241mc news as a communication practice john keenan [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future. It is murder...
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing you can measure anymore
1. How will you get into the news?2. How will you control the news?
You have a church fete in aid of the newsteeple and you want The Coventry EveningTelegraph to cover it
Your child needs an operation in Americaand you need to get public donations
You are an animal rights activist group andyou want to publicise the plight of batterychicken farms in Turkey
You are on strike against the car firm Nissanand you want to get national support foryour cause
You are the Green Party and arestanding for election so need to publiciseyour manifesto
ationConglomerAmericanisDumbing downisCommercialisCelebrificEconomis
cheaper
Less equipment
Smaller buildings
Fewer staff
Centralised printing
global news- a global village
news audience widening
W I D E R
everyone linked straight into media
more information more frequently in less time
FASTER
‘technology allows us to package, graphicise and meld five minutes of old TV information into 60 seconds of new TV time’
Jon Snow Newszak
MOREMORE‘‘Information blizzardInformation blizzard’’ Baudrillard Baudrillard
‘‘message gluttony’ Lyotardmessage gluttony’ Lyotard
digitalisation
binary language
1000100100 11001110001 10100100100
1111000011 10000010010 00010111011
0001111100 10011001001 11101111110
0111011111 00000010101 00011101010
CONVERGED
Neophiliac
information highway Bill Gates utopian vision
Public Sphere - Jurgen Habermas
Cultural pessimist
divided increasingly unequal world
Control by big business
We’re going down, down, down cos that’s the only way to make this cruel cruel world hear what we’ve got to say
Dumbing down-isation
Public Communication
How will you get into the media?
How can you control the message?
Dumbing down-isation
SMALL EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE, NOT MANY DEAD
Dumbing down-isation
Golding and Elliot from Making the News (1979)
Studied TV news in Nigeria, Ireland and Sweden finding the same news values
Drama - news stories ‘are stories as well as news’ p.115
Visual Attractiveness - visually arresting
Entertainment - humorous, amusing, diverting
Importance - significant to a large number of people
Size - number of people, scale of event
Proximity - cultural and geographical
Brevity - happens quickly
Negativity - ‘Bad news is good news’ p.120
Recency - up-to-date
Elites - includes famous people
Personalities - ‘make stories comprehensible by reducing complex processes and institutions to the actions of individuals’122
Accessibility- is it accessible to the media for pictures and quotes?
Dumbing down-isation
The Fourth Estate
FIRST Church
SECOND Lords (Law)
THIRD Commons (Government)
FOURTH Media
Dumbing down-isation
Fourth estate
Dumbing down-isation
How many volcanoes erupt every year?
Known - 720
How many children die from starvation every day?
40,000
Number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads in 2011
37,214
2.5 million children died from starvation in Africa in 2012
In 2012 2.5 million people got AIDS mainly in India and Africa and 1.7 million died from the disease
Every minute, 20 football pitches of rainforest are cut down
Prince Harry was photographed naked in Las Vegas
2.5 MILLION DIE OF STARVATION IN AFRICA
Drama - X NOT A STORY
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK X
Size - Y
Proximity - TO UK X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - Y
Elites - X
Personalities - Y
Accessible - N
RESULT - 4/12
Dumbing down-isation
1.7 MILLION PEOPLE DIED FROM AIDS LAST YEAR IN INDIA AND AFRICA
Drama - X
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK X
Size - Y
Proximity - TO UK X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - N
Elites - N
Personalities - Y
Accessible - N
RESULT - 3/12
Dumbing down-isation
EVERY MINUTE 20 FOOTBALL PITCHES OF FOREST ARE CUT DOWN IN BRAZIL
Drama - X
Visual Attractiveness - X
Entertainment - X
Importance - TO UK ?
Size - X
Proximity - X
Brevity - X
Negativity - Y
Recency - Y
Elites - X
Personalities - X
Accessible - N
RESULT - 2/12
Dumbing down-isation
Drama – Y
Visual Attractiveness – Y
Entertainment - Y
Importance – X
Size – X
Proximity – Y
Brevity – Y
Negativity – X
Recency – Y
Elites – Y
Personalities – Y
Accessible - Y
RESULT - 9/12
Dumbing down-isation
PRINCE HARRY WAS NAKED
Using news values, how will you get into the news?
