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Selections from Kezia Awadzi,
Michelle Barth and Eric Burroughs.
Clicking on a name above will take you to the
corresponding essay on this page.
Clicking on each name below will take you to
the writer's personal profile.
In chapter five, Stevenson reviews certain aspects of media systems
in countries over the world (p.112-113). In the "tour" of global
media, Stevenson compares and contrasts these variables in the different
world systems. I found some of Stevenson's conclusions shallow.
For example, when discussing newspapers in the media, Stevenson had this
to say about third world countries: "In many parts of the third world,
newspapers are not thriving. In Africa, perhaps a dozen countries
have no daily paper at all. In others, the only paper is a scrawny
sheet, poorly printed and subsidized or owned outright by the government
. . . "(p. 115). I found that statement ignorant and
stereotypical, and since my experience in
Ghana was different, I did research to find out the situation.
While I could not obtain information on the number of newspapers in the various African countries, I could not find out how many African newspapers are online. Twenty-three African countries (40%) have newspapers and journals online. Out of this number, only four countries have one newspaper online. The rest have at least two, with South Africa and Kenya topping the list with eleven papers each. While these figures are for online papers only, it is important to note that most if not all these online papers have a print version as well, countries without online papers, do have print versions. Though Stevenson suggested that a dozen countries had no daily newspapers, he was not able to inform us on whether they had alternatives, for example, biweeklies or monthlies. If Stevenson is right, it means that about 21% of African countries do not have daily newspapers. What about the 79% left?
Stevenson attributes the declining circulation of newspapers per capita basis to rapid growth of population, high illiteracy rates and the high costs of newspaper productions. In Ghana, I do not think the newspapers are declining, but on the increase. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, a number private anti-government newspapers sprung up in Ghana (Sharfstein, 1995). These papers were in direct contrast with the government-owned newspapers. The stories of the private press reminiscently of the "yellow journalism" stage in America, were more concerned with embarrassing the government than reporting the truth (Sharfstein, 1995, p.2). Sharfstein contrasted between print and broadcast journalism. At the time he was writing, while Ghanaian private papers seemed to be having a break, government was refusing to give private radio stations licences. According to Sharfstein, radio is a powerful tool of communication than print because of the literacy rate in the country. I also think that culturally, Ghanaians find radios more comfortable and "user-friendly" than print. As Stevenson explains, high printing costs as some reason newspapers decline. The average life of newspapers and magazines is about five years. Most of them cave in because of printing costs.
To Stevenson, availability of mass media is an important factor in the distribution of wealth and power within a country, or among countries. I think the opposite - that the availability of wealth in a country, or within individuals in a country, results in availability of mass media. What good is availability of mass media if one does not have the wealth? How does mass media enable countries to progress? In fact, my belief is that the pursuit of developing countries to acquire these various mass media is a factor hindering the development of some of these countries. Developing countries are being flooded with all kinds of information from the West - television programs, films, magazines, books, satellites, and the Internet. Eventually, what good does it do? The availabilities of many of these mass media are not in the hands of those who are educated and really needs it, but the wealthy who purchase them as an indication of their status quo.
References
Sharfstein, D. J. (1995). "Radio free Ghana." Africa Report.
Vol. 40, n3, p46 (3)
Stevenson, R. L. (1994). Global communication in the twenty-first
century. NY: Longman.
Websites:
Africaonline: http://www.africaonline.com/AfricaOnline/covernews.html
ILGRadio´s International Broadcasting Web Directory: http://www.ilg.de/ilg-www.htm#AF
http://www.ilg.de/ilgwdgha.htm
Internet Press: http://gallery.uunet.be/internetpress/africa.htm
Chapter 5 of Stevenson focuses in part on the differentiation of "free press" throughout different countries and cultures in the world of global communications. Of the "Four Theories of the Press" postulated Siebert et.al., the United States seems to fall most in the Libertarian Theory: "Libertarian press theory goes hand-in-hand with multiparty political democracy and, in most cases, free-market capitalism" (Stevenson, p. 106). Along with this theory is the assumption that the media in the United States fall in J. Herbert Altschull's "Market" category: "The press is free of outside interference; the press serves the public's right to know; the press seeks to learn and present the truth; the press reports fairly and objectively" (Stevenson, p. 112). But as in life, theory does not always reflect reality.
In a content analysis study of 259 newspaper stories across 18 newspapers on 18 different issues in February, 1991, Frederick Fico and Stan Soffin found that only 7% of the stories were evenly balanced and more than half had the majority of six specific story qualities dominated by one side. These six story qualities were: 1. the number of sources referenced for each side of the story; 2. headline citations and first paragraph or graphic references for each side of the story; 3. citations for both sides within the first five paragraphs; 4. citations for both sides within the first half of the story; 5. whether art accompanied one or both sides; and finally, 6. the total column inches donated to each side. They found "Nearly half of the 259 stories... were absolutely one sided in their presentation of controversy. .... Stories, overall, were substantially imbalanced" (p. 626). So much for "the press reports fairly and objectively."
According to Altschull, in a Market System the purpose of journalism
is "To seek truth; to be socially responsible; to inform (or educate) in
a nonpolitical way; to serve the people impartially; to support capitalist
doctrine; to serve as a watchdog of government" (Stevenson, p. 111).
