1

MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: THE CASE OF A REVIEW OF ETHNIC MINORITY EDUCATION1

Martyn Hammersley

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Cardiff University, September 7-10 2000

The dissemination of research findings has been given increasing emphasis in recent years, particularly in the wake of critiques of educational research for failing to have an impact on policymaking and practice. One way in which research findings can be disseminated to a wide audience is via the mass media. However, coverage of educational research in the media is very limited. Furthermore, when it is covered researchers often complain that their work has been distorted. This paper examines some of the media coverage of the OFSTED-commissioned review of research on the education of ethnic minority children; a review authored by David Gillborn and Caroline Gipps, and published in 1996. Analysis of this media coverage will be used as a basis for addressing questions about what is involved in media representation of research, how it should be evaluated, and what meaning can be given to the concept of distortion.

Key words: dissemination of research findings, the mass media, media bias.

The way in which the results of social and educational research are represented in the media has long been of interest to social scientists. However, it has acquired particular importance in recent years because of growing demands that research findings be widely disseminated and have an impact. Indeed, increasingly, the proposal has been that the value of research should be judged by its practical payoff - this being the other side of the requirement that policymaking and practice ought to become research or evidence-based (see, for example, Blunkett 2000). Coverage by the mass media is one of the most effective means of disseminating research to a wide audience, and thereby maximising its impact.

In Britain, relatively little social and educational research gets media attention; as compared with natural science research, or with social and educational research in the United States (Fenton et al 1998). Occasionally, however, such research is given

1 Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association conference, Cardiff University, September 2000.

2

substantial media coverage. My focus here is a case in point: the Review of Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils, commissioned by OFSTED, authored by David Gillborn and Caroline Gipps, and published in 1996 (Gillborn and Gipps 1996). This Review was widely reported in both the broadcast and print media. The day after it was published it was one of the top stories in the early morning Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. In addition, items dealing with it appeared on all the BBC television news programmes, and it was also included in at least two ITN news broadcasts. Furthermore, it was covered in most of the main national daily newspapers, and in some regional ones as well.

Of course, even when research is reported in the media, researchers are sometimes dissatisfied with the way in which it is represented. This was certainly true in the case I am concerned with here. One of the authors of the Review, David Gillborn, has described much of the newspaper coverage as striking ‘a particularly alarmist and/or depressing note, casting Black children as “failures” and even presenting “underclass” analyses as if they were quoting an official source’. He notes that such accounts ran ‘directly contrary to the review which, while highlighting inequalities in attainment, explicitly critiqued the notion of “under-achievement” [...]’ (Gillborn 1998:5). He concludes that: ‘Much of the coverage bears only passing resemblance to the review: some is misleading, some is nothing more than an excuse to repeat chosen racist myths’ (Gillborn 1998:7).

Social scientists’ complaints about media treatment of research are not uncommon (Cohen and Young 1973:20; Rubin 1980; Haslam and Bryman 1994).2 Dunning, for example, has commented on the difficulties that social scientists face in ‘getting their message across’, this stemming from the reliance of many parts of the media on ‘sensation and sentiment as news values’ (Dunning 1994:59) And, in the field of educational research, Alexander has argued that the media treatment of what came to be called the ‘three wise men report’ was distorted by the ‘political and media myth’ of ‘plummeting educational standards in primary schools caused by decades of mindless progressivism’ (Alexander 1997:226-7). He claims that the media set out to sustain and develop this myth, using his work to do so.3

These complaints about distortion link to a broader tradition of sociological research on the media, much of which has been

2 However, it is worth noting that both Weiss and Fenton et al and found that researchers tended to be less critical about media coverage of their own research than about the representation of social research in the media generally (Weiss and Singer 1988; Fenton et al 1998).3 As in most situations where complaints are made, they are not limited to one side. Journalists are often critical of social research, and especially of the way research reports are written. See, for example, Toynbee 1999.

3

concerned with bias.4 However, in that literature, the notion of media distortion or bias has been poorly conceptualised, generally speaking; and inadequate attention has been given to the complex judgements involved in coming to conclusions about the existence and operation of bias (Anderson and Sharrock 1979; Harrison 1985). In several respects, the case I am examining is ideal for exploring these issues. As already noted, it attracted considerable media coverage, and it relates to a controversial topic. Most important of all, it allows detailed comparison of media reports with what they claim to be reporting; whereas this is much more difficult with reports focusing on situations or events, and/or which draw on sources of information that are not publicly available.

In the investigation on which this paper is based, I have looked in detail at how reporting of the Review of Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils relates to its content, and to the Press Release announcing its publication. Here, I will try to identify some of the processes of selection and reformulation involved in media representation. Later, I will consider the implications of these processes for complaints about distortion.

The Review and the Press Release

The Review is 91 pages long (including references), and is broken down into 7 sections. It begins with an ‘executive summary’ and ends with a section entitled ‘Conclusions’, whose sub-heading is ‘Ways forward: policy and practice’. Between the opening summary and the conclusion, there is an introduction and five separate chapters. These cover:

1) the context of the Review;

2) evidence about the achievement levels of different ethnic groups;

3) research dealing with the relative educational progress of these groups, and the significance of school effectiveness as a factor in this;

4) the findings of qualitative research on multi-ethnic schools; and

5) evidence about the situation in post-compulsory education.

4 The best known examples in Britain are probably the work of the Glasgow University Media Group: see Glasgow University Media Group 1976 and 1980. For a critical assessment of this research, see Harrison 1985.

4

There is a short summary of the main findings in the Conclusion of the Review, and a slightly different one on its back cover. A further summary is to be found in the Press Release, and since this is likely to be the first place that journalists would go for information about the content of the Review, I will concentrate on it here.

The Press Release is headed: ‘“COLOUR BLIND” SCHOOL POLICIES DO NOT HELP ETHNIC MINORITY PUPILS SAYS OFSTED REPORT’, and the summary of the Review’s findings reads as follows:

The report found encouraging developments over the last ten years. These include:

* improving levels of attainment among ethnic minority groups in many areas of the country;

* dramatic increases in examination performance in certain minority groups experiencing economic disadvantage such as Bangladeshi pupils in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;

* in higher education, people of ethnic minority background are generally well represented among those continuing education to degree level, although there are significantly different university admission rates between the ethnic groups.

