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Introduction: Critical Media Studies - Greg Philo  This book brings together the key research findings of the Glasgow Media Group over the last 10 years. It examines the production, content and reception of media messages across a range of substantive areas - from public understanding of mental illness and child abuse through to media portrayals of 'race', migration and violence. The research within it shares common methodologies, and an approach which is empirically based and critical. By this is meant that a key purpose of our studies is to reveal the social consequences of the structures and processes which are analysed. We have shown in our research how the production of media messages is a battle ground for powerful interests. To reveal how social ideas are produced and developed and who benefits or is damaged by the dominance of some systems of belief is a key element in a critical approach to the study of media.
Audience Reception Research - Jenny Kitzinger This chapter reviews some of the findings from research into media effects conducted at the Glasgow University Media Research Unit. I argue that many of the terms widely used in media/cultural studies obscure vital processes in the operation of media power. Concepts such as 'polysemy', 'resistance' and 'the active audience' are often used to by-pass or even negate enquiry into the effects of cinema, press or televisual representations. Our work shows that the complex processes of reception and consumption mediate , but do not necessarily undermine , media power. Acknowledging that audiences can be 'active' does not mean that the media are ineffectual. Recognising the role of interpretation does not invalidate the concept of influence. We are dubious of the arguments which have been advanced to suggest that television has no effect on viewer's behaviour. Many of the points that have been made could be applied with an equal lack of validity to any element of the socialisation process - for example the influence of peer groups or parents on behaviour. If we applied the arguments on TV influence to the relationship between parents and children they would look something like this: Despite the widespread view that parents do influence how their children grow up, a number of theoretical problems have been raised with this crude 'effects' approach, in what is obviously a very complex and highly mediated area. Research results have been inconclusive. In laboratory conditions many children were observed to be given instructions by their parents and then not to do as they were told. In other tests, children were asked if they always obeyed their parents and replied, 'No way man' and, 'You must be joking'. It was therefore concluded that children were 'rejecting' and 'negotiating' parental messages. We can see that when the 'anti-effects' arguments are applied to other areas of social life, they look extremely dubious. The inadequacy of laboratory experiments, or the fact that politicians have their own agendas, says nothing of itself about the nature of the socialisation process or the specific influence of either parents or media. Children can absorb patterns of behaviour, potential responses to situations, a sense of what is funny and what is fearful, and are often not aware of having done so. This may be true of how they relate to television as a socialising influence, but it is an issue which needs to be researched in its own right. Both parents and media have been used in political polemics as scapegoats for wider social problems. But this of itself says nothing of the actual influence of media or parents in the development of different types of behaviour. (interviews with children about the film Pulp Fiction ) The view that money is what really counts is in a sense all around us. The '80s and '90s are often seen as a high point in materialism, and these are certainly children of the period. A film such as Pulp Fiction presents money, power and style as what social life is all about; and its values are intensely attractive to many of the children. The interesting issue is how the images, style and excitement generated by the film could overwhelm other possible responses to cruelty and killing. This was referred to by one child in her response to the question about how could someone who killed people be cool. This was the child who had wanted the photos of John Travolta with the gun for her bedroom wall. She was initially perplexed by the question, and paused to think as she was answering. This was her reply: The point of the film is to make them look cool and you just go along with that. If the point of the film had been to make them look violent and horrible then you'd have gone along with that. They dress them up and the way they walk - they dress them up in suits and ties to make them look cool - like I'm boss and I'm in control... The violence was disgusting. When he says 'Mmm. That is a tasty burger' and then he goes round and shoots everyone. But it was like, I'm trying to think of a word... camouflaged... by the other bits. We should perhaps not be surprised that so many of the children 'have gone along' with the film. They understood, without adult pretence that the logic of a culture based on power and control is that the most powerful and the most effective controllers had the most 'style' - and the ultimate expression of interpersonal control and style is the ability to dispose of other people. As one child wrote, 'Jules would have more power if he shoots people.' Media and Mental Illness - Greg Philo This chapter reports on new research by the Glasgow Media Group on press and television treatment of mental health issues. It looks at the negative impact that such coverage can have on popular understanding, and examines possible strategies for achieving a more positive response from media in this area. The research included a content analysis of press and television output, plus a series of focus group interviews to analyse the processes by which audiences received and understood messages in this area (for a more detailed account of the sample and methods see Philo, 1996). The results show clearly that ill-informed beliefs on, for example, the association of schizophrenia with violence can be traced directly to media accounts. [About] Audience Responses to Suicide in a Television Drama - Greg Philo and Lesley Henderson [About] Why Go to Casualty? Health Fears and Fictional Television - Greg Philo and Lesley Henderson [About] Risk, Society and Media - John Eldridge We have seen contending groups arguing over definitions, explanations and policies in which the concept of risk has been used for different purposes and by different interest groups. These are expressions of power struggle. It has not simply been a question of whether 'the state' wins out over other interest groups since sometimes one part of the state, say the Ministry of Agriculture, alongside an interest group such as the egg producers, wins out over the Department of Health and consumer groups. What a sociology of the media can do is to show how issues come on to the public and political agenda, how the messages are constructed, diffused and received. The question as to which definitions of risk on particular issues win out, and why, is a political one. It can also have unpleasant consequences if the dominant definition turns out to be empirically