Interview Transcription
Interviewer: Angy Ebrahim
Interviewee: Bettina Downing
Thursday, 13th of February 2020 -12:30 pm - Art Factory room 0.04
Angy: It is often believed that media help in controlling and fueling conflicts. Do you think that media, with the use of language, should not report actual facts and casualties that may occur in a given conflict because of the fear that these facts might fuel the conflicts? Do you think there should be such bias in their reportage?
Bettina: I think it is very important that audiences do perceive that writers are using factually accurate information and that they can trust and rely on the details they are given. I think audiences dislike reading texts where they feel they are being lied to or the information is incorrect, so I think that the issue is not actually the use of facts or reporting the number of casualties, but I think there is definitely an issue in the language of reporting about war and conflict and that is in some of the word choices used. It is not, perhaps, the number of people that have been injured, but some of the ways it is reported. What we often find in war reporting for example, is that different languages are used to talk about the different participants in the conflict. If a soldier is considered to be the enemy, he might be referred to with different words than a soldier from our own allies or our own friends in a conflict. For example, words like collateral may be used to talk about enemy soldiers who have been killed so they are not people anymore, they are just referred to as collateral. However, if our own soldiers are killed, terms like "our boys" might be used. Different words are used to describe the soldiers on the different sides. I think the bias in this can sometimes heavily influence an audience and have a negative effect because we need to see people on both sides of a conflict as people.
Angy: Can social media be trusted during a crisis situation?
Bettina: This is a very interesting question and I think the answer can be both yes and no. In recent conflicts the importance of citizen journalism cannot be argued. For example, in some parts of Syria journalists have not been able to enter the war zone in order to report on what was actually occurring and therefore, the only information that was available or the most reliable information available came from people who were in the war zones already, citizens living there and sending out news and information. Sometimes the social media can be extremely powerful in using institutions like CNN and BBC , sending to those institutions information that their reporters cannot get in to get. In this way, I think social media needs to be trusted; however, if we look at other aspects of social media the information is not easily validated, it may not be reliable, it may not be authentic, it could be fake news. So, I think we have to be very critical at readers, viewers and listeners about what we are looking at, and question where its come from, who has created it and how valid it is. We must not be too trusting of what is on social media.
Angy: Do you think that the attention the media gives to a disaster is based on where it happened and who it involved?
Bettina: Well, I think we can say that there is not equal attention given to all parts of the world and all disaster and we definitely know that editors and producers of news use terms called "News Values" to decide which stories are newsworthy. In these News Values, some countries are considered to be elite, they might be countries who are politically powerful or countries that are relying to our own country. For example, in the UK, America ( the U.S.A) may be an elite country that we would often report on. Other countries where conflicts happen, the conflict it ongoing and its not considered news because it is still occurring, it may be news for the people who live there but it is not considered news in a worldwide way unfortunately. Also, I think there is an element of ethnocentricity or only interested if it includes our people so conflicts are often more heavily reported on in the British press where there are British people involved. I think there is an imbalance in the reporting of what happens across the world.
Angy: Does the media stop giving attention to a disaster if nothing new within the story has happened?
Bettina: Yes I think they do, again, editors look at News Values and one of the News Values
might be continuity, whether they need to continue telling the story or something more important has come up and something I sometimes find personally irritating, is that you can be very interested in a story and then it may be dropped by a newspaper or by the broadcast media because the news has moved on, and you may want to know what has happened to an individual or happened in a location and it is difficult then to find news. So yes, the news is very much about what is new.
Angy: What types of media platforms influence the most and why?
Bettina: Well, I think that those who really reach the highest mass audience nowadays is online media. Sales in printing newspapers are falling and particularly younger people go to streaming and online sources for their news. Traditional and conventional media sources and those which are regulated are becoming less popular and less used.
Angy: Why do media distort information? and what impact do these distortions have on the audience?
Bettina: As we know, all stories are representations from the media and they are all constructed so in some ways they are all distorted or all biased to a particular view point or particular understanding situation. I think we cannot get a range or full overview of a story ( we can never get a full picture) but the only way that we can have a better understanding of what has happened and not a biased or one-sided point of view, is to look across a range of different sources and try to look at the different ways it is reported. Again, be quite critical thinkers about what we are receiving and not just accept one source or one view point. There are a number of reasons why media platforms distort information, tell they news in a different way. I think it is to attract and engage audiences. They want audiences to use their reports, their texts so they need to grab the attention of the audience in an already busy world where there are already many people reporting. So they want to distort or tell a story in a dramatic way or in a biased way in order to keep their audience. Another reason might be to promote a particular ideology. Perhaps this is the ideology in society or perhaps this is the ideology of the owners of the company that they work for. It could be the producer or owner that wants the story to be argued or told in a certain way to sell the vehicle that it appears in, to sell the newspaper, to sell the website. Finally, to persuade audiences to accept a particular set of ideas in order to make them behave in a particular way. This particularly happens during elections, political elections when the media may be trying to convince the voters to vote in one direction against one leader or for another leader. There are a number or different purposes, not just one. It is about selling the story, it is about getting the readership, it is about promoting beliefs, and it is about persuading audiences to act in certain ways. About control, overall.
