Digital News: Theory: Essay - Ideas & Research

What Will I be doing my Essay on?

Also due in on our deadline is the digital news theory essay - a 1500 word report which consists of comparing two major news channels, reporting on the same day. This can be interpreted in a  numerous amount of ways - you can focus on the visual aspects of the studio, or analysis the theoretical aspects which some news channels may show e.g. moral panics, elitism, or reinforcing the liberal pluralist model.

Before I begin to search which case studies to use for my essay, I listed a few points which I feel confident with which I can use to focus my findings for the case studies. These points are:

   - How the news may fuel a moral panic. The way news can lead to some of the passive audience to
     become worried about certain issues e.g. Ebola
   - What makes news newsworthy i.e. the different values
   - How the news links to globalisation: we believe in the dominant perspective which furthermore
     can intervene with moral panics
   - The liberal pluralist model
   - Citizen journalism: how the 'new media' enables us to become journalist ourselves due to having
     modernised evidence i.e. recordings on phones, etc.
   - Elitism and cronyism: the power of certain brandings and the amount of power and globalisation it
     controls
   - The news agenda theory - the way news is gathered then framed dependent on the situation

What Will I Want my Case Studies to be?

I've got a couple of rough ideas which I want my case studies to revolve around. These are:

   - An issue that will startle the audience, such as Ebola. This can be interpreted in a variety of diverse ways, as news channels may fuel the moral panic more than others or not at all. This can then intervene with the ideology of globalisation: how these news channels set across their dominant perspective to 'inject' this dominant perspective into people's minds.

   - Anything which has a political dispute. This could then allow me to depict the theoretical sides of elitism and the way that the media is political dominant, thus linking to globalisation.

   - A national event. This could hopefully show interviews of a citizen thus allowing me to explore how the new media is now reliant on technology primarily to make a good story. As well as this, the discussion about citizen journalism will also allow me to comment on the fidelity of the news thus furthermore what makes something newsworthy.

Below are some books which I will be reading and hopefully referring to in my essay:

Democracy and the News, by Herbert J. Gans
Folk Devils and Moral Panics, by Stanley Cohen
Democratic Elitism: New Theoretical and Comparative Perspective, edited by Heinrich Bestal
The globalisation of News, by Oliver Barrett
Citizen journalism: Valuable, Useless or Dangerous?

Case Study Choices

Firstly, I begun by looking at the top stories today. However for my essay, I am aiming to use either ITV or BBC to compare with Channel 4, as these programmes often differ in terms of news choice and the way it is presented. 

The main headlines for BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for today (2nd December, 2014) are:

BBC: Flood schemes to protect 300,000 homes (national interest)

          Steven Hawkins says that artificial intelligence will end human race

          Kenya chiefs replaced after massacre

Channel 4: FactCheck: how the government mislead facts on flood defences

                    Saudi Arabia Prince Turki: time to step up the war in Syria

                    Mediterranean migrant graveyard: Survivors stories

ITV: Government to consider directly commissioning new homes

          1,400 flood defence projects gets funding

          Breastfeeding mum's tears after Claridge 'humiliation'

Case Study Decisions

I decided to stick with BBC and Channel 4. This is purely because I feel BBC and ITV are reasonably similar, meaning if I use Channel 4 i'll be able to have a better comparison. I mainly chose BBC as well mainly because it is the biggest news network plus the fact that it is generally more national whilst Channel 4 is more global.

Not only this, but the news reports themselves are also very interesting. They both have a news report on the funding scheme for floods which will enable me to create a direct comparison. Alternatively, BBC has a perfect story which I can discuss moral panics about - the story is about how artificial intelligence may soon take over the human race.

I watched each news report a couple of times and realised that I'll be able to incorporate the following theories in the essay:
   - Agenda setting theory: the way Channel 4 frames a different perspective of the refugees
   - Citizen journalism: The public are used to frame BBC's flood scheme
   - User generated content: We see mobile phone footage for Channel 4's Syria report and BBC's
     flood scheme report
   - Liberal pluralist model: Channel 4 'dumbs down' the seasonal financial state of the UK by using
     graphs

After allocating these points (which will be used for my essay), I also came to the conclusion that'll ill focus just on theoretical points. This is because I feel confident talking about all of above and that there isn;t enough words to write about visual comparatives, plus I don't feel as confident as I do compared to these theories.

Therefore, I will now begin to write my first draft for my essay, whilst skimming through each of the books above to see how I can reinforce the points which I've made.