However over these same ten years the report also finds that:

* the gap is growing between the highest and lowest achieving ethnic groups in many LEAs, for example, in the London Borough of Brent between Asian and African Caribbean pupils respectively;

* African Caribbean young people, especially boys, have not shared equally in the increasing rates of achievement;

* a disproportionately high number of black pupils have been excluded from school.

The structure of this summary is what is sometimes referred to as a good news/bad news format; with three separate, though related, points under each of the two headings.

The next part of the Press Release is a summary of the policy implications of the Review, derived largely from the ‘Ways forward’ section of the Conclusion. It reads as follows:

The report calls for:

5

* greater monitoring of educational achievements and experiences of ethnic minority pupils;

* schools to address ethnicity;

* a research agenda to address gaps in data;

* systematic studies of teaching and learning in multi-ethnic schools; and

* research into exclusions at school level.

Having outlined the content of the Review and of how it was presented to the media via the Press Release, in the next section I will focus on the media coverage itself.

6

Media Coverage

I will discuss just two brief examples of media coverage.5 The first is the opening part of the Today programme’s treatment.

BBC Today Programme News Headline and Bulletin

Here are the opening headlines from the 6.30am news on the morning after the Review was published:

Good morning from Sue McGregor and James Naughtie. Thursday the 5th of September.

The headlines this morning:

Iraq has protested to the United Nations about the American cruise missile attacks which have split the international community.

Research on the educational achievements of ethnic minorities suggest Asian pupils are outshining their classmates. We talk to two headteachers.

British and Irish ministers meet today to discuss how recent violence is affecting the inter-party talks.

And direct from a Dentist's waiting room we assess the latest revival of Punch.

Today's newsreader is Corrie Corfield.

CC: Iraq has made a formal protest to the United Nations about America's cruise missile attacks in Southern Iraq. The military operation has divided the international community. Iraq claims that missiles were fired on Baghdad last night but this has been denied by the United States.

Research published by the Schools Inspectorate says that pupils from some Asian groups are out-performing their classmates. The study, comparing the academic achievement of ethnic minority pupils, also suggests that Afro-Caribbean students are under-achieving.

Six further news items followed this, including ones dealing with the conflict in Ireland and the Conservative campaign against Labour over tax, involving demon eyes in a purse.5 An analysis of a much larger sample of the media coverage will appear in a subsequent publication.

7

From this we can see that news about the Review was given relatively high priority, and it more or less maintained its position in the Today Programme news reports through to the end of the programme at 9.00am. Moreover, there were also two more detailed items dealing with the Review. In the first, BBC education correspondent Sue Littlemore was interviewed about it by James Naughtie. Then, later, as advertised in the opening headlines, there was a discussion led by James Naughtie with two headteachers. For the purposes of this paper, however, I will focus solely on the news headline and bulletin item I have already quoted. There are a number of points to be made about these.

First of all, while in the opening headline the research is not specifically attributed to anyone, in the News Bulletin item and in later coverage it is attributed to ‘the Schools’ Inspectorate’. It is noticeable that no reference is made to the fact that the study was produced by independent, academic researchers. This attribution of the Review to OFSTED, or to School Inspectors, is a common feature of the media coverage. It probably reflects not just OFSTED’s commissioning of the Review, and the salience of its name on the cover, but also the headline of the Press Release and the fact that the Review was launched at an OFSTED press conference. Probably even more important, it reflects this organisation’s high media profile: journalists are much more likely to have heard of it than of the authors of the Review. At the same time, it is striking that the OFSTED acronym is not used by the BBC; ‘the Schools Inspectorate’ was presumably judged to be more informative to a wider audience.

It is a commonly noted feature of media coverage that a great deal of it concerns the sayings and doings of official agencies. So, we might also suspect that the Review was attributed to OFSTED because this signifies its importance; in other words, its newsworthiness. For the media, especially, the significance of what is said often depends a good deal on who said it. Indeed, it seems very likely that the extent of media coverage of the Review arises to a considerable degree from the link with OFSTED. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the Review deals with research which, for the most part, had been published over the previous ten years; and none of these individual studies had received much media coverage.6

6 There is further evidence for this conclusion, in that three years after publication of the Review, OFSTED produced another report on the education of ethnic minority pupils, this time based on the results of inspections rather than research; and this too received a great deal of coverage. For example, the front page headline of the Daily Express on Monday March 8 1999 was ‘Schools failing black pupils’. We should note, though, that this not only followed the change of government but also the Macpherson Inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s death.

8

A second point to be made about the content of the BBC headline and bulletin item is that they focus on the findings of the Review, rather than on its practical recommendations. There is no mention at all of the latter; though they are mentioned in the education correspondent’s account later on in the Today Programme. This is perhaps surprising, given that we might expect the media to be concerned with the policy implications of research, rather than with its findings per se.

A third point is that there are differences between how the Review’s findings are represented in the headline and news bulletin and how they were presented in the Press Release and in the two short summaries that can be found in the Review. It is significant, first of all, that the BBC’s two accounts of the Review’s findings are much shorter even than the summary in the Press Release. This no doubt reflects the pressure on ‘space’ within news reports. However, whatever the explanation, the result was that BBC journalists had to select points to be covered, not just from the material in the Review but even from that in the Press Release summary. And, as we shall see, there was also some reformulation of these selected points.

Given this process of selection and reformulation, I want to look fairly closely at the account of the Review provided by the headline and news bulletin item. The opening headline offers a comparison between the performance of Asian pupils and ‘their classmates’, summarised in the description that they are ‘outshining’ them. Even if we accept that this selection of just one item from the findings of the Review was technically unavoidable, we can still ask why this particular point was selected. After all, various other headlines were possible on the basis of the Review, at least in principle. These include: that there were improving levels of attainment among ethnic minority groups in many areas of the country; that, in higher education, ethnic minorities are generally well represented; and/or that a disproportionately high number of black pupils continue to be excluded from school.

