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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):1-123

Ecquid Novi South African Journal for Journalism Research Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Navorsing in die Joernalistiek

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George Claassen Exploring a model for training journalism students

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Lyombe Eko Jerry Springer and the Marlboro Man in Africa: globalisation and cultural eclecticism

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Dan Berkowitz & Hillel Nossek Myths and news narratives: towards a comparative perspective of news

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Bruce Garrison The Prague Post’s readership in post-communist Czech Republic

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Niranjala D. Weerakkody Race as political strategy by US presidential candidates: a case study

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Chris Harmse, André Cillié Jordaan & Yolanda Jordaan The Big Mac hamburger: is it used to communicate a distorted media message?

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Shahida Cassim & Miquel Monteiro Black role portrayals in South African television advertising

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Claassen: A model for training journalism students

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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):3-24

George Claassen

Exploring a model for training journalism students Abstract The decline in general knowledge, and more specifically knowledge of history, among students has become a serious problem to journalism lecturers worldwide. It also reflects detrimentally on the media employing these students, as the media are increasingly becoming the target of criticism for superficiality and lack of contextual references in news reports. This article explores the influence of entertainment on news presentation and the development of a serious need for the introduction of a basic level of history to journalism students. It reinvestigates this need in the light of recent arguments by Berger in South Africa and Hirsch, Patterson and others in the USA. It also compares applicants to journalism courses who studied history at undergraduate level, and those who did not.

not for distribution free online preview only Die afname in algemene kennis, en meer spesifiek kennis van geskiedkundige gebeure onder studente het ‘n ernstige probleem vir joernalistiekdosente wêreldwyd geword. Die situasie weerspieël ook negatief op die media wat hierdie studente in diens neem, aangesien die media toenemend die teiken word van kritiek rondom kunsmatigheid en ‘n gebrek aan kontekstuele verwysings in berigte. Hierdie artikel ondersoek die invloed van vermaak op nuusvoorstelling en die ontwikkeling van ‘n ernstige behoefte aan joernalistiekstudente met ‘n baiese Geskiedeniskennis. Dit is veral belangrik in die lig van onlangse argumente deur Berger in Suid-Afrika en Hirsch, Patterson en ander in die VSA. Die artikel vergelyk ook aansoekers vir joernalistiekkursusse wat geskiedenis op voorgraadse vlak bestudeer het en die wat nie het nie.

Keywords: Education, entertainment, general knowledge, history, journalism, media, news, South Africa, training

* Dr George Claassen, [[email protected]], is a former professor and head of the Department of Journalism at Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa; Tel: +27 21 808 3488; Fax: +27 21 808 3487. He is presently senior assistant editor of Die Burger in Cape Town as well as part-time lecturer in science and technology journalism at Stellenbosch University.

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Ecquid Novi – Research section

Fading division between news and entertainment In November 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected as the fortieth president of the United States of America. He was a former Hollywood film actor who began a successful career in the world of cinema in 1937, but not before he had worked for five years as a sports reporter and eventual announcer for a radio station in Des Moines. Reagan’s election reaffirmed and rapidly strengthened the gradual breaking down of clear barriers that have superficially existed between the methods and techniques of news presentation by journalists and the dramatic portrayal of the world of news diffusion by actors, television presenters and directors. Four years later, one of Reagan’s main challengers for the presidency was Senator John Glenn, ‘once a featured player on television’s most glamorous show of the 1960s, that is to say, an astronaut. Naturally, a movie (The Right Stuff) has been made about his extraterrestrial adventure. Former nominee George McGovern has hosted the popular television show ‘Saturday Night Live.’ So has a candidate of more recent vintage, the Reverend Jesse Jackson’ (Postman, 1986:4). One of the reasons for this blurred division between news and entertainment is the change in the way media owners see their role as distributors of news in society. The belief by the American Founding Fathers and John Milton, one of the first protesters against censorship, that truth would emerge from an open marketplace of ideas, and specifically where there were competing ideas (Milton, 1950:719), was linked to public service and the need of communities to publish the truth, a service that could only be provided by a competitive press. Yet the notion of the media providing a service has been overtaken by the profit motive. ‘In the rush to profit, mass media businesses have increasingly joined forces, merged their operations to be more efficient, and catered to the largest common denominator ... News media, rather than entertainment media have been most affected by corporate journalism and economic recession. Throughout the world of journalism, news staffs and news bureaus have been ‘down-sized,’ to use a 1990s corporate word, and news has been turned into entertainment to attract larger audiences to replenish the owner’s dwindling coffers’ (Hiebert, 1995:151, own italics). The rise of entertainment as a news commodity has become closely aligned to what Hirsch calls ‘cultural literacy’ (1987:10). One of the most noteworthy characteristics of the second term of Reagan was the vigorous altercations set off by William Bennett, American Secretary of Education and staunch critic of the American educational system, and the appearance of two vital books in 1987 which partly lay the blame for the illiteracy of American society at the door of a superficial social structure ignoring the necessity of teaching cultural literacy in schools and universities. Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind - How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Soul's of Today's Students and E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy - What Every American Needs to

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Know were very controversial at the time. The most notable accusation being made, specifically against Bloom was that his work was propagating a new form of elitism (Rorty, 1988:32; Mansfield, 1988:36; Nussbaum, 1987:25; Bowen, 1987:46). Mostly positive criticism greeted Hirsch's premise that cultural literacy is essential to reading and writing skills, an extensive broadening of earlier studies about literacy levels (inter alia Thorndike, 1973; Chall, 1983 & 1985). Hirsch calls cultural literacy ‘the network of information that all competent readers possess. It is the background information, stored in their minds, that enables them to take up a newspaper and read it with an adequate level of comprehension, getting the point, grasping the implications, relating what they read to the unstated context which alone gives meaning to what they read ... The achievement of high universal literacy is the key to all other fundamental improvements in American education’ (Hirsch, 1987:2). In 1988, Hirsch broadened his original study by concentrating on the identification and defining of ‘a body of information shared by literate Americans of the late twentieth century’ (Hirsch et al., 1988:ix). The publication of The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy - What Every American Needs to Know, has opened the way to teach society basic cultural literacy which has become, for a variety of reasons that will be discussed further on in this article, virtually non-existent in school education. This is also the case in South Africa and, subsequently, also in teaching at universities. The effect of the dictionary has led to various other language editions, e.g. in Dutch, while a South African edition will be published shortly. The relationship between entertainment in the media and its influence on news diffusion, and the decline in cultural literacy has also been clearly linked to reading patterns among young people (Robinson & Jeffres, 1979; Lain, 1986; Postman, 1986; Bloom, 1987; Cobb-Walgren, 1990). More will be said about this further on. The serious decline in the level of cultural literacy, including a lack of historical perspective and basic scientific literacy among young journalists entering the profession from university, can be linked to a variety of factors. A few broad trends in the media world since the Second World War are discussed below, trends in which television's, and even the cinema’s role, features strongly.

not for distribution free online preview only Newton Minow and the vast wasteland of commercial broadcasting On 9 May 1961, Newton N. Minow addressed the National Association of Broadcasters in his first public address as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and ‘forever changed the way in which Americans think about television’ (Minow, 1991:1). Minow challenged local broadcasters and network presidents to scrutinize their daily programs which he called ‘a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons’ - and asked them if they truly honoured the ‘public interest’ they

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were licensed to serve (1991:24). He then answered his own question with a definite ‘no’ and said that commercial broadcasting in America was a ‘vast wasteland.’ Minow's criticism caused an outrage among broadcasting executives, but the FCC was flooded with more than 6 000 letters of support within six weeks. Minow received the ‘Top News Maker’ award from the Associated Press and one of broadcasting's most prestigious honours, the Peabody Award, the first ever given to a government official. Thirty years later, in an address at the Gannett Foundation Media Centre of Columbia University, Minow again looked at broadcasting but this time he specifically mentioned television as the real culprit, warning that ‘public television should become just as much a public commitment as our public libraries, hospitals, parks, schools, and universities’ (1991:14). Yet he emphasized that television was still creating a vast wasteland and that a new generation now has the chance to ‘travel from the wasteland to the promised land, and to make television a saving radiance in the sky’ (1991:19).

The amusement concept: Huxley vs Orwell

not for distribution free online preview only In 1985, a quarter of a century after Minow's first attack on television, the New Yorker Neil Postman broadened the criticism on television, arguing that through its emphasis on entertainment, television has made Americans the best entertained but the ‘least well-informed people in the Western world’ (Postman, 1986:108). Postman points out that Americans had over-emphasized the dangers lurking in the Orwellian society portrayed in 1984 and underestimated the vision of Aldous Huxley in Brave New World that ‘no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history’ because’ people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think’ (1986:vii). In contrasting the worlds depicted by Orwell and Huxley, Postman warns about the style television has accepted as the norm and the effects it is having on society (1986:vii-viii):

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and


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rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny `failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.' In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure ... Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. Postman emphasizes that we are well into the second generation of children being educated by television as ‘their first and most accessible teacher and, for many, their most reliable companion and friend ... television is the command centre of the new epistemology’ (1986:79). Quoting Robert MacNeil, former executive editor and co-anchor of the MacNeil- Lehrer News hour, Postman reconfirms the nightmare of educators and specifically journalism educators who have to train students raised on television but needing much more substance for their careers than television news bulletins can give them (1986:107-108). About television news, MacNeil says that the idea ...is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action, and movement. You are required ... to pay attention to no concept, no character, and no problem for more than a few seconds at a time ... (B)itesized is best, ... complexity must be avoided, ... nuances are dispensable, ... qualifications impede the simple message, ... visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, and ... verbal precision is an anachronism.

not for distribution free online preview only MacNeil (1986:113) observes that ‘television is the soma of Huxley's Brave New World’ and although Postman emphasizes that the trivialization of public information is not only accomplished on television, he warns that ‘television is the paradigm for our conception of public information’ and ‘has achieved the power to define the form in which news must come, ... presenting news to us packaged as vaudeville’, inducing other media to do the same, so that the ‘total information environment begins to mirror television’.

Amusement concept: Bloom and the decline of reading proficiency In many quarters the growing trend in the presentation of news as entertainment is directly linked to the lack of reading ability in society. Allan Bloom (1987:62) ascribes society’s and specifically students at American universities ignorance to the lost ‘practice of and the taste for reading. They have not learned how to read, nor do they have the expectation of delight or improvement from reading’. Bloom (1987:64) points out that the failure of universities to stem the decline in reading among students results in students’ searching for enlightenment wherever it is readily available, without the ability to distinguish between the sublime and trash, insight and propaganda. In most instances, they turn to the cinema and

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videos to fill the void. Thus, ‘the failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is’. In his preface to Bloom’s book, Nobel prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow also emphasizes the growth of ignorance through a culture of entertainment, what he calls ‘the disheartening expansion of trained ignorance and bad thought. For to put the matter at its baldest, we live in a thought-world, and the thinking has gone very bad indeed’ (Bellow, 1987:17). Numerous studies have been undertaken to determine the reasons for this phenomenon1, but in light of the ambit of this article that concentrates on how show business has taken over news presentation and led to the decline of cultural literacy, the reasons for the decline in readership among adults will not be addressed here. Suffice it to emphasize that the old belief that the youth will start reading newspapers once they mature, is not accepted anymore, as Lain has found (1986:69-74, 121; see also Robinson & Jeffres, 1979). In the USA, Bogart found in 1988 that only 16% of adolescents read the newspaper every weekday (Cobb-Walgren, 1990:340). Reasons already determined why adolescent readership of newspapers are declining, are numerous and can vary from region to region, but Cobb-Walgren (1990:341-342) mentions the following:

not for distribution free online preview only • Decline in reading aptitude scores. This correlates with the views of Allan Bloom (1987:62) and ED Hirsch (1987:143-144); • Competition from the more dynamic, visually stimulating television medium. Numerous studies have been undertaken in this regard: besides Postman (1987), Bloom and Hirsch, Rosemarie Truglio of the University of Kansas found definite proof among 362 families in Kansas that in many instances television has a detrimental effect on the reading habits of children (Beeld, 1988-02-08:5); • Changing lifestyles where less time is made for reading (see also Poole, 1989 who found that an important factor in teenage boys' newspaper reading habits was their daily lifestyle); • Weakened tradition of newspaper reading in the home environment. Again, various studies have established that young people's newspaper reading

1 E.g. see Leo Burnett USA 1983. The teenage market. Report from media research; Poindexter, P. 1979. Daily newspaper non-readers: why they don't read. Journalism Quarterly, 50, 764-770, Summer; Tillinghast, W.A. 1981. Declining newspaper readership: impact of region and urbanization. Journalism Quarterly, 58:14-23, Spring; Lain, L.B 1986. Steps toward a comprehensive model of newspaper readership. Journalism Quarterly, 63:69-74, 121, Spring. Robinson, John P & Jeffres, Leo W 1979. The changing role of newspapers in the age of television. Journalism Monographs, 63; and Stone, G.C. & Wetherington, R.V. 1979. Confirming the newspaper readership habit. Journalism Quarterly, 56:554-562, Autumn.


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habits are dependent on the correlating reading patterns and socialization of their parents (e.g. Clarke, 1965:539-546; and Chaffee et al., 1971:323340); and • Newspaper image. Among children it is often found that the newspaper is regarded as a traditional, middle-aged medium, insignificant in the adolescent's life (Yankelovich, Skelly & White, 1976; Schweitzer, 1976; and Larkin & Grotta, 1977). South Africa's readership figures of newspapers compare badly with those of most of its trading partners in the traditional Western hemisphere, although the high level of illiteracy among the black population makes this understandable. Figures released by the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers (World Press Trends, 1994:vii) show that only 31 newspapers were sold daily in South Africa in 1993 per 1 000 of the population; the statistics for Norway is 608 per 1 000 population, whereas even Russia (237) has more regular newspaper readers than South Africa. The decline in newspaper readership is nowhere better reflected than in the figures for the US daily newspaper reading audience. Between 1970 and 1993, the average adult weekday readership of newspapers in America has diminished from a total of 78% of the total adult population (age 18 and over) to just 61,7% in 1993 (Facts About Newspapers, 1994:7). In 1950, 124 newspapers were sold per 100 households; today about 64 papers are sold per 100. In 1950, 382 newspapers were sold per 1 000 people in the United States; today about 250 are sold per 1 000 (Fink, 1996:10).

not for distribution free online preview only The mass media as agents of cultural and political socialization

Mass media play an important role as agents of cultural and political socialization. The common stock of knowledge through socialization In the early part of the previous century, AH Thorndike and FT Baker produced a series of Everyday Classics to teach cultural literacy to very young children. As quoted and underlined by Hirsch (1987:131-132) ‘to show how fully aware they were of the need for teaching shared content’, Thorndike & Baker recognized the role the medium of books can play as a socialization agent: We have chosen what is common, established, almost proverbial; what has become indisputably ‘classic,’ what, in brief, every child in the land ought to know, because it is good, and because other people know it. The educational worth of such materials calls for no defence. In an age when the

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need of socializing and unifying our people is keenly felt, the value of a common stock of knowledge, a common set of ideals is obvious. This need of people to function as members of society is part of their development, part of socialization: people obtain knowledge, abilities, beliefs, values, attitudes and dispositions which give them a certain feeling of belonging to a society with specific characteristics (Kotze, 1985:27; Hirsch, 1987:22-25, 137; Rosav, 1977:31; Stacey, 1978:2; Elkin & Handel, 1972:4). Since the age of Thorndike & Baker the ‘common stock of knowledge’ which then lay mostly in books, has broadened to include specifically the print and broadcast media. These media play an important role in the cultural and political socialization of consumers, although some debate still takes place over the extent of this process, as discussed by Kotze (1985:28; see also the studies by Connell [1971] and Koff & Von der Muhl [1973])2. Cultural framing for the media in multi-cultural environments A common problem for the media when dealing with the public is the fact that journalists today are more and more forced to work in cultural environments where their own cultural framework of reference lacks certain absolute necessities to be able to report on news. One of these lacunae for white journalists in South Africa has always been their general inability to speak an indigenous African language. More common is the problems foreign correspondents face when posted to a country different from their own cultural framing. Columnist William Pfaff (as quoted by Starck & Villanueva, 1993:4) writes about the lack of understanding American foreign correspondents show in other countries:

not for distribution free online preview only Current press practice shifts correspondents from country to country so they won't `go native' and will always see things through American eyes, a practice which institutionalises ignorance and guarantees the perpetuation of stereotype. Americans look at the world through tourists' eyes because the professional observers have all but abdicated. Starck & Villanueva emphasize the importance of the correct cultural frames for journalists and point out that this aspect has been getting far too little attention by foreign correspondents and their media institutions (1993:28): 2 Greenstein (1968:551) emphasizes the ambiguity of political socialization which can also be applied in some measure to the broader concept of cultural socialization: ‘Narrowly conceived, political socialization is the deliberate inculcation of political information, values and practices by instructional agents who have been formally charged with this responsibility’, whereas, in the broader sense of the concept, ‘political socialization includes ‘all political learning, formal or informal, deliberate and unplanned, at every stage of the life cycle, including not only explicitly political learning but also nominally non-political learning’ (own italics).


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Background, education, understanding, fairness, depth, sensitivity - all these elements ... figure in cultural framing. As the world continues to implode, it is incumbent that we try to understand better than we do now what happens in the cultural framing process and suggest ways that those who interpret other cultures for us may do so with greater care and concern. One of the most damning accusations of the callous way in which television editors work with news from foreign countries, is the view expressed by one NBC editor: ‘No one gives a damn how you cut a foreign piece’ (Epstein, 1974:247). Unfortunately, and specifically also because of the deteriorating cultural literate background of reporters, the media have shown an astonishing lack of understanding of cultures different from their own, and ‘have the devil's own time deciphering’ the interesting people reporters meet, ‘figuring out what makes them tick’ (Broder, 1987:50).

Smart bombs, Los Angeles on fire, and the advent of new news The dramatic image as the master of news diffusion finally reached its pinnacle when CNN began broadcasting live images from the centre of Baghdad during the Gulf War in 1991. And it grew even stronger when television forgot perspective in the final onslaught of the Rodney King riots that gripped American television viewers in May 1992. In an extensive analysis of the coverage CNN and the three other major networks, CBS, NBC and ABC gave of the Gulf War, Walker et al., found that ‘CNN chose to emphasize investment in technology over analysis. This led to a focus on coverage of breaking news live. ABC, CBS, and NBC, with 50 years of evolution upon which to draw, emphasized analysis’ (Walker et al., 1992:52). The stations’ broadcasting during three dates were analysed: 16 January 1991 (the attack on Baghdad by the Allied forces), 17 January 1991 (the first Scud missile attack on Israel), and 23 February 1991 (the beginning of the ground invasion into Iraq). Six hours of tapes were studied of each station. CNN broadcast 30 minutes of primary analysis (8%), ABC 171 minutes (48%), CBS and NBC both 165 minutes (46% of primary analysis) (Walker et al., 1992:48). The Gulf War, the Los Angeles riots, the aborted coup in the former Soviet Union, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, the William Kennedy Smith trial, and, finally, the OJ Simpson docudrama of 1995-96, have changed the way television sees itself forever: all these news events were broadcast live. ‘All connected the viewer in unprecedented direct ways. The role of the correspondents seemed much diminished. Reporters and anchors were hosts, telling us where we were and, most of the time, where we were going, but seeming to know little more than the rest of us about what was really happening, or what it meant’ (Katz, 1995:27).


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When the Los Angeles riots broke out in May 1992, television as unanalysed dramatic image-carrier received enormous criticism, none stronger than that of Richard Schickel of Time (1992-05-11:27): Los Angeles television just kept pouring raw footage from the remote units onto the screen. It was roughly the equivalent of dumping raw sewage into Santa Monica Bay. When CNN covered the bomb explosion at the Atlanta Olympic Games in August 1996, it again used the breaking news technique of superficial, dramatic images with little analysis. And again it was severely criticized for its notion to treat unpleasant events as a ‘kind of real-live whodunit - the story ends when the villain (who planted the bomb) is unmasked ... Besides lots of human interest (interviews with victims, their families and brave rescue workers) CNN and CBS gave us heaps of speculation (who did this?) but little analysis (what does this event tell us about our splintering society?)’ (Willoughby, 1996:8). One of the most respected news programs on the American networks has for years been Ted Koppel’s Nightline. Koppel introduced the electronic townhall meetings in the 1980s, bringing together opposing political groups on television when they often refused to talk to each other in the political arena outside television. In this way he introduced through his program real life drama in the first townhall meeting between the Israeli government and Palestinian dissidents, as well as bringing opposing South African groups together in ABC programs which could not be watched by their citizens, except in special screenings for South Africans by the United States Information Service. Yet Koppel’s quality analysis had to relent to the talk show formats of other popular American television shows like Oprah Winfrey, Larry King and Geraldo where the dramatic images’ popularity rules over content. Nightline began to ‘ply its journalistic trade in an entertainment culture, first pitted against the undisputed king of late night, Johnny Carson, and more recently against Letterman and Leno ... Nightline would be swept away by O.J. Simpson mania, devoting fifty-five programs to the seemingly endless saga’ (Kurtz, 1996:65). The preference of media consumers for the dramatic image is also linked to the threat of the New News against the Old News, terms coined by Jon Katz, media critic and columnist for the on-line magazine, HotWired. Katz showed in an analysis of the 1992 presidential campaign how coverage ‘was being transformed by the battle between ... Old News (network television, broadsheet newspapers, the news weeklies) and the New News (talk radio, supermarket tabloids, cable television, chat shows and other innovations). Old News took itself seriously and felt a mission to mediate between politicians and the public. New News was brash and showed no respect for the traditional arbiters of taste. It broke bimbo stories ignored by Old News, connected Bill Clinton to the MTV generation, gave Ross Perot a forum, provided alternative messages to voters. With the



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power of Old News thus diluted, any talk of a ‘media conspiracy’ in favour of one side or the other was simply out of date’ (Lexington, 1996:56). Four years hence Katz’s prophetic words are even more applicable to the 1996 presidential race. Talk radio shows like those of Bob Grant (fired in March 1996 for his outrageous racist remarks but quickly hired by the competition), Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern have grown in popularity. Rupert Murdoch’s July 1996 announcement, and challenge to other networks to follow suit, that he will give free air time to candidates to put their views across on television, has confirmed the trend of fragmentation and the fraying of the old and fixed norms of the Old News. Direct broadcasts will strengthen the growing influence of the dramatic media image, ‘safe from the clutches and biases of news editors. And then, of course, there is the Internet, the very essence of anarchy and a fast-growing channel for news and views. There and elsewhere, news is becoming ever more interactive, ever closer to consumers rather than producers’ (Lexington, 1996:56). Over the past four years Katz’s words may have been true, but the recent introduction of on-line newspapers by the Old News establishment has in many ways erased the differences between the two styles. Yet the free reign the Internet gives publishers on-line to present Old News in the style of New News, may not last if Bill Gates' efforts to enter the Internet fray is successful. As Katz warns, ‘all media in America began as individualistic enterprises, only to become suffocatingly corporatised and cautious’ (Lexington, 1996: 65). Writing about 1996's science fiction blockbuster movie Independence Day and Microsoft’s stalking and takeover of America’s information culture through Windows 95, Slate, MSNBC and other programs, Katz castigates the media for ‘lining up at Bill Gates’ cash-stuffed trough. They are not only complicit in Microsoft’s takeover of the media - they are hyping it’ (HotWired: August 1996).

not for distribution free online preview only Re-educating and retraining journalists What are the solutions to the problem of training journalism students and re-educating professional journalists amidst the growing cultural illiteracy in our society? One needs to look briefly at the three major aspects mentioned in The Oregon Report (1987:51-53): General communication competency (language competence, computer and visual literacy, information gathering, and the ability to write for the media); conceptual knowledge of the communication field, including courses concentrating on the relationship between the mass media and society (media sociology), the technology of mass communication, communication theory, and the economics of the mass media; and professional teaching modules based on practical acquaintance of the media industry which in journalism will include information gathering, reporting, editing, and professional internships at media institutions.

