Toward Global Content Analysis and Media Criticism
***** NORDENSTRENG ***** EJC/REC Vol. 5, No. 2&3, 1995 *****
TOWARD GLOBAL CONTENT ANALYSIS AND MEDIA CRITICISM
Kaarle Nordenstreng
University of Tampere
Abstract: This article presents the backround,
rationale and implementation prospects for an
international system of monitoring media coverage
of global problems such as peace and war, human
rights, environment, etc. A review of the genesis
of this idea exposes a central role of the late
Sean MacBride in its promotion; it is also shown
how essentially the same idea was put forward
already by the U.S. Hutchins Commission in the
1940s. The idea is based on the logic that, while
the media have a great influence in society, they
also enjoy an exceptional degree of freedom, along
with respective accountability. And one of many
media accountability systems is media criticism.
The kind of media criticism advocated by the media
monitoring idea is not politically motivated
interest group advocacy but scientifically based
description and assessment of media performance
carried out by methods of content analysis. The
article outlines international networking of
research groups committed to pooling together the
evidence of countless national studies so as to
facilitate a worldwide review of media
performance. An impressive example of the
practicability of such networking is the
monitoring project carried out in January 1995
concerning the representation and portrayal of
women in news media, to be reported at the World
Conference of Women in Beijing in September 1995.
Background
In his Foreword to _New International Information and
Communication Order Sourcebook_ (Nordenstreng et al., 1986),
Sean MacBride reflected upon his Commission's work and
pointed out half a dozen major issues that he saw ahead, six
years after the "MacBride report" _Many Voices, One World_,
"in the hope that each one of us will in our own sphere of
influence seek to find solutions to these problems" (p. i).
One of these was the "growing tendency for the ownership of
the means of communication and information to pass into the
hands of either governments or multinationals" (p. ii). In
this connection MacBride wrote that "it would be very useful
to devise some system for monitoring the extent to which
certain newspapers and chains of newspapers distort news
concerning disarmament in the world" (p. ii).
This was not just a passing remark, as a casual reader
might think, but reference to a project which was initiated
already in 1983. That year the Mass Media Declaration of
Unesco was five years old, and Sean MacBride addressed in
Paris in November 1983 a ceremony commemorating this
landmark document of international communication. He made a
strong point about media concentration and called upon
professionals and scholars to trace and document this
phenomenon, which was working against the positive trend of
the time that MacBride used to characterize as a "shift in
the centre of gravity of power from governments, from
established authorities to public opinion."[1]
On that occasion MacBride did not go on to recommend a
system of monitoring media performance simply because the
idea was not yet articulated. Actually, the first sketchy
notes on it were put on paper during that reception by the
present author together with MacBride and the chief of
Unesco's Division for Free Flow of Information and
Communication Policies, Hamdy Kandil. On that basis a short
memorandum was drafted (by Nordenstreng) outlining the idea
in terms of two levels: first, scientific groundwork by
pooling together empirical evidence of content analysis
concerning the media coverage of global problems such as
peace and war, and secondly, a commission of internationally
known public figures to issue an annual review and
assessment of the overall media performance. A rough
estimate of financial resources needed to get such a system
established, not counting the actual content analysis work
which was supposed to be nationally funded, was 50 000 U.S.
dollars a year -- something that at the time seemed
realistically could be raised from Unesco and/or the UN.
This informal memo served as a reference when MacBride met
the UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar in early 1984 and
raised the monitoring idea, among other things -- with a
generally positive response.[2]
Then, in the summer of 1984, Johan Galtung paid one of
his seasonal visits to Finland (addressing a seminar of the
Finnish peace movement), and he was consulted on the idea by
the present author. Galtung reacted enthusiastically and
invited a planning workshop to his then base, a free
university in Paris in spring 1985, but this offer could not
be acted upon by the intended core group (including Herbert
Schiller and Tapio Varis) due to timing problems. Moreover,
the United States announced at the end of 1984 its intention
to withdraw from Unesco within one year, and that spread an
atmosphere of caution and controversy around everything
related to Unesco's communication program. MacBride
especially was of the opinion that one would be ill advised
to go ahead with the idea for the time being.
