Glasgow Media Group

Group Exercises and Results

The still photographs given to the groups were taken from each of the elements of the above news reports. They showed mounds of weapons, children, land mines, a mine clearance operation, casualties in hospital, an oil rig, diamonds, the bishop, people praying, a palace, refugee camps, the government minister and a UN spokesman. In practice the groups discussed the pictures and then wrote a short news account. This normally draws its information from a variety of sources including their own experience but more usually they draw information from a range of new stories which they have seen. For example, in a story written by one of the Glasgow groups there are references to child soldiers which are drawn from news stories about other African conflicts. That said, their story is in many respects very close to the original news:

Today in Angola due to the conflict, children as young as eight are being armed with varieties of guns and weapons. Arms was retrieved by the government from the rebels. The reason for the conflict was due to the unfair distribution of the countries wealth. The bishop has come out to condemn this behaviour and had made a passionate plea to the Angolan to stop this unnecessary killing. He held a service for the locals praying for a peaceful conclusion to the feud. Local soldiers can be seen trying to unearth deadly mines, the very same mines that Princess Diana condemned and worked hard to put a stop to.

(Glasgow Group one, 28 August 2000).

In another group one member goes beyond the actual content of the programme to discuss the arms trade and comments that this is a relationship which is often missing from television reports:

When you look at the (pictures on) the table you think this is a internal dispute which are mention, especially on television and stuff. It doesn't get mentioned that people are selling guns out there.

(Bath group, 21 Sept 2000).

This person also mentions that the 'white man wants the goodies' and therefore raises the possibilities of international links to the conflict (and one other concurred in this). But overall, the members of the groups tended to see the problem as a specifically African issue as these exchanges from the Bath group indicate:

Male Group Member 1 : They can't look after themselves.
Moderator : You see a lot which you see as being tragedy and fighting?
Male Group Member 1 : We can't do a lot can we?
Moderator : But you don't actually see it as relating to you at all?
Male Group Member 2 : What can we do? Send money but that is as far as it goes really?
Moderator : Is it too strong to say that they are not very good at governing themselves?
(They all nod)
Moderator : Would most people agree with that or not?
(General agreement)

(Bath Group).

In the second phase of the exercise, the groups watched the actual news programmes from which the photographs had been taken. The reports engaged them to the extent that they felt strong sympathy for the victims. A small number thought that the British government should intervene and most supported a ban on land mines. But there was a general feeling in these groups and indeed in those which we interviewed in earlier research that the situation in such countries was hopeless and had very little to do with people in Britain. The only possible response for the individual was to give money to charities. The explanations that existed in the news bulletins which these groups were shown did little to challenge such established views on Africa. They tended to fit in with popular assumptions about it as being corrupt and misgoverned. The great majority of people in the groups knew very little about specific conflicts and as with our earlier research people commented that the different wars and countries tended to shade one into another. Given this general lack of knowledge it is very easy for a news programme to actually increase confusion. For example several people in these groups misunderstood the reference in the news bulletins to the conflict in Angola as having originated in a cold war struggle. They assumed that this meant that the struggle was still going on and as one put it 'the Americans are buying the oil, the Russians have taken the stones' (Glasgow group one). There was a sense amongst some in the groups that 'big power' involvement might be to blame. As one put it 'the Americans are making money. and maybe feeding it (the conflict)' (Glasgow group two, 6 Sept 2000). But overall the groups saw the problem as an 'African' issue. It had nothing to do with them or their own everyday lives. It was suggested that the problems of Africa related to peculiarly African factors such as the low level of education in the population as a whole. This is made clear in the following exchange:

Moderator : What about the mass of the people.?
Male 1 : They can't do anything about it.
Male 2 : They can't read or write so.
Moderator : Would it make a difference if they could read or write?
Male 1 : They would be more educated. If you can't read or write you can't really go to a government and say.
Male 2 : Obviously as a nation we are more educated and we wouldn't let that sort of thing happen.

(Bath group).

The important point here is that no-one in the groups related the continuing problems of Angola to their own actions and there was little or no sense of the world system of socio-economic relationships which sustain such conflicts. The news report by David Shukman had pointed in some ways to these wider relationships, for example in the comments on America purchasing Angolan oil and the movement of funds to Europe and Switzerland. But these brief references were not developed or their significance explained. They did not therefore greatly affect the understanding of the groups.

