Transnational Analysis of Television News

The Implications of Obama’s Victory

Image taken from Chicago Tribune [Online] Available: http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-06/39590587.jpg [April 17 2009]

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Still taken from the BBC1 News at 6 o’clock on November 5th 2008

To Dad, Grandma and Grandpa Black

Mommy and Baba Masui

Nick Stevenson, Zahera Harb

And

The Jamjoom family,

Thank you

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Abstract

Television news has become the most widespread source of information today.

Although acclaimed by the public, they remain a product of cultural conventions, ideology

and marketing alike. This research aims to study newscasts from Japan, France, Britain,

Saudi-Arabia and America and come to terms with the limits to neutral information imposed

by forces unrelated to journalism. Each news bulletin covers the American President and the

novelty that permeate the nomination of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the

United States of America and first African-American to hold the Office. Obama’s case offers

the core to this transnational analysis of television news on November 5th 2008.

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Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………....5

Research Area………………………………………………………………...….…….6

Literature Overview……………………...…………………………………………....7

Methodology………………………………………………………………………....23

Content Analysis………………………………………………………....………......25

NHK……………………………………………….………………....25

Al-Arabiya………………………….……………………...…...…….31

BBC1…….…………………………………………...….………..….36

Fox News………………………………………....………….……….43

TF1……………………………………………………………...…....49

Transnational Analysis of Television News…………………………...……………..53

Implications of Obama’s Victory……………………………………..…...…………56

Conclusion………………………………………………………………....…………61

Bibliography…………………………………………………………….……………63

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Introduction

We always watch the news on television at home. It is like a ritual. My mother’s

father is the late Chiaki Yamakawa, newscaster of the six o’clock evening news on Fuji TV

in Japan. From the late seventies to the eighties, the Japanese ate their dinners while watching

his half hour news bulletin. My mother’s generation recall his famous face very well; I

unfortunately, was born too late to have any fond memories of him. When I gathered some

archives of his news bulletins, there he was, articulating the events of the day, straight and

serious in a suit that cried out 1970’s. One thing that he, somehow, managed to pass on to me

is a passion for television news.

Television news has taken a preponderant place in the domain of information. It

broadcasts on prime time television and on local, national and international news channels.

Despite its popularity, we should to take a step backward from the information it delivers.

Why? What is wrong or right with television news? And what makes its popularity?

Newscasts are encountered in all societies so I decided to select five of them, each from a

different country: the NHK in Japan, the BBC1 in Britain, TF1 in France, Al-Arabiya in

Saudi-Arabia and Fox News in America and compare them on a given day. Did they have the

same headlines, images and tone contributing to a universal standard of newsworthiness? Or

were they completely different and introverted into the events of their nations alone? This

research aims to examine the idealised authority of news programming and its methods of

representation. The programs produced by each country on the night of Obama’s election

serve as the basis of this research.

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Research Area

I intend to analyse the news on television that was broadcast in five different regions

of the world on November 5th 2008.

The programs chosen for this analysis are the following:

Fox News, U.S.A., 6 o’clock Eastern time news

BBC1, U.K., 6 o’clock evening news

Dubai based and partly Saudi owned Al-Arabiya, at 7 p.m.

N.H.K, Japan, 9 o’clock evening news

T.F.1, France, 8 o’clock evening news

The data was recorded in each of the five locales on November 5 th 2008. I purposely

recorded this day for the results of the American Presidential Election designated the 44 th

President of the United States of America: Barack Hussein Obama II. Regardless of its

culture, each news program allots a significant amount of time to the coverage of his victory.

As the first African-American President of the United States of America, Obama represents a

change in tradition that each network chose to portray differently according to universal

guidelines. This research aims to question news’s idealised authority, to study its specific

methods of representation and weigh their impacts upon viewers in five culturally different

newscasts covering a same topic.

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Literature Overview and Main Debates

Raymond Williams (1974) believes that television has fundamentally altered our

world (Williams, 1974: 10). The basic premise of this research is that television is

incontestably widespread. Indeed, Bob Mullan (1997) writes that ‘we now take television

entirely for granted: it is part of the grain of everyday life’ (Mullan, 1997: 4). By offering a

commentated illustration of distant events and local reactions, television has quickly become

a popular accredited means of social coherence, social understanding and social

representation. This research aims to demonstrate how this is achieved, by focusing on

television news programs.

Scott North and Charles Weathers (2007) write that death from overwork or Karoshi

is socially recognised in Japan and South Korea (North and Charles, 2007). Industrialised

society demand long working hours in which citizens are exhausted after a long day and

rather tune into their television sets than make the more active effort towards newspapers,

magazines or books. Marketing Focus (November 1996) states that television accounts for

70% of people’s leisure time (Marketing Focus, 1996 quoted in Harrison, 2000: 8). It

operates at the motion of a single button without any effort from the viewer. Watching

television becomes a pleasurable social activity where members of a household are finally

united in the course of their day. David Morley (1986) states that television is indeed rather

part of ‘the politics of the living room’ in which family experience is greater than the

televisual experience in its essence (Morley, 1986 quoted in Downing et al., 1995: 216). The

social experience as well as the passivity television offers explains its vast popularity.

Williams draws the idea that television’s power as a medium of news and

entertainment is so consequential it has dethroned newspapers, magazines and radio in the

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process of mass entertainment, even in the process of mass information (Williams, 1974: 11).

Mullan also holds that television news programs are for a vast majority of the audience, the

main source of national and international news (Mullan, 1997: 80), while Gunter and

Winston (1993) argue that television is the most trusted source of information (Gunter and

Winston, 1993 quoted in Harrison, 2000: 8). Most people have faith in television news

programs to the extent that the genre has quickly become their unique source of information.

It is crucial to underline the implications of television news’s monopoly on the audience as

the utmost source of information.

Neil Postman and Steve Powers (1992) expose in How to Watch TV News, ‘anyone

who relies exclusively on television for his or her knowledge of the world is making a serious

mistake’ (Postman and Power, 1992: x). With longer working hours the space dedicated to

getting informed seems no longer occupied by newspapers, books or magazines but rather by

television sets; so is the vast majority of human beings really making ‘a serious mistake’?

The Glasgow Media Group (1982) claims that television offers only a partial view of

the world leaving an ‘open door to the powerful’ and a ‘closed door to the rest of us’ (Philo et

al., 1982: 16). The ideal that news programs are in essence fair and accurate is discredited by

media theorists. Television news audiences are under the illusion that the information they

take in is complete, or rather, all encompassing, when in fact it is unavoidably selective in

favour of the most powerful. Newscasts’ blur our ability to view them as constructed

programs like quiz shows or soaps. They escape television’s entertaining criteria and are

given as factual information. By exposing the foundations of news bulletins, this analysis

aims to determine the space that the most powerful can infiltrate to propagate their message.

Williams (1974) accomplished a cross-cultural analysis of news programs by

comparing those broadcasted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and

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Independent Television (ITN) to the ones broadcasted in the United States. Traditionally,

news programs are a means of broadcast that depended on ‘announcers’ to transmit

dispatches from news agencies (Williams, 1974: 44). Talking heads remained customary until

television developed the use of reporters and special correspondents after World War II

(Williams, 1974: 44). Williams exposes that the BBC tries to ‘limit the presenter to a reading

function’ whilst in American networks, it seems as though ‘it is a group of men telling you

what they know’ (Williams, 1974: 47). From Williams’ study it appears that American

networks prioritise personal interpretation of events rather than try to present an objective

viewpoint like the BBC. This is not without consequences.

Postman and Powers mourn the loss of truthful American journalism to corporate

profit (Postman and Powers, 1992: 7). Williams’ observation of American presenters who tell

‘what they know’ as opposed to what they have gathered and researched as a team of

journalists, means that truthful journalism can very easily be replaced with what sponsors

want their audience to take in as news. Postman and Powers’ criticism of corporate interests

of the industry combined with Williams’ analysis automatically raises doubts on the

authoritative power of news programs. As a marketable industry, news programs are shaped

by forces unrelated to information; they are ‘a commercial enterprise’ (Postman and Powers,

1992: 10). Television is not a transparent medium of communication and, although American

television has been pinpointed here, this is true regardless of nationality or culture. Television

is structured by various social, ideological and economic forces and I wish to underline their

influence in the news of various regions of the world.

We live in a real-time globalised era. Roland Robertson (1992) defines the concept of

globalisation as referring ‘both to the compression of the world and the intensification of

consciousness of the world as a whole’ (Robertson, 1992: 8). It is now outdated to analyse the

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media solely on a national scale and the emergence of transnational news channels such as

Al-Jazeera International (AJI), Cable Network News International (CNN) or the British

Broadcasting Company’s World Service (BBC World) reinforces my argument. Raymond

Williams’ comparison of American and British news programs is an avant-garde work of this

research. Other transnational news studies include Franco Rositi’s (1975) four-nation analysis

of Italian, German, French and British news programs that timed and compared the average

length of items presented in each news bulletin (Rositi, 1975 quoted in Glasgow Media

Group, 1976: 91). As well as Golding and Elliott’s (1979) comparative analysis of Nigerian,

Irish and Swedish news programs that examines the importance of international news in the

entirety of news programming (Golding and Elliott, 1979 quoted in Van Dijk, 1988: 142).

This research studies trans-continentally different networks such as the Japanese NHK, the

French TF1, the United Kingdom’s BBC1, the American Fox News, the Dubai based and

Saudi owned Al-Arabiya for an effective cross-cultural analysis of television news on

November 5th 2008. Its aim is to underline the ideological, social and political influences

working on each network’s bulletin, without foregoing the exciting globalisation of this era.

Language is crucial to communicating information but necessarily distorts it too.

Boundaries are necessarily set by a selection of elements chosen to describe the event, but

also by the limits of language, of words, the evasion they permit at times and restrain at

others. Ferdinand de Saussure establishes that language is encircled by social institutions (de

Saussure quoted in Amacker, 1975: 42). Every word in the news is the careful work of

editors, journalists, broadcasters that select one term over another for reasons of political

correctness, diplomacy and comprehension. This study follows De Saussure’s call to consider

social structures in the weighing of words.

