John Maynard Smith was one of Britain's most eminent evolutionary biologists. For over forty years, from 1954 onwards, he also regularly appeared on radio and television. He primarily acted as a scientific expert on biology, but in the late 1960s and the 1970s he often spoke on the implications of science for society. Through four case studies, this paper analyses Maynard Smith's scientific broadcasting against developments within the BBC as well as the relation between science and society in (...) Britain. It finds that while Maynard Smith acknowledged and accepted increasing mediation through the BBC and its producers, he stayed publicly and privately critical of both format and content decisions in his reflections on the science–media relationship. At the same time, we find that over a decade before the 1985 report by the Royal Society on the public understanding of science, Maynard Smith came to think of engagement with the public via the media as scientists’ responsibility. (shrink)

A handbook of best practices for television and broadcast journalists, encouraging practices that the public will see as being fair, thereby helping assure that television news gathering remains free.

In this article I examine the differences between broadcast political interviews in commercial and public service broadcasters in Spain. The study focuses in particular on political interviews broadcast on ‘morning show’ type programmes. The analysis distinguishes the characteristics that make up the news interview turn-taking system in order to explore the degree to which information and entertainment come together in political interviews broadcast on morning shows. The results show, primarily, that political interviews shown on public service broadcasters’ morning shows adhere (...) to the journalistic standards of neutralism and adversarialness. This is precisely how they strive to make the politician publicly accountable. In political interviews broadcast by commercial broadcasters, however, these rules are followed intermittently. The aim of these interviews appears to be different: to penetrate politicians’ personal sphere with the discernible purpose of entertaining. These differences reflect different interview styles which, in turn, reveal different conceptions of journalism, politics and society. This investigation utilizes the research tools developed in conversation analysis. (shrink)

This well‐researched book will be of immense value to the person who will someday write the full story of broadcast regulation in the United States. That story still needs to be written; although in this book the facts are all presented, the story behind the facts is not.Well, actually, not quite all the facts are here either. For example, similar problems tackled in other countries such as Canada, even before the United States began looking into them, aren't even mentioned. True, (...) the title of the book specifies that it is limited to the United States, but to understand the regulations presented we should certainly have some knowledge of how others had attacked the same problem.More important, Hugh Slotten totally ignores the personalities of the people involved. This is a tremendously important consideration, for to understand what happened we must know something about the motives of the people who made the decisions, and since many of the motives were hidden under layers of varying complexity and political beliefs we would like to know something about the personalities of the players. Someone at the Johns Hopkins Press evidently noticed the problem, but the only attempt at fixing it was to lie blatantly on the bookjacket: “His [Slotten's] discussion of the early years of radio examines powerful personalities—including navy secretary Josephus Daniels and commerce secretary Herbert Hoover.” But there is no discussion at all of the personalities of these men. Daniels is mentioned in only two sentences, neither of which touches on him as a person, and although Hoover occurs in several more, nothing of his “personality” is thrown in.Lee De Forest is another example. On page 4 he is identified as the inventor of the audion . On page 61 we read of his “invention” [sic] of that device. Why the quotation marks around “invention”? Did he or didn't he invent it? Actually, there is a good story to be told about that, but you won't read it here. De Forest played an active role in the regulation controversies, and this role is made clear in the book. But precisely because of this, wouldn't it be interesting to know that De Forest was arrested and went to trial for crooked stock manipulation in connection with the audion? The only hint at such activities is Slotten's statement that De Forest was a “maverick.” Wouldn't that one word make you want to know more about him, if only to evaluate his quoted remarks on governmental interference and regulations?Other matters of interest are passed by, as when on page 48 we read: “Decisions about who should receive licenses … could … be based on such qualitative issues as the character of broadcasts … and the educational benefits.” What a can of worms this opens up! Or should open up. Is the government going to censor broadcasting by denying licenses to stations that publicize alternative methods of government, such as communism? How about religious or ethnic controversies: will these be deemed “educational” or subversive? Is the government, through its licensing powers, going to let the public hear only what it wants it to hear, à la Goebbels and Germany? Well, we'll never know, for this particular can is not opened by the author; after this one mention, the subject is never broached again.In summary, if you are actively researching this field, Slotten's book is a must for you. But the full story of radio and television regulation in the United States is still to be written. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction - the Small Screen and Morality - Morality on Television - Sociology and the Moral OrderTelevisuality: Style and the Small ScreenThe Phenomenology of Television - Society and the Small Screen - Mediating Morality- Television and the Imaginary - Conclusion.

This article examines how Italian commercial broadcast news on Mediaset’s three terrestrial channels has covered the transition to digital terrestrial television. Mediaset is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country and is owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. By drawing on critical discourse analysis of broadcast news, it is argued that linguistic elements such as pronouns, choice of words, and metaphors, together with tendentious editing and framing of interviews, were part of a strategy of positive representation of the (...) broadcaster’s interests in the transition and negative representation of media policies opposing such interests. In particular, the analysis brings to the surface the ideological usage of interviews. Interviews in this case did not function as an act of control over the powerful, but as a way to illuminate the broadcaster’s strategic interests while obfuscating the reasons behind attempts to regulate the transition to digital television and open the market to competition. The data attest that the way in which news programs covered the digital transition exposes the connections between media content, media ownership, and governmental institutions. Indeed, all three news programs, TG5, TG4, and Studio Aperto, despite their different target audience and the reputation of one of them as the most objective and authoritative newscast on Italian commercial television, echoed each other in unified support of the sort of interests and media legislation that best fitted the corporation, especially at times when those interests were threatened. The corpus consists of 13 newscasts grouped in two clusters aired in 2006 and 2009. The main participants in the story were Mediaset’s president, often interviewed as the ‘expert’ on the TV industry, the communications minister for the center-left Prodi government, and the communications undersecretary for the center-right Berlusconi government. Citizens and consumer groups were never given the opportunity to voice their positions or be an active part of the narration. (shrink)

Delia Cristina Balaban, Informationsvermittlung und öffentliche Meinungsbildung im rumänischen Fernsehen Editura Presa Universitarã, Cluj- Napoca, 2003.

The analysis of TV violence cannot be limited to the quantification of its incidence, but should also take into account the type of violence broadcast and its context (what is depicted and how). Thus, normative models of violence (legitimized violence with positive consequences for the aggressor, or vice versa) could be understood as positive, while contra-normative models of violence (rewarding illegitimate violence and punishing legitimate violence) should be of far greater concern. This paper analyzes the normative contexts of TV violence (...) through a content analysis of randomly selected fragments of TV programming (147 recorded hours). The results show that news programs and TV series/soaps delegitimized violence to a higher extent, while films tend to show legitimized or ambivalent violence. Positive consequences of violence predominate in fictional programs, except for TV series/soaps. Normative presentation of violence is more frequent, especially in nonfiction genres, as fiction has more freedom to depict the socially undesirable. (shrink)

In this important new book, Jacques Derrida talks with Bernard Stiegler about the effect of teletechnologies on our philosophical and political moment. Improvising before a camera, the two philosophers are confronted by the very technologies they discuss and so are forced to address all the more directly the urgent questions that they raise. What does it mean to speak of the present in a situation of "live" recording? How can we respond, responsibly, to a question when we know that the (...) so-called "natural" conditions of expression, discussion, reflection, and deliberation have been breached? As Derrida and Stiegler discuss the role of teletechnologies in modern society, the political implications of Derrida's thought become apparent. Drawing on recent events in Europe, Derrida and Stiegler explore the impact of television and the internet on our understanding of the state, its borders and citizenship. Their discussion examines the relationship between the juridical and the technical, and it shows how new technologies for manipulating and transmitting images have influenced our notions of democracy, history and the body. The book opens with a shorter interview with Derrida on the news media, and closes with a provocative essay by Stiegler on the epistemology of digital photography. In Echographies of Television, Derrida and Stiegler open up questions that are of key social and political importance. Their book will be of great interest to all those already familiar with Derrida's work, as well as to students and scholars of philosophy, literature, sociology and media studies. (shrink)

In March 2003, President Bush declared the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the anticipated commencement of intensive American-led military operations in Iraq. With this declaration, the media began intense coverage of military operations from the field. For the first time, viewers were able to see images of actual events. This was due to three developments: the advancement of technology allowing immediate transmission of text and images, the actual presence of journalists identified as "embedded journalists" at military sites, and the fierce (...) competition among networks for viewers. One result of this constant coverage was significant pressure on decision makers within the television and cable news networks to decide within a matter of seconds which images to air. In particular, producers and broadcasters of competing networks experienced this pressure. Though the radio and broadcasting industry has a published code of standards, it is "general and advisory rather than specific and restrictive." Therefore, it did not address the unique time sensitive decision-making required within this new environment. Issues such as the security of soldiers, confidentiality of troop maneuvers, and the safety of the embedded journalists were critically important. Equally serious were the concerns about the impact of the immediate airing of information and violent images to the public. This research used Patrick Primeaux's ' mind-heart-sou¾ model of decision-making as its theoretical framework. The study investigated the gender and industry experience of selected professionals in a cable news network, MSNBC, to explore how ethical codes of behavior are integrated when people make decisions. Decision-making in both their professional and personal lives was examined. It is from this perspective that their professional decisions to air/not to air material from Operation Iraqi Freedom were studied. The findings on decisions about airing/not airing material from Operation Iraqi Freedom yielded both expected and unexpected results. There was no clear gender difference regarding ethical decision-making, but there was a difference when analyzed by industry experience. When the study focused on questions regarding the respondents' personal lives, the original hypothesis that there was a gender difference was validated. (shrink)

This study focuses on how Israeli Arab citizens perceive their media representations on Israeli television and why they consume television broadcasts even though they are marked mostly by negative representations. A new concept – “Communication Boundary Situation” – a development of Jaspers’ “Boundary Situation” theory, is the theoretical framework for the article. The empirical data was collected by conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews. The findings point to different attitudes among the interviewees towards their representation in various television genres, (...) in particular, in advertising as compared to satire and drama. The suggested theoretical framework and its empirical implementation might be useful in examining how various minorities perceive their media representations in other countries. (shrink)

This article presents an overview of the transition that has taken place in Arab media over the course of time. It focuses more specifically on the case of Saudi Arabia to show how television interviewers there have performed their roles throughout three different phases. The first phase covers the period when the media was still controlled by Arab governments, the second focuses on the advent of satellite and the third focuses on the aftermath of the recent series of uprisings (...) which has become known as the Arab Spring. An examination of these three phases, which includes a discussion of some illustrative examples, will show how television interviewers have shifted from initially taking a very cautious and overtly deferential approach with interviewees, officials and public figures to adopting a more aggressive approach in the third phase. (shrink)

Written by one of the foremost and widely-respected writers in the field, this volume sheds new light on the forms and premises of the communicative experience. In doing so, it challenges the theoretical positions of marxist and "political economy of media" analysts who focus largely on the structure of economic and social power within the media. Instead, Scannell explores the structuring of engagement of the viewer/listener with the broadcaster by analysing the communicative intentions of the broadcaster and the understanding by (...) the audience of those intentions. This powerful and accessible book makes an important contribution to media studies in showing students how the history of the media can be enriched by communications theory. (shrink)

