Analyse a news broadcast in terms of news values employed during selection and construction, possible gate keeping and possible bias in the broadcast. How explicit are these factors to the audience? Does this matter?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b010r2nj/
Frequency is one of BBC's news values as they had mentioned protests in Libya and the recent attempts at protesting in Syria. As in the last few months Lybia and Egypt have been in the news with protests, BBC see it fitting to report on these events. There is also continuity news values here as there is repetition regular updates on these ongoing events.
The report on Kate Middleton and future King, William, is a perfect example of refering to the elite as it is about royalty, and this is seen as a world wide event signifying the BBC's patriotism. Their particular focus is on where she grew up in Bucklesberry interviewing people from her village that knew her. This report could therefore be linked to proximity as she grew up in England.
Another report linked to proximity is the death of a 15 year old girl who lived in West London. Though lots of shots showed her friends and family crying, reinforcing this idea of British community, which I sense is what the BBC want to portray themselves as; patriots also highlighting how they choose to focus on local news.
In terms of the way the show was structured, the gatekeepers have decided to show news outside of Britain as negative with news about Lybia, or Afghan criminals escaping their prison. The news became closer to home, with the death of the teen, and negative news about the IRA rejecting a visit from the Queen. The news report ended with a positive one; the royal wedding.
There was a bias report about the IRA report as the reporter said only 300 people turned up to the affair, in a village of 10,000. In particular, the tone was mocking the IRA to make them seem inferior and almost childish for rejecting the Queen's visit.
These factors are not explicit to audiences. The news report I watched was only 10 mins long and audiences would recgonise that the BBC have chosen a few reports to briefly show. However, they might believe that reports are chosen in more simpler ways like the most important or biggest stories. In some ways, its not important for them to be aware of this mediation of the news as audiences are becoming more active and are aware of the internet and its abilities to provide information all events going on in the world. The News is just the primary source of information that hopefully insipires audiences to inquire more information.
The only downside to this, is many audiences would trust that those 10 mins of information is enough for them to know for the day, before they go to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment