Newsbeat & War of the Worlds

Newsbeat:

Newsbeat is a radio broadcast that appears to be multi-media product that can be accessed on their online website including audio clips from the radio broadcast, pictures and articles.

Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wkry

Newsbeat is an example of a transitional media product which reflects changed in the contemporary media landscape. It is both a traditional radio programme with regular scheduled broadcast times, but also available online after the broadcast.

The broadcast itself and the use of digital platforms provides opportunities for audience interaction. It exemplifies the challenge facing the BBC as a public service broadcaster that needs to appeal to a young demographic within a competitive media landscape.

Industries:

 Newsbeat as a BBC News product with bulletins are broadcast on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1 Xtra and BBC Asian Network
• The funding of BBC Radio through the license fee, concept of hypothecated tax
• Issues around the role of a public service broadcaster within a competitive, contemporary media landscape
• The distinctive nature of the programme connected to its public service remit
• Arguments on the need for addressing a youth audience already catered for commercially
• The influence of new technology on media industries – Newsbeat as multi–platform media product. eg
o Website
o Twitter
o Instagram
• The regulation of the BBC via Ofcom and the governance of the BBC

Audience:

The techniques the broadcast uses to target a youth audience and create audience appeal, eg
o Presentation style
o News values
o Content selection
• The opportunities for audience interaction, participation and self-representation
• The way external factors – such as demographics and psychographics – are likely to also affect audience response and produce differing interpretations
• Cultivation theory including Gerbner
• Reception theory including Hall

• BBC News Article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-36313107)
• In 2016, Newsbeat moved from having its own separate app and website to being a part of the BBC News webpage. This was because research showed that those aged 16-25 were engaging with BBC News already.
• The news is specifically tailored to a younger audience (teenagers- early 20s)
• The BBC’s mission is outlined, the corporation has to provide “impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.
• Accessible to the target audience through their informal mode of address, interactive games, and audience participation
• The BBC has been criticised for “political bias” as they seem to reinforce a more liberal ideology
• The main fifteen-minute Newsbeat programmes are transmitted live over digital audio broadcast (DAB) frequencies at 12:45 and 17:45 during most weekdays.
• Presenters talk simply and use shorter words in order for it to make it easier for younger audiences to understand.
• 84% of their audience is age 12-15 meaning their actual audience is below their target audience

Regulation:

Regulatory contexts:
• Radio broadcasting is regulated by Ofcom
• Regulation focuses on content including use of language, impartiality, protection of under 18s
• PSB has very specific regulatory rules
• Ofcom is also responsible for awarding -and rescinding – licenses which gives its regulation force
• As radio has moved online and to podcasts, regulation has become more complex, in response the government launched a digital radio action plan and Ofcom produces a review each year
• The availability of non-regulated broadcasts via the internet poses a challenge both for the regulator and the regulated radio broadcasters.

The form, style and content of Newsbeat and how it is a product of Public Service broadcasting regulation
• Newsbeat as product of a public service broadcaster; Radio 1
• the demands of PSB regulation mean Radio 1 must provide educational and socially useful broadcasting as demonstrated by this programme
• the need to deal with difficult issues and build an interactive audience relationship via new technology whilst also adhering to taste and decency guidelines
• Newsbeat can be seen as part of the BBC’s remit to address diverse audiences – by age, location, ethnicity etc
• the tension between the restrictions placed on PSBs and the need to compete with commercial broadcasters – particularly for the youth audience
• Newsbeat also raises issues about the contemporary relevance of PSB – does the availability of so much similar content on the internet make PSB outdated or more necessary as a regulator of quality?

Social and Cultural context:

Newsbeat is part of BBC News. The BBC has a unique place in society as the ‘national’ broadcaster with an expectation of impartial reporting of the news. There is an expectation that the BBC will be a reliable source of accurate reporting in the context of rising concerns about fake-news.

The BBC is at the heart of political arguments regarding its social role, the content of its programming and the fact that it offers competition for commercial media industries.

Traditional news providers (Radio, TV and Newspapers) are in competition with a host of digital websites and social media platforms who have become the primary providers of news for many, especially young people.

The BBC:

The BBC takes a paternalist approach (actions that limits a groups freedom) and Cecil Lewis said that it is “opening up new worlds to people”

This is through their ethos:  “provide impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain“. 

In many ways the BBC were looking at opening up (and sustaining) the Great Tradition – of progressive Western academic thought, stretching back from the birth of culture and civilization in Ancient Greece to the modern contemporary thinkers of today. So how important do you think it is to sustain that tradition, even if it supports an elitist separation in society – those who know vs those who know nothing

BBC One’s coverage of Monday’s commemoration events peaked at 19.5 million viewers, BBC Two hit 2 million for its sign language coverage, ITV hit 5.3 million viewers, and Sky News attracted a maximum of 934,000 people. All the channels were offering the same core footage but with different experts and presenters.