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Rhoodie (1992:119) mentions a fourth major aspect which has direct bearing on this problem, namely that students and journalists should attain a high standard of reference framework: A journalist cannot operate efficiently and effectively unless he knows the nature and functioning of the system of government and the economic system, as well as the social environment and the cultural composition of the society in which he works, including the historical factors that conditioned contemporary society. Journalism is one field that cannot exist on a foundation of narrow vocationalism. (own italics). As future messengers and information bearers, journalists should have a high level of literacy, but they are part of the educational environment in which the printed media's role is diminishing and that of television is growing. South African journalism schools are experiencing the same problems as those in other parts of the world3 where the low level of cultural and verbal literacy, as well as neglected reading habits lead to universities having to deal with hundreds of applications to journalism courses which are not at an acceptable level.

not for distribution free online preview only Educating journalists in history and cultural literacy

The perceived relevance of history as a school and university subject has diminished rapidly in our age of specialization. Historians had their share in this demise by making history teaching a laborious exercise, writing ‘history text books the size of telephone directories and about as thrilling to read’ (Schama, 1992:62). Schama argues that today's historians have become too specialized and afraid of controversy; instead, history should ‘tell a story, throw light on the past in all its splendid messiness’ (Schama, 1992:64). One of the most serious flaws in modern journalism today is the lack of historical knowledge and insight of its professionals. Because of the ever present deadlines and time limits under which journalists work, superficiality has become one of the most common characteristics of the media today. Postman argues that history has lost its footing in the media world because of television, ‘a speed-oflight medium, a present-cantered medium’ based on ‘image politics’ which allows no significant role for history (1987:139). Finley called journalists ‘historians of the present tense’ as far back as 1930 (Vaughan, 1985:48-49), but their lack of historical perspective is undeniable:

3 See also De Beer 1991:3; Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, 1989:30-31; Gaunt, 1988:585; Dennis, 1988:6; Weaver & Wilhoit, 1986:55); and the American Society of Newspaper Editors on admission standards, Journalism Quarterly, 63(4):914.


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Many times members of the media are influenced by erroneous beliefs about what the past teaches or forecasts. Their stories may incorporate superficial historical analogies. Usually, the past is employed haphazardly ... Because of the nature of their work, journalists are intensely preoccupied with the present. They seek to be on the cutting edge of history. Nothing seems so dated as yesterday's newspaper or broadcast ... Such present-mindedness is widespread. It subverts the inclination to think historically and can distort accounts of current events by giving them only a short-range focus. For the media profession, the return to a study of history and a broader cultural literacy has become an absolute necessity. Journalists have to study what ‘man has done to discover what man is’ (Schama, 1992:65). Courses at various universities have already been introduced to bring back the perspective on the importance of history4, but few are directed at journalists. Yet historians and journalists have for centuries been at play in the same field of the Lord, the emphasis only on different time scales. This common field of endeavour has been pointed out by AJP Taylor, one of Britain's most important historians who used the analogy of the pebble which, ‘if detached, will release an avalanche’. Taylor explained that the historian's job was to identify then release that pebble’, a function very much part of the journalist's job today (The Economist, 1994-02-19-25:105).

not for distribution free online preview only 4 The University of Wisconsin-Madison recently began a program entitled ‘The uses of history for members of the media’. It seeks to teach journalists and journalism students how to use the past more effectively. The program is based on Harvard University's ‘Uses of history project’ at the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School. Similar programs have been started at the University of North Carolina, Carnegie-Mellon's School of Urban and Public Affairs, the University of California, and the Rand Graduate Institute (Vaughan, 1985:50; Neustadt, 1981:1-2; O'Donnell, 1981:3; and Graham, 1983:9). In 1999, the Department of Journalism at Stellenbosch University introduced the first such program in a structured way in South Africa when the University’s Department of History began teaching the compulsory subject called History for Journalists to journalism students.

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Various studies in America have confirmed the trend of a growing cultural illiteracy, a phenomenon also very much part of South Africa.5 Hirsch refuses to lay the blame for this state only at the door of television, rather charging that a great deal of accumulated evidence exists that ‘faulty policy in the schools is the chief cause of deficient literacy’ (1987:20). His argument is substantiated by Wahlberg & Shanahan (1983:4-9) whose study of the factors influencing educational results has established that the curricula of schools are the most controlllable influences on children’s' knowledge of literate culture. Hirsch concedes that television watching ‘does reduce reading and often encroaches on homework. Much of it is admittedly the intellectual equivalent of junk food. But in some respects, such as its use of standard written English, television watching is acculturative’ (Hirsch 1987:20). In a comprehensive report for the American National Institute of Education, Anderson also found this apparent dichotomy in the influence of television on the school achievement of children (1985:27): Up to about ten hours a week, there is actually a slight positive relationship between the amount of time children spend watching TV and their school achievement. Beyond this point, the relationship turns negative and, as the number of hours per week climbs, achievement declines sharply.

not for distribution free online preview only 5 In one of the first studies of its kind in South Africa, Claassen (1986:109-114) surveyed the general knowledge of 75 South African matriculants who intended to follow a career in journalism (their ages varied between 17 and 26). Only 20% could identify George Bush, 47% Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 26% Athol Fugard, only 3% knew who Joan Sutherland was, 16% Salvador Dali, and just 3% knew who Harvey Tyson was (at that stage the editor of South Africa's biggest daily newspaper). Asked to identify ten countries on a map where the countries' names were left out, but the neighboring countries' names were kept, the average mark was 4,2 out of ten (the ten countries being Ireland, England, France, Spain, West-Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Turkey). An extension of this study in 1997 (Claassen, 1998:7-8) found a continuation of this serious lack of general knowledge. Parsons (1990:15) found a corresponding lack of geographical knowledge among journalism students at the University of Tennessee: ‘I gave each student a map of the United States, with the 50 states outlined but not named. Fewer than half correctly identified Colorado. Only slightly more than half placed Washington, DC within 100 miles of its location ... Given a similar world map, one half put India on the correct continent (25 thought it was in Africa). 60% placed Egypt within 300 miles of its location (two put it in South America)... Only 12% correctly identified New Zealand; some marked it Greenland, Iceland, Madagascar, Australia and Japan.’


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Various other studies have dealt with the growing cultural illiteracy among the youth of Western countries.6 One of the first comprehensive surveys in the US brought the astonishing ignorance of children in 1985 to light: the study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found, inter alia, that ‘twothirds of the seventeen-year-old students tested could not place the Civil War in the correct half century; a third did not know that the Declaration of Independence was signed between 1750 and 1800; half could not locate the half century in which the First World War occurred; a third did not know that Columbus sailed for the New World ‘before 1750’; three-fourths could not identify Walt Whitman or Thoreau or EE Cummings or Carl Sandburg. And one-half of our high school seniors did not recognize the names of Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin’ (Hirsch, 1987:218). ‘You've heard of the lost generation? Well, we've found them. And they haven't the faintest idea where they are,’ was the comment of Gilbert M. Grosvenor, President of the American National Geographic Society after results had been released on a 1988 nationwide survey to determine the general knowledge of American citizens between the ages of 18 and 24 (Claassen, 1991:11). The most recent survey conducted among eight nations, continued this trend. Germans scored the highest in knowledge of current events, for example 58% of them correctly identifying Boutros Boutros-Ghali as the Secretary-general of the United Nations - against only 22% for Britains surveyed, 26% for Canadians, and 13% for Americans (Time, 1994-04-04:11). Reasons for this general knowledge void are complex: television is clearly to be blamed, as Minow, Bloom, Postman and numerous other educationists and media specialists have pointed out; but television is not the only culprit. José Ortega y Gasset put his finger on one of the problems more than six decades ago in his work La rebelión de las masas when he warned against the barbarism brought about by specialization (1963:82-87):

not for distribution free online preview only 6 Diverse research angles have been used in pointing out the growth of cultural illiteracy of which only a few are mentioned here: Robinson, Chivian & Tudge (1989) studied the influence of news media use on attitudes by Soviet and American youths' towards nuclear issues; Robinson & Davis (1990) researched the influence of television news on an informed public and suggested that television was a relatively ineffective means of acquiring news information; similarly, Neuman (1976) found that almost half the viewers in the San Francisco area who watched network news could not recall a single story they had just seen, a pattern Gunter (1987) also found to be true; Nolan (1991) studied the dilemma of editors using acronyms which readers might fail to recognize because of illiteracy; Van Vuuren et al (1985) looked at television's influence on personality needs of South African adolescents; and a recent eight-nation survey found Germans to be the most culturally literate group (Time, 1994-04-04:11). Cobb-Walgren (1990) studied the correlates of newspaper nonreadership among teenagers and found that, unlike the television nonviewer who is so rare in American society as to be labeled ‘socially insignificant', the newspaper nonreader is everywhere.

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... generation after generation, the scientist has been gradually restricted and confined into narrower fields of mental occupation ... in each generation the scientist, through having to reduce the sphere of his labour, was progressively losing contact with other branches of science, with that integral interpretation of the universe ... The specialist ‘knows’ very well his own, tiny corner of the universe; he is radically ignorant of the rest ... Most of the studies on cultural illiteracy and a lack of general knowledge come to the ‘obvious conclusion ... that neither America's schools nor colleges are adequately educating students about the world they live in. Journalism programs which would seem to have a bigger stake in such preparation – are not doing much better’ (Atkins, 1985:12). Solutions for South Africa’s unique problems with its heterogeneous population and vast differences in educational standards between traditionally privileged and disadvantaged student communities are not easy. In contrast to Berger’s argument that the emphasis of cultural literacy in journalism training ‘would cut out people from different cultures, languages and disadvantaged education systems: precisely those needed in journalism today’ (Berger, 1996:78), Hirsch (1987:10) and Patterson (1980:72-73) emphasize the value of broad cultural literacy programs, specifically to the disadvantaged communities, in this case the African-American section of the US population. Their arguments can just as well apply to the previously disadvantaged communities (mostly black, coloured and Asian) in South Africa:

not for distribution free online preview only Industrialized civilization (imposes) a growing cultural and structural complexity which requires persons to have a broad grasp of … cultural literacy: a deep understanding of mainstream culture, which no longer has much to do with Anglo-Saxon Protestants, but with the imperatives of industrial civilization. It is the need for cultural literacy, a profound conception of the whole civilization, which is often neglected in talk about literacy … The people who run society at the macro-level must be literate in this culture. For this reason, it is dangerous to overemphasize the problems of basic literacy or the relevancy of literacy to specific tasks, and more constructive to emphasize that blacks will be condemned in perpetuity to oversimplified, low-level tasks and will never gain their rightful place in controlling the levels of power unless they also acquire literacy in this wider cultural sense (Patterson, as quoted by Hirsch, 1987:10-11).

In light of the analysis above, the following suggestions can be made towards a new strategy of dealing with the high level of cultural illiteracy of potential journalism students, as well as re-educating practicing journalists whose lack of expertise in history and cultural literacy show similar tendencies:


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• Stricter standards for admission to journalism schools and appointment in newsrooms should be adopted in which minimum standards of general knowledge, history and cultural literacy should apply; • Candidates should be thoroughly tested before they are admitted into courses or appointed. This process will eliminate some of the problems journalism educators experience every day with uninformed, non-reading students who have no historical perspective of the day and age they are living in.7 Part of the test should concentrate on the reading habits of candidates, as well as their knowledge of history. As pointed out above, an understanding of history has become virtually an essential prerequisite of a good journalist; • When students enter the course through a strict admissions process, it should not be merely assumed that they are at an acceptable level of general knowledge and cultural literacy; • Current Events or Contemporary World Affairs or whatever the title given to a course for students, should be ‘a fully equivalent course as are other major offerings, not one-third or one-half credit that may well demean the course in student as well as faculty minds’ (Atkins, 1985:13). Despite Berger’s arguments (Berger, 1996:77), Parsons put it even more bluntly when he says that ‘we make a mistake by graduating journalists who can write good leads, design attractive pages and handle tough interviews but who lack general knowledge. We can't do it all in schools of journalism. We can't make up for missed geography exercises, missed civic lessons or a missed biology course. But we should at least try (1985: 11).

not for distribution free online preview only At Stellenbosch University a comparison was made of the cultural literacy of a sample of 130 student applicants to the honours degree in journalism over a period of three years. Of the 130 students, 33 had history as university subject at first, second or third year level (25,4%). Student applicants came from the Universities of Stellenbosch, Durban-Westville, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Pretoria, the University of the North, Vista University, the University of the Northwest, the University of the Transkei, the University of Fort Hare, Rhodes University, and Unisa. The division between the year group levels of history was 51,5% for first years (N=17), 9,1% for second years (N=3), and 39,4% (N=13) for third year history level students. All races were represented in the sample: blacks N=56 (43,1%), whites N=47 (36,2%), Coloureds N=23 (17,7%) and others (Asians, as well as foreign applicants) N=4 (3%). This study was an extension and

7 In this regard the American Society of Newspaper Editors has set the example by urging journalism schools to set stricter standards for admission, deploring the ‘growing pressure from students, faculty, parents and professionals for more vocational training and fewer liberal arts requirements, particularly from radio, television, advertising and public relations students... (Journalism Quarterly, 1986. 63(4):914, Winter).

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broadening of a previous study completed by the author (Claassen, 1998:121129). From Table 1 it is clear that students who studied history at undergraduate level at university obtained far better marks in the history-oriented questions.

Table 1. Students’ knowledge of history-oriented questions Who or what are the following?

Louis Farrakhan Anne Frank Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Luther King Johannes Gutenberg Hippocrates Marco Polo John Maynard Keynes Dunkirk Romanovs Watergate Tet offensive Boston Tea Party Gettysburg Magersfontein Taung, 1924 Falkland, 1982 Rorke’s Drift Chernobyl, 1986 Sarajevo, 1914 Marshall Plan Vichy, 1940s

Students without history at Students university undergraduate university level level 19% 50% 44% 58% 38% 42% 56% 25% 31% 29% 58% 10% 29% 37% 46% 13% 48% 11% 52% 42% 19% 10%

with history at undergraduate 56% 67% 89% 89% 44% 67% 100% 44% 78% 89% 100% 11% 67% 44% 56% 56% 100% 11% 89% 67% 78% 44%

not for distribution free online preview only Higher-order skills (‘metaskills’) have been neglected by journalism schools and should get far more attention. These skills go hand in hand with reading habits, a sound general knowledge, and a high level of cultural literacy. In South Africa, journalism schools give some attention to two higher-order skills - problemsolving and critical thinking - but, as in American schools, other equally important higher-order skills are missing: examples are the development of ‘self-esteem, confidence, responsibility, initiative, learning strategies, self-motivation, cooperation, and adaptability - higher-order skills which make possible the effective use of practical trade skills’ (Grow, 1991:56). This has direct bearing on the individual student's self-direction (again the question of obtaining a self-initiated high standard of reading, general knowledge and cultural literacy, things journa-


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lism educators can merely touch on in formal courses). ‘A dependent person ... should not choose a career (like journalism) which demands a high degree of self-direction’ (Grow, 1991:65).8

Conclusion The amusement factor has clearly overwhelmed the concept of news presentation on television. This development, originating during the 1950s with the McCarthy hearings, has brought superficiality to news diffusion with the dramatic image and sound bites replacing in-depth analysis. This trend is also reflected in the cinema where movie themes are targeted at younger viewers whose cultural literacy has seriously deteriorated, with less being read and more audio-visual media preferred. The Internet as New News medium further enhances this trend towards what Katz calls the ‘bovine media culture’ (HotWired: August 1996). Extrapolating from the above, journalism teaching has inexorably become intertwined with and the victim of the illiterate cultural environment of the late twentieth century. Yet, for the media to become the informed informers of society again, certain standards will have to be set in the profession. A point of departure towards reaching that level will be the influence media educators will have on the historical knowledge and cultural literacy of their students, as well as better quality control by editors in ensuring that journalists are re-educated in fields of cultural literacy and history. Although this whole process starts at home and in schools long before these aspirant journalists reach journalism schools, it is in the latter's domain to make the point that ‘there ought to be an adversary relationship between what we do in class and what ‘TV babies’ watch on MTV’ (Burkhart, 1990:80). The introduction of an intensive, structured course of cultural literacy and general knowledge, with emphasis on applying it to the events of the time, has become a sine qua non for journalism schools today, in order to produce future journalists who can deal with this age of specialization.

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Hirsch, E.D., Kett, J.F. & Trefil, J. 1988. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kalb, B. 1995. The Press is AWOL. Columbia Journalism Review, March April:4. Katz, J. 1995. Beyond Broadcast Journalism. In: Hiebert, R.E., ed. Impact of Mass Media. New York: Longman. Katz, J. 1996. Is Bill Gates Really An Alien? HotWired. August 1996. WWW. Netizen.Com. Koff, D. & Von der Muhl, G. Political socialization in Kenya and Tanzania - a comparative analysis. In: C.C. Bell ed. Growth and change. Encino: Dickenson, pp. 126-148. Kotze, H.J. 1985. Mass media and the matriculant mind: a case study of political socialization in South Africa. Communicare, 4(2): 26-37. Kurtz, H. 1996. The Night Stalker. Columbia Journalism Review, May/June:65-68. Lain, L.B. 1986. Steps Toward a Comprehensive Model of Newspaper Readership. Journalism Quarterly, 63(1):69-74, 121. Larkin, E. & Grotta, G. 1977. The Newspaper as a Source of Consumer Information for Young Adults. Journal of Advertising, 6:5-10. Lexington. 1996. Old News ain’t beat yet. The Economist, May 18:56. Mansfield, H.C. 1988. Democracy and the Great Books - Straussianism, Democracy and Allan Bloom, II. The New Republic, (3) 820, 4 April:33-37. Milton, J. 1950. Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of Milton (ed. Cleanth Brooks). New York: The Modern Library. Minow, N.N. 1991. How Vast the Wasteland Now? New York: Gannett Foundation. Neustadt, R. 1981. Uses of history in public policy. Humanities, 2: 1-2. Newman, W.R. 1976. Patterns and recall among television viewers. Public Opinion Quarterly, 40(1): 115-123. Nolan, J. 1991. Effects of cuing familiar and unfamiliar acronyms in newspaper stories, an experiment. Journalism Quarterly, 68(1/2):188-194. Nussbaum, M. 1987. Undemocratic Vistas. The New York Review of Books, 34(17):20-26. O’Donnell, F.J. 1981. Is there a future in the study of the past? Humanities, 2: 3. Ortega Y Gasset, J. 1963. The revolt of the masses. London: Unwin. Parsons, P.F. 1985. The general knowledge void - ten minutes each week is effective. Journalism Educator, 40(1): 14-15. Patterson, O. 1980. Language, ethnicity and change, in S.G.D’Eloia ed. Toward a literate democracy: proceedings of the first Shaugnessy memorial conference, special edition of The Journal of Basic Writing III, 3 April. Poindexter, P. 1979. Daily newspaper non-readers: why they don’t read. Journalism Quarterly, 56(4): 764-770. Poole, D. 1989. Newspaper Reading and Sports Among Junior High School-Age Boys: An Exploratory Study, Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Nebraska. Postman, N. 1986. Amusing Ourselves to Death - Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin. Robinson, J.P. & Jeffers, L.W. 1979. The Changing Role of Newspapers in the Age of Television. Journalism Monographs, 63. Rorty, R. 1988. That Old-time Philosophy - Straussianism, Democracy, and Allan Bloom, I. The New Republic, (3) 820, 4 April:28-33. Rosav, I. 1977. Socialization to old age. London: University of California Press. Schama, S. 1992. In search of history’s muse. Dialogue. 97(3): 62-66. Schickel, R. 1992. How TV Failed to Get the Real Picture. Time, 11 May:27. Schweitzer, J.C. 1976. Comparison of Young Subscribers and Nonsubscribers. Journalism Quarterly, 53(2):287-293. Stacey, B. 1978. Political socialization in Western society. London: E. Arnold


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Eko: Globalisation and eclecticism

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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1): 25-40

Lyombe Eko

Jerry Springer and the Marlboro Man in Africa: globalisation and cultural eclecticism Abstract Despite its relative isolation from the global culture industry, telecommunications and mass communication centres and markets, Africa is buffeted by the winds of globalisation. Under World Bank and the IMF structural adjustment programs virtually all African countries privatised their telecommunications and mass media sectors, thus opening them up to Western multi-national corporate investors. Though there might be an impression that African culture is being inundated and destroyed by American mass mediated culture, it is argued that Africans tend to select only certain aspects of Western cultural idioms, Africanise them and use them to promote African cultural values. Thus, it is argued, globalisation has had positive effects on certain aspects of African culture.

not for distribution free online preview only Die winde van globalisering waai al meer oor Afrika en die vrees bestaan dat die vasteland deur veral Amerikaanse media-kulturele produkte oorspoel sal word. As voorbeeld hiervan geld die ontwikkeling van FM-stasies wat net musiek, veral rap, volgens die Amerikaanse formaat uitsaai. Daar is ook ‘n toename in gewilde Amerikaanse TV-programme soos The Jerry Springer Show en die 700 Club. Afrika ondervind vir die eerste keer ook ‘n groot toename in Amerikaanse produkte in TV- en ander media-advertensies. Dit geld veral vir drank- en sigaretadvertensies, soos dié van Marlboro. Die skrywer argumenteer dat al die invloede nie noodwendig sleg is nie, maar dat mense in Afrika op eklektiese wyse uit die aangebode mediamateriaal kies wat by Afrika-kultuur pas. Keywords: Africa, cultural eclecticism, globalisation, IMF, Jerry Springer, Marlboro Man, mass media, World Bank * Dr Lyombe Eko, [[email protected]], is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine, 5724 Dunn Hall, Orono, Maine 04469, USA.

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Globalisation - a word many love to hate Globalisation has become a word many people love to hate. The large crowds of students, workers, professional activists and anarchists who disrupted the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle, Washington, in 1999 were striking a blow against the monster of ‘globalisation’ which they claim leaves nothing but poverty, cultural impoverishment and economic degradation in its wake. Indeed, meetings of the Group of 8, World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international financial and trade institutions in cities ranging from Washington D.C. to Prague have been the subjects of intense anti-globalisation protests. Individuals, groups, organizations and institutions ranging from the Vatican to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) have been critical of globalisation in general and globalisation of the mass media in particular (Tinq, 2000). As the anti-globalisation demonstrations and critiques show, the term ‘globalisation’ has come to mean different things to different people. It is a catch-all expression, an organizing principle whose wide umbrella covers disparate ideological principles like differential power relations among nation-states, regions, cultures and civilizations, as well as economic, political, and cultural domination or hegemony. Therefore, globalisation is seen as the exploitation of the power differentials between the powerful countries and the powerless to the advantage of the powerful. Indeed, globalisation has been described as ‘hegemony without logic’ because it does not have a clear ideology and it does not exercise power for the purpose of guiding actions in specific directions (Bamyeh, 2000:64). The phenomenon of globalisation has also been defined as cultural politics and cultural economics expressed in common solidarities, habits, standards of behaviour, and norms. In short, a common, homogenous culture, which presupposes a common knowledge system, transmitted across vast distances by the transnational media and mass travel (Bamyeh, 2000:89). To many leftist intellectuals, globalisation is synonymous with wholesale Americanisation or westernisation of the world. Globalisation has become a byword for exploitation of cheap labour in the Third World by multi-national corporations to make very profitable consumer goods for the rich countries. It is thus the code word for wholesale homogenisation, uniformization or ‘generalization’ of global culture (Kroes, 1999; Meunier, 2000; Tehranian, 1999; Krasner, 1996; Berger, 1996; Rodrik, 1997, Giddens, 2000). Globalisation also includes concepts like environmentalism, economic, scientific, political and cultural cooperation between countries and regions. It also refers to co-dependencies, religious and faith-based relationships, transport, communications infrastructure and trade that for the most part, help to spread the interests of the powerful countries and regions (Bamyeh, 2000:64). According to the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), globalisation is a dangerous phenomenon. Unesco Director General, Koichiro Matsuura, has said that cultural goods and services - audiovisual



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products including the Internet - because they are both electronic and cultural, cannot be treated like any other goods. Therefore, flooding the Third World with ‘cultural products’ from the industrialized countries could lead to global cultural impoverishment, homogenisation and uniformization (Caramel and Laronche, 2000). Additionally, according to the French government, globalisation is Americanisation, or ‘Anglo-Saxon’ homogenisation of world culture, language and values (Meunier, 2000). This is because the most visible manifestations of cultural globalisation are American. They include the ubiquitous, ‘western’ information and communication technology, culture industry products (films, TV programs, music, videogames and software), Coca Cola, McDonald's, CNN, the Marlboro man, basketball, and so on. If one were to believe this perspective, globalisation, has the potential to change the world from ‘global village to global pillage’ (Giddens, 2000:34). At another level, globalisation has been presented as the result of inter-relationships between the international and domestic political and cultural environment. According to this perspective, globalisation occurs when national interests and institutions are structured in such a way that they become intertwined with international structures of power and authority. In such an environment, the national interests of the rich countries are in part a product of the international structures, institutions and processes (created and set in motion by them). These international structures, institutions and processes are in turn a product of state interest and identity (Wendt, 1992; Geske, 2000). In short, international institutions were set up by the rich countries to promote and defend their national and regional interests.

not for distribution free online preview only Globalisation and communications of scale

Ultimately then, globalisation of the mass media is manifested in a wide array of inseparable form and content variables – organization, structures, infrastructures, venues, control and access to all forms of telecommunications, mass media and information technology networks, the electromagnetic spectrum (airwaves), satellites systems, databases, as well as storage and retrieval systems (Bamyeh, 2000:132). Globalisation is possible in part because the countries, which control the communications infrastructure, also control the software that makes the system function. They also control the content that is produced and transmitted on this infrastructure. Globalisation therefore enables multi-national media conglomerates to achieve ‘communications of scale.’ These companies use their economic and political power and influence, to produce and distribute media content more cheaply and disseminate it to more parts of the world than less powerful countries or regions. One of the behemoths of mass media globalisation is CNN whose global reach enables it to provide programming that American and other viewers pay to subscribe to, virtually free of any charge to rebroadcasters in developing countries around the world. In Africa, one of CNN's first ventures on

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the continent was a deal with the Kenya Television Network (KTN) which granted the African station rights to rebroadcast CNN's 24 hour programming. Other African countries have followed suit and rebroadcast CNN programming. The United Nations, through its communications activities, as well as those of its specialized agencies, has been one of the major catalysts of globalisation. At its creation, the UN was viewed in part as a ‘communication operation of explicit global purpose’ (Lerner, 1976:50). During the period after World War II, the United Nations was conceptualised as an international forum of communication between the rich and poor countries of the world. Development communication, which was conceptualised in the Western countries and introduced into the developing countries by Western experts, was seen as the means of transforming the poor countries of the world, with their active participation and consent, into partners in transnational communication which the United States could influence (Lerner, 1976; Schramm, 1964). Thus, globalisation is in part, the product of the national interests of the rich and powerful countries and the international structures, institutions and processes created and set in motion by these countries. The aim of this article is to survey the impact of globalisation on the African media and to determine whether this phenomenon and its alleged consequence, cultural hegemony, have had a negative impact on Africa's mass media and cultures.

not for distribution free online preview only Globalisation and Africa

Despite its relative distance from the international telecommunications centres and markets, the African continent has not escaped the whirlwind of globalisation. Indeed, Africa is flooded by mass media content--with its inherent philosophy, values and worldviews--from several parts of the world, notably, the United States. A common characteristic of globalisation is the ability of single programs from a dominant cultural industry to simultaneously create fans in different languages and cultures across the globe. The ‘Jerry Springer Show’ on American cable television is a case in point. This program travels from its studios in downtown Chicago to international program markets like MIP-TV in Cannes, France, to audiences in Europe (Schlosser, 1999) and on to Africa. In the slums of Lagos, Nigeria, as well as other African cities, the ‘Jerry Springer Show ‘ serves as a window on America's free speech bedroom and public confession television culture. A few hundred miles southeast of Lagos, in the heart of the equatorial rain forest of Central Africa, lies Moyabi, Gabon. Moyabi is the home of the transmission centre of Africa NO. 1, Africa's most popular commercial FM and shortwave radio station. It is from the transmitters at Moyabi that some of the most popular American and European commercials for products ranging from cigarettes to automobiles are transmitted to millions of African listeners. Of the many Western alcohol and cigarette advertisements broadcast daily from Moyabi, the most


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captivating is the advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes; the larger-than-life Marlboro man rounding up cattle in the mythic American West and exhorting Africans, in a gravely-voiced, Parisian accented French, to ‘Come to Marlboro Country’ or to ‘Have a Marlboro.’ In the heart of West Africa lies what is probably one of the most inaccessible places on the globe, the ancient city of Timbuktu, Mali, on the edge of the Sahara desert. Timbuktu was one of the very first places in Africa where the United States government chose to ‘initiate’ Africa into the Internet under the auspices of the ‘Leland Initiative,’ the ‘United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Africa Global Information Infrastructure project.’ The Leland Initiative is aimed at fully connecting 20 selected African countries to the Internet to enable them to obtain the knowledge and efficiency necessary for sustainable development (USAID, 1995; Barlow, 1999). Have these and other manifestations of globalisation had a negative impact on African mass media and cultures?

