Julianne Lindner Branding Images WHITE SAVIORISM and SHOCK APPEALS by BBC Three
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Julianne Lindner Branding Images WHITE SAVIORISM AND SHOCK APPEALS BY BBC Three ComDev Master – 1 year 15 credits HT 2020 Supervisor: Anders Høg Hansen SUMMARY This research has focused on the representation of foreign cultures in four BBC documentaries. To be more precise, it looked into how public documentaries portray foreign cultures, specifically within a frame of development aid and white saviourism when watching documentaries by BBC Three, a channel which is centred towards a young audience. Previous research on white saviourism and shock appeals analysed movies, documentaries and aid campaigns. Barely any have so far researched representation of minorities, foreign cultures and aid topics in public documentaries. BBC Three is additionally focused only on a young audience and blends tv with social media engagement. This is an interesting angle as youth will be the next policy makers and as they are starting to create their worldview. The research is based upon a visual and textual analysis, following Hall’s encoding/decoding model. It showed that all four documentaries (2016- 2018) misrepresent their “subjects” by focusing more on the presenter’s perspective, e.g. concentrating on their emotional responses, asking loaded questions, giving their opinions and solutions. All four documentaries also presented a simplified local situation through Scott’s shock appeals and a bad- good guy perspective (where the presenters address the local government and stand up for the helpless subjects). One can therefore state that youth learn about foreign cultures through the eyes of a “North” girl/boy next door presenter basing upon a white saviourism perspective. The research additionally related the findings to Goodman’s theory on iCare capitalism, the emphasis on creating a brand and self-value out of caring for others so that other’s suffering is turned into a theatre play. This is also visible through BBC Three’s and the presenters’ social media presence. This research opens the discussion and defines a need to research the responsibilities of public channels and the impact on youth when developing opinions, views and stereotypes. Keywords: White Saviourism - Documentary - Shock Appeals - Misrepresentation - BBC 2 TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction ………………………………………………………… p. 4 Theoretical Framework .………………………………………………………. p. 9 Methodology ……………………………………………………….. p. 13 Findings ……………………………………………………….. p. 19 Conclusion ……………………………………………………….. p. 36 Literature ……………………………………………………….. p. 38 3 INTRODUCTION In 2017 musician Ed Sheeran travelled to Liberia to raise awareness on children living on the street. It was part of Comic Relief, an annual event to raise money for thirteen British aid organisations (e.g. Oxfam, Save the Children and Action Aid). However good the intentions, criticism developed quickly towards Sheeran’s video, receiving even the award of “most offensive” campaign. The award was handed out by the Radi-Aid awards, a contest organized by SAIH (Norwegian Students and Academics International Assistance Fund) to challenge aid organisations to move away from stereotyping people living in poverty (McVeigh, 2017). Ed Sheeran received the award as he offered to pay for a hotel for some of the street children. By doing so, the idea was given that he was the only one to help them, portraying him as a so-called white saviour. Comic Relief, which is broadcasted by the BBC, had also received criticism on two other videos that same year and promised improvement. However, in 2019 criticism against Comic Relief was expressed again when BBC documentary maker Stacey Dooley on her trip to Uganda was targeted. Dooley posted a photo of herself together with a Ugandan child on her Instagram. The caption read “OBSESSSSSSSSSSED <3”1. Labour MP David Lammy reacted to her photo, saying “The world does not need any more white saviours” (McGrath, 2019), additionally the photo went viral under the hashtag white saviourism. These events and an earlier analysis I did of Dooley’s BBC Three documentary Gypsy Kids taken from Home, telling a very black/white story of saviours and bad guys, triggered a surprise and interest within me. It made me wonder what role a public channel, such as the BBC, has in representing other cultures. Do media not have the function to inform the public with reliable, accurate and impartial news (WRR, 2005, p.67)? Especially a public channel, whose function it is to educate citizens and provide them with in-depth impartial information. Looking at BBC’s editorial guidelines, it clearly says it aims towards “achieving due impartiality in all its output” and takes “responsibility to protect the vulnerable, especially young people, and to avoid unjustifiable offence”. Further it works towards “achieving due accuracy in all its output” (BBC, 2019). But how much is this the case for the work produced and broadcasted by the BBC? To gain a better understanding, I will focus on several BBC Three documentaries and how they portray issues such as poverty, inequality and violence. Special attention be giving to the concept of white saviourism. 