1 Why Media Researchers Don't Care About Teletext

1 Why Media Researchers Don’t Care About Teletext Hilde Van den Bulck & Hallvard Moe Abstract This chapter tackles the paradoxical observation that teletext in Europe can look back on a long and successful history but has attracted very little academic interest. The chapter suggests and discusses reasons why media and commu- nications researchers have paid so little attention to teletext and argue why we should not ignore it. To this end, it dissects the features of teletext, its history, and contextualizes these in a discussion of media research as a field. It first discusses institutional (sender) aspects of teletext, focusing on the perceived lack of attention to teletext from a political economic and policy analysis perspective. Next, the chapter looks at the characteristics of teletext content (message) and reasons why this failed to attract the attention of scholars from a journalism studies and a methodological perspective. Finally, it discusses issues relating to the uses of teletext (receivers), reflecting on the discrepancy between the large numbers of teletext users and the lack of scholarly attention from traditions such as effect research and audience studies. Throughout, the chapter points to instances in the development of teletext that constitute so- called pre-echoes of debates that are considered pressing today. These issues are illustrated throughout with the case of the first (est.1974) and, for a long time, leading teletext service Ceefax of the BBC and the wider development of teletext in the UK. Keywords: teletext, communication studies, research gaps, media history, Ceefax, BBC Introduction When we first started thinking about a book on teletext, a medium that has been very much part of people’s everyday lives across Europe for over forty years, we were surprised by the lack of scholarly attention or even interest. We could find very few studies or even general reflections on the medium, and asking colleagues about their knowledge of work on teletext not only confirmed the lack of interest but created disbelief (and even laughter) at our interest in 15 Journalism and the New World Order Vol.1 Journalism and the New World Order Gulf War, National News Discourses and Globalization Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen (eds.) NORDICOM Vol I Journalism and the New World Order Gulf War, National News Discourses and Globalization Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen (eds.) ISBN 91-89471-06-7 © 2000 the authors and NORDICOM, Göteborg University Printed in Sweden by Livréna, Kungälv 2000 Nordicom Göteborg University Box 713 SE-405 30 Göteborg http://www.nordicom.gu.se phone 031-773 10 00, fax 031-773 46 55 Contents Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen Foreword 7 Chapter 1 Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen Studying the Media Gulf War 11 Chapter 2 Heikki Luostarinen & Rune Ottosen The Media Gulf War and its Aftermath 35 Chapter 3 Gunnar Garbo UN–US Relations in the Gulf War 57 Chapter 4 Laurien Alexandre Voicing the Gulf. The Voice of America Constructs the Gulf War 79 Chapter 5 Hanne M. Mathisen Baghdad Observer During the Gulf Crisis 107 Chapter 6 Wilhelm Kempf, Michael Reimann & Heikki Luostarinen New World Order Rhetoric in US and European Media 125 Chapter 7 Wilhelm Kempf News Media and Conflict Escalation. A Comparative Study of Gulf War Coverage in US and European Media 149 Chapter 8 Stig A. Nohrstedt US Dominance in Gulf War News? Propaganda Relations Between News Discourses in US and European Media 175 Chapter 9 Oddgeir Tveiten A Hard Reign’s a Gonna Fall. The Media and Gorbachev’s Peace Proposal During the Gulf War 217 Chapter 10 Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen Summary and Conclusion. Globalization and the Gulf Conflict 1990–2000: Challenges for War Journalism in the New World Order 241 References 271 About the Authors 281 Foreword The project ‘Journalism in the New World Order’ was inspired by the critical debate to emerge among journalists and media scholars as a reaction to the 1991 Gulf War. We shared the concern expressed by media researchers and critical journalists the world over – that the journalistic performance before, during and after Operation Desert Storm failed to live up to the critical stand- ards of professional journalism. We were also frustrated by some of the litera- ture issued just after the Gulf War because it lacked a solid empirical basis for its conclusions. Thus it was that we decided to initiate a comparative and empirically based international project, searching for answers to some of the many unanswered questions from the post–Gulf War discussion. How biased was the journalistic approach when it came to angling, the use of sources and perspectives? How unified were the media in the different regions of the world? How was Euro- pean media coverage compared to that in the USA, in Africa or in the Arab world? What lessons