Globalisation and cultural hegemony Globalisation is a controversial phenomenon because it is perceived as the vehicle for political, economic and cultural domination or hegemony. The concept of hegemony has been described as a consensual political and cultural relationship between a dominant class or culture and ‘subaltern’ or subordinate cultures or social groups in which the latter are subject to the initiatives and interests of the former. Since the subordinate class or culture gives its active consent to the relationship – for reasons of cultural prestige – the roles of the parties is not usually viewed as one of domination and coercion (Gramsci, 1996, 21, 91). Indeed, if people from the subaltern culture consume cultural products from the dominant culture, especially if it is from another country or region of the world, they can be said to ‘undergo the moral and intellectual hegemony of foreign intellectuals’ (Gramsci, 1996, 63). Since hegemony almost has power and a purpose, dominant political and cultural entities impose new values, worldviews and meanings that affect the transformed people at a psychological and cognitive level (Gramsci, 1985). If we apply this perspective to globalisation, it would seem that the process weakens the subaltern states and increases the power of the dominant ones who are best placed to adapt and exploit the opportunities it offers. Hegemony thus has political, economic and cultural dimensions (Forgacs & Nowell-Smith, 1985). According to this line of reasoning, globalisation and hegemony would be inextricably linked because the international culture industry of which the mass media are a part, are ideological structures aimed at preserving and maintaining the hegemony of the rich and powerful countries over the weak and poor countries (Gramsci, 1996, 52). Since hegemony is the political, cultural, economic and technological domination of the ‘developing’ countries by the industrialised countries with the consent and active participation of these developing


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countries, globalisation can be said to be the vehicle that spreads hegemony that spreads globalisation, in a circular fashion, at the regional and international levels.

Globalisation and hegemony in perspective: colonial antecedents For hundreds of years, the African continent has been under the colonial and neocolonial hegemony or domination of European and to a lesser extent, Arabic countries. Though colonialism took several forms, its most common characteristic was its attempt to eradicate African cultures, and transform Africans into shadows or poor imitations of the colonizing power. This was accomplished through melding the mosaic of cultures within each colonial empire into a single, identifiable Europeanised or Arabised cultural model which looked to Europe and Arabia for inspiration. This is the foundation of contemporary globalisation and hegemony. French colonial policy in Africa is a case in point. France had a grand assimilationist colonial policy in Africa. The aim of this policy was to assimilate and transform all Africans in ‘French’ colonial territories into black Frenchmen and women. To accomplish this goal, France had to eliminate all African cultures and assimilate all Africans into French culture, with Parisian accents to match (Betts, 1961). One of the roles of the French colonial press, which was strictly controlled from Paris, was to advance the colonial assimilationist policy through the promotion of the ‘Frenchification’ of Africans. Broadcasting in the French, British and Portuguese colonies were no different. Post-independence broadcasting in Africa was thus a mishmash of models inherited from European colonial governments. From the moment they obtained independence from their European colonial overseers in the late 1950's and early 1960's, virtually all-African countries were connected to the nascent international communication system. The first satellite broadcasts of an international event the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, showed the handful of newly independent African governments the potentials of instantaneous international telecommunications. Their desire to belong to the family of nations led them to join the International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (Intelsat), the US-based organization which controls virtually all international non-military satellite communications in the world. Most countries built expensive international communication satellite tracking stations, and linked their capital cities to the rest of the world. However, communications within countries was tenuous at best. In spite of some improvements, that situation continues to this day.



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Globalisation and cultural hegemony: television programming Globalisation has made itself felt on African television. Stations transmit hundreds of hours of American, European and Asian programming annually. The music scene is not much different. At first glance, it would seem that the African mass media are the picture of globalisation and cultural hegemony. Movie theatres, television and radio programming in most parts of the continent leave the casual visitor with the impression that Africa is perhaps the most ‘globalised’ continent on the planet. In the course of a single week, the casual observer can watch Jesse Ventura (now Governor of Minnesota) on World Wrestling Federation (WWF) reruns in Kenya, ‘Larry King Live’ in Ghana and several other countries, rebroadcasts of French television programs in Francophone Africa, reruns of ‘Football Made in Germany, ‘Dallas,’ ‘Dynasty,’ and the ‘Cosby Show,’ in French or Portuguese. Also present are Brazilian and Mexican telenovelas dubbed into English by Latin actors speaking with Latin-inflected ‘American’ accents. Action-packed Chinese martial arts films from Hong Kong and Hindi melodramas from Bombay, India, add to the mix. In addition, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, American popular music, notably rap, blares from radios, public transport vehicles and nightclubs. International broadcasters like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Voice of America (VOA), and Radio France Internationale (RFI), Radio Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany), and others have expanded their African services to include direct broadcasting by satellites, relays, rebroadcasts and the Internet. In addition, several African countries now allow the BBC and Radio France, which who used to broadcast only on short-wave radio to Africa, to broadcast directly to African audiences on the much clearer Frequency Modulation (FM) band. Additionally, Cable News Network International (CNNI) is relayed or rebroadcast in a number of English-speaking African countries round the clock. On the surface, one can easily conclude that Africa has become the willing victim of American or Western hegemony. The reality is more complex.

not for distribution free online preview only The uses of globalisation: African cultural eclecticism To some researchers who have paid brief visits to one or two of the 53 countries of the continent, African radio and television systems are the picture of ‘cultural imperialism’ and hegemony run riot. Indeed, some have described African television stations as vectors of cultural imperialism and domination (Land, 1992; Bourgault, 1995). The question is whether the visible presence of non-African media content on the mostly government-controlled African mass media scene has had a negative impact on the cultures of the continent. In other words, how does globalisation manifest itself in African mass media and culture? Has it transformed African countries into victims of cultural and corporate hegemony?

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In order to answer these questions, we need to look at the nature of cultural encounters in Africa. From a historical perspective, when cultures or civilizations encounter each other, they assimilate elements from each other and create a melange or mixture, which profoundly affects both parties. At the end of the day, none of the cultures stay the same. The African continent is replete with examples of this phenomenon. For thousands of years, African cultures have resisted attempts by other cultures to phagocyte or swallow them. This has been done through the practice of cultural eclecticism. This is the fusion or coalescence of the underlying native cultures of Africa, with elements of the different foreign cultures encountered, according to their presumed usefulness. Cultural eclecticism is most evident in the Swahili language. One of the most widely spoken languages in Africa, the Bantu grammatical structure of Swahili is combined with Arabic numerals and vocabulary, as well as vocabulary from a dozen other African, European, Asian and Middle Eastern languages. Swahili developed out of the melange of African and Arab cultures during the era of the slave trade. Cultural eclecticism is also evident in the different versions of African Creoles, pidgins, and trade languages or lingua franca, each of which is in effect an expressive hodgepodge of European, Asian and African languages. Africa is therefore not necessarily a victim of American cultural hegemony. The continent has learned to use foreign cultural influences to its cultural advantage. Kroes (1999) submits that in the field of advertising and other areas of the mass media, not only has Europe and the rest of the world ‘cracked’ American cultural codes and can read them flawlessly, several countries of the world have appropriated these codes and submerged them into their native cultural idioms. The result is cultural transformation of American messages and values, that is to say, a re-conceptualisation, re-semanticisation, hybridisation or creolisation of the messages reaching different audiences across national and cultural borders. Indeed, most countries actively select bits and pieces of American culture which fit their cultural frames and use them to create new cultural spaces. According to Kroes (1999:3) American culture is like Lego which different countries and cultures use to construct or reconstruct ever-changing meaningful structures: ‘...American culture washes across the globe. It does so in disentangled bits and pieces, for others to recognize, pick up and rearrange into a setting expressive of their own individual identities or identities they share with peer groups.’ Indeed, rather than submerge local cultures and identities into a homogeneous, Americanised global culture, globalisation has revived local cultural identities in different parts of the world as it weakens nation states and the nationalism they inspired (Giddens, 2000). In this respect, globalisation has done more to foster African-style cultural eclecticism than previous historical movements like colonialism. This is because globalisation is not a one-way affair which serves only the interests of the rich countries of the world. Indeed, even the United States government has expressed concern about certain aspects of globalisation, notably, the consequences of the globalisation of American telecommuni-



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cations infrastructure through transnational mergers and acquisitions by nonAmerican companies. The American Congress has had to deal with the thorny issue of foreign government and private ownership of companies which own or operate large sections of America's telecommunications infrastructure, effectively putting them out of American legal jurisdiction. In a Congressional hearing called to address the issue, an FBI lawyer stated that when control of U.S. telecommunications and data is located outside the jurisdiction of the United States, American national security interests may be at stake because the U.S. government may not be able to carry out lawful surveillance (Testimony of Larry Parkinson, 2000; Testimony of William Kennard, 2000). There has not been a clash between African and Western cultures as a result of globalisation because the most serious clashes are those that take place within rather than across cultures (Bamyeh, 2000). African cultures have been affected more by political instability, intolerance, and home-grown elitism than by globalisation. In addition, though transnational communication could be the translation of already existing economic and political imbalances between rich and poor countries, the new international information disorder that came with globalisation is not necessarily the result of political, economic or cultural coercion. It may indeed be a ‘product of thousands of small negotiations and organized voluntaristic interventions, themselves made possible by globalisation and the weakening of the state.’ (Bamyeh, 87). The sum total of these negotiations is cultural eclecticism. This historical posture is evident in three areas of contemporary African culture, namely music, television programming, and the Internet.

not for distribution free online preview only African cultural eclecticism: the case of music

Culture is a dynamic force that must be constantly renewed and reinvigorated if it is to thrive. Because of their insatiable desire for new experiences, new sounds, and fresh, exotic content and styles--in short, new cultural 'blood'--dominant cultures reach out to other cultures, cross-pollinate them, and are cross-pollinated in turn. Indeed, the dominant cultures are affected by the less powerful countries to a greater extent than is usually supposed. This trend has been accelerated by globalisation and the interconnectedness of the world. From an African perspective, ‘World Music’ is a case in point. Indeed, globalisation is the engine that drives the ‘World Music’ phenomenon that has taken the international music scene by storm. African music in all its forms is one of the pillars of world music. Today's, internationally known ‘authentic’ South African dance music style, ‘Township Jive,’ is greatly influenced by 1940's and 1950's American jazz. Township Jive is traditional African rhythms played on western musical instruments, and incorporating Americanised African rhythms, syncopations, swing, and African-American rhythm and Blues. This irresistible rhythmic melange was further enriched by the ‘Mpaquanga’ rhythms which originated from the interior of the continent in places like Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and

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Maseru, Lesotho. Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and other African musicians then took this ‘exotic’ blend of music to America in the 1960s and 1970s. African music reached mainstream America through musicians like Manu Dibango, Masekela, and above all, Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Graceland album, which prominently features the music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and other African musicians. Today, thanks to globalisation, African groups like Ladysmith Black Mambazo are known around the world and give concerts from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Kyoto, Japan. Indeed, the distinctive harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo have also graced the albums of Dolly Patton and musicians in other countries. Ladysmith Black Mambazo albums have been nominated for Grammy Awards several times. Other African musicians who have used Western musical instruments or idioms to enrich African music and make it a dominant part of World Music include Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and King Sonny Ade of Nigeria; Kanda Bongoman, Tabu Ley, and Lokua Kanza of Congo/Kinshasa, Manu Dibango of Cameroon, Youssou Ndour of Senegal and many others. Rap, a musical genre which has conquered the world, has its roots in Africa's bardic musical tradition. Some leading rap musicians from the Caribbean to Africa have made their mark on the music. Indeed, the leading rapper in France is MC Solaar, an immigrant from Chad in West Africa. Globalisation therefore gives the traditionally colonized and dominated countries a chance to sell their cultures in the global marketplace.

not for distribution free online preview only Cultural eclecticism: the case of television programming

Despite the eclectic programming on most African television stations, there is scant evidence that Africa is the victim of American or Western cultural hegemony. The majority of Africans in the countryside do not have access to television. Furthermore, Africans have proved to be very adept at cultural eclecticism or recontextualisation and recombination of outside cultures. For years, they have used American and other Western cultural codes and idioms to give new perspectives and forms to African culture. This phenomenon is present throughout the continent. One of the most notable uses of American cultural idioms and techniques to serve African cultural needs and promote African values takes place in Kenya. In the 1980s and 1990s the most popular program on the government-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) was a Swahili language situation comedy--a typical American genre--called Vitimbi. Welcome Kenya Limited, a branch of a British multinational company, sponsored the program. The weekly program started with this sponsorship announcement in Swahili, ‘Vitimbi, brought to you by Welcome Kenya Limited, makers of 'Strike' the spray that gets rid of ants, cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies and other insects, fast!’ Thereafter, the actors of Vitimbi would act out a humorous commercial skit full of double meanings about a killer cockroach that is neutralized by ‘Strike’. The hour-long show, a skilful


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assemblage of improvised dialogue, deliberate Swahili grammatical mistakes and mispronunciations, over-acting, off-colour humour in Swahili slang, and African sayings and proverbs, would hold the audience spell-bound until another Welcome Kenya Limited commercial featuring the same actors on the same set with the same sponsorship message, would signal to the audience that the show was over. Vitimbi is an example of conceptualisation of an American cultural idiom, the televised situation comedy, complete with a multinational corporate sponsor, in an African cultural framework. Indeed, a street patois called ‘Sheng,’ (short for Swahili/English) a mixture of Swahili and American English, developed among the young people in Nairobi, Mombasa and other urban areas (to the dismay of Swahili and English teachers). Some people saw Sheng as the child of the union between CNN (which was being rebroadcast 24 hours a day in Nairobi) and Vitimbi. Other African broadcasters which recontextualized American cultural idioms and used them to propagate African values and cultures include: Uganda Television (UTV) whose successful show ‘The City Game’ satirized the country's Westernised urban elite; and Nigerian Television Authority's (NTA) situation comedy, ‘The Village Headmaster’ which routinely dealt with subjects like polygamy, corruption, Westernisation, and cultural alienation in situation comedy format. Additionally, the globalised nature of the mass media has given African entrepreneurs an opportunity to become players in the international communication marketplace. One of the most successful African-led ventures is WorldSpace, a direct broadcast satellite radio service which broadcasts twenty-five channels of digital programming on an African satellite, AfriStar, to the continent and the Middle East. WorldSpace is a joint venture between an African entrepreneur and several European, American and Japanese companies. WorldSpace broadcasts, which use MP3 technology, come in a multiplicity of languages including Swahili and Arabic (Buda, 1999).

not for distribution free online preview only Globalisation a hedge against censorship One of the positive consequences of globalisation is the multiplication of news channels and information sources ranging from direct broadcast satellites to the Internet. In such an environment, governments which had a track record of censoring the mass media find it impossible to monopolize the channels of communication and to eliminate objectionable speech. For example, the multiplicity of communication channels and alternate media outlets rendered the censorship of the military government in Nigeria useless (Eribo, 1997). Indeed, whenever governments arrest or detain journalists on the African continent, the news quickly gets to the country and the rest of the world through the Internet.

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New media, old realities The Internet is a relatively new medium in Africa. However, its influence is being felt in all countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe. The first African countries became connected to the Internet in 1993. Since then, all countries have constructing their own ‘webs’ or networks and connected them to the Internet. As a new medium, the Internet has spurred new technologies, laws, as well as political and economic activities in Africa, and an Internet culture is slowly developing in Africa's urban areas (Barlow, 1999). From Dakar, in the West, to Nairobi, in the East, and from Cairo in the North to Cape Town in the South, small, privately owned Internet cyber cafés and ‘i-Kiosks’ have sprung up in virtually all main African cities. These electronic palaver trees are usually very busy. Due to limited bandwidth, electronic mail is the most popular Internet function in Africa. For a modest fee, Africans can send and receive e-mail to relatives and friends around the world from one of these Internet kiosks. In addition, there are tens of African listservs, bulletin boards, and electronic discussion groups on the Internet. Africans living outside of the continent generally set up these worldwide fora. Discussions on these fora take place in tens of African languages ranging from Amharic to Zulu. Though most of these discussion groups are hosted on servers based in the United States or Europe, Africans in Africa who have access to the Internet are joining these discussion groups. It has therefore become very easy for news and information about countries, regions or ethnic groups to travel instantaneously from anywhere in the world to the village or community level. Eritrea, Africa's newest nation, which emerged after a 30-year civil war with Ethiopia, had one of the first online discussion groups. It was set up in 1993, the year Eritrea got its independence. Indeed, the nation of Eritrea was virtually ‘born’ on the Internet (Rude (1996). By 1996, about 500 Eritreans from every continent belonged to this online discussion group which dealt with issues ranging from the draft constitution of the emerging nation to women's rights. The online group has also sponsored or worked together on several projects that benefited the people of the new nation. Indeed, many of the African Internet discussion groups are used to raise funds from Africans abroad for development or cultural projects in specific African villages. Many African political and traditional rulers have used e-mail discussion groups to post messages to political, ethnic or linguistic communities scattered in cyberspace. According to the French-based African magazine, Jeune Afrique, where Internet access exists in remote areas like Ziguinchor, in the war-torn Casamance region of Senegal, e-mail is the only link to the rest of the world. Villagers line up to send or receive e-mail from relatives in neighbouring countries or other parts of the world. The i-kiosk in the Casamance, Zignet, is a private cyber café which has only one computer terminal. Access time is therefore strictly limited.



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The utility of these e-mail channels is that they by-pass government gatekeepers (Ouazani, 1999). The Internet in general and electronic mail in particular, has changed the practice of journalism in Africa since it is being used for newsgathering and reporting. For many African newspapers, the World Wide Web is a showcase, an outlet where journalists, cartoonists, caricaturists and comic strip artists, who have had a brush with the law, or have either been banned, censored or jailed, can present their work. In the early days of the Internet, some African governments showed signs of fear of this new free speech space and tried to control it. However, techniques like mirror sites, e-mail message attachments and remailing from generic servers around the world have rendered government controls ineffective. Newspapers which are censored or whose reporters get arrested, quickly post the offending information on the Internet and the international human rights community quickly condemns the government in question. When Cameroonian journalist and publisher Pius Njawe was jailed for publishing a story about the health status of the President of Cameroon, the news of his arrest and imprisonment was picked up by the major news agencies. Human rights groups quickly denounced the Cameroon government, and web pages dedicated to Njawe's release soon appeared on the Internet. The clandestine column he wrote in his prison cell was smuggled out and published in his newspaper and other media outlets around the world. Njawe was released as a result of international pressure on the Cameroon government (Ingram, 1998; Njawe, 1998).

not for distribution free online preview only African culture in the Western media

Finally, since globalisation is not a one-way street, the United States and the ‘West’ have not been immune from African cultural influences. Beside large African American populations whose very presence infuses African culture into the American mainstream in subtle ways, African arts and cultures have influenced Western arts, artists, and cultural idioms and motifs from Pablo Picasso to Christian Dior luxury perfume advertisements. Christian Dior and other luxury goods manufacturers incorporate African aesthetics, themes, styles, motifs and looks in their advertisements and products. The latest Christian Dior perfume image is the long-necked Sudanese look. European models on this advertisements come complete with simulated Sudanese-style neck-lengthening metal rings. In addition, Africa has served as a backdrop for famous American movies from ‘The African Queen’ to ‘The Lion King.’ Western multi-national entertainment conglomerates like Disney have, through movies like ‘The Lion King,’ and African theme parks, led to cultural cross-pollination and the spread of African idioms and expressions in the West. Today, evocative African words like Safari, Savannah, Serengeti, Simba, Sahara, Rafiki, Congo, Timbuktu, Asante and others, have become part of American commercial and cultural lingo. African

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fashion models and actors have featured prominently in the Western mass media for the first time in non-stereotypical roles. The Ladysmith Black Mambazo group provides the ‘exotic’ vocals in Life Savers candy advertisements, Masai warriors in traditional regalia sell Visa cards, and elephants from the Serengeti sell Snickers candy on American Television. Additionally, Africa's wildlife and landscapes serve as the background for commercials ranging from toothpaste to sport utility vehicles (Taylor, 2000). In addition, globalisation of the American mass media and the multiplication of channels have created more opportunities for viewing programs about Africa or from Africa. Globalisation has indeed made African culture part of the global culture. French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1947) described Africa's cultural eclecticism realistically and succinctly. His picture of African consumption of Western, particularly French culture, and Africa's intellectual contribution to Western culture fits this age of globalisation. Sartre (1947:188-189) said that for Africans: Culture is a tool; don't think that they've chosen ours... The truth is that the blacks are trying to get in touch with one another through an alien cultural world that others have imposed upon them. They have to retailor this ready-made suit of clothing. Everything, even the syntax, hampers them and restricts them, and yet, they have learned to make use of even the tool's shortcomings. An alien language lives inside them and robs them of their thought. But inwardly, they turn against this theft, they master inwardly this European chitchat, and finally, by letting the language betray them, they put their stamp on it...Each black (African) who tries to depict himself with our words and myths is a little new blood circulating in this old body (French culture).

not for distribution free online preview only Conclusion Globalisation has definitely affected African cultures. However, it has not done so in ways that fit the consensual domination thesis of hegemonic theory. For thousands of years, African cultures have resisted attempts to eradicate them by practicing cultural eclecticism. This is the fusion or coalescence of the underlying native cultures of Africa with elements of the different foreign cultures with which Africans have interacted, according to their presumed usefulness. African cultural resistance through adaptation of a superficial protective resemblance to the languages and cultures of colonialists and neo-colonialists does not necessarily amount to cultural hegemony. The position of this article is that globalisation has not had an entirely negative impact on the African continent because 1) at the international level, it has enabled Africans to produce a lot of cultural and musical content that is the cornerstone of the World Music movement, and 2) globalisation has provided Afri-


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can producers many communication idioms which they have used in an eclectic fashion, to promote African cultures and values, and 3) globalisation has provided global communication channels which have enabled Africans to communicate better, transcend the bounds of geography, and circumvent political repression and censorship, and 4) globalisation has made African aesthetics and idioms acceptable in Western societies. When we realize that Africans toast their friends and colleagues in cocktail parties in the city, and pour libations to their ancestors in the village days or even hours later, it is clear that the ubiquitous trappings of mediated Western culture are superficial protective resemblances that are part of the duality of African life.