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The language of the news is a careful selection of terms. This creates a ‘lexicon’ of

the news in which, as argued by Chomsky, lexicons refer to ‘a list of exceptions’ (Chomsky

quoted in Smith, 2004: 47). Exceptional terms are in effect deemed appropriate or suited for

broadcast which in turn implies that some are not. Our work is to determine the connotations

of the language that does make its way into the programs and to weigh the impact of what is

subdued.

There are also limits to what can or cannot be expressed on television. As stated

earlier, if television is an excuse for familial or social gathering, its contents have to meet

standards of decency. The BBC states that unless so notified, viewers before 9 p.m. can

expect programs ‘suitable for general audiences including children’ (BBC 2009).

Broadcasters have the responsibility to select suitable material for their public, since

according to a report carried out jointly by the Independent Television Commission, the

BBC, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the British Board of Film Classification

(2003), ‘children are more affected by violence on the news than in soaps and TV drama’

(quoted in Leonard 2003). This means that as a partial representation of reality, newscasts

have the task of providing audiences with light and grave news whilst ensuring levels of

decency suitable for the entirety of its audience. The end result is the intrusion of the news

into the lives of the viewers. It enacts a paternalistic role of protecting the latter from

unsuitable content whilst delivering information; thus, elevating the media to the rank of

social institution.

According to Stuart Hall (1997) Michel Foucault (1971) defines discourse as ‘a

system of representation’ (Hall, 1997: 72). Through broadcasting, news programs produce

and represent knowledge of current affairs. Hall continues that if ‘discourse is about the

production of knowledge through language’ then the communicative procedure creates a

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‘regime of truth’ (Hall, 1997: 72-76). Empowered by discourse, newscasts enjoy a regime of

truth that socially elevates them to the status of the genuine and unquestionable.

Foucault (1971) furthermore establishes a parallel between doctrine and discourse

(Foucault, 1971: 45) in which discourse ascends to a status of quasi-irrefutability that

constructs a ‘subject-position’ relationship (Hall, 1997: 80). Enabled by discourse,

broadcasters appear more knowledgeable than their audience. This results in the news’

unquestioned authority.

Building on Foucault, Myra Macdonald (2003) argues that discourse constitutes a

‘system of communicative practices’ in which ‘specific frameworks of thinking’ are

constructed (Macdonald, 2003: 10). The recourse to discourse necessarily leads to a form of

‘representation’ of reality structured according to specific guidelines of thought embedded by

both power and knowledge (Macdonald, 2003: 12). Macdonald argues in favour of the

presence of ideology within the news that foists into the minds of the public and alters their

reflexive abilities.

Roland Barthes (1957) elaborates that the universe is infinitely suggestive and that

anything can be myth (Barthes, 1957: 216). If De Saussure believes that language is the

product of a signified image and a signifying concept then the product of the association of a

concept to its image becomes a sign (de Saussure quoted in Barthes, 1957: 222). As

mentioned, de Saussure argues that language is culturally and socially specific and thus, no

longer describes reality neutrally but rather impregnates it with suggestions that constitute

Barthes’s myth (Barthes, 1957: 7). The impulsive interpretation of cultural products

facilitates ‘ex-nomination’ giving victory to the bourgeoisie, the class that sets itself as norm

(Barthes, 1957: 246). News programs are not openly designated as corresponding to

bourgeois values when in fact they are. Barthes continues, bourgeois ideology ‘does not want

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to be named’ into the meanings of the everyday for its exposure would weaken its power

(Barthes, 1957: 246). News bulletins are cultural artefacts in that they differ in language,

even presentation, from one country to another. This research aims to follow Barthes’ call

and define the myths that permeate middle class ideology in various news programs of the

world.

Edward Said (1995) puts forward that ‘Orientalism’ is what historically divides the

West from the East and is the form of thought for dealing with what is foreign, in which the

West consistently lessens the Orient to ‘a topic of learning, discovery, and practice’ (Said,

1995: 45, 73). Associating this notion of Orientalism to Barthes’ definition of myth, this

research hopes to elucidate the degree at which television news discourse constitutes a threat

to the neutrality of information.

Baumann and Gingrich (2004) argue that there are three main systems of selfing and

othering: Orientalizing, Segmentation and Encompassment (Baumann and Gingrich, 2004:

27). Of the three, only two are relevant in the context of this research. Firstly, orientalizing is

the system of differentiation inspired by Said. Orientalism’s ‘binary classification’ of

Occident and Orient undergoes a ‘reverse mirror-imaging’ process (Baumann and Gingrich,

2004: 19). In this case, Orientalism mutates from a one way imposition of Occidental

judgements on the orient to a mutual system of judgements. If Orientalism defines the

Occident as ‘enlightened’ whilst the Orient is ‘superstitious’, Orientalizing qualifies the

Orient as ‘mystical’ while the Occident is ‘materialist’ (Baumann and Gingrich, 2004: 19).

Categorisation is inevitable in the process of differentiating. Nonetheless, Orientalising

argues, no longer for a monopoly of power, but in favour of a shift of power depending on

where the discursive producer stands. This grammar of demarcation is relevant in the context

of November 5th 2008. The media constantly categorised Obama as an African-American

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whose new position incarnates a change in history. The assumptions of this categorisation -

such as the tradition of white presidents of the United States - will be expanded in further

depth in the content analysis of this research. Meanwhile, the second grammar of othering,

encompassment, defines ‘an act of selfing by appropriating’ (Baumann and Gingrich, 2004:

25). Encompassment characterizes the other by a process of setting oneself as the standard,

the whole. In this case, any other will always remain a sub-part of the standardized whole and

illegitimatized as a whole of its own (Baumann and Gingrich, 2004: 27). Indeed,

encompassment is necessarily ‘hierarchical’ (Baumann and Gingrich, 2004: 26) and justifies

the other’s existence solely on the basis of a self’s entity. The media portrayed Obama’s

election as a success, a triumphant recognition for African-Americans, and even for all ethnic

minorities. But these judgements are made on the principle that ethnic minorities are a

minority in regards to a white majority, that an African-American holding the Office is a

turning point in history – white history. Indeed, the media has yet to underline that the skin

colour of the past forty-three President of the United States was in fact, white. John Fiske

(1996) believes that the process of defining for whites is ‘always directed outward upon

others but never inward upon the definer’ (Fiske, 1996: 42). Whiteness is the norm of social

judgement. This study will evidence that news’ discourse presupposes white middle class

ideology as conventional, as the whole from which judgements of news-value are made.

George Lipsitz (2006) in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness writes that

‘whiteness never has to speak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as an organising

principle in social and cultural relations’ (Lipsitz, 2006: 1). By acknowledging and

celebrating the first African-American President of the United States of America as such, the

media presupposes that traditionally the status of President was exclusive to whites.

However, this is never openly stated, only implied. Fiske continues with ‘a key strategy of

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whiteness is to avoid definition and explicit presence’ (Fiske, 1996: 41). This research aims

to abolish whiteness’ hidden domination and reveal the subterfuge of its discourse in the

media.

The data relevant to this study is gathered from France, Britain, America, Japan and

Saudi-Arabia. Even though each country is culturally different, all underline the fact that

Obama is the first African-American to hold the office. Each program, although from

different backgrounds, give in to what is traditionally a Western discourse of whiteness. I aim

to understand why.

Peter Ives (2004) argues that after Antonio Gramsci, ‘hegemony’ refers to a number

of ‘intricacies of power relations in many different fields’ as he defines hegemony ‘to mean

the formation and organization of consent’ (Ives, 2004: 2). Hegemony connotes the

omnipresence of a powerful state in various domains of life of other nations. Immanuel

Wallerstein (2006) argues that the US was easily able to transform its absolute economic

dominance into political primacy following World War II (Wallerstein 2006). In this matter,

we are still currently in the context of an American hegemony in which Western discourse of

whiteness infiltrates various domains of life of other cultures.

Charles Hirschman (1983) writes that the American founding ideal of melting pot

‘was a political symbol used to strengthen and legitimize the ideology of America as a land of

opportunity where race, religion and national origin should not be barriers to social mobility’

(Hirschman, 1983: 398). Nonetheless, these values become increasingly hard to sustain as the

American society fragments into categorised ethnic communities. In ‘Culture Wars in the

United States’, Ronald Takaki argues that by 2056, the descent of Americans will be traced

almost anywhere but to ‘white Europe’ (Takaki quoted in Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh,

1995: 166). Yet, without expanding on the historical chapters of colonisation or the slave

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trade, whiteness’ discourse traditionally reliant on economic and political power, still prevails

to this day. It stigmatises ethnic minorities in which Asian-Americans are associated to the

‘invasion of Japanese cars’, Hispanics to ‘undocumented workers taking jobs from

Americans’ and the Blacks as representing a burden on welfare and whose integration is the

result of ‘positive action’ (Takaki quoted in Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh, 1995: 170). The

reality of American ethnic minorities is in direct dichotomy with the notion of a melting pot.

Their stigmatisation also engenders a pigeon-holing of the countries of origin, in which case,

Asian countries are lessened to industrial competitors, Latin American nations become

associated to poor, unskilled labour, whilst African countries, where the origins of African-

Americans are constantly traced, are stigmatised into poverty and dependent on outside help.

America’s hegemony and its monopoly on power diminish its vision of the world into

degrading stereotypes. Edward Said (2001) argues ‘downright ignorance is involved in

presuming to speak for a whole religion or civilization’ (Said 2001). And his argument goes

both ways as ignorance is also involved when speaking of a whole religion or civilization.

Said continues by saying that categorizations ‘mislead and confuse the mind’ (Said 2001) yet

it seems that in our times of globalization there is a paradoxical trend not to merge but to

separate.

Rick Shenkman (2008) writes ‘we are living in an Age of Ignorance’ (Shenkman,

2008). It encompasses the era under the Presidency of George W. Bush, the man who fused

the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Iraq and the Democratic People’s Republic of

North Korea in an ‘axis of evil’ (Bush, 2002 quoted in BBC News 2002). Bush’s ‘axis of

evil’ is the definition of Said’s orientalism. It differentiates the good versus the bad in which

the bad seems to englobe any country, regardless of cultural, political or geographical

specificities that is in contradiction with America’s imperialist vision of a good nation.