Le chez-soi a toujours été travaillé par l'autre, et par l'hôte, et par la menace de l'expropriation. Il ne s'est constitué qu'à l'ombre de cette menace. Néanmoins, on assiste aujourd'hui à une expropriation nouvelle, à une déterritorialisation, à une délocalisation, une dissociation si radicales du politique et du local, du national, de l'Etat-national et du local, que la réponse, il faudrait dire la réaction, cela devient - je veux être chez moi, je veux être chez moi, je veux être chez (...) moi enfin, avec les miens, auprès de mes proches. Cela n'est même pas une réponse d'ailleurs, ce n'est pas une réactivité secondaire qui vient en quelque sorte compenser, réagir après-coup, non, c'est le même mouvement. Il appartient à la constitution du propre et relève de cette loi d'ex-appropriation dont je parlais plus haut - pas d'appropriation sans possibilité d'expropriation, sans la confirmation de cette possibilité. Prenons l'exemple de la télévision. La télévision introduit dans le chez-moi l'ailleurs, et le mondial, à chaque instant. Je suis plus isolé, plus privatisé que jamais, avec chez moi l'intrusion en permanence, par moi désirée, de l'autre, de l'étranger, du lointain, de l'autre langue. (shrink)

L’émission Loft Story représente l’apogée de la néo-télévision. Elle a instauré un contrat de communication avec le public qui a mêlé la plupart des éléments caractéristiques de la télévision contemporaine. Participation du public au programme, symbolisée par la présence à l’écran de personnes anonymes issues de la société civile et par une interactivité poussée exprimée par les votes. Imbrication difficile à décrypter pour le téléspectateur entre réalité et fiction. Dimension ludique du programme et vécu en direct qui entretiennent le double (...) phénomène d’identification et de distanciation. Mise en scène de la dimension relationnelle de la vie privée. Écho de la culturelle adolescente, surtout dans son aspect interrelationnel. Utilisation du média comme acteur de la vie sociale, et notamment comme agent de promotion professionnelle.The show Loft Story represents the most extreme form of « neotelevision ». The communication contract it proposes to its audience brings together most of the elements that characterize modern television. 1) Public participation in the programme . 2) Unability for viewers to clearly sort out what pertains to reality and what belongs to fiction. 3) Playful dimension of a live broadcast that simultaneously triggers identificatory and distancing processes. 4) Focus on the private realm and on its relational dimension. 5) Particular attention paid to adolescent cultures, especially in their interrelational aspects. 6) Transformation of the medium into a social actor in its own right, specially as an agent of professional promotion. (shrink)

This article aims to reflect the efforts of the Ethnic Greek Minority that resides mainly in southern Albania, in the villages of Dropoli in Gjirokastra town, to have its own television programs in the Greek language. Further to the editions of the printed media and the radio broadcasts in the Greek language that were dedicated to the Greek Minority, there arouse the need for television programs in the Greek language which would be another dimension in reflecting the worries, (...) the problems, the traditions and the culture of the Greek Minority in Albania. Although the airtime of the programs in the Greek language, their frequency and the period in which they were broadcasted were short term, there remains undisputed their value in terms of the contribution to the social, political, economic and cultural life of the Greek Minority residing in Albania. The study of the Ethnic Greek Minority media in Albania is an unstudied field, so, in this article we aim to fill this gap somehow by providing a modest contribution, which may serve to many future researchers who will conduct studies of such topics. (shrink)

Mass media have been accused of cultivating anti-immigrant sentiments in Western societies. Most studies on this topic, however, have not made a distinction between the types of television program (information vs. entertainment) or television station (public vs. commercial). Adopting a comparative approach, we use data from the six waves of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2002–2012, n = 162,987) to assess the relationship between individual and aggregate level patterns of television consumption and anti-immigrant sentiments in European societies. (...) Individual television viewing time is positively associated with anti-immigrant sentiments, while frequent exposure to news and information programs is associated with lower levels of anti-immigrant sentiments. At the aggregate level we observe a positive effect of the total viewing time in society on anti-immigrant sentiments. In the conclusion we offer some suggestions on how this effect could be explained. (shrink)

Since 2009, the Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK has produced a number of slow TV shows. Some of the programmes have had a surprisingly big success in terms of public engagement and audience share even though the majority of the audience was from the oldest age groups. These programmes are not only slow, lasting a long time and lacking dramatic development and progress, they also engage in a particular, traditional version of national identity. The current article argues that, through slow (...) TV, the Norwegian public service broadcaster has found a new way to reflect a particular version of Norwegian identity and to tap into the central values of Norwegian culture. Taken together, the shows cover all regions of the country—the coastal areas as well the inlands and mountains. In terms of representation, the programmes highlight nature and traditional Norwegian values such as closeness to nature, rural life, and “friluftsliv” (living the outdoor life). Urban areas and the non-white population are conspicuously absent. (shrink)