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Commerce Committee 9/7/00. Text from: Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony. Available from: Congressional Universe. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. Krasner, S. 1985. Structural conflict: The Third World against Global liberalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kroes, R. 1999 American Empire and Cultural Imperialism: A View from the receiving end. Diplomatic History, 23, 463-478. Land, M. 1992. Ivoirien television, willing vector of cultural imperialism. The Howard Journal of Communication, 43, 10-27. Lerner, D. 1976. Is International Persuasion Sociologically feasible? In Ronald McLaurin, Carl Rosenthal & Sarah Skillings Eds. The Art and Science of psychological operations: Case studies of military application, vol. 1, pp. 47-52. Meunier, S. 2000. The Hegemonic Hamburger. Wilson Quarterly, 24, 120-121. Njawe, P. 1998, May. Letter from Cell No.15. World Press Review. 45, 18. Palmer, A. 1997. Reinventing the Democratic Press in Benin. In Festus Eribo and William Jong-Ebot. Press Freedom and Communication in Africa pp.243-261. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press. Ouazani, C. 1999, July14. Casamance: Dr ‘le de ‘Zignet.’ Casamance: Funny ‘Zignet.’ Jeune Afrique, 1957, p. 38. Parkinson, L. General Counsel, FBI ‘Testimony on Foreign Telecommunications Ownership, Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee 9/7/00. Text from: Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony. Available from: Congressional universe. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. Rodrik, D. 1997. Has globalisation gone too far? Washington DC: American University Press. Rude, J. 1996. Birth of a Nation in Cyberspace. The Humanist, 56, 17 22. Sartre, J-P. 1947. Presence noir Black presence . In James M. Edie Ed. The Writings of JeanPaul Sartre Vol.2 Selected Prose. Pp. 187-189. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Schramm, W. 1964. The mass media and national development. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press. Schlosser, J. 1999, July 12. Springer Pulls a Leno in England. Broadcasting & Cable, 129, 61. Taylor, T. 2000, Summer. World Music in Television Ads. American Music, 18. 162-193. Tehranian, M. 1999. Global Communication and world Politics: Domination, development, and discourse. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Tinq, H. 2000, June 3. Le Vatican reclame une Ethique de l'information. The Vatican demands an ethic of information. Le Monde. USAID 1995). USAID Leland Initiative: Africa Global Information Infrastructure Project. Visited February 21, 2001. Wendt, A. 1992. Anarchy is what states make of it: The social structure of power politics. International Organization, 46, 391-425.


Berkowitz & Nossek: Myths and news narratives

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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):41-56

Dan Berkowitz & Hillel Nossek

Myths and news narratives: towards a comparative perspective of news Abstract Comparative research across cultures provides a fruitful terrain for research into myths and narratives that are embedded in news content. The study of news as myth or narrative helps to examine the enduring values that a culture tells about itself. This perspective suggests that news is a social construction, but it also suggests that news amounts to an ongoing telling and retelling of familiar stories with a relatively consistent set of themes, actors and moral lessons that link with the broad, common beliefs of a dominant ideology. This study offers a nexus of structuralist and ethnographic approaches that creates a conceptual complement for the above-mentioned kind of research. Following a conceptual discussion, the article addresses methodological considerations and offers a scheme for conducting research with a cross-cultural research team.

not for distribution free online preview only Vir geslagte lank word nuus, selfs sogenaamde objektiewe, feitelike nuus, deur mediamense en mediagebruikers as ‘stories’ bestempel, dus iets wat eintlik van alle waarheid onbloot is – ‘n blote storie of stukkie fiksie. Dat daar nog nie juis uitvoerig navorsing oor hierdie voor-die-hand-liggende teenstrydigheid gedoen is nie, is een van die interessanthede van die joernalistiek. Die skrywers volg ‘n interessante weg om meer lig op die onderwerp te werp deur mediastories met mites te vergelyk en stel voor dat sekere navorsingsmetodes in die verband gebruik word. Keywords: Comparative research, cross-cultural, myths, news, structuralist and ethnographic approaches * Dan Berkowitz, [[email protected]], School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa USA 52242, Tel: (319) 335-5844; Fax: (319) 3355210;. Hillel Nossek, [[email protected]], The New School of Media Studies, College of Management, 9 Shoshana Persitz St., Tel-Aviv, Israel, Tel: (972) 3- 604-1952; Fax: (972)-35444576;. This article is based on a paper presented in the International Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at the 2000 Annual Convention, Phoenix, AZ.

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The story of news as myth The study of news as myth or narrative helps to examine the enduring values that a culture tells about itself. This perspective suggests that news is a social construction, but it also suggests that news amounts to an ongoing telling and retelling of familiar stories with a relatively consistent set of themes, actors and moral lessons that link with the broad, common beliefs of a dominant ideology (Bird & Dardenne, 1988; Hall, 1982). News myths are frequently studied through structuralist approaches that follow from the semiological tradition. Typically, they link specific narrative elements to their meaning and function in the larger mythical scheme (Barthes, 1972; 1977; Manning & Cullum-Swan, 1998). This type of research provides a strong theoretical framework with regard to meaning and interpretation. However, its methodological dimensions are more abstract and typically, not spelled out in a systematic way - the reader must accept an interpretation of a text largely on faith (Schudson, 1989). This article addresses the latter concern by arguing for a hybrid methodology that incorporates elements drawn from ethnography (Altheide, 1996). In addition, a comparative analysis of the same events (or news texts) provides a means for researchers to work cross-culturally within the same conceptual boundaries. That is, by comparing coverage of the same series of occurrences across news content from two or more cultures, researchers can begin to see the distinctions that define each culture’s myths, thereby illuminating what might be more, or less transparent in an analysis of news content from only one cultural dimension. We begin with an overview of the concepts of news myths and narratives, including a contrast with the idea of news frames. The section includes a discussion of the structuralist approach to news analysis that is frequently used in narrative analysis research. Next, we outline some key considerations for systematic analysis of news content from the ethnographic perspective. This is followed by a suggested research scheme for the examination of myths and news narratives from a comparative perspective.

not for distribution free online preview only A rationale for the approach Despite a long tradition of research, terms such as myths, narratives, and frames have not been dealt with in clearly defined terms. Most central to this article, is the concept of ‘myth’. Barthes (1972:131) refers to myth as ‘stolen language’ that transforms meaning into form. Slotkin (1992:5) gives the term an explicitly ideological twist by explaining that myths are grounded in a society’s history and that they carry specific symbolic power through persistent application to social narratives over time. By myth, then, we refer not to the notion of falsehood, but rather to the idea of a cultural story, an enduring yet dynamic self-conception about some aspect of


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society and its social institutions. Myths tend to be formulaic, that is, they often repeat the interpretation that a culture makes of itself, with common central actors and predictable outcomes (Lule, 1995b; Silverstone, 1988). Myths may bear similarities across time and across cultural boundaries, but they may not span these boundaries meaningfully in an intact form. Thus, myths not only gain meaning from the texts within which they are placed, but also from the contexts in which they appear. Cultural meaning is the key. The concept of news narrative is similar to that of myth, but the literature in this field tends to emphasize the plots that are told and the functions of the actors who play them out, thereby placing secondary importance on their symbolic, cultural meaning (Berger, 1997; Bird & Dardenne, 1988). Most importantly, narratives are stories that are told in a linear fashion with a basic structure that survives across various renditions. Like myths, narratives span cultures and endure across time, and they too require some adaptation in doing so. Levi-Strauss (1963) believes that everyday experience could be transformed into myths. To him, myths are similar to language systems that are built on a set of codes that, even when they are not obvious, will still be present. Levi-Strauss suggests that mythologies depend upon ‘binary oppositions’, a dual-term for conflict of opposites such as hero/villain or strong/weak.. The notions of myth and narrative can also be understood by contrasting them with the concept of ‘frame’. The essential idea behind framing is that frames serve to highlight and amplify certain aspects of a ‘perceived reality’, adding emphasis to a portion rather than presenting the whole (Entman, 1993; Gamson, 1992). Rather than serving as an enduring cultural story like myths and narratives, frames work more to capture a single aspect of a myth and bring that aspect out at a specific point in time. For example, in Gitlin’s (1980) study of the Students for a Democratic Society, media frames focused on the demonstrations and violence of the organization to the detriment of the group’s issue positions. Thus, frames are ephemeral, shaping the way that myths and narratives are told; they do not possess content on their own. Myth, then, is a form of communication that is publicly produced and circulated within a culture. A basic myth or a meta-narrative is a dramatic story, real or fictitious, that describes and lends meaning to initial stages of a given human collective (Nossek, 1994; Sivan, 1991). Furthermore, myth according to Drummond (1984:27) is ‘primarily a metaphorical device for telling people about themselves, about other people, and about the complex world of natural and mechanical objects which they inhabit’. Overall, European scholars working with myth tend to draw on a relatively precise set of terms, while those from the American cultural tradition draw on these ideas in a more general manner (Bird & Dardenne, 1988). For the purpose of this article, we might define myth as a text in which dominant values are reproduced in narratives that are recognized by a specific culture. We consider myth and narrative analysis as devices applied to news in the mass media in general and to the coverage of terrorist events in particular. Thus, the


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analysis of press coverage of Patricia Hearst’s kidnapping showed that the story was portrayed according to the news norm: ‘White girl captured by the Indians’ (Mechling, 1979). The story of the Entebbe rescue of a hijacked Air France airliner was portrayed by the American press as a Western (Lawrence and Timberg, 1979), and the stories of the Achille Lauro and the TWA 847 hijackings were related as stories of sacrifice in the Christian tradition (Lule, 1988a, 1988b). Within the United States context, a common mythical framework is that of taming the frontier, of domesticating ‘the savages’, and of a bonanza of economic opportunity for those who live there (Slotkin, 1992). The men and women on this cultural frontier lead a simpler, more natural life, and they become heroes through their conquests in the new land. Surrounding this myth is a philosophy of ‘liberal thinking’ that values progress while liberating the native population from tyranny, discrimination, and its own ignorance. Although violence may be a necessary evil for accomplishing this progress, in the end, the myth demonstrates that the sacrifice will ultimately produce regeneration and a better future for the nation. Whether through films, books, or the news media, the country often tells its own story through this American cultural legend. In addition, American leaders draw on this mythical framework for casting their own policies and actions into a story resonant with the beliefs of the mythically faithful. Thus Kennedy spoke of the ‘New Frontier’; Reagan cast much of his presidency as if he were in the Wild West, riding off into the golden sunset. Other cultures also build ongoing cultural meanings into their news. In Israel, for example, the meta-narrative of Zionism as the main force for the revival of the Jewish state, is a basic underlying element in its news culture (Herman, 1979; Liebman, 1978; Liebman & Don Yehiya, 1983). At the same time, the Holocaust as a historical event, played a central role in the meta-narrative of the decision to declare an independent Israel and is a major issue in Israeli culture. The meta-narrative that places Zionism in a binary opposition to the Holocaust has been told and retold in times of national crises such as wars and also during terrorist attacks (Nossek, 1994). In each case, these narratives helped create cultural continuity (Eisenstadt,1989).

not for distribution free online preview only Methodological considerations: a background for research Our approach draws on both the traditions of structuralism and ethnography, with ethnographic ideas filling in the process implied by the theoretical elements of structuralism. These elements are shown by the box in Figure 1 with the dotted lines.


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Structural theory for analysis of myths and narratives begins with clear theoretical assumptions, but methodological details tend to be unspoken. The hybrid approach with ethnography makes methodological details explicit and systematic, and enhances trustworthiness of the findings. Figure 1: Structuralist Research Process

Theories of semiotics and literary analysis. Research questions. Study data

Methodological decisions. Interpretations. Ethnographic methodologies. Qualitative and quantitative data collection and interpretation.

Narrative themes. Mythical heroes.

not for distribution free online preview only Some of the notions that appear in the middle box include extended immersion in the research setting, interaction among members of the research team throughout the project, emergent research design based on theory, and inductive ways of developing findings and conclusions. Although we rely chiefly on qualitative methodologies, we do not rule out quantitative methods when the results could add a useful perspective to the analysis. In the big picture, we portray the research team as spending protracted time in a study setting (here, news content), and conducting virtual participant observation of news flow and content at that site. This ethnographic approach is especially important for comparative, cross-cultural research, because the study focus is on something generally unseen (as is most ideological content), but also something that is not intentionally incorporated by its producers (Hall, 1982). Not only does society take its cultural myths and narratives for granted, but journalists produce and re-produce them while believing that their work is accomplished largely within the paradigm of journalistic objectivity (Berkowitz, 1997; Hackett, 1984). For a researcher, being a member of a particular culture brings that same challenge. In the end, seeing the unseen requires both an interactive, crosscultural research team and the reflexivity and open-endedness that are common to ethnographic research. It is important to point out that the purpose here is not to make yet another argument about the merits of qualitative analysis over quantitative approaches. Nor is this an argument demonstrating preference for one qualitative method over another. Instead, the driving force becomes resonant of the methodology followed in the research questions under study (Hansen, 1998). That is, some aspects of some methods offer a better fit to questions than others, and the strengths of one may

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balance the drawbacks of another. Here, the central concern becomes, ‘What does it take to see cultural myths embedded into news content within a cross-cultural, comparative study?’ In contrast to the structuralist approach of analysing news as a myth that emphasizes the researcher’s individual reading of a text, this article argues for an ethnographic approach built on emergent design, qualitative (and potentially, quantitative) analysis and reflexivity among the researchers (Altheide, 1996; Lindlof, 1995). This is a theoretically guided approach based on the idea that cultural myths can neither be seen by a predetermined scheme (as in content analysis), nor can they be detected by a researcher of news content during a single exposure. In addition, because researchers themselves are culturally bound, this approach calls for an intercultural team working together to help detect meanings below the surface. This section first considers what is necessary to develop a rigorous, systematic analysis strategy that can be considered trustworthy. By trustworthy, we mean that the researchers have made an earnest effort to design the study and analyse the data in a way that would produce justifiable conclusions. We choose ‘trustworthy’, rather than a term such as ‘reliable’ or ‘valid’ that might correspond to a positivistic paradigm of inquiry (Babbie, 1986; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This is because we believe that although myths carry a cultural commonalty, their specific interpretations and presentations are somewhat open-ended, so that to certain degree, they rely on the personal experiences of the researchers (Lindlof, 1995). From that perspective, intersubjective agreement is more important than aiming for objective truth, since the eventual outcome of research represents one of many possible social constructions (Altheide & Johnson, 1998; Babbie, 1986). Hansen, Cottle, Negrine, and Newbold (1998) suggest that although traditional quantitative content analysis may not do a good job of addressing some research questions, its basic framework can be adapted to a qualitative approach. After reviewing several schemes for conducting traditional content analysis, Hansen et al identified six basic areas of methodological consideration. These include:

not for distribution free online preview only • • • • •

Defining the research problem. Selecting the media content and drawing an appropriate sample. Defining analytic categories. Constructing a coding schedule (or code sheet). Conducting pilot tests for the analysis scheme and addressing reliability concerns. • Preparing and analysing data. Although the strength of the scheme for studying news mythologies lies in its systematic nature, its drawbacks would be in dealing with the specifics of defining analytic categories, building coding sheets and making a concrete assessment of code reliability. In addition, traditional content analysis tends to close inquiry and limit


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the possible outcomes of the research. Recast into the framework of this article though, these six areas can play a valuable role. Regarding the definition of the research problem, a key strength of content analysis is that the problem is considered and formed within the context of existing research that creates conceptual limitation. Key concepts and key findings can be used to build a knowledge base for a more informed research perspective. The chief challenge is that research questions traditionally are framed in a fixed manner through this information, often to test hypotheses. To study the myths and narratives underlying news content, the role of problem definition becomes more open-ended, because the purpose is to detect rather than to test, an especially important outcome for comparative research. In brief, the chief contribution of content analytic techniques here, is the explicit statement of a research problem informed by prior research. Research questions cast at the beginning of the study will have utility, but they, in turn, will more likely require modification as the study progresses. It is important to keep in mind that the research also needs to be guided by the theoretical foundations of a structuralist approach, so that the hybrid concept is consistently incorporated. Sample selection must, by necessity, depart from the probability sampling typically used in quantitative content analysis and adopt a purposive sampling approach that considers three key factors. Firstly, the sample must adequately capture the content and context in which the mythological elements are embedded. Secondly, the sample must be reasonably broad to detect the mythological elements in their narrative continuum, yet also sufficiently contained to allow for meaningful and effective comparisons across cultures. Thus, for a larger cross-cultural team, content needs to be confined to a narrower range of key events, while a smaller team (perhaps only two researchers) will be able to work across a greater number of comparisons. Finally, the definition of the sample must be flexible, so that it can be shaped by the results and needs of ongoing analysis. For example, if the initial sample should prove to be inadequate towards addressing the research questions and exploring mythical dimensions of news content, additional material would need to be examined. In contrast, if a focal point emerges from the data earlier than expected, additional data can be used to test ideas, but the complete sample need not be scrutinized in the same manner. Defining analytic categories can be accomplished by blending existing study categories that emerge from an initial examination of the content. In addition, not all analysis needs to be guided by categories. This would apply particularly to narrative elements that tend to assume the form of a story line rather than to appear as discrete elements of a categorical framework. Categories can also be considered as landmarks in the data (such as actors or actions) – guidelines for note taking - but can also be developed into conventional measures by which content can be tallied (such as themes, organizations, status of actors). Typically, quantitative data will not be collected for the purpose of statistical testing, but rather for descriptive purposes that complement the qualitative data. Smith’s (1979) mythograph approach


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offers an example of how this can be done through content analysis that identifies common actors, subjects and themes to develop a chart of common story lines. Burgelin (1979) reminds researchers, though, that the frequent occurrence of an element does not necessarily equate it with importance in meaning, but in fact, it could be examined as a contrast to an infrequent but important element. Following from the ethnographic tradition, constructing a coding schedule or codebook will tend to serve more as a guide towards ‘interviewing’ the content (analogous to field interviews) than coding it quantitatively for each unit of analysis. Where content is gathered through quantitative methods, though, the codebook serves its traditional purpose better. With these methodological elements in place, their application can now be considered. Traditional content analysis conducts pilot tests to detect problems regarding definitions and categories that might lead to different interpretations by researchers applying the same code sheet to the same content. Underlying this concern is the positivistic notion that with a well-designed ‘instrument’, research can objectively report on reality (Altheide & Johnson, 1998). This belief compares unfavourably the more relativist approach suggested here. Indeed, it is an unsuitable device for studying mythical elements of news, which relies more on latent than on manifest content. Here, pilot tests still serve a valuable purpose in providing focus for the researchers, but the emphasis will rather be placed on agreement about the dimensions to be examined and how to examine them. If quantitative measures were developed, the emphasis would be more on calculating consensus and consistency than on achieving a specific reliability figure. Consensus would then be a reasonable goal here because researchers will be working on different realms of content and different cultural frameworks - what Edelstein (1982) calls ‘comparison by consensus’. When researchers from a range of vastly different personal experiences, join together to form a social construction of reality, different outcomes would be the rule rather than the exception (Molotch & Lester, 1974). In total, although reliability concerns are still important for this approach in analysing myths in the news, the concerns take on different dimensions. Finally, data preparation and analysis follow logically from the approach outlined so far. Both become reflexive procedures, where decisions are periodically assessed and modified based on what has been learned. Additional analytic techniques may be added as the need arises and the initial plan may be modified as researchers learn more about the subject and the data. In this sense, design retains the potential to have emergent elements, even after data collection has begun. This forms a clear contrast to traditional design.


From method to interpretation Again, research on myths in news, especially in a comparative, intercultural context, needs to allow for these emergent findings that highlight differences in cultural myths among different media systems. Lindlof (1995), for example, suggests that


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qualitative researchers need to develop research designs on a study-by-study basis to best fit the specific situation at hand. He describes a ‘funnel approach’ where the research begins broadly, but as the researcher or researchers become more immersed in the subject and the data, ideas converge towards a more focused conception of the data and their meaning. In contrast to the funnel metaphor, social science research could be considered more as a ‘tunnel’, where, once work begins, dimensions follow the same well-defined and narrow path up to closure. Besides its openended nature, the funnel approach also emphasizes a cyclic, circular conceptualisation of data analysis, where work proceeds in the following way: Problem

!

Data collection and analysis

! Tentative conclusions !

Problem

This depiction suggests that ideas from one iteration are refined through successive cycles, with alternative explanations carefully considered until results move toward closure. Although Lindlof draws his ideas from ethnographic research, he applies them equally to the analysis of documents such as transcribed field notes and interview recordings. A close parallel actually exists here with the relationship between the quantitative methods of survey research and content analysis. In the latter two approaches, content analysis can be more-or-less described as a survey conducted on content, where the researcher’s role is to ‘ask’ the survey questions of the content, much as an interviewer would ask of people during face-to-face survey data collection. Applying ethnographic methods to the study of content, then, is the equivalent of an extended field observation of content. Just as ethnographic research teams meet periodically to review individual findings and refine the direction of ongoing research, content researchers taking an ethnographic approach, avoid working in isolation and instead prod each other to look beyond the initial results/observations. Altheide (1996) combines ideas about content research through what he calls ‘Ethnographic Content Analysis’, which he bases on the theoretical and methodological notions of ethnographers such as George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer, Alfred Schutz, and Berger and Luckmann. He emphasizes a methodology of repeated immersion in the content and reflection on what was found, with attention to key decision points such as sample selection and data analysis identified in both the research questions and the theoretical framework of the study. A key element of Altheide’s (1996:10) approach is that: ‘. . . meanings and patterns seldom appear all at once. . .they emerge or become more clear through constant comparison and investigation of documents over time.’ This emergent approach contrasts with traditional content analysis in terms of the basic research purpose, which usually involves the testing of specific hypotheses about news content through pre-determined measures derived from those hypotheses. This is a key point, because the study of cultural myths underlying news stories, depends on emergent findings instead. As Altheide elaborates a


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detailed, book-length strategy for his approach, we now turn toward considering how an ethnographic comparative study might actually be designed. Underlying this comparative method is the notion that researchers can best understand the elements of their own cultural context by attempting to present that culture to others from outside the culture. More concretely, this approach to comparative research helps show how mythical elements differ across news media contexts. Pragmatically, building a cross-cultural research team allows for a natural reading of news texts in different languages that are also written according to different newswork conventions that go beyond language itself.

A research scheme for the qualitative study of mythical elements By incorporating the basic purpose for examining mythical elements embedded in news content and the notion of ethnographic examination of that content, we have developed a set of steps that aid in the development of this research goal. This methodological scheme draws in part from Altheide’s approach, but also from naturalistic ethnographic ideas discussed by Lindlof (1995), Lincoln and Guba (1985), and the various authors in Denzin and Lincoln (1998). The basic parts of the scheme appear in Table 1.

not for distribution free online preview only Table 1: Steps in ethnographic examination of news content Step 1. Formation of team 2. Informed entrée

3. Formulation of initial question 4. Exploration of documents 5. Considering draft protocol 6. Trial of draft protocol

Description Members of team are drawn together for capabilities in multiple languages and cultures. Regular accessibility of team members an important criterion. This step involves reviewing current literature and meeting among researchers to help focus the basic research question and decide on the basic realm of content to be explored From this entrée, the research team develops the initial research questions which are subject to revision over time. With the basic question in mind, researchers explore likely venues of content to assess their viability. Researchers also assess whether adequate content on the topic will be available to draw meaningful conclusions. Researchers discuss key observations of the initial exploration to determine what content elements will be observed and how observations will proceed. At this point, the draft protocol will be tested. Researchers will undertake an initial immersion in a small amount of the content and take notes on observations. Sample quantitative data will also be collected.