can be drawn from the Pentagon media management, the use of PR firms by parties to the conflict, and the massive use of propaganda in times of war? Has war propaganda become global in today’s so-called New World Order? So many questions – and more could be added. What answers can we give, a decade after the initial phase of this conflict? A study of this size is extremely challenging, time-consuming and expen- sive. Besides all the mundane and practical complications, a research process of this kind generates a bundle of new questions and reformulations of the old ones. Even simple questions have complex answers – but they in turn are no more and no less than points of departure for a journey with certain risks. Assumptions and perspectives must be tested, new problems and project ideas formulated. The intellectual journey in this project has taken us from a concern about the manipulation of media in the Gulf War to questions about the international communication conditions for global opinion-formation in the post– Cold War era. A new round of conflict escalation between the USA and Iraq early in 1998 has shown that although the conflict will probably still remain into the next millenium, as will the media images of it, its concrete manifesta- tions and political implications are not necessarily the same. We have also experienced that the best and most enriching travel compan- ions for journey like this one must be a team representing different approaches, 7 Stig A. Nohrstedt & Rune Ottosen including both quantitative and qualitative research methods and various disci- plines. The two of us have a Scandinavian background; we have come to ap- preciate working within an intercultural and interdisciplinary environment. This project has indeed been a collective process, and we owe a debt to a great many colleagues around the world. In the planning phase of the project we travelled to the USA, where met Laurien Alexander, who agreed to under- take the central analysis of Gulf War editorials in the Voice of America. At the American University in Washington DC we were well received by Professor Hamid Mowlana, who offered useful suggestions for developing the concept of the project, and recruited research assistance among his students for coding the US material. We thank him and his students who took part in this important work. Our special thanks go to Cynthia Dowdell, for her excellent contribution to the coding process. In all the countries involved in the project we have had the pleasure of working with committed colleagues who made this book possi- ble. Many thanks to Heikki Luostarinen, coordinator of the Finnish part of the project. Heikki joined us at an early stage, and his historical knowledge and fruitful perspectives on international propaganda analyses have been essential to the final outcome. His assistant Risto Suikkanen has, together with Markku Hauhio, handled the coding of the Finnish material. Our German colleague, Wilhelm Kempf, shared with us his knowledge of the latent class analysis method which we adapted as third way to analyse our data, in addition to the traditional content analysis and the qualitative text analyses. We are most grateful to Wilhelm for contributing his methodological insights as well as knowledge of peace research with us. Research assistants and coders of the German material were Gerhard Meder and Andreas Mattenschlager. In Norway we had the pleasure of inviting Gunnar Garbo, a veteran in Norwegian journalism and politics, who used his personal experience from the UN to write on the UN–US relationship during and after the Gulf conflict. Oddgeir Tveiten took charge of the qualitative part of the Norwegian material. Hanne Mathisen was responsible for the coding of the Norwegian material, and in addition made a unique analysis of the Iraqi propaganda through an analysis of the Baghdad Observer. Khaled Salih reminded us that we needed a Middle East perspective in our research. He shared with us his understanding of the fears and hopes to which this conflict gave resonance among the peoples in the region. Admassu Tassew contributed to the construction of the coding schedule for the traditional content analysis and was also responsible for some of the data analyses. Erik Flygare did an excellent job in constructing the dataset for the traditional content analysis as in some data processing. Students at the University of Örebro coded the Swedish material, and here we wish to thank Michael Jäderholm, Åsa Kroon and Marko Määttä. We are further grateful to Elias Araya for the coding of the Ethiopian press and to Linda Nohrstedt for coding the New York Post material. Let us also express our gratitude to Johan Galtung and Denis McQuail for encouragement and generosity in sharing with us their extensive knowledge in peace research and media studies. We are further indebted to David Morrison 8 Foreword and Philip Taylor for support and cooperation.

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