Glasgow University Media Group Research Articles

“Trust, but Verify” – The Framing of the Nuclear Conflict between Iran and the West in UK and US media

Historicity is an important concept in people’s self-conceptualization as well as in their conceptualization of the world around them. By knowing what was, we can interpret some of what is as a consequence of past actions and events and thus understand how it came to be and how to react appropriately. For our interpretation of current events in the world, we therefore frequently rely on history “as a source of meaning” (Leudar and Nekvapil 2011, 68). Since we relate to events in the world through mediation, i.e. the media, we accordingly understand world history through the historical context that is provided for us by journalists. In many cases, however, such contextualizations of events appear to foreground proximal – or synchronous (Blommaert 2005, 130) – factors over distal ones, thus restricting interpretation to immediate factors rather than describing them as a consequence of other actions or events in history. Due to global reach of today’s corporate media, such synchronous framing of the news can lead to a certain bias of attitudes (Philo 2004, 201–202), e.g., regarding the nature of conflicts between ‘us’ and ‘them’ to the effect that ‘we’ always appear as acting on logical, justifiable and altruistic grounds, while ‘their’ actions are irrational, unwarranted and self-serving. In this paper, I analyze the framing of the political conflict between Western countries and Iran regarding its nuclear program. I investigate opinion columns from various British and U.S. newspapers in order to explore the nature of the news framing of the issue and whether any distal factors such as Western interventions in Iran and Middle Eastern affairs are taken into account. The analysis will be conducted following the Thematic Analysis approach developed by the Glasgow University Media Group (Philo and Berry 2004/2011), but including also other conceptual categories such as Blommaert’s (2005) notion of synchronicity.

Book Review: David Edwards and David Cromwell – Media Lens Newspeak in the 21st Century Pluto Press, London, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7453-2893-5

To start with an analogy, for many, reading this book will be like the experience of eating Marmite! The way in which the subject matter is dealt with will be loved by some and hated by others, according to personal taste, politics and ideology. Although dealing with contentious issues of recent history, this book immediately reminded me of some of the early publications from the Glasgow University Media Group, such as 'Bad News', which I first read when completing a radio journalism course back in the 1980s. That said, the book is none the worse for pursuing similar angles to those earlier titles, and for many students, at undergraduate level in particular, the modern context will certainly make some of the issues involved a little more accessible.

FROM HUNKY HEROES TO DANGEROUS DINOSAURS

Using the UK Fire Brigades Union dispute of 2002–3 as a case study, this paper assesses current union–journalism relations and briefly outlines the FBU's campaign to access the news agenda. Using quantitative methodology, it analyses the dispute coverage in the UK national press. While there are some opportunities that unions can exploit, such as 24-hour news and live broadcasts, newspaper analysis indicates that national press coverage generally favoured government and other elite sources as primary definers. While the FBU was given at least equal space to put its case in nearly half of all articles, certain sections of the press seemed impervious to any amount of public relations activity: five out of the nine papers analysed—the Mail, Express, Telegraph, The Times and the Sun—reveal coverage heavily loaded against the union, with the Times and Sun giving negligible space to the union viewpoint and choosing to use overwhelmingly hostile sources, narratives and opinions. It concludes that, in line with the findings of previous studies by the Glasgow University Media Group, public relations and media strategies have limited impact, at least in the UK press.

CAN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS SUCCESSFULLY EXPLAIN THE CONTENT OF MEDIA AND JOURNALISTIC PRACTICE?

It is argued here that textual analysis of media accounts requires the study of the social structures from which competing ideological explanations develop. A comparison of the methods of the Glasgow University Media Group with the work of Norman Fairclough and Teun van Dijk shows that discourse analysis which remains text-based has problems in its ability to show: (1) the origins of competing discourses and how they relate to different social interests, (2) the diversity of social accounts compared to what is present (and absent) in a specific text, (3) the impact of external factors such as professional media practice on the manner in which the discourses are represented, and (4) what the text actually means to different parts of the audience. There are other problems with “text only” analyses in relation to (1) the accuracy of representations, (2) the significance of texts to our own audience, and (3) the question of how rhetoric “belongs to” or is used by different social interests. To overcome these problems requires a method which analyses processes of production, content, reception and circulation of social meaning simultaneously.