However, in 1986 -- the International Year of Peace --
MacBride was already prepared to raise the idea in his
Foreword to the NIICO _Sourcebook_. By that time he, like
many others, had come to the conclusion that it was
pointless to wait for Unesco to come along. In a more
general sense, the intergovernmental structures were seen as
increasingly doubtful partners. Instead, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) appeared as more and more relevant
carriers of initiatives such as the "monitoring project" and
the MacBride Round Table a couple of years later. It was a
move away from established political structures -- state and
capital in Galtung's triangle -- towards the civil society.
It should be added that two related initiatives emerged
around 1990, promoted independent of the present project by
like-minded activists. First, George Gerbner started what
is called the "Cultural Environment Movement" (CEM) in the
United States, based on his cultural indicators research and
turned into a grassroots movement reflecting the media
consumers' interests.[3] Secondly, Cees Hamelink in The
Netherlands, with partners such as Third World Network in
Malaysia, began to develop the idea of an international
tribunal to examine the structure and performance of
particularly transnational media enterprises.[4] The latter
initiative has led to a draft "Peoples' Communication
Charter," laying down the normative basis on which later
mechanisms are to be established. The CEM is also preparing
a "Covenant of Peoples' Communication Rights" and a
"Viewers' Declaration of Independence" for a major CEM
conference in St.Louis in 1996.
Finally, to complete the background -- and to
demonstrate that this is not just an isolated idea
entertained by advocates such as MacBride, Gerbner, Hamelink
and Nordenstreng -- it is worth recalling a paragraph from
the chapter by Alfred Balk, former editor of _Columbia
Journalism Review_ and _World Press Review_, included in an
anthology on media freedom and accountability (Dennis et
al., 1989) based on a seminar held at the Gannett Center for
Media Studies at Columbia University in 1986. This is what
Balk writes under the title "The Voluntary Model: Living
with 'Public Watchdogs'":
Therefore I submit this modest proposal: that
the Gannett Center join with Columbia University's
president and journalism dean to select a
nationwide steering committee of university,
media, and foundation leaders to convene a
successor to the Hutchins Commission. Its
specific charge should be finally to bring to
reality -- with Ford, MacArthur, and
Carnegie-scale funding -- the Commission's vision
of "a new and independent agency to appraise and
report annually upon the performance of the
press"; to coordinate "the creation of
academic-professional centers of advanced study,
research, and publication in the field of
communications"; and to emphasize "the widest
possible publicity and public discussion on all
the foregoing." This should include an adequately
funded monthly journalism review, public
television or C-Span and videocassette
distribution of appropriate forums, and MacArthur
Foundation-magnitude multiyear grants to
experienced analysts who would return the spirit
of Lippmann and Liebling to our newspapers,
magazines, books, and classrooms.[5]
Rationale
The idea has a simple four-step logic which proceeds
along the following path:
First, the mass media play a vital role in (post)modern
societies and in the surrounding global culture which makes
them a backbone of a pervasive cultural environment -- the
media have INFLUENCE.
This influence is today greater than at the time of the
MacBride Commission, since the 'media reality' has gained
ground from conventional reality especially in political
life. And the problem is made especially serious by the
fact that this mediated reality can be bought -- unlike
conventional reality.[6]
Accordingly, the first step in this reasoning about
media monitoring assumes that the mass media continue to be
important in the world as instruments to address vast
audiences and to shape public and private minds at the
national and international levels. This means that,
contrary to what many today suggest, new media techologies
will not bring about an end of MASS media and an "end of
journalism." Surely, new means and practices emerge, but
the basic characteristics of mass comunication seem to
remain and even increase in socio-cultural influence.
Second, the mass media, in particular the printed
press, enjoy a special constitutional status (based on
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)
which, gives them protection against much of conventional
social policies -- the media have FREEDOM.
This freedom is a vital element in a democratic society
-- a safeguard of human rights in civil society. Therefore
the special constitutional status of the media and its
freedom must be respected and defended as an essential part
of the monitoring idea.
Third, the mass media not only enjoy an exceptional
degree of autonomy but also carry duties and
responsibilities (based on the same international
instruments) which call for normative regulation of this
sphere of cultural ecology, both on legal and ethical levels
-- the media have ACCOUNTABILITY.
