International Comms Final Collaboration
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This document summarizes research on the representation of international news in local media platforms in Leeds, England. The researchers analyzed print, radio, television, and online media over a sample week. They found that traditional print media had the most coverage of international news, with an average of 9 stories per day. In contrast, radio coverage of international news was very low, with only 6 stories identified across Radio Aire bulletins over the sample week. Online media platforms also provided limited international news coverage. The researchers concluded that more modern media like radio and online prioritize local content over international news due to factors like news values, costs, and the fast-paced nature of the media landscape.
International Comms Final Collaboration
- 1. W o r d c o u n t : 3 3 8 4 COMM3180 – International communication group project International news in local press
- 2. 2 Introduction As one of the fastest developing cities in the north of England, Leeds has now established itself as one of the multicultural hotspots of the United Kingdom. It qualifies itself as: “a diverse and vibrant city” (West Yorkshire Observatory, 2014), therefore the importance of international news would be expected to be a priority in local media. However, by examining, comparing and contrasting four different media platforms: print, radio, television and online, we discovered that the further we moved away from traditional forms of media (i.e. the press), towards a more modern-‐day media platform (i.e. exclusively online), international news became less prominent. We found that due to the nature of the media landscape today – being fast-‐paced, economically driven, and easily accessible – there has been a shift in the way that international news is being portrayed in local news media platforms. Through looking at the nature of the media landscape as a whole, we were able to understand that key themes such as news values, cost and technology have a significant impact on the way that international news is covered by local media. Academic research surrounding international communications have suggested that different ‘scapes’ such as Technoscapes, which has created technological divisions that impact peoples practices, and Mediascapes, where the local media environment is dominated by media imperialism, are crucial aspects in understanding the reasons of how international news is represented in local media. Method Our method consisted of focusing on the main local media platforms in Leeds, and breaking down their news agendas. By doing this we were able to gain a holistic understanding of the main themes that interweaved international news into the local press. In order to get an accurate overview of how international media is represented in
- 3. 3 local press, we chose a sample week at random beginning on the 10th of November. During this time period, we individually conducted an in-‐depth analysis on our chosen platform, closely recording any mention of international news. In choosing peak broadcast times for radio and television, it meant we could establish the importance of international news at times where, if it was going to be present, it would be. By using a specific code-‐book, we were able to uniform our findings so that we could effectively compare and contrast the results across all mediums. The code-‐book consisted of which international stories are present in the news agenda and their position in the newsfeed, this was crucial in order to understand how important international news actually was to local media platforms. Furthermore, our code-‐book covered the genre and theme of the news stories, which allowed us to see where international news stood in the hierarchy of their news values. Figure 1 and Figure 2 highlighted which themes were the most prominent for local commercial radio and for online and printed press. Figure 1: Genres present in Radio Aire’s news bulletins (November 10-‐15th) GENRE Number of stories Crime 9 Sport 2 Entertainment 6 International 6 Current Affairs (Health, Housing, Council) 25
- 4. 4 Figure 2: Main themes through printed and online media In addition, our code-‐book made sure that we covered news values. This idea was important because it allowed us to gain an understanding of why local media chose the stories they did, and how in turn this affected their treatment of international stories. In order to have an insight into the way that international items are treated, we conducted several interviews with news editors in selected media platforms. By undertaking this process, it allowed for us to link the physical findings with the theoretical approach underlying the editorial choices in whether or not international items were present in local media. Findings Our findings indicated that the presence of international news was almost absent in the majority of our studied media platforms. Local print and online print recorded the most amount of international news. Figure 3 shows the steady occurrence of international Main themes through printed and online media War Death Poli-cs Commemora-on Trial Disease
- 5. 5 news items in local print. The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post registered a minimum of 9 international items per day. Figure 3: International News in the Yorkshire Post and Evening Post In comparison, BBC Radio Leeds and Radio Aire registered a minimal amount of international news stories – as shown by Figures 4, 5 and 6. These figures indicate a very low international output in Radio Aire’s bulletins, with local news dominating the feed by 88%. Similarly, we can see that BBC Radio Leeds had an equally low international output, with local news dominating 86% of the newsfeed. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Interna4onal news Interna-onal news