News is a ‘limited exercise of choice’ p.96 based on 3 criteria:
‘First convenience, in the shape of availability of someone to do the job..Second its intrinsic news value, and third, external encouragement, that is, pressure from news sources, the government or the corporation to cover it’ p.96
We are amusing ourselves to death
Neil Postman
Dumbing down-isation
Economisation
I want money, that’s what I want
i. Primary court, emergency services, politics
ii. Secondary: education, pressure groups
iii. Public Relations
iv. News Agencies
v. Freelancers
News Sources
Economisation
‘They (journalists) know less, cost less and are approached by ever more publicists, lobbyists and spin doctors but they produce material that is disseminated more powerfully to more places’
Curran and Seaton Power Without Responsibility
Economisation
Hot-seating
Economisation
http://www.72point.com
It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it
and that’s what gets results
Celebrification
Celebrification
Dead-batted questions she did not want
Revealed through her terms
Body Language - puppy-look
Dress – black
Order of questions – depression, enemies, Camilla, adultery
Were you unfaithful?Yes, I adored him; yes I was in love with him
37mins
Celebrification
Conglomeration
I got the power
Conglomeration
Silvio Berlusconi
Conglomeration
‘the newspaper staff has been left to get on with the job’ because proprietors, ‘have global problems of trade and investment to occupy their minds’
John Whale in Power Without Responsibility
Murdoch gave The Times to right-wing Andrew Neil if you wrote a story against his views, ‘what would happen is you would write a story and it would disappear’ PWR
Wider reading
The Good, the Bad and the Unacceptable by Raymond Snoddy
Conglomeration
The agencies are agenda-setters ..for they make the first decision on how and if international stories..will be covered for television
Paterson
Conglomeration
As we are technically capable of becoming more and more informed and better and better informed, we’re at risk of becoming less and less informed by fewer and fewer people
Dimbleby in Paterson
Conglomeration
News Agencies
•Reuters
•Agence France Presse
•Associated Press
•World Television News
Conglomeration
Reuters:
In 91 countries - 192 countries
196 bureaux - 22 in the US
Conglomeration
‘The agencies are agenda-setters ..for they make the first decision on how and if international stories..will be covered for television’
Paterson
Conglomeration
globalisation
instrumental
Marshall McLuhan
A global village
Space-time collapse
globalisation
All my life, watching America
Americanisation
Jeremy Tunstall (1977)
The Media are American
..and vodka is Russian. So what?
Americanisation
20th July 2004 Bangladesh vs (New Orleans)
2/3 of country flooded (one city)
1,000 + deaths (83)
500,000 starving children (10,000 people removed)
Americanisation
Mobile phone fears. British Health Council warns that over half-an-hour a day can cause brain tumours
BBC gets record viewing figures. On average 6 million more than any rival
Car gridlock fear by 2016. RAC warn that if car ownership keeps increasing the average speed will be 12 mph
Israel bomb - 300 feared dead in café explosion
Divorce rate at all-time high in UK. One in two marriages now fail Home Office report
Woman, 94, killed in Edinburgh. Shot at 7pm while collecting fish from a chip shop
Princess Caroline of Monaco in hospital after drug overdose
Fire in Bradford, 7 dead including 4 children and one 81-year-old. Thought to have been started by chip pan.
Bruce Willis has cancer. Film career over for star as tests reveal lung cancer to be inoperable
Queen in fall, has to cancel all appointments for next 4 days. She fell on her arm and badly bruised it while walking in Balmoral
Health scare. Innocent smoothies contain dangerous toxins claim scientists at Cambridge University. Tesco withdraw it from shelves
Manchester United are cheats says Arsenal boss. Arsene Wenger accuses rivals of being ‘morally corrupt’ after Theo Walcott penalty dive won them the match
4x4 cars are damaging the environment says Lady Gaga who fronts a Greenpeace campaign to point out that . The effects of global warming effects are increased by 50% compared to other cars.
commercialisation
sponsors the weather
commercialisation
commercialisation
How advertisers affect the news
Allow news to be produced
Target the audience
Change content
Create supplements
commercialisation
Your company Cognia has had an explosion – 30 dead.
Your company McMartins has been found to be exporting live chickens from the UK getting them processed in Argentina and then selling them as British meat.
Your company London School of Ergonomics (LSE) has been found out to have given a degree to a dictator’s son
HOW TO WRITE A PRESS RELEASE
HOW TO WRITE A PRESS RELEASE
Activity
• As a group, go through the press releases provided.
• For each press release, identify either a good or a bad point
What a press release should do
• Convey new information• Capture editorial coverage• Consider all stakeholders
– Client: reinforce strategy, set agenda, align with advertising and marketing effort
– Audience: address appropriately– Media: news values/establish working links
Activity
• Now write a press release for Bosco’s
• Now pass your press release to the group to your left
Risks • For the media:
– credibility
• For the PR: – PR results not guaranteed– empty press conferences – PR backfires
Activity
• Now write a press release for Bosco’s
• Now pass your press release to the group to your left
Typical Mistakes1. No names/contact details 2. No business card3. Spelling mistakes4. Informal tone5. No 5Ws6. Adding irrelevant info7. Embargo risks8. Graphics and pictures