Berkowitz & Nossek: Myths and news narratives 7. Revised analysis protocol 8. Interim meetings

9. Tentative conclusions

10. Draft report writing 11. Report revisions & additional analysis 12. Closure of report writing

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Researchers meet again to discuss changes in data collection and analysis, including the theoretical dimensions and research questions that will guide sampling, data collection, analysis and reporting. An important facet of this research is that research team members should not work in isolation. Rather, they should meet regularly to discuss findings and challenges, and to debrief about evidence to support ideas. At the close of initial data collection, researchers draw tentative conclusions from their own data analysis. They again meet to discuss key points and offer the central ideas that support them. These conclusions represent a negotiated outcome among researchers, helping to enhance trustworthiness of the findings. Tentative conclusions are incorporated into the larger body of a draft manuscript, presenting not only the findings but the other typical elements, including literature review and a methodological discussion. With the draft complete, researchers meet again to review the manuscript in the light of the research questions and assess the strength of conclusions against the evidence. Additional iterations of data analysis are undertaken as needed to enhance confidence. The final manuscript again reflects a negotiated outcome across researchers. Although the inquiry is considered closed at this point, the research questions are open. Future manuscripts from this manuscript should consider open inquiry, regarding the sample, conclusions, and interpretations of each researcher.

not for distribution free online preview only The application of elements in the research scheme of Table 1 begins as the study topic emerges from the interactions between researchers from different cultural contexts who are united by a similar study purpose. Formation of the research team When the researchers come together, they would begin preliminary discussions of the research topic and agree on the focus on myths and narratives in news content within a specific context. They would then set off to do some reconnaissance of both content and related studies.

Informed entree Meeting again with the preliminary information they have gathered, researchers would then identify the relevant dimensions of their study, including: analytic frameworks from mythological perspectives; central theoretical elements of news as myth; qualitative comparative research design; and current studies on the cultural mythology perspective from each researcher’s own country. The researchers would also develop a historical overview of the type of occurrence to be studied, such as terrorism. Subsequently, they would grapple with the implications of considering current mythical interpretations as likely differences that would appear in news content because of the different cultures involved. Formulation of the initial research questions Following from the efforts at the informed entrée of mythical content and the preceding discussions, the researchers would develop guiding research questions that draw on the theoretical dimensions of structural analysis. These questions would be

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considered open for revision as the exploration proceeded; they would also keep in mind what role the cultural understandings of the researchers and their related media organizations would play in shaping the questions. Initial exploration of documents With the basic concepts in mind and research questions stated, the research team would consider the realm of content to be studied. For example, their decisions would consider the available forms of the content, such as on-line sources, original archives in microfilm form, and video archives. The nature of these news organisations in their cultural context would also be evaluated. Regarding the range of content, the initial exploration should provide an idea of the nature of the coverage for key events, which in turn would provide the first indications of the quantity of content to initially consider. This process would help avoid false assumptions about the nature of the content that would later require substantial modification of the study in its more advanced stages. This exploration would also give an idea of the duration of key events and guide how they could be studied within their natural ‘lifecycle.’ The initial exploration would also allows researchers to compare the nature of their content realms, and to see if indeed differing narrative elements appear in the texts.

not for distribution free online preview only Consideration of the draft protocol From the initial exploration, researchers would then formulate the framework to begin the analysis. Mythological levels of functions, actions, and narration drawn from Barthes (1972) will be discussed within the context of the just completed exploration of documents. The roles of qualitative and quantitative schemes will be broached. For the qualitative work, the equivalent of an interview schedule would be drafted with a list of questions to apply to each news item, as well as specific elements within the items. For quantitative work, key elements would be raised (such as central actors, key locations), categories would be developed, and definitions created for each category. For both kinds of data analysis approaches, the protocols would be tested with a small sample of data, followed by discussions to assess the degree of consensus among the researchers about the nature of these tools. This does not mean that the traditional reliability measures used in content analysis, such as percentage of agreement, will be used here. Rather, the goal would be to create a feeling for a shared framework among the research team members. The discussion of the draft protocol will also rely on the initial exploration of relevant documents to identify an initial set of parallel events to be explored in each researcher’s news media. Guidelines for selecting the range of publication dates surrounding each of the events, will be proposed to allow for differences in the contexts rather than act as a mandate based on a predetermined scheme.


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Trial of draft protocol This trial will be considered a first attempt to explore the data. In traditional content analysis, the content would often be parallel to that in the field of study, but not be an actual part of it. From the relativist perspective, it does not pose a methodological problem to examine the same content more than once and develop an evolving interpretation of it. Instead, this trial should be considered as part of the circular pattern of immersion, interpretation, and re-immersion into the data. This process is analogous to the pre-test that would be conducted in conventional content analysis, except that the goal would be to work toward consensus of purpose and approach among researchers and build a commonalty into the research framework. Revised analysis protocol At this point, researchers will review study goals, research questions, and the initial methodology for the draft protocol trial. The framework of structural analysis is again reviewed, along with its correlation to the initial analysis. Concerns and questions are raised about uncertainties that appeared in the trial, and discussions aim at resolving any possible lack of clarity or ambiguity about the research. Changes are again made and discussions take place about definitions and concepts. These activities stem from the interaction between data and findings.

not for distribution free online preview only Interim meetings To maintain the comparative perspective in the research, as well as to enhance trustworthiness, researchers should meet regularly to discuss their work and the interpretations that have begun to emerge. They should also quiz each other for evidence to back their tentative findings. It is likely that findings will be revised to some degree here, and a revision of the study procedures will be possible if the correlation between purposes has left some gaps unaccounted for. The concern here is to maintain both reflexivity and to strive for enhancing trustworthiness of the findings through continued scrutiny. Tentative conclusions and draft report writing The initial research report should be considered as a draft subject to revision of both the study framework and the findings. As with the interim meetings, researchers should continue to approach the research questions and findings as open-ended. Rather than treating findings as objective truth, they should be considered as an answer rather than as the answer. Ultimately, the draft report should be the result of give-and-take interaction among researchers that has to be written and revised as a team. Additional analysis, report revisions, and closure To further enhance trustworthiness, the outcomes of the draft report should be referred back to the data for further checks. Following any additional data analysis, the research report must again be revised to incorporate new insights. Considera-

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tions should again be assessed in light of the study aims and concerns about the theoretical framework of mythological analysis. Even though report writing reaches closure at this stage, the analysis should be considered open and should draw on comments from reviewers, editors and others as it travels the path from conference paper to eventual publication.

Conclusions This article considers the methodological implications of studying cultural myths embedded in news content within a comparative context. It begins with the rich theoretical dimensions of structuralist analysis that lacks a specific methodology in the traditional sense of the term, and suggests that the addition of elements from ethnographic methodology would create a more explicit, systematic approach to this kind of research. The article also considers how the framework of traditional content analysis can be adapted to further enhance the systematic dimensions of the research and enhance the trustworthiness of the findings. Finally, the article develops an example of how this approach to research can be applied to a specific study, with an emphasis on the reflexive and open-ended nature of inquiry through both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. We believe that this is a scheme which would lend itself equally well to the study of other media, such as television, news photographs, or even editorial cartoons. A cross-cultural comparative analysis is a challenging task because of the logistical demands encountered in the selection of a research team with the necessarily backgrounds, skills, and interests. Even in cases where leading scholars come together, fine methodological points are often not paid sufficient attention (e.g., Blumler, McLeod, & Rosengren, 1992). In addition, the challenge of bringing researchers together in one location becomes a daunting one. Thus, this approach may be applicable in some circumstances, but it will often become necessary to augment the opportunity for face-to-face meetings with electronic means, such as electronic mail. A key aspect of the approach presented here, has been the fusion of the theoretical dimensions of structural analysis and the more explicit nature of the methodologies of ethnography. It is important to keep both elements in mind simultaneously during a study, rather than to adopt predominantly one or the other. In the end, what this article accomplishes is the convergence of ideas from fields that can bring mutually beneficial results to research struggling with the process of crosscultural exploration.


References Altheide, D. L. 1996. Qualitative media analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Altheide, D. L., & Johnson, J. M. 1998. Criteria for assessing interpretive validity in qualitative research. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln Y.S. Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials, pp. 283-312. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.


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Babbie, E. 1986. Observing ourselves: Essays in social research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies. (trans. Annete Lavers). New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, R. 1977. Image, music, text. Glasgow, Scotland: Granada. Berger, A. A. 1997. Narratives in popular culture, media and everyday life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Berkowitz, D. 1997. Social meanings of news: A text-reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bird, E., & Dardenne, R. 1988. Myth, chronicle and story. In Carey, J.W., ed. Media, myths and narratives. pp. 67-86. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Blumler, J. G., McLeod, J., & Rosengren, K. E., eds. 1992. Comparatively speaking: Communication and culture across space and time. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Burgelin, O. 1979. Structural analysis of mass communication. In McQuail, D., ed. Sociology of mass communication. pp. 313-328. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S., eds. 1998. Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Drummond, L. 1984. Movies and myth: Theoretical skirmishes. American Journal of Semiotics, 3:1-32. Edelstein, A. S. 1982. Comparative communication research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Eisenstadt, S. N. 1989. HaChevrah ha Yisraelit b’Temurotelya [The transformation of Israeli Society]. Jerusalem: Magnes. Entman, R. M. 1993. Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. In Levy, M.R. & Gurevitch, M., eds. Defining media studies: Reflections on the future of the field. pp. 293300. New York: Oxford University Press. Gamson, W., Croteau, D., Hoynes, W., & Sasson, T. 1992. Media images and the social construction of reality. Annual Review of Sociology, 44: 373-393. Gitlin, T. 1980. The whole world is watching. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hackett, R. 1984. Decline of a paradigm? Bias and objectivity in news media studies. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1:229-259. Hall, S. 1982. The rediscovery of ‘ideology’: Return of the repressed in media studies. In Gurevitch, M., Bennett, T., Curran, J. & Woollacott, J., eds. Culture, society and the media. pp. 56-90. London: Methuen. Hansen, A., Cottle, S., Negrine, R., & Newbold, C. 1998. Mass communication research methods. London: Macmillan. Herman, N. S. 1979. Jewish identity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Levi-Strauss, C. 1963. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Liebman, S. C. 1978. Myth, tradition and values in Israeli society. Midstream, 24:44-53. Liebman, S. C., & Don Yehiya, E. 1983. Civil religion in Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lincoln, Y., & Guba E. 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Lindlof, T. 1995. Qualitative Communication Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lule, J. 1995a. Enduring image of war: Myth and ideology in a Newsweek cover. Journal of Popular Culture, 29(1):199-211. Lule, J. 1995b. The rape of Mike Tyson: Race, the press, and symbolic types. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 12:176-195. Manning, P. K., & Cullum-Swan, B. 1998. Narrative, content, and semiotic analysis. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials. pp. 246-281. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mechling, E. W. 1979. Patricia Hearst: Myth America 1974, 1975, 1976. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 43:168-179. Molotch, H., & Lester, M. 1974. News as purposive behaviour: On the strategic use of routine events, accidents and scandals. American Sociological Review, 39:101-112.


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Nossek, H. 1994. The narrative role of the Holocaust and the State of Israel in the coverage of salient terrorist events in the Israeli press. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 4(1&2):119-134. Schudson, M. 1989. The sociology of news production. Media, Culture, & Society, 11:263-282. Silverstone, R. 1988. Television, myth and culture. In Carey, J.W., ed. Media, myths, and narratives. pp. 20-47. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Sivan, E. 1991. Dor 1948: Mythos, diyukan v’Zicharon [The 1948 Generation: Myth, profile and memory]. Tel Aviv: Maarachot. Slotkin, Richard. 1992. Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. New York: Atheneum. Smith, R. R. 1979. Mythic elements in television news. Journal of Communication, 29:75-82.


Garrison: Prague Post’s readership in post-communist Czech Republic

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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):57-75

Bruce Garrison

The Prague Post’s readership in postcommunist Czech Republic Abstract This article presents a case study to analyse the readership and explore the role of an English-language newspaper in a region where English is not the dominant language. This study focused on a weekly publication in the former Communist Czech Republic, The Prague Post, reports a 1999 readership survey and, through use of interviews of the managers of the newspaper at that time, interprets the findings of the readership survey. It compares results of the most-recent study with previous research conducted by the newspaper’s marketing department. The Prague Post was found to serve a sophisticated and diverse multilingual audience; regular readers were found to be highly educated, international in both their personal and business-professional lives working in professional-level careers, multilingual, young, mostly single, mostly male, and economically varied.

not for distribution free online preview only Die post-kommunistiese era in Oos-Europa het nie net geweldige eise aan sy inwoners gestel nie, maar ook aan alle samelewingsinstitute, waaronder die media. In hierdie artikel word die posisie van die Praagse Engelstalige Prague Post. Die koerant is in 1991, twee jaar na die val van die Berlynse muur gestig. Die rol van die koerant en die kenmerke v an sy leserskorps word bespreek.. Daar is onder meer bevind dat die Prague Post deur ‘n sterk groep sakelui op kantoor en tuis gelees word, maar dat die koerant ook as opvoedkundige hulpmiddel op skool, en Veral private opvoedkundige inrigtings gebruik word. Keywords: Audiences, English-language newspapers, European press, media, news, newspapers, newspaper markets, press, readership, specialty newspapers.

* Dr Bruce Garrison, [[email protected]], is professor in the Journalism and Photography Program, School of Communication, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248127, Coral Gables, FL 33124-2105, Tel: 011-305-284-2846. An earlier version of this article was presented to the International Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Annual Convention, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, August 2000.

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Mass media and political change in Central and Eastern Europe Numerous individuals have the concluded that the mass media were, at least in part, factors leading to the vast political change in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. These experts claim that devices such as videotape recorders, satellite links, fax machines, electronic mail, and other new information transmission technologies contributed significantly to the social, political, and economic unrest that led to the fall of Communism and the rise of democracy (Aumente, 1999a). A small but growing body of literature that focuses on the press of former Central and Eastern European Communist bloc nations is emerging (Aumente, 1999a; Johnson, 1995b). Much of it emphasizes changes in the existing news media and the political orientations of the news media since Communism fell in 1989 (Wachtel, 1996; Callan, 1999; Hamilton & Krimsky, 1995; Wilson, 1994). Other recent studies focus on newly independent news media in other parts of the world (for example, see Campbell, 1996). A recurring theme has been the struggle for independence and the successes and failures of privately owned news organizations (Aumente, 1999b). The Czech Republic is a news media-rich region. During its years within the Communist bloc, for example, the nation had the third-highest number of television sets, proportion of radio penetration, and newspaper readership (Paraschos, 1991). The first newspaper in what is now the Czech Republic was Prazske Noviny, originally published in Prague in 1719. Paraschos (1991) attributes the birth of modern Czech journalism to the abolition of censorship by the Hapsburgs in 1848, while others also suggest it was part of the rise of Central European nationalism as a nation-building force (Greene, 2000). These early publications have been credited with helping create a national identity (Aumente, 1999a).

not for distribution free online preview only Figure 1: The Czech Republic and Central Europe


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The Czech Republic (see Figure 1) has a storied, dynamic political history. When the three century rule of the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918, the new state of Czechoslovakia was created. Nazi Germany dominated the region within two decades and during World War II. While the Bohemian and Moravian regions were liberated from German control in 1945, Communists seized power in 1948. Reformist efforts to bring socialism to the region in 1968 failed against Soviet Union troops. But the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 brought a new democratic era to the nation following the ‘Velvet Revolution’ that elected popular writer Václav Havel president of the nation. Within just three years, ideological differences in how Czechs and Slovaks — who have historically seen themselves as neglected — wanted the newly independent democratic state to be formed led to separation of the two regions into the distinct Czech and Slovak Republics on January 1, 1993. Political change has had an impact on newspapers and other news media. Until 1989, newspapers and other news media operated under very different circumstances. While there was no newspaper similar to the former Soviet Union’s government daily Izvestia in Czechoslovakia during Communist control, Rude Pravo was the party’s newspaper and the party was the dominant force in the government. Other Czech newspapers generally represented views of the party’s Central Committee even if they focused on other content (Underwood, 1983). By Western standards, Czechs continue to be devoted newspaper readers (Paraschos, 1991). They have been described as ‘voracious readers, despite the inroads made by television news’ (Yurkovsky, 1995:24). This may be changing, Johnson (1995a; 1995b) argued, due to increased newspaper prices and the fact that citizens have less time in the competitive capitalistic world. Newspapers regularly monitor government and political scandals and have growing influence in the political process of the relatively new democratic nation. They follow developments of business, the European community, and strive for impact on the free-market economy of the republic. In a nation of about ten million people, one estimate in 1995 placed the combined circulation of the nation’s eight leading dailies at almost two million (Johnson, 1995a; 1995b). At the beginning of the 1990s, there were 118 Czech weeklies and periodicals (Paraschos, 1991). Aumente, who has spent much time in the past decade assessing former Communist bloc nations’ news media, wrote that the large number of news media ‘must be thinned out, problems of insufficient distance between some news media and ruling politicians, and the uncertainty of rapidly changing audiences and reader habits’ were among the leading concerns at the end of the 1990s (Aumente, 1999b:169). The Czech press has been, at times, characterized as flawed. It has been criticized for lack of professionalism, lack of balance in coverage, laziness, and inaccurate facts from reporting (Hopkins, 2000). Furthermore, many news organizations suffer financial troubles caused by limited revenue sources and high production costs. Among the most common problems journalists face in the Czech Republic is


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lack of education and training prior to beginning work. Because of this, journalists are often not qualified and not specialized. News content is often criticized because it was published without the challenges of sources that are typical in older European democracies. Furthermore, some critics have noted that content is often politicised and opinionated instead of fact based. This is particularly true of political reporting, such as that about the president or other high government officials (Yurkovsky, 1995). There is a sense that the news media in the Czech Republic seek improvement. Numerous training programs for journalists have been created toward that end (Hamilton & Krimsky, 1995). In the past decade, reporting about police corruption, organized crime, and other social and political problems have received international attention (Campbell, 1996; Yurkovsky, 1995; Wilson, 1994; Prevratil, 1995). The older and more established newspapers in the Czech Republic have been the strongest periodicals in the decade-old independent era (Wilson, 1994). In early 2000, the Prague daily newspapers were Mlad↔ fronta - DNES, Blesk, Právo, ZN Zemské noviny, Hospod↔ské noviny, Lidové noviny, Slovo, Sport, Ve≠ern⊆k Praha, and Metro, each with average circulations ranging from just above 50,000 to over 400,000 copies per day.

not for distribution free online preview only English-language newspapers

Despite the growing body of literature about the post-Communist era news media in Europe, there is little or no attention given to English-language news media in those nations or elsewhere in Europe. For that matter, the literature about Englishlanguage publications in nations where English is not the dominant language is scant. English-language news media outside of English-speaking nations are not mentioned in the most-cited discussions of international news media, suggesting that their role is considered insignificant. Only a few studies directly or indirectly address the issues related to publishing and editing news media in a language other than the native language of the region (Brislin, 1996; Parameswaran, 1998; Chase, 1999; Ghanem & Wanta, 1998). Parameswaran (1998), for example, observed that the English-language media in postcolonial urban India focused on current events, politics, and science. Brislin (1996) studied English-language newspapers in Japan, finding excesses in marketing, management, and journalistic professionalism in the wake of coverage of anti-Semitism in Japanese publishing. English-language newspapers exist to serve specialized markets in most major metropolitan areas around the world. In Asia, for example, The Straits Times and Singapore Business Times in Singapore, the Japan Times in Tokyo, and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong are among the publications that serve English speakers and readers. In the Middle East, the Egypt Gazette in Cairo and the Jerusalem Post are among the widely read English publications. There are a number of English-language newspapers and broadcast news media in Europe that serve niche markets such as business executives, schools that teach English, or foreign travellers. Perhaps the best known is the International


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Herald-Tribune, based in Paris, but the International Edition of USA Today is also widely read in the urban areas of Europe. Other similar publications include The Moscow Times, St. Petersburg Times, Warsaw Voice, Warsaw Business Journal, Austria Weekly, Slovak Spectator, The Budapest Sun and Budapest Business Journal, the Prague Business Journal, and The Prague Post.1 The Prague Post At least one former Prague Post managing editor believes that The Prague Post is most similar to the South China Morning Post and the Jerusalem Post, although those two newspapers are more established, their budgets are larger, and that their markets are stronger for English-language periodicals (Greene, 2000). The Prague Post itself is relatively new and less established. It was first published on October 1, 1991, created by a splinter group of journalists from the now-defunct Englishlanguage publication, Prognosis. The Post is published each Wednesday. While an American residing in Houston owns The Post, foreign investment in the private, independent news media of Eastern and Central Europe is not unusual (Winner, 2000). The newspaper has a diverse staff, the result of a mixture of native Czechs, other Europeans, and a number of Americans. The newspaper’s public mission statement says it is ‘dedicated to informing, enlightening and entertaining English speakers locally and internationally’ (Anonymous, 1999a:n.p.). It continues: ‘For over 40,000 readers, The Prague Post is an essential source of information each week. Never compromising on accuracy and editorial integrity, The Prague Post’s international staff of journalists, editors and designers produces a high-quality, large format newspaper that is considered one of the best periodicals in Central and Eastern Europe’ (Anonymous, 1999a:n.p.). The Prague Post’s strengths are coverage of issues and events in the Czech Republic and in the surrounding Central Europe region. It emphasizes feature content and most often reports local news from Prague. Other basics include business and financial news about the Prague stock market, local and national companies; opinion and commentary in columns, editorial cartoons, and letters; local and international sports; culture, dining, film, music, and other entertainment in a special ‘Night & Day’ section; occasional special sections and seasonal supplements focusing on real estate, human resources, telecommunications, computing and technology, the holidays, and fashion (Anonymous, 1998; Anonymous, 1995). The newspaper also publishes an annual guide titled The Book of Lists, which contains reference material about the region’s most prominent and successful companies. Despite its efforts toward professionalism, the newspaper has received some


1 For a variety of reasons, Western European metropolitan areas do not support English-language newspapers as much as Eastern and Central European cities. Prague Post Executive Editor Christopher P. Winner attributed this to language issues. ‘The print [English-language] press is largely confined to Eastern Europe, Russia, and places where the language is hostile to visitors, expatriates, and businessmen,’ Winner (2000) explained.

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criticism. In-house focus groups have indicated concern for inadequate Czech political coverage, lack of context, sensationalism in some coverage, lack of editorial identity, and too much human interest ‘fluff’(Anonymous, 1995). One competing daily newspaper in the Prague contended in a review of English-language media that The Post held a low standard of writing, published factual mistakes, and paid very low staff salaries (Chase, 1999). Prague Post Readers For use for potential advertisers during the first half of 1999, the newspaper’s marketing and circulation department reported data from a 1998 readership study. It noted readership consisted of an average weekly circulation of 15,000 copies and an average of 2.88 readers per issue, or about 40,000 readers per week (Anonymous, 2000b). The largest proportion, 47%, was distributed by newsstand sales. A total of 82% of newsstand sales was domestic. About 30% of each press run was bulk sales to airlines (60%), hotels (14%), and schools and conferences (26%). Another 14% of the circulation was subscription. Of that, 32% was international. The newspaper’s previous research suggested that readers were well educated (82% with college or higher education), were managers of businesses (58%), had families (38% have children), and were bilingual (53% also speak Czech). The newspaper served a much larger audience than just the Prague metropolitan area, the republic, and even Central Europe. Its reach was changing through the use of its online edition on the World Wide Web. The Prague Post Online, which debuted April 2, 1997, (http://www.praguepost.cz) allowed a worldwide audience for Englishspeaking individuals seeking information and current events about the Czech Republic (Zmatlikova, 2000). The newspaper also offers an e-mail news summary ‘alert’ service that began in 1999.

not for distribution free online preview only Research questions and focus The current political, social, and economic environment in which The Prague Post operates and the niche market it serves raises questions about the nature of its readers. This investigation sought to answer the following general research questions about the newspaper and its audience: • • •

What types of individuals read The Prague Post? What are their reading habits? What other news media are sources of information for Post readers? How do readers use The Post Online? What management orientations and professional values exist that influence content?


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Methods This study utilized multiple research methodologies. At the heart of the study is a readership analysis based on an original survey conducted in summer 1999. This approach was supplemented by two visits to the newspaper for observation, group meetings with editors, newspaper managers, editors of the news departments, and news reporters in June and August 1999. Extensive post-study group discussions by section and individual interviews were conducted with news-editorial section editors, production department staff, online department staff, and staff reporters and free-lance writers. In-depth discussions were held with Petra Zmatlikova, then marketing and circulation director, with Richard A. Greene, then managing editor of the newspaper, and with Pavel Straka, general manager of the newspaper, in August and September 1999. A third meeting with Straka was held in March 2000. The survey of readers was conducted in July and August 1999. A non-probability sample was taken of regular readers of the newspaper utilizing self-selection procedures. Budget limitations set by the general manager and the nature of the newspaper’s readership — the more than 85% of readers obtained the newspaper at newsstands — discouraged use of traditional probability sampling designs (Greene, 1999; Straka, 2000). Readers were encouraged to respond to the survey with a free travel award incentive. The questionnaire was developed from interviews and meetings with the news-editorial staff and with the newspaper’s management. Some questionnaire items were used from earlier studies conducted in-house or by Czech market research firms (Anonymous, 1998). Questionnaires were published in the newspaper, sent to readers who requested them by electronic mail or by telephone, and passed out by staff members. Respondents were encouraged to respond using incentives. A total of 314 respondents completed responses for the survey before the cut-off date.2

not for distribution free online preview only Findings RQ1— What types of individuals read The Prague Post? What are their reading habits? The newspaper has several distinct audiences. Since the newspaper’s beginning a decade ago, readers have formed three general types. First, there were executivesmanagers, consultants, and professionals involved in Prague-area businesses. Second, there were educators and students who use the newspaper at Englishlanguage schools. Third, there were tourists, travelling business executives, and other transient readers. These three groups built a weekly demand for a wide range 2 A reader survey was conducted less than a year earlier for advertising, marketing, and newseditorial purposes. It used similar sampling procedures and yielded 248 completed interviews. See Anonymous (1998), ‘The Prague Post Annual Readership Survey, September 1998.’