This accountability is part and parcel of the same
special constitutional status which grants freedom to the
media. It would be both sociologically and politically
naive to place media outside of any social controls.
Accountability can conceptually be divided into various
levels and aspects, including law and ethics. The aspect
related to the present monitoring idea is focussed on an
analytical appreciation of the media content, thus largely
bypassing all the well-known normative and structural
aspects, including those media accountability systems that
are implemented through professional codes of ethics or
media councils. Thus the monitoring being pursued here has
a limited scope -- limited but still significant if its
potential is fully utilized.
Fourth, the mass media are being regulated by legal and
financial means to a degree determined by the political
balance of power prevailing in each society, and there is
little that the professional and academic community can do
about it, but there is an untapped potential for indirect
participation in the democratic process of media
accountability -- through MEDIA CRITICISM.
The media criticism called upon here is not the kind of
more or less politically motivated interest group advocacy
that is well known everywhere. What is meant here is
scientifically based description and assessment of media
performance, mainly carried out by methods of content
analysis. And the epistemological paradigm is one of
conventional realism rather than postmodern phenomenalism.
Thus it is assumed that an objective reality exists and it
can be discovered more or less accurately, although in
practice the media coverage may be far removed from true
reality. In other words, the reasoning typically follows
the correspondence theory of truth: comparing media
coverage with extra-media data. On the other hand, truth
checking can be left aside and monitoring may be focussed on
tracing the trends and interests of the content alone -- the
ideological narrative of the media discourse along the new
tradition of cultural studies.
There exists a lot of content analysis, especially as
case studies, and in some instances like the Gulf War there
is a huge accumulation of evidence from numerous small and
large projects, both national and international. The
problem is, however, that these exercises are seldom pooled
together so as to facilitate an overall review and
assessment of media performance -- neither in one country
nor internationally. If done on a permanent basis such
overviews would help to identify neglected areas not only in
media coverage but also in studies of media content, which
are too often based on a haphazard choice of topic and
media. In such a manner one could counteract the tendency
to end up with abundant piles of disjointed data and one
could also encourage young scholars to focus on content
areas which are strategically important given the research
carried out so far.
Speaking of media criticism, it has practically no
tradition in journalism in the same sense as in the fields
of film, music and other areas of performing arts -- not to
speak of literature, the basis of literary criticism and
aesthetics. As a matter of fact, it is a challenge for
journalism research to give better shape and recognition to
what already has been exercised in some places under labels
such as media education or media analysis. In this respect
journals such as the _Columbia Journalism Review_, _American
Journalism Review_ and _EXTRA!_ constitute a good reference
point.[7]
This rationale not only rendered support to a
"monitoring project" but it even called forth, indeed
demanded, some sort of an institutionalized accountability
system. The system called forth was not a legal or
administrative mechanism by official powers (governmental,
parliamentary or judiciary) but something that falls within
the sphere of non-governmental civil society. On the other
hand, the system called forth was not another form of
straight self-regulation of the media, since the content
analysis was supposed to be carried out by independent
scholars and the overall media performance was supposed to
be assessed by panels which would also be relatively
independent from the media -- otherwise the idea of
accountability would be missed.
Obviously this is a line which is quite similar to the
reasoning by the Hutchins Commission already half a century
ago. No doubt the same rationale is more or less shared by
other similar initiatives such as the above-mentioned
Cultural Environment Movement and Peoples' Communication
Charter. These initiatives do not only reflect narrow
academic or social interests but should rather be taken as
indicators of a fundamental tendency in contemporary society
whereby the ever larger role played by the media inevitably
leads to reconsideration of the ways in which their
accountability is defined and monitored. A strong political
signal to this effect came in 1993 from the Council of
Europe whose Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution and
recommendation on the ethics of journalism.[8]
While scientific content analysis constitutes a
cornerstone of the "monitoring project" it does not suggest
new, elaborate and expensive research to be done before
anything else. It is taken for granted that a lot of
content analytical research is being carried out all over
the world in any case -- as Master's theses and Doctoral
dissertations by students, academic contributions by
scholars, administrative exercises by authorities, and in
some cases as international joint ventures. A notable
example of last-mentioned type of research is "World of the
News" study carried out by the International Association for
Mass Communication Research (IAMCR) for Unesco in the early
1980s (see Journal of Communication, 1984). The monitoring
idea does not advocate any more such cumbersome projects
which tend to consume a lot of mental and material energy,
often with little outcome. Instead it is strongly suggested
to organize the pooling together of existing research and to
invest the energies into the digesting of such an
accumulated research evidence.