We can assume that the selection of headlines about the Review would have reflected, in part, a concern on the part of journalists to represent its content accurately. On this basis, one reason for the selection of this item may have been that it was taken to capture the main focus of the Review, as implied by the title. In other words, the latter’s emphasis on the achievements of ethnic minority pupils may have led to selection of the high achievement levels of many Asian pupils as the key finding. However, journalists are also likely to be concerned with the relative newsworthiness of what could be reported about the Review. And we must remember that journalists are competing with one another to get a slot for their stories, and a slot as high

9

up the priority list of news items as possible.7 So, this particular item from the Review was probably also selected because it was taken to have intrinsic news value: that some Asian groups are achieving at higher levels than ethnic majority pupils was perhaps judged to be not widely known. In these terms, the Review could be seen as newsworthy not just in being the pronouncement of an official agency but also because it offered some striking new information.

It is also worth noticing that the headline identifies a specific ethnic group as doing better than others, whereas for the most part the Press Release summary does not; and nor do the short summaries in the Review. The only exception is the first item of the ‘bad news’ in the Press Release summary, where the example is given that in the London Borough of Brent the gap is growing between the highest achieving ethnic group - Asian pupils - and the lowest achieving ethnic group - African Caribbean pupils.

Of course, the point about the relatively high achievement levels of some Asian groups can also be found within the Review itself, and may have been drawn from there rather than from the Press Release. For example, in the executive summary there are the following statements: ‘Indian pupils achieve higher average rates of success than their white counterparts in some (but not all) urban areas’ and ‘In secondary schools Asian pupils make rather better progress than whites of the same social class background’. It should be noted, though, that these are two among 68 bullet points; and the second of these is sandwiched by the findings that whites ‘tend to make greater progress than ethnic minority pupils in primary schools’ and that ‘despite the greater progress made by some ethnic minority groups, studies outside London tend to show white pupils leaving school with the highest average achievements’.

Within the body of the Review, if we look at the opening summary to Chapter 2, which is concerned with achievement, there is no mention of the relatively high level achievement of some Asian groups. However, on the ninth page into that chapter, we find this highlighted sentence (mauve print on a white background): ‘Asian pupils [...] achieved almost as well as, or better than, whites of the same class and gender’ (p18). Following this there is a discussion of the data from Brent, including a graph showing the relative performance of Asian, African Caribbean, and white pupils, in which the Asian performance is shown to be above 7 The BBC education correspondents were informed in advance about the publication of the Review, and this would have led to it being included in the diary available to all BBC news and current affairs teams, along with some indication of what the top line of the story might be. (Here, and elsewhere, I am indebted to information from conversations with BBC education correspondents Mike Baker and Sue Littlemore. I have also been helped by discussions with the authors of the Review. None of these informants is responsible for any errors, or for my interpretations.)

10

that of all the other groups (p20). The discussion by the authors here points to problems in generalising about national levels of educational achievement for different ethnic groups, but this is then followed by two bullet points, one of which reads:

• Indian pupils are achieving levels of success consistently in excess of their white counterparts in some (but not all) urban areas.

This material may well have been drawn on by BBC journalists in formulating their news reports. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the item dealing with this finding in the Press Release was the main source for the BBC headline; and, as we shall see, for the slightly more detailed report in the news bulletin as well.

Of some significance is that, in the opening headline, Asian pupils are described as ‘outshining’ others. This is not a term that is used in the Review, or in the Press Release. There, Asian pupils are generally described as ‘achieving higher rates of success’ or ‘making rather better progress’. This reformulation probably stems from a desire to make the meaning more immediately accessible to a wide audience. Not only does it reduce several words to one, but the term ‘outshining’ is vivid and colloquial. Of course, as with all simplifications, the effect may be to change the message, subtly or dramatically. And there is an issue here to do with what I will call the explanatory implications of this term. The metaphor underlying ‘outshining’ implies that the difference between Asian pupils and their classmates lies with them: they are ‘brighter’, they ‘shine’ more. And such explanatory implications are a key issue in the question of whether media reports distorted the message of the Review.

One further point to be made about the headline is that it takes a subsidiary element in the Press Release summary and makes this into the ‘top line’. In the Press Release item which seems to have served as the source, the point being made was that the gap between highest and lowest achieving ethnic groups is increasing; the fact that some Asian groups are the highest achieving in Brent is simply mentioned in the course of illustrating this. By contrast, in the Today headline the main point from the Press Release disappears, and the high level of performance of some Asian pupils is made the key point.

In summary, in their initial headline, the BBC chose to focus on the findings rather than the recommendations of the Review. And they concentrated on a subsidiary part of just one finding out of six listed in the Press Release, and one out of an even larger number in the Review itself. I have suggested that this item may have been selected because it matched the title of the Review, but

11

probably most of all because it was judged highly newsworthy. Finally, the finding was reformulated in terms that might be more accessible to the public, but which could carry rather different explanatory implications from the formulations in the Review and Press Release.

Turning to the news bulletin, the same finding from the Review is repeated, but there are three changes. First, it is some rather than all Asian pupils who are now presented as the highest achieving group. Secondly, the word ‘outshining’ is replaced by ‘out-performing’. Thirdly, this finding about Asian pupils is combined with another: that ‘Afro-Caribbean students are under-achieving’.

The first change adds a qualification that was to be found in the Press Release and Review summaries. We can explain this on the grounds that qualifications often get omitted from headlines in order to shorten and simplify the message. As here, they may subsequently be introduced into more detailed reports. The reason for the second change is less obvious, but it could stem from a concern with including variety in headlines and news bulletins, or it may reflect the fact that the headlines and news bulletin were prepared by different journalists. Nevertheless, ‘outperforming’ can be read as a close synonym to ‘outshining’, and it seems to carry similar explanatory implications: it may be taken to suggest that it is active effort on the part of Asian pupils which has led them to achieve at higher levels than other groups.