- 6. 6 Figure 4: International stories in BBC Radio Leeds and Radio Aire TOTAL NEWS STORIES ANALYSED INTERNATIONAL STORIES LOCAL OR NATIONAL STORIES RADIO AIRE 49 6 43 BBC RADIO LEEDS 28 4 24 Figure 5: Percentage of International Stories in Radio Aire PERCENTAGE OF INTERNATIONAL STORIES IN RADIO AIRE International news Local news
- 7. 7 Figure 6: Percentage of International News Stories in BBC Radio Leeds Similarly, by examining the local segments: BBC Look North and ITV Calendar, Figure 7 shows that local television output severely lacked international news coverage, with only one international news story being present on ITV’s Calendar. Yet, this international news story was only broadcast through ITV’s local branch because it had a direct local relevance to West Yorkshire. However, by observing the stations national news section that was broadcast prior to the local section, we discovered strong evidence of international coverage. This is shown in Figures 8 and 9. PERCENTAGE OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS STORIES IN BBC RADIO LEEDS International news Local news
- 8. 8 Figure 7: BBC and ITV News Comparison Genre Amount of Stories in BBC Amount of Stories in ITV Crime 2 5 Trial 0 1 Sport 5 7 Current Affairs 14 17 International 1 1 Figure 8: Percentage of News Bulletin Allocated to Specific Genres – ITV Percentage of news bullen4n allocated to specific genres -‐ ITV Crime Trial Sport Current affairs Interna-onal
- 9. 9 Figure 9: Percentage of News Bulletin Allocated to Specific Genres -‐ BBC Furthermore, by looking at two strictly online, local news platforms: Qlocal and The City Talking it was found that there was no evidence of international news (see Figure 10). Instead, the content focused strictly on local news items that were specifically relevant to Leeds – having the newsfeed hierarchy start with crime, and end with current affairs (see Figure 11). Percentage of news bullen4n allocated to specific genres -‐ BBC Crime Trial Sport Current affairs Interna-onal
- 10. 10 Figure 10: international News in Local, Online Media Figure 11: News Genre Hierarchy in Local, Online Media Interna4onal News in Local, Online Media Local News Interna-onal News News Genre Heirarchy in Local, Online Media Crime Sport Entertainment Current Affairs
- 11. 11 Reasoning: News Values When looking at why international news was not prominent in the majority of the local media that we examined, the idea of news values became a key theme. By looking at academic research on news values, we have found that Brighton and Foy (2007) discuss the importance of news values for journalists when selecting what stories will go into their agenda. They go on to develop Galtung and Ruge’s (1973) main news values, by pointing out that their core agenda set in 1973 has increasingly become out-‐dated. They indicate that instead, the main news values today address what is most relevant to the target audience, and therefore they are interchangeable. On top of this, Hastings (2002) puts forward the idea that journalists and editors now filter out stories dependent on their news worth, highlighting the difficulties that journalists now face when creating news agenda across multiple media platforms. It is because of this difficulty that has been created from changing news values and the introduction of new technologies, that has caused the relevance of international news in local media to change. This change is directly dependent on individual media outlets and their specific news agendas. The nature of local, printed news is traditional and long-‐standing, due to the fact that newspapers have been around in England since the beginning of the 17th century. The process of selecting news therefore maintains a degree of consistency – in the sense that they still provide holistic news covering international, national and local events. It is partly because of this idea that we found large portions of International news (8-‐12 stories per day) present in the local newspapers (The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post) that we examined. These stories largely consisted of themes that approached war in developing continents such as Africa, which mainly focused on the
- 12. 12 Ebola crisis, and the Middle East, which covered information about the Islamic State (see Figure 12 and 13). In an Interview with Dr. Chris Paterson (2014), he indicated that the reasoning for such large portions of international news in the local press was because: by linking international news with the multicultural citizens of Leeds, these newspapers have more of a chance to maintain their target number of readers and subscribers, in an environment where newspapers are slowly coming out of fashion. **add reference** Figure 12: International News Comparison 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday The Yorkshire Post The Evening Post
- 13. 13 Figure 13: International News Across Different Continents When looking at the presence of international news in the local radio landscape, it was found that it was not a priority. We found that this was mostly due to the fact that their focus was on the news value proximity. In the BBC’s case this is due to local news having to focus solely on what happens in their area of broadcast (Chantler & Harris, 1997). Chantler and Harris (1997, p. 56) indicate that: “the prerogative of local radio stations is to simply tell the news that directly influences people locally. The national news services of the BBC will explain topics that affect the country both nationally and internationally,” meaning that international news, unless directly attached to local issues, becomes less significant in the local radio environment. This idea is shown through the examination of our two chosen local radio stations (see Figures 5 and 6). Specifically, it was found that Radio Aire registered just 12% of international news 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Oceania Asia Middle East Africa Europe South America North America