In the final part of the discussion, the moderator pursued a series of questions which were intended to explore the social and economic relationships which underpinned the continuing conflict and the inability of the mass of the population in Angola to end it.

These questions related to the following themes:

On the first of these issues, as we have seen, education was understood by some as a key difference between Africa and Britain in the sense that it affected the political choices that would be made by their populations. To explore this, the moderator pointed out to the groups that in his own professional work he had encountered many African people who were well educated, religious and very principled but who were not allowed to be part of the political process in their own societies. So would education by itself, make any difference to naked military force? The group members saw the point, as in this exchange:

Moderator : I just wondered, if you went up to (the corrupt rulers) and said 'I am well educated and I want you to stop stealing the money', what would they do?
Male : Probably shoot you.

(Bath group).

There were similar ideas about the nature of power and control expressed in the other groups:

Moderator : If the mass of the population very clearly don't want it to happen.
Female 1 : They don't have any control over it do they? All these women and children, what control do they have? It is not as though they can pick up a phone or.
Moderator : So who does have control?
Female 1 : The men.
Female 2 : The people making the money.

(Glasgow group two).

And in this exchange from the first Glasgow group:

Moderator : Why can't (the population) actually resolve it?
Female : They have got no power over it.
Male 1 : They haven't got any say in the matter, do you know what I mean?
Moderator : So who has got the say then?
Male 1 : Your government again and the rebels.
Moderator : Why would the government and the rebels have more say than the people?
Male 1 : They are the ones with the arms, the guns.
Male 2 : And the money.

(Glasgow group one).

These points had been made in the news item by David Shukman and the groups readily understood them. The discussion then moved on to consider the external relationships which made possible this absolute control of the population. A central issue here was the supply of arms. The moderator pointed out that Angola had no armament industries, so the question was raised as to where to arms came from. Some identified Eastern Europe as a major supplier of arms but all understood that the weapons and mines must be coming from outside:

Moderator : You said that it all carries on because the rebels and the government have got arms and they have got guns and they have got money. Is that anything to do with us?
Male : Yes, Where are they getting the guns, is it an outside source?
Moderator : But that is not in the programme is it, Angola hasn't got a gun industry and doesn't make tanks that is one point isn't it? Where are all these arms coming from?
Male 2 : Russia, Communist countries.

(Glasgow Group one).

The moderator then raised the issue of how the guns and mines were paid for and the groups all understood that the money came from the sale of diamond and oil to the industrial countries. The groups were then asked what happened to the additional profits and the moderator pointed out that money had been moved to banks in Europe, including Britain.

Information about international links to such conflicts is available in the public media, but it tends to exist in diverse fragments which are scattered across a variety of sources. In October 2000, the London Evening Standard reported allegations on the laundering of funds in the city of London under the headline 'City Banks Helped Nigerian Dictator to Launder £4 Billion' (20 Oct 2000). In December 2000, the Guardian reported on a crack down on 'blood diamonds', citing recommendations from the UN that African leaders who traded gems for arms should be punished. The UN report also pointed to Switzerland as a transit point for almost half of the rough diamonds entering Britain. It showed how Switzerland was then listed as 'country of origin' and their true source was lost. (20 Dec 2000). In January 2001, the Guardian ran the headline 'Oil Firms Accused Over Angola Bribes'. It reported allegations that 'international oil companies had been complicit in the looting of Angola's assets by the countries ruling elite' (17 Jan 2001). The allegations were made at the Parliamentary Select Committee on international development. Although such information can be identified in the media, the crucial point is that it is not routinely referenced in television news accounts and when it does appear in the media it is in diverse and fragmented form. It is as if all the different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which is needed to explain Angola appear one at a time and in different places. It is not therefore surprising that there is little effect on public consciousness. In the focus groups for this study very few people had any understanding of such links and relationships when they were first shown the news items. The group discussion changed this. The news items by David Shukman could now be seen as offering an image of Angola as being run for the profit of what were effectively two groups of bandits - one was the guerillas who controlled the diamonds and the other the corrupt government who controlled the oil.

