Comparative Analysis C.A

My final C.A for my Media, Discourse and Analysis module. I will be comparing two video broadcasts of the same story and analysing their content against each other. The two videos I will be comparing are those of RTE and TV3’s broadcast of the story of the jailed Gardai who robbed an elderly woman and colleagues. The story was covered on the 17^th of May by both news broadcasters, one being a private broadcaster (TV3) and the other being a public service broadcaster (RTE). Link to each video:

RTE - http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0517/garda-who-robbed-elderly-woman-colleagues-jailed.html#video

TV3 - http://www.tv3.ie/news.php?request=&tv3_preview=&video=48696

Video titled “Former Garda given three year sentence”

As we know from learning about the media this semester, is that publishers and broadcasters control the content that is showed to the public audience. They are the ones who create a narrative from the raw event and influence our meaning of the mediated news broadcast. News broadcasters can be biased in their reports on news events, for political reasons or to maintain the hegemony within society. Therefore it is my job as a media analyst to discover if a broadcaster is biased in a report or if they hold ideological values and report the broad aspect and don’t stand on either side of the fence when it comes to producing a meaning in their reports. My goal in this comparison is to discover if public and private broadcasters can remain impartial when it comes to constructing and delivering a news story.

We will start with the RTE report. When analyzing a news report we must always keep in mind the “circuit of culture”, and question the representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation of the broadcast. Who has created the broadcast, and who it is aimed at? What creative techniques are used to attract attention to the broadcast and what values, lifestyles and points of view are rejected, omitted or represented in the message? This means that certain choices have been made while constructing this text and reflect the attitudes and viewpoints of those who doing the construction. How might different people understand this message differently than me, this is based on our similarities and differences, each receiver of content has a unique life experience, which creates unique interpretations.

This is a media event, it has been “constructed” for an audience for them to understand what is happening within a 2 minute time period. Like and constructed video, choices have been made by authorities in RTE as to what they can and what they cannot or should not show within the broadcast. The broadcast opens in the studio with a brief overview of what has happened, then leads into the report by “Orla O Donnell” to give a more in depth review of the story. The report was produced as-live, as to provide a window as to allow the audience to feel as if they are actually witnessing the event then and there. The video was produced by showing footage of the garda walking into court, there were no interviews or “live” clips within the report, only short clips of various buildings, Criminal justice court, gard’s barracks and a bar. The only other footage was of the reporter talking outside the courts. A report of this nature has to especially remain impartial, due to ongoing trials. The language (however vague) used by the reporter suggests a condemning nature towards the suspect, reporting on the serious aspect, and how even though there was no violence involved, it is still a very serious case, “violating the safety of an elderly woman” and a breach of trust from elderly people towards members of the gardai. The possible zeitgeist being the lack of trust within society towards our own government. I believe the reporter remained impartial to the story, it was only her that was speaking, no additional creative components such as video footage, statistics, illustrations or audio was used to create meaning. It was a standard reported video, with no hidden media message. We have to understand that when a report like this is broadcast, the broadcasters must be aware of the discourse and meaning of the video. People will see it differently than others, for example, I would have viewed the video differently than the gardai in suspect, and even the judge doing the ruling. With this in mind, certain language must be used by the broadcasters, chosen carefully and constructed in an unbiased and impartial manner, based on the target audiences differences and similarities.

As an audience, we will never see the choices that have been made, of the text and footage that was not selected. This story strives to create fairness and balance. We expect this from a public service broadcaster. The story has been targeted at the elderly, there is a sense of an underlying theme of vigilance and safety running through the report. There is no point of view given prominence.

If we look at the second video, reported by TV3, we may have a different situation. TV3 is a private broadcaster. This means that they were set up with one concern in mind, money. Being more conscious of their ratings, there is more of a possibility that a report may be more one sided coming from a private broadcaster than a public broadcaster.