Angy: How do fake news occur?
Bettina: It is complex, isn't it? Fake news is not a new thing. We think that because the internet is a popular way of communicating now, fake news has only arrived since the internet, but fake news can be traced back to several hundred of years in newspapers and there is a long history of faking news. However we do come across it a lot more now. It occurs for a range of reasons, some of them can be just as simple as people want to see if they can get away with it, if they can tell a story and convince others. Other reasons might be more sinister, more dangerous in society perhaps. Fake news can be used as propaganda, can be used to promote a particular political party or belief or system. Fake news can be used against people or against celebrates, against famous people, against leaderships and regimes of countries. So I think, fake news occurs because people have different things or purposes they want to achieve. Fake news is not accidental and it occurs because people have different agendas and purposes they want to achieve by telling news that may not be accurate. They want to either influence or persuade or scare or change a situation that exists.
Angy: In your opinion, does the media enhance panic or prevent panic within the public?
Bettina: Definitely can do both. Particularly, say in sensational reporting that occurs in things like tabloids and so on, there is a tendency for moral panic to be increased. It can depend on the medium as well. For example, on the online media, news or fake news or panic can often spread more quickly. Some websites or some ways of transmitting information online, are not subject to the same regulation and journalistic rigour as perhaps newspaper articles might be. They have to be factually accurate, they have to be very careful not to commit acts such as libel or slander against other people. So broadcast and printed news tend to be regulated and tend to be controlled by laws and legislation. However, if you get online media information or misinformation or inaccurate information, it can quickly go viral, it can quickly be spread and in this way stories which are not true or that are inaccurate can create panic, can create fear in people. Unsubstantiated information which is exchange easily on the internet can have a big impact on audiences, so you can see a tendency for there to be panic created by this. Recently, in the UK the coronavirus was discovered in a town called Brighton and the reporting of it has created some panic amongst the local people in that area because they feel that they have not had enough accurate information and they feel that there has been an attempt to hide the seriousness of the situation and they have not been advised formally about how they should behave. This is a way that something small can become something bigger because it has not been reported effectively or the audience feels it has not been reported effectively to them.
Interviewee: Bettina Downing
Thursday, 13th of February 2020 -12:30 pm - Art Factory room 0.04
Angy: It is often believed that media help in controlling and fueling conflicts. Do you think that media, with the use of language, should not report actual facts and casualties that may occur in a given conflict because of the fear that these facts might fuel the conflicts? Do you think there should be such bias in their reportage?
Bettina: I think it is very important that audiences do perceive that writers are using factually accurate information and that they can trust and rely on the details they are given. I think audiences dislike reading texts where they feel they are being lied to or the information is incorrect, so I think that the issue is not actually the use of facts or reporting the number of casualties, but I think there is definitely an issue in the language of reporting about war and conflict and that is in some of the word choices used. It is not, perhaps, the number of people that have been injured, but some of the ways it is reported. What we often find in war reporting for example, is that different languages are used to talk about the different participants in the conflict. If a soldier is considered to be the enemy, he might be referred to with different words than a soldier from our own allies or our own friends in a conflict. For example, words like collateral may be used to talk about enemy soldiers who have been killed so they are not people anymore, they are just referred to as collateral. However, if our own soldiers are killed, terms like "our boys" might be used. Different words are used to describe the soldiers on the different sides. I think the bias in this can sometimes heavily influence an audience and have a negative effect because we need to see people on both sides of a conflict as people.
Angy: Can social media be trusted during a crisis situation?
Bettina: This is a very interesting question and I think the answer can be both yes and no. In recent conflicts the importance of citizen journalism cannot be argued. For example, in some parts of Syria journalists have not been able to enter the war zone in order to report on what was actually occurring and therefore, the only information that was available or the most reliable information available came from people who were in the war zones already, citizens living there and sending out news and information. Sometimes the social media can be extremely powerful in using institutions like CNN and BBC , sending to those institutions information that their reporters cannot get in to get. In this way, I think social media needs to be trusted; however, if we look at other aspects of social media the information is not easily validated, it may not be reliable, it may not be authentic, it could be fake news. So, I think we have to be very critical at readers, viewers and listeners about what we are looking at, and question where its come from, who has created it and how valid it is. We must not be too trusting of what is on social media.
Angy: Do you think that the attention the media gives to a disaster is based on where it happened and who it involved?
