The news comes at us in many different ways, whilst interviewing I discovered how diverse my housemates were, towards gathering their information. For instance teletext, the Internet and newspapers were spontaneous ways they used to find out the latest in affairs; it is obvious that the mediums used for news are becoming more flexible, possibly reaching an audience they may not have done if stuck to television, radio and daily newspapers. The role of television in explaining news is a controversial subject at the moment. The BBC is under pressure from critics who insist that the ‘dumbing down’ quality of the news is contradictory to the BBC’s promises. The BBC’s recent switch from the nine o’clock news to the ten o’clock news as their flagship news programme has also led to criticism. As a result of this plus the traditions that the BBC pledges to up keep, we decided on watching the twenty-five minute long News at Ten, aired on Wednesday May 8th on BBC1.
Different circumstances would illustrate different results, for instance a 24 year old woman said about watching the news, ‘I’ve got to know what’s going on, and at times I think it is the only thing that keeps me sane’ (Gauntlett 1999: 64). The importance of the word sane is vital, ‘news consumption helps some people to feel less isolated’ (Gauntlett 1999: 64). This example shows what different uses the news has for different people. My participants are no different, they consisted of four men aged 19 to 20 and one female aged 19. RB is male aged 20, SR is male aged 20, MM is male aged 20, RC is male aged 19 and LB is female aged 19. The five participants are all housemates, studying a range of different subjects at University. It is important to note their differing subjects as it may have an effect on their reading and interpretation of the news programme. (RB - Biology, SR - Computer Science, MM - Physics, RC - Film and Television Studies, LB - American Studies and English). Their similar levels of general knowledge is mainly accounted for by their ages, they share the same peer group and are therefore more likely to possess the same amount of cultural and social knowledge for this reason.
When asked about the ways in which they preferred to view the news, RB and SR both stated that viewing the news in a group situation may give for a more interesting session as other people’s opinions and thoughts could be discussed. As RB stated, 'Then you can discuss it (the news) with everyone a bit more... We got in a bit of a debate about the Queen.' Interestingly, RB also made clear the fact that when watching the news he tended to have his mind on other things - 'It didn’t have much of an effect on me, news generally doesn’t.' Despite this, he recalled some of the items in a fairly detailed way. Both RB and SR singled out the BBC for their news broadcasts.' SR stated, 'I suppose it’s got to be News at Ten really.' SR also stated that when he was at home he tended to watch BBC Choice for the news, other than that he didn’t make a point of watching the news daily whilst at University. RC didn’t state a usual preference for watching the news either alone or in a group; this didn’t seem to be an issue to his viewing pleasure, he also made it clear that he liked to watch different news broadcasts on different channels to obtain a wider range of opinions. LB stated that she tended to watch the news in a more intimate setting, perhaps so she could take more in and she also chose the BBC as her main source of news. MM differed from the other participants in that he tended not to watch the news that often, preferring instead to listen to BBC Radio 2 alone for his updates.
We watched the live broadcast of BBC1’s News at Ten, which lasted approximately 25 minutes. The news items that appeared on the programme were as follows:
00:42 > 06:25
minutes - Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel
06:25 > 08:49
minutes - Suicide attack on bus in Karachi
08:49 > 12:40 minutes
- Stephen Byers debate
12:40 > 16:06
minutes - Arsenal new Premiership Champions
16:06 > 18:49
minutes - N.U.T want to cut working week to 35 hrs
18:49 > 19:05
minutes - Helicopter rescue in North Sea
19:05 > 19:24
minutes - 18yr old woman charged with kidnap
19:24 > 19:38
minutes - Netherlands nurse charged with murder
19:38 > 21:59
minutes - Economy debate
21:59 > 22:14
minutes - Queen continues Jubilee tour of Britain
22:14 > 24:47
minutes - Classical musicrow
| RB | MM | RC | SR | LB |
|
Recalled: Israel Karachi Queen Arsenal Missed: Byers N.U.T North Sea Kidnap Nurse Economy Classical
|
Recalled: Israel Nurse Queen Kidnap Byers Economy Missed: Karachi Arsenal N.U.T North Sea Classical |
Recalled: Israel Byers Nurse Arsenal Kidnap Missed: Karachi N.U.T North Sea Economy Queen Classical
|
Recalled: Israel Arsenal Byers Missed: Karachi N.U.T North Sea Kidnap Nurse Economy Queen Classical
|
Recalled: Israel Karachi Arsenal N.U.T Byers North Sea Kidnap Nurse Economy Classical Missed: Queen |
Both RB and SR have a large interest in sport and both remembered the football main news as of high significance to them. John Condray expresses the psychology of this when he states, ‘The mechanism of arousal/desensitisation is central to the most common use of television... (films, sports, drama, comedy, etc) as a way of inducing relaxation, of "unwinding"’ (Condray 1989: 83). Therefore the familiarity of sport and also because sport is expected when watching the news ‘News is indeed a genre, with its formula of key elements bound of conventions’ (Burton 2000: 121). This may provide some relief from more intense subjects and so is remembered because of its regular appeal, and RB and SR’s soap opera like understanding of football. Of the football news item RB said, 'I was drawn somewhat into it, but that’s just because it’s something I’m interested in... It may not have been the way it was reported that interested me, just the subject.' LB also recollected the same football story as an important piece of news, despite being female and stereotypically not a traditional follower of sport. This may have something to do with her environment, sharing an all-male household - ‘The news item will have set up and re-enforced ideas about the connection between football, males and violence’ (Burton 2000: 126). Unfortunately the lack of females interviewed makes these sorts of conclusions difficult to prove.Those who followed football did what Garber suggests - ‘High prior knowledge amongst the participants led to high learning rates’(Garber 1988: 138). MM was the only participant who did not remember the Arsenal story when interviewed, perhaps because he follows it less than the other participants; this backs up the idea that possessing some sort of knowledge and interest about a subject beforehand makes a news item more memorable and easier to interpret for the viewer. RC remembered the football news also, but interestingly the details he shared were wrong; he said that the match was between Arsenal and Liverpool instead of Arsenal and Manchester United. This makes a lot of sense as RC is not a great follower of football, he merely named two teams that he perceived as two of the ‘top teams’ when recollecting the news item. When watching the news opinion leaders showed their influence; RB mentioned Arsenal were playing Everton next week whilst another fan of football (LB) mentioned Liverpool’s match with Blackburn; this had an effect on RC as he used his schema and created a match between Liverpool and Arsenal when neither team had actually played each other.