As regards the third change, it should be noted that the new element which is introduced is also to be found in the component of the Press Release summary that I earlier suggested formed the source for the headline. There, not only were Asian pupils identified as the highest achieving group (in Brent), but African Caribbean pupils were also identified as the lowest achieving group. However, the second point in the ‘bad news’ section of the Press Release summary also relates to the lower average level achievement of African Caribbean pupils: ‘African Caribbean young people, especially boys, have not shared equally in the increasing rates of achievement’. Here, then, what is reported is not a subsidiary element in the Review, but one of the main points listed in the Press Release and in other summaries of the Review’s findings.

It is worth paying close attention to this new two element message used in the news report, since it recurs in most of the remaining headline summaries and bulletins during the Today

12

Programme.8 We should note that this message involves one comparison laid upon two others. First of all, as in the headline, the performance of Asian pupils is compared to that of all other pupils. In addition, by implication, the performance of African Caribbean pupils is also being compared to that of everyone else.9 Then, over and above these two comparisons, the performance of Asian and African Caribbean pupils is contrasted, albeit implicitly. Their achievement levels are presented as mirror images of one another: one is ‘out-performing’, the other is ‘under-achieving’.10

As already noted, different language is used by the BBC from that in the Press Release and the Review. And this is true of the clause about African Caribbean as well as of that about Asian pupils. They are described as ‘under-achieving’, whereas in the Press Release they were described as ‘the lowest achieving group [in Brent]’ and as ‘not sharing equally in the increasing rates of achievement’. This latter formulation is also found in both the Conclusion and Back Cover summaries, with the addition that: ‘in some areas [African Caribbean pupils’] performance has actually worsened’. Once again, the reason for the reformulation seems likely to lie in a journalistic concern with presenting the point in a brief and immediately intelligible way. But here too the formulation seems to carry different explanatory implications from those in the Review. ‘Having not shared equally’ implies unequal distribution, whereas ‘under-achieving’ can be interpreted as implying failure on the part of African Caribbean pupils. To under-achieve might be interpreted as failing to work hard enough, even though this is not strictly implied.

Indeed, it was for this reason that, in both the executive summary and in the body of the Review, the authors specifically rejected use of the term ‘under-achievement’. In the executive summary, there are two relevant bullet points:

• ‘Under-achievement’ is a relatively crude term, relating to differences in group averages. It has long been misunderstood as implying that some groups are better or worse than others.

• Where there are significant differences in performance, we interpret this as a cause of concern, highlighting areas where minority pupils might face additional unjustifiable barriers to success.

8 An exception is the brief summary of the headlines at 6.44am, where the focus is entirely on African Caribbean pupils ‘under-achieving’. In the other reports, the formulation varies somewhat, but Asians ‘out-performing’ and African Caribbeans ‘under-achieving’ are the modal forms.9 ‘Under-achieving’ could be interpreted in other ways, notably in relation to some pre-defined standard, but this does not seem to be the case here.10 This is reinforced by the fact that the Review itself is described as ‘comparing the academic achievement of ethnic minority pupils’.

13

What is presented here, first of all, is a warning about what the authors hold to be the misleading implications of the term ‘under-achievement’. Secondly, they outline their interpretative policy; one which runs counter to those implications.

In the body of the Review the terminological warning is repeated and elaborated. It is argued that ‘there has been widespread misunderstanding’ of the concept of under-achievement, which points to ‘important weaknesses’ in it: ‘For example, it has been argued that because teachers perceive “black under-achievement” to be a national problem beyond their control, they might lower their expectations of certain pupils, creating a negative stereotype that effectively closes down opportunities’ (Gillborn 1996:11). So, the authors’ concern is that this term might be taken to imply that the lower average levels of achievement of African Caribbean pupils reflect something intrinsic to them - such as lower average intelligence or motivation, and/or distinctive features of their cultural or social background. And this concern is a common theme in the literature that the authors are reviewing. Moreover, the effect of the interpretative policy they adopt is that the whole structure of the Review is premissed on the assumption that ethnic variation in educational achievement is likely to be a product of the organisational practices of schools and teachers; or, at least, that this is the most appropriate assumption in political terms (see Foster and Hammersley 1998).

Earlier, I suggested that the high level of achievement of some Asian groups may have been selected by the BBC as the main finding of the Review because it was judged to be new, and perhaps surprising, information. Change is perhaps seen as more newsworthy than stability, other things being equal. The fact of continuing ‘under-achievement’ of African Caribbean pupils could have been judged to have rather lower news value: even though it constitutes an important problem, it is already known about. Indeed, during the first extended Today Programme discussion, one of the presenters refers to the Review as indicating that ‘not much has changed’. Of course, announcement of this fact by an official agency does carry some newsworthiness. What this makes clear is that newsworthiness is not an all-or-nothing matter, does not depend on a single criterion, and is always a matter of judgement.

It is clear, though, that the combination of the two items was seen as having high news value, perhaps over and above that of the first item on its own and the fact that the Review could be presented as an official pronouncement. This probably stemmed from the very contrast between some ethnic minority groups doing better than white pupils, while others continued to do worse. This indicates diversity where the audience might be expected to

14

assume similarity. It should also be noted that the contrast could be taken to count against any suggestion that the lower level of performance of African Caribbean pupils is a product of ‘racial’ discrimination against them. If there is such discrimination, it might be asked, how is it that Asian pupils are doing so well?11 No such message is presented by the BBC, but the contrast format used may have raised this question for some listeners.

In summary, then, the need for a headline, and for a very brief account of the Review in the news bulletin, led to selection of just two items from among the findings listed in the Press Release summary; and, in one case, to the highlighting of a subsidiary element of one of the main findings. Significant reformulation also took place. This probably derived from a concern with simplification and intelligibility for the audience; after all, it is an audience that is likely to have its attention on other things besides the radio. It is important to note, though, that the terms used to describe the relationship between the achievements of Asian and African Caribbean pupils and those of the ethnic majority, and the contrast drawn between Asian and African Caribbean pupils itself, carry explanatory implications which run counter to the interpretative policy of the Review. Indeed, a term is used to describe the performance of African Caribbean pupils - ‘under-achievement’ - which the authors of the Review specifically warn against.