As a matter of fact, much content analysis evidence is
lost in the absence of an international system of pooling,
accumulating and comparing data from innumerous national
case studies which typically focus on a limited topic or
time period. Taken together such research evidence provides
a great potential "to appraise and report annually upon the
performance of the press" (as the Hutchins Commission put
it). Indeed, a global overview of media performance based
on content analysis evidence would help the students and
scholars in the field to better place their particular
problems in an overall perspective.
One might also self-critically observe that few fields
of science have been as sterile in terms of assessing social
and global responsibilities as has been the case with
communication research, not least content analysis. Where
natural scientists are raising their voice regarding
environmental problems and medical scientists continuously
assess problems of human health, communication scientists
should have a natural role in taking stock of media
performance -- not only in isolated cases but also as a
global issue, nationally and internationally.
So far there have been surprisingly few contributions
in this field that address the question in a truly global
manner. For example, when there was a need to assess what
impact the Mass Media Declaration of Unesco had brought to
the field ten years later in 1988, it turned out that there
was little cumulative research to count on (see Gerbner et
al., 1993, pp. 83-88). On the other hand, _Global Glasnost_
by Galtung and Vincent (1992) provides an exemplary
demonstration of what can be done by capitalizing on a host
of empirical data from existing literature combined with
insightful theory and ethic.
Finally, one may ask why so much attention to content,
especially at a time of media concentration and
globalization? Isn't content just a reflection of
structures of production and distribution, ultimately
ownership? Isn't content after all an a-historical
category?
The rationale explained here by no means suggests to
undermine structural factors behind and beyond media
content. It admits -- just like MacBride did when the idea
was born -- that there is a need for similar, indeed
parallel, monitoring of media concentration, consumption,
etc. But as pointed out above, the rationale is based on a
firm belief that mass-mediated content constitutes a
strategic part of broader reasoning about the media -- their
freedom and accountability, ultimately their role in
democracy.
Consequently, the idea is not particularly new or
radical. Rather at issue is a classic question of
journalism -- paradoxically neglected in the prevailing
tradition of media theory and practice.
Implementation
Obviously the monitoring of media performance is an
idea whose time has come. It does not need any UN or Unesco
resolutions for implementation; it is evolving quite
independently of governmental and intergovernmental
structures. On the other hand, the idea is being promoted
by governmental concerns such as those currently prevailing
in Europe in relation to racism and xenophobia. Both the
Council of Europe and the European Union have programs to
encourage media and journalists to combat these phenomena
and to support an atmosphere of tolerance in society.
As a matter of fact, the media coverage of race, ethnic
minorities and symptoms of intolerance such as xenophobia
has become recognized as a social problem by politicians and
professionals alike. It is logical, then, that the
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) proceeded in
1994 to establish, with the support of the Council of Europe
and the European Union, a working group against racism and
xenophobia -- something that would have been unthinkable
still a decade ago. And one of the priority activities
pursued by the IFJ working group is precisely media
monitoring more or less in the sense advocated here.[9]
The IFJ monitoring project will be pursued first and
foremost in Europe, with highlights such as an international
journalism prize for combating racism and xenophobia
(sponsored by the European Union). It will be supported by
a parallel academic project which has grown out of the IAMCR
working group on ethnicity, racism and the media coordinated
by Charles Husband (ERaM) as well as the action program
proposed by Teun van Dijk (see their chapters below).
Thus the idea is moving ahead along two tracks:
professional and academic. Significantly, there is little
or no friction between the two; they seem to support each
other, unlike many previous cooperative efforts. Yet there
is a recognition that the two should remain distinct, or
else there is a risk that professional journalists would no
longer be actively engaged, but would instead turn defensive
with well known arguments about freedom suppressed by
outside forces -- including academic forces with their
intellectual challenge.