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Richard Butler (2002) whose role as a United Nations Weapons inspector is to limit the

spread of nuclear weapons, believes that the principles of American foreign policy are

supplied by Hollywood and ‘that the country’s nuclear weapons were just as much of a

problem as those of Iraq’ (Butler, 2002 quoted in Flicking, 2002). Yet, the Bush

administration dismissed introspection and sent troops to Afghanistan, then Iraq, giving

reason to 19th century satirist Ambrose Bierce ‘War is God's way of teaching Americans

geography’ (Bierce quoted in Brunn, Cutter and Harrigton, 2004: 573).

The dangers of these American political choices is the trickle-down effect of its

inconsiderate approach of the world onto the world itself. Theodore H. Von Laue (1987)

argues that even the most specifically Western principles of Western society ‘have now been

implanted in non-Western populations’ (Von Laue, 1987: 333). America’s status of

hegemony permits even its most ruthless discourse to cross borders, thus endangering

tolerance and cultural differences.

Hegemony is not a visible process per se but rather manifests itself through

westernization. Westernization encompasses all domains of life, from wars declared in the

name of freedom, to the implantation of American industries in non-American nations and

even American culture onto the lifestyles of foreign cultures. As Von Laue continues,

westernization ‘has covered the world and all its diversity with a thick layer of separate but

interrelated uniformities’ (Von Laue, 1987: 334). In all areas of life, cultural specificities

around the world lean toward a same melody in which America is maestro. Roger Rollin

(1989) writes that ‘the world has been McDonalidized’ (Rollin, 1989: 1). American values

are infiltrating the world, followed by its discourse.

There is a lack of definition of what qualifies the West. Traditionally in Dixie, a

colloquial term that refers to the American southern states, there is a running proverb that

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defines it as a ‘White, western, Christian civilization’ (in Pearce, 2008). Hay and Sicherman

(2007) believe the term emerged after the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 when the

American led North Atlantic Treaty Alliance gave birth to NATO, also known as the

‘Western Alliance’ or in short ‘the West’ (Hay and Sicherman, 2007:1). What is certain is

that the West does not refer to a single nation but rather to what Jacinta O’Hagan (2002)

defines ‘as a civilizational entity’ (O’Hagan. 2002: 2). When I refer to the West in this

research, I imply a group of nation-states with a mainstream tradition of white, Christian

customs that follow the lead of the United States’. As such, Edward Pearce (2008) writes,

“today, ‘the West’ means the U.S. and those who follow it” (Pearce, 2008).

Divya McMillin (2007) argues in favour of Immanuel Wallerstein’s ‘world system

theory’ that pleads that a minority of industrialised countries spread ‘politically and

economically to semi-peripheral and peripheral nations’ (MacMillin, 2007: 36). One of the

most influential newspapers in Kenya, The Sunday Nation, reports ‘Barack Obama made

history last night when he was sworn in as the first black president of America’ (Nation

Reporter and Agencies, 2009). This example from Kenya illustrates that transnational values

of judgement are made on the basis of a Western discourse of whiteness. The West’s

economic, political and cultural preeminence impacts the way citizens of the world perceive

themselves and others. As such, discourse of whiteness that identifies Obama as the first

American President of colour, transcends into a transnational discourse of whiteness where in

any given culture Obama is acclaimed as the first American President of colour as opposed to

just another American President.

Sol Yurick (1995) argues in favour of the existence of a ‘Metastate’ in which identity

is ingrounded into a ‘mass self’ (Yurick, 1995 quoted in Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh,

1995: 205). It goes beyond the nation-state and its population shares ‘an international

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discourse’ of culture ‘devoted to the accumulation and the conquest of nature’ (Yurick 1995

quoted in Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh, 1995: 212-213). Westernization engenders

uniformity in mentalities and approaches to life, across the world. It creates a metastate

anchored within national borders but of which the population lean towards a transnational

common culture of consumption. In this context, individual identities are given sense in

relation to the entire community. For example, a little boy living in a favela in Brazil is likely

to believe that being a child, he should own a Mickey Mouse doll even when his parents

cannot afford it - influenced by marketing and advertising. The metastate does not mean

citizens are equal within it; rather that all lean towards the same end result: the freedom to

manoeuvre towards their wants through consumption and the accumulation of capital.

Knutsen (1999) argues that America’s ‘civil society and market dynamics’ won

against the Soviet government’s ‘social and economic control’ during the Cold War (Kutsen,

1999: 209). The technological revolution in communications that occurred during the same

period spread America’s victorious and prosperous images to the world (Kutsen, 1999: 209):

the world embraced liberal democracy as based on the American model. Francis Fukuyama

(1992) argues that liberal democracy’s world-wide popularity defines ‘the end of history’

(Fukuyama, 1992: xi). He writes, ‘liberal democracy remains the only coherent political

aspiration that spans different regions and cultures around the globe’ (Fukuyama, 1992: xiii)

and as such, could mark the ‘end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form

of human government’ (Fukuyama, 1992: xi). The prosperous lifestyles that accompany the

ideal of liberal democracy will arguably abolish any future form of ideology.

All theories of whiteness, hegemony, westernization, metastate and the end of history

argue in favour of a form of power that transcends borders, which every single individual of

the planet is affected by. It is a form of power from above that forces any traveller to hold a

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passport, to comply with international conventions and international laws. An invisible force

structures one’s identity regardless of his or her consent. Using Yurick’s example, “Brazilians

cannot be allowed to have any say on a local level since actions in burning down ‘their’

rainforest affects all humanity” (Yurick quoted in Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh 1995: 223)

and the labelling of aborigines, tribal or primitive tribes are in effect identified in relation to

structures that the individuals concerned have possibly never encountered or do not have any

notion of. Individual, as well as global, identities are forged in relation to the forces that

shrink the world, may they be labelled globalisation, discourse of whiteness, orientalism,

ideology, westernization or even history. This study will focus on how news programs are the

incarnation of a benchmark in our interconnected world, reinforcing one’s compliance to the

powers from above.

Straubdhaar (1992) notes that what seems to be qualified as news is ‘fairly consistent

from country to country’ to which Dahlgren (1995) adds that there seems to be a ‘drift

towards an international standardization of basic journalistic discourse’ (Starubdhaar, 1992

and Dahlgren, 1995 quoted in Barker, 1999: 55). Global interconnectivity homogenizes

degrees of judgement that translates into an uniformity of the media. Christopher Paterson

(1997) questions whether the proliferation of news channels around the globe leads to ‘more

information from more perspective or more information from less perspective’ (Paterson,

1997 quoted in Srerberny-Mohammad et al., 1997:145). I have previously argued that the

world is experiencing an ongoing homogeneity initiated by a tradition for Euro-Americano

domination and the domain of the media is no exception. Indeed, Philip Taylor (1997) writes

that news gathering is a very costly enterprise in which many broadcasters use international

news agencies, which are, not surprisingly, mostly western (Taylor, 1997:43). The main

international news agencies are Reuters, which is British, Associated Press and United Press

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International, both American, while Agence France Press is French. TASS, which after the

fall of the Soviet communist regime transformed into ITAR-TASS is Russian; Kyodo News

is Japanese. These news agencies gather information according to their Western ideals for the

rest of the world.

My transnational analysis of television news aims to abolish news’ unquestioned

authority. Crotean and Haynes (2003) together argue that:

We cannot, or do not, experience firsthand the goings on of public life. Consequently,

as citizens, we are partially reliant on the news media for an informative and accurate account

of what is happening in the world around us (Crotean and Haynes, 2003: 240).

News media have the responsibility to accurately represent the world in order for

society to make the right social and political judgements. Harrison (2000) writes that

terrestrial news is part of the democratic process of society (Harrison, 2000: 3). It is an

accountable source of public information and should thus, be ‘socially responsible’ (ibid.).

News programs have the responsibility to accurately inform their audience.

Mullan and Taylor’s (1997) research required viewers to compile their ideal evening’s

schedule. Many omitted news in their programming and so, Mullan concludes that for the

audience, watching the news was ‘a duty, not a desire’ (Mullan and Taylor, 1997 quoted in

Mullan, 1997, 80). The news is different from entertainment television as it is a means of

information in order to make correct political decisions. It is primarily informative and as a

citizen, one believes that one needs such information to contribute rationally to a democratic

society (Mullan, 1997: 81). Bertrand Russell said that education protects one from the

‘seduction of eloquence’ (Russell quoted in Leamnson, 1999, 114). By questioning what

qualifies a cultural institution such as the media, I gained consciousness of the dangers of its

21

monopoly in audience information. As such, I aim to abolish the news’ unquestioned

authority, to deconstruct the beautification of information and finally shed light on the news’

faculty to hypnotise the viewer into an unknowing acceptance of the ideas of powerful

superstructures.

22

Methodology

The difficulty lies in establishing an objective comparison of a same program on a

same day but of different cultures in their local language. This research is conducted in

English, thus, it is important to underline that the key elements of each bulletin will be

pinpointed and translated as accurately as the language barriers permits from the native

language into English. I am fluent in Japanese, English and French and although at times I

sought my grandmother’s help for reading Japanese, I have translated and analysed the news

from NHK, BBC1, TF1 and Fox News on my own. Only for Al-Arabiya have I asked Zahera

Harb, lecturer in the Department of Cultural Studies, to assist me in the viewing of the

videotape in Arabic.

On November 5th 2008, the results of the American Presidential Campaign rippled

across the world. Barack Hussein Obama II had been elected to be the 44th President of the

United States, and, the first American President of colour. I had gathered in each country’s

local time, the French TF1’s eight o’clock evening news, the Japanese NHK’s nine o’clock

news, the Dubai based and Saudi owned Al-Arabiya six o’clock news, the BBC1 News at six,

and the American six o’clock Eastern Time Fox News’ news. Each channel was recorded as

broadcasted in each locale in its original language. The following analytical comparison will

differentiate each broadcast’s representation of the events on November 5th 2008.

