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An unseen
world: how the media portrays the poor
Greg
Philo, professor of Communications at the University of Glasgow and Research Director
of the Glasgow University Media Group |
Not just an “African” issue: a miner in Angola.
The illicit trade in “blood diamonds” has supported wars across Africa.
“I wanted to shock the world.”
I asked
the group
how they thought
weapons were paid
for... I proceeded
to ask them if anyone
was wearing
a diamond. |
Following
the attacks on the United States, many commentators have pondered the Western public’s
ignorance of life and issues in the developing world. The author of a major study
discusses why this is so, and what can be done
For over 30 years, numerous
academic studies of how news flows between the developing and the developed world
have reached the same conclusion: far from being two-way, news circulates in a deeply
uneven and distorted manner. “Not only is there a quantitative imbalance in news
flow, with the Third World receiving far more material about the First World than
vice versa,” says media theorist Annabelle Sreberny, “but the continual coverage
of the global centres of the industrial world contrasts with the intermittent images
of the south in crisis.”
One frequent criticism has been that news focuses on disasters and conflicts without
explaining the complex social and political histories behind them. The role of the
West also tends to be ignored—notably when African countries were deployed as pawns
in the Cold War.
Major news services such as BBC, ITV, Agence France-Presse and Reuters have all been
accused of offering very limited accounts of the developing world. In the U.S., journalist
Mort Rosenblum has attacked the obsession of media controllers with ratings and their
promotion of what they see as entertainment rather than reliable information. A study
by Steve Askin found that in 1992, the story of hunger in Africa was only deemed
suitable for U.S. coverage when it was discovered that elephants were also dying
in the drought.
But are TV audiences really this shallow? It is a critical question that very few
studies have tackled. One survey in Scandinavia found that press coverage of the
developing world was dominated by war and conflict, but that readers actually said
they wanted more on local culture and “normal” life. In Britain, meanwhile, a major
project was recently commissioned by the Government’s Department for International
Development out of concern over how TV’s depictions of the developing world could
affect public attitudes.*
A companion study by the Third World and Environment Broadcasting Trust (3WE) interviewed
38 senior broadcasters and programme makers, helping bring to light the assumptions
made about reports from poor countries. As the Director of Programmes at Carlton
Television in London commented: “I know from past experience that programmes about
the developing world don’t bring in the audiences. They’re not about us, and they’re
not usually about things we can do anything about.”
A
negative diet of images
It
is not hard to see the effects of such assumptions on coverage. A report for 3WE
concluded that the total output of factual programmes on developing countries by
the four terrestrial channels in Britain dropped by 50 percent in the 10 years after
1989. Our own study showed that when the developing world is featured on British
news, a high proportion of the coverage is related to war, conflict, terrorism and
disasters.This is especially so for the main television channels, with over a third
of coverage on BBC and Independent Television News (ITN) devoted to such issues.
Much of the remaining coverage is given over either to sport or to visits by westerners.
For example, in our sample the Bahamas were in the news because Mick Jagger and Jerry
Hall had paid a visit there, and some countries were featured simply because the
balloon belonging to Virgin’s boss Richard Branson had floated over them.
One reason for these changes has been the greatly increased competition for audiences
following the rise of satellite and cable channels. Combined with the onset of a
free market from the 1980s and general television “de-regulation,” this has led to
a commercial obsession with grabbing viewers’ attention—a kind of “watch me and buy
something culture.”
Yet this is not necessarily what television viewers want. When we actually interviewed
audience groups, we found that people’s attitudes were rather different from what
the broadcasters had assumed. Some people were completely “turned off” from the developing
world (about 25 percent of the sample), but the reason was in part the constant negative
diet of images they were given. As one interviewee put it: “Well every time you turn
on the TV or pick up a paper, there’s another (war) starting or there is more poverty
or destruction. It is all too much.”
Nearly all the people interviewed recalled negative images since that was largely
what they had been exposed to on television. Levels of interest, however, were not
nearly so uniform. What actually bothered a majority of viewers was that they simply
did not understand the images they were being shown. As one put it: “I have a constant
sense of not being properly informed about background to issues and things like that.”
A frequent complaint was that journalists merely took for granted that the audience
knew what the story was about. In the course of this study, we worked very closely
with journalists and some confirmed what the viewers were saying. One commented to
us that news reporters were effectively told not to focus on explanation, but to
go for eye-catching events like fighting, shooting or riots. As he put it, they had
been stopped from doing “explainers”—now it was “all bang, bang stuff.”
As a result of this work, we began to discuss with journalists how TV coverage might
be improved. We agreed that we would conduct a new pilot study in which BBC journalists
joined a focus group of “ordinary” TV watchers. The purpose was to examine what these
viewers understood (or didn’t) from a TV news report, and then to discuss this with
the journalists who had actually made the news item. We also wanted to find out how
much the viewers’ understanding of the story affected their level of interest in
it. David Shukman from the BBC was one of the journalists present, and we began by
watching two news reports that he had presented on the continuing war in Angola and
the terrible effects which land mines had on the local population.
