How Distant Others Are Mediated by UK Television Martin Scott
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How distant Others are mediated by UK television Martin Scott Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of East Anglia School of Political, Social and International Studies (PSI) and the School of International Development (DEV) September 2011 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. 1 Abstract The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate how UK television shapes spectators’ experiences of distant Others. Specifically, I aim to build on and extend existing work in this field, and particularly the work of Lilie Chouliaraki in Spectatorship of Suffering , in three directions. Firstly, I argue that we can learn more about how spectators of UK television respond to distant Others if we expand our focus beyond ‘peak moments’ of news coverage of suffering to include a focus on routine coverage of all distant Others, suffering or otherwise, across a range of television genres. Secondly, I contend that it is important to preface investigations into how distant Others are mediated by television with a study of the extent to which people from Other countries even appear on UK television. Thirdly, I argue that in order to take seriously an understanding of mediation as a dialectical process, any analysis of media texts should be complemented by audience research that takes time to listen to the accounts of spectators. The results of a series of content analyses reveal that distant Others seldom appear on UK television, particularly those from certain parts of the world. My application of a modified version of Chouliraki’s analytics of mediation and the results of a series of focus groups and a diary study reveal that television news texts routinely offer spectators a position of indifference with respect to distant and dehumanised distant Others. My results also show that non-news factual television programming has greater capacity than news items for appealing to a more intense mediated experience of distant Others, even if this capacity is often not fully realised. I conclude by arguing that these findings have important implications for broadcasters, producers, policy makers, regulators and academics. 2 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 List of Tables and Figures 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: Television, Mediation and distant Others • 0.0 UNMOVED AND UNCARING? 11 • 0.1 MEDIATION 13 o 0.1.1 Overcoming distance 14 o 0.1.2 Passing through the medium 16 o 0.1.3 Mediation as mediations 17 • 0.2 MEDIATED EXPERIENCE 18 • 0.3 MEDIUM 20 o 0.3.1 Centrality of television 20 o 0.3.2 More news is bad news 22 • 0.4 DISTANT OTHERS 24 • 0.5 CONCLUSION 25 Chapter 1: The Mediation of distant Others • 1.0 INTRODUCTION 27 • 1.1 THE ‘POSITIVE’ NARRATIVE 28 o 1.1.1 The ‘positive’ effect of mediation on overseas giving 29 o 1.1.2 Mediated cosmopolitanism 32 • 1.2 THE ‘NEGATIVE’ NARRATIVE 38 o 1.2.1 The ‘negative’ effect of mediation on overseas giving 39 o 1.2.2 Non-cosmopolitan dispositions 41 • 1.3 CONCLUSION 45 Chapter 2: Expanding the Analytics of Mediation • 2.0 INTRODUCTION 48 • 2.1 TOWARDS AN ANALYTICS OF MEDIATION 49 o 2.1.1 An empirical approach 49 o 2.1.2 Resolving the paradoxes of mediation 51 o 2.1.3 Hypermediacy and immediacy 59 o 2.1.4 Summary of the analytics of mediation 62 • 2.2 EXPANDING THE ANALYTICS OF MEDIATION 63 o 2.2.1 An empirical approach 64 o 2.2.2 Process of reception 70 3 o 2.2.3 A broader empirical concern 72 • 2.3 CONCLUSION 74 Chapter 3: Capturing Mediation • 3.0 INTRODUCTION 77 • 3.1 WATCHING DISTANT OTHERS 78 o 3.1.1 The analytics of mediation 78 o 3.1.2 The methodology of the analytics of mediation 78 o 3.1.3 Multimodal analysis 79 o 3.1.4 Critical Discourse Analysis 82 o 3.1.5 Language of the analytics of mediation 85 o 3.1.6 Modifying the analytics of mediation 86 o 3.1.7 Identifying texts for analysis 92 • 3.2 TALKING OF DISTANT OTHERS 97 o 3.2.1 Research design 98 o 3.2.2 First phase of focus groups 100 o 3.2.3 Diary Study 102 o 3.2.4 Second phase of focus groups 104 • 3.3 CAPTURING ENCOUNTERS 106 o 3.3.1 Content analysis 106 o 3.3.2 Non-news television programming 107 o 3.3.2 Television News 114 • 3.4 CONCLUSION 120 Chapter 4: Encountering distant Others? • 4.0 INTRODUCTION 123 • 4.1 ANALYSIS OF NON-NEWS GENRES 125 o 4.1.1 Quantity of non-news coverage of developing countries 125 o 4.1.2 Prominence given to non-news coverage of developing countries 128 o 4.1.3 Context in which distant Others appear 130 • 4.2 ANALYSIS OF NEWS PROGRAMMES 138 o 4.2.1 