In order to find out how people differ in their interpretations of the same news broadcast, I arranged for four people to watch a half-hour live news broadcast and interviewed them individually very shortly afterwards. The group comprised of two men and two women of different generations within the same family. They will be referred to by their sex and their age (M51, F52, M24, F32). One problem that Morley (1986) notes with his Nationwide study was that viewers were interviewed outside their '"Natural" domestic viewing context' (Morley, 1986: 40). Therefore by interviewing within the family home, the artificiality of my interviews was minimised to create a freely expressive context. However, although the environment and the interviewer were familiar, the watching of a programme with the knowledge of being interviewed afterwards was obviously not, (hence a deadly silence during the viewing!).
Research is never without its problems, interviews are ambiguous and therefore only ever a representation of the decoding process, as Morley (1988) explains in the first person:
Lewis continues this line of thought that the interview is a much altered construction of the active viewing process but can be usefully representative if their limitations are acknowledged,
The programme was broadcast on Friday 29th March on BBC 1 at 16:55. Within the programme (and featured in the following order) was the main headline story of the Israel versus Palestinian war and suicide bombers, the story of Amanda Dowles, the missing girl, too much television leads to aggression, a closing coal mine in Scotland, the National Union of Teachers conference in Bournemouth, several sports stories including a Newcastle versus Everton victory, the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, and finally a feature on Prince Charles, William and Harry enjoying a holiday in Switzerland.
Each participant was asked if they had seen any news prior to the viewing and how many stories they could recount. They were then asked to describe those stories that they had remembered. Of the main story they were asked to describe what they saw. They were also routinely asked if they had an interest in the news items that they had described and if they had any prior knowledge regarding the story. I was interested for them to express some of the discourses that may have affected their viewing, in order to see ‘schematic thinking’ (Graber 1988: 250) at work.
The group’s readings of the programme differed in various ways. Firstly, the participants were simply asked to recall the news items that they could remember. See below:
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F52
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M51
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Football - Newcastle vs. Everton
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Missing Girl from Surrey
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National Union of Teachers
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British aid in Afghanistan
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Television and agression
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National Union of Teachers
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British aid in Afghanistan
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F32
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M24
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Israel/ Palestinian war & suicide
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Missing girl from Surrey
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Bombers
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‘Afghanistan events’/Israel/Palestinian war.
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Missing girl from Surrey
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National Union of Teachers
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National Union of Teachers
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Football -
Newcastle vs. Everton
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Closing mine in Scotland
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Prince Charles and sons on holiday
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Television & Aggression
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Apart from the Israel/Palestinian war, the National Union of Teachers (N.U.T) conference and the missing girl story, every other feature that was mentioned, was only ever mentioned by one other participant. The only exception was the story of the closing mine in Scotland which was only mentioned by F32 and could be attributed to the short amount of time given to the feature compared to the treatment of all the other stories. Therefore although there was some convergence in what was recalled, there was also a fair amount of divergence.
Retention of a story can be partly due to the text; in the way the news gives a lengthy treatment and priority to some stories e.g. the Israel/Palestinian war and the relatively short treatment of the coalmine in Scotland. Graber (1988) attributes some selection of information to ‘cueing by the media’ (Graber 1988:97). The Glasgow University Media Group explored the power of the news because it tells people,
This may explain why only F32 noted the coalmine in Scotland story, because of the way the news dealt with it. However, the most important factor for selection of information to be processed, which may be assisted by ‘cueing by the media’ was reliant upon interest and prior knowledge of the story.
This explains why in my study, the missing girl story was recalled and successfully recounted by three participants and the N.U.T story was recalled and successfully recounted by all the participants. For both of these stories, all the participants stated a definite interest in them. For all the other stories recalled, the participants noted an interest but found the word ‘interest’ problematic for the foreign stories. My conclusions of this parallel Graber’s research which states the most important factor for selection of information was ‘personal pleasure’, in particular ‘personal relevance’, ‘emotional appeal’ and stories which were labelled as ‘interesting story’. (Graber 1988: 102) This provides an explanation as to why in my study, some stories were recalled and others were not, (with hindsight I should have asked why they did not recall certain stories).
When watching the news, whilst some information is selected, other information is rejected. Graber explains that one reason for this is the believed accuracy and therefore credibility of the news as a source of information, 'Making it futile to process the information' (Graber 1988:174). Two of the participants in my study noted a suspicion with television news for its ability to ‘hype up’ stories and leave necessary information out. However, rather than rejecting to process the story, it provoked F32 and M51 to discuss the Television and aggression feature for failing to provide a convincing argument with all the necessary evidence. Others in Graber’s study, rejected information because of the anticipated problems of processing information for stories that were foreign to them or too complex.
In my study, M24 admitted that he did not really have an interest and did not understand what the foreign situation was of the Afghanistan events/Israel vs. Palestinian war hence his mixture of the two separate stories. 'I really don’t understand it, that’s my problem and it’s something that you ...blot out of your mind really, when it’s that serious' (M24). Although he initially selected the story, the lack of prior knowledge and interest explains his inability to recount the information. This is also relevant to applying relevant schemata when watching television which will be explored later.
Of the main story (Israel and Palestinian war) all the participants except M24 provided all the relevant information from the feature. This may be due to the lack of prior knowledge and interest in the story but also may be accountable to the news broadcast itself. In his study of 50 viewers of News at Ten, Lewis (1991)provided the very persuasive argument that people misunderstand the news because the news narratives that are provided, completely abandon the ‘hermeneutic code’, (Barthes 1975). The logical narrative code presents an enigma or a question, a delay in the answering of it and an answer or resolution (Lewis, 1991:126). Instead of obeying these laws, the news frequently abandons this narrative structure, and causes a misunderstanding of the news for the viewer.