It was also possible to see why the conflict continued. As long as the Angolan economy was based on simple extraction processes (oil and diamonds) then the mass of the population were not involved. All that was required was for a military group (guerillas or army) to ensure that the process continued. The industrial countries purchased the product, laundered the money and supplied arms. Of course, it is true that the African government was corrupt, but any society based on such relationships can generate an elite which will take advantage for itself. A key difference from a country such as Britain is that it has an integrated industrial and commercial economy. The mass of the population in Britain have over time been able to demand representation, civil rights and political change, because they have been able to withdraw their labour and thus influence the economy. This is as true of the Chartists and striking miners demanding the vote from the 1830ies as it of lorry drivers demanding cheap fuel in November 2000. This option is simply not available to the mass of the Angolan population, or indeed to that of other countries in a similar position, such as Sierra Leone. These points were made in the focus group by the moderator. It seems clear that without this additional information most of the people in the groups would not have understood the international links which effectively promoted and prolonged the conflict. This is partly because of their own preconceptions about Africa and also because the references in the news items to external relationships were partial and undeveloped.

For these group members, the discussion of the international links came as a revelation. There was real surprise and some shock. This was for two principal reasons. The first was that their perception of Africa changed. Instead of the chaos and civil conflict being seen as a specifically 'African' (or third world) phenomenon, it could now be understood as the product of a series of economic and social relationships. This is important because it can also be understood that such relationships may be changed. In contrast a belief that Africans are innately incapable of running their own countries suggests that nothing can be done. Secondly and most crucially the group members could see that the relationships which sustained the conflict involved them directly, at the most simple level in their own purchasing decisions. The moderator made this clear and asked them if they had ever thought that when they bought an object such as a diamond, it might be linked to such conflicts:

Moderator : Do you ever think of yourself, that each time you drive your car or each time you wear a diamond that the diamond is paying for the landmine and the car is paying for the.?
Female 1 : And that is causing.
Female 2 : I have never thought of that.
Female 3 : I don't think of that.
Female 1 : Oh no.
Female 3 : You never look at yourself.
Moderator : Have you ever seen anything on TV to make a link like that, that this diamond finances this landmine?
Female 1 : No.
Female 3 : No, because they don't, they don't actually do a chain (of thought) so you know.

(Glasgow Group two)

It was apparent that such knowledge would have affected the purchasing decisions of many people in the groups if they had been informed of the link between the war and the sale of diamonds. This was not true of everyone and three people in the Bath group dissented saying that it would not affect them if they were getting the product cheaper:

For most of the people in the groups the effect of making the link between their own conduct and events in Africa was both shock and a sense of revelation as if they had been given 'secret knowledge' that 'opened their eyes'.

Male 1 : It certainly opened my eyes.
Moderator: Did you understand it better this time because of the discussion?
Male 1 : Better this time because of the discussion.
Male 2 : Yes.
Male 3 : Without a doubt.
Male 1 : All of our views have been changed some what already because of this.

(Bath Group)

The Glasgow groups spoke of the knowledge as a revelation and the effect it would have on the population as a whole:

Female : It would open a lot of peoples eyes, I think, if they heard that like people are buying so many litres of oil or petrol or whatever and it is contributing to the landmines and killings and it would open a lot of peoples eyes and make you think a wee bit more as to what is happening.

(Glasgow Group one).

They also made clear the difference between seeing the problem as 'African' and relating it to other factors:

Moderator : What was the difference between watching (the news) and then what we discussed? What were the new things?
Female 1 : The revelation, that wealth is being used perhaps to fund a more comfortable lifestyle for us westerners.
Female 2 : And that we are helping to contribute to it.
Female 1 : That is definitely what I picked up once we started discussing it. After watching the programme I wouldn't think of that. I would still isolate it as their problem.
Female 3 : It is their problem.
Female 1 : But it was not until after we started discussing that you actually think there is more involved than just the people of Angola. There are other countries involved. There are other individuals involved.

(Glasgow Group two)

They are also clear about the effect of the information about international relationships on the process of their own understanding. They distinguished between seeing a jumble of confusing news images and making clear conceptual links:

Female 1 : When I looked at all these photographs you could look at them as all separate photographs. They could all have a separate story. It is not until you see not even the first film but the second one as well and then the discussion that you can actually put it together and say now I know what it is all about. I have got a better idea of what caused it and who is involved. It certainly makes a lot more sense in my head now. From looking at the photos at first it was just nothing much. Now I have got more of an idea and it makes more sense to me..
Female 2 : As far back as I can remember watching news, there has always been something about Africa or whatever in the news. Now you understand why it had been going on for so long there is so much wealth involved and so many other people involved that you just don't know.
Moderator : It is not hard to understand, is it?
Female 1 : No it is not.
Female 2 : Once you make the obvious link.