By and large, contemporary news stories are stories about a particular nation, told to an audience that is seen and addressed in national terms. However, the understanding of the exact ways in which national imagination becomes engrained in the narrative conventions of news reporting is still rather limited, in particular when it comes to audiovisual genres. This article aims to fill a part of this blank by examining the links between national imagination and the narrative conventions of television news. (...) Building on existing debates about different modes of news reporting, the article distinguishes two distinct sets of narrative conventions at work in television news: one typically found in routine reporting, the other characteristic of crisis and celebratory reporting. It is argued that each of these two sets of conventions is tied to a different form of nationalism, and normally arises in a different political climate. Links between national imagination and narrative conventions vary accordingly. To demonstrate this, the article provides a comparative analysis of narrative structures in selected samples of television news bulletins broadcast in the early 1990s in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The concluding section reflects on the external validity of the chosen case study and surveys supportive evidence from four other relevant cases, drawn from the UK and Israel. (shrink)

L'évolution de la mesure d'audience TV est indissociable des principales étapes qui ont mené d'une télévision publique en situation de monopole à un système mixte public/privé. Les résultats du panel postal de l'ORTF, premier dispositif fiable et permanent , sont réservés aux seuls dirigeants des chaînes, afin d'éclairer une politique de programmes encore volontariste, tandis que le CESP mène une enquête parallèle à destination de la profession publicitaire. La montée de la compétition entre chaînes publiques s'accompagne de l'attention croissante accordée (...) à l'audience et, en 1982, la mise en place de l'audimétrie-foyer représente une véritable révolution, par la rapidité et la précision des résultats obtenus. Avec l'arrivée des chaînes commerciales et la concurrence entre diffuseurs qui en résulte, les publicitaires sont en mesure d'exiger leur participation au contrôle de l'outil géré par Médiamétrie et imposent l'audimétrie individuelle , qui permet un suivi par cible.The evolution of TV audience research is indissociably linked to the main stages of television’s own history which saw it progress from a single state-owned channel with no competition to a system where public and commercial channels co-exist. Results from the ORTF postal panel set up in 1969, the first reliable and permanent measuring device, are only given to channel executives to help shed some light on a programming policy which is still volontarist. The CESP also conducts a parallel survey used by advertisers. The rise in competition between public channels has gone hand-in-hand with the growing attention paid to audience ratings and the introduction, in 1982, of rating measurement meters represented a real revolution since results are accurate and rapidly obtained. The arrival of commercial channels and the resulting competition between broadcasters meant that advertisers were able to demand a say in the control of the “Médiamétrie” audience ratings system and imposed the introduction of the TV “people meter” which permits the calculation of target audiences. (shrink)

In this volume, Richard Parker contemplates the opposing interests of the developing global market television industry and the future of entertainment programming trying to appeal to the local tastes. The author also presents the basic economics of television and how this understanding will enhance the dissemination of news and we as an audience will take this even more for granted.

The Public Broadcasting System’s series Frontline has served as one of the major documentary and public affairs program on American television since its debut in 1983. Emerging at a time when the U.S. television networks were dramatically cutting back on documentary and public affair’s television, producer David Fanning and his team have produced a series of award-winning programs on issues ranging from programs on the Gulf War, Afghanistan war, and Iraq to producer Ofra Bikel's investigation of (...) the Little Rascals sexual abuse case to Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman's chronicle of America's drug wars. (shrink)

The $120 millwn libel suit brought by General William Westmoreland against CBS has been the focus of considerable press and public attention. It was Westmurelad's claim that the CBS broadcast, "The Uncountd Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, contained intentional distortions of fact. CBS stood firmly behind the broadcast, although conceding journalistic flaws. During the trial the procedures followed when making the documentary were closely scrutinized and the nature of teleuision journalistic practice was called into question. The ethical implications of the Westmoreland (...) v. CBS controversy are discussed in this article. (shrink)