The BBC has been described as “social cement” as it is at the centre of everything. And discusses the changes and fears of transforming to modern technology. (Time and Space)- BBC iPlayer – How the BBC Began

Radio:

As with other MEDIA FORMS, there is a specific language associated with radio production. In other words, there are a number of codes and conventions that radio productions follow.

What strikes everyone, broadcasters and listeners alike, as significant about radio is that it is a blind medium.Crissell, Understanding Radio 1995 p3

 Andrew Crissell’s Understanding Radio seeks to ‘determine the distinctive characteristics of the radio medium’. For instance, there is a proximity with radio communication, in that it appears almost interpersonal, using speech as the primary mode of communication and yet it is a mass medium broadcasting from a few to many. It is of course essentially and primarily auditory, consisting of speech, music, sounds and silence. A really good account of how radio communicates to individuals is provided by Crissell in chapter 1 ‘Characteristics of Radio’, for instance, the relationship between radio and individual imaginations.

This appeal to the imagination gives radio an apparent advantage over film and television

Crissell p 7

Crissell sets out FOUR main categories to understand the language of radio: WORDS, SOUNDS, MUSIC & SILENCE. As such, the most important factor is understanding how sound is recorded. Maximising sound to noise ratios by setting correct input and output levels.

The intimacy of radio is created by the language of radio – the close proximity of the voice recording, the direct address of the presenters, the selective use of pronouns – ‘I’ ‘you’ ‘we’ – the casual conversation, the connections developed by listeners to stations, presenters or styles of music, the two way interactions – song requests, shout outs, messages, dedications – the interviews and so on.

Radio is also a flexible medium. It provides diversity and choice and can be seen as both a broadcaster (to many) or a narrowcaster (to a few / niche). Think for example, about the way BBC radio is enshrined in the constitution as a national broadcaster, think of radio news broadcasts, the role of Radio 4 as a way of engaging with government and politics. At the other end of the spectrum community radio is part of an independent tradition of media production that spans from hospital radio to pirate radio stations.

Radio is considered an undemanding medium. In this respect think about radio consumption – listening to the radio while at work, or school, while travelling, exercising or relaxing. It can be consumed as a peripheral form of entertainment, or can be used for knowledge about the world, society and the self. In this way it is possible to apply a range of audience theories to specific radio texts, which will allow for both an individual textual analysis as well as a broader recognition of the codes and conventions that constitute the language of this particular media form.

War of the Worlds:

War of the Worlds is an early example of a hybrid radio form, adapting the H.G Welles story using news and documentary conventions. The broadcast and the initial response to it has historical significance as an early, documented, example of the mass media apparently having a direct effect on an audience’s behaviour. The academic research carried out into the broadcast (and the ongoing dispute about the extent of the effect) provided some of the early media audience research and the findings have been extremely influential in the media, advertising and political campaigning.

https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns

Discussion from Radiolab:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/war-worlds

 MICHAEL SOCOLOW: The C.E Hooper ratings survey found 98 percent of the respondents were not listening to Orson Welles or “War of the Worlds.” They were listening to the Chase and Sanborn hour or their radios were off or they were listening to another program. Of the two percent that they found that were listening to “War of the Worlds,” not a single respondent thought it was a news broadcast.

JAD ABUMRAD: Socolow strongly suggests that the panic was actually trumped up by the newspapers who were trying to piss on this new medium called radio that was taking away their, you know, audience.

MICHAEL SOCOLOW: Exactly. Here was the opportunity and radio-the radio industry and the newspaper industry had been battling for years. Throughout that decade, the entire newspaper industry had been losing money, political prestige, and other things to the radio industry, you know, some of their best employees. And so they were waiting for a way to really to prove to advertisers and to federal regulators, you know, they had the first amendment, they understood responsibility-these are the newspaper managers. These radio guys were conflating advertising with programming, they were frightening their viewers, they acting irresponsibly. And remember, this is a month after Munich when radio proved that news really works on the radio. Well, one month after radio news, you know, comes of age, suddenly they’re conflating news accounts with fiction and they’re acting irresponsibly and they’re terrorizing the public and so the newspaper industry had the perfect thing to hang their critique of radio on.

Copycat behaviour . . . this extract from the broadcast refers to another broadcast (word for word) of War of the Worlds broadcast in Ecuador in 1949)

ROBERT KRULWICH: And according to the station manager, people bought it.

ARCHIVE, Kay: Buffalo police and telephone company reported to WKBW that they received more than 4,000 phone calls. The Canadian military authorities dispatched military units to the Peace Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Queenston Bridge to repel invaders. The story was carried the next day by 47 newspapers countrywide and on the night of the show and during the show united press bureaus up and down the east coast of America were besieged by phone calls asking about the Martian invasion in Buffalo. Incredible? You’re absolutely right, it is incredible.

Industries:

War of the Worlds provides an historical context for broadcasting, being produced at a period when radio was the only form of domestic media; the 1930s and 1940s became known as the ‘golden age’ of radio.

• War of the Worlds was broadcast by Columbia Broadcasting Company – an institution still in existence (in a very different form) today.
• Radio broadcasting was seen as direct competition to newspapers which had previously been the only way of receiving news.
• The broadcast is typical of the way institutions are always looking for new styles in order to attract audiences.
• Regulation – radio broadcasting was regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and it investigated the broadcast to see if it had broken any laws.
• The broadcast provides an excellent example to consider the effect of individual producers on media industries (known as ‘auteur theory’) as this is the work of Orson Welles.

Audience:

[LINKS TO LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL HEADING]

War of the Worlds has become a real-world test case for a variety of audience theories, although the exact nature of the audience response is still disputed.

Use Crissels’ techniques of radio such as silence, music, speech to create tension for the listener.

This can be linked to Gerbner and cultivation theory – what audiences are exposed to from media platforms for a duration of time can influence their behaviour and perspective on the world – reflecting what they see through the media.

Also could be linked to reception theory by Stuart Hall – identity, social, political, historical features can influence how someone may align with media or how they perceive it.

Language:

• War of the Worlds is a good case study for students to understand the way codes and conventions of radio drama (sound, dialogue, SFX, microphone technique, silence, words, accents, dialects etc) are put together to create meaning and construct a recognisable and familiar genre (Steve Neale). War of the Worlds also belongs to the genre of sci-fi and invasion – how are the conventions evident?
• But can War of the Worlds be considered as an intertextual product? Or pastiches of other genres.
• Consider how developing technologies affect media language: in 1938 radio was still a relatively new mass media technology, the broadcast could experiment with the form in a way not possible later on.
• At the time of the broadcast the idea of hybrid genres was unfamiliar, with clear boundaries between fact and fiction, making this a significant development in the form.

Regulation:

In the 1930’s, Radio was regulated by the Federal Communications Commission

Social and Historical Context:

War of the Worlds can be considered in a historical context as it provides an interesting study of the power and influence of radio as a form during its early days of broadcasting. It is also useful to consider the product in a social, cultural and political context when considering audience responses to the programme. It was first broadcast on the eve of World War II and reflected fears of invasion in the US and concerns about international relations.

“I’ve always said you can’t understand the world without the media nor the media without the world”(Professor Natalie Fenton, quoted in Fake news vs Media Studies J. McDougall p.17 2019, Palgrave)

ROBERT KRULWICH: So, here are two ways to think about the “War of the Worlds.” One: it was a smashing entertainment using every trick they could think of, including inventing some new ones to scare you silly. Master storytelling. Or-or and it was: we’re trying to send you a warning. Don’t trust everything you hear on the radio, it’s not always true.

It also a text that shows the power of the media, to influence vulnerable audiences. Although are the stories around audiences reacting passively as if it were a true story were exaggerated almost as a marketing exercise, that in itself is a form of made up information? Indeed, isn’t all information made up? How do we know what is truth? What is clear is that the distinction between fact and fiction is often blurred and relies upon audience members recognising and understanding specific codes and conventions that relate to each Media Language. In this instance, the Language of Radio is used creatively to structure a text that could be taken as fact, but is clearly fiction. Recognising the particular social and historical moment that this media text was produced is significant, so was this a comment on the ability of the mass media to create propaganda and manipulate a compliant and vulnerable mass audience? Is that still relevant today? Think about twitter, Trump, Brexit etc. If so, then Chomsky‘s argument that the media is used by powerful groups – ‘Manufacturing Consent‘ – is the most appropriate theory to structure an understanding of media, technology, control, manipulation and power.

As a broadcast in October 1938, can War of the Worlds be interpreted as representing particular political concerns to US – and international – society?