- 14. 14 stories, with their head reporter Claire Warren confirming that this because international news “was just not their priority” (Warren, 2014). On a more drastic scale, by focusing on two strictly online, local news platforms: Qlocal and The City Talking it was found that there was no evidence of international news present at all. According to Bednarek and Caple (2012, pp. 41-‐44) what is newsworthy usually concerns the country, region or city in which the news is published. In this case, Qlocal and The City Talking focused specifically on concerns about the city of Leeds. Due to the fact that the websites were strictly based on local news in Leeds, it was not surprising that there was no mention of international news at all across the five-‐day testing period. By focusing on specifically local news, both Qlocal and The City Talking were able to allow their audience members to feel a sense of proximity to the stories being presented. This in turn would allow each audience member to better connect with, and become interested in the news line-‐up. On top of this, it was found that most of the stories being presented on both Qlocal and The City Talking followed a similar content and layout structure – both presented information about one of the more local, newsworthy topics at the beginning of the news line-‐up, which mostly revolved around crime in Leeds (see Figure 11). After this they would then move on to present more light-‐hearted stories based on the sport and entertainment that were currently happening around the city. According to Bednarek and Caple (2012, pp. 41-‐44), aspects of a story become newsworthy if they tie in with the stereotypes that people hold. By following the same structure on a daily basis not only allows for audience members to become familiar with the content, but it also cements the idea that both Qlocal and The
- 15. 15 City Talking are going to be less likely in the future to portray any information on international news stories, unless they fall under the news value of proximity. Reasoning: Cost The gathering of international news is a costly affair (Paterson, 2003. P.337). Therefore it is something that plays a significant role in how international news is treated in local media. Paterson (2003) highlights that many broadcasters devote a lot of their resources into few large international stories at one time. During an interview, conducted after our observation week, he stated than many local broadcasters may try and take a local angle on an international story in order to better connect with their readers and subscribers. However, in most cases they are reprinting what has come from the news agencies (Paterson, 2014). Paterson (2014) highlights that some stories may be chosen due ownership backgrounds and personal interest. These interests could be due to financial factors or political bias. Similarly, local news media is dependent on external advertising for revenue and therefore their output must abide by certain standards set by their sponsors (Gage, 1999). These factors indicate how important cost becomes in influencing the proportion of international news in the local news agenda. Contrary to the online media platforms, printed newspapers cannot change the format of their paper once it has been released. This would be a costly situation that is not financially worth the effort. Due to the fact that printed news is usually only distributed once or twice daily, newspaper outlets need to ensure that they maintain their advertisers and gain financial revenue. This means that they need to cover any international news stories that are connected to their target audience with every edition. Dr. Paterson (2014) noted that this is because there are still some people in Leeds who
- 16. 16 are interested in international news, and will therefore help fund the paper by their purchases. However he adds that these international stories tend to still have a local angle. After examining the news output from Radio Aire it was easy to establish that most of Radio Aire’s output are tabloidesque news stories; this is a direct result of who they broadcast to (Bauer Media Group, 2014). Linda Gage (1999) explains that there are external factors such as advertising and promotion which oblige the radio stations to broadcast what their ‘sponsors’ advertising dictates; leaving them little leeway to broadcast hard hitting news whether national or International (Gage, 1999). This is also mirrored in BBC local radio; as a result of a decrease in the license fee, local radio is getting less funding which means that they have smaller teams that must operate in tighter boundaries (BBC Trust, 2014). Harcup (2007, p.15) explains that “being balanced is one of the hardest tasks a journalist must undergo, it is made significantly harder when restrictions surrounding the journalist are then applied to his work.” It is these cost restrictions that play a significant role in why international news is less prominent in local radio. By comparing ITV and BBC’s national and local news sections it was found that the national news held the majority of international news stories, while the local news was strictly focusing on news in the local region. Paterson (2003, p.337) indicates that a reasoning for this is that the gathering of international news is costly, stating that even the largest broadcasters: “typically devote their resources to just a few international stories at a time.” Another reason for this is that television news broadcasters rely
