Ecrea A

Comparing and Re-Conceptualizing Journalism in the 21st Century.

A Critical Cosmopolitan View or

a History of Repeating?Thomas Petzold

Violence Profiles of three news culturesmost watched TV-News in

Germany … Tagesschau (ARD)

Great Britain … Ten O‘Clock News (BBC)

Russia … Vremja (1st Russian Channel)

Violence Definition“A violent act is any action of physical force, with or without a weapon, used against

oneself or another person, where there is an intent to harm, whether carried through or merely attempted and whether the action caused injury or not.”

Communications Research Group

Topic Agenda

event-sampling

Tagesschau

State/Party 17Economy 13Health/Social 13

Vremja

State/Party 28Human-Interest 12

Violence 11

10 O‘Clock

State/Party 15Law 10 Crime 5

in % of all news topics, n=124;126;114

Topic Agenda Correlation Spearman-Ranking-Coefficient

Strongest correlation (.61, p<.01)

Tagesschau and 10 O‘Clock

Weakest (.45)

Tagesschau and Vremja

Violence news topics

Great Britain • 26% on Crime• 21% on War• 20% on Accidents• 14% on Natural Disasters

Russia • 47% on Crime• 25% on Accidents• 21% on Civil Unrest/Strife

Germany

• 40% on War

• 40% on Civil Unrest/Strife

• 15% on Terrorism

NB: add to 100%: Others

International Violence-News-Flow

Transcultural News-Item = News topic to be found in at least two news cultures on the same day

Key Visualsidentical visual elements across media or news cultures

Aftermath of an assassination attempt on US-Vice-President Cheney in Afghanistan

Differences in violence news reportings - location

57

24

19

57

23

20

70

27

3

0,00

0,25

0,50

0,75

1,00

ARD Vremja BBC

General Reporting

EuropeanInternational

Non-EuropeanInternational

Domestic

0

100

31

69

45

55

0,00

0,25

0,50

0,75

1,00

ARD Vremja BBC

Violence Reporting

Violence in ForeignCountry

Violence in HomeCountry

Differences in violence news reportings - explicitness

9,0

5,2 3,9

25,0

17,0

8,3

35,0

30,8

4,2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

All Violence Presentation Low Violence Presentation(Grade 1-2)

Middle to Extremely HighViolence Presentation (Grade 3-

5)

in min

ARD 1. Russian Channel BBC

Discussion of a Violence-on-TV-Law in Russia since 1998Dec 98: Oleg Finko, then Head of the Duma-Commitee on Information- and

Network Politics, founded a project to reduce violence and perversion on TV …Nov 04: State Duma accepts amendments to a state law that prohibits the depiction

of dead bodies, murder scenes and violence on Russian TV from 7AM to 10PMPresident Putin vetos against the amendments because “the prohibition includes a lot

of children films as well as movies about heroic deeds and bravery of our compatriots“Mai 05: State Duma rejects the amendments and closes the case for further proofs

Codes of Practice influ- encing violence intensity?

Editorial Guidelines BBC (Great Britain)“When real life violence, or its aftermath, is shown on television or reported on radio and online we need to strike a balance between the demands of accuracy and the dangers of desensitisation or unjustified distress.“

§11 State Treaty on Broadcasting ARD (Germany)“Violence must not be played down nor glorified.“

Differences in violence news reportings – interpretations of events

Demonstration in St. Petersburg/Russia

Russian Framing vs. German Framing

Journalism Repertoires cosmopolitanised

• Audience & Amateur Participation?: How can we understand in the new mobile net world what publics bring to and take away from the new plethora of violent images that saturate the media? (Violence definition, Blogs, Medienrepertoire)

… New Repertoire of Selection Decisions

• Complexities of interconnectedness

?: We know that the media hold institutions to account, yet what media hold international settlements to account?

… New Responsibilities