Keeping in mind the “circuit of culture”, we see that straight away this story is presented in a completely different manner. It is produced live, “on the spot”. Since being live, there is a chance that the report may not have been as polished as the other broadcast, and it is obvious that it is not. The broadcaster/editor of the other video had time in a studio to chose what words and images to use depending on the audience that it was most likely to appeal to, this is not the case in TV3’s report. There were no static images or voice overs used in this video, only short footage of the suspect walking to the courts. The broadcaster opted for a live reading of the information and details of the story, outside the criminal court of justice. Broadcasters must keep in mind different rules and conventions of broadcasting, socio-linguistics, the language used in the broadcast, who the story is aimed at, is the story even news worthy? Although the journalist reported the story, there was times when she did stumble and mix up words that made the report slightly more colloquial. This is no fault of the journalists, but is to be expected from a live broadcast. For example when she described what the suspect stole the money for, she finished with saying, “... all these things” which doesn’t seem very professional at a national level. It is important to know what language to use when mediating text to an audience. Different styles are used when addressing higher and lower class families, or office and trade jobs. Each audience member has a different discourse and understanding of the same text that was broadcast, just because of their upbringing and social background, the life they live. The video is quite similar to RTE’s broadcast, but an important aspect to this text is who is being represented, and their identity. The conversationalisation of the text is crucial to a story of this manner, considering that it is a member of the gardai who is in question and the fact that it is being broadcast from the Criminal Court of Justice. An event like this is most certainly associated with private life, encompassing political, business, educational or governmental institutions. Broadcasters keep this in mind whilst choosing what language to use, what local or regional accents and pronunciations to use, and what sector of society the text is aimed at. There is no use of colloquial language (slang terms) in either broadcasts.

This story is aimed at an Irish audience, first and foremost, as is at a regional level, and wouldn’t affect people from outside out the general locality where the crime took place (Cork) or even Ireland for that matter, certain terms used in both reports like “Gardai”, is culturally specific to this country. We rely on the news to help break the cultural boundaries and language barriers to further help us understand what is happening in the story. I believe that this story is worth broadcasting because it is very current in Irish times, with a lack of trust and concern from the public towards the government. The story ties into the social zeitgeist. Broadcasts have control over what they mediate, and in a time where public confidence in the government is at a serious low, the feeling from both broadcasts is that trust has been broken towards authority, but reassuring the public that this is a rare case, and not to believe that all authority is criminal. RTE quoted judge “Mary Ellen Ring”, saying that she “hoped the trust elderly people had in the gardai could be restored after this case”. One could see this as a back handed effort to maintain or restore confidence in not just the gardai, but to higher authority, namely the government.

I don’t believe that RTE or TV3 are coercing the public into thinking one side or the other in this story. My goal in comparing these two video’s is to question whether the news can continue to act as producers of meaning whilst remaining within the structures of formal rules about impartiality. Both Public broadcaster and private broadcaster were impartial on the matter. Both broadcasters had approached the raw story, each in different manners. Both came off well as to describing the story and used very similar language to each other, so much so as would lead you to believe that one had taken the report from the others website etc. There are certain ideological values in place by our government at the moment, such as restoring confidence to the Celtic tiger times. As an analyst, I have learned that it is the broadcaster’s job to construct and mediate text to an audience and to translate it into common sense terms for the audience to understand. In modern democracy, the media serve as a vital function in the public forum. To publish without fear or favour, and in keeping to the overall question posed by this comparative analysis, I believe that the media, no matter if they serve as a public or private service broadcaster, can still produce meaningful content and retain impartiality towards a “constructed” piece of text.

Week 13 - News Report C.A

We had officially finished the module by week 13, but since we had missed a full week back in week 10. The class had been given a C.A to complete before week 13, and we still had to present it. The C.A consisted of a news report, in which we had to create a mock television broadcast on a particular "controversial story in the media recently, but we had to put our own biased slant on on the broadcast.

This was a group C.A, and I had the privilege of working with Siobhan Gallagher and Eamonn Cahill for the project. We chose to report on the recent household and water charges. Combining both of the taxes into one story. Our slant was that we were create a fear campaign and trying to scare people into paying the charges. We interviewed students young and old around the college campus. Some people had different opinions to the ones we were trying to portray in the broadcast but we had to convince them to change their opinion for the sake of our news story.

Siobhan and Eamonn worked hard on the video, audio and editing side of the broadcast, while I worked behind the scenes, researching, gathering information, quotes and statistics to use within to broadcast. Only certain statistics were chosen in order to get our preferred meaning across to viewers. We all chipped in and worked on the technical report that was to be handed in. In the end, We came out with a relatively believable and very professionally presented 3 minute news report and video.

We gathered many vox pops from many people around the college and acquired media footage from the rte.ie website. Statistics were gathered from newspapers websites, the Irish Times and Irish Independent. The continuous report from the project can be found from the blog of the project. The voice over was done by scripted and recorded by Eamonn.

Blog - http://begrandlike.wordpress.com/

Week 12 - Regulation vs. Economics

This week we looked at Public service broadcasting vs. Private broadcasting in Ireland, from their point of view and how they broadcast according to their own agenda, in regards to television news.

