Focus Group Guide:

http://www.cfpsa.com/en/psp/youth/resources/focusGroupQuestions_e.pdf

Newspaper statistics:

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC)

ABCs: National Daily newspaper circulation February 2009:

ABCs: National Sunday newspaper circulation February 2009:

Cultivation theory: (Professor George Gerbner)

Online academic document: http://www.aber.ac.uk/, David Chandler

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/cultiv.html

Summary notes:

• developed by Professor George Gerbner
• Gerbner argues that the mass media cultivate attitudes and values which are already present in a culture: the media maintain and propagate these values amongst members of a culture, thus binding it together.
• Cultivation research looks at the mass media as a socializing agent and investigates whether television viewers come to believe the television version of reality the more they watch it.
• The focus is on ‘heavy viewers’. People who watch a lot of television are likely to be more influenced, especially regarding topics of which the viewer has little first-hand experience.
• It may be that lone viewers are more open to a cultivation effect than those who view with others (van Evra 1990, p. 171). (reading the papers is usually an independent process)
• cultivation theory presents television as 'not a window on or reflection of the world, but a world in itself' (1993, p. 100).
• Gerbner argued that the over-representation of violence on television constitutes a symbolic message about law and order rather than a simple cause of more aggressive behaviour by viewers
• Cultivation analysis usually involves the correlation of data from content analysis (identifying prevailing images on television) with survey data from audience research (to assess any influence of such images on the attitudes of viewers). Content analysis by cultivation theorists seeks to characterize ‘the TV world’. Such analysis shows not only that the TV world is far more violent than the everyday world, but also, for instance, that television is dominated by males and over-represents the professions and those involved in law enforcement.
• The cultivation hypothesis involves predicting or expecting heavy television viewers to give more TV answers than light viewers.The responses of a large number of heavy viewers are compared with those of light viewers. A tendency of heavy viewers to choose TV answers is interpreted as evidence of a cultivation effect. The difference in the pattern of responses between light and heavy viewers (when other variables are controlled), is referred to as the 'cultivation differential',
• Cultivation theorists argue that heavy viewing leads viewers (even among high educational/high income groups) to have more homogeneous or convergent opinions than light viewers (who tend to have more heterogeneous or divergent opinions). heavy viewers of violence on television come to believe that the incidence of violence in the everyday world is higher than do light viewers of similar backgrounds. They refer to this as a mainstreaming effect.
• Misjudging the amount of violence in society is sometimes called the 'mean world syndrome'. Heavy viewers tend to believe that the world is a nastier place than do light viewers.
• The cultivation effect is also argued to be strongest when the viewer's neighbourhood is similar to that shown on television. Crime on television is largely urban, so urban heavy viewers are subject to a 'double dose' , and cultivation theorists argue that violent content 'resonates' more for them. The strongest effects of heavy viewing on attitudes to violence are likely to be amongst those in the high crime areas of cities.
  

Criticisms of cultivation theory:

• Gerbner has been criticized for over-simplification. Denis McQuail argues that ‘it is almost impossible to deal convincingly with the complexity of posited relationships between symbolic structures, audience behaviour and audience views, given the many intervening and powerful social background factors' (in Boyd-Barrett & Braham 1987, pp. 99-100). Our attitudes are likely to be influenced not only by TV, but by other media, by direct experience, by other people, and so on.
• A correlation between television exposure and the beliefs of viewers do not, of course, prove that there is a causal relationship. There could be another common factor influencing the apparently associated ones.
• Rather than heavy TV viewing leading people to be more fearful, it may be that more fearful people are drawn to watching more television than other people
• Hirsch (1980, cited in Livingstone 1990, p. 16), argued that an apparent relationship between exposure to violence on television and fear of crime can be explained by the neighbourhood viewers live in. Those who live in high-crime areas are more likely to stay at home and watch television and also to believe that they have a greater chance of being attacked than are those in low-crime areas.
• Pingree & Hawkins have argued that breakdowns by content type are more useful than measures of total viewing, because viewers are selective.
• Also, different genres - and even different programmes - contribute to the shaping of different realities, but cultivation analysis assumes too much homogeneity in television programmes
• Asking viewers for their estimations of crime statistics is a crude measure of their beliefs about crime. Doob & MacDonald note that there is evidence of a cultivation effect with social questions (e.g. 'How many muggings were there in your neighbourhood last year?') but less so with personal questions (e.g. 'Are you afraid of being mugged?').
• Cultivation theory focuses on the amount of television viewing or 'exposure', and does not allow for differences in the ways in which viewers interpret television realities. Viewers do not necessarily passively accept as 'real' what they see on television.
• When the viewer has some direct lived experience of the subject matter this may tend to reduce any cultivation effect.
  

