Selection and Representation

Selection and Representation

·        You could argue that people are only newsworthy when their lives are disrupted by some very dramatic change to their circumstances – such as when disaster strikes.

·        Editors and media producers choose their stories they cover and the material they use to illustrate them.

·        It is rare for them to choose ‘good’ news stories from certain parts of the world.

·        These are now laws preventing discrimination against people on racial or gender ground, as well as because of any disability they may have

·        These are there so that people can have equal opportunities in life-and not discriminated against simply because they come from a minority.

CLASS TASK (it depends)

·       White males – positively

·       Old people – positively and negatively

·       Women – positively and negatively

·       People with an obvious disability – negatively

·       LGBT’S – negatively

·       Working class men - negatively

·       Non white people – negatively

·       People from other countries – positively

·       People from the south – negatively

·       People wearing religious clothing or insigna – positively, sometimes negatively

Balance and Bias

·       Misrepresenting of issues is not a good thing – which unfortunately – still happens sometimes

·       Thus an aspect of regulation that applies to broadcast media (radio and TV) is Impartiality

·       This means that media should report issues in a balanced way and must not be biased in any way.

·       Unlike broadcast media, the press and multimedia sectors are not regulated in this respect at all

·       The owners of newspapers and magazines can decide to use them to support political parties if they wish, and nobody can prevent them from doing so.

Definitions

·       Balance is giving equal emphasis to all sides of an argument, so no one side has an advantage over the others

·       Bias is slanting the coverage of an argument in order to give one or more sides an advantage over other sides.

·       Impartiality is being unbiased

·       Propoganda is material designed to persuade people that one or more sides of an argument are correct. This often involves slanting the truth, or selecting only information that promotes on particular cause. Propaganda is often regarded as being misleading or dishonest.

Social issues in the Media

o   Stereotypes

o   Ethnic groups

o   Minors

o   Generation gaps

o   Discrimination

o   Sexual orientation

o   Minorities

o   Gambling

o   Smoking

o   Politics

o   Privacy

o   Violence

o   Religion

o   Alcohol

Issues are everywhere…

________________________________________________________