AQA GCSE Media StudiesUnit 1 Investigating the MediaExam Topic: Television News

Lesson 28 – A Window on the World: Representation, Ideology, Audience Theory

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Lesson 28

Starter

Consider the following:

‘Television news is a “window on the world” because it allows the audience access to all news, whether it is regional, national or global.’ ‘Television news is not a “window on the world” because it is constructed and therefore open to interpretation by gatekeepers.’ Discuss with a partner the meaning of these two statements.

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Fiske’s Transparency Fallacy

Fiske (1987) argues that TV news reporting involves just a representation of reality; in other words it is constructed and therefore open to bias.

The ideology involved in TV news reporting is that it is considered to represent a neutral ‘window on the world’.

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Fiske’s Transparency Fallacy

This theory, however, can now be contradicted, now that the audience can access their own information on news stories through social media and various Internet websites and make up their own minds.

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Fiske’s Transparency Fallacy

Although the audience can make up their own minds about validity and truthfulness of TV news reporting, there are various audience theories that consider the effect that the media can have upon us in persuading us to believe what may or may not be true.

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Hypodermic needle model

This theory states that people watch/read media texts and they believe every part of every media message they are told.

They consume it like a drug straight into the brain.

It is the effect of BRAINWASHING someone.

If the hypodermic needle model is to bebelieved, then these audiences are PASSIVE.

The opposite of this is the ACTIVE participant who chooses to investigate and find out more information about the media message they are told. 6

Two-step flow model

The two-step flow model details that there are opinion leaders in society. Opinion leaders are people who have seen the media text and have been able to make up their own mind about its qualities and messages.

These opinion leaders are ACTIVE; however, except for deciding which opinion leaders to believe, the rest of the audience is PASSIVE.

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Audience theories

These theories rely on the consumer making ACTIVE choices to seek further information

and not to be a PASSIVE observer.

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Images

Images in TV news reporting help to illustrate the news that is being presented.

It is said that

‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

Again, images are open to manipulation, although the moving image may be more transparent, unless edited of course!

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‘The picture that fooled the world’

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Look at this image for a few minutes.

Say what you see.

‘The picture that fooled the world’

This was a still taken from some TV news footage during the Bosnian Civil War in 1992, which involved several controversial debates. • It was suggested that the photo was staged to look like a concentration

camp run by the Serbs for Bosnians and Croats, symbolised by the barbed wire.

• Others argued that in fact the barbed wire was around the journalists and TV crew and that in fact it was a transit camp where people were taken before they were released.

The fact that these people had been in a prison camp either way helped portray the suffering of those caught up in the conflict, and it is said that the image helped to end the conflict, as this image among others was shown around the world.

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Caption activity

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Visitors from another planet reach out to us!

It’s actually lightning!

Caption activityThe real caption

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Caption activity

You will be given an image.

Give it an appropriate caption.

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Plenary

Are you an ACTIVE or PASSIVE consumer?

Discuss with the person sitting next to you. Do you make active choices to find out more, or do you sit back and not

question?

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Homework

Explain your understanding of how television news provides a ‘window on the world’.

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