His report contained very distressing images and had a strong impact, producing great
sympathy from the viewers. Yet it also had the normal negative effect of being interpreted
as one more set of war images from Africa. The viewers’ response was that it was
sad, but nothing really to do with them since nothing could be done. The news report
had noted that the oil and diamond trades financed the crisis, and that because of
corruption within Angola, people in that country profited from the war. This fitted
the viewers’ notions that it was basically an “African” problem, because as they
saw it, African people were simply not very good at governing themselves.
At this point I intervened in the discussion and introduced some new information.
I asked the group where the mines and munitions had come from. The group reasoned
that they came from industrialized countries, and that Britain, America and Eastern
Europe sold armaments. I then asked how they thought the weapons were paid for. The
answer was through the sale of diamonds, oil and by money laundering, all of which
had been mentioned in the news item. I drew their attention to suggestions that the
City of London was involved in the illicit transfer of large sums of money from Africa
(e.g. London Evening Standard 20/10/00). I proceeded to ask them if anyone was wearing
a diamond.
We eventually did this exercise with three different groups and in each of them there
was a very surprised reaction to this question and great shock at the implication
that if they purchased a diamond in Britain, it could be paying for landmines. I
then pointed out to them the illicit trade in “blood diamonds” and how this supported
wars across Africa. In all of the groups, the new information provoked a very animated
discussion and led the viewers to ask why such background was not given on television.
The journalists were grilled on this by group members, who believed that the news
was being censored, though the journalists denied that this was the case.
Enlightening
viewers
The
important point to emerge from this study was that the interest of the viewers in
the group increased greatly once they understood the political and economic links
underpinning the conflicts witnessed on television. Most crucially, they realized
that they were involved themselves and no longer saw the problem as just an “African”
issue. If people understand that global political and economic relationships are
fostering problems, then they can also see that these relationships can be changed.
The sense that “nothing can be done” is altered, and audiences start to see the world
quite differently.
Our research was significant in that it enabled journalists and academic specialists
to work together to improve the quality of news and its capacity to explain. If this
collective work is now pursued, it may be possible to develop new structures and
practices for reporting on the developing world.
* The
study was undertaken by the Glasgow Media Group and examined both television news
content and the reaction of audience groups A fuller version of the results of the
Glasgow Media Group studies is available as “Audience Interest and Understanding
of News Programmes,” www.gla.ac.uk/Acad/Sociology/media.html. |
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Sorious
Samura*: context is the watchword
I think that
coverage of Africa has mostly been aimed at stereotypes, whereby the Western media
go to countries but never take the time to go deep into stories—they just come out
with quick-fix stories that fail to explore the context of why and how. With enough
context, with enough detail, people will understand Africa is not just a continent
of killers, that there are causes and there is conflict much as there is in Kosovo
and Chechnya.
When I took the rushes and the script for my film Cry Freetown [about the brutal
rebel invasion of Freetown in 1999] to broadcasters, everybody looked at the footage
and thought it was too shocking for viewers. But my argument to Channel 4, ITN and
CNN was that this was reality. It happened. And bear one thing in mind: much as you
can say it was graphic, there were children sitting there as it was happening and
they didn’t have the opportunity to switch off or look away.
In the images I shot of killing, raping and maiming, I wanted to shock the world.
Imagine a war that had been going on for eight or nine years, but which nobody in
the outside world had heard about because the media failed to report it. So I thought:
let’s surprise the viewers for a change by explaining the background, then bringing
in the graphic pictures. And I think it worked.
But I strongly believe the watchword has to be context. When I saw the news of what
happened in the U.S. in September, I never for one minute saw any of those kinds
of graphic images, even though 6,000 people died. Perhaps Western viewers have matured
to such an extent that it’s not necessary to shock them anymore. They will understand,
they will imagine those scenes. But in the case of Africa, Western viewers still
don’t understand, and the reason why they sometimes think we’re barbaric is that
they see stories and stereotypes told without any context—they think it’s Africa,
another flood, another famine and so on.
The first aim in all my stories is to look at how business and partnership in the
past between Africa and the West have gone wrong. I try to find something to prick
the conscience of Western viewers. In the case of Cry Freetown, it was easy to point
to the diamond trade between Western mining companies and rebels. My film Exodus
[about migration from Africa] reminded the West that it had been to Africa in the
past, it had raped the land, it had taken without permission. To get the West interested,
I try to get the Western taxpayer to understand that their governments and money
have been used to create confusion and corruption.
I would also like to tell stories that are positive and work for Africa. My recent
documentary about Uganda was an attempt to look for hope, but sadly enough the same
issues kept coming back—lack of education, neglect of youth, corruption. This is
the reality. It’s what I’ve got to talk about.
In Africa, we don’t have the power to use the media to change attitudes or perceptions.
We have the expertise, we have committed people who are not in the pockets of politicians,
but we don’t have the money or resources. If we can get the West to partner us and
air those stories, that would help create this kind of change.”
* Born
and raised in Sierra Leone, Sorious Samura received a UNICEF grant 12 years ago to
study film-making in Britain. Since then, his documentaries Cry Freetown, Exodus
and Walking on Ashes have been shown on Channel 4 (London) and CNN.
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