Although Habermas’s formulation has been subject to criticism, particularly with regard to its historical validity, it is important to foreground two aspects of the original formulation as Sparks suggests ‘The first of these is Universality: ‘Access is guaranteed to all citizens’. Everybody has a right to participate. My analysis of the news will consider whether the news in reality is open to everyone as a matter of right. ‘The second issue is equality: citizens: ‘confer in an unrestricted fashion’. To confer is to participate in a discussion, to have rights both as auditor and of speaker.’ Again, my analysis will consider whether all people have an equal right to participate in both capacities.
The explanations outlined above provide a means whereby it is possible to investigate whether a global public sphere is emergent in the news. However, it is first important to outline the news production process.
The news is supposed to be objective and neutral and is often described as ‘a window on the world’ but this can be misleading. The news is a complex and bias process therefore in order to discuss the possibility of a global public sphere in respect of global news; it is valuable to define the key term itself. Although the proper definition of news is ‘new information about events’ the real meaning of the term in our society is rather different. News has come to mean information which has been collected, shaped and then passed on or reported by professional, profit-making organizations.
The extent to which perceptions of news and the role of the media have changed, is revealed in the contrast between the work of Franklin, who sets ‘entertainment’ against the more desirable ‘news and information’, and the perspective found in with John Fiske. Fiske attacked what was then an established idea: the notion that news is somehow factual or ‘objective’. Speaking of television he wrote that ‘the basic definition of news as factual information…gives us only half the story’. In other words Fiske objected not to sensation dressed up as news, but the idea of news as ‘fact’. Fiske goes on to speak of ‘norms’, a set of values which ‘embody the ideology of the dominant classes.’ This point of view casts the news organization in a certain role-as the servant of the dominant forces in society. News is therefore, a reflection or embodiment of dominant interests and values.
Television news is made via a routine production process through news selection and news values.
‘News values’ derive from the ideas or assumptions which form the ideological background to the work of the journalist and the news editor. O’Sullivan et, al define news values as ‘The professional codes used in the selection, construction and presentation of news stories in corporately produced mainstream press and broadcasting.’
News values have been categorized by a number of writers. Mcshane sets out five central tenets which journalists are likely to follow in their news-gathering operations. These are ‘conflict, danger to the community, the unusual, scandal and individualism’. Dutton produced a list of twelve of the most significant news values. The list may be summarized as follows: Frequency, this refers to something Dutton calls ‘the time span taken by the event’. He cites the example of murders, which happen suddenly and whose meaning is established quickly. The murder of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells is a prime example of this news value.
The threshold or amplitude of an event refers to its size, the bigger the event, the better. There is a threshold below which an event will fail to be considered worthy of attention, and will not be reported.
The more clear cut and uncomplicated an event the better, Dutton calls this ‘Unambiguity’. Although events do not have to be simple, the range of possible meanings they are able to generate must remain limited. In this way the event will be accessible to the public.
Meaningfulness is an important news value. Dutton divides this into two categories, following Galtung and Ruge, who called this news value ‘Familiarity’. The first category is cultural proximity in which the event agrees of a specific culture. The second is relevance, where events will be reported and discussed if they seem to have an impact on the ‘home’ culture. This impact is usually represented in terms of some type of threat. The threat of terrorism is a current issue after the September 11th attacks which changed the world. Britain and the USA are close alliances and so this story was culturally significant to the British and also to people all over the world. Audiences are interested in events which contain reference to the values, beliefs and attitudes that it shares therefore, Ideology plays an important part in the construction of news.
The meaningfulness of an event is linked closely to another news value, the reference to elite nations. Elections, natural disasters, wars and other significant events are more likely to be reported in the western press if they occur in the developed world. In terms of the September 11th attacks, the event automatically qualified as important news because importance was given to the number of deaths aswell as the country in which the event occurred. This is an example of events having to attain a certain ‘threshold’.
Unexpectedness operates through the categories of the meaningful and the consonant. The rarity of an event leads to its circulation in the public domain, the story in which a woman was pregnant with eight babies or the boy who gave birth to his twin are key examples of sensationalism in the news. Similarly, negativity refers to the idea that ‘bad news is good news’. Audiences will flock to a story that has shock value but ignore one which is routine. Audiences are held by the dramatic power of the tragic narrative. to use the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells once again, the girls were very young and were taken advantage of by someone or people they trusted. The human interest angle is an important way of making events palatable or comprehensible to audiences.
The story of the girl’s murders achieved importance in the news, just as the murder of Millie Dowler and therefore were both covered for some time on television and in the press and this refers to the news value of continuity.
Composition refers to the idea that most news outlets attempt to balance the reporting of events, so in terms of composition if there has been a great deal of bad news, some items of a more positive nature will be added, for example the birth of a child in the royal family. This links to the reference to elite persons in the news.
The famous and the powerful are often treated as being of greater importance than those who are regarded as ordinary, in the sense that their decisions and actions are supposed to affect large numbers of people. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a cultural icon recently running in an election in the U.S and winning over the people is a prime example of this. The social activities of such people are given importance because these combine the public’s supposed interest in the famous with general interest in special events.
Finally, personalization plays a key role in the news agenda. Events are often seen as the actions of people as individuals. An institution and its functions may be ‘personalized’ by referring to a prominent individual who is associated with it.
