Page 17 - Communication Theory and Research

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6 Communication Theory & Research
News research

In fact the study of news content and news use has not differed greatly in priority
or shape from its American and other international counterparts. It has been con-
cerned with the staple issues of the reflection (or not) of reality; with the routine
newsroom forces that influence selection policy; with many forms of bias
(usually unintended) that characterize patterns of news; with the nature of news
values; with the process and consequences of ‘framing’; with ‘learning’ from the
news, agenda-setting, etc. (see Renckstorf et al., 2001). The diffusion of news
has also been studied in Europe. However certain distinctive ‘angles’ can be
observed. To begin with, the obligation of public broadcasting to be informative
and objective, as judged not only by traditional journalistic norms, but by refer-
ence to regulatory norms, has given a distinctive thrust to news research. Public
broadcasting is often compared with the ‘private’ competition. There has also
generally been more recognition in Europe of the fact that ‘objective’ news’ is
shaped by implicit ideologies. In an earlier, critical, phase, public broadcast news
was often accused of supporting the status quo. In the more recent era of expan-
sion and privatization referred to above, the new, competing, news services
of private television have been suspected of departing from the former high
standards of television news.
As noted above, news research has continued to be stimulated by successive
conflicts and divisions in which the role of news as the informer of society is
often put to a severe test. Most recently, the Iraq War and before that military
action in Afghanistan and Kosovo have highlighted the pressures on television
to meet divided public expectations of fairness and accuracy and also meet
expectations of governments committed to controversial policies. The socially
contentious topic of immigration and asylum seeking has tested the capacity of
a press caught between strong popular prejudice amongst the audience (quite
commonly) and the dual wish to be sympathetic and objective.
The study of news has also been influenced by the European traditions of
audience reception research and textual analysis. From the audience point of
view, the ‘news’ has to be made sense of from the point of view of the individ-
ual and the particular national perspective on events. The interpretation and
remembering of news is influenced by many peripheral or seemingly irrelevant
thought processes. It is not a rational linear process of learning. The occasion of
news use is also very much ritualized in the home, linked to domestic routines
and events.

European television fiction

Research into fiction in Europe has been influenced by a number of the features
mentioned earlier. The primary issue has been the extent to which Europe can
and does develop its own production capacity for the most popular category of
television, that of fiction and drama. For the most part this refers to various
series and serials dealing with settings related to crime, health and various other