The Daily Mail

Let me turn now to treatment of the Review by one of the tabloid national newspapers. The Daily Mail’s report appeared on page 12 and had

11 Needless to say, this question involves a spurious assumption: given that other factors also shape educational achievement, discrimination is compatible with relatively high achievement on the part of the group discriminated against. Indeed, in some circumstances, discrimination may increase motivation and thereby make a contribution to higher levels of achievement: see Fuller 1980, 1982 and 1983. Of course, this would still not make the discrimination justifiable, except on the basis of a bizarre form of ethical consequentialism.

15

two headlines:

The ethnic underclassBlack pupils ‘falling behind whites and Asians in school performance’

While the position of the story in the paper can be taken to indicate a relatively low priority, it is worth noting that the first of these headlines was in three quarters of an inch high bold lettering, the second was underneath it in only slightly smaller, less bold type.

Around half of the news item is devoted to summarising what are presented as the findings of the Report.12 It starts as follows:

An educational ‘underclass’ with increasing numbers of African-Caribbean youngsters was revealed yesterday. They are falling drastically behind whites and Asians in both examinations and school attendance.

Government inspectors found that...

We can note, to start with, that as with the BBC report the Review is attributed to Government inspectors. And we can reasonably suspect that the reasons for this are the same. However, in some other respects, the Daily Mail’s report differs sharply from that of the BBC. In particular, what was (on all but one occasion) the second finding mentioned in the BBC reports - the lower average level of achievement of African Caribbean pupils - here becomes the main focus. The high level of achievement of some Asian groups is only mentioned late on in the body of the Daily Mail report, only very briefly, and is described as a ‘paradox’. We can note, then, on the basis of the analysis in the previous section, that while equally selective the Daily Mail headline and opening paragraph does focus on the substance of one of the main findings listed in the Press Release summary and elsewhere; in a sense that the BBC’s initial focus, on the high achievement level of some Asian pupils, does not.

A third point is that, in the main headline and in the opening sentence of the report, the findings of the Review are formulated by means of the term ‘underclass’, one that is not used by the Review’s authors. Furthermore, it is a term which is closely related to explanations for low educational achievement in terms of social

12 The remainder focuses on comments about the Review by Chris Woodhead - the Chief Inspector of Schools and head of OFSTED - and on the response of the Goverment. I will not examine this section here.

16

background rather than school factors. As such, it is likely to carry the same explanatory implications as ‘under-achievement’, and this was recognised by one of the authors of the Review in his critique of press coverage.13

In addition, while the Daily Mail report does not use the term ‘under-achievement’, in the second headline it declares that ‘black pupils’ are ‘falling behind whites and Asians in school performance’. And this is repeated, with emphasis, in the first paragraph; where the report describes African Caribbean pupils as ‘falling drastically behind whites and Asians in both examination and school attendance’. Perhaps even more clearly than the term ‘under-achievement’, the phrase ‘falling behind’ suggests that the lower average level of performance of these pupils is to be explained in terms of something about them. The implicit metaphor is of a race, which readers are likely to assume is a fair one; certainly there is no suggestion otherwise on the part of the Daily Mail.

This implication is underlined by the claim that African Caribbean pupils are ‘falling behind’ in school attendance as well as in examination performance. After all, while school or examination performance can never be completely under the control of pupils, attendance at school to a large extent is. And not being at school might reasonably be interpreted as likely to damage school achievement, as well as indicating low motivation.

Finally, we should note that in the second headline ‘falling behind whites and Asians in school performance’ is presented in quotation marks. So too is the word ‘underclass’ in the opening sentence of the report. This seems to imply direct quotation from the Review. Yet, as already noted, the term ‘underclass’ is not used in it or in the Press Release; and, as far as I can tell, the phrase ‘falling behind’ is not used by the authors of the Review either.

So what we have here is an account of the Review which picks out one of its key findings, but formulates this in ways that are at odds with the terms used in the Review; while yet presenting these new formulations as if they were quotations from the Review. Furthermore, one part of this report involves a clear discrepancy. The Review does not present evidence about ethnic variation in school attendance. Presumably, what the Daily Mail report is referring to here is the finding about school exclusions. But it is worth noting that a differential rate of exclusion is much more ambiguous in its explanatory implications than a differential 13 See the quotation from David Gillborn on page 2. The term ‘underclass’ was introduced into recent debate by Charles Murray. In many ways it is a new version of what was previously referred to as ‘cultural deprivation’ or ‘the culture of poverty’. The argument is that inequality is generated and/or sustained by poor parenting, an antipathy to work, a willingness to engage in criminal activity etc. On the concept, and the debates surrounding it, see Lister 1996.

17

rate of school attendance. While it would reasonably be assumed that exclusion is a response to some action on the part of the person excluded, it cannot be automatically presumed that exclusion was justified, or that the use of this punishment by schools is unbiased in ethnic or ‘racial’ terms. By contrast, as already noted, via reference to differences in school attendance, the Daily Mail report could convey the message that the lower average level of achievement of African Caribbean pupils is to be explained by a lack of commitment on their part.

Let me look briefly at the remaining paragraphs of the Daily Mail coverage of the Review’s findings:

Government inspectors found that black youngsters had not shared in the generally improving rates of achievement over the last ten years. In some areas, their performance worsened.

The inspectors analysed trends in the education of ethnic minorities, bringing together research for the first time since the 1985 Swann Report. The findings, for the Office for Standards in Education, showed that for all ethnic groups, achievement at age 16 depended on economic background and that girls tend to do better than boys.

Paradoxically, the report records dramatic increases in the examination performance of some ethnic minorities, especially Indians, even in poor areas.

But, in many education authorities, the achievements of African-Caribbean youngsters, particularly boys, were ‘significantly lower than other groups’. They were between three and six times more likely to be excluded from school than whites of the same sex.

Blaming teachers for some of the problems, the 83-page report highlights the ‘unusually high degree of conflict between white teachers and African-Caribbean pupils’.