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of content. Reader demographics in summer 1999 are presented in Table 1. The typical Prague Post reader was young, 30ish (mean = 39.2 years, median = 36.0 years), with an international background. Slightly more readers were from the United States (32.8%) than were from the Czech Republic (28.7%) and readers had lived in the Czech Republic for a mean 11.1 years (median = 4.0 years). Readers were habitual in that they reported a mean 3.7 years (median = 4.0) of reading a newspaper that was about eight years old at the time of the study. Male readers were slightly greater in number (52.2%) than female (45.2%) and most resided in Prague (63.1%), even though a notable number (11.1%) reported reading the newspaper in the United States. In fact, the base of American readers was large enough in 1999 that the newspaper shipped copies by air to New York and mailed them from that location each week. In addition to their professional career orientation, readers were well educated. More than three-quarters had at least a college degree and more than one-third had a graduate degree. Income levels were spread across a wide range of categories. About one-third earned less than 40,000 Czech korunas (crowns) per month (at the time of the study, about 34 korunas = $1), but another one-third earned 40,000 to 150,000 korunas each month. At the time of the study, the average Czech earned about 14,000 korunas per month and average Prague salaries were somewhat higher than the national average (Greene, 2000). Slightly more readers were single (49.7%) than married (45.5%). While many readers had U.S. citizenship but lived in the Czech Republic, their spouses were not U.S. citizens. The largest group of spouses (31.8%) was Czech, but 14.6% were American. Another 8.6% were from the United Kingdom. True to the multi-national backgrounds of these readers, they reported fluency in several languages. In addition to English, respondents were found to speak Czech, German, French, and Russian.

not for distribution free online preview only Table 1: Reader demographics Age of respondent Mean Median Mode Nationality of reader United States Czech United Kingdom Canada Years of residence in Czech Republic Mean Median Mode

39.2 years 36.0 28.0 31.8% 28.7 14.6 5.1 11.1 years 4.0 0.0

Garrison: Prague Post’s readership in post-communist Czech Republic Years as reader of Prague Post Mean Median Mode Gender Male Female City of residence Prague Other city North American city Occupation Executive or manager Other Educator Professional Consultant Not working Education level Graduate College Secondary No degree Marital status Single Married Nationality of spouse Czech United States United Kingdom Canada Language fluency English Czech German French Russian Use of leisure time Cinema, theatre Travel Reading Dining out Shopping Computers-technology Dance Sports Expatriate activities

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3.7 years 4.0 5.0 52.2% 45.2 63.1% 12.1 11.1 22.3% 17.5 13.7 10.8 8.0 7.6 36.9% 39.8 15.0 5.1

not for distribution free online preview only 49.7% 45.5 31.8% 14.6 8.6 3.2 94.9% 50.6 21.3 21.0 14.6 83.4% 77.1 74.5 68.8 28.0 27.1 25.5 22.9 14.0

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Countries with business interests Slovakia 30.9% Other 24.2 Other Europe country 17.8 Hungary 10.9 Poland 9.9 Individual monthly income (approximately 34 Czech korunas = $1 in July 1999) Less than 20,000 kr. 18.5% 20,000-39,999 kr. 16.9 40,000-89,999 kr. 23.2 90,000-149,999 kr. 13.4 150,000-249,999 kr. 7.3 More than 250,000 kr. 9.9

Readers preferred to spend their leisure time at the cinema or theatre (83.4%) or travelling (77.1%). Reading and dining out were also popular among a majority of readers. Fewer readers noted that they used leisure time for shopping, working with computers and other new technologies, dancing, playing sports, and participating in expatriate activities.

not for distribution free online preview only RQ2— What other news media are sources of information for Post readers? How do readers use The Post Online?

Prague Post readers in 1999 were voracious media consumers. In addition to newspapers, almost two in three regularly read magazines and one in five read newsletters, data in Table 2 show. The majority also regularly watched news on television (67.2%) and even more listened to news on the radio (74.8%). The World Wide Web and other Internet new sources lagged, but were still used by more than half of the respondents.

Table 2: Reader use of news media Print Newspapers Magazines Newsletters Broadcast Television Radio Online Internet / World Wide Web

90.8% 63.7 21.0 74.8% 67.2 53.2%

These readers depended on newspapers (33.4%) as their primary source of news and information, Table 3 data indicate. Readers of newspapers read either weekly and daily, but few reported ‘occasional’ readership of a newspaper. Television and radio were a distant second and third on the list. The most popular broadcast sour-


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ces were the BBC, Radio Prague, and the Voice of America. Czech television was the most popular among other television and radio sources listed. While use of the World Wide Web was noticeable for about one in ten respondents, its share as a primary news source remained small.

Table 3: News consumption Primary source for news Newspapers Television Radio Internet / World Wide Web Magazines Frequency of newspaper readership Weekly Daily Occasionally Broadcast sources (English language) BBC Radio Prague Voice of America Other broadcast sources Czech television Satellite television

33.4% 18.5 13.1 9.9 3.2 42.0% 39.8 14.6 67.5% 17.2 4.5

not for distribution free online preview only 46.8% 42.0

‘Many of our readers — I’d guess about 50% — have no other source of news about what’s going on around them. They may have BBC, or Suddetsche Zeitung, or whatever, but that’s world news, not local news. The flipside of that is that I suspect a reasonable percentage of our readers have no interest in what’s going on here [in Prague]. They don’t care about Czech politics or the economy and are unlikely to go see a Czech play or a concert by a Czech band. I think part of our role is to push them to do that, incidentally,’ said Richard A. Greene (1999), an American who served as The Post’s managing editor at the time of the study but left for a position with the BBC in London. Prague Post readers revealed that the newspaper brought them pleasure and educational value. Three quarters of readers, as shown in Table 4, read the newspaper for pleasure. Three in five read it for educational reasons. However, only two in five reported reading it for business purposes. The News section of The Post was most preferred. A total of 66.2% of readers said they ‘always read’ the News section. The entertainment oriented Night & Day section was also popular, named by 62.4% as a section they always read. Slightly more than one in three readers said they always read the Opinion and Business sections. Sports and The Post Online were less popular, always read by less than 15% each. The Special Sections of the newspaper, those occasional tabloid portions of the newspaper devoted to themes such as summer vacations, fashion, real estate, employment, and technology, were

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the least ‘always read.’

Table 4: Reader preferences by section, reading motivations Reader preferences by section Always read News section Always read Night & Day section Always read Opinion section Always read Business section Always read Sports section Always read Prague Post Online Always read Special Sections Motivations for reading Prague Post Pleasure Education Business

66.2% 62.4 38.2 37.3 14.6 11.8 4.5 75.8% 61.1 39.2

Readers found the content of the newspaper to be valuable for several reasons. In Table 5, a total of 77.8% of readers said the newspaper is educational. The newspaper’s stories were also judged to be enjoyable (72.6%), timely (69.4%), and credible (66.0%). Just more than half of respondents felt the newspaper’s stories were well researched, well written, and entertaining. A minority of readers felt the newspaper’s stories were unbiased and incomplete.

not for distribution free online preview only Table 5: Reader perceptions of content quality, reading style Stories are: Educational 77.8% Enjoyable 72.6 Timely 69.4 Credible 66.0 Well-researched 59.3 Well-written 57.6 Entertaining 55.1 Unbiased 45.6 Complete 33.8 Confusing 6.7 Reading style (Figures represent percent that ‘Strongly Agree’ or ‘Agree’) Read stories all the way through 33.6% Only skim stories 17.9

Post readers consumed much media content on a daily basis. Data in Table 6 indicate television and radio to be most often used on a daily basis, followed by newspapers and online sources. Post readers did not depend on magazines or fax-based news services as much on a daily basis. Daily news consumption occurred most often after work for these readers. Slightly more than half (51.3%) consumed news


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and information after work and just less than half (48.1%) used what they defined as their leisure time for news consumption. Only one in four used time at work to consume news and less than one in five read or listened to news on public transportation.

Table 6: Frequency and location of daily media use Frequency Television Radio Newspapers Online Magazines Fax-based news Location of daily news consumption Read news after work Read news during leisure time Read news at work Read news on public transportation

47.8% 44.6 39.8 29.6 13.1 10.8 51.3% 48.1 26.8 17.8

not for distribution free online preview only News about politics was the third-most important type of information, overall, that The Prague Post could provide its readers, data in Table 7 indicate. It was the leading category of News. A total of 64.0% indicated interest in Czech politics. Another 51.6% said they were interested in Czech legislative news and 51.3% was interested in the European Union and NATO. The value of Opinion content was also high. Readers indicated relatively strong interest in content of that section such as international columnists, editorials, signed opinion contributions, man-on-thestreet interviews about current issues, and pro-and-con debates.

Table 7: Top five reader content preferences by section News Czech politics Czech legislation European Union and NATO Education Employment Business Advertising Banking Real estate Computers Personal finance

64.0% 51.6 51.3 41.4 37.6 45.5% 41.4 39.8 36.9 36.6

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Opinion International columnists Prague Post editorials Signed opinion contributions Man-on-street interviews Pro-con debates Sports International tennis Hockey Tennis European soccer International soccer Night & Day Arts and Entertainment Film Art galleries and museums Book reviews and news Theatre Classical music Night & Day Features Restaurants and clubs Czech customs Travel within the Czech Republic Alan Levy ‘Prague Profiles’ Food and wine

52.2% 46.5 41.1 40.8 34.1 31.2% 30.3 26.4 24.5 22.0 76.4% 68.5 53.5 49.7 34.4 57.0% 56.1 53.2 41.1 39.5

not for distribution free online preview only The only content that was more appealing to readers than politics, political analysis, and commentary, was entertainment. Post readers depend on the newspaper to keep them informed about leisure time activities. In Prague, this means traditional arts and letters. Readers most wanted content about film (76.4%) and art galleries and museums (68.5%), but they also indicated considerable interest in restaurants and clubs, Czech customs, book reviews and book news, travel within the republic, the theatre, profiles of local personalities, food and wine, and classical music. RQ3 — What management orientations and professional values exist that influence content? From interviews with managers and newsroom staff, it was apparent that The Post had strong Western press-oriented leadership in 1999. Its reporters and editors were American and Western European, and the ownership of the newspaper was American. As a result, there seemed to be an overwhelming philosophy at the newspaper that the Western — the American, that is — journalistic model should be used at The Post. The owner, publisher, general manager, numerous editors, and many production staff members have American citizenship or were educated in the U.S. This brought with it American journalistic skills and values to a context that was ready for change. It also created conflicting standards for performance. The Post’s former managing editor Richard A. Greene (1999) explained:


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There are a lot of ways to define success, of course. We do all right by some of the standards that are important to me: We have broken some stories and we frequently correct errors reported in the Czech press. I was at brunch with a friend who does not work for the paper, and he wanted to discuss an opinion piece we ran about three weeks ago, which I found cheering. Of course the staff and the newspaper fall short in a lot of ways. We’re a fairly inexperienced group of writers and editors with no one on staff who can teach us to be better journalists. Our stories suffer from a lack of background that is due to our youth and the short amount of time most of the staff has been working at the paper. We are not very good at drawing readers into conversation with us or, as far as I know, with each other. We have run photos and opinion pieces, for example, that should have drawn a mountain of mail from readers — a photo of man who’d been shot and was perhaps an instant before death, clutching the shirt of a man crouched over him, run four columns over the fold on A1, drew no reaction from readers at all. The piece my friend mentioned at brunch today proposed carving up Romania and Slovakia in order to rebuild a greater Hungary. No response. Does that mean it’s not easy enough to contact us? Maybe. I think we are going to make it easier in the redesigned newspaper. Does it mean we don’t know what pushes our readers’ buttons, or what they care about? Maybe. If so, that’s a huge failing on our part. The double-edged sword is that we are outsiders. More impartial, perhaps, more dispassionate, perhaps, more trustworthy, I hope. But at the same time, less likely to get a scoop. Perhaps more likely to miss nuances that the local press picks up on. Lacking the history that journalists need to really get the best possible story, all too often.

not for distribution free online preview only The orientation appears to fit cleanly with readers. Prague Post readers were also highly Westernised. Readers themselves were not only former residents of Western nations, but they also brought with them Western news media values and content expectations. Their demographics suggest that these readers were well past a transition stage and already in a Western model frame of mind. Perhaps they are simply waiting for the rest of the nation, its culture, and its native-language media to catch up. Greene (1999) added: Of course that reader will be primarily one who does not have other sources of news about the area — i.e., the non-Czech-speaking one — but given the state of contemporary Czech journalism, which, honestly, I think ranges from mediocre to appalling, I would hope that we could also provide Czech readers with something their own newspapers cannot, which is journalism to an American standard. We consistently find stories run in the Czech press (including by the Czech news agency CTK) unverifiable or simply wrong.

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Their stories are slanted in a way that is not uncommon in non-American journalism, but which I personally find it hard to respect. I’d like nothing more than to think that when non-Czechs living in Prague meet for the first time, their initial conversation might move quickly past ‘Where are you from and what brought you here?’ to ‘Did you read what The Prague Post wrote about X, Y, and Z this week?’ There are a lot of foreigners here who, outside of being foreigners in Prague, have nothing in common. I’d like The Post to be that thing they have in common.

Conclusions This study reveals much about the English-language press in Prague, but a more direct analysis involving the Czech-language press would have more impact. Comparison and contrast with the Czech press may reveal more useful findings and conclusions. Thus, these findings reflected the 314 people who read the Englishlanguage press and who responded on their own initiatives. Generalizing beyond this group to the readership at large cannot be done because of sampling design limitations. Self-selection sample designs undermine external validity and, furthermore, there were many people who read the newspaper who did not respond that might have different opinions. This may be an area of potential systematic bias in the findings. There were a lot of non-readers who were very English-oriented who did not respond. Frankly, it is important to know what both the non-responding readers and the non-responding non-readers think. But not having that information, the focus must be upon what was learned in this study. The newspaper editorial staff seems to be providing a strong product for a clearly defined audience. There were a lot of sophisticated, well-educated young professional readers who have not been in Prague long (50% have spent less than 4.5 years) and who have not been reading the newspaper very long. These individuals were also young, well educated, active, and wanted to know about things they can do with their leisure time. Furthermore, readers were both married and single and male and female in about the same proportions. If they were not from the Czech Republic, they were mostly from the United Kingdom and the United States. Spouses came from a wide range of nations, but many were Czech, British, and American. One-third was professionals or managers. In their leisure time, these people went to movies and the theatre, dined out, read, and travelled within the republic. To a much lesser extent, they seemed to like computers, shopping, sports clubs, and dancing. Readers responding lived in Prague. Their business interests were in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to some extent, but were limited in other European countries. Finally, income was well distributed. While English dominated their lives, half spoke Czech. Another one in five spoke French or German. Readers were quite print oriented. Contrary to news media use research, these readers preferred to get information from print sources instead of other media such as television. For more than thirty years in the United States, television has



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been the dominant source of information. Furthermore, The Post’s competing publications were in English. Czech publications were not read by large numbers of these readers. Readers divided news time with the International Herald Tribune and Prague Business Journal, not local Czech newspapers. Radio and television use was dependent on English sources, not Czech stations and networks. There was probably growing use of the World Wide Web and electronic mail. Since there were no comparison numbers on the Web, it may be suspected that this was growing as it is in other industrialized nations. Those who used the Web and electronic mail used it a lot, but there were lots of people in the Czech Republic who do not yet have access or had not yet developed the habit. There is a need to understand what readers do with the electronic form of The Post and its competing Internet news sources. People read The Post for entertainment (pleasure), education, but less for business reasons. News and Night & Day were frequently read in terms of ‘always’ or ‘almost always’ read. Opinion, Special Sections, Business, Sports, and The Post Online were read less often. The newspaper was perceived as timely, well researched, credible, entertaining, well written, informative or educational, clear and not confusing, written well enough to hold readers through an entire story, but believed to be incomplete in coverage. Readers did not skim and did not necessarily want Q&A interviews. Most enjoyed what they read. Night & Day listings were valuable to readers. Most readers felt they were accurate. Other characteristics included completeness and ease of use. Night & Day readers liked art galleries and museums, book reviews, book news, film, theatre, restaurants and clubs, travel within the Czech Republic, and Czech customs. They did not want dance, crossword puzzles, society columns, or children coverage. News section readers seemed to want to read about Czech Republic legislation, politics, and the European Union and NATO. They didn’t seem to want agriculture, Five Years Ago, religion, a relatively new local columnist, and national defence. Business readers were interested in advertising, personal finance, real estate, and banking news, but not automotive, chemical-pharmaceuticals, utilities, industry list, or heavy industry news. Readers did not express strong interest in sports in this newspaper. The sports that generated the most interest were international tennis and ice hockey, not sports within the Czech Republic, golf, American sports in the Czech Republic, or track and field. Opinion readers prefer international columns and editorials. There was less interest in other categories. The newspaper management’s goal appears to be to create and maintain a news organization of Western press concept characteristics, with a Western-type audience, in a democratic nation. It also appears to be a goal that readers embrace. The study shows they seek content that reflects the Western concept newspaper because they have strong Western-democratic-free press roots. It is a comparatively easy goal for this particular newspaper, especially compared to the distance the Czech-language news media must cover to make the transition from party-


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controlled to independent. The nature of the audience and the professional background of the newspaper’s editorial staff and ownership should make the process easier. One lingering question centres on whether The Post is trying to practice American journalism in a place not quite ready for it or a place not even wanting it. Additional research is necessary to answer that question. The newspaper seemed to be directing itself away from other Czech newspapers in its adoption of North American journalistic standards and in its service to a distinctively different market. In fact, the subtle differences in practices of journalism in the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, has led to conflicting views in The Post newsroom from time to time. Readers of The Prague Post are not typical Czechs, nor are they often Czechs at all. Most are not. These individuals seem to be demanding readers with high standards. Future analysis must look further at these readers — such as analysis of their lifestyles in addition to reading preferences — to better understand them. It also seems useful to develop a research agenda that includes study of other English-language newspapers as these specialized markets grow in cities such as Prague, Jerusalem, Paris, Moscow, Cairo, Singapore, Tokyo, and other major world cities. It would also be useful, it seems, to compare and contrast these newspapers to foreign-language newspapers in the United States that have served various ethnic communities for more than a century.

not for distribution free online preview only References

Anon. 1995. ‘The Prague Post: A Qualitative Research Analysis,’ unpublished research report, Opinion Window Market Research and Analysis, Prague, Czech Republic. Anon. 1998. ‘The Prague Post Annual Readership Survey, September 1998,’ unpublished research report, GfK Praha Market Research Institute, Prague, Czech Republic. Anon. 2000a. ‘Mission Statement,’ The Prague Post Online Edition, http://www.praguepost.cz/us1.html, accessed January 15, 2000, n.p. Anon. 2000b. ‘Readership & Circulation,’ The Prague Post Online Edition, http://www.praguepost.cz/ppread.html, accessed January 16, 2000, n.p. Aumente, J. 1999a. ‘The Role and Effects of Journalism and Samizdat Leading Up to 1989,’ in J. Aumente, P. Gross, R. Hiebert, O.V. Johnson, & D. Mills, Eastern European Journalism: Before, During, and After Communism, Hampton Press, Cresskill, N.J. Aumente, J. 1999b. ‘Struggles for Independent Journalism: Ten Years of Learning and Teaching, from Poland to Yugoslavia,’ Media Studies Journal, 13(3): 166-175. Brislin, T. 1996. ‘David and Godzilla: Anti-Semitism and Seppuku in Japanese Publishing,’ unpublished paper presented to the International Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, annual convention, Anaheim, Calif. Callan, J. 1999. ‘Hungary Newsies Duke It Out Online,’ Online Journalism Review, http://ojr.usc.edu/sections/features/99_stories/stories_hungary_062399.htm revised June 24, 1999, accessed July 6, 1999. Campbell, W.J. 1996. ‘Newspapers in Emerging Democracies: A Cross-Regional Study of the Newly Independent Press in Central Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa,’ unpublished paper presented to the International Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, annual convention, Anaheim, Calif.


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Chase, V. 1999. ‘Psát v Ĉechách anglicky: Struĉnỳ průvodce po (předevŝím pražské) kosmopolitní kulturní společnosti,’ Pravo (Prague, C.R.), 9(186), August 8: p. 3. Ghanem S.I. & Wanta, W. 1998. ‘Agenda-Setting and Spanish Cable News,’ unpublished paper presented to the Mass Communication and Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, annual convention, Baltimore. Greene, R.A. 2000. Former managing editor, The Prague Post, personal communication to author, November 2. Greene, R.A. 1999. Managing editor, The Prague Post, personal communication to author, September 5. Hamilton, J.M. & Krimsky, G.A., 1995. ‘Exporting American Media,’ Media Studies Journal, 9(3): 93-102. Hopkins, J.D. 2000. ‘Learning the Role of Democracy: Inexperienced Czech Journalists Prepare for the Long Road Ahead,’ Quill, 88(1): 42-43. Johnson, O.V. 1995a. ‘Czechs and Balances: Mass Media and the Velvet Revolution,’ in J. Popkin, ed., Media and Revolution, Lexington, Ky., University of Kentucky. Johnson, O.V. 1995b. ‘East Central and Southeastern Europe, Russia, and the Newly Independent States,’ in J.C. Merrill, ed., Global Journalism: Survey of International Communication, 3rd ed., Longman, White Plains, N.Y. Paraschos, M. 1991. ‘Europe,’ in J.C. Merrill, ed., Global Journalism: Survey of International Communication, 2nd ed., Longman, White Plains, N.Y.: 93-128. Parameswaran, R.E. 1998. ‘Pleasure, Privilege, and Leisure Reading: Class Identities and Romance Reading in Postcolonial Urban India,’ unpublished paper presented to the Qualitative Studies Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, annual convention, Baltimore. Prevratil, R. 1995. ‘Czechoslovakia,’ in D.L. Paletz, K. Jakubowicz, & P. Novosel, eds., Glasnost and After: Media and Change in Eastern and Central Europe, Hampton Press, Cresskill, N.J. Straka, P. 2000. General manager, The Prague Post, personal communication to author, March 2. Underwood, P.S. 1983. ‘Europe and the Middle East,’ in J.C. Merrill, ed., Global Journalism: Survey of International Communication, Longman, White Plains, N.Y.: 60-115. Wachtel, B. 1996. ‘Czech Media: Democratic or Anti-Communist?’ Nieman Reports, 1(2): 51-54. Wilson, T.L. 1994. ‘Press Systems and Media-Government Relations in the Czech and Slovak Republics,’ Gazette, 54: 145-161. Yurkovsky, A. 1995. ‘The voracious readers in Czechoslovakia: The Czech Republic has eight national newspapers with a combined circulation of nearly 1.8 million,’ Editor & Publisher, 128(2), January 14: 24. Zmatlikova, P. 2000. Marketing manager, The Prague Post, personal communication to author, January 25.


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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):76-95

Niranjala D. Weerakkody

Race as political strategy by US presidential candidates: a case study Abstract Race has played an important part in US presidential politics in contemporary history. Different political parties and candidates have followed covert strategies playing on the prejudices of white voters - both cognitively and emotionally - by linking race-related issues to the majority's individual and group interests. This elite discourse carried to the public by the mainstream media, along with media's practices of stereotyping, priming, framing and agenda setting, help to justify racial prejudice, discrimination against minorities and their marginalized status, while maintaining the status quo. Taking the social constructionist position, this case study examines the opinions expressed by a sample of undecided voters selected from different geographic locations at various stages of the 1992 US presidential campaign under the themes ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ and ‘Race is used as political strategy by candidates.’

not for distribution free online preview only Daar is toenemend aanduidings dat ras ‘n al groter rol in Amerikaanse presidentsverkiesings speel. In hierdie artikel word spesifiek aandag gegee aan die wyse waarop presidentskandidate in die 1992 van ras as ‘n faktor in hul verkiesingsveldtogte gemaak het. Voorts is ondersoek ingestel na die wyse waarop verkiesingsboodskappe met ‘n rasse-toon deur die media aan bepaalde groepe van kiesers oorgedra is.