Public Service Broadcaster - Educate, Inform, Entertain. (RTE, BBC etc.)
Private Broadcaster - Entertain, Commercial gain, Monetary reward. (TV3, 3e, UTV, Channel 4 etc.)

When broadcasting the news, primarily this meant a commitment to due impartiality so that no particular political bias or point of view is given prominence. But now, broadcasters are more and more conscious of their ratings. There is a growing pressure to reschedule the news to make way for more "popular" programmes. If you were to apply a newspaper analogy, the television is moving from a broadsheet to tabloid news agenda, where there is an emphasis on the entertainment side of news. Rather than actual important news. News that literally affects our everyday living in a country, pressing issues and debates being reported and discussed in a broadsheet newspaper. Rather than which footballer has slept with who's wife now, something you would see on a regular basis in a tabloid newspaper like "the Sun". We see a "dumbing down" process happening in television broadcasting.

Broadsheet - Political, Economic, Social Affairs.
Tabloid - Entertainment, Personalities/Celebrities.

While most events that happen around the world in raw form are not interesting to an audience and wouldn't hold the attention of the majority of the public. There is a need to package a raw event and deliver it as a narrative using different storytelling and literature techniques. By using different elements in a news story, such as, spoken word, video footage, illustrations, and photographs, creates a sense that the story contains "windows", which allow an audience to see directly into an event as if they were witnessing it then and there, but from the viewers own home.

Like the narration, these elements are abstracted from the stream of events, cropped and cut; and as with the narrative element, they can be given a different meaning. Delivering a preferred meaning, telling people what they should be seeing or noticing, leading people to believe in one side of the story, while not directly telling the audience what side to be on. Therefore, influencing their meaning.

News stories allow us to understand stories that would otherwise be separated to us by culture and languages, they help us to understand. In terms of the news story, we are on the outside, looking in. Coming in for a sample so we can appreciate the larger view.

We should note that news stories don't just bring together all these elements merely by putting them together in a single story or sequence. They are put together in a specific (narrative) way. To create a meaning. They are collected by people, who also have their own personal views and opinions, which may shift into their work, even if they are to remain unbiased on a story. There is always two sides to a story, but broadcasters want to point out what sides you should be "looking at" and give their own slant on a story but not forcing it on you. Its kind of like an underhand tactic for you to see what they want you to see, and believe what they want you to believe.

Week 11 - Media Bias

This week, we looked at the media as a means of production, and marxist and liberal approaches to the media. We were given an assignment to choose a news story/broadcast that involves some degree of political controversy and analyze that content.

There was a couple of stories I thought of that would be a good example of political bias, but none better than the Student Registration/Contribution Fees increase. This story was covered in November 2011, when the Union of Student in Ireland (USI) protested in Dublin City. This article from RTE covers the story.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1116/education.html#article

The reason that this story caught so much attention was due to the fact that earlier that year, 2 weeks before the general election in Ireland, TD Ruairi Quinn had signed a pledge, promising not to increase student fees whilst in government. His party then won the election and with less than a 8 months into term, had proposed to increase student fees two-fold. A controversial move and one that sparked outrage with students across the entire country.

From the start of the article, we know straight away that it is produced from an opposing/protesting point of view from the headline of the article, "Ruairi Quinn non-committal on fees issue". The article, reported by Emma O Kelly, is slightly more sided with the protests, but keeps to a neutral stance on ideology. Evident from the wording that is used, there are several references to figures and numbers within the video. Stating the amount of students there where at the protests (20,000), and how it "filled the streets", but also mentioning the more "conservative" figure stated by the Gardai (12,000), which would lead you to beleive that the Gardai are aiming to keep the figure as low as would be imaginable as not to generate even more hype, or to make it seem as if the protest wasn't as important or to subtract from its potential impact to the Irish public.

There are several interviews with students in the video that placed substantial importance on what the fees mean to those that were interviewed. Then, from a Gardai/Political approach, goes on to highlight the need for safety the student protests, and mentions how it was a "highly patrolled and organised march". This statement is almost straight from a TD's mouth. We see this clearly, from the language that is used, here and throughout the article. The fact that the word "march" was used instead of (what the event actually was) "protest" is to play down the whole event, as the word "protest" is surrounded by negative connotations and promotes violent imagery. This kind of political correctness is used throughout the report, as if to pander the importance of the protests to students and to discourage other sectors in the public from protesting in the future.

RTE promote a liberal political view and ideology (and have been accused of this recently - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0313/1224313204153.html). They produce a partial view of whats happening in the protests, as to cover the story, but conforms to the higher power in society, being that of the government. Although the reporter does state (from a students point of view) that the protests are directed at him and his controversial decision to increase the education fees.