There is a reason why I have chosen each of these channels. My mother is Japanese

and my father American but I have lived in Paris, France, before attending the University of

Nottingham in England. At University, I met my half-Saudi, half-British boyfriend. I asked

my entourage to record the news on the channel they regarded as most trustworthy in their

respective localities.

23

I was always aware how lucky I was to possess such an international broad scope but

never knew how to translate it effectively into my academic work. Then came time for the

dissertation and I felt it would be a tremendous waste to ignore my multi-cultural background

even though it would lead me to dizzying works of translations.

In the previous chapter I have outlined the main literature in the fields that foreground

this research. The next chapter, the content analysis, is based on theories previously exposed

in the literature overview and divides into five sections, each devoted to one network. There

will be a brief outline of the networks’ history, sponsors and audience, followed by a short

content analysis of Obama’s coverage. The latter can be no other than the result of my

personal judgement of the broadcasts. Immanuel Kant (1790) wrote that a judgement of taste

‘is not a logical judgement but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgement whose

determining basis cannot be other than subjective’ (Kant 1790 quoted in Morra and Smith,

2006: 91). I have exposed my background to the reader and am conscious that my multi-

cultural roots will inevitably affect my perception of the news. I nonetheless wish to defend

my viewpoint with arguments at hand. Furthermore, I have focused on the comparative study

of the five networks for an effective transnational analysis of the news, rather than

concentrate excessively on the particularities of each individual network. I hope the reader

will bear with me until the conclusion of this transnational comparative analysis of television

news and the implications of Obama’s victory.

24

News at 9 p.m. in Tokyo, Japan on NHK (59 minutes)

The Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (日本放送協会) is referred to as the NHK and translates

into the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. It is a public service broadcaster paid by the viewer,

a sort of TV tax, and was the first television station in Japan. NHK is the largest broadcasting

network in Asia (Downing et al., 1995: 372). As a national public broadcaster, the NHK was

obviously to broadcast news programs but was unsure of the presentation model to adopt.

Krauss’s (2000) affirms the NHK based its format on ‘Japan’s great mass circulation papers’,

as in the domain of the news, national newspapers and ‘not other television stations were

NHK’s major competitors’ (Krauss, 2000: 54). The NHK’s similarities with printed press are

clearly visible to this day.

Figure 1: Obama making the front page of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun on November 6th 2008

NHK’s news at 9 o’clock on November 5th 2008 announced the outcome of the

American Presidential election. The NHK logo at the top left hand corner of the screen shows

25

not only that Japanese is read from top to bottom but also from left to right. The discretion of

the logo demonstrates that self-advertisement is unnecessary since the channel is financed by

the public. The presenter sits behind a black and white desk with a faded American flag in the

background. He announces the news of the day: the Election of Obama and allots 26 of the

program’s 59 minutes to its coverage.

In the newscast, the NHK runs sub-titles of the main points of what any voice on the

program says. There are three informative constructions that happen synchronically. First, the

image to watch; second, the talking-head or voice-off to hear; finally, the sub-titles to read.

On entertainment shows where dialogues are fastly paced and intersect with audience

laughter, the viewers, especially the elderly, can be a bit lost with who said what and when.

The subtitles accompany the words of the presenters and are usually displayed in colourful

bold kanji or Japanese symbols, accordingly (usually pink for women, blue for men). In news

programs, they are much more subdued for reasons of credibility and seriousness but still

remain.

At first, I thought the initiative to sub-title television programs translated the NHK’s

intentions to provide for its public. The Statistics Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Internal

and Communications estimates that in 2006, 20.8% of the Japanese population were over 65

years old and projects that by 2050, the same population will represent 39.6% of the total

population (Statistics Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Internal and Communications, 2006

quoted in Fogarty, 2007). I witlessly thought the NHK could not afford to ignore its elderly

audience’s failing eye-sight or hearing for they would lose a large part of their public. As

such, subtitling in Japanese a Japanese program initially appears as a kind attention from the

NHK to enable its aging audience to follow television’s fast paced beat to and thus, respond

to the needs of all of its public.

26

Figure1: Still taken from the NHK 9o’clock news on November 5th 2008

Here, the sayings of the current Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso are heard on the

audio and can be read in sub-titles at the bottom of the screen : ‘America and Japan have a

relation of more than 50 years into which both have given a lot of effort into...’ (Translation

of Taro Aso, November 5th 2008 on NHK).

Under a stronger argument, sub-titling in Japanese a Japanese program perpetuates an

imbued cultural tradition for printed press in which information is read just like in figure 1.

Williams (1974) writes that ‘the main form of television news is, within its own structure,

linear’ (Williams, 1974: 45). The format compels the prioritisation of news pieces in a linear

timeline, just like newspapers are ordered in a presentational linearity. But this is the case for

most newscasts. In the case of the NHK, the sub-titles reminds us of Japanese newspapers,

but even more so of manga, a trademark of Japanese culture.

Manga is the term that designates black and white Japanese comics and Fusanosuke

(2003) writes that ‘manga developed in conjuction with television’ (Fusanosuke, 2003: 3).

Unlike in the West, comic books in Japan or manga are not children’s books but a form of

literature destined for all segments of the population. There are shonen manga for men and

shojo manga for women. Daniel Pink (2007) writes that it is a $4.2 billion dollar industry in

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Japan and represents 22% of the country’s printed material (Pink 2007). Manga is very much

a literary genre in Japanese culture.

A visitor to Japan, Laurence Oliphant (1860) observes that unlike in the West,

Japanese society relies on the restraints of one’s individualism for the benefit of the

community (Oliphant, 1860 quoted in Smith, 1985: 134). Behavioural norms oblige the

individual to sacrifice himself for the well-being of society. As a result, Pattern (2004)

observes that manga are for people ‘who want intense adult situations in real stories’ (Patten

and Mack, 2004: 116). Manga is a medium that allows individual escapism from a rigidly

disciplined society and explains the genre’s extreme popularity.

Fusanosuke argues that manga is particularly suited to Japanese language as

culturally, ‘East Asian cultures have had a relatively close picture to language relationship’

(Fusanosuke, 2003: 3). Traditionally, Japanese is written with a painting brush, fude, in which

the art of calligraphy or noucho follows strict rules of aesthetics. It is a semantic language in

which a symbol or kanji represents what it refers to. The kanji 黒 (kuro) on its own means

black or dark and added to the kanji 人 (hito), meaning person, people or human-being,

together form 黒人 (kokujin), a black or dark person. Japanese, as a language, is a pictorial

art that permeates not only its popular manga but also its news’ stylistics.

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Figure 2: Still taken from the NHK News at 9o’clock on November 5th 2008

The chart held by the newscasters in figure 2 is cartoonesque. The colourful kanji

with outlines of different colours pop out like onomatopeias in comics. This chart

respectively compares the politics of George W. Bush to Barack Obama’s in the domains of

‘Foreign Affairs’, ‘Iran’ and the ‘Economy’. Cut-outs of the leaders’ heads illustrate their

stances on these issues. The Republican and Democrat logo are shown behind the

newscasters in the background and the waving stars and stripes add up to the Americanisation

of the set. Yet, the American names of Obama and Bush are not written in Latin alphabet but

in Japanese ‘オバマ’ and ‘ブッシュ’ reinforcing ‘Japaneseness’ (Pincus, 1996: 11).

Ever since the Meiji era of the early 20th century in which Japan underwent

modernisation according to Western principles, there is a true Japanese desire to tolerate and

incorporate Western styles whilst maintaining a distinct Japanese identity. Shiga Shigetaka

(1888) wonders ‘how can Japan be Made Japan’ whilst being influenced by the West and

affirms that only a specific Japanese ‘aesthetic sense’ may prevail (Shigetaka, 1888 quoted in

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Pincus, 1996: 12). The broadcasters’ presentation of the news is an appropriation of western

events into a Japanese format and suggests the country’s pride in its culture.

The newscaster refers to Obama as a kokujin that translates directly as a black or dark

person. It is not considered derogatory but as a simple word used to describe a physical

appearance. He is the first kokujin to take office and thus, ‘makes history’. Chris Hogg (2005)

argues that Japan fails to recognise ‘deep and profound’ racism (Hogg, 2005) whilst John

Russel (1991) writes that Japan idealises ‘homogeneity’ which in turn creates an ‘uncritical

acceptance and indigenization of black Otherness’ (Russel, 1991: 5). By referring to

President Obama as a ‘black person’, the NHK underlines its society’s differentiation from

the black Other.

Although Obama disrupts Japanese discourse of homogeneity, the NHK appropriates

his ascension into a presentation format that gives its audience a cultural benchmark. The

broadcaster incarnates Japanese pride but nonetheless, offers a form of fascination and

respect to the President elect exemplified by the set’s decor and the newscasts’ devotion to

his victory. The NHK’s stylistics of the news is representational of its culture and designed

with its audience in mind.

30

News at 6pm in Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia on Al-Arabiya (55minutes)

Al-Arabya was launched on March 3rd 2003. It is a private broadcaster based in

Dubai’s Media City and received an initial investment of $300 million by the Saudi-based

pan-Arab satellite TV pioneer Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), Lebanon's Hariri

Group and other investors from the Gulf (Al-Arabiya, 2009). It is broadcasted in Arab

regions from North Africa to the Middle East. Obama gave his first formal interview as

President to the network’s Washington correspondent Hisham Melhem after only six full

days in Office (figure 3). The gesture exemplifies not only Al-Arabiya’s rapid ascension in

the domain of news coverage, but also, as Scott Macleod writes, the President has ‘now made

it clear that he has every intention of taking a new approach to the region’ (MacLeod 2009).

As such, Al-Arabiya serves as a mediator of Americano-Arab issues.

Figure 3: ‘President Obama Being Interviewed by Al-Arabiya News Channel, January 26, 2009’ (http://www.acus.org/files/images/ObamaInterviewAlArabiya.preview.jpg)

31

The program on November 5th 2008 has the Al-Arabiya logo at the top right

corner of the screen as Arabic is read from right to left, and the local time of the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Visuals and music together introduce the American

flag and the White House in a computerized image entitled ‘Obama and the White

House’. The presenter is a woman sitting behind an imposing desk with impeccable hair

and make-up, wearing a red tailored suit. The newscast is clearly designed to represent a

modern Middle East and all 55 minutes of the program are concentrated on the events of

the American election.