Another impressive indication about the timeliness of
the monitoring idea comes from the circles concerned about
the representation and portrayal of women in news media.
January 18, 1995 was chosen as an "ordinary" newsday when
activists in 70 countries recorded the main outlets of
newspapers, radio and television news, coding the stories,
and people in them, using over 20 common variables. The
"Global Media Monitoring Project" is being coordinated by
the Canadian MediaWatch organization and its results will be
reported to the Fourth World Conference on Women convened by
the UN in Beijing in September 1995.[10]
Although this media monitoring was limited to one day
only (which moreover happened to coincide with the
catastrophic earthquake in Japan), the number of
participating countries makes it still perhaps the largest
exercise of comparative content analysis ever carried out.
Moreover, participation in this exercise was voluntary,
which demonstrates how spontaneous interest can be mobilized
around a good cause and with the help of an informal
network.
The global women's monitoring as well as the European
project on race and (in)tolerance show how the idea proposed
may materialize thematically instead of as an overall survey
embracing various global issues at one time. Other
currently attractive themes, in addition to gender and race,
are environment and disarmament -- the latter a topic which
MacBride and others started to pursue more than a decade
ago.
The implementation may occur spontaneously or with the
support of a political niche in some thematic cases, but a
true materialization of the monitoring idea needs something
more. It needs a worldwide network of collaborating
scholarly activists. It needs an annual review summarizing
tendencies of media coverage in the world, prepared by
scholars and eventually elaborated by an authoritative
commission which will issue it as a high profile annual
report.
Endnotes
1. The Paris meeting, convened in a banquet hall of a
Bois de Bolougne restaurant, was organized by the
International Organization of Journalists (IOJ), whose
President this author was at the time. MacBride's keynote
address was improvised without a written text, as was
customary for him, and hence there is no documentation of
it. For his general line of thinking about the media, see
e.g., Traber & Nordenstreng (1992), pp. 20-23.
2. The memorandum was also moved into the IOJ machinery
in Prague where the proposed "monitoring project" became a
pivotal part of the organization's new research and
documentation branch, called the International Journalism
Institute (IJI). The idea was welcomed in general but no
immediate steps were taken to implement it. However, two
planning meetings were later organized by the IOJ/IJI under
my chairmanship, attended among others by the founder of the
Glasgow Media Group, John Eldridge, and the director of the
New York-based Institute for Media Analysis, Ellen Ray.
Reports of these meetings were prepared by the IJI and are
available from this author.
3. For more information including CEM newsletter _The
Cultural Environment Monitor_, write to:
Cultural Environment Movement
P.O.Box 31847
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Email to Gerbner: FGG@ASC.UPENN.EDU
(CEMNet: LPCL375@orange.cc.utexas.edu)
4. For more information, write to:
Centre for Communication and Human Rights
Baden Powellweg 111
1069 LD Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email to Hamelink: hamelink@antenna.nl
5. Dennis et al., 1989, pp. 73-74; the Hutchins
Commission quotes are from its main report, _A Free and
Responsible Press_ (Chicago University Press, 1947), p. 102.
Balk's text, including the Hutchins Commission proposal
quoted by him, escaped my attention until recently and thus
it has in no way influenced the current monitoring idea.
However, it is interesting to note how similar this concept
is with that originally submitted by the Hutchins
Commission. It is also worth noting that Balk's proposal
has not been acted upon by those whom he called upon, at
least not until 1995 when nearly a decade has passed...
6. I am indebted to Johan Galtung for this point,
brought to my attention after presenting the first version
of this article as a paper at the 6th MacBride Round Table
in Honolulu in January 1994. Galtung elaborates the point
in his own article below, using the phrase "virtual reality"
to denote what here is called "media reality." I refrained
from using "virtual reality" because of its particular
meaning in the new media context.