1 https://www.instagram.com/p/BuO-eA0hjkj/?utm_source=ig_embed 4 OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTION To gain an understanding of how a public channel represents other cultures, the research question in focus is: “How do four BBC Three documentaries capture and present foreign cultures and peoples, within a frame of development aid and white saviourism, through its visuals, sounds and text?” Here we consider how BBC Three, through its documentaries, captures and presents foreign cultures and documentaries instead of focusing on the audience’s interpretation thereof. A visual and textual analysis will be supported by a literature research on representation, white saviourism and influencers. Previous literature has indicated a relevance of looking into how cultures are being represented. A representation is a construction where some aspects of a culture are highlighted whereas others are concealed (Huang, 2015, p.336). It a choice, deliberate or not, which elements are chosen to be portrayed, which characteristics are to be represented. This choice will affect (Hooks, 1992, p.5) how social, but also political, power is defined. It alters “how other people look at you and how you look at yourself”. It is therefore of importance to understand how stories are being told. How BBC Three, through its documentaries, influences how British youth look at foreign cultures and peoples. The choice to focus on BBC Three, and not on documentaries produced by other BBC channels, is due to its focus on 16-34-year olds. This rather young audience is growing up to be the next policy makers, the next one to embark on travels and potential voluntourism, the next one to study, work and create their own worldviews. Additionally, the channel is online only, blending social media and television easily. Like Michael Waugh (2017) argues the age group of 16-34- year olds “are never outside…the digital realm” (p.234). They grew up with the internet and use social media as part of their daily life. Their offline and online lives blend easily into one. Internet, social media and television, become important parts of their lives, and will impact how they see the world. That said, other age groups are no less relevant. But to limit the scope of the research, it would be interesting and relevant to look at an age group which 5 blends offline and online lives so easily. BBC is chosen as it is a public channel with a rather large budget of £5.2 million annually, plus an additional £1.3 million of selling their productions abroad (BBC, 2021). It is also perceived as a giant internationally as well as a world leader across public and private media. Just to mention that services, across the BBC channels and BBC News, reach globally more than 468 million people a week, an increasing amount (BBC, 2020). But also e.g. politicians in France refer to the BBC as a model of public service broadcasting, the Austrian public channel is based on the BBC model, and its tv shows and drama series are bought by others such as Netflix and HBO (The Guardian, 2020). Lastly, a report by UNESCO described the BBC as the most famous public service broadcaster in the world (Banerjee & Seneviratne, 2005, p.47). METHODOLOGY The focus of this research are four selected documentaries. The documentaries, presented by Livvy Haydock, Ben Zand, Sofie Morgan and Stacey Dooley, will be both visually and textually analysed (see methodology chapter why these documentaries were selected). This means attention is paid to words used, surroundings, voice-over, angles, sounds up to even clothes. For this it is important to note that documentaries, and movies in general, are subjective constructions of reality. Rough material that is being shot is usually three up to ten times longer than the final product. Scenes are selected and cut, others thrown away. By editing, the producer can alter meanings or approach the same material in different ways (Romic, 2018). To support the visual & textual analysis of the documentaries, the research uses secondary material. This includes promotion materials, social media channels of both BBC Three as the documentary makers themselves. This puts the documentaries into a wider perspective and enables the researcher to relate it to the branding process of BBC Three. Attention is paid to visual aids and comments in particular. The chapter on methodology will provide more information on choices made within this research. PREVIOUS RESEARCH Different research has explored how movies, documentaries, and in general development aid campaigns, represent minorities, other cultures and 6 immigrants. A large share of this literature focuses on movies. Take for example work done by Cammarota (2011), Asif & Saenz (2017), Ash (2015), Murphy & Harris (2018), Hughley (2010) and Stoddard & Marcus (2006). E.g. Ash (2015) focuses on how the movie Blindside portrays the story of an Afro American boy who is lifted out of poverty by a model white family whereas the real story whereupon the movie is based is not as black/white.