As discussed in class, the report is in favour of a "hegemonic" view of politics, to maintain the status quo and the way things are. This report reminds me of this approach to re-enforce the dominant ideologies in society, especially those in power, politically and perhaps not as much as past times, religiously. Being coerced into believing that everything is fine, that there is no need to challenge anything the government are doing. After all, we are always being told to think about the future of Ireland, that the government are getting us back on track and you (the tax payer) are providing resources for the greater collective good of Ireland. 

Week 8 - Semiotic Print Advert Analysis

Over the past few classes, we have looked at many different aspects of semiotic analysis in mediated content. This week, we have been given an assignment to analyse a print advert in a semiotic approach. The print advert I have chosen is; Levi's "Who do you want to unbutton" promotion. A series of adverts from the Levi's in 2009. We are asked to consider different theories that have been addressed in class, such as;

• Types of Signifiers
• Paradigmatic Relationships
• Syntadigmatic Related Signs
• Narratives and Myths within our Culture

Analysis of the Advert

Straight off, we see a picture of a beautiful woman standing leaning on a counter on a street corner, with the text "the boy who makes my morning latte" and the promotional text underneath. These are the signs, the images that are most pronounced in the image, its denotative level of meaning. Basically, the "it is what it is" of the image, no arguments can be made against that. There are many different types of signifiers, on a connotative level. The underlying meaning of the image, The woman with her arm up, leaning against the counter, signifying confidence and beauty, while wearing casual jeans and top, her head tilted to the side. It all signifies a casual nature. She is easy going, free, her fashion suggests she is casual, and gives off a spontaneous attitude. The fact that she is in a dream like state, suggests there is a certain sexuality or prowess about her. These features conveyed by Erving Goffman's 1979 study of "Gender Advertisements", and how women are portrayed in print adverts.

The text next to her in large free-hand typography fills up more than half of the image. The fact that it is in red, in this context and with what she is saying, suggests passion, lust, sex. With the text being in free-hand suggesting that this woman wrote the piece of text, and with the colour, conveying the possibility that it was written with lipstick, furthering the thought of sexuality within the image.

As for the area within in the image, on a denotative level, this is just a street, with a few cars in the background and a bike in the right foreground, that could be anywhere in the world. But because of the colour of the cars in the background, straight away, from our own cultural upbringing, we know that this is a street in New York City, simply because of the architecture and style of the buildings and street, and colour of the cars. The cultural associations with New York, the city of opportunity, where you can do make anything of yourself, its young, vibrant, the city that never sleeps, with lots of interesting and different people there. It suggests that she is an active and outgoing young woman.

The condiments on the counter beside the woman suggests that she is at a cafe, and along with the text in the picture, "The boy who makes my morning latte", leads us to believe that she is at this cafe where the boy works, and he is currently getting her morning latte. Which would indicate that the narrative of the story is set in the morning. The bike leaning against a pole to the right, just out of frame, suggests that she is active, possibly concerned for the environment, possibly on her way to work, as getting a latte coffee in the morning would suggest that she needs to get a kick and wake up before a long day ahead.

These connections of events and signifiers are defined as the narrative. This narrative is communicated to us in such a way as to seem familiar, which is does. We can all associate with what is going on in the image, perhaps not location wise, but as in contextually. By piecing together the story, bit by bit, we realize that all aspects of this advert have been thought out very carefully by the advertiser, as so not to be misunderstood by an advert that will be promoted worldwide, as many steps as possible have been taken as to not do any harm that may potentially arise, if an advert has an underlying message, unnoticed by the advertisers. With this advert, the advertiser wants to be associated with an easy going nature, for young people, in fashion, who take things in their stride, who have or want to have sex appeal.The advertisers intended message and their viewers cultural upbringing and  is important to understand as an analyst. 

Week 6 - Semiotics

*Stucturalism to Semiotics

This week, we discussed more in depth about semiotics and different levels of meaning in media and media messages.Semiotics can be deifined as a study of signs, but can also be applied to all sorts of human endeavors, eg. Cinema, Theaters, paintings, politics etc.

We use a variety of gestures to signify a sign. We need to think of texts as a system of signs. Which gain their effect via the constant clashes between these systems. For example, everybody knows what hand signs mean when driving when a garda flags you to move on, or stop. Or even when we are playing sport, like football, when the referee signals different hand gestures, we know what he is doing, it is something basic, but its because we have learned these over time, that it becomes instinctive. But with that being said, different cultures have different values, and one gesture may mean another in different countries, or what a person has grown up and learned through a different background.