Keywords: Boomerang effect, electoral, framing, media messages, political strategy, presidential elections, public opinion, race, social constructionism, spiral of silence, United States of America.

* Dr Niranjala D. Weerakkody, [[email protected]], is a Lecturer in Communication Studies in the School of Literary and Communication Studies, Faculty of Arts, Deakin University Geelong VIC 3217 Australia, Tel: +613 5227 1340; Fax: +613 5227 2484. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 83rd Annual Convention of the Association for the Education of Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Phoenix, AZ, USA, August 912, 2000.

Weerakkody: Race as strategy by US presidential candidates

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What voters think about presidential candidates Tracing examples of the use of race as a political strategy in US presidential politics from 1980 to 2000, this case study examines what voters thought about the presidential candidates who use the strategy, in a secondary analysis of data from depth and focus group interview discussions held during the 1992 US presidential election campaign. It further examines how the subjects' racial group membership and information received from the media messages shown as stimuli to focus groups, affected individuals and their thought processes in the construction of these opinions.

Rationale for the study Race has always played a part in US presidential politics in contemporary history where different political parties and candidates have followed covert strategies to play on the racial prejudices of white voters - both cognitively and emotionally. They do so by linking issues related to race such as Affirmative Action (AA), welfare, immigration and crime as adversely affecting the majority members' individual and group interests (Edsall & Edsall, 1991; Kinder & Sanders, 1996). This elite discourse carried to the public by the mainstream media, along with media's own discourse against minorities, helps maintain the status quo (Gioia & Pitre, 1990) for the conservative white voters and safeguards the group interests linked to tangible and intangible benefits for the majority. The media practice many strategies in their representations of minorities and issues related to them, such as stereotyping, priming (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987), framing (Gamson, 1992; Entman, 1993), and agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; 1993). These practices help to justify the whites' prejudices and discrimination against minorities, the marginalized status of minorities in society, and support the revocation of programs and legislation benefiting them (Van Dijk, 1987). Political campaigns and elections are useful in the study of race as they can help one to gauge the extent of public opinion on related subjects. At the same time, they allow one to observe how political elites frame popular debates on issues by linking them to race in order to gain support from white conservative voters (Edsall & Edsall, 1991). Issues related to race have been recurring themes, either played up or down, in campaign strategies since the 1980s and this will probably continue to be the case in the foreseeable future. To some extent, race was also relevant to the 1992 presidential elections when David Duke and Pat Buchanan were running for nomination during the primaries. During the 2000 campaign, race played a part when both George W. Bush and Al Gore courted the minority vote by attempting to be inclusive of blacks and Hispanics (Ferullo, 2000; Forbes, 2000). Therefore, it is useful to examine what voters have thought about


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candidates' use of race as a political strategy during any presidential campaign in contemporary history.

Theoretical framework The central thesis of this study is that racial prejudice is based on both psychological and sociological factors. The psychological factors are based on status and self-interest linked to self-esteem, while the sociological ones are based on group interests linked to group status. Both sets of factors contribute toward providing both tangible and intangible benefits to members of the majority (Gandy, 1998). Political candidates may use these factors to their advantage in framing discussions of particular issues (aspects selected and given salience) and linking them to race and racial minorities, even if the candidates may not be racists (Powledge, 1991). At the same time, conservative voters who desire the maintenance of their group's higher status punish political candidates who endeavour to improve the status of disfavoured groups in society (Gandy, 1998; 59).

Social constructionism

not for distribution free online preview only George Kelly's theory of radical constructive alternativism explains human action as linked to the processes by which a person ‘privately construes, cognises, or interprets the world’ (Gergen, 1994). Franklin (1995) points out that reality is socially and psychologically constructed and Swanson (1981) argues that behaviour such as voting, results from voters' beliefs or constructions about the political world.

Public opinion and political elites

William Gamson (1988) argues that, ‘political elites’ such as politicians, interest groups, journalists and commentators with direct access to political power, organizational resources, knowledge, experience and the mass media, can express opinions on particular issues. Issues are often sponsored, defined, framed, and promoted by these elites with the aim of advancing their own policy agendas or maximizing their group interests, and guiding how certain issues and kinds of opinions that are expressed should be understood by the public. These elites manipulate voter prejudice both cognitively and emotionally by affecting their thought processes (Gamson, 1988). Voters' candidate preferences are also determined partly by the match between their opinions about particular issues or public policies and their perceptions of a candidate's opinions toward those specific issues or policies (Krosnick et al, 1994).


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Effects of psychological and sociological factors on public opinion Sociological (group and/or cultural) and psychological (intra-personal) variables linked together, help to explain human behaviour better than each one on its own. The pervasive communication of ethnic and racial attitudes is both an intrapersonal (psychological) and a group process (sociological), as those who talk about racial minorities or ‘others’ are individuals as well as members of groups (Van Dijk, 1987).

Influence of media messages on public opinion The constructionist view suggests that people construct meaning from media messages based on their own attitudes, values and affects (emotions) (Gamson, 1992; Neumann, Just & Crigler, 1992). From the Cultural Studies perspective, Stuart Hall (Hall, 1980) points out that people bring their own experiences to the reading of cultural or other messages. Media messages are polysemic as they do not have a single meaning but are open texts capable of being read by different people in different ways based on their social positioning and subjectivity (Eagleton, 1991). When a reader of a text interprets its message (which carries the dominant ideology) as intended by the sender, it leads to a dominant or preferred reading. When the reader completely disagrees with the dominant ideology embedded in the text and makes an alternative interpretation of it that opposes the dominant ideology, it results in a resistant or oppositional reading. When the reader agrees with the dominant ideology embedded in the text in principle, but chooses and rejects aspects of the message based on his or her own experiences and social position, it gives rise to a negotiated reading (Fiske, 1992).

not for distribution free online preview only Review of literature The 1992 US presidential election campaign has acted as a stimulus to several scholarly research projects. Alger, Kern and West (1993) analysed the interrelationships between political advertising, the media environment, and the voters, while voters' perceptions of the candidates during the primary campaigns were studied by Pfau et al (1993; 1995). Based on their ‘Democracy '92’ project which is one of the largest studies carried out on the 1992 campaign, Just et al (1996) discuss what the candidates, the media and the voters talked about among themselves and with each other by analysing the discourse that took place within and between the three groups. Irio and Huxman (1995) carried out focus groups and depth interviews in late 1991 to study how people identified and specified their concerns; at what level (personal, neighbourhood, community, state, national or international) these concerns existed; what the single most important concern was for them; and how people kept themselves informed about issues. Cavanaugh (1995) examined the effects of media messages on voters during the

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campaign, using a panel study. However, none of these studies dealt with issues related to race in the context of the US presidential campaign discourse of 1992. Public opinion on issues related to race In analysing focus group discourse with ‘working people’ in Boston on several issues including AA in 1986, Gamson (1992) found that people read media messages in complicated and sometimes unpredictable ways and draw heavily on other resources, such as experiential knowledge, beliefs and media discourse in constructing meaning. Opinions on issues related to race are also influenced by geographic factors such as a specific region that has various social realities, situations and issues unique to it. For example, a locality which experienced bussing in the 1970s would discuss AA in a different way to those that did not (Gamson, 1992). Kinder and Sanders (1996) analysed the important cognitive and emotional factors such as self-interest, group identity, ideological principles (e.g., equality or egalitarianism) that affect people's opinions on race-related issues in the context of the 1988 presidential campaign and others before it. Racial discrimination can also be attractive to some sectors of the majority group population who would like to return to the pre-Civil Rights era of white supremacy. During that time blacks and other minorities had far less or no power, social welfare benefits, equality, visibility or legal protection from discrimination and did not compete with whites for either tangible or intangible benefits (Edsall & Edsall, 1991).

not for distribution free online preview only The issue of race in American politics

When electoral districts are less racially diverse and less polarized along party lines, political parties seem to capitalize on racial tensions and divisive social issues (Edsall & Edsall, 1991). Most southern white politicians in the 1950s had ‘acted racist’ even though they were not privately so inclined, in order to appeal to racist white voters and survive politically (Powledge, 1991). Powledge sees this ‘Southern racism’ as still in force, when George Bush vetoed Civil Rights laws and used the Willie Horton ads in the 1988 campaign, leading to the rise of Pat Buchanan and David Duke. He argues that this was the same George Bush who led a campaign to raise money for the United Negro College Fund during his law student days at Yale University and as leader of the Texas Republican Party, had placed party funds in a black-owned bank. Even Bill Clinton, who had been very active while a student at Georgetown University in assisting poor blacks who came from the south to take part in the Civil Rights rallies in Washington D.C. and was dubbed ‘our first black President’ by the Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, was the Governor of one of only two states (Arkansas) that had not ratified Civil Rights legislation (Marable, 1995/1996).


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Ronald Reagan and race as political strategy. Between 1980 and 1988, the Republican Party of the United States had used the three issues of race, rights (Civil Rights and Affirmative Action in particular) and taxes in a combination that created a ‘chain reaction’ to win the working class and lower middle class white voters (called Reagan Democrats) away from the Democratic Party. In the process, it polarized the electorate along racial lines, while Reagan avoided the label of racism (Edsall & Edsall, 1991). Pat Buchanan and race as political strategy. Pat Buchanan's arguments against foreign aid, immigration and AA programs (related to developing countries, immigrants and minorities respectively, who are mostly non-white) can polarise the voters along racial lines. It is easy to mobilize public resentment toward programs, which do not provide tangible or intangible benefits to oneself, one's family, neighbours or friends but go to people who are ‘different’ to give those ‘others’ an easy life or a life better than ‘ours’ (Edsall & Edsall, 1991). However, in the 2000 campaign, Buchanan's choice of the black southern female and conservative activist Ezola Foster as his running mate for the Reform party, could be seen as a bid to appeal to minorities.

not for distribution free online preview only George Bush and the issue of race. Bush's ‘Kinder, gentler America’ was a ‘beneficence without fiscal substance.’ (Prager, 1987) But his strategy was far less divisive than Reagan's, making an effort to reconcile with the blacks while still appealing to white resentment (Prager, 1987). When vetoing the Civil Rights Act of 1990 to support the white electorate, he explained his reservations to be based on the issue of quotas rather than on the central issue of Civil Rights in a moderate bid toward reconciliation with blacks (Edsall & Edsall, 1991). Bill Clinton and the issue of race. In the 1992 presidential campaign, race took a very different turn when Clinton made it his first priority to attract the white Reagan Democrats. As a result, he only appointed a few blacks to his staff and kept his contacts with black groups to a minimum (Hacker, 1992). Clinton also distanced himself from Rev. Jesse Jackson and spoke about issues related to race only to audiences that were predominantly black. His attacks on Jesse Jackson about the anti-white remarks of rapper Sister Souljah, was an attempt to indicate his independence from Jackson (Watts, 1993). Jack Kemp and the issue of race. Jack Kemp, the vice - presidential candidate for the Republican Party in the 1996 election and a proponent of AA, avoided supporting it publicly due to opposition for the programme from the presidential candidate, Bob Dole and most of the Republican Party. The only time he did so was when addressing a small group of politically active blacks in Chicago (Gray, 1996).

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Al Gore and the issue of race. Race played a part in the 2000 Campaign when, for fear of alienating the black vote during a debate in Iowa, the Democratic candidate Al Gore refused to criticize Rev. Al Sharpton, the controversial and demagogic African American leader from New York. He also criticized George W. Bush for not supporting legislation against hate crimes in Texas by linking it to the murder of the African American James Boyd, Jr. by members of a white supremacist group in June 1998, in Jasper, Texas (Brownstein, 2000). George W. Bush and the issue of race. For fear of antagonizing conservative white voters in South Carolina, George W. Bush - the Republican candidate in the 2000 election, refused to urge for the removal of the confederate flag from the South Carolina State Capitol (Brownstein, 2000). He remained silent on the issue, even though he actively sought the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) for his candidacy.

Electoral temptations of race A political party sympathetic to minorities will try to maintain their loyalty without alienating the conservative majority group members. It would use silence and evasion (of issues related to race) while the party with more conservative policies will try to obtain the support of racial or ethnic majority conservatives without appearing racist. The use of racial code words such as reverse discrimination, political correctness, special interests, voting blocs, welfare abuse, crime, drugs, inner cities, social welfare policies, Affirmative Action, and illegal immigrants (Woodward, 1988) are part of this strategy, which Kinder and Sanders (1996) call ‘electoral temptations of race.’

not for distribution free online preview only Method The main objective of this case study is to examine how voters in depth and focus group interviews talked about the use of race as a strategy by presidential candidates in the 1992 US presidential campaign, despite the fact that they were not asked to speak about them nor prompted to do so by the researchers. The subjects who took part in the depth and focus group interviews in the ‘Democracy 92’ project, of which this is a secondary analysis of data, were only told they were going to ‘talk about politics.’ They were simply asked to comment on the ‘most important problem’ to them in the context of the 1992 presidential elections, in both interview settings. The focus groups were then shown stimulus material consisting of TV news items, campaign advertisements and segments from The American Agenda programs. There were two items of news related to race among the stimulus material shown to the focus groups in Los Angeles and Fargo-Moorhead. They were:


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• Jerry Brown, from a black church, attacks Bill Clinton for playing golf at an all white country club (shown to Fargo-Moorhead focus groups), and • A news story about the visit of various candidates to Los Angeles after the Los Angeles riots. Clinton presents himself as a healer and speaks of healing wounds of racial division; George Bush’s meeting with Cabinet officials to discuss steps to rebuild Los Angeles; Jerry Brown visiting minority areas ravaged by the riots; Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan criticizing Bush on issues related to the riots. This news item reported that candidates were accused of opportunism in Los Angeles but argued that there was no way they could ignore the riots. Los Angeles riots had also made urban problems an election issue (shown to Los Angeles focus groups). This study's aim in analysing the opinions expressed in these interviews, is to ‘unpack’ the thought processes of the individuals who expressed opinions on the two themes ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ and ‘Race is used as political strategy’ in the two different interview settings. It will also examine if any media messages shown in focus group stimuli or otherwise, had influenced the opinions expressed by the interview subjects on these themes.

not for distribution free online preview only The data

The data were obtained from the focus group interviews with undecided voters from four geographic locations in the US, namely Los Angeles, California (west); Fargo-Moorhead, North Dakota (mid-west); Boston, Massachusetts (east) and Winston Salem, North Carolina (south). The depth interview data was obtained from Los Angeles and Fargo-Moorhead, during various stages of the 1992 US presidential campaign. Boston and Winston Salem, from which the focus group data were used in this analysis, are cities with moderate levels of racial diversity that were used to compare with the opinions expressed by those from the racially diverse Los Angeles and the almost all-white Fargo-Moorhead. The main findings of the original project, which was sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein Centre of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, are reported in Crosstalk: Citizens, candidates and the media in a presidential campaign (Just et al, 1996). That study did not examine or address any issues related to race at all. In contrast, the current study analysed the original data only in terms of opinions expressed by participants on the two themes under study. The depth interview subjects discussed the two themes of their own accord, while some focus groups did so on their own as well as after viewing the related items from the stimulus tapes. The Fargo-Moorhead depth interviews were carried out with 14 individuals who were all whites, while the Los Angeles ones consisted of three African

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Americans, five Latinos and six whites. These subjects were selected according to census figures for each location based on quota sampling and the interviews were carried out at four stages of the campaign, namely just before and after the primaries in the respective states and at two stages before the election. The focus groups were carried out with 10-12 subjects each at three different stages during the campaign and their participants were all white at all four locations. The gender distribution of each focus group was near 50%. The media messages drawn from memory by the depth interview subjects and those drawn from memory and the stimulus materials shown to the focus group participants were examined to see what effects they had on the discussions of the two themes. Analysis of Data. The thematic analysis of opinions expressed on the two themes ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ and ‘Race is used as political strategy’, was carried out by following the procedure of pattern coding of all relevant opinions (Miles & Huberman, 1985 & Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This system refers to writing of each relevant opinion on 6x4 index cards (The author used 6x4 sized papers in six different colours denoting the four locations and the two different types of interviews). Only one opinion was written down on each coloured paper and was accompanied by notes on the context in which the opinion was expressed. The opinions were then grouped under each theme according to the similarities and differences between them, and then as different categories of opinions under each theme. The coloured paper also included a standardised system of notation identifying the type of interview, its geographic location, and the participant who expressed that opinion.

not for distribution free online preview only The qualitative analysis of opinions

The methodology used in this case study was the qualitative analysis of the relevant opinions expressed under the two themes, ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ and ‘Race is used as political strategy.’ The corresponding frames and categories of opinions that evolved from the analysis under these two themes using pattern coding were developed following the guidelines in Gamson (1992). As Lincoln and Guba (1985) point out, this type of analysis provides rich descriptions of data, as qualitative data are context embedded and provide a psychologically rich, in-depth understanding of the individuals expressing the opinions. Why a case study? A case study is an in-depth examination of an instance or an intensive examination of a facet of an issue (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). As a method of research, the case study helps a researcher to develop a comprehensive model describing patterns of behaviour. It is suitable for investigating phenomena that have a large number of factors and relationships, and have no basic laws that determine the


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salience of those factors and relationships (Fidel, 1992). These criteria agree with the type of data analysis involved in this study and therefore carrying out the project as a case study can be justified. Research questions With the aid of the qualitative analysis of the opinions falling under the two themes, ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ and ‘Race is used as political strategy,’ this article examines the following research questions. RQ 1: How do voters, both white and non-white, seek inclusiveness from presidential candidates? RQ 2: Do any whites dislike the use of racial strategies in presidential campaigns? RQ 3: What factors seem to affect their displeasure? When the opinions expressed by the subjects were summarized, the theme ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ was framed as ‘A candidate's racial prejudice or negative attitudes toward minorities or race, their positions on issues or social policies related to race, and candidates' ‘slips of the tongue,’ give them away as racists. Some candidates such as David Duke may use race to feather their own nests. A candidate's or Party's perceived attitudes toward race is a factor influencing some people's voting decisions. However, as the United States is made up of immigrants from all over the world, an effective leader is required to understand and be tolerant of diverse cultures and be inclusive.’ The theme ‘Race is used as political strategy’ was framed by the opinions expressed by the subjects as ‘Today, minority groups are well organized and powerful and are important as voting blocs. Therefore, they can influence the direction of certain issues. e.g., Israel by the Jews. So candidates have to be careful about what they say in order not to antagonize any particular group. Clinton distanced himself from Jesse Jackson for fear of losing the white conservative vote, while contriving to be seen with minorities for the benefit of TV news cameras and to attract the minority vote. Candidates also use issues related to race to attack their opponents, which could succeed with some voters. e.g., Jerry Brown about Clinton playing golf at an all-white Country Club.’


Results Many white subjects expressed the view that they did not condone racism in a candidate and the minorities saw racism in candidates as linked to self-interest (winning the racist vote), group interests (of one's own group) and power (gained by winning elections). Even though no generalizations can be made with regard to the use of qualitative data such as depth and focus group interviews involving

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a small group of voters, an analysis of the opinions expressed under these two themes indicates that at least some voters recognize that candidates use race as a strategy, either to win a particular group over or to avoid antagonizing them. At the same time, the candidates are also seen as trying to placate the conservative majority by staying away from more prominent minority members such as Jesse Jackson. Issues of race linked to particular candidates can also be used by their opponents to discredit them in the eyes of voters from a particular racial group. However, these racially tinged messages or strategies can also have the opposite effect or no effect at all on some subjects. Some of the opinions expressed on the two themes by the various interview subjects in all four locations and both depth and focus group interviews were as follows. Voter evaluations of candidates' racial prejudice In the Los Angeles depth interviews, when describing racism as a ‘cancer’ affecting the nation, Luis, the Latino male stated that ‘President Bush, Buchanan, Duke... Forget it ...We don't need that in America.’ He saw Bush's use of the term ‘traditional values’ as a code word for the separation of the races into ‘us and them.’ Mark, a white male and an Independent voter, thought that ‘Buchanan and Bush are very extreme, right-wing conservatives ...are pretty much the same candidates (with the) same ideals, just with different names.’ Ingrid, a White female who is a Democrat supporter, saw ultra-conservatism as the most important problem for the country at the moment and said that when voting, ‘I would go for more liberal issues.’ ‘I don't think he (Buchanan) is a racist ‘ was the opinion of Jane, the white female who is a Republican supporter. She said, ‘I think he is speaking the plain truth (and) that's why he won't get elected.’ Edith, a white female who is an Independent voter expressed the view that she doesn't like racism and ‘how they (candidates) feel about it (racism or their links with the Klu Klux Klan or KKK) has to be watched.’ In the Fargo-Moorhead focus groups, Sharon-a white female, who is an Independent leaning Republican, in discussing Brown's allegation that Clinton played golf at an all-white country club (as seen in the stimulus tape), said in support of Clinton that, ‘They say he's in favour of integration and not a racist. That's unusual coming from Arkansas. I used to live in Arkansas. That's (not being racist) not a common factor down there.’ In response, Jeanene, a white female who is a Democratic supporter and is for Brown, said that Brown's pointing it out is ‘…important. I think that shows a lot of what the man himself (Brown) stands for, if you look beyond what he is saying.’ Carey, a white female added, ‘Clinton is a much warmer, optimistic candidate. He encompasses everyone... rural people, city people, black people, the lesbian community, pro-choice. In contrast, Bush seems to exclude people. You're



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not really an American, you may live here, but oh, I don't know if we don't (sic) want you.’ In the Winston-Salem focus groups, Theresa, the white female who is a Democratic-leaning Independent, thought that the Independent candidate Ross Perot was stirring up some interest in people. However, she thought that ‘He really stopped after he went to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) function and said, ‘You people.’ I think it really threw him for the curb because he doesn't know how to reach people of such a diverse culture. If you don't understand the diverse cultures of the people you're going to be serving, you can't be an effective leader.’ In the same focus group but at a later stage in the campaign, Suzanne, the white female who is an Independent voter, expressed her opinion on Buchanan (when someone described him as stubborn), as being ‘…very set in his ways. He is very dedicated to his beliefs. (But) his beliefs infringe on other people's rights.’ William, a black male and a Republican voter from the Los Angeles depth interviews thought of David Duke as a ‘small time hustler’ who will use ‘…all the contributions from (whites) to feather his own nest. He is going to keep the tensions up (and get) zealots from both sides and that just creates foolishness.’ Tracey- a black female and Democratic supporter, said ‘Bush doesn't care about minorities or anybody else for that matter. I see him as a racist with no clue.’ When deciding to vote she would consider ‘…who's going to do the most benefit for me personally, for this country and black people.’ She also thought racism was about ‘just money and power’ for the whites. Several interviewees who were minority racial group members seemed to consider a candidate visiting Los Angeles after the riots and speaking to minority members as a mark of not being a racist. (e.g., Jorge- the Latino male about Bush and Tracey the black female about Brown.)

not for distribution free online preview only Discussion Jane seemed to describe and defend Buchanan as not being racist in an attempt at positive self-presentation as she agrees with his views but does not want to be perceived as a racist (Van Dijk, 1987). Sharon used her personal experience of having lived in Arkansas when defending Clinton and making a resistant reading (Hall, 1980) of the Brown ad. Jeanene made a dominant reading (Hall, 1980) of the same ad in spite of being given some positive information about Clinton by Sharon, when she defended Jerry Brown's actions on the golf club issue. As Jeanene is a Brown supporter, she defended Brown's stand and constructed meanings from the media message seen in the stimulus material based on her own attitudes, values and emotions (Neuman, Just & Crigler, 1992). She also disagreed with Sharon, which contradicted the ‘Spiral of Silence’ situation (Noelle-Neumann, 1984) that should have existed in the focus group interview.