'Investigating Mass Media'- Paul Trowler '96

Summary notes:

• Boundaries in society are 'socially constructed' by attitudes, values and the norms of behaviour
• This social constructionist view gives the media a significant position- the media articulate current dominant perceptions. At the same time they are involved in shaping and re-shaping these perceptions.
• Dick Hebdige says, 'to understand youth sub-cultures we have to take into account ...the mass media structure the way society is percieved.' (i.e the mass media mediate the perceptions)
• Harry Hendrick says, biological changes led to extremes of emotion, unpredictability, anti-social behaviour, quarrelsomeness.

Stanley Hall-extract/ ideas-

• adolescents were seen as potentially dangerous, ready to go on a rampage.....
• ...led to many youth clubs developing and ways must be found to 'keep them off the streets'
• music hall and cinema offered them to go 'astray'
• "folk devils and moral panics"- 'youth' seen as the need to create news.

Geoffrey Pearson in Hooligan 1983-

• always referred to a time 20years ago when there was a golden generation of perfectly behaved youths and society.

J.Davis-

• image of youth as an index oof concern about social change.
• "most authors see media repres. of teenagers as linked to the economic and social change"

Hall-'Policing the Crisis'

• moral panics present a fabricated opportunity to control culture and increase and exercise its power, to stem the oppositions to the norm.

Mock Questionnaire:

1.Gender:

• Male
• Female

2. Age category:

-need a representative x-section of society

• 8-12 years
• 13-16 years
• 17-19 years
• 20-25 years
• 26-35 years
• 36-45 years
• 46-55 years
• 56+ years

3. How much news across TV-Press-Radio-Internet do you read/watch/listen to within an average week?

-tells me to what degree they may be influenced

-tells me if they are news-literate or dependent

• 0 hours (if so then you may end this questionnaire, thankyou)
• 1-2 hours
• 2-4hours
• 4+ hours

4. What 'type' of news do you listen/watch/read the most? (Tick appropriate)

-news conventions differ across platforms,
-more opinionated, factual, brief, niche, discussion based, differing ideologies etc.

• Press.
  N.paper name...................
• TV.
  Channel..............................
• Internet
  Website..............................
• Radio
  Station................................

5. a. From your experiences of reading the news, do you remember any youth related stories?

• Yes, please identify..................................................................................................................................
• No (move onto the next question)

b. Did these news stories make youths seem positive or negative?

• Very negative
• Slightly negative
• neutral view
• slightly positive
• very positive

c. 80% of my news reserach shows....
50% shows....
25% shows....
5% shows.....
(or just refer to my moodboard- or is this for focus group instead??)

In everyday life does this reflect YOUR society?

• Yes
• No (State which is more/less reflected in real society)...................................................

6. News shows a cross-section of the society. Would the way youths were shown in newspapers affect your own ideas and actions towards youths in real life?

(eg. if there was a story where a youth chased a robber to get back an old ladies purse would it add/build more trust in youths? eg.2 if there was a story where groups of youths were seen as muggers, would it make you more anxious of youths or just everybody?)

-convinced by the news
-does it go as far as changing their habits/attitudes in society?
-can they see that news is a commerical business and is influenced for many reasons?

• Yes
• No
• Possibly
• ........

7. Are you critical/supportive of the news coverage youth cultures receive? why?

-awareness of news conventions..
-more open Q which gives a clearer viewpoint ot analyse

• Yes/ No. ..............

8. would you change the way youths are represented in the news? If so, how?

• Yes/No. ...............

9. Do you experience a close contact with any youth cultures? (Tick Appropriate)

-tells me to what degree they are dependent/influenced by the news information.

-do they fully support the news form experience

-can they dismiss it with good reason?

• NO
• Yes,
• occupational
• parent/guardian
• other..