The author reviews two symposia: 'The Video Arts: Demonstration and Discussion', The American Society for Aesthetics, New York City, 28 Oct. 1978, and 'The Aestheticians Look at Television', National Association of Education Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., 30 Oct. 1978. He also presents an evaluation of the current state of video art in terms of philosophical aesthetics. Furthermore, he attempts to make a clear distinction between television and video art. The differences cited include corporate studio efforts vs efforts of individual (...) artists, commercial vs artistic purpose and the substantial differences between production methods. Other issues considered are style, intimacy and narcissism. (shrink)

In 2003, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) determine those network development years and released a policy document. This indicates that management is aware of the importance of pay TV and digital TV and hoping to promote the development of network services and system integration, and change the business model of the radio and television industry has long rely solely on advertising. As of July 2009, approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and (...) class='Hi'>Television to set up a pay TV channel has 142 units, divided into two categories broadcast on nationwide broadcast and province. In 7 years, the national digital pay TV channels from scratch, from small to large, from more than 20 of the initial development to the current level of 142, the number increased by 7 times. Judging from the number of digital pay channels have begun to take shape, the categories covered very rich. But from the overall development situation of Chinese digital TV, pay-TV channels, the number of users is far less than the (wired) digital TV subscribers, the development is very optimistic. 2010 cable industry revenues constitute the revenue of the premium channels is also very small. At present, China has a number of pay-TV channels integrated operating agencies, the premium channels transmission operators institutions user access and pay channels, operations, CCTV and local TV stations to form a pay channels. (shrink)

In response to the significant increase of judgment and judgmentalism in contemporary film and television, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' investigates the evolving connections between the aesthetics and ethics of judgment. The volume ultimately contemplates whether we should, and can, do without judgment, questions that are just the beginning of a much-needed re-examination. The individual contributions of the collection all work towards a very specific focus on judgment that is unprecedented in its transdisciplinary composition and (...) contemporary relevance. By exploring examples of entertainment that aim to instigate judgment, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' advances the as yet underdeveloped area of research into television and philosophy. (shrink)

At present, the news broadcast system using mobile network on the market provides the basic functions required by TV stations, but there are still many problems and shortcomings. In view of the main problems existing in the current system and combined with the actual needs of current users, this paper has preliminarily developed a news broadcast system based on 5G Live. The card frame adaptive strategy significantly improves the user experience by using gradual video frame buffering technology. Hardware codec technology (...) significantly reduces the consumption of system resources; H.264 high-compression algorithm can reduce network bandwidth by 50% compared with MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 without a significant change in image quality. At the same time, the use of mobile video acquisition terminals in the system not only solves the problem that satellite broadcast vehicles cannot reach the site due to the lack of roads but also greatly reduces the cost of early deployment and late maintenance of the news broadcast system. This paper studies the card frame adaptive strategy, the system resource consumption reduction solution, and the deployment scheme of the mobile video and audio transmission terminal, which is of great significance to improve the design and research of the news broadcast system under the wireless network application and also has certain reference value for the design of other broadcasting and television solutions. (shrink)

Live broadcasts of surgical procedures are most common at professional conferences, but they are not uncommon in the wider public arena, with operations having recently been transmitted in realtime on public television in the UK. This phenomenon raises ethical concerns familiar from the professional context, along with some distinct considerations which merit further attention. In this article I aim to examine the issues in terms of patient autonomy, patient welfare and the public interest. Prompted by the interest recently expressed (...) by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, under each topic I pose a series of questions, before closing with a call for enhanced ethical oversight, such as might be afforded by a clinical ethics committee. (shrink)