The African-American President elect is portrayed as the incarnation of Martin

Luther King’s dream. And an extract in which Obama states ‘there’s no impossible

American Dream’ follows in which a huge crowd of all age, colour and gender cheers in

joy and support. The headline airs for a total of six minutes with three references to the

term ‘dream’, twice by the presenter, once in Obama’s clip. ‘Dream’ becomes a

soundbite, a snappy one liner which grabs the audience’s attention. The network takes

for granted their Arab audience’s knowledge of the American Dream or even of Martin

Luther King’s Dream and does not provide any form of definition of these concepts.

The ideal of the American Dream was foregrounded by the Founding Fathers of

America in the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain of July 4th 1776. The

founding fathers ‘hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that

they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among them are Life,

Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ (in United States et al., 2002: 146). Frank

Lambert (2003) argues that the Enlightenment, ongoing in the Europe they had fled,

‘buoyed the Founder’s beliefs that human beings had the means and power to shape

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their own futures’ (Lambert, 2003: 171). It set the ground for America, a land where

people would not encounter determinism, but determination. Even if the document was

written in the XVIIIth century, the historian Gordon S. Wood (2000) believes that

‘following the Declaration of Independence, the United States became the most

egalitarian nation in the history of the world, and it remains so today, regardless of its

great disparaties of wealth’ (Wood, 2006 quoted in Jarab et el., 2006: 39).

The American Dream gives room for the myth of the self-made man. Examples

such as Michael Jackson who experienced an abusive childhood in a poor household in

a working-class American suburb before becoming the international mega-star or

Madonna, Walt Disney, Dic and Mac McDonald’s, the founders of McDonald’s are all

stories of successful self-made Americans. There are many other examples, Oprah

Winfrey, Ralph Lauren, Julia Roberts… These self-made men or women are not

Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, La Sorbonne or Yale graduates nor were they born to

wealthy families that could afford to support their social ascension. Their success came

through hard work and the opportunities they found in American society. These success

stories travel the world through music, food, clothes, television, movies, all

commodities in which they are displayed as role models. It does not mean that every

American achieves the dream or that anyone who sets foot in the United States is

automatically happy, only that the minority that have accomplished the dream make the

rest of the world believe in the American Dream.

Such dreams prove harder to achieve in largely Muslim Middle Eastern states.

The laws of the Sharia grant men different rights to women. Frances Harrison (2008)

writes about a United Nations report in Saudi Arabia in which the ‘practice of needing a

33

man’s permission to marry, work, travel or be educated should end’ (Harrison 2008).

The debate of what are women’s rights, equality and justice would be far too time-

consuming. I will, thus, briefly state that these concepts are not universal. Parris (2008)

writes that “no more than English law does even the most brutal Sharia advocate

‘inequality’. It simply reflects a cultural belief that women are different” (Parris 2008).

Verba and Orren (1985) furthermore argue that ‘equality, one of the earliest of political

ideals, is also among the most elusive’ (Verba and Orren, 1985: 1). Countries that apply

Sharia do not view themselves as proning inequalities when to an outsiders’s eye they

are. It would be disrespectful to rate one viewpoint over another if we accept Edward

Said’s (1978) Orientalism. Ideals of equality, success and opportunity are specific to its

discursive producers. As such, the American Dream per se is much more difficult to

achieve in Arab countries simply because of the quintessential fact that it is named the

American, as opposed to the Arab, Dream.

Al-Arabiya also mentions Martin Luther King’s Dream but fails to give further

explanation. Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his pacifist

call to abolish racial segregation with the 1960’s civil rights movement in the United

States. In his work Strive Towards Freedom, King (1958) believes that ‘the old law of

an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind’ and that only ‘through nonviolent resistance

the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while

loving the perpetrators of the system’ (King, 1958). He orates in his famous ‘I have a

Dream’ speech: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation

where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their

character. I have a dream today’ (King, 1963). By comparing Obama’s election to

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King’s dream, Al-Arabiya suggests that Obama is like King, ‘able to invoke all

principles of the founding fathers to rebuke the inequalities and hypocrisies of modern

American life’ (Reston, 1963).

Dick Martin (2007) questions whether Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are ‘biased

against the U.S.’ (Martin, 2007: 77). Through this news program, Al-Arabiya appears to

maintain America’s image of a dream land in which Obama’s victory is its present-day

fulfilment. After 9/11, the American media extensively discussed the reasons why

Arabs presumably hate the U.S. The Bush administration seems to argue that it was

because a ‘biased media in the Muslim world skewed its message’ (Poole and

Richardson, 2006: 194). Here, Al-Arabiya represents Obama as another American

success story and gives credit to the American dream as still possible today, therefore

only perpetuating a respect and fascination for America in the Arab world.

Al-Arabiya’s discourse presupposes their audience’s knowledge of American

culture and thus, directs its reports to middle class Arabs with a minimum of knowledge

of the world. I will also remind that the network is backed by the House of Sa’ud.

Vitalis (1997) believes the Kingdom of Saudi endows many jobs in the American

weapon industry and similarly, American security and prosperity are presented as

‘inextricably linked with access to the Gulf’s oil resources’ (Vitalis, 1997: 18-19). As a

channel financed by investors in the Gulf, it is in Al-Arabiya’s interest to portray

Obama as a successful incarnation of the American Dream to perpetuate friendly

Americano-Arab relations.

35

News at 6pm in London, United Kingdom on BBC1 (30minutes)

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster

financed through the public’s license fee. The BBC claims that this form of financing

allows for ‘public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers,

shareholders or political interests’, in addition, the Charter maintains the BBC’s ‘Public

Purposes’ and ‘guarantees its editorial independence’ (BBC, 2009). The BBC hopes to

incarnate a neutral body media for the British public.

The BBC1’s News at six o’clock on November 5th 2008 is presented by a white

middle-aged man wearing a navy suit to which a poppy is pinned to support the Royal

British Legion (figure 4). He announces over the pounding dramatic music the main

headline of the day: ‘for the first time in history an African-American won the

American Presidential Election’. 25 of the programs’ 30 minutes relate to Obama.

Figure 4: The anchorman Live on BBC1 six o’clock news from Washington on November 5th 2008

36

I find it striking that in the course of the news bulletin the BBC broadcasts

footages from two foreign sources. The first clip that appears in the thirty minute

program is taken from Al-Jazeera (figure 5). Mohammed El-Nawawy and Adel

Iskandar (2003) write that Al-Jazeera has a ‘provocative approach to news analysis’ for

in 1999 it broadcasted a ninety minute interview with Bin Laden; ever since many Arab

governments and Western countries accuse the network of being a ‘mouthpiece’ for Al-

Qaeda and the Taliban regime (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2003: 22). Yet, the BBC ‘has

signed a news gathering exchange agreement’ with the Arab network ‘granting

reciprocal access to material’ (BBC 2003). Al-Jazeera offers an Arab perspective the

BBC cannot provide. As such, during the war in Afghanistan the BBC shared

information from the Arab network as the latter has unparalleled connections and

infrastructures in the war zone (Miles, 2005: 223). Al-Jazeera’s Arab perspective

disrupts the west’s editorial tradition igniting accusations of partiality and bias but Hugh

Miles (2005) argues that Al-Jazeera is just like any other given private broadcaster and

‘simply designed with their viewership in mind’ (Miles, 2005: 359). As such, the

agreement between the BBC and Al-Jazeera translates into a mutual desire to broaden

the opinion scope of their respective channels.

37

Figure 5: Still taken from the BBC1 Six O’clock News on November 5th 2008.

It illustrates the Al-Jazeera clip with its Arabic title and Al-Jazeera logo at the bottom right.

The second video extract is taken from ABC News (figure 6). The ABC network

is part of the Disney-ABC Television Network owned by none other than the Walt

Disney Company, a corporate mastodon in the international entertainment and media

industries. Alan Bryman (2004) coins the term ‘disneyization’, ‘in particular increasing

the inclination to consume’ surplus commodities, mainly in the domain of leisure and

entertainment (Bryman, 2004: 4). Disneyization is inspired by Ritzer’s theory of

McDonalidisation (2004) and refers to the simplification of products for further

efficiency (Ritzer, 2004:59). The concept of ‘finger food’ and the easiness in which

food is swallowed, like the Chicken McNugget from which the bones are taken out,

allows consumers to pop ‘bite-size morsels of fried chicken right into their mouths even

as they drive’ (Ritzer, 2004: 60). Such principles of production seep into the media. As

Ritzer points out, newspapers have a long tradition of starting an article on a certain

page before expanding on another. USA Today was the first to change the format by

cutting down words for articles to fit on a same page resulting in a form of ‘News

38

McNuggets’ (Ritzer, 2004: 61). Sadly, television journalism is no exception. ABC’s

vice-president for programming underlined the need for calculability in commercial

television as it ‘is designed to attract audiences to the advertiser’s messages’ (Ritzer,

2004: 75). It is certainly disturbing, yet, justifiable for a private service broadcaster to

target its customers to comply with its sponsors demands. The BBC’s Press Office does

not hide its agreement with the ABC but as a public service broadcaster whose ethics

differ from ABC-Disney’s, the BBC should surely question and explicitly reveal its

partners’ roots to fully gain ‘editorial independence’ and avoid uniformity in content

and ethics.

Figure 6: Still taken from the BBC1 Six O’clock News on November 5th 2008.

The computerised image is the same as used by the ABC network on election night of 2008.

The BBC’s partnership with other networks, including private ones,

demonstrates its desire to broadcast a multitude of viewpoints from which the British

public can make its own judgement; but for this argument to fully realise the BBC

would need a much more convincing array of data from many more networks. What is

certain is that although the BBC’s intentions are to provide objectivity and quality are at

the heart of its policy, the foremost reality is that signing pooling agreements with other

networks allows a significant cut in information gathering expenditures.