Despite their best intentions, there was evidence that teachers’ actions could create and amplify conflict.

What is interesting about these paragraphs is how close they are in content, and even in language, to the Review itself.14 For example, the phrase ‘not sharing in the generally improving rates of achievement’ comes more or less intact from the Press Release or from the Review itself. Also, there is a reference to the significance of ‘economic background’, and this is an issue which is 14 Though the Review is still described as the work of ‘inspectors’.

18

only dealt with in the executive summary and in the body of the Review (though it is formulated there as ‘social class background’ rather than ‘economic background’). The quotation about the achievement of African Caribbean pupils, especially boys, being significantly lower than other groups is accurate (it is from p2 of the executive summary). The details about exclusions also come from inside the Review; and it is striking that the report includes the range, ‘3 to 6 times’, not just the highest or the lowest figure. Finally, this is one of very few media reports which mention the significance that the authors of the Review assign to conflict between white teachers and African Caribbean pupils, and this is done by means of another accurate quotation (from p4 of the executive summary).15 Finally, the statement that teachers’ actions could create and amplify this conflict is close to the wording in the executive summary.

Here, then, within a single newspaper report, we have two rather different accounts of the Review.16 Potentially, at least, rather different messages could be derived from this one newspaper report. Of course, we should remember that it is headlines and opening paragraphs that are generally taken to have maximum impact on readers. They will be all that some people read. More than this, they may shape the interpretations of those who read the item all the way through.

Discussion

What I have presented up to now is a descriptive analysis, identifying differences between the Review/Press Release and a very small sample of media reports. Of course, in doing this, I have focused on differences that might be relevant to making a judgement about whether distortion of the Review’s message has occurred. In other words, the description is value-relevant. It is important to underline, though, that the differences documented do not automatically constitute distortion.

One reason for this is that judgements about media distortion or bias are evaluations not just descriptions. All evaluations involve assessing how close some empirical state of affairs is to how it ought to be, the latter depending on commitment to some set of values as the most appropriate basis for judgement. The central value that any judgement about media distortion involves is truth, interpreted as correspondence. Thus, the word ‘distortion’ implies

15 This point is also included in the first of the Today programme items on the Review, by Sue Littlemore.16 We can speculate that this report may have been written by at least two hands: the author of the headline and the first paragraph, probably a sub-editor, had perhaps not read the Review; while the author of the subsequent text clearly had.

19

negative evaluation of the degree of correspondence between a media account and those aspects of reality to which it refers. This is implied, for example, when one of the authors of the Review, David Gillborn, comments that much of the newspaper coverage ‘bears only passing resemblance’ to it (Gillborn 1999:7). So, first of all, I will look at the issue of whether the media reports are accurate in the sense of correspondence to the Review.

The notion of truth as correspondence has, of course, been subjected to some criticism by philosophers and social scientists. And, in the field of sociological research on the media, scepticism about it has led to a shift from an early focus on inaccuracy or bias in media reports to a more social constructionist approach, in which any contrast between true and false accounts is at least partially suspended or even abandoned (see Golding and Elliott 1979:ch1; Berkowitz 1997). Thus, in an early and very influential study of this kind, Fishman writes that ‘It is not useful to think of news as either distorting or reflecting reality, because “realities” are made and news is part of the system that makes them’ (Fishman 1980:12). Social constructionists argue that all accounts necessarily involve selection and formulation: journalists cannot but pay attention to some events rather than others; and they actively make sense of those events, rather than simply reporting what happened. Indeed, ‘what happened’ can always be formulated in multiple ways; and all of these are accounts of the world rather than simply displaying the world itself.17

This kind of constructionism raises a deep philosophical issue about the correspondence view of truth. And there are other problems too: about how we could ever establish that a correspondence exists between account and reality; and about how any linguistic description can ‘correspond’ to a non-linguistic reality. Yet, in many respects, the case of the Review seems to be excepted from these problems. First of all, in principle, it would be possible for media reports to reproduce the whole Review; and, while this is not a practical possibility, the short summaries provided within the Review or in the Press Release - or parts of them - could be reproduced. Secondly, the Review can be compared directly with media reports about it. And, thirdly, given that the Review was already in linguistic form, no correspondence between linguistic and non-linguistic material is required. For these reasons, it may seem that we can ask, in a way that is relatively unproblematical, whether the media accounts discussed here actually report what the Review says. And, in these terms, where accuracy is treated as reproduction, the answer would have to be: only to a small degree.

17 It should be noted, though, that this shift in approach has not led to the disappearance of terms like ‘distortion’, ‘myth’ and ‘ideology’ from media analysis. Instead, these terms have continued to be used alongside the emerging constructionist approach.

20

However, this is not a sound basis for analysis. To treat the message of the Review as uniquely tied to the words used in it, or those which are employed to describe it in the Press Release, is to assume that reproduction of a source is necessary to preserve its message. Equally problematic is the assumption that reproduction of a source necessarily preserves its message, in the sense of communicating this intact to a new audience. This takes communication to involve the sender encoding a message by means of syntactic and semantic rules, and the receiver decoding it in terms of the same set of rules; so that the message is reproduced by the receiver in exactly the same form in which it was sent. But this is not a convincing theory of communication (Sperber and Wilson 1986). Signs never entirely determine meaning; communication involves interpretation of acts in context; and this interpretation takes place on the basis of only partially shared resources. As a result, the same text cannot be assumed to communicate the same message across different occasions. Thus, for journalists to convey to their audiences the message of a textual source effectively, some selection and reformulation will often be necessary. On this interpretative theory of communication, what is required if media reports are to be accurate is that they represent the Review in such a way as to make its central message accessible to the target audience; that message being independent of the particular formulations used in the Review/Press Release, even though not independent of all verbal formulation.