Television regulation is increasingly Europeanized. While the transposition of community law into national legislation in EU member states has been widely discussed, scholarly attention is less frequently devoted to the Europeanization of non-member states. This paper investigates how television regulation in non-EU members has been influenced by European audiovisual policy since the liberalization of broadcasting. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and putting it into a wider context, changes in television regulation and their connection to the (...) European level were analyzed by performing a qualitative document analysis. Results indicate that the degree of Europeanization in Switzerland differs remarkably from other non-member states like Norway. While advertising regulation was brought in line with less-strict EU directives, a public value test or compliance with state aid rules were not even discussed. Yet similar to other non-members, rules were adopted without having a say in their development. (shrink)

Through analysis of film sequences focusing on DNA in two British Broadcasting Corporation nonfiction science television programs, Wonders of Life and Bang! Goes the Theory, first broadcast in 2013, contrasting “religious” and “secular” representations of science are identified. In the “religious” portrayal, immutable scientific knowledge is revealed to humanity by nature with minimal human intervention. Science provides a creation story, “explanatory omnicompetence,” and makes life existentially meaningful. In the “secular” portrayal, scientific knowledge is changeable; is produced through technical (...) skill in expert communities; and is ambiguous, potentially positive and negative for society. Television representations of science affect audience understandings, and this is particularly the case for nonfiction representations of science, as they are likely to be “taken more seriously” than fictional representations. The consequences of the “religious” representation of science are discussed, and it is argued that a widespread understanding of science as presented in the religious portrayal would negatively impact democracy. (shrink)

Tube of Plenty is an abridgement of Erik Barnouw's classic 3-volume History of Broadcasting in the United States. The paperback edition was first published in 1976 and a second edition in 1982. Much has happened in television in the 1980s; the decline of the three major networks, the expansion of cable and satellite television, film channels like Home Box Office, the success of ESPN, and MTV, and the increased way in which the White House in Washington has (...) managed and controlled national news and its contents. Barnouw has added an extensive chapter dealing with the changes of the 1980s and looking ahead to the 1990s. (shrink)

Objective: To map the tone of local and global economic information transmitted in news and non-news TV programming during economic recovery, and to resolve a conflict in the literature between research where a negative trend in economic news was identified and studies which concluded that economic news reflects actual economic circumstances. Method: A content analysis of 140 hours of prime-time programming aired by commercial networks and public broadcasting in Israel during one month. Results: Local news reflects fairly accurately current (...) trends in the stock exchange while still maintaining a general tendency to employ a negative tone more frequently than a positive tone, even during economic recovery. Global economic news is more positive in tone than local economic news. References to the economy in the news are more positive and frequent than references to the economy in non-news programming. The tone of economic news in public broadcasting is more negative than the tone of economic news aired on commercial stations. Conclusions: The existence of a negative bias in economic news depends on the reported event. While News about the stock exchange is not biased, less concrete news is negatively biased. (shrink)

This article looks into the way in which public-service as well as commercial TV stations in the Netherlands assume their social responsibility towards a pluralist society. After all, television channels are expected to be ‘mirrors of society’; the key question is then how successful their programs are in conveying a well-balanced representation of all groups in society. By means of a quantitative analysis, the Diversity Monitor charts the presentation of different groups, with a particular focus on gender, age, and (...) ethnicity. Apart from diversity, and as a subcomponent of the Quality Card, the Monitor also reviews innovation as an indicator of program quality. The results reveal a wide diversity of TV programs in the Netherlands, but diversity as such is no guarantee of a balanced presentation of society at large. Due to selection mechanisms on the side of the broadcaster and the public, what the viewer eventually gets is at the most a mirror of his or her own group. (shrink)

