International Comms Final Collaboration

W o r d c o u n t : 3 3 8 4

COMM3180 – International communication group project International news in local press

08 Fall

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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


The Yorkshire Post

The Evening Post

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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


Oceania

Asia

Middle East

Africa

Europe

South America

North America

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

International Comms Final Collaboration

Documents

Transcript of International Comms Final Collaboration