Written texts involve the sequence of letters and words, images involve arrangement of shapes and colours. Music involves the composition of sound, but ultimately they all can be regarded as amalgamations of signs.

An example of how signs can be perceived differently is in the videos we watched, of "Mary Popins" and "The Shining", where they had been edited to be the exact opposite of the original movies, eg. Mary Popins was edited to be a horror movie, and The Shining had been made to look like a happy romcom style of movie, just by using editing techniques, the style and story were drastically changed and no outside footage had been used other that the original shots from each movie. The use of music/editing/narration/imagery/cuts, can be very misleading, this is due to the semiotics.

The successful communication of meaning is reliant on shared societal systems of understanding.

Levels of meaning can be seen in two ways:

Denotative: refers to the most immediate level of meaning eg, what a dictionary would do. It is what it is, and cannot be argued. A photo of a street is a photo of a street, but there are so many signifiers and representations within this photo, that to someone who is looking at it may have a memorable meaning, and may possess emotion to the picture, based on there feelings and memories of that particular street, which leads us to:

Connotative: This is the second order, associated meanings. They are more likely to be culturall specific, like what I just discussed about the photo of the street.

The communication is unlikely to be successful unless the audience is well versed in the particular cultural conventions by which they operate.

We discussed Paradigms & Syntagms.

Pardigm: is a vertical set of units, from which the required one is selected.

Syntagm: is the horizontal chain into which units are linked, according to the agreed rules and conventions, to make a meaning whole.

An example of this, is the classic... A terrorist bombed a government building this morning. There are so many cultural specifics in that sentence. Substitute, "Terrorist" with the word "Freedom-Fighter", then the sentence has completely new meaning. Just like taking out the "this morning" part of the text, then we have no time boundaries and are unknown to the time that this event took place. There are many substitutions that can be made to any text, to give it a whole new meaning. This is something that, as a media analysist, I am learning to become aware of.

Week 5 - "Approaches to Media Analysis"

Week 5 continues, "Approaches to Media Analysis", which delves into the Analytical side of media. 3 topics discussed:

1. Linguistic and Socio-Linguistic Analysis.
2. Conversational Analysis.
3. Semiotic Analysis.

Linguistic Analysis:

Ways of looking at how language, used within the media, can be of interest to linguists for their own purpose. Eg, Newspaper Headlines. We I mean is, The way in which a newspaper uses the front page, and what words go onto the front page are all selected with good reason, and there are many factors that are dependant on how a headline is worded. Even something as arbitrary as spacing on the front page is important as to what wording can be used.

The choice of language is dependent on the audience that the text is aimed at. Such as, skilled workers, professionals, office workers, manual labourers etc. This effects the type of language used, as in the words that the person uses, but also, the accent plays a key role in how the piece of media is presented. Eg, Dundalk FM being delivered by a person with a Cork or strong inner Dublin city accent would not have the same affect, because of the area of the radio station.

Conversational Analysis:

Ethnomethodology, an interpretive approach to sociology which focus upon everyday life as a skilled accomplishments and upon methods people use to produce it.

Formulation: A widely used device interviewers use to summarize what interviewee's have said.

John Heritage (1985), sees Formulation as a technical device which interviewers use to manage interviewers within constraints under which they are forced to operate.

• One constraint is the presence of a listening audience. The need to keep an audience interested, by drawing out/clarifying what the interviewee says.
• Another constraint is the requirement on interviewers to maintain a stance of formal neutrality. Gearing an interview one way rather than another.

Interviewees don't always answer the question, a case more commonly associated with politicians. Sometimes they answer the question by introducing topics of their own. As we discussed in class, politics is a hard area for an interviewer, you need to be stern, but without startling the interviewee away from answering more in-depth questions, and if something comes their way that they do not like the sound of, then they will divert the question and word it in a way that doesn't answer it, but introduces another question which they then answer themselves. Evading they critical questions, for what reason, probably to save their own skin, or that of a party or party member. No other thought comes to mind than that of Irish presidential candidate, Sean Gallagher. Just watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOAHJ6y94DY

Semiotic Analysis:

John Hartley conducted an important study of news in 1978 and focused upon the semiotic codes and conventions which underlie both linguistic and visual aspects of news stories.

-Categorization of stories into smaller number of major topics.

-The effect of news values on the treatment of topics (is it news worthy? Valuable?)

-Audience address, The operation of broadcasters as "mediators" who translate news into common sense terms of audience.

-Use of conventional communication style.

-The Structuring of the news stories.