So, on this basis, a necessary first step towards answering the question of how accurately the media reports captured the message of the Review is to identify what that message was. Of course, this is open to interpretation, and as we shall see it involves some uncertainties. On one reading of the summary of findings and list of recommendations included in the Press Release, the message of the Review has a complex structure consisting of multiple parts with no single overarching point. It was from these points that, as we saw, the BBC selected one subsidiary finding and then combined this with one of the main findings. In its headlines and opening paragraph, the Daily Mail focused entirely on the same main finding picked out by the BBC, and omitted other findings. Whether this degree and kind of selectivity amounts to inaccuracy depends, in part, on whether the separate points included in the summary can be treated as independent messages, such that omission of one does not affect the meaning of the others. There are some grounds for drawing this conclusion. But, equally, we might reasonably argue that there is an implicit overall message in the Press Release summary: that the situation has improved in some respects but in others remains a cause for concern. If we interpret the message of the Review in this way, then the selectivity involved in the BBC and Daily Mail reports does

21

involve some inaccuracy; though in the case of the BBC’s predominant headline, combining contrasting points about Asian and African-Caribbean pupils, the good news/bad news message is retained. By contrast, it seems to be lost in the Daily Mail headline and report.

Of course, as I noted, not just selection but also reformulation was involved in the media reports. Here too interpretation and judgement are required in assessing accuracy. Nevertheless, there are two aspects of the reformulation in the headlines and opening paragraph of the Daily Mail report which, it seems to me, represent clear cases of inaccuracy. First of all, as we saw, it is claimed that the Review shows African Caribbean pupils to have a lower level of school attendance than other groups; yet no such claim is made in the Review. The second clear inaccuracy is that both the term ‘underclass’ and the phrase ‘falling behind’ are put in quotation marks, implying that the Review is being quoted, when neither of these terms is to be found in the Review.

These inaccuracies bear on a third, more general, aspect of the reformulations to be found in both the Daily Mail and the BBC reports that I noted. This concerns the explanation for ethnic differences in educational achievement and, above all, the attribution of responsibility for those differences. As we saw, the Daily Mail’s claim that African Caribbean pupils had a lower level of school attendance strongly suggests responsibility on the part of those pupils, since attendance is something which is largely under their control, and will affect achievement. Similarly, the terms ‘falling behind’ and ‘underclass’ both carry the explanatory implication that ethnic differences in educational achievement are to be accounted for in terms of the ethnic characteristics of the pupils. And attribution of them to the Review suggests that it explains the outcome inequalities, and assigns responsibility for these, in this way. Moreover, as we saw, this shift in explanatory implications was also to be found in the formulations used in the BBC reports.

A question still arises, though, about whether this shift in explanatory implications amounts to inaccuracy. After all, in terms of the interpretation of the Review’s message I have been relying on up until now, these explanatory implications were not central. The message consisted of specific items reporting various kinds of difference and improvement in the educational outcomes achieved by ethnic groups; and perhaps also the overall point that there has been some improvement but is also continuing cause for concern. There was nothing in the Press Release summary of the findings to highlight the significance of the particular formulations used; for example, there was no criticism of the term ‘under-achievement’.

22

Nor did this appear in the two short summaries in the Review; only in the executive summary and the main body of the Review.

However, there is an alternative interpretation of the message of the Review, one that does make those explanatory implications central. On this reading, there is a single overall conclusion: the one encapsulated in the Press Release headline, that colour blind policies have failed. This message links closely to the authors’ rejection of the term ‘underachievement’; and to their interpretative policy of treating lower levels of achievement on the part of ethnic minority groups as indicating the operation of discrimination within the education system. As noted earlier, the whole Review is organised in terms of this interpretative policy; though, as we have seen, it is not made explicit in the short summaries.18

In the context of this alternative message structure, the selections and reformulations used by the media in the examples I have looked at represent a serious inaccuracy: they focus on one or two descriptive findings rather than structuring these in terms of the evaluative conclusion about the failure of ‘colour-blind’ policies. Furthermore, as we have seen, their reformulation of those findings tends to carry explanatory implications, and therefore implications about responsibility, that run counter to that message.

In summary, then, selection and reformulation do not, in themselves, indicate inaccuracy. Judgement of whether inaccuracy is present depends on interpretation of the central message of the Review. And that message is open to different readings. If we interpret it as consisting of the set of findings and recommendations included in the Press Release, and especially if we assume that each of these can be treated as relatively independent from the others, then the selection of items by the BBC and Daily Mail as headlines does not itself involve inaccuracy. And while the first item headlined by the BBC was only a subsidiary part of one of the main findings, this actually allows the BBC treatment to capture the good news/bad news message in a way that the Daily Mail headline and report do not. In terms of reformulation, the Daily Mail’s reporting of a finding about school attendance and its use of quotation marks around words not employed in the Review or Press Release are clear instances of inaccuracy. However, the reformulation of the Review’s findings, on the part of both the Daily Mail and the BBC, in ways that open up the implication that ethnic inequalities in educational achievement are a product of the features of ethnic groups, cannot

18 In the case of the Press Release, the link between its headline and the summary of the content of the Review it provides is largely implicit; though the failure of colour-blind policies is mentioned again towards the end, and given some elaboration.

23

easily be read as inaccuracy on this first interpretation of the message - since explanation of the inequalities is not explicitly part of it. By contrast, if we take the second interpretation, which uses the headline of the Press Release as an overall conclusion, then serious inaccuracy is involved, both in terms of selection and reformulation.

There is a general point here, then, about the scope for different interpretations of the message of a source, especially a long and complex text.19 However, there are perhaps some additional factors involved in this case. One concerns the very nature of reviews of research. These tend to be composed of multiple findings which can be read as separate points, not necessarily bound into a single overall message. The executive summary of the Review, consisting of 68 bullet points, illustrates this. A second factor is specific to this particular review. The authors’ discussion of problems with the concept of underachievement indicates a concern on their part with how readers might interpret the ethnic inequalities reported; in particular that they may judge the lower level of achievement of African Caribbean pupils as reflecting the characteristics of that ethnic group. One aspect of the authors’ response to this concern seems to have been to emphasise the high achievements of some ethnic minorities. This is done most obviously in the Review’s title, but also in the initial parts of the short summaries in the Review, which are copied in the Press Release summary. At the same time, the authors wanted to emphasise that there is still cause for concern about the lower levels of achievement of African Caribbean pupils, even while avoiding the term ‘under-achievement’. This terminological asymmetry makes for a complex message, one which invites reformulation by the media in their attempt to present an account that is intelligible to their audiences.

