Level(s): Grades 5 to 12
Overview
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The following lesson offers an analytical framework teachers, media specialists and parents may use with children and students of various ages, to help them understand the process by which news is constructed.
Preparation and Materials
Procedure
An Analytical Framework: Exploring the News as Stories For the Young Child
A rather simple approach to begin this process with younger children, links broadcast news to literature by exploring the news as stories. Since K-6 students typically study stories and children's literature, this method provides a context with some potentially useful consequences.
The first thing this does is move the news from the sheltered and protected domain where it is seen as a reflection of reality, to a position among all other television programs. Now it can be seen as a construction or representation of a partial reality, rather than reality itself. It can be revealed as a series of selected stories (national, state, regional, local), each of which fits a particular genre (human interest, political, crime/violence) and comes to us replete with codes, conventions and a cast of characters—both stereotypical and non-stereotypical.
Serving as our guide, master (or mistress) of ceremonies and electronic shaman or storyteller, is the anchor. He or she joins all the stories together, presenting them in a way meant to both inform and entertain us. Any analysis of these stories in terms of both form and content will reveal assumptions about what constitutes news, what interests the American public and the relationship between news, public opinion and public policy.
While these issues are perhaps beyond the realm of young children, this age group is perfectly capable of exploring how stories are created and from whose perspective or point of view they are told. In fact, the types of activities often covered in their work with children's literature, fit nicely into the media literacy framework. It is now quite common to find young children being asked to retell a famous story from the perspective of another character. For example, telling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk through the eyes of the giant or the giant's wife. One excellent book based upon this concept is The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (Scieszka) which goes directly to the question of how the facts of the story must be related to who is doing the telling. Having used this book with children, student teachers and adults, I have found it to be an excellent introduction to critical thinking and viewing skills.
Classroom Application:
- Talk with students about stories.
- What kinds themes and characters do you find in stories?
- How is the news like a story?
- How is it different?
- How does the point of view of the person or character telling a story affect us?
- What is a possible problem when we only get one person's point of view?
Describe the term Bias:
Bias is a one-sided view, which a person may have because of some reason or motivation to see things in a certain way. For example, if two people had a fight in the schoolyard, each one would report the incident according to his/her point of view. Other people who saw the fight might also have a certain bias or point of view when they tell the story, depending on the experience they brought to the fight, and their feelings about the people involved in the fight.
Ask students to recount the story of the Three Little Pigs.
- Who is/are the bad guy(s) in this story? How do you know?
- Who is/are the good guy(s) in this story? How do you know?
Read Jon Scieszka's story The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs to students.
- Who are the good and bad guys in this version of the story?
- How is this version different from the usual version?
- Who are we more likely to believe—the wolf or the three pigs? Why? (This might be a good opportunity to discuss stereotypes.)
- How would you define a reliable story-teller?
- How can you tell the difference between fact and opinion? (An optional activity here is the activity sheet Wolves: Fact or Opinion.)
Tape a couple of age-appropriate news stories (as presented by a network anchor) and play them for students. For each, ask:
- What is this story about?
- Who is telling these stories?
- Whose perspective do we hear?
- Whose perspective is missing?
- How might another perspective affect the story?
- What is fact?
- What is opinion?
For the Upper Grades
From the upper level of the elementary school onwards, the following framework is a practical method for helping children deconstruct news, recognizing its various components and the how it is assembled. This method can help them become critical thinkers and viewers as they evaluate the way the mass media selects and filters information. Those teachers who are interested in multicultural education can study the news to examine ethnocentric bias and the way other cultures and countries are covered. While ABC, for example, claims to be "world news," any honest appraisal of their content would have to ask just whose world is being represented.
A Framework for Deconstructing News: Recognizing its components and the process of assembling it
The Stories: Have students create an itemized list of each story covered on a broadcast or in an issue of a newspaper. This is fascinating when compared to a paper or broadcast from the same day. If it is news, why do they not all cover the same stories, or cover them the same way?
The Sequence: Have students list the stories in the order in which they appear. This could be according to the front page, the lead or opening story etc. Students intuitively know that the most important story is up front. Comparing lead stories in newspapers and news programs again reveals the subjective nature of this priority.
The Scope: Here students concentrate on the running time, the space or column inches devoted to a story. Students will begin to note that some stories that do not rank as high in sequence, actually rank quite high on the scope scale, especially if there is graphic footage with entertainment values or high levels of conflict.
The Structure: How is the story structured? What does it consist of? This includes aspects such as a lead-in by the anchor, live interview in studio with a key figure in the story; analysis from a reporter or commentator; news box or graphics behind the anchor's head; on the scene report from place with high recognition, e.g. Congress, or the Supreme Court.
The Style: Related to the structure, this now deals with the look and feel of the piece. This can be described as the aesthetics or mise en scene (see Visual Messages, Considine and Haley 1992). It can include posture and body language of the reporters and anchor as well as consideration of the camera angle. Students can begin to look at the framing process and ask not just what is shown but what is left out, what the camera is not showing. This helps them to recognize that the camera can lie by showing only a partial picture. The set in which the anchor is located also is part of the style. Tom Brokaw's newsroom, with its monitors and computer banks, seems like the control tower at Cape Kennedy or some government war room. The overall style conveys power upon the anchor or network and encourages the viewer to surrender to their authority and point of view.
The Statement and Slant: This can be presented on a simple scale of bias running from neutral in the center to positive or negative. Students need to evaluate each story in terms of its objectivity. When bias is detected, students have to agree upon the bias, locating it in terms of visual or verbal cues. We have described this elsewhere in terms of "weighted words," "loaded language," and "prejudiced pictures."
The Sponsor: Since the news exists because of advertising revenue, it should not be isolated from those who bring it to us. The advertisements enable us to read the news in terms of who brings it to us--and more importantly, what assumptions they have about us. By reading the commercials we are in fact reading ourselves. We intuitively know that Saturday morning cartoons are often presented by the makers of fast food, action toys and high-sugar cereals that are based on toy or cartoon characters. Those sponsors are targeting what they see as the nature and needs of young viewers. If television news is