Ideally, this is where the United States press should fall-- especially
when it comes to issues of high national importance. However, in
the Fico/Soffin study, they found coverage of the Persian Gulf War "...was
by far the most imbalanced" (p. 626). Although two major opinion
polls by Gallup and ABC News/Washington Post at the time showed public
support for the war averaging well above 70%, "...pro-war sources dominated
fewer than half that percent of stories. Conversely, anti-war sources
dominated three times the number of stories that their numbers among the
public would have suggested" (Fico/Soffin, p. 627). However,
it is worth noting that in this same study, "The prestige newspapers, as
expected, did perform better... when it came to story imbalance" (p. 628).
In addition, "...stories run on page one tended to be less imbalanced than
stories run inside.... stories focused on local institutions were the most
imbalanced.... [and] stories based on interview sources were
less imbalanced than stories based on such sources as government actions,
marches, conferences, speeches, or the like" (p. 629). Although
as Stevenson said "...news produced by professionally competent, ideologically
neutral journalists is preferred over partisan journalism" (p. 125) we
may not always have a choice.
"U.S. media may not give us what we should get, but they certainly
give us what we want" (Stevenson, p. 117). Indeed, in the case of
the Gulf War Coverage cited here, the press seemed to reflect not what
we "wanted", but what they wanted us to read. Perhaps we are
bleeding over from a Libertarian Theory of the press into more of a Social
Responsibility Theory-- the question is, whose notion of Social Responsibility
will we read about in tomorrow's headlines.
References
Fico, F. & Soffin, S. "Fairness and Balance of Selected Newspaper Coverage of Controversial National, State, and Local Issues." J&MC Quarterly, (Autumn, 1995), 72(3), pp. 621-633.
Stevenson, Robert L. (1994). Global Communication in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Longman Publishing Group.
Burroughs, Eric
To assess the diverse systems of media around the world, Stevenson provides the five concepts as proposed by Hatchen: the Western concept, development concept, revolutionary concept and authoritarian concept.
These outlines are easy ideological frames within which one can place the media as its produced in politically different environments that have distinctly different conceptions, methods and purposes for media. This is reiterated in Altschull's estimate of journalism that is framed in three models: market-oriented, Marxist-oriented and development-oriented. For example, all three of these categories describe truth as its main goal, yet as this is elaborated it is easy to see how nebulous a concept as truth can be molded to fit the well-defined goals of each society all in the name of serving and educating the people, whether it be by instilling socialist principles to unite society in the Marxist manner, or conversely serving as a unifying and not a divisive force to bring social change through economic advancement in the advancing model (Stevenson 112) . In each case, even the market one that Stevenson espouses with much pride, the nation uses the power of media to advance its own line among the people, whether directly or indirectly. Stevenson is very apt to laud the freedom of the Western style press, specifically that in the U.S. by denoting the separation of government and waving the First Amendment without ever taking into serious consideration the definite and powerful influences of both the market and the government on the pursuit of truth in the U.S., such as the video on Panama made quite clear. For Stevenson, it¹s easier to denounce any nation, such as Britain or France, where the government plays a more direct role in supporting the media and the freedom of the press isn't plainly stipulated. He even goes so far to say that privately owned media systems are not controlled in any manner: However, these owners rarely try to control the media in any direct sense...if anything, U.S. media are controlled by its customers...the same principle applies to newspapers. U.S. media may not give us what we should get, but they certainly give us what we want (Stevenson 117). Again, Stevenson resorts to the often fallacious conclusion that the market can¹t be wrong, and that it is the market and market alone that sets the media agenda in the U.S., a viewpoint that couldn¹t be further from reality as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman demonstrate in their video The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News, which rejects the claim that mainstream U.S. media is liberally inclined and, moreover, is immune to government and corporate influence (to be further reviewed next week).
Still, what arises from this evaluation when removed from the ideas of Stevenson is the inherent role media plays within its national frame of reference. This was illustrated well in a study considering the importance of individual, organizational and societal influences on journalists in China, Taiwan and the United States. The goal of the study was to take three countries in a comparative study instead of just two, with two of the three countries more closely attached in political determinismthe U.S. and Taiwan while two of the three would be closer in terms of cultural determinismTaiwan and China (Zhu et al 86). The study measured individual factors (formal education in journalism and communication), organizational factors (media industry) and societal factors (democracy vs. communism, Western vs. Chinese values). What emerged was that societal factors have much stronger effects than organizational factors on media role perceptions, which are then stronger than individual factors (93). By incorporating two dimensions, political systems and cultural traditions, the study was able to compare and contrast their effects on a measurement of media professionalism. Here it was found that American and Taiwanese journalists formed one cluster separate from that of Chinese journalists. Thus, the politically deterministic model was supported since political systems rather than cultural traditions account for the differences in perceived media roles (94). The study also found that Chinese journalists were much more likely to judge their role as that of interpreter than their American and Tawainese counterparts, again attributing this to the difference in the two political systems (94).
In contrasting cultures and political systems as they meet at a certain crossroads, it is clear from this study that national media reflects societal characteristics, such as they were divided by Altschull. But in all cases the ultimate role, as this study found, is that of providing information, and in each case, the perceived truth. It is then easy to see how such a variable escapes definition since it is continually warped to fit a particular agenda. This is why the ability to extract oneself from a given environment to see more clearly each agenda and analyze the reasons for its existence will be a key need for international and cross-cultural communicators in the years ahead, so that we may find the cracks in which that slippery truth might lie.
References
Stevenson, Robert L. Global Communication in the Twenty-First
Century. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992.
Zhu, Jian-Hua et al. "Individual, Organizational, and Societal Influences
on Media Role Perceptions: A Comparative Study in China, Taiwan and
the United States." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.
Spring 1997. 84-96.