(Glasgow Group two)

There was a sense of surprise in the groups at this 'new' way of understanding, and in all of them it was strongly suggested that such a way of explaining the Angola conflict would not be allowed on television. The groups were convinced that it would be censored by the government. This was not a theme which was introduced by the moderator but was raised spontaneously in all of the groups, as in the following exchanges:

Male 1 : The government wouldn't allow you to come out with things like that. It would be cut out wouldn't it?
Moderator : Saying what?
Male 1 : Going into so many details. Don't buy diamond rings and don't buy so much petrol and. If that was in a programme it would be cut out wouldn't it?.
Moderator : Do you think the government just wouldn't allow that sort of thing to be said?
Male 1 : I don't think so.
Male 2 : There is too much money involved.

(Glasgow Group one)

And in the second Glasgow group:

Female 1 : I think people would find it shocking.
Female 2 : Yes.
Female 1 : Why not put that message across? Because the government doesn't want us to feel that way.
Female 2 : That is why they don't tell you.
Female 3 : Is there a hidden agenda?

(Glasgow Group two)

And in the Bath group:

Male 1 : I just feel that maybe more news should be made on that America are involved.
Male 2 : If they said that Great Britain is part of this there would be mayhem.
Male 3 : They would all be asking questions.
Male 2 : Politicians wouldn't say it in the first place because they would be worried they would get kicked out.
Male 4 : They probably wouldn't allow the programme to go ahead anyway.

(Bath Group)

They were convinced that journalists were censored. At the group in Bath the two journalists from the BBC were actually present and at this point they were invited to join the discussion. The first question to them followed on directly from the comments on censorship:

Male 1 : Can I just ask you then, are you influenced by the hierarchy to say what you have to say?
David Shukman : Not at all.

The journalist then goes on to argue that the only kind of censorship is over the pictures which can be shown and this is on the grounds that they may cause offence or be too shocking:

David Shukman : We take the view that some people would be offended or shocked too much by some images. For example, the young lad who lost his lower legs in the hospital at twelve years old and the doctor was describing how outrageous it was that new mines were being laid and making it all worse. He offered to take us into the surgery with that young boy to see the next stage of the amputation going on. I said we can't do that and we can't show that. That is a kind of censorship there that we thought of amongst ourselves try and work out what viewers might really object to and be really offended by and what they can handle that is the only type of censorship.

(Bath Group)

The point is confirmed by Vin Ray:

We get more complaints about the use of pictures than any other thing. When you are out in the field and you see what is really happening, you want people to see it in all its gruesome glory, to understand what it's like, the problem is that people turn off.

(Bath group).

The obvious question which follows is, if there is no censorship other than on grounds of 'taste' then why is the role of the industrial countries and their powerful interests not highlighted in the story? Later in the discussion, David Shukman, made an interesting statement in relation to British oil companies and government policy. He is asked again by a group member about what he can say:

Male 1 : Can you say anything you like on the TV about the government and what is going on? Going back to this, could you say they are blood diamonds and this is what is happening and it is the governments fault and end it?
David Shukman : If it was the governments fault and I have proof then I could say it. It is all indirectly the governments fault. You could say the British oil companies are buying Angolan oil and it is ending up in the forecourts here and that money goes to the Angolan government that BP pay and.
Male 1 : What kind of knock on effect do you think would come with our government?
David Shukman : I don't know. If enough people were interested in the fact that BP was getting oil from Angola and the money was vanishing into the Angolan governments pockets and ended up buying weapons or whatever, conceivably people would not want to buy BP oil. You could certainly make a link and there would be no censorship on that.

He then comments that they had intended to do an interview with the oil company in Angola, but it was cancelled:

David Shukman : As it happens we were hoping to do an interview with BP in Angola and they cancelled at the last minute. My first thought was that they didn't want to talk about it but I can't prove that. You never know exactly why someone has cancelled. There might have been a bit more on that angle if that interview had happened. There is no censorship in the sense that you think about it. Every BBC journalists has their own rules of impartiality and fairness as far as you can, therefore if you are going to accuse BP you would probably want to invite BP to respond to the accusations you were going to make in the report in order to be fair.

(Bath group)

But the logic of this position is that if the oil companies refuse to appear then any accusations would disappear. This definition of the need to be balanced could actually produce a major imbalance in the explanations which are given. It also begs the question of who had the right (and the power) to insist on 'balance'. There was apparently no problem with accusing the African government of corruption and no need to balance these accusations with an interview defending their record. This does not mean that the accusations were not true. They may very well have been, just as the accusations against oil companies and against banks in the city of London may also be true. But it is clear that some interests are very much more likely to demand 'balance' and to create problems for investigative journalism than others.