Contrary to claims, conventions and culture: An apologia for the Glasgow University Media Group

This article looks at the cultural politics of journalism, broadcast news and media research. Since the appearance of its first book, Bad News (1976), the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) has made a sustained contribution to our understanding of media culture and especially to notions of objectivity and impartiality. Despite this, for the last 30 years the group has been the object of a diffuse and often gratuitous campaign of ridicule and misrepresentation. The authors of this misrepresentation first caricature the group, labelling it a band of Marxist conspiracy theorists, then blame the group for alienating journalists and retarding the cause of media research. This article presents evidence of this misrepresentation and then offers an apologia for the GUMG, in the now archaic sense that to apologize is to defend. It specifically seeks to explode some of the enduring myths that have gathered around the GUMG and its work. This article argues that the GUMG still offers us useful and relevant ways of approaching media culture ways which have, in fact, brought scholars and journalists closer together.

Contrary to claims, conventions and culture: An apologia for the Glasgow University Media Group

Contrary to claims, conventions and culture: An apologia for the Glasgow University Media Group

Constructing Imperial Identity: How to Quote the Imperial Family and those who Address them in the Japanese Press

This article examines how speech representation in Japanese journalistic discourse reflects and reproduces the social structure in Japan and the identity of the Imperial Family. Japanese newspapers tend strongly to quote the Imperial Family verbatim, which supports the thesis `the higher the status of the speaker, the more direct the presentation' (Glasgow University Media Group, 1980; Davis, 1985). On the other hand, Japanese newspapers also tend to quote those who address the Imperial Family verbatim, which suggests that not only the more elite the speaker, but also the more elite the addressee, the more verbatim the presentation. I argue that this practice mirrors the Japanese media's ideology that the Imperial Family belongs to a noble class. However, there has been a sign of change in the quoting practice since the Crown Prince got married in June 1993. This change may contribute to constructing new power relations and identities in Japanese society.

BIAS IN THE NEWSPAPER REPORTING OF GRIME NEWS

Members of the general public pay for crime in two different ways. As victims they suffer the direct consequences, and as tax-payers and rate payers they finance the police, courts and prisons to control it. For both these reasons it seems that the general public has a right to know on what, and how successfully, their money is spent. However, the responsibility for informing them rests almost exclusively with a competitive and commercial press. Indeed, it has been noted by Hauge (1965) that the near monopoly of the daily press as a source of crime news therefore presumably makes it an important influence on public opinion on the subject of crime (p. 148). Accordingly, it is important to monitor regularly the newspaper coverage of crime to assess whether or not the overall picture of crime which news papers collectively produce is informative and balanced. Previous research in this field has frequently discovered that the news paper coverage of crime news is, in some way, biased. Hauge (1965), Roshier (1973), Croll (1974) and Beardsworth (1975) have discovered an over-emphasis on crimes of violence, and Sherizen (1978) discovered an additional over-emphasis on crimes involving indecency. Yet whilst there has been an upsurge in analytic interest in the media in the last decade (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976 and 1980; Murphy, 1976; Chibnall, 1977; Brunsdon and Morely, 1978; Hall et al., 1978; Hurd, 1979; Jones, 1980), systematic analysis of the newspaper coverage of crime has been relatively neglected. Indeed, no previous research of this sort has ever been carried out in Scotland.

