scottish independence. I'd heard a little about it just from being in Oxford surrounded by British media, but my general sense was that the discussion didn't have a lot of bearing on the future -- or at least the immediate future. Scotland and England united in the early eighteenth century, and it didn't seem likely to change. Every once in a while we talk about Puerto Rican independence in the U.S., but nothing's really changed.

But when I was in Edinburgh this weekend with Ashlyn and Brittany, we met up with a friend of Ashlyn's, who is Scottish. Brittany asked him an offhand question about the queen, and he said, completely deadpan, "I hate the queen."

It had something to do with football club alliances, which I won't pretend to understand. But talking to him got me thinking about the relationship between Scotland and England. After doing a little research, I stumbled on the website for -- what else? -- The Guardian. Their online paper has a whole section for Scottish independence with news articles and a roundup column every week. The tone of the weekly column is, unsurprisingly, pretty irreverent. The columnist swears, cracks jokes, and overall doesn't seem to give a lot of weight to the issue. In fact, in the most recent column, she references and embeds a video of a Scottish parody news segment claiming that recently translated portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that Jesus himself was a unionist.

Now, as the columnist mentions, the men who appear in the video have actually made a film about Scottish independence. So clearly they aren't taking themselves too seriously, but they do have some serious views on the issue. When I looked at Scottish news sources, I found the topic of independence handled a little differently. Here is the blurb under the "independence referendum" category of the Scottish Daily Record website:

Scots will be asked to decide on the future of our country in this year's independence referendum on September 18. The historic question will be: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" If Scots say yes, First Minister Alex Salmond will begin negotiations which could see Scotland becoming an independent country by March 2016.

In comparison, the weekly roundup column mentioned above was the first item displayed under The Guardian's Scottish independence category. There's apparently a referendum coming up next month in Scotland. Would I know that from reading The Guardian? Well ... maybe. Or maybe I would hear about Scottish independence and think about the weekly blog that told me nothing major is happening.

These examples are specific. I haven't searched every news website in England and Scotland. But I think this small, informal bit of content analysis might indicate a bigger-picture issue. I'm not saying that English media is totally unionist or that all Scottish media is separatist. But if a Scottish newspaper treated independence the way The Guardian does, I don't know how much I'd think my vote in the referendum is going to matter. How important is Scottish independence, and how much of a say do Scots have? I think it depends whose media you ask.

If it Bleeds, it Leads

After spending several weeks in Oxford, I have noticed one thing in particular about British news coverage: there is very little local news broadcasted on airways. From what I can tell, most citizens get quick updates on national and international coverage on BBC and move on with their day. Coming from America, where almost every city has its own local station, I found that rather odd. But is it really such a loss?

A quick scroll through Atlanta’s WSBTV’s webpage revealed that there have been four critical car crashes and five violent crimes committed in Atlanta in the past two days. When you consider the entire Atlanta metropolitan area, those odds aren’t terrible, but when the stories are concentrated on a single news page, they can be a little overwhelming. This seemed like a prime example of how Atlanta news cultivates its viewers to have a strong Mean World Syndrome. According to a 2013 Pew study, 71 percent of Americas who report using broadcast news as their main form of news-gathering rely primarily on local news channels. If Americans do in fact rely heavily on local news broadcasts, they may be getting a skewed since of the world from the high volume of violent crime coverage.

As it turns out, Oxfordshire does in fact have a local news outlet. A scroll through their news page revealed that only two violent crimes have been reported in the past two days. I couldn’t find a similar study about British news-gathering habits, but local news outlets do not seem as prominent among citizens here as they are in America. That fact combined with the lower number of violent news stories suggest that British media cultivates its viewers less than their American counterparts to see the country as a violent place. It is possible that Oxfordshire simply has less violent crime on which to report, but the differences in coverage are still rather staggering.

Are we more cultivated to believe in Mean World Syndrome than British consumers? Can we blame it all on local news stations? 

Are we cultivated to show PDA?

During my travels I have noticed that people in Europe (or at least the places I’ve gone – around the UK and Belgium) show more public displays of affection (PDA) compared to people in the States. I think that relationships in the States are similar in their levels of happiness as European relationships, so why is there more PDA in Europe?

Combing class discussion from the topics of Cultivation Theory and Media Effects from Sexual Content, I came up with a possible answer. Cultivation Theory suggests that the more media a person is exposed to, the more they cultivate similar views of the world as shown to them on television. Sexual content in media, whether on television, print ads, or online – ranges from mildly suggestive to sexually explicit. Because new forms of media are becoming more widely availed and used by younger viewers, there are social concerns about the amount of sexual content shown. 

As previous blogs have pointed out, ads and television programs in the UK and Europe have more content that leans towards the sexually explicit side of the scale than we are used to seeing in America. Personally, I have noticed that magazine covers in the UK are more revealing than covers in the US.

In London last weekend, I was handed a tabloid before I went into the tube station. I noticed that most people on the train were reading tabloids, so I started reading the one I was handed. After turning the first page, I saw an advertisement that was sexually explicit. I immediately closed the tabloid and threw it away when I got off the train. I don’t remember the name of the tabloid or what the specific advertisement was for, but I do remember the sexually explicit image and how wrong I thought it was.

It would be extremely easy for any young person to pick up one of the tabloid and be subjected to these sexually explicit images, and I’m sure they do. Young people in Europe are constantly exposed to sexually explicit images, which might cultivate them to show more PDA and act in sexually explicit ways.

Although this is only a correlation (and not causation), I think that there is some merit in these observations. I have wonder if young people would be showing as many public displays of affections if they grew up in the States, and were not consuming media with so much sexual content?