39

Figure 7: Still taken from BBC1 six o’clock news on November 5th 2008

It shows the anchorman on ABC News as it was broadcasted on the BBC

In the newscast, a camera shot of Obama shows him standing alone waving from

the open-air stage to the huge supportive crowd behind a bullet-proof glass (figure 8).

The voice-off narrates the moment as ‘Obama’s certainty of the loneliness of power’

(BBC 2009). It represents Obama as a leader with unprecedented power and

responsibilities whose governance relies primarily on a single man. Nira Yuval-Davis

(2006) argues that belonging is an ‘act of self identification or identification by others’

(Yuval-Davis, 2006: 198). The BBC not only demarks itself from the President elect by

representing him alone against the world but also understates a certain scepticism

towards his victory. Obama’s presidential campaign consisted of a factual blur on

precise political matters. Gary Andres (2008) writes ‘everyone agrees we want change

in America. But Mr Obama has not answered the fundamental question of how’

(Andres, 2008). It is only after taking Office that Obama elucidates his political

strategies in the Agenda. In this matter, the BBC’s comments imply that at this very

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moment of victory, only Obama, alone, has the key to the ‘change’ he promises and

only he can be responsible of his political success or failure.

Figure 8: Still taken from the BBC1 Six O’clock News on November 5th 2008

It shows Obama stood alone behind the bullet proof glass waving at the crowd

The BBC appears as an institution that favours public programming over private

interests whilst having information exchange agreements with other networks to keep

costs low. Although the latter have differing ethics to that of the BBC, it gives the

British public an information broad scope from which viewers can possibly make their

own interpretation of current affairs. The BBC’s representation of Obama as a solitary

figure suggests that it recognises the leader’s political potential but that the

responsibility for change rests solely on his shoulders.

41

News at 6pm in Toledo, Ohio, USA on the Fox News Channel (55minutes)

The Fox News Channel (FNC) is a 24 hour cable news network in the United States

of America started in 1997. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch the media mogul who owns 9

satellite television networks, 100 cable channels, 175 newspapers, 40 book imprints, 40

television stations and a movie studio potentially reaching out to a total audience of 4.7

billion people worldwide (Greenwald 2004). As a comparison, in 2006 the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA) valued the total world population to 6.7 billion (CIA 2006). Roger

Ailes is the actual President of the Fox News Channel and former media strategist for the

Republican presidential campaigns of Nixon, Reagan and Bush Sr. In Robert Greenwald’s

(2004) documentary Outfoxed, Fox News undergoes severe criticism of right-wing

Republican propaganda under the disguise of ‘fair and balanced journalism’ (Greenwald

2004). I would like to defend the channel, its format, content and journalistic practices but I

find it hard to.

Figure 9: Still taken from the opening of Special Report with Brit Hume on November 5th 2008

The news program on November 5th 2008 is the one hour Special Report, a daily live

newscast devoted to political information. It airs at six o’clock Eastern time with anchorman

Brit Hume. As figure 9 shows, his name appears on the opening of the bulletin in bold letters,

42

a voice-off introduces him, he introduces himself and it appears once again on the banner at

the bottom of the screen. Out of the five channels I have studied, the American Fox News is

by far the most superficial in its coverage of Obama’s victory. FNC devotes a considerable

amount of time to the Senate election and after 15 minutes into the program there was a form

of analysis of the Democrat Obama’s victory: ‘What went wrong for Republicans?’.

Before Special Report, Fox News bombards its audience with teasers in which catchy

sound-bites such as ‘most watched, most trusted’, ‘fair and balanced’, ‘honest reporting’, ‘We

report, you decide’ and ‘no spin analysis’ introduce the program. A series of fast paced

computerised images merge into one another with pictures of the network’s celebrity

journalists and slogans to match (figure 10). It is a hypodermic needle model of self-

promotion that drills into the viewer’s mind that Fox News is the utmost of objective

reporting at the height of technological journalism.

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Figure 10: Stills taken from the Fox News Channel on November 5th 2008.

They illustrate the channel’s fast paced self-promotion techniques with its slogans and network celebrities.

There are five commercial breaks of five minutes each in the course of the fifty

minute program. That totals to 25 minutes of advertising obstructing 55 minutes of news.

In the newscast, there are three small screens to the right of the Fox News main screen

ongoing all together at once (figure 11). The top screen is entitled ‘national headlines’, ‘latest

headlines’ or ‘world headlines’. The middle screen is ‘Fox Business’, ‘Economy’, ‘U.S.

Election Headquarters’ or teases on the program to be aired next. The third little screen at the

bottom is either ‘entertainment’ or ‘weather centre’. There is also a snipe at the bottom of the

page that reminds of Internet banner-adds and unfolds a continuous flow of information

whilst the report is ongoing. A total of five information outlets with differing topics happen at

once; although Hume’s screen is the main one, the saturation of information as such that no

viewer can possibly take in all the information that is delivered.

Figure 11: Still taken from Special Report with Brit Hume on November 5th 2008

The frame illustrates the saturation of information and the 5 information outlets delivered at once

44

One of the main reports on that day is of the republican Conference Chairman, Adam

Putnam (figure 12), who resigned his position after the house Republican lost in the 2008

general election. Adam Putnam’s photography appears on the main screen and Hume

concludes the report by stating: ‘…looks like he’s about 14, as you can see’ (Hume 2008).

Brit Hume estimates that although of no journalistic value, his personal remark is crucial to

the report. As Raymond Williams’ (1976) pointed out American news reports are based on

‘informality’, on ‘a group of men telling you what they know’ with an emphasis on personal

interpretation (Williams, 1976: 47). Brit Hume’s harsh observation of Putnam’s physique

implies a dissimilitude of the latter’s political resignation. It above all translates a personal

observation that the entire nation takes in as ‘fair and balanced’ reporting.

Figure 12: Still taken from the Special Report with Brit Hume on November 5th 2008

It shows Adam Putnam on the main screen, National Headlines: Mom gets 15 to life for driving teens to kill rival, America’s Election HQ: Questions around over Palin’s political future, Entertainment: Obama: Election Day Write stuff.

Bob Mullan (1997) defines the news as programs that ‘establish a certain formability

by their reliance on stiff postures, fairly formal clothes, grammatically complete sentences, a

45

general lack of emotion and the use of the conventional medium close-up shot’ (Mullan,

1997: 80). Figure 11 exemplifies Mullan’s definition of the news but the strong emphasis on

Hume, host of Special Report, gives him the freedom to voice out his personal opinions about

Putnam. Special Report does indeed share trademark characteristics of traditional newscasts

but gaps in journalistic ethics remain and as such Fox News’ Special Report is informal news

in a formal news format.

The box entitled the ‘latest headlines’ exhibits information such as ‘Promises,

Promises’, ‘New Congo fighting forces thousands to flee again’ whilst the ‘entertainment’

box boasts, ‘Kate Winslet: I never thought I’d be famous when I was fat’, ‘Ashley loves to

watch Zach and Vanessa kiss’ and most notably, as shown in figure 12, in the U.S. Election

headquarters box: ‘Obama Election day: write stuff’ (Special Report 2008). The information

is reduced to a minimum, almost to a line or even a word with no verbs. The lack of depth in

the coverage of the Congo juxtaposed on top of the entertainment box illustrates Fox’s

adherence to the phenomenon of ‘infotainment’ in which a ‘powerful discourse of diversion’

for the purpose of amusement takes place (Kishan Thussu, 2007: 9). It is careless reporting

exemplified in the epitomic line of ‘write stuff’. Obviously, Fox News journalists forgot to

complete the box before airing it, just like it rushed through the text in the America’s election

HQ box on figure 12, at least I hope, but this not only illustrates Fox News’ prioritisation of

format over content, it also exemplifies its race of speed over quality.

Postman and Powers (1992) write that television is under constant pressure of time

and as such, there is very much a case for ‘technique triumphing over substance’ (Postman

and Powers, 1992: 50, 74). The presentation of Fox News’ bulletin suggests sophisticated

techniques that juggle symbolic visuals and audio to create an impression of journalistic

modernity. The Glasgow University Media Group define television news as a ‘manufactured

46

product based on a coherent set of professional and ideological beliefs and expressed in a

rigid formula of presentation’ (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976: 31). Although Fox

News’ framework of presentation may follow the genre’s criteria, when taken out, the news

in itself is quite poor.

Twenty of the programs’ total fifty-five minutes are devoted to Obama. To illustrate

his victory Fox News rapidly flashes celebratory clips from Kenya, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan,

England, France, Israel, Spain and a voice-over narrates ‘Africa is where his father came

from’ (Special Report 2008). Special Report managed to send a special correspondent to

cover the Republican candidate to the senate in Alaska but cannot differentiate a country like

Kenya, to a continent such as Africa. The coverage of Obama’s victory is done in a reluctant

tone and appears primarily as a pretext to question the ‘Republican hangover and how can

they get over it’ (Special Report 2008). It distinguishes a thoroughly covered Republican

America, to countries of the rest of the world that are all mashed up together. It distorts

viewers’ perception of the world. Barack Obama (2007) writes in his life story that

Americans’ lack of geographical knowledge is puzzling for Indonesians ‘since for the past

sixty years the fate of their nation has been directly tied to US foreign policy’ (Obama, 2007:

272). Fox News is the most watched channel of information in America with 667 000 viewers

daily (Fahri, 2003: 32). And it comes with no surprise that Fox’s amiss reporting leads to the

dumbing down of America.

Fox News fails in basic journalistic practices and airs opinionated information under

the cover of ‘balanced reporting’. Obama’s victory is above all an excuse to cover

Republican defeat and, although the presentation frame suggests otherwise, Special Report‘s

clutter of information clearly misinforms viewers. Anthony Smith underlines a

‘contemporary crisis in news credibility’ (Smith quoted in Glasgow University Media Group,

47

1976: 7). Fox News’ dubious intensive auto-proclamation for quality news in addition to the

‘information’ it broadcasts is surely responsible for a portion of newscasts loss of credibility.