7. See the report of a seminar on media ethics and
criticism held in Tampere (Finland) in April 1993, including
a proposal by Heikki Luostarinen for a European journalism
review (available from the author at the Department of
Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Tampere;
Email: tihelu@uta.fi). For a survey of media criticism
reviews in the United States, see _St. Louis Journalism
Review_. No. 14, July-August 1993. Another useful source
is the "Project Censored Yearbook" which, in addition to
exposing "news and information not published nor broadcast
by the mainstream media in America," is listing
journalism/media analysis publications & organizations
(_Censored. The News That Didn't Make the News -- and Why_
by Carl Jensen & Project Censored, New York: Four Walls
Eight Windows, 1994). An unconventional kind of media
criticism is represented by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting, 130 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001), which,
in addition to its monthly _EXTRA!_ and several special
projects, makes annual awards such as the "beauties of bias
prize," "lost in smoke award" and "media hypocrite of the
year."
8. See "The Ethics of Journalism," Report of the
Committee on Culture and Education, Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly, 1993 (Doc. 6854). The report
contains the texts of Resolution 1003 (1993) and
Recommendation 1215 (1993), an explanatory memorandum by
Manuel Nunez Encabo, a summary of the debate of the assembly
which unanimously adopted the two documents on 1 July 1993,
as well as a verbatim record of a parliamentary hearing
organized by the Committee on Culture and Education in June
1991 on the basis of the Gulf War experience. Available
from: Office of the Clerk, Parliamentary Assembly, Council
of Europe, 67075 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Particularly
relevant to the present paper is the last paragraph (No. 38)
of Resolution 1003:
The self-regulatory bodies or mechanisms, the media
users' associations and the relevant university departments
could publish each year the research done a posteriori on
the truthfulness of the information broadcast by the media,
comparing the news with the actual facts. This would serve
as a barometer of credibility which citizens could use as a
guide to the ethical standard achieved by each medium or
each section of the media, or even each individual
journalist. The relevant corrective mechanisms might
simultaneously help improve the manner in which the
profession of media journalism is pursued.
9. The IFJ working group was the outcome of a meeting
organized together with the IAMCR in Antwerp (Belgium) in
July 1994 to commemorate the centennary of the first
international conference of journalists marking the
beginning of an international movement of journalists.
Present at this meeting were also Charles Husband and Teun
van Dijk, leading to their involvement in the IFJ working
group. For more information on the latter, write to:
International Federation of Journalists,
Rue Royale 266,
1201 Brussels,
Belgium
Fax: +32-2-219 2976.
Email: ifjsafenet@gn.apc.org
10. The idea for an international day of media
monitoring grew out of the conference "Women Enpowering
Communication" convened by the World Association for
Christian Communication in Bangkok (Thailand) in February
1994. For more in formation, write to:
MediaWatch
517 Wellington Street West, Suite 204
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1G1
Canada
References
Dennis, E. E., Gillmor, D. M. & Glasser, T. L. (Eds.)
(1989). Media freedom and accountability. New York:
Greenwood Press.
Galtung, J. & Vincent, R. (1992). Global Glasnost: Toward
a new world information and communication order.
Cresskill: Hampton Press.
Gerbner, G., Mowlana, H., & Nordenstreng, K. (Eds.) (1993)
The global media debate: Its rise, fall and renewal.
Norwood: Ablex.
Journal of Communication (Winter 1984). The flobal flow of
information: Trends and Patterns," symposium
containing an article by Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi
("Results of international cooperation," pp. 121-134)
and comments by Robert Stevenson ("Pseudo-debate," pp.
134-138) and Kaarle Nordenstreng ("Bitter lessons," pp.
138-142), 34.
Nordenstreng, K., Kleinwaechter, Wolfgang & Manet, Enrique
(1986) New International Information and Communication
Order Sourcebook. Prague: International Organization
of Journalists.
Traber, M., & Nordenstreng, K. (Eds.) (1992). Few voices,
many worlds: Towards a media reform movement. London:
World Association for Christian Communication.
------------------------------------------------------------
Author Information: Kaarle Nordenstreng
Department of Journalism and Mass
Communication
University of Tampere
P.O.Box 607
33101 Tampere
Finland
tikano@uta.fi
------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1995
Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc.
This file may not be publicly distributed or reproduced
without written permission of the Communication Institute
for Online Scholarship, P.O. Box 57, Rotterdam Jct., NY
12150 USA (phone: 518-887-2443).
 CIOS Support Staffsupport@cios.org
Branch to CIOS home page
|