Another area of the group discussion which most interested the journalists was the possible changes which could be made to the structure of news items. How could core issues and explanations be conveyed more clearly to audiences? The feeling in the group was that they should be highlighted in the bulletin and the actions of people in Britain and their consequences abroad should be emphasised:

David Shukman : We have been talking about making things clearer, it seems to me from listening to your discussion before, one of the things you all picked up on was the point that you might be driving a car with Angolan oil in the tank or you might wear a diamond ring with an Angolan diamond that was paying for a landmine. If we had said that at the start of the news report. would it make you sit up a bit more and listen?
Male 1 : When you do this piece and whatever you have got to do in Angola, if you had put that across first, you think it might have made people look up, yeah. I do.
Male 2 : Inadvertently the government is paying for it as well.
Male 1 : That is where western corruption comes in and I think it would open up a lot of eyes.
Male 3 : I think you have got to just shock people. If you want to do a story it has got to start off gory with arms and legs or silence or (saying) you've caused this or.
Male 1 : like you said you would get thousands of letters but it wouldn't stop the person from watching the news the next evening.

(Bath group)

Two points which emerged most clearly were expressed as 'you need somehow to relate this to us' and the need 'to come in at the end and explain what is happening'. (Bath group)

A final and important result which was apparent in all of the groups, was a greatly increased level of interest in the subject matter once the conflict was understood as resulting from a system of relationships in which the group members themselves were in some way involved. This change in the level of interest was noted by the journalists. David Shukman refers to it in his own account of his experiences with the focus group which he wrote later for the The Independent .

Attitudes were shifting. Viewing my reports had kindled interest in Angola but it had taken talk of the possible connections with Britain to raise real concern. The discussion had come alive. These were people who could follow the arguments and did not want to be short changed or patronised. Muttering about being kept to a tight duration in my packages cut no ice. For this group, foreign news, not always the favourite of news rooms was becoming stimulating.

( The Independent , 2000)

Conclusions

There are a number of key issues which emerge from our research. The first is that TV audiences have in general very little understanding of events in the developing world or of major international institutions or relationships. This is in part the result of TV coverage which tends to focus on dramatic, violent and tragic images while giving very little context or explanation to the events which are being portrayed. The development of television organised around crude notions of audience ratings is likely to make this situation worse. The irony is that in seeking to grab the attention of audiences, programme makers are actually fostering very negative attitudes towards the developing world and other international issues and in the long run will reduce audience interest. We also found that in the absence of other explanations on the news, audiences (and some journalists) will 'fill in the gaps' with what are effectively post colonial beliefs about Africa and the innate faults of Africans.

Our new research with BBC journalists showed that the explanation of the core relationships which link the industrial countries to the conflicts of the developing world can produce a distinct change in the understanding and attitudes of audience groups. The crucial point is that the conflict in Angola was located in a world system of commercial and political relationships in which the group members themselves played a part. The importance of this is that it was the understanding of the core relationships which made a difference and meant that audience members could link different elements of the news story to produce a coherent explanation. For some years now, within broadcasting, there have been arguments about the need to better inform and explain in news programmes. These have resulted in demands for longer bulletins, in-depth interviews and more detailed accounts. Such changes can indeed play a part but we should remember that audiences can get lost in detail and longer interviews with prevaricating politicians may simply add to the confusion. The important point for the journalist is the need to summarise the key relationships that explain the events which they are reporting, to say why these matter and how they relate to the audience. These relationships then need to be referred to routinely in news accounts as it cannot be assumed that audiences will have heard and understood them the first time or indeed that they carefully watch each bulletin.

A key result of our work was that the audience groups showed an increase in their level of interest when they did understand the economic and political links which underpinned the continuing war. The reports by David Shukman had been extremely powerful and had produced a very strong emotional response towards the victims of the conflict. But this was accompanied by feelings that the situation was hopeless and essentially an 'African' problem. It was the change in this perception that produced the increased interest. Finally, if we look at world news as a whole it does seem clear that many of the problems which viewers experience result from the actions and practices of the broadcasters themselves. If they are not to be held responsible for the mass production of ignorance then it is they who will need to redress the balance between the current priorities of reporting and the need to properly inform their audience.

References