I took one of the news stories and used it as a basis for deeper questioning within the interviews. The item I chose was that of the N.U.Tand the on-going debate about teacher’s working hours. I asked each of the participants how they would go about re-telling the item to someone who had not seen it, in order to record their interpretation of the information. In most cases, I had to remind the participants of the item, as it had not been recalled in their memory of the news programme; it had not been seen as significant, yet as soon as I asked them about the ‘teacher story’ they remembered the basic details. This shows that a quick word association allows people to delve into their memories of programmes and recall certain details, even if it had before been missed in their recollection. The exception was LB who was the only participant to recall the item beforehand as a major piece of news. It is worth noting here that LB is female and this might perhaps show us that the gender differences of recollection of news items may be significant. However, each participant was able to recall the basic information from the item and tell me in a coherent way what the story was about; possibly due to the fact that they are all students at a high level of learning and deal with analysis and interpretation on a day to day basis.
RC,when asked to recall the details of the N.U.T item, provided fairly accurate details, whilst also providing his own opinion of the story at the same time. He viewed the item with some degree of importance, whilst at the same time voicing it with a flippant undertone; he seemed to have the opinion that if the Government gave an inch the N.U.T would take a mile. RC’s approach to recalling the news items was a fairly informal one; he seemed to retain the basic elements of the items, yet told them in a somewhat superficial manner. RC, although having obviously had first hand experience of teachers whilst at school, fails to fit in with Garber’s Schema dimensions ‘human-interest and empathy’ in which he fails to refer to personal experience but rather delves into the wider issues of the story. Therefore Garber’s terminology does not apply to all occasions. On the other hand MM uses his own knowledge to make the story personal. He explains the historical and cultural information in-depth when describing the item on the N.U.T. He spoke of the British education system and related it to his own personal views, that the Government should do more to help teachers, 'Because teachers do a damn good job in Britain.' He also made reference to his own ties with the education system, stating that he knew a lot about the way schools operate because his mother works in one. This may point to the reason why he took so much of the information in, despite being pushed to remember the item as a whole; he has a personal connection with the story in some way. SR tended to take into account the more straightforward elements of the item (figures, etc), without giving many personal views on the situation as a whole. He recalled the story with good detail when asked to - SR seemed to remember few items but those he did remember, he did so in good detail. LB had already touched on the item before being asked more deeply about it, and had already pointed out some of the major features of the story. When probed, she recalled more of the details and even gave her own opinion; siding with the teachers over the Education Secretary, like MM. RB remembered the basics of the report and also gave emphasis to the fact that both sides of the argument were shown in the item, showing that he understood the need for equality of views in a news programme.
Despite RC’s opinion that the Islam story was overdone and MM’s statement that the coverage of the conflict had 'been done to death', both felt that this item was the most important and newsworthy to them personally. This was also true of the other participants who, in a more concerned approach to the story, also found it to be the item that was of most worth and importance to them. All participants were able to re-tell the item with fair detail, it is obvious that this particular story was the most memorable to them. It was the leading story of the news broadcast and this may have had a significant effect on the way the participants viewed its importance and relevance as a major news item; SR and LB taking particular care to convey the report as accurately and in as much detail as possible. The length of the report (just under 6 minutes) and the depth that it went into - showing footage from Islam, Palestine and Washington, all go to further show the reason why every participant recalled the headline news item as of most significance to them consequently, Garber believes repetition is vital to processing the information.
The stories that the participants deemed as less newsworthy varied slightly from person to person. RB viewed the item of the Queen’s tour of Britain as unnecessary as he already knew that 'she was touring the North... it wasn’t really news.' This lies in direct contrast to MM’s opinions when he stated the importance of the Queen and showed that he could share a fair amount of knowledge about the Jubilee celebrations. Also, it is interesting to note here that the only item that LB did not recall was the same item about the Queen, perhaps showing that she deemed it unworthy as news. The lack of interest in the story could be put down to a lack of visual detail in the story - Garber states, ‘Close-ups of human beings were rich information sources for our subjects because most people have learned to draw inferences from physical appearances and movements’ (Garber 1988: 168). Interestingly the lack of substance within the story seems to have meant that most interviewees felt it was forgettable. Both MM and LB felt that the item about the economy wasn’t necessary; MM stating that it went on too long and LB declaring that if she wanted to know about such a small detail of the economy, then she would read the Financial Times.
It would be interesting to examine if all five participants watched the News at Ten regularly because it may have meant they took in more detail due to the brain being trained to remember detailed reports on a regular basis. However it is apparent by the subject matters that the interviewees remembered, that they are more likely to remember an item that is of interest to them in some way. It can therefore be concluded that those who are interested in an item of the news are more likely than their counterpart to remember it. It seems our society understands the conventions of the news. All participants remembered the first agenda set item, which is typically deemed the most important; after this the students fell into categories dependant on their motivation of what applies to the individual. Garber summarises this when she states, 'They seek out information that is reassuring and congruent with their beliefs' (Garber 1988: 130).