Finally, I want to note that accuracy in relation to source material is not the only standard in terms of which journalists might reasonably be judged. Given that any evaluation is dependent on a value framework, different frameworks may produce different evaluations of the same phenomenon (Foster et al 2000). And this takes on particular significance when we recognise that journalists, like all of us, are often faced with situations in which plural values have to be traded off against one another. Truth-as-correspondence is, perhaps, the value that researchers are most concerned with when looking at how their research is reported in the media. And it is also a key part of the occupational perspective of journalists. But it is not the only component of that perspective. Journalists are not simply concerned with producing reports which are accurate, but also

19 There is a considerable literature which addresses the interpretative scope available to readers: see, for example, Holub 1984.

24

reports that are intelligible and of interest to their audience. Indeed, reports must be judged to have such interest even to get on to news programmes and into newspapers, given the competitive situation in which journalists work.

What I am suggesting is that journalists will often have to trade off degrees and kinds of accuracy against producing an intelligible and interesting report. Different media organisations and journalists will vary in what are treated as acceptable degrees of trade-off. Furthermore, this will also vary within reports: notably, between the headlines and the subsequent account. We saw that there was quite a sharp contrast in this respect in the case of the Daily Mail report. But something similar is also to be found in the BBC coverage.

Finally, it is worth noting that the need to balance various degrees and kinds of accuracy against audience interest is one that researchers, and especially writers of research reviews, also face. Of course, researchers and journalists will often differ in their judgements about what trade-offs are and are not legitimate.20 However, in large part those differences will reflect variation in the commitments and constraints of the two occupational ‘worlds’. Any judgements about accuracy must take account of the important contrasts, as well as similarities, between those ‘worlds’.

Conclusion

In this paper I have looked in considerable detail at two brief media reports of the Review of Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils, commissioned by OFSTED and written by Gillborn and Gipps. The analysis was framed in terms of the question of whether media reports distorted the message of the review. I identified processes of selection and reformulation that had occurred, and considered what would be involved in judging these as inaccuracies. I argued that while in a few cases this judgement was straightforward, in general terms it depended on interpretations of the message of the Review that could vary. I also noted that accuracy in relation to sources is not the only standard in terms of which journalists judge their work, or in terms of which they are held accountable. As a result, media reports of research are likely to involve a trade-off between various degrees or kinds of accuracy and the likely interest to the target audience of different interpretations of its message. This sort of dilemma is faced by researchers as well, in writing articles and books, but they will differ from journalists in views about what are legitimate resolutions of it. These differences will, in large part, reflect contrasts in orientation and conditions of work between the two 20 They will also differ among themselves about this.

25

occupations. These contrasts go some way towards explaining both researchers’ complaints about media distortion and journalists derogatory comments about the inability of researchers to write in a succinct and interesting way.

References

Alexander, R. 1997. Policy and Practice in Primary Education: Local initiative, national agenda. London: Routledge (Second edition).

Anderson, D.C. and Sharrock, W. W. 1979. 'Biasing the news: Technical issues in "Media Studies"'. Sociology 13, 3: 368-85.

Berkowitz, D. 1997. 'Overview' in Berkowitz, D. (ed.) Social Meanings of News. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Blunkett, D. 2000. 'Influence or irrelevance: can social science improve government?'. Research Intelligence 71: 12-21.

Cohen, S. and Young, J. (eds.) 1973. 'The Manufacture of News: Social problems, deviance and the mass media' . London: Constable.

Dunning, E. 1994. 'The sociologist as media football: reminiscences and preliminary reflections' in Haslam, C.a.B., A. (ed.) Social Scientists Meet the Media. London: Routledge.

Fenton, N., Bryman, A., Deacon, D., with Birmingham, P. 1998. Mediating Social Science. London: Sage.

Fishman, M. 1980. Manufacturing the News. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Foster , P. and Hammersley, M. (1998) A review of reviews: structure and function in reviews of educational research, British Educational Research Journal, 24, 5: 609-28.

Foster, P., Gomm, R., and Hammersley, M. 2000. 'Case studies as spurious evaluations: the example of research on educational inequalities'. British Journal of Educational Studies, forthcoming.

Fuller, M. 1980. 'Black girls in a London comprehensive school' in Deem, R. (ed.) Schooling for Women's Work. London: Routledge.

Fuller, M. 1982. 'Young, female and black' in Cashmore, E. and Troyna, B. (eds.) Black Youth in Crisis. London: Allen and Unwin.

26

Fuller, M. 1983. 'Qualified criticism, critical qualifications' in Barton, L. and Walker, S. (eds.) Race, Class and Education. London: Croom Helm.

Gillborn, D. 1998. 'Policy and research in "race" and education in the UK: symbiosis or mutual abuse?', paper given at 14th World Congress of Sociology, Montreal, July 1998.

Gillborn, D. and Gipps, C. 1996. Recent Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils. London: Office for Standards in Education/Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Golding, P. and Elliott, P. 1979. Making the News. London: Longman.

Glasgow University Media Group. 1976. Bad News. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Glasgow University Media Group. 1980. More Bad News. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Harrison, M. 1985. TV News: Whose bias? Reading: Policy Journals.

Haslam, C. and Bryman, A. (eds.) 1994. Social Scientists Meet the Media. London: Routledge.

Holub, R.C. 1984. Reception Theory: A critical introduction. London: Methuen.

Lister, R. 1996. Charles Murray and the Underclass: The developing debate. London: Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit.

Rubin, Z. 1980. 'My love-hate relationship with the media'. Psychology Today 13: 7-13.

Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. 1986. Relevance: communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Toynbee, P. 1999. 'Interview (with Liam Murphy)'. Network, Newsletter of the British Sociological Association 72: 20-3.

Weiss, C. and Singer, E. 1988. Reporting Social Science in the National Media. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.