inaccurate. [About] [About] What is absent from these television reports is any consideration of migration from the point of view of the migrant, legal or illegal. Many such people work under conditions of exploitation, with long hours, often doing jobs which the indigenous workforce shuns. Without them the cost of many products would increase. Neither does the news develop the issue of what conditions cause migrants to leave their homes and families to move to foreign lands. The news could ask if such movement is temporary, for economic reasons, and how migrants contribute to the economies that they have joined. If they move for economic reasons, what could be done to alleviate this situation at source by stimulating national development in order to prevent poverty? These reports do not consider the role of Western trade and Western economies in producing the global imbalance in development. The issues prioritised on the news are debate over the 'threat' which illegal migrants pose, and how they can be kept out. Regugees, Migrants and the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Greg McLaughlin [About] The Media and the Rwanda Crisis: Effects on Audiences and Public Policy - Greg Philo, Lindsey Hilsum, Liza Beattie and Rick Holliman [About] The Media and Africa: Images of Disaster and Rebellion - Liza Beattie. Emma Miller, David Miller, Greg Philo Rwanda was an extremely complex society; it is not easy to understand the events of the genocide without a knowledge of its history. There is an important point to be made here, about how journalists can adequately express such complexities in routine news coverage. A detailed account of Rwanda could not be included in every news bulletin. It would also be unlikely that most viewers would retain a high level of detail on this, or on other stories from the developing world. Yet there is still an important issue, which is that the working assumption for journalists should be that actions and events do have complex political and economic histories. This is certainly a key assumption for both journalists and viewers when discussing events in the developed world. For example, viewers may not understand the intricacies of the 'Cod War' which Britain once had with Iceland-but they do not believe it arose because of the tribal fury of the Norsemen. Equally, they may have little knowledge of the Weimar Republic or the rise of Fascism in Europe, but they are not told that the holocaust occurred because of the essentially volatile and primitive nature of the Germans. Even the most violent and cruel conflicts in Europe are nonetheless shown as emerging from organised political interests and strategies. This is important because political conflicts can in the end have political solutions. After the Second World War, for Germany to be rehabilitated in Europe, it was required that it be 'de-Nazified'. This included the public trial of its political leadership, who were either executed or imprisoned, followed by a major programme of cultural transformation. Whatever the solutions to problems in Africa they cannot begin to be discussed if the working assumptions of journalists, and the information which we receive, does not go beyond post-colonial clichés. Of course, not all journalism on Africa could be described in this way, but it is a not unreasonable description of some of the material in our sample of the Rwanda/Zaire crisis. Hello, Professor Brown? Have you got a couple of minutes? I'm researching a new TV series for Channel 4 and we're looking for programme ideas. What programme is it? It's a sort of magaziney thing: people, places, events; you know. Places? Are you a geographer then? No, actually, I don't know anything about geography. Oh, you're doing the people. Psychologist are you? No, I don't know anything about psychology. You must be doing the events then. Historian are you? No, I don't know much about History. I don't know much about anything. I trained as a journalist. Media Audiences and Message Reception - Greg Philo, Lesley Henderson, Jacquie Reilly We have shown how some messages are privileged in news texts and indeed how the news can be organised to develop the logic of some explanations However, we have also found cases where different parts of the media have supported radically different explanations on issues such as AIDS or BSE. In the case of BSE, some sections of the press highlighted the public link with human disease in the early 1990's. Audiences had therefore to choose between competing explanations, both of which were being reproduced in the media. In the event, the tabloid account was rejected in favour of the government view. This occurred partly because the press was dismissed as being sensationalist, and the campaign about the consequences of BSE for humans was seen in this light. More importantly, the government account was supported because it was seen as authoritative. This was a view expressed by people who also claimed on political grounds that they would never believe anything that the (Conservative) government had said. In this particular area, it was assumed that the government (and its agencies) would not mislead the public. This opinion was then to be revised when the government later acknowledged a probable link between BSE and its human variant CJD. The sense of shock in the audience, as seen in our focus groups, was extraordinary. It was as if some of the last vestiges of trust in the social democratic and 'caring' state were being stripped away. Reality, Fiction and Fantasy There has been some public debate on the issue that audiences allegedly cannot tell the difference between 'fact' and 'fiction'. Audiences can certainly identify with fictional characters and situations, and can use them to work through their own feelings of grief, fear or loss. This is not the same as saying they do not realise that actors are actors. Our own research showed that audiences distinguished clearly between the intended factual and fictional elements in a drama such as Casualty ( see chapter 7). Our audience groups saw the fictional elements as constructions. They dismissed some parts of the story as 'unrealistic' and used their own real-life experiences to do so. They knew there would be no time for romance and extended 'social' interaction between staff in a real A&E unit. Their descriptions of such units came from their own grim experiences of attending them. At the same time, however, audience members could also perceive that some parts of the programme were closely representative of real situations and could use information derived from fictional television to guide their own actions. This was the case in relation to medical information on paracetemol and overdose. They assumed (correctly) that this information, and these parts of the story-line, were both accurate and intended to be seen as such. The debate on whether the public confuse fact and fiction is therefore something of a non-issue. Audiences can show a high level of ability to distinguish between what is fictional or factual in both 'factual' and 'fictional' accounts. This does not mean that these audiences are always correct in their judgements. Many of the beliefs that we because the audience was misled by media accounts, not because they were unable to distinguish between a soap opera and the 9 o'clock news. - Order a copy of the book from Longman
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