10. Have you been a victim of youth crime? (direct question for me to relate to and poss. do a frequ. analysis)

• Yes (supports the repres. in the news)
• No (then this could show that their views are psuedonistic-i.e. fully influecnecd by the news)

Thankyou for your time.
Matt Barnes

Detailed proposal checklist:

1. Topic Area
Children and the media (focus on youth cultures)
2. Proposed title, question, hypothesis
How do audiences respond to the representation of youth cultures in the news? (age focus)
4. Principle texts (if text based study)

things to concentrate on...

• stereotypes
• representations
• news values/processes
• effects theory- reception and consumption
• moral panics

5. Reason for choice

-Debatable and opinionated.
-Applying prior knowledge of the news to explore my case study.
-Personal interest/ opinions since I fall in this category (and oppose the common view)

6. Academic context for this study (similar research, relevant theory, named theorists)

• David Buckingham
• John Fiske
• Daniel Chandler
• Mary Whitehouse

7. Institutional context for this study (industry focus, other texts for comparison, named
practitioners, relevant theory, issues, questions)

• News institutions- news values (for reasons why it makes the news), circulation and figures (for how many people are influenced/'reached' by the press (website specific)), producers and publishers and the ownership of the exact papers im studying (for detailed referencing).
• effects theory (what the news create- e.g. hypodermic/negative effects/moral panics)

8. Identify the audience context for this study (audience profile, access to audience, potential
sample)

• Audience will be representative of society therefore Iwill use a cross-section.
• Sample could possibly include male and female in each age category.
• Audience will include Youths themselves as a direct study.

9. How will the 4 key concepts be relevant to your study (audience, institution, forms and conventions, representation)?

• Audience: -active versus. passive audiences (go with the norm or against common view).
• Institution: The newspapers ideologies are relevant to my study.
• Form & Conventions: Expectations of (youth) news, conventional news, stereotypes, audience habits?
• Representation: The repres of youths are the main concern. Positive or negative repres of youths and why.

10 Potential research sources (secondary): secondary academic books and websites, secondary industry books and websites, secondary popular criticism. Please identify specific examples you have come across.

• aber.ac.uk/media
• Understanding news- John Hartley 1982
• The known world of broadcast news- R.Wallis and S.Baranv 1990
• Crime and the Media (the post-modern spectacle)- D.Kidd-Hewitt and R.Osborne 1995
• Criminal Visions- Paul Mason 2003
• Reading Audiences- young people and the media- David Buckingham 1993
• Crime watching (Investigating Real Crime TV)- Deborah Jermyn 2007
• Not in front of the children -Marjorie Heins 2001
• News, Crime and Culture- Maggie Wykes 2001
• Image and Representation(key concepts in media)- Nick Lacey 1998
  

11. Potential research sources (primary): audience reception research, your own content/textual analysis etc

• Questionniare, -friends and family, film society members.
• 1-2-1 interivew, -not sure yet.
• focus group, -HOME: g.parents, parents, brothers/sisters, SCHOOL: media crew, yrs7-11, teachers?
• textual analysis, -news, content/freq analysis of news.

13. Potential limits/obstacles/problems?

• the sheer scope of the area 'representation' . there are many aspects i could focus on and so think whittling this down should be a focus.

14. Teacher concerns

• the scope and the fact that there are hundreds of news articles to choose from and need to be strict with my study.

Final proposal:

How do audiences respond to the representations of youth culture in the news?

Direction:
-youth cultures= all news is negative ( argue- good=cleverer, etc)
-stereotypes
-news images
-moral panic
-conventions of news and the institution
-what the audience want/ ideas of protection.
-misrepresentative/ representative of society. why?
-etc.

Primary: (some methods are london based.)
-Questionnaire

• sample of audience POV
• repres/misrepres?

-1-2-1 interview/ focus group

• detailed audience POV
• repres/misrepres?

-message board/forum

• sample of audience POV
  repres/misrepres?

-textual analysis of news

• institutional views and ideologies, bias?
• repres/misrepres?

-content (frequency) analysis of news

• institutional view
• repres/misrepres?

-can i have an institutionl focus on newspapers or stick to broad!@>#?

Secondary:
-Reviews/ critical readings

• For or against my opinion with grounded reasoning/ 'critical perspectives'

-Books references

• existing academic critical work
• theories to support news. POV of institution and audience

-......