- 17. 17 heavily on two main new agencies to gather content from around the world: Reuters and Associated press. Due to the high cost surrounding this method Paterson (2003) highlights that broadcasters will air larger stories across the country to maximise their expenditure, thus leading to a total absence of international news that can be observed in figures 7 and 8. By looking at the news values and news agendas observed on BBC and ITV the companies rely heavily on local, easily accessible stories gathered through press releases. This is largely due to the fact that the demand for sourcing international news stories does not outweigh the cost of sourcing them. Due to this idea, there becomes a high flow of local news in local media, with international news taking a backseat. Reasoning: Technology Raine and Wellman (2012) indicate new expectations and realities are emerging as a result of becoming online. This puts forward the idea that audiences’ expectations have now changed, and their media use is becoming more fluid as a result of the online platform. The nature of the online platform – being fast-‐paced and always changing, means that if something major were to happen on an international scale, then the online websites would have the ability to be able to quickly add these news items to their line-‐ up. It is because of this idea that there was found to be a consistent absence of international news in the online platform. If a major international story did happen to rise, the ability to report on it quickly and effectively is possible due to the online environment. In contrast, the format of television programming only permits certain news items to be aired in the allocated timeslots that TV news has at its disposal. With the advancement of technology, television news is becoming obsolete. The average age of viewers for BBC
- 18. 18 One, the channel on which the local news is broadcast, is 59 (BBC, 2014), and similarly, ITV record an average age of 55 (ITV, 2014). Boyde-‐Barrett (2000) suggest that the increase of satellite television news channels has lead to the separation of international and local news, as there are now specific channels that cover major international stories, allowing local stations to focus solely on local news. These suggestions are represented in the findings from the observation week, as can be seen when the international news stories fell on the national news programmes, rather than the local segment. Due to the nature of printed news – being that it is distributed only once or twice a day – it creates a necessity for all headlining news to be present in their daily issue. Taking the example of the Yorkshire Post, which has one issue per day, results in the fact that they only have one chance to try and cover all the news, both international and local. However, traditional newspapers are increasingly more present online rather than just selling the printed version. Today, a large portion of Leeds’ population read international news online (Paterson 2014). Furthermore, due to the nature of media convergence today, the boundaries between print and online are becoming intertwined. Although traditional printed media is becoming decreasingly popular – due to their links with the online platform – we can see that their content has crossed-‐over. From this, there is evidence of international news on online platforms whereby it is linked to the printed version (i.e. Yorkshire Post Online). Nevertheless technology through printed newspapers has a limited role because it is published at a daily precise time, contrary to online news, which is refreshed instantly on the Internet.
- 19. 19 Buffer Paragraph Technological divisions are the most serious catalyst for Leeds’ local media. Factors such as cost, frequency of distribution, media environments and their audiences have created an inhospitable atmosphere for international news to prosper in. It is because of this that we have found, the further we moved away from traditional forms of media (i.e. the press), towards a more modern-‐day media platform (i.e. exclusively online), international news became less prominent; singling out the technoscape concept for these reasons. This is closely followed by the idea that media imperialism links the lack of international news to the mediascape concept. Our research confirms that editorial choices are the primary reason for which international news does not make the majority of news output across local media platforms: specifically television, radio and strictly online. These editorial choices in turn refer back to external influential factors that are often out of the control of the media team, solidifying the pivotal role that technology and cost play in the selection of news across all platforms. Conclusion By analysing international news in local media outlets we discovered that the further we moved away from traditional forms of media, towards a more modern-‐day media platform, international news became less available. This is largely due to the structural media pillars of Great Britain, where some news companies are commissioned to cover national stories, and therefore subsections of the companies or independent local
- 20. 20 companies have no need to cover that international input. Looking at the portrayal of news through the concepts of technoscapes and mediascapes we can assess that external factors, such as: technology, accessibility and audiences directly affect whether international news is selected for the news agenda. Therefore, we can safely conclude that international news, unless it is worthy of a front-‐page headline or a strong local connection, will not be present in Leeds’ local media.