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According to the ‘Spiral of Silence,’ people become afraid or reluctant to express views that disagree with the general consensus prevailing in the situation they are in, due to fear of being isolated or ostracized by the others. They may remain silent even if they think the majority view is wrong or unfair. The two white women (Theresa and Suzanne) from the American south (Winston-Salem, NC), make an important observation by saying that a leader should be inclusive. It indicates that all whites may not prefer candidates to be racist or use race as a strategy, making ‘Southern racism’ (Powledge, 1991) invalid with some southern white voters such as Theresa and Suzanne. This agrees with Edsall and Edsall's (1991) arguments that people do have a conscience and that race related strategies did not work in the long run once people realized that the Republican Party was harsh on the poor. In support of their theory, they cite the example of Reagan's use of race as a strategy not working for Bush in 1992. When William commented on David Duke, he saw Duke's strategy purely as the self-interest of ‘feathering his own nest’ by receiving contributions from supporters. He described Buchanan as a racist but did not say so about Duke, probably as Duke's well-known involvement with the KKK makes it obvious. Tracey's remark that she would consider what a candidate can do for her personally and for her group when voting, is a clear indication where self interest as well as group interests come to the fore in citizens' voting decisions (Krosnick et al., 1994). Her comment that racism is about ‘money and power’ for the whites along with those of William about Duke, support the theory that racism involves group and individual interests linked to tangible and intangible benefits for those practising it (Gandy, 1998).

not for distribution free online preview only Race is used as a political strategy

Luis, the Latino male from the Los Angeles depth interviews who is a Democratic supporter, thought that ‘Clinton hasn't embraced Jesse Jackson really because he's afraid to alienate the white vote - the conservative white voter and the racist white voter.... because there is always that 5% white vote against a black.’ Luis reiterates the existing literature and provides an example to support the concept of ‘Southern racism’ described in Powledge (1991) where forms of racism were practiced by Southern politicians in the past to placate their white conservative voters, even if the politicians themselves were not actually racist. Caren, the white female and a Republican supporter thought that a candidate's attitudes toward certain issues (affecting various voter groups) can affect those groups' support to that candidate (Krosnick et al., 1994). So ‘they have to be careful what they say.’ As a result, ‘the candidates go by what the overall consensus is of the people in the US, trying not to sway too far to hurt any category of people - blacks, whites, women, farmers... you know, they don't want to say the wrong thing. They want to get into office, and then start making the decisions.... because those (women and blacks) are the major groups (of voters)


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and once you have made them mad, you're history.’ Tracey, an Afro-American female and a Democratic supporter, thought that ‘They (candidates) never talk about how to make race relations better, ever! I can't remember hearing them talk about it.’ Both Caren and Tracey were referring to the strategy of silence used by candidates on sensitive subjects, described as an ‘electoral temptation of race’ by Kinder and Sanders (1996). Effects of media messages After seeing the news item in the stimulus tape where Jerry Brown attacks Clinton for playing golf at an all-white country club, Jolene, the white female Republican supporter from the Fargo-Moorhead focus groups said that ‘He (Brown) likes to play dirty’ as ‘it was (announced at) an all black service. It was in a black church... To me that means he (Brown) was (saying) see what I'm (Brown) doing and see what he (Clinton) is doing. And that's why I decided he's (Brown) playing dirty.’ This is clearly a situation where a resistant reading had been made from a media text (Hall, 1980). The viewer interpreted it in a completely different way from that intended by Jerry Brown, by expressing a negative emotion about Brown instead of Clinton. In a lively discussion that ensued on the subject of Clinton playing golf at the all-white country club (after viewing the stimulus tape in the Fargo-Moorhead focus group), Rick, a white male Republican supporter thought that ‘He (Clinton) made a serious mistake’ but ‘he backed down (by apologizing instead of defending himself).’ ‘Right or wrong, why doesn't he defend the reason why he went there for? .... Oh, I don't want to lose any votes, so I am sorry, I shouldn't have done that and I won't do it again.’ But Jason, a white male and an Independent voter who is leaning toward the Democrats, disagreed with Rick by saying, ‘Boy, I disagree with that.. him backing down. He's been through a lot this campaign and that boy stood toe-to-toe with everyone but a little clip like that could change thousands of votes.’ Defending Clinton, Dana, the white male Independent voter stated: ‘I'm surprised that Brown is picking up on such a small issue. So the man went and played golf, what's the difference? Granted it was an all-white golf course in Arkansas but like they said, he was a guest there. He wasn't doing it because he was white. It doesn't seem to me that candidates should be picking on something that small. They should be conducting themselves as to what they want to do, not picking on each other.’ After seeing stimulus tapes showing Clinton visiting Los Angeles after the riots in the Los Angeles focus group interviews, Colin a white male and a Republican supporter exclaimed ‘Oh! Clinton talking about racism! The guy is more white (sic) than anybody I've ever seen. Yeah, he gets up there in front of a bunch of people and says all the gift-wrap things. And he does this conveniently on the news. He goes and talks to a bunch of black people. I'd love to hear what


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these people are thinking about whitey.’ To which Larry, a white male Independent-leaning Republican voter agreed, saying: ‘Clinton, he's a patsy-faced white boy. He's not believable.’ Don, a white male Republican supporter, then added, ‘Did you notice him (Clinton) when he was racing from the front line to shake hands with a black person? Oh, that was terrible! Just so phoney, what we've been talking all evening.’ These opinions show that voters are not easily swayed by political messages received via the media and see them for what they are - advertisements or photo opportunities - and are less influenced or persuaded by them. In contrast, negative ads, which change or create a particular perception of a targeted candidate are considered more effective and are given as the reason why campaigns are full of them. It is noteworthy how a group of white male voters made an oppositional reading of the text (Hall, 1980) and interpreted it as propaganda and nothing else. All three subjects were also Republican supporters or Republicanleaning Independents, who were discussing an issue not directly relevant to them, as they were not blacks. But they all seemed to interpret it as Clinton courting the black vote rather than being inclusive. However, two non-whites from the Los Angeles depth interviews considered a candidate visiting Los Angeles after the riots and speaking to minority groups as an indication of their not being racist. But the candidates concerned happened to be the ones the two interviewees supported. (The Latino Republican supporter Jorge, about Bush; and Tracey, the black Democrat, about Jerry Brown).

not for distribution free online preview only Discussion

Candidates' racial prejudice

A notable observation made during the analysis of opinions under this theme is that only one white subject from the Los Angeles depth interviews, Roslyn, a Republican supporter, expressed any opinions on ‘Candidates' racial prejudice.’ Even then, it was to argue that ‘Buchanan is not a racist’ but that he is ‘made to appear so by his opponents to discredit him.’ In contrast, every non-white subject in the Los Angeles depth interviews expressed negative opinions on the theme, except for Jorge, the Latino Republican supporter, who defended Bush as ‘not being a racist.’ In Fargo-Moorhead, a location with low minority populations, the subjects who are all-white discussed the theme in detail. White subjects also discussed it in Winston-Salem, some even advocating that a candidate be inclusive. But in racially diverse Los Angeles, the white subjects did not consider ‘Candidates' racial prejudice’ important enough to be talked about during the interviews, in spite of the Los Angeles riots, the earlier Rodney King trial, and the candidates Duke and Buchanan vying for nomination during the primaries.


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Race is used as political strategy When Tracey, the black female from Los Angeles, talked about candidates avoiding the discussion of race relations and when the white females Caren (from the Los Angeles depth interviews) and Cora (from Fargo-Moorhead depth interviews) mentioned politicians having to be careful about saying the wrong thing that might alienate minorities, they were referring to the strategy of silence used by candidates on sensitive subjects. This could also be seen as the effect of the ‘Spiral of Silence’ (Noelle-Neumann, 1984), working at a macro level involving the nation's entire population and the mainstream politicians. Effects of media messages The interview subjects expressed very few opinions on the two themes with reference to the media messages that were either seen in the stimulus tapes or drawn from memory. But those that did, indicated varied readings of the media messages based on their choice of party or candidate. Jolene's view of Brown as ‘playing dirty’ when she criticized Clinton for playing golf at an all-white golf club, was clearly a case of a resistant reading made from a media text (Hall, 1980; Fiske, 1992). The viewer of the stimulus item, which carried the news story, interpreted Brown's criticism in completely the opposite way from that intended by Jerry Brown, by expressing a negative emotion about Brown instead of about Clinton. This is an example of the ‘boomerang’ effect of a campaign advertisement (Just et al ,1996), where the negative ad backfired on the sender (Brown) instead of discrediting the one (Clinton) it was aimed at. Jolene is also a white, Republican supporter, while the two people involved in the issue, Brown and Clinton, are both Democratic candidates, which could have been a factor affecting her interpretation of the message. A Democratic supporter's views on the subject (either a white or a black) would have shed more light on it. At the same time, Edith, a white female and a Brown supporter, defended Brown by saying that voters needed to be informed about situations such as the golf club issue. Her partisanship for her preferred candidate, confirms Neuman, Just and Crigler's (1992) contention, as Edith constructed meanings based on her own attitudes, values and affect (emotions). Dana's (the white male Independent voter from the Fargo-Moorhead focus groups) defence of Clinton on Brown's allegations on the golf club issue is again an oppositional reading (Fiske, 1992; Hall, 1980) of Brown's message about Clinton and the all-white golf club. Voters such as Dana and Jolene wanted candidates to focus on issues, not make what they saw as ‘personal attacks’ based on petty issues. It indicates support of Cavanaugh (1995) who found that voters see news items on character flaws of candidates as ‘distractions’ from the important issues facing the nation. It is also important to note that Dana is also an Indepen-


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dent voter, a member of a group crucial to any election, as they are swing voters. Unprompted by the stimulus tapes or the interviewers, the white males Mark (from the Fargo-Moorhead focus groups) and Lenny (from the FargoMoorhead depth interviews) and the black female, Tracey (from the Los Angeles depth interviews) saw Ross Perot's use of the term ‘You people’ when addressing a group of blacks as an indication of his racial prejudice, even though it was explained as a slip of the tongue. Tracey said, ‘It is not how he speaks, it is how he thinks.’ Even though the subjects had most probably received this information from the media, they did not attribute the information to the media but appeared to have internalised it as first hand information. The reactions of Colin, Larry and Don, the white males from the Los Angeles focus groups who saw Clinton as contriving to be seen with minorities, indicated voter cynicism about politicians and their messages (Jamieson, 1992; Patterson, 1993; Capella & Jamieson, 1997).

Conclusions

not for distribution free online preview only The examination of voter opinions expressed on the two themes, indicates that not only minority subjects, but some white subjects also sought inclusiveness from candidates and disliked the use of racial strategies in presidential campaigns. Many interview subjects had expressed a hint of racism in their self and group interests as well as in their opinions on various matters such as welfare and foreign aid during the interviews (not examined in this article). However, this analysis indicates that at least some white subjects did not actually want a president or a presidential candidate who is racist or exclusionary. Some did so on the grounds of racial diversity in the United States, others arguing that a racist candidate such as Buchanan is more suited to the pre-Civil Rights era. These findings seem to be in accordance with the position taken by the Republican Party, which distanced itself from David Duke and Pat Buchanan from the outset of the 2000 presidential campaign. Al Gore's decision in 2000 to select the Conservative Jewish Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate was interpreted as his ‘…sense for history, an ability to see outside the box and a willingness to roll the dice’ (Brownstein, 2000). George W. Bush's bold reply to a question on illegal immigrants from a conservative rural audience being that ‘…family values don't end at the Rio Grande (river)’ and that ‘…as long as mums and dads in Mexico can't feed their children, they would look to the US for opportunity…’ indicated his capacity for empathy valued in an American president (Brownstein, 2000). Unlike Bob Dole who snubbed the NAACP in 1996, Bush attended their convention and showed he was receptive to their concerns. In terms of the use of race as a political strategy, these facts indicate that both candidates had taken steps in the right direction in 2000, as befits a nation made up of diverse races and cultures such as the USA.


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With reference to political messages seen in the media, the opinions indicated that not all voters are swayed by them and may see them for what they are, which supports the argument that positive messages are not very effective. In contrast, negative messages seemed to create varied perceptions of a targeted candidate for the subjects in this study. In conclusion, the findings indicated that in accordance with social constructionism, subjects in this study used knowledge about political candidates and issues related to race, to function pragmatically when voting and interpreting media messages about candidates. Their social constructions of reality about candidates and issues were shaped by sociological and psychological factors such as their individual and group interests, life experiences, prior knowledge of issues, subjectivity, and preconceptions about the candidates of their choice. Limitations of the study Being a secondary analysis of existing data, this study was limited in the research questions it could examine because the interview questions had already been posed to subjects selected by the original researchers to suit their research design, which did not examine issues of race at all. But the fact that the subjects expressed opinions on the two themes when not specifically asked to do so makes the data and the findings more valuable, than if they had been directly asked to comment on them. However, the original research only asked subjects to discuss ‘the most important problem to them’ in the context of the 1992 presidential elections and did not pose any specific questions. The research not including any non-white subjects in the focus groups (but had several Latinos and African Americans among the depth interview subjects) is a disadvantage to this analysis; so is the non-inclusion of any Asian Americans in the Los Angeles and Native Americans in the Fargo-Moorhead depth interviews, as they make up a significant percentage of the population in the two States concerned. Their reactions to issues related to race would have helped in a comparison with the opinions of white subjects. The method of data analysis used in this study was pattern coding. Alternatively, the qualitative analysis of the opinions could have been done with the computer software QSR-NUDI*ST version 4.0 (Qualitative Solutions in Research Pty Ltd. - Non-numerical Unstructured Data*Indexing, Searching and Theory-building) (Weitzman, 2000). However, the findings would have still remained the same. Even though these data were collected in 1992 and race relations in the US may have changed since then, the findings are still useful in contributing to research on racial prejudice. This is because racial prejudice has existed since the beginning of time and will probably remain as long as humans exist in the universe. Therefore any study on prejudice done at any time, anywhere, will have a classic rather than a temporary value. The findings of this study could also be


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used for comparisons of opinions on the same themes during the 2000 campaign and thereafter.

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Ecquid Novi ISSN 0256-0054 2001 22(1):96-105

Chris Harmse, André Cillié Jordaan & Yolanda Jordaan

The Big Mac hamburger: is it used to communicate a distorted media message? Abstract For more than a decade the Big Mac index has served as a guide to the layman as to whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ exchange rate level. This article compares the postal rate of a standard letter in South Africa, relative to other selected countries, based on the Big Mac purchasing-power parity. It provides a theoretical overview of the Big Mac Index, its application and shortcomings. The findings indicate that government, private companies and labor unions should be very cautious when using only the Big Mac Index for comparison purposes. It may be concluded that when the Big Mac hamburger is used to compare and determine the relative value of postal rates between South Africa and the rest of the world, a distorted message is communicated.

not for distribution free online preview only Vir meer as ‘n dekade het die Big Mac indeks as riglyn vir die alleman gedien om te bepaal of geldeenhede op die ‘korrekte’ wisselkoersvlak is. Die artikel vergelyk die postarief van ‘n standaard brief in Suid-Afrika, relatief tot dié van ander lande, gebaseer op die die Big Mac koopkragpariteit. Dit omvat ‘n teoretiese oorsig van die Big Mac indeks, ‘n toepassing asook tekortkominge daarvan. Die bevindinge dui aan dat die owerheid, private ondernemings en vakbonde baie versigtig te werk moet gaan wanneer alleenlik die Big Mac indeks vir vergelykingsdoeleindes gebruik word. Die gevolgtrekking is dat indien die Big Mac hamburger gebruik word om die relatiewe waarde van postariewe tussen SuidAfrika en die res van die wêreld te vergelyk en te bepaal, ‘n verwronge boodskap gekommunikeer word. Keywords: Big Mac, communication, currency, economic, elasticity, exchange rate, inflation, postal rate, pricing policies, purchasing power parity * Prof. C Harmse, [[email protected]], is a professor in the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001, Tel: +27 (0)12 420-3464, Fax: +27 (0)12 362-5207; Dr AC Jordaan, [[email protected]], is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001, Tel: +27 (0)12 420-3462, Fax: +27 (0)12 362-5207, and Ms Y Jordaan, [[email protected]], is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing and Communication Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001, Tel: +27 (0)12 4202997, Fax: +27 (0)12 362-5085.

Harmse, Jordaan & Jordaan: The Big Mac hamburger and distorted media messages?

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The Big Mac Index as guide to exchange rate levels For more than a decade the Big Mac index has served as a guide to the layman as to whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ exchange rate level. Several academic studies have concluded that the Big Mac index is an accurate tool in predicting exchange rates over the long term. Supporters of the Big Mac index have even extended its application by using ‘other products’, instead of the Big Mac hamburger, as a method of measurement of relative prices. The purpose of this article is to measure South Africa's postal rate of a standard letter relative to other countries, based on the Big Mac purchasing-power parity. The article provides a theoretical overview of the Big Mac index, its application, as well as its shortcomings. Thereafter, the Big Mac index is put to the test by comparing the postal rates of standard letters in selected countries. The findings from the study indicate that government, private companies and labor unions should be very cautious when using only the Big Mac index for comparison purposes. They should also take relevant macro-economic principles into account to attain a more realistic economic conclusion.

not for distribution free online preview only Defining the Big Mac Index

The Economist magazine (http://www.economist.com) launched the so-called Big Mac index in 1986 as a light-hearted guide to measure whether currencies are at their ‘correct’ exchange rate level. They never intended the Big Mac index as a precise predictor of currency values, nor to compare relative values of individual consumer goods, but simply as a tool to make economic theory more digestible to the layman. Fourteen years down the line, the index has become a popular method of measurement of relative prices. The Big Mac index (also referred to as burgernomics) is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP) related to the price of a McDonalds Big Mac hamburger (Ong, 1998:15). Purchasing-power parity (PPP) is the notion that exchange rates are correct if a dollar buys the same amount of goods in all countries, in this case, the same amount of Big Mac hamburgers in any country. The theory of purchasing-power parity is the notion that currencies move towards the rate that equalizes the prices of an identical basket of goods in each country. The Big Mac index is based on a basket filled with a McDonalds Big Mac hamburger, which is produced in about 120 countries. The Big Mac PPP is seen as the exchange rate that would cause hamburgers to cost the same in America as in South Africa, or any other country. Thus, comparing actual exchange rates with PPP indicates whether a currency is under- or over-valued (The Economist, 2000: 91).

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Application of the Big Mac Index Research by Robert Cumby, an economist at Georgetown University, suggests that a currency’s deviation from Big Mac PPP can be a useful predictor of exchange rates. In 1997, the Big Mac index has correctly predicted the direction of exchange-rate movements for eight of 12 currencies of large industrial economies (The Economist, 1997: 71). Supporters of the index have extended its application by replacing the Big Mac hamburger with ‘other products’ to determine the purchasing-power parity. A study by Ong and Mitchell (2000:869-876) used the Big Mac index to compare the salaries of academics by converting the nominal salaries in each country to their purchasing power equivalents. The comparison was in reaction to academic staff unions and associations who argued for higher salaries on the grounds that existing salaries were below commercial salaries, and much lower than the salaries of their overseas counterparts. In South Africa, the merchant bank Investec, argued that the Big Mac index is not applicable in Africa, seeing that McDonalds has branches in only one subSaharan country namely South Africa. They ‘replicated’ the authority and accuracy of the Big Mac index to their own beer index, known as Investec’s beer index. They believe it is easier to compare the cost of a 375ml bottle of clear lager in various African countries, than a hamburger (The Economist, 1999: 78). The above studies indicate that the Big Mac index and its principles are widely used for comparison purposes. Various South African newspapers and magazines also report on the Big Mac index on a regular basis. The Financial Mail, for example, has regular updates in its economic section rating the Rand against other foreign currencies according to the Big Mac index (http://www.fm.co.za). The Big Mac index has become a well-known phrase among consumers making it a media topic well-worth writing about. Popular headings such as ‘McCurrency valuation time’ and ‘Rand undervalued’ entice consumers to purchase the newspaper or magazine featuring the latest Big Mac results (Fabricius, 1999). The influential Economist magazine is making a name for itself by creating economic indices. In 1992, The Economist magazine suggested the R-word index as ‘an alternative indicator of economic activity’. The idea is to count how many newspaper stories used the word ‘recession’ per quarter. Several journalists, whether they have knowledge of economic activity or not, use the R-word as a tool to predict GDP growth (Financial Mail, 1998a). Unfortunately readers are not always provided with a thorough background on the interpretation of the indices, but rather the media’s ‘abbreviated’ version. The Economist does however emphasise, that its indices should be seen as light-hearted guides, but surely the layman can be influenced, not being aware of the limitations of these indices. The various shortcomings of the Big Mac index can thus lead to a situation where the media communicates a distorted media message to its readers.



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Since the Big Mac index and its principles are widely used for comparison purposes the remainder of the article puts the Big Mac index to the test by means of comparing the postal rate of a standard letter in selected countries. Thereafter, shortcomings are highlighted and an adopted Big Mac application is shown. This revised measurement takes Gross National Product (GNP) per capita into account from which certain conclusions are drawn. Tables 1 and 2 present the results of the postal rates comparison, based on the Big Mac index, as well as against the actual dollar ($) exchange rate for 1994 and 1998. The statistics in Tables 1 and 2 indicate that the postal rate of a standard letter relative to the price of a Big Mac hamburger is much cheaper in South Africa than in any other of the selected countries. This is also true for the postal rate relative to other currencies weighted with the actual American (US) dollar exchange rate. The only exception was the relative Big Mac currency price of a standard letter in Britain in 1998 (28 cents in Britain against 32 cents in SA). The question arises whether one can interpret the results from Tables 1 and 2 as scientifically correct? Do the results convey a message to the South African Post Office (SAPO) that postal rates could be increased to a higher, relatively more ‘reasonable’ level? To be able to answer this question, one needs to take the shortcomings of the Big Mac index into consideration.

not for distribution free online preview only Table 1: Postal rate comparisons based on the Big Mac index in 1994 Big Mac prices

USA Aus Britain Germany Japan SA

Local currency

In US$

$2.32 A$2.45 £1.74 DM4.80 Y391 R7.00

$2.32 $1.78 $2.67 $2.96 $3.83 $1.97

Implied PPP* (Big Mac PPP)

1.05 0.75 2.07 169 3.02

Postal rate of a Actual standard letter US$ exchange rate Local In Big currency Mac dollar currency 32c 33c 45c 43c 1.37 25p 33c 0.65 DM1.00 48c 1.62 Y80 47c 102 60c 20c 3.55

Relative postal rate#

In actual US$ exchange rate 33c 38c 62c 78c 17c

*PPP: Local price divided by price in US$. This gives the so-called Big Mac Parity exchange rate # Price in US cent at actual US$ exchange rate Sources: Anon. 1998b. Postal rates worldwide. http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/exch; Big MacCurriencies. The Economist (various editions). http://www.economist.com. International Financial Statistics. 2000. vol LIII (6). June.

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Table 2: Postal rate comparisons based on the Big Mac index in April 1998 Big Mac prices

USA Aus Britain Germany Japan SA

Local currency

In US$

$2.56 A$2.65 £1.84 DM4.95 Y260 R8.00

$2.56 $1.75 $3.05 $2.69 $2.08 $1.59

Implied Postal rate of a Actual PPP* (Big standard letter US$ Mac PPP) exchange rate Local In Big currency Mac dollar currency 33c 33c 1.04 45c 43c 1.51 0.71 20p 28c 0.60 1.93 DM1.10 57c 1.84 109 Y80 73c 135 3.13 100 c 32c 5.04

Relative postal rate# In actual US$ exchange rate 29c 33c 60c 60c 20c

*PPP: Local price divided by price in US$. This gives the so-called Big Mac Parity exchange rate # Price in US cent at actual US$ exchange rate Sources: Anon. 1998b. Postal rates worldwide. http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/exch Big MacCurriencies. The Economist (various editions). http://www.economist.com. International Financial Statistics. 2000. vol LIII (6). June.

not for distribution free online preview only Shortcomings of the Big Mac Index

The developers of the Big Mac index admit that it is an imperfect measure, despite many forecasting successes (The Economist, 2001:118). The hamburger standard does have its flaws and the following is not taken into account when using the Big Mac index. The theory of PPP relates only to traded goods. The Big Mac is not shipped across borders and there may be big differences between countries in the cost of non-traded inputs such as rent (which account for a large share of total costs). Sales taxes and trade barriers (for example rates on beef) may also distort local prices. Thus while the Big Mac PPP are a handy guide to the cost of living in countries, it may not be a reliable guide to future exchange rate movements (The Economist, 2000:91). The type of product (Big Mac hamburger) used in this comparison (Big Mac index), has questionable economic meaning. The use of a single product, especially a product like a hamburger, should be used very cautiously to make a conclusion that, for example the cost of a standard letter in South Africa is very inexpensive. The comparisons made in Tables 1 and 2 are economically speaking incorrect, seeing that it does not take important macro-economic principles into consideration. Firstly, the comparison does not take living standards, socio-economic levels and development levels of different countries into consideration. If one has to compare


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a middle-income developing country, such as South Africa, with the industrial countries (high-income and developed) listed in Tables 1 and 2, one has to use a measurement that equates living standards or purchasing power. It would be more appropriate to use a universal comparison where per capita income is expressed in US dollar. Secondly, it does not take price elasticity of demand and revenue into consideration. Basic economic theory postulates that whenever there is an increase in price, the quantity demanded normally decreases. The question for any supplier of goods or services is whether an increase in price will affect their total revenue, and consequently their profits. The answer lies in the elasticity of demand, or how sensitive consumers are to any price change. If consumers are very price sensitive, then they will react strongly to any price increase, by decreasing their quantity demanded more than the relative increase in price. For example, if the price of a car increases by 10%, and volume sales (quantity demanded) decreases by 20%, then it means that the elasticity coefficient is two (2). The demand for cars is therefore elastic (elasticity coefficient > 1). In this case, total revenue and thus profits, will decrease if price increases. If the demand elasticity coefficient is smaller than one (

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