Lewis provides evidence for this by analysing responses to two different types of news telling, one story which uses the logical enigma/resolution narrative and one which abandons it, coincidentally about the Israel/Palestinian war. Lewis’s argument explains why ‘discrete moments’ (p.132) are often recalled by M24 and not the story as such, because the news ignores a logical narrative structure. My findings of M24’s account of Afghanistan events/Israel vs. Palestinian war, resemble Lewis’s findings of a new story on the same subject where only 4/50 participants were able to understand the story, recall the relevant information and instead got ‘lost’ (p.133). In Lewis’ research, where failure to link necessary information was apparent, the viewers were unable to make sense of the news broadcast and instead drew on prior images of violence surmising that the news was about violence.
M24’s confusion could be attributed to the text’s inability to make clear what the story was about, possibly not informing the viewer of vital previous knowledge or it could be attributed to the level of interest in the news to start with.
The group that I interviewed were questioned regarding their usual habits of television news watching. Only M51 stated that he was actively interested enough in the news of the world to make a concerted effort to watch the news daily. All the other participants said that they would watch the news ‘in passing’ if it happened to buffer the programme they were about to watch, the audience, as Patterson (1980) points out:
This difference in reasons and purpose for watching may account for the initial interest and therefore prior knowledge of the news and the subsequent inaccurate or simply different readings of the news.
Doris Graber’s (1988) study, of story recall applies schema theory and can shed some light upon the differences of response which my research found. When we interpret a television programme we draw on our own individual schemas or frameworks of knowledge to ‘fill in’ the gaps that are not inferred in the text in order to make sense of the programme. (www document, Chandler, D). In Graber’s research, in which she uses interviews and diaries, she argues that when people watch television they use ‘schematic thinking’ (p.250).
In order to develop the schema theory to my own study and provide an insight into their divergent readings, I will use the story of the N.U.T conference which was about the plight of teachers’ long working hours and low pay and the responses of F32 and F52 who in particular offered the most different perspectives to the story. It was clear that they both understood what the story was about because they recalled the main points accurately, however, they both added more information into the story because of the interest and prior knowledge of the news story. Similarly in Graber’s study, 'Extraneous information tends to come from schemata stored in memory' (Graber 1988:170). After clearly giving the main facts of the story, F32 and F52 both provided an opinion on the story which necessarily meant that extra-textual information was provided. For example, F32, who was for the cause of the teachers to reduce their weekly hours and paper work, illustrated her point by bringing in the fact that she knows someone who is a teacher and has an enormous amount of paper work. Likewise, F52, who did not agree with the teacher’s battle and believes they have plenty of holiday time, brought in knowledge of television production and began to criticise the presentation of the story by the programme which had obviously unnaturally directed a female teacher to walk down a corridor carrying a heavy stack of paperwork. 'It wasn’t just ‘off the cuff’, ‘and this is them pulling their hairs out’, um I just felt that she had picked up folders to do the piece of newsreel' (F52). Therefore their readings are different because they applied different schemata of previous knowledge about the issue and television knowledge to their readings.
When we watch the news there are three main information processing strategies or types of ‘schematic thinking’ (Graber, 1988: 250). Firstly Graber describes ‘relatedness searches’ (p.158) which is the most frequently used strategy, seeking the most relevant schema. This often leads to the wrong match because people lack the prior knowledge which explains why M51 was more able to recount the Israel/Palestinian war story more successfully than M24. M51 has a larger body of relevant schema due to his age and interest in the news. Secondly ‘segmentation’ (p.160) enables the viewer to both divide information and integrate it into several schemas to find the most relevant. This is the most effective of the three strategies to store information because of the nature of the news, 'Segmentation occurs routinely because people rarely store all aspects of a story' (p.161). The news even appears to resist successful storing of information, Graber (1988) explains that, 'The news is never assimilated into long-term memory because too many stories are presented too quickly' (p.108). Whilst segmentation occurs, simultaneously, the information is altered which aids storing and makes it easier. Lastly, ‘checking’ is the least used strategy but one which searches and finds the most appropriate schema. Evidence of ‘checking’ was found in F32’s account, who had not completed the process of schematic thinking, 'Checking comes to the fore when people ‘think out loud’ testing several possibilities' (p.164). In her account, F32 initially explained the Israel/Palestinian story inaccurately and whilst she thought aloud, was able to rearrange her phrase, make sense of the story and tell it to me more accurately,
Therefore in making sense of a news item, many different interpretations will be made from what the text presents, due to the existing schema and the strategy used to best store and retrieve information.
In conclusion, when watching the news, viewers differ in their interpretations due to the nature of the text and the complexity of the viewer. Viewers have differing levels of interest and prior knowledge which subsequently affects how they make sense of what they see and hear and therefore accounts for the vast divergence of readings made. Viewers have many different schemas with which they draw upon to ‘fill in’ what the text does not provide in order to make sense of it. This understandably becomes a problem when prior knowledge of the news story in question is incomplete. The viewer will select information from a wealth of previously held knowledge which seems relevant to what is being presented to them. The news presents its stories in a way which is very much open to interpretation because it has its own production constraints and does not always obey an enigma/resolution narrative, often omitting necessary causal information, leaving the viewer to draw on possibly inappropriate knowledge or schemas. Therefore what is interpreted is often very different from what the news broadcasters had hoped for their stories.
April 2002