A wide range of previous research has pointed out important interactional features of televised political interviews including the cooperative dimensions to encounters between interviewers and interviewees and the extent to which news interviews differ to everyday conversation. Drawing upon an analysis of 29 televised political interviews broadcast in the UK, this article seeks to build on such work. A preliminary quantitative inspection of the data suggested that a sizeable minority of interviewee responses `hearably' challenged the prior interviewer turn. A conversation (...) analytic approach to the turn-response pairs suggested that whilst a wide range of interviewer turns were potentially vulnerable to such problematizing moves - the challenges made were often boundaried. That is, in making challenges, interviewees typically refrained from developing them in highly personalized terms; they often raised them in passing and, in cases where the interviewee refused to cooperate with interviewers, they typically did so by producing a justification. Further analysis suggested that both interviewers and interviewees did not take the steps to ward off disagreement commonly found in everyday conversation - instead both interviewer and interviewee seemed to orientate to the normality of disagreement. This picture of `boundaried but normalized' challenge was made sense of in terms of different preference structures to those found in everyday talk in which both interviewee and interviewer were understood as skilfully orientating to the normativity of challenges whilst safeguarding the interview structure itself. (shrink)

Amid the action of the 2013 Super Bowl aired the usual array of high-priced advertisements. Most ads were original. Some were unusual. One regional ad, however, seemed distantly familiar. The 30-second commercial promoted the NJOY King electronic cigarette1 to at least 10 million viewers in several major markets. It featured an attractive male model taking a drag from what looks like a cigarette. He then slowly blows smoke to the tune of Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time.” Of course, the (...) “smoke” does not come from burning tobacco. Rather, it is the water vapor produced by an e-cigarette as part of its nicotine delivery process. This, however, was not evident from the imagery. For those watching the broadcast, including thousands of minors, NJOY’s advertisement depicted what tobacco companies have not portrayed on television for decades: a person engaged in smoking behavior. (shrink)

Despite the adoption of the term headline for both print news and broadcast news, their roles in the different media are not the same. Print headlines are mostly contiguous with the story to which they refer. Broadcast headlines, however, are often at some temporal distance from their associated news item. In the print medium every story carries a headline. In broadcast news only some items are headlined. And yet, whereas the linguistic properties of print headlines have been much studied, almost (...) no attention has been given to broadcast headlines. This article uses a corpus of headlines from BBC television news to explore their discursive form and function. It isolates a basic structure of {heading } for television news headlines and delineates a repertoire of patterns through which the structure is realised. In doing so, it suggests that the core function of television news headlines is to engage with the audience by projecting aspects of their news values forward through the programme. (shrink)

Interviewing as part of broadcast news includes a wide range of practices that go beyond calling public figures to account in ways that have received so much attention and analysis in the research literature. This article examines a major strand of news interviewing which it identifies as ‘experiential’ and argues, on the basis of close discourse analysis of interviews drawn from coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2005 London bombings, that the focus on personal experience and emotion in (...) them is managed in ways quite distinct from accountability interviewing. Indeed, the apparently formulaic quality of the verbal performance in these interviews gives shape to experience in a fashion close to ritual but demands a quite different kind of alignment from the audience than that implicated by accountability interviewing. (shrink)

In July 1997 the European Commission proposed a "Directive on the Legal protection of Service based on, or consisting of Conditional Access" (to various electronic systems).This paper considers the proposed Directive within the context of the European Union's failure to develop and maintain a coherent policy relating to satellite television broadcasts direct to the individual's home (DTH) within the nascent Single European Market (SEM), and the consequences of that policy failure for "ordinary" consumers who are highly unlikely to have (...) a full understanding of the complex technical, legal and economic environment in which they are making their purchase(s). (shrink)

News Simulcast, the flagship news program for China Central Television, has been widely studied by Chinese scholars. However, little attention has been paid to its representation of ideological meanings. To address this issue, the present study, drawing upon Van Dijk’s framework of three-level analysis of discourse structure, carries out a comprehensive discourse analysis of the news broadcast on this program. A corpus of 10 episodes of News Simulcast was selected as the database, from which a subset of four episodes (...) were thoroughly examined from the macro-level of discoursal and thematic structure to the micro-level of linguistic and semiotic structure. It demonstrates that, due to its historic background and political privilege, News Simulcast broadcasts news with an authoritative national voice, speaking primarily in the interests of the Communist Party, the government and the people, and it thus forms a rather stereotyped discourse structure: positive ‘us’ versus negative ‘them’. (shrink)