News is therefore not (and arguably can never be) presented in a totally unbiased way. News implicitly gives preference to some ways of seeing the world. Fowler examines the question of news values and declares: ‘the world of the press is not the real world, but a world skewed and judged’. In this case, reference to the real world is intended to show that the press is selective and that ‘the vast majority of events are not mentioned’. Since most events are never reported, ‘selection…gives us a partial view on the world’. However it is a physical impossibility to report every incident that occurs. All human understanding and judgement is based upon selection. The point Fowler is trying to make is that there are social and institutional principles at work in those selections which are made by the press. Philo (in Fowler) argues that the usual picture of journalistic activity is mistaken: ‘news is not “found” or even “gathered” so much as made’. It is a creation of a journalistic process, an artifact, a commodity even.
News agencies play an important part in this process. ‘News agencies are ‘wholesale’ suppliers of news as a commodity’. News agencies provide television pictures for news broadcasters around the world. News providers use news agencies to reduce costs as often stories or pictures are not accessible to many news organizations because of time and travel constraints. The two key players in providing international news pictures to countries all over the world are Associated Press and Reuters. ‘Well over a billion people around the world each week see a few minutes of foreign news provided by Reuters Television or Associated Press Television News’. News agencies are important in relation to news as a commodity.
The news we receive is the result of an industrial aswell as an intellectual process. In other words, news is a product or commodity, something for sale in a marketplace. It has thus always been entertainment, though it is fair to say as Franklin indicates that ‘news media have increasingly become part of the entertainment industry’. It is the status of news as a commodity, rather than the degree of its ‘seriousness’, which determines its position within the entertainment market. The concept of objectivity and the related distinction between ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’ has brought about the idea of ‘Infotainment’, a term used to describe the news as a text where information and entertainment values are made to converge in an effort to attract as wide an audience as possible. News programmes therefore, seek large audiences so take account of entertainment values.
The explanations shaped above provide a means whereby it is possible to investigate whether or not a global public sphere is emergent in the news. The news is considered as having a global dimension, particularly due to the emergence of new technology. The technical means of delivery are more advanced in terms of new communication technology particularly the advent of satellite television. The abundance of twenty-four hour news channels on satellite TV constitute some symptoms of globalisation because the new technology available allows for more channels to broadcast news and makes international news gathering easier. The key player in this role is CNN, Cable News Network. Established since 1980, CNN is the world’s leading news channel with a global reach of around 221 million homes. World events are presented live for a world audience, so there is a trend towards a global public sphere as there is some potential for international news to provide an area for public debate (globally). In terms of a pro-global public sphere, there is also greater accessibility to knowledge, for example, in 2000, CNN was available in more than 200 countries worldwide, including China and many previous eastern block countries and an area for global issues to be debated, a prime example of this is, the issue of human rights in Beijing, Tiananmen Square, 1989 which provided the people with a global voice. Former US President Jimmy Carter said ‘CNN has done more to close the gaps of misunderstanding between the world’s people than any enterprise in recent memory’
This may be the case; however, there is little evidence to suggest that it represents a global public sphere. Firstly because it is not specifically international in orientation and programming and secondly it is not ‘supranational in form or content’ as Sparks puts it. The problem with CNN is that it is an international transmitter of material from the United States. International news is dominated by global conglomerates particularly the USA and this results in western propaganda. CNN is the voice of the U.S Government and represents U.S interests therefore there are a number of rhetorical layers that come into play that do not reflect reality. The programming of CNN is produced with a specific national audience in mind and is only secondarily related to the concerns of other groups or countries. Sparks argues that CNN’s audience size remains much smaller than the national television channels in most countries where it is available. According to their own figures, CNN International is available in 113 million television households world wide, 73 million of which are in Europe, 4 million in the Middle East and 4 million in Africa, in comparison, CNN Europe reaches 1.5 million Europeans a day, and has a monthly reach of 11.3 million, which is around 25 per cent of European ‘upscale’ adults. (CNN, 1997)
There is a need to understand a world language, notably English in order to benefit from the material presented in the news. This creates exclusion for the majority of native speakers who cannot speak English as they have difficulty understanding what is being said. So in terms, of Habermas’s concept of Universality-Access is guaranteed to all citizens’ it is impossible to talk of a global public sphere in the news as everyone does not have the right to participate. Access to any form of participation is restricted. Full participants are selected by class, geography and language skills. They are predominantly the ruling classes of different countries. Participation in the news and the idea of a global public sphere is restricted to consumption. The people who are excluded are predominantly those who are too poor to be able to have access to the mass media, satellite TV is not affordable for many, so such groups cannot benefit from CNN. Even for those who do have access to such mediums, there is only limited active participation in the formation of global public opinion of the news. The news programmes and establishments are highly capitalized and their news items are dominated by the views of political and economic elite, either directly or mediated through the news production process, particularly in news values. To refer to Habermas’s second issue of equality: citizens: ‘confer in an unrestricted fashion’. To confer is to participate in a discussion, to have rights both as auditor and of speaker.’ Again, all people do not have an equal right to participate in both capacities.
Finally, quality and depth of news coverage is restricted by commercial pressures and the depth and analysis of news stories are sacrificed for immediacy and entertainment, with the idea of an entertainment focused news agenda.
As the existence of a small, minority of English speaking, wealthy class of people who have access to global media and an interest in global issues cannot be used as an example of a global public sphere; I conclude that there is little evidence to suggest that there is a global public sphere in respect of global news. Although I have concluded that my observations do not correspond to the criteria necessary to constitute a global public sphere, there is a trend towards this idea; however it is restricted by many of the forms I have outlined in my essay.
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