Books

Immigration rules: Interpretation and critique Lawrence Grant and Ian Martin, Immigration Law and Practice, The Cobden Trust, London, 1982. £18.00p. Race, politics and policing David Cowell, Trevor Jones and Jock Young, Policing the Riots, Junction Books, London, 1982. 172 pp. Robert Baldwin and Richard Kinsey, Police Powers and Politics, Quartet Books, London, 1982. 309 pp. Policing in Handsworth John Brown, Policing by Multi‐Racial Consent: The Handsworth Experience, Bedford Square Press, 1982. 174 pp. Riots and confusion Martin Kettle and Lucy Hodges, Uprising!: The Police, the People and the Riots in Britain's Cities, Pan Books, London and Sydney, 1982. £2.25 p.b. 272 pp. Norman O'Neill, Fascism and the Working Class, Shakti Publications, 46 High Street, Southall, Middlesex, 1982. £3.00 p.b., 164 pp. International migration trends John Solomos, Migrant Workers in Metropolitan Cities, European Science Foundation, Strasbourg, 1982. FF55 p.b., 247 pp. Migrant workers in the NHS Migrant Workers in the National Health Service, Report prepared for the SSRC by the Department of Sociology, The Polytechnic of North London, June 1980, £2.50 p.b. Financing local government services: a neglected area Richard Rose and Edward Page, (eds.) Fiscal Stress in Cities, Cambridge University Press, 1983. £17.50, 245 pp. Race and media presentation Phil Cohen and Carl Gardner (eds.), It Ain't Half Racist, Mum: Fighting Racism in the Media, Comedia Series 10 & Campaign Against Racism in the Media, 1982. £2.50 p.b., 119 pp. Black graces in soccer Ernest Cashmore, Black Sportsmen, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. £5.95, 226 pp. Do positive action programmes work in schools? David L. Kirp, Just Schools: the Ideal of Racial Equality in American Education’, University of California Press, 1982. £15.00, 374 pp. Race relations teaching: research, problems, effects Lawrence Stonehouse, G. K. Verma, R. D. Wilde and J. Nixon, Teaching About Race Relations: Problems and Effects, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. £12.50, 309 pp. Multicultural Classrooms Cohen and Manion, Multicultural Classrooms, Croom Helm, 1983. £13.95 h.b., £6.95 p.b., 228 pp. Multiculturalism and language Malcolm Saunders, Multicultural Teaching: a Guide for the Classroom. McGraw‐Hill, 1982. £5.95 192 pp. Black English and Standard English David Sutcliffe, British Black English, Blackwell, Oxford, 1982. £19.95 192 pp. Black youth in crisis Ernest Cashmore and Barry Troyna (eds.), Black Youth in Crisis, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1982. £10.95 h.b., £4.95 p.b., 172 pp. Aspects of Anglo‐Jewry S. L. and V. D. Lipman (eds.), Jewish Life in Britain 1962–1977, K. G. Saur, 1981. £21.00, 203 pp. (Distributed by Library Association Publishing, 7 Ridgemount Street, London WC1.) Antisemitism: leftward shift W. D. Rubinstein, The Left, the Right and the Jews, Croom Helm, London and Canberra, 1982. £11.95, 234 pp. Hinduism in Britain Helen Kanitkar and Robert Jackson, Hindus in Britain, Extramural Division, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1982. £2.00, 32 pp. Teaching about Islam Richard Tames, Approaches to Islam, John Murray, London, 1982. £3.95, 264 pp. Bias in television news? Glasgow University Media Group, Really Bad News, Writers and Readers, London, 1982, 170 pp., £2.95 pb. India's frustrated education policies Gajendra K. Verma, Christopher Bagley and Kanka Mallick, Illusion and Reality in Indian Secondary Education, Saxon House, Teakfield Ltd., Farnborough, 1980, 146 pp., £9.50. Among the upper classes in Bengal Manisha Roy, Bengali Women, University of Chicago Press, 1975, pp. xvii+206. The Muslim academic world Ismail R. Al‐Faruqi and Abdullah Omar Nasseef (eds.), Social and Natural Sciences : The Islamic Perspective, Hodder & Stoughton, for King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 1981, 177 pp., £6.95.

Book notes

Abstract Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (Second Edition), Ferrel Heady, Marcel Dekker Inc., 1979, pp. 429, price unknown. Programme Evaluation at H.E.W., Research versus Reality: Part 2, Education, James G. Abert (Ed.), Marcel Dekker Inc., 1979, pp. 395, price unknown. Public Sector Decision Making, David Pearce (Ed.), Special issue of OMECA, The International Journal of Management Science (Vol. 7, No. 5, 1979), Pergamon Press, pp. 101, £9.00 paperback. Why Policies Succeed or Fail, Helen M. Ingram and Dean E. Mann (Eds), Sage Publications, 1980, pp. 312, £12.50 cloth, £6.25 paper. Supplementary Benefits and the Consumer, Eric Brigg and Anthony M. Rees, Occasional Papers on Social Administration No. 65, Bedford Square Press, 1979, pp. 172, £5.95. More Bad News, Glasgow University Media Group, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 483, £17.50. The Road and Christ Church Meadow: The Oxford Inner Relief Road Controversy 1923–1974 — A Study of the Relationship between Central and Local Government, Roland Newman, Oxford Polytechnic, 1980, pp. 71, £1.00. Planned Safety Management: A Guide to Action, A. Stevenson, Alan Osborne and Associates, 1980, pp. 116, £4.50 paperback. Public Policy Research: A Review of Qualitative Methods, Ken Young and Liz Mills, Social Science Research Council, 1980, pp. 43, £1.00. The Practice of Urban Economics, Alfred J. Watkins, Sage Publications (Vol. 107 of Sage Library of Social Research), 1980, pp. 247, £11.25 hardback, £5.50 paperback.

Bad News. Vol. 1.Glasgow University Media Group

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsBad News. Vol. 1. Glasgow University Media GroupPeter V. MillerPeter V. Miller Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 85, Number 4Jan., 1980 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/227109 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1980 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Not so bad news

Not so bad news