Quantity of news about developing countries 138 o 4.2.2 Prominence of news coverage of distant Others 143 o 4.2.3 Context in which distant Others appear in news about developing 144 countries • 4.3 CONCLUSION 146 Chapter 5: The Mediation of distant Others in the News • 5.0 INTRODUCTION 150 4 • 5.1 AFGHANISTAN: CHANNEL 4 NEWS 151 o 5.1.1 Multi-modality 151 o 5.1.2 Space-Time 155 o 5.1.3 Agency 159 • 5.2 ZIMBABWE: BBC 6 O’CLOCK NEWS 161 o 5.2.1 Multi-modality 161 o 5.2.2 Space-time 165 o 5.2.3 Agency 166 • 5.3 ZIMBABWE: ITV EVENING NEWS 167 o 5.3.1 Multi-modality 167 o 5.3.2 Space-time 170 o 5.3.3 Agency 173 • 5.4 LVOS: CHINA, IRAQ AND VENEZUELA 174 o 5.4.1 Multi-modality 174 o 5.4.2 Space-time 178 o 5.4.3 Agency 180 • 5.5 DISCUSSION 182 o 5.5.1 Routine news coverage of distant Others: VT packages 182 o 5.5.2 Routine news coverage of distant Others: LVOs 190 • 5.6 CONCLUSION 192 Chapter 6: The Mediation of distant Others Outside of the News • 6.0 INTRODUCTION 194 • 6.1 RAGEH INSIDE IRAN 195 o 6.1.1 Multi-modality 195 o 6.1.2 Space-time 200 o 6.1.3 Agency 205 o 6.1.4 Summary and discussion 207 • 6.2 WHO KILLED SCARLETT? 208 o 6.2.1 Multi-modality 206 o 6.2.2 Space-time 213 o 6.2.3 Agency 215 o 6.2.4 Summary and discussion 215 • 6.3 THE WORLD’S STRICTEST PARENTS 217 o 6.3.1 Multi-modality 217 o 6.3.2 Space-time 222 o 6.3.3 Agency 225 o 6.3.4 Summary and discussion 227 • 6.4 CONCLUSION 229 5 Chapter 7: Audiences and distant Others • 7.0 INTRODUCTION 231 • 7.1 OPTIONS FOR ACTION AND EMOTION 232 o 7.1.1 Sublimation 232 o 7.1.2 Solitary enjoyment 237 o 7.1.3 Indifference 240 o 7.1.4 Philanthropy and pamphleteering 243 • 7.2 SPACE-TIME 251 o 7.2.1 Proximity-distance of distant Others 251 o 7.2.2 Further elements of space-time 256 • 7.3 AGENCY 261 o 7.3.1 (De)humanisation of distant Others 262 o 7.3.2 Spectator’s agency in relation to distant Others 265 o 7.3.3 Benefactor and persecutor figures 269 • 7.4 DISCUSSION 272 o 7.4.1 Individual television texts 272 o 7.4.2 Capacities of different television genres 273 o 7.4.3 Assumptions of the analytics of mediation 275 • 7.5 CONCLUSION 278 Conclusion: Media and Morality • 8.0 OVERALL FINDINGS 279 o 8.0.1 Aims and approach of the thesis 279 o 8.0.2 Results of this thesis 280 • 8.1 IMPLICATIONS FOR BROADCASTERS: BRINGING THE WORLD TO THE UK 282 • 8.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR BROADCASTERS, REGULATORS AND POLICY MAKERS: 284 MEASURING INTERNATIONAL CONTENT • 8.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRODUCERS: THE ANALYTICS OF MEDIATION AS 285 GUIDANCE FOR MAKING TEXTS ‘GOOD FOR MAN’ • 8.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIA: CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS 287 • 8.5 FURTHER RESEARCH 289 • 8.6 THE MORAL HEART OF MEDIA STUDIES 292 Appendix 294 • Appendix A: Questions used by recruitment agency for screening participants 293 of the focus groups and diary study • Appendix B: Text from the front page of the online diary site 299 • Appendix C: Questions in the online diary 301 • Appendix D: Text of the three prompts sent to diarists in the second month 302 of the study 6 • Appendix E: Outline of focus groups discussion guides 304 • Appendix F: United Nations Development Programme classification of 310 countries • Appendix G: Definitions of main network and regional programming 320 genres and factual sub-genres (Ofcom 2010b) • Appendix H: Definitions of the various topics used to code factual and 321 • current affairs programming (Dover and Barnett 2004:22) • Appendix I: Definitions of topics used to code international news 322 items (Harrison 2000) • Appendix J: Total number of programme hours of factual coverage 323 received by different countries in 2007 • Appendix K: Transcript of Channel 4 News item about Afghanistan 328 • Appendix L: Transcript of BBC News item about Zimbabwe 329 • Appendix M: Transcript of ITV News item about Zimbabwe 330 • Appendix N: Transcripts of live voiceovers (LVOs) 332 • Appendix O: List of randomly selected sample of serious factual 334 programmes watched • Appendix P: List of randomly selected sample of factual entertainment 335 programmes watched • Appendix Q: List of elite interviews conducted with journalists, editors, 336 producers and NGO workers Bibliography 338 7 List of Tables and Figures TABLES • Table 3.1: A summary of the principal questions to be asked of media texts 92 in order to investigate how the three paradoxes of mediation are seemingly resolved in any text • Table 3.2: Codes used to investigate the different dimensions of the 120 analytics of mediation in VT news items about distant Others.