Welles is known for his critiques from within of power and this was an example of satirical intent. “We wanted people to understand that they shouldn’t take any opinion pre-digested, and they shouldn’t swallow everything that came through the tap weather is was radio or not” (Welles, in Chilton 2016)

CBS broadcast a disclaimer prior to the narrative starting, stating clearly that it would be fiction but a significant amount of people switched channels too late to have heard the disclaimer. ‘Moral panic’ led by mainstream media thought the headlines of newspapers about terror, hysteria and mass panic. it has been proven (cohen 1972) that mediation of the panic was amplified and reactivated a much-exaggerated version of the real issue, claiming evacuations, suicide attempts. Linking to fake news or anticipated propaganda.

Orson Welles benefitted from the coverage by reinforcing his hypothesis of how dangerous the power of media is. He wanted to alert the public of the potentially manipulative uses of the mass media demonstrated by Nazi propaganda. This complements the theory of Lasswell ‘Hypodermic needle theory’ who expresses that audiences are passive and are injected with information.

George Orson Wells publicly apologised for scaring the public.

Comparative Table:

THEME	NEWSBEAT	WAR OF THE WORLDS
OWNERSHIP	BBC, PSB, Government, BBC board of trustees ?? DG (Lord Reith), BBC multi-media / cross-media, transnational / transglobal, not a monopoly, concentration of ownership (ie small number of firms who own TV and radio even though there are lots of different stations) I think the BBC has a left wing libertarian ideology ???	CBS, Private company, Multi or cross media Conglomerate, transnational / transglobal (??), monopoly (???), it is an example of concentration of ownership ie just a few companies own everything (oligopoly ?? / cartel ??), vertical / horizontal integration ???
HABERMAS	Transformation of the public sphere – media is constantly changing BBC keeping up. BBC intention enshrined in their ethos to inform, entertain and educate. Not to make money or profit – they put money back into programmes so Quality is important. I think this fits into Habermas notion of transforming the public Therefore the BBC is more paternalistic – what you need not what you want (this is tricky)	Most private business are aimed at making a profit – I think private business don’t care about the public, I think they care about profit. so they are more concerned with entertainment than education. Just for profit is a commercial ethos – not in the spirit of Habermas
CHOMSKY
CURRAN	James Curran writes about the ideas that underpin The Liberal Free Press, but much can apply to transformation of Public Sphere (Habermas) which in turn connects to ethos of PSB	some general ideas: 1. concerns about the commercial interest of big companies (prioritising profits over social concerns) 2. concentration of ownership – although not monopolies, the small number of big companies is not good for 3. competition 4. Diverse range of voices (plurality) 5. audience choices
SEATON	Seaton makes us aware of the power of the media in terms of big companies who own too much. commercial Seaton also makes clear that broadcasters selling audiences to products NOT audiences to programmes (ie no adverts on BBC) therefore BBC not chasing big exaggerated stories Newsbeat seeking informed citizens who want knowledge accountability – ie who looks after the BBC and makes sure it does what it is supposed to do: Annan Report 1980 “on balance the chain of accountability is adequate” independence – ie keeping free from state control “without a commitment to public service, broadcasters are increasingly vulnerable to political interference”	Seaton talks about rise and inevitable need for competition with new technologies – which provides choice Provides more entertainment for wider audiences ??? WoW targets mainstream entertainment seeking audiences the allusion of Choice – “Choice, without positive direction is a myth, all too often the market will deliver more -but only more of the same”
REGULATION	Ofcom, BBC Charter governed by Parliament, license fee regulates BBC as well. BBC / PSB ethos ‘to entertain, to inform and to educate’ (Reith) New technologies mean BBC faced with more competition NO advertising!	Federal Communications Commission as regulator for private business ie not necessarily in the public interest
AUDIENCE (ACTIVE / PASSIVE)	Newsbeat encouraging active ‘uses and gratification’ model personal needs escapism, entertainment, self esteem and social needs. information, knowledge about the world, connecting with family, friends and community	War of the worlds raises the debate around audience as passive or active (ie Lasswell, linear model of communication like a hypodermic syringe) ie without thinking or reflecting on what we are told
AUDIENCE (LAZARSFELD)	2 step flow / opinion leaders how we gravitate to people who share the same ideas as ourselves. So the BBC is an unbiased, informed opinion leader (ie BBC Charter focus on impartiality, accurate, true)	Orsen Welles unregulated opinion leader. If audience seeking facts / truth about space and war they would seek opinion leaders from govt or science.
AUDIENCE (HALL)
NEW TECHNOLOGY
SPECIFIC TEXTUAL EXAMLES	Prince William and Kate presenting a special newsbeat edition on mental health Kanye article	blurred codes of drama and news. Programme starts with title music, announcer introduction ‘Mercury Theatre Company presents . . . ‘ followed by Orson Welles prologue to War of the Worlds .. .