Bettina: Well, I think we can say that there is not equal attention given to all parts of the world and all disaster and we definitely know that editors and producers of news use terms called "News Values" to decide which stories are newsworthy. In these News Values, some countries are considered to be elite, they might be countries who are politically powerful or countries that are relying to our own country. For example, in the UK, America ( the U.S.A) may be an elite country that we would often report on. Other countries where conflicts happen, the conflict it ongoing and its not considered news because it is still occurring, it may be news for the people who live there but it is not considered news in a worldwide way unfortunately. Also, I think there is an element of ethnocentricity or only interested if it includes our people so conflicts are often more heavily reported on in the British press where there are British people involved. I think there is an imbalance in the reporting of what happens across the world.
Angy: Does the media stop giving attention to a disaster if nothing new within the story has happened?
Bettina: Yes I think they do, again, editors look at News Values and one of the News Values
might be continuity, whether they need to continue telling the story or something more important has come up and something I sometimes find personally irritating, is that you can be very interested in a story and then it may be dropped by a newspaper or by the broadcast media because the news has moved on, and you may want to know what has happened to an individual or happened in a location and it is difficult then to find news. So yes, the news is very much about what is new.
Angy: What types of media platforms influence the most and why?
Bettina: Well, I think that those who really reach the highest mass audience nowadays is online media. Sales in printing newspapers are falling and particularly younger people go to streaming and online sources for their news. Traditional and conventional media sources and those which are regulated are becoming less popular and less used.
Angy: Why do media distort information? and what impact do these distortions have on the audience?
Bettina: As we know, all stories are representations from the media and they are all constructed so in some ways they are all distorted or all biased to a particular view point or particular understanding situation. I think we cannot get a range or full overview of a story ( we can never get a full picture) but the only way that we can have a better understanding of what has happened and not a biased or one-sided point of view, is to look across a range of different sources and try to look at the different ways it is reported. Again, be quite critical thinkers about what we are receiving and not just accept one source or one view point. There are a number of reasons why media platforms distort information, tell they news in a different way. I think it is to attract and engage audiences. They want audiences to use their reports, their texts so they need to grab the attention of the audience in an already busy world where there are already many people reporting. So they want to distort or tell a story in a dramatic way or in a biased way in order to keep their audience. Another reason might be to promote a particular ideology. Perhaps this is the ideology in society or perhaps this is the ideology of the owners of the company that they work for. It could be the producer or owner that wants the story to be argued or told in a certain way to sell the vehicle that it appears in, to sell the newspaper, to sell the website. Finally, to persuade audiences to accept a particular set of ideas in order to make them behave in a particular way. This particularly happens during elections, political elections when the media may be trying to convince the voters to vote in one direction against one leader or for another leader. There are a number or different purposes, not just one. It is about selling the story, it is about getting the readership, it is about promoting beliefs, and it is about persuading audiences to act in certain ways. About control, overall.
Angy: How do fake news occur?
Bettina: It is complex, isn't it? Fake news is not a new thing. We think that because the internet is a popular way of communicating now, fake news has only arrived since the internet, but fake news can be traced back to several hundred of years in newspapers and there is a long history of faking news. However we do come across it a lot more now. It occurs for a range of reasons, some of them can be just as simple as people want to see if they can get away with it, if they can tell a story and convince others. Other reasons might be more sinister, more dangerous in society perhaps. Fake news can be used as propaganda, can be used to promote a particular political party or belief or system. Fake news can be used against people or against celebrates, against famous people, against leaderships and regimes of countries. So I think, fake news occurs because people have different things or purposes they want to achieve. Fake news is not accidental and it occurs because people have different agendas and purposes they want to achieve by telling news that may not be accurate. They want to either influence or persuade or scare or change a situation that exists.
Angy: In your opinion, does the media enhance panic or prevent panic within the public?
Bettina: Definitely can do both. Particularly, say in sensational reporting that occurs in things like tabloids and so on, there is a tendency for moral panic to be increased. It can depend on the medium as well. For example, on the online media, news or fake news or panic can often spread more quickly. Some websites or some ways of transmitting information online, are not subject to the same regulation and journalistic rigour as perhaps newspaper articles might be. They have to be factually accurate, they have to be very careful not to commit acts such as libel or slander against other people. So broadcast and printed news tend to be regulated and tend to be controlled by laws and legislation. However, if you get online media information or misinformation or inaccurate information, it can quickly go viral, it can quickly be spread and in this way stories which are not true or that are inaccurate can create panic, can create fear in people. Unsubstantiated information which is exchange easily on the internet can have a big impact on audiences, so you can see a tendency for there to be panic created by this. Recently, in the UK the coronavirus was discovered in a town called Brighton and the reporting of it has created some panic amongst the local people in that area because they feel that they have not had enough accurate information and they feel that there has been an attempt to hide the seriousness of the situation and they have not been advised formally about how they should behave. This is a way that something small can become something bigger because it has not been reported effectively or the audience feels it has not been reported effectively to them.
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