Greenwald (2004) coins the term ‘outfoxed’ in which journalists with true journalistic ethics

are giving into FNC’s vile journalism because, sadly, it is successful. In this matter, John

Simpson (2002) writes that America is ‘turning into an Alzheimer nation, unaware of its own

or anyone else’s past, ignorant of its own or anyone else’s present’ (Simpson, 2002: 288).

Fox News misinforms and manipulates its public through the news. It is a friendly faced but

Machiavellic dictator of American information”

News at 8pm in Paris, France on TF1 (50minutes)

Télévision France 1 (TF1) is a French private broadcaster owned by the media

Groupe TF1. The Group also owns a vast array of channels of which TF1 and La Chaine

d’Information (LCI), the 24 hours French news channel, are the main ones. TF1 is the first

French generalist television channel in audience numbers and accounted for 30,7% of total

48

audience share in 2007 (TF1 2009). In the same year it profited from a global income of

27636 million euro (TF1 2009). TF1 is very popular in France.

Habitually, the newscast at 8pm is 30 minutes long and presented in its Parisians

studios. On November 5th 2008, it covered Obama for 30 minutes with an anchorwoman

specially sent to New York City. The national news was reported for an additional 20 minutes

by the presenter in Paris. The opening shows Obama’s speech ‘change has come to America’.

The anchorwoman comments the event as a ‘new post-racial era’ and states ‘Obama’s

America is in motion’ (TF1 2008). His victory is presented as a major turning point in

history. A lyrical French tone announces that ‘joy’, ‘relief’ is felt at this celebratory moment

as ‘masks fall, faces speak’ (TF1 2008). The cameraman is stands amidst the crowd and

closely shoots people’s smiles and tears. The proximity to the people’s emotions looms TF1

as a bridge between the joy of the American people and its French audience.

Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (1976) writes that ‘Franco-Americano relations have never

lost the mysterious charm that assures them a place apart in the history of mankind’

(Duroselle, 1976: 253). Both powers enjoy a friendly relationship into which TF1 invests

visible effort. Only for the French and American Presidential election does TF1 alter its 8

o’clock news format. TF1 sends its main anchorwoman to New York City and alters the

format of its program from 30 to 50 minutes of which a complete half hour is devoted to

America. In this matter, the broadcaster sets American affairs as equal, if not superior to

those of France. It shows its devotion to the election and a desire to be the most explanatory

French network to perpetuate the Franco-American positive relationship. TF1 uses its news

bulletins as a medium to bolster political entente to its audience.

TF1 covers Obama’s victory as a ‘soirée de folie’ where the crowd is in euphoria

waving American flags, crying, screaming and blowing the horn of their cars (TF1 2008).

49

Jesse Jackson who himself failed as an African-American Presidential candidate, is tearful

(figure 13), whilst Obama is on stage kissing his wife and daughters through the rain of glitter

pouring over the stage. The coverage is very much emotional and theatrical. Joshua

Meyrowitz writes that television has ‘an inherent emotional track that print lacks’ (Meyrowitz

quoted in McManus, 1994:171). By playing on television’s emotional potential, TF1

orchestrates Obama’s victory as a moment of ecstasy and leads its French viewers to share

the emotive moment Americans are said to be experiencing.

Michel Wieviorka (2000) suggests that after the industrial revolution of the XIXth

century, France hosted a vast number of migrants, who, with time, settled to form ‘collective

identities’ that grew to demand recognition in the public sphere (Wieviorka, 2000: 258).

Unlike in the United States where individuals are categorised into identifiable groups such as

African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic... Robert Lieberman writes that French policy

on ethnic minorities or collective identities are, in theory, colour blind (Lieberman quoted in

Chapman and Frader, 2004: 189). But ethnic misrepresentations are very much present in the

French media in which traditional discourse of whiteness prevail. Wieviorka continues that

‘political and intellectual elites have long been somewhat blind’ to the process of ethnic

representation within French society (Wieviorka, 2000: 158). To which, Dominic Thomas

(2007) adds that French television is bound to reconsider the reality of multiculturalism in

‘contemporary France and its homogeneously white representation on national television’

(Thomas, 2007: 209). The French multiculturalist approach to the integration of ethnic

minorities is misrepresented on national television. As such, it appears that TF1’s devotion to

the first African-American President to take Office translates into an initiative to mark the

end of ethnic misrepresentation on French television and diffuse accusations of a discourse of

whiteness. By interpreting Obama’s election as the mark for a ‘new post-racial era’ to which

50

people visibly cry in joy, TF1 suggests that as a people’s broadcaster, it is at the forefront of

celebrating diversity.

Figure 13: Still taken from TF1 8’clock news on November 5th 2008

Jesse Jackson is surrounded by a crowd waving the American flag and crying in joy

TF1 represents Obama as the man who symbolizes a change in racial and political

struggles and as, such, celebrates him as a man of the people. Jean Baudrillard (1998) affirms

‘everywhere we see the historical structures celebrating, as it were, under the sign of

consumption, both their real disappearance and their caricatural resurrection’ (Baudrillard,

1998: 99-100). And the election of President Obama seems to prove this to be true. As the

first African-American to take the Office, TF1 portrays Obama as an emotional turning point

for racial equality throughout the world. But just as it celebrates the change of mentalities in

regards to racial integration, it also admits that previous to Obama’s coming of power there

was a need for change. In this matter, Baudrillard’s criticism of mass communications in

which there is an ongoing ‘pathetic hypocrisy’ to ‘heighten with all the signs of catastrophe’

the news suggests that the glorification of Obama as an African-American to take office

celebrates ‘under the sign of consumption’ both the disappearance of racial discrimination

and its ‘caricatural resurection’ (Baudrillard, 1998: 99). In other words, if ethnic

51

discrimination was truly to end, Obama’s glorification as a President of colour would not take

place.

Morley and Dahlgren have underlined the positive contributions that popular

journalistic culture can make in communicating the political and making it understandable

(Morley and Dahlgren quoted in Meyer with Hinchman, 2002: 130). By illustrating Obama’s

victory as a celebration of joy, TF1 prefers to play on the emotions of its viewers than to gain

its validation by hard facts. Such presentation facilitates the French viewers’ identification

with the events in America and defines popular journalistic culture as a form of journalism

that no longer calls for intellectual convincing but emotional investment. Throughout history,

the French have perpetuated through literature and poetry a culture of emotional expressivity.

TF1 appears to cultivate the myth through the news by calling on its audience’s emotional

interactivity rather than intellectual reflexivity. It represents Obama as a positive aphorism

for the reconsideration of ethnic disparities in America as well as in France. Above all, TF1’s

report shows its devotion to American news and a will to be at the forefront of Americano-

French relations.

Transnational Analysis of Television News

Each network presents their newscasts according to specific particularities but three

major similarities remain. Firstly, they all suppose middle class ideology in their

constructions, secondly, liberal democracy is the preferred ideology, and finally, all adhere to

a discourse of whiteness.

The Glasgow University Media Group (1976) observes that news producers are

working ‘under constraints and pressures endemic in any news-processing enterprises’ and as

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such, journalists themselves ‘become unaware of many factors including obvious cultural

ones that shape output’ (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976: 60). As their profession is

constrained by time, journalists take for granted a jargon of current affairs that their audience

may not necessarily share. If television news programs have the potential to be watched by

anyone who owns a television set, then its audience encompasses all social classes. Yet, the

news is designed with only a fragment of the total audience in mind. All newscasts I studied

lack a concise definition of what the role of an American President truly entails, what

Presidential system of government America uses or what differentiate Democrats from

Republicans. Numerous labels such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Ben Laden, Al Qaeda, even

recession are repeated over and over but without any thorough explanation of the concepts or

America’s relation to the issues. This, not only shows that news bulletins are designed with

an intellectual middle class public in mind, but also that they rely on a chronology in which

their audience’s commitment to the daily programs is taken for granted. Jean Baudrillard

(1998) writes on ‘le Recyclage’ or the social obligation that is ‘based on the continual

advance of knowledge’ (Baudrillard, 1998: 100-101). It commits journalists to novelty and

‘breaking news’ rather than recapitulation for a methodical understanding of events. As such,

journalists need to keep in mind that news bulletins have the duty to punctually inform an

entire citizenry regardless of their level of education or adherence to the programs.

Secondly, each network exploits the notion that news is crucial to the public, albeit

even to society itself. The dramatic opening of the newscasts with its formal greetings and

climactic music creates a sense of authority. Harrison (2000) argues that the news is ‘socially

responsible’ for a democratic society (Harrison, 2000: 3). The trend for televised news

bulletins exemplifies a transnational adoption of democracy in which serious information is

deemed crucial for a better society. It accredits Fukuyama’s (1992) ‘end of history’ wherein

53

the ideology ingrained in televised news perpetuates liberal democracy and contributes to the

‘end point of mankind’s ideological evolution’ (Fukuyama, 1992: xi). Newscasts aim to

empower their audience with information to make the right democratic choices and thus,

encourage membership to the metastate. Their popularity suggests a common culture of

consumption and knowledge that manoeuvres towards liberal democracy bolstered by ‘an

international discourse…devoted to the accumulation and the conquest of nature’ (Yurick in

Nederveen Pieterse and Parekh, 1995: 205). Each newscast has sponsors and a financial

structure, either public or private, that equates the news to a commodity. As such, there is a

homogeneous viewpoint in transnational news’ discourse. Not only do they take for granted

their audience’s knowledge of current affairs and daily follow-up, they also presuppose and

perpetuate an adherence to liberal democracy that empowers individuals through information.

Newscasts partake in a culture of consumption that heightens the news to an ideological

commodity essential to the well-being of one’s society.

