Page 142 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

126 Media Studies

Surprisingly, perhaps, when one compares the leading “ mainstream ”
US newspaper, the New York Times , with comparable newspapers in Britain
and Canada, it becomes clear that it is rare for Americans to try to see world

conflicts in which the US is involved from the perspective of the adversary.

It is much easier for newspapers not involved in conflicts to do this. The
New York Times features a large collection of articles on the Taliban,
Hamas, and other enemy combatants; however, almost without exception,
the articles are written with no input from the combatants themselves.
Articles about the Taliban generally are “ objective ” and distanced from the
reality of the lives of those who become Taliban and decide to fi ght the
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US. In contrast, the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail featured a
section called “ Talking to the Taliban, ” a collection of 42 videos of Taliban
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fi ghters responding to a standardized list of questions.

The Globe and Mail ’ s discussions with Afghani villagers make clear that
the identity tag Taliban covers a range of people, some of whom are not
“ militants ” or “ radicals ” but are in fact ordinary people who became radi-
calized by US bombing of their villages. This alternative “ narrative ” to the
one presented by the New York Times , in which villagers appear as objects
rather than subjects of stories, also makes points of view and perspectives
accessible that do not “ normally ” get represented in the US media. One
result of this difference is that Canadians are more reluctant to endorse
sending Canadian troops to support the US war effort in Afghanistan.
What this comparison suggests is that the content of news narratives is
not determined by the objects and events described alone. The perspective
or point of view of the person or institution telling the story makes a dif-
ference. Perspective always frames events. A frame is an invisible demarca-

tion that defines the boundaries of a news story, and it differentiates
between what will be included and what will be excluded from the story.
To get a sense of what this means, imagine being high up in a building
overlooking a city. From that perspective, you can see an enormous
amount; you can apparently grasp lots of information and data about the
city. But you cannot see faces or hear voices; you miss a great deal of detail
and information. Now, imagine standing on a street in the city. You can
see much less and much more. Your range of vision is limited in a different
way by your new perspective or point of view. There is a more visible frame
created around your vision (and your potential narrative of what you see)
by virtue of the fact that you can only see one part of the street, and the
walls of the surrounding buildings prevent you from seeing beyond or
around them. But you are now closer to the texture and detail of people ’ s