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Title: Global News

Global News

Reporting Conflicts and Cosmopolitanism

by Alexa Robertson (Author)
©2015 Textbook XVIII, 159 Pages
Media and Communication
Series: Global Crises and the Media, Volume 17

Summary

Global News explores how media representation is conceived and enacted in a world of diversity and transborder flows. Among the ‘new media’ crowding the global mediascape are influential television outlets that promise viewers alternative vantage points to those of established Western broadcasters. The different worlds depicted by Al Jazeera English and Russia Today are compared with those of CNN International and BBC World. At a time when media organizations are slashing their budgets for international reporting, these channels represent a spectrum of financing solutions and relations to political power, being variously privately-, publicly-, or state-owned, backed by corporations, democratic states, authoritarian regimes, and ruling dynasties. Despite their differences, however, they have much in common. Their journalists espouse the universal values of professionalism and objectivity and speak to their global audiences in English. This book explores the different theoretical worlds of global media studies, takes a rare look at content, has a comparative perspective, and moves beyond the conflict frame that has dominated much of the literature in the field.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Tables and figures
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Series Editor’s Preface
  • Chapter 1. The Global Village and the Ivory Tower
  • The context of inquiry
  • Entering the global newsroom
  • On television
  • Coming up next
  • Chapter 2. Colliding Worlds
  • Critical theoretical perspectives
  • ‘Big business equals bad journalism as corporations control info flow’
  • Contra-flows and counter-hegemonic media
  • The story of Russia Today
  • The story of Al Jazeera English
  • Worlds apart?
  • Chapter 3. A World in Crisis: Atlas Reports
  • Global crises in global news headlines
  • Reporting the Arab uprisings
  • CNNI and the Arab uprisings
  • BBC World and the Arab uprisings
  • RT and the Arab uprisings
  • AJE and the Arab uprisings
  • Bearing witness
  • To wrap up
  • Chapter 4. Brave New World
  • The problem of representation
  • Space, place and news maps
  • The space of Europe
  • The space of Europe in BBCW
  • The space of Europe in AJE
  • The space of Europe in RT
  • Just stories
  • Wasted lives
  • The course of rehabilitation
  • Rodeo rehab
  • Cosmopolitan geographies
  • Chapter 5. Another World: Europe as Other
  • Seeing Europe through other eyes (orientation)
  • It was a lot of fun but very strange (discussion/evaluation/resolution)
  • Europe is progress, Africa is respect (coda)
  • Chapter 6. A World of Difference
  • To sum up, here is the main news in brief
  • Between crisis….
  • …and cosmopolitanism
  • The view from the ivory tower and on the ground (theory and practice)
  • Returning to the global village
  • Notes
  • References
  • Index
  • Series index

← vi | vii → TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 3.1. Number of different countries occurring in headlines of Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and Russia Today, January 2011 & January 2013 combined (233 broadcasts coded) and the number of countries occurring in ‘crisis’ headlines (figures in parentheses).

Table 3.1. Headlines in Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and Russia Today, January 2011 & January 2013 combined (233 broadcasts coded), distributed according to whether they are the sort of crisis referred to by Cottle (2009, ‘Cottle heads’), other sorts of crisis (violent or violently repressed protests, political crises, other), and whether they can be considered ‘global’ (“encompass or move across geographical terrains and political territories”).

Table 3.2. Crises headlines in Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and Russia Today, January 2011 & January 2013 combined (233 broadcasts coded) distributed according to crisis category.

Table 3.3. Distribution of material in the analysis of ‘Arab uprising’ reporting

← vii | viii → Table 3.4. Distribution of sources (people with speaking parts, counted once for every news item they speak in) in reports concerning the Arab uprisings on BBC World 9 pm CET and Al Jazeera English 8 pm CET, Monday 10 January–Sunday 30 January 2011.

Table 3.5. Number of items on the Arab uprisings filed by a reporter (and not just read by the anchor) in BBC World 9 pm CET and Al Jazeera English 8 pm CET, Monday 10 January–Sunday 30 January 2011, distinguished by gender and whether they are on site.

Table 4.1. Hierarchy of issues in reports of Europe, 1 minute or more in length, broadcast on BBC World News, Al Jazeera English and Russia Today, 1 May– 11 June 2014.

Table 4.2. The space of Europe: countries comprising Europe, and the nationalities of people speaking in reports of Europe, 1 minute or more in length, broadcast on BBC World News, Al Jazeera English and Russia Today, 1 May-11 June 2014.

Plate 5.1. The Europe of the imagination. A musician in African sings about people dreaming of adventures in Europe, in the first episode of the Surprising Europe series, Taking the Leap, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/08/2011869584326691.html. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.2. The Europe of directly lived experience. Michael, from Ghana, talks about the hardships of surviving in Spain in the second episode of the Surprising Europe series, Hopes and Dreams, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/08/201186102630499582.html. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.3. Living like animals. Ssuuna, from Uganda, visits a dog hotel in the Netherlands and discovers how well they live, in contrast to undocumented migrants in Europe, in the third episode of the Surprising Europe series, Making Ends Meet, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/08/20118168557626755.html. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

← viii | ix → Plate 5.4. Europe as a strange place. Baba, from Ghana, reports from the Spanish town of Bunol, where 250 thousand kilograms of tomatoes are destroyed in a few hours of revelry, in the fourth episode of the Surprising Europe series, Under Pressure, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/08/201183065919297868.html. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.5. Europe as difficult to understand. Ssuuna, from Uganda, watches as Dutch bathers plunge into an icy sea on New Year’s Day, in the fifth episode of the Surprising Europe series, Culture Shock, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.6. Unbelievable Europe. An innocent migrant is kept at the detention centre in Zeist in the sixth episode of the Surprising Europe series, Running Out of Luck, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.7. Lonely Europe. Ssuuna visits an old folks’ home in the Netherlands, where the elderly live instead of with their children and grandchildren, in the eighth episode of the Surprising Europe series, The Good Life, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.

Plate 5.8. Africa Surprising Europe. Italian-born Annie, who longs to ‘return’ to Liberia, stands in the centre of Rome and sings ‘This is Africa, surprising Europe’ in the ninth and final episode of the Surprising Europe series, Home Sweet Home, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/10/20111049374961442.html. Image reproduced with permission from Witfilm, http://witfilm.nl.← ix | x →

← x | xi → ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First things first: the research reported in this book was made possible thanks to funding by the Swedish Research Council (grant number 421–2009–1698/90169801).

I am grateful to the journalists and news executives at AJE Doha, London and Washington and at RT in Moscow who took the time to explain their work and open the doors to their workplaces. I am indebted to Kristina Riegert for conducting the Doha interviews, to Tine Figenschou for advice about how to go about doing so, and to Clarie Åkesson for helping to transcribe them. Paul Levin transcribed the RT interview that features in Chapter 2, and was an enthusiastic discussion partner in the planning stages of the empirical study.

Details

Pages
XVIII, 159
Publication Year
2015
ISBN (PDF)
9781453915035
ISBN (MOBI)
9781454197430
ISBN (ePUB)
9781454197447
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433124259
ISBN (Softcover)
9781433124242
DOI
10.3726/978-1-4539-1503-5
Language
English
Publication date
2014 (January)
Keywords
media influence political news propaganda comparative media studies
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2015. XVII, 159 pp., num. b/w ill.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Alexa Robertson (Author)

Alexa Robertson is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Stockholm University and has a PhD in political science. Her other books include Media and Politics in a Globalizing World (2015) and Mediated Cosmopolitanism: The World of Television News (2010).

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Title: Global News