Thirdly, all newscasts partake in a discourse of whiteness. Surely, there is no need for

ethnic categorisation in what TF1 refers to as our ‘new post-racial era’ unless there is a

transnational discourse of ethnic categorisation that transcends into the value system of other

cultures, including news discourse itself. America’s status of hegemony in the world not only

fascinates and obsesses the rest of the world in ‘who is to lead the country that leads the

world’ but also influences transnational values of judgement on this basis. The news

programs implicate a subdued Western discourse of whiteness that ‘never has to speak its

name’ or be recognised as the means by which social and cultural relations can be explained

(Lipsitz, 2006:1). Whiteness is simply taken for granted in transnational news discourse and

automatically defines white as the standard that differentiates itself from the black Other. In

this matter, transnational news discourse maintains an orientalist viewpoint in which, as

54

argued by Said (1995), the West has a tendency to belittle those with differing standards

(Said, 1995: 73). By portraying a disruption in a tradition for white Presidents, celebrated

under the term ‘change’, the media agrees that Obama’s victory is a vicissitude that needs

special recognition when in fact, true racial equality would have forbidden it.

Thus, our sample of five culturally different newscasts gives way to similarities in

addition to the particularities previously studied in their individual content analysis. But, most

importantly, they all cover the election of Barack Obama.

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The Implications of Obama’s victory

Hegemony is a term rooted in the Greek word hegeisthai which means ‘to lead’

(Knutsen, 1999: 60). Our current context of American hegemony imposes a transnational

interest in its politics. Cedric Robinson writes that ‘the presidency is the single most

important subject reported by the US news media (Robinson quoted in Downing et al., 1995:

94) and America’s leadership in the world, necessarily implicates a transnational media

interest in the leadership of the single most influential country in the world. Two days after

September 11 2001, Jean-Marie Colombani wrote ‘nous sommes tous Américains!’ for the

events on that day marked the end of America’s isolationism and deepened international

involvement in its foreign policies (Colombani, 2001). Today, America socially and

politically leads the world and naturally, takes front stage in international media coverage.

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Wednesday November 5th

2008

NHK

At 9pm

Al-Arabiya

At 6pm

BBC1

At 6pm

Fox News

At 6pm

TF1

At 8pm

Average

Total Length of Newscast (minutes)

59 55 30 55 50 51

Total Length of Newscast without ads (minutes)

59 45 30 30 50 43

Total Length of Ads in entirety of Newscast

(minutes)0 10 0 25 0 7

Ads in entirety of Newscast (%)

0 18 0 45 0 14

Obama’s Coverage in Newscast (minutes)

26 45 25 20 30 29

Obama’s Coverage in entirety of newscasts without

ads (%)44 100 83 67 60 71

Obama’s Coverage in entirety of newscasts with ads

(%)44 81 8 3 36 60 61

Figure 14 shows Obama’s coverage in our selected sample of five culturally different

newscasts on November 5th 2008. Al-Arabiya takes the lead with 100% of its actual pure

news content allotted to Obama whilst Fox News has a considerable 45% of its broadcast

made up of advertisements. This brings us back to Dick Martin (2007) who questions rather

Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are ‘biased against the U.S.’ (Martin, 2007: 77) in which Al-

Arabiya’s previous content analysis proves that it is in fact portraying a favourable image of

America. As such, Al-Arabiya devotes 81% of its newscast’s entirety to a positive depiction

of Obama, whilst, paradoxically, the American broadcaster Fox News has the lowest

percentage of Obama coverage representing a mere 36% of the totality of its bulletin. As a

57

Figure 14: Table representative of Obama’s coverage in the news of 5 networks on November 5th 2008

and the time allotted to advertisements. (Numerals rounded off to second significant value)

Each program was timed from its opening preview to its final greetings inclusive of advertisements where applies.

private broadcaster financed by advertising, it is presumably excusable for Fox News to have

little room for news content alone, but Al-Arabiya, also a private broadcaster, still manages to

give preponderant coverage to Obama. Figure 13 illustrates the broadcasters’ will to devote

airing time to the coverage of the newest American President and underlines Fox News’ very

low rates. Foreign media are more expandatory in the coverage of the American President

with Al-Arabiya, BBC1 and TF1 devoting the majority of their total news programs to

Obama, comprising of a staggering 83% for BBC1. It appears that in our random sample of

newscasts, private and public broadcasters, together average 14% of the entirety of their

program to advertisements. Just as each channel’s individual content analysis shows,

advertisements do alter the impact of the news. In this case, the share of advertisements

varies from 0% to 45% of the total newscast, possibly affecting little or significantly the

news’ neutrality. Above all, the average percentage of Obama’s coverage in this transnational

sample of newscasts, advertisements included, is of 61%; without, Obama comprises 71% of

pure news. It accredits America’s supremacy in the world and illustrates international interest

in the leader of the world’s most important country making Obama the most mediatised

individual on November 5th 2008.

Thompson argues that there is a ‘symbolic power’ to politicians that is the result of

carefully managed ‘private’ lives (Thompson quoted in McDonald, 2003: 89). The five

networks continuously expose Obama’s ‘private’ life. He was born of a Kenyan father and

American mother in Hawaii, grew up for a few years in Indonesia and moved to New York,

then Chicago, before settling in the White House after his election (BarackObama 2009).

Each newscast portrays him as a symbol of racial equality and the reconciliation of cultural

misunderstanding; but Baudrillard (1998) argues that this celebration is nothing other than a

‘pathetic hypocrisy’ to celebrate a shift in ethnic integration whilst admitting to its

58

‘caricatural resurrection’ (Baudrillard, 1998: 99). By discriminating the election of the first

African-American President as a turning point in history, the media suggests that Obama

symbolises not only a disruption in what was exclusively reserved to whites but that it still

needs time before truly abolishing ethnic categorisation in its discourse. The media,

regardless of its culture, needs to give up on a discourse of whiteness and give in to one of

humanity.

Each newscast invades Obama’s ‘private’ life. Not only do they expose his

multicultural upbringing but also illustrate him surrounded by wife and daughters,

contributing to the image of the conventional family frame. These images are of no political

relevance but remain fully exploited by the broadcasters. Foucault’s (1975) notion of

‘panoptisme’ is a system of surveillance inspired by Betham’s panopticon in which a mass is

under the scrutiny of a sole entity (Foucault, 1975: 229-264). The media’s exposure of

Obama’s private life plays on its audience’s emotions and creates a fictional relationship of

identification. In this matter, the media’s Obama-mania is founded, not on his political

policies that remained blurry and vague during his campaign, but rather on the scrutiny of

himself, as a person. Obama’s coverage in the news is done in a reversed panoptic model

where the masses, through the news, scrutinise one man: Obama. It furthers what Christopher

Lash coins as the ‘cult of celebrity’ that have made ‘Americans a nation of fans’ where the

‘common man identifies himself to the ‘fame’, ‘glory’ of the person under the spotlight (Lash

quoted in Mullan, 1997, 41). Obama is glorified as a symbol of the end of racial

discrimination in which the presentation of his person is prioritised to his political views and

this occurs in 68% of November 5th 2008 news’ sample (figure 14). Given the fact that he is a

politician about to rule the most powerful country in the world, this may be intriguing; it

nonetheless confirms that the news have given in to a cult of celebrity and have lost their

59

main priority to appeal to their audience’s intellect by fact as opposed to play on their

emotions.

Finally, there is an ongoing debate between those ‘who believe American power and

American responsibilities are limited, and those who believe that they are global’ (Steel,

1968: 312). Not only does the devotion of five culturally different newscasts to Obama

illustrate foreign societies’ fascination for America, it also demonstrates the novelty that

symbolises the first African-American President of the United States. Barack Obama is the

most internationally media covered individual on November 5th 2008. One may be dubious of

America’s political power in the world but cannot ignore the preponderant space dedicated to

its President in worldwide media. As such, my transnational analysis of television news

confirms the world’s wonder for the United States of America as well as its assimilation of

Obama as the multicultural leader of the world’s sole superpower rather than, yet, just

another American President.

60

Conclusion

This research aims to explain television’s vast popularity whilst remaining critical of

the gap between its educational potential and the reality. The case study of five different

networks delineates the extent to which information is constrained within the limits of time,

economics and ethics, to finally conclude that television is not an all encompassing medium

that represents actual events as it is made to believe, but is necessarily selective and thus,

results by its very nature in a superficial coverage of actuality. As such, Richard Nixon says

‘television news is to news what bumper stickers are to philosophy’ (Nixon quoted in HP-

Time and Griffith, 1981). This study concludes that television news has a universal

typography of authoritative music, presentation and tone that elevates the genre to a respected

social body and although it claims to serve public intellect and democracy, newscasts above

all strengthen the fact that the news is a commodity, ‘a commercial enterprise’ (Postman and

Powers, 1992: 10).

Marilyn Lester (1980) reflects on the process of ‘gatekeeping’ implying that ‘events

are successively filtered through a set of news gates’ that determine their placement within

news discourse (Lester, 1980: 985). In our current context of American hegemony, the

election of the first African-American President is at the forefront of international

newsworthiness as each of the five networks devotes time, analysis and input upon the

American event. It not only illustrates America’s primacy in the world but also, the power of

television news to construct reality. Indeed, broadcasters portray Barack Obama as a ‘change’

for he is the first African-American President of the United States and a disruption from

prevailing white discourse. Jaap van Ginneken (1996) writes that the categorisation of ethnic

minorities is in itself ‘highly subjective’ (Ginneken, 1996: 11-13) and by representing Obama

as an African-American President, an impersonation of the American Dream and a culturally

61

open-minded leader, each news program conveys a specific image of Obama for their

audience to relate to, rather than gather the facts that accredit his leadership traits. As such,

broadcasters subjectively construct actuality to gain their audience’s viewership and this

study surfaces the limits to neutral information imposed by sponsors, ethics, cultural norms

and emotions in five culturally different networks of information.

Newscasts, whether publically or privately financed, are designed with a particular

audience in mind but there are universal trademarks that they simply cannot escape. Ever

since the Truman Doctrine (1947) in which Truman says ‘I believe that we must assist free

peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way’ (Truman, 1947, quoted in Warren,

1967: 145-147), America has established itself as a body that transnationally volunteers to

spread world freedom. As such, American events are at the forefront of international attention

and the only way for foreign newscasts to reconcile national programs and a transnational

interest in American politics is to apply the latter into a culturally specific framework of the

news. Finally, Obama’s extensive coverage in international media symbolises, indeed

America’s supremacy in the world, but also, the world’s desire to disrupt tradition and to

finally celebrate diversity.

62

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