Istituto “Madonna del Grappa”

We are about 40 third-year students at the Institute “Madonna del Grappa”, Treviso. We are 16 years old and attend the class 3°a and 3°b. We started the European Project COMENIUS towards the end of November. Mrs Paola Ferronato, the teacher supervising the project in our school, introduced us to the project activities, which involve other European schools. She illustrated the objectives of COMENIUS and then we soon started working on it (and we hope we will be successful!).

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At the beginning, with the help of our Law teacher, Mr Andrea Michielan, we investigated the structure of the news. We saw with him and evening edition of the news: TG1 (TG means telegiornale, i.e. “TV news”) on channel RAI1, a national public channel. We analyzed this sample news program by filling in a grid that highlighted the most relevant elements.

During this activity we timed the total length of the program and the lenght of each single report, while analyzing the topics dealt with in each of them and the aspects that were particularly emphasized. The data we collected helped us to calculate the percentage of single reports on politics, current events, culture, science/ technology and entertainment. The teacher showed us that there are different news typologies, i.e. articles, news, commentaries, interviews, reportages.

Each class was then divided into five groups and each group had the task to analyze the evening edition of the news on a determinate channel: TG1 on RAI 1 (public channel), TG2 on RAI 2 (public), TG3 on RAI 3 (public), TG5 on canale 5 (private channel, whose owner is our Prime Minister, Berlusconi) and TGla7 on La7 (private). We went on with this work for two weeks (7 to 18 December). On the 15 th and 16 th we recorded the various TGs.

We noticed that in the different reports images, graphical displays and videos were used. Besides, musical aids were usually employed to catch the audience’s attention. Most of the news were about national events rather than international ones. In some programs a certain political stance could be detected, some of them were interrupted by ads. Our final task was to compare the news reported on tv with the news reported in the most important newspapers.

More specifically we observed that all five newscasts mostly transmitted articles followed, first, by news on politics and, then, by news on culture, entertainment and sports. The headlines are trasmitted in all five newscasts in opposition to others, less important, which vary according to each tg. During the weeks when the activity was performed, the main important news were about Berlusconi’s attack, the climate summit and the earthquake in Umbria (central Italy).

• TG1, unlike other newcasts , gives the same importance to political news and current affairs.

• TG3 broadcasts more international news than TG1, TG2, TG5 and TG la7; we have also noticed that the news last on average 30 minutes, but reports relating to politics are the longest .

• All the news programs open with a symbol accompanied by music and within the various departements there are pictures and videos. Especially in TG1, TG2 and TG5 graphs are used to facilitate the understanding of the issues addressed in the various services.

• Moreovere, these five newscasts have different types of reports: articles ( less frequent in TG la7 and TG3), news, reviews and interviews (in most of the news transmitted by TG1).

• Occasionally, news about young people (i.e. about smoking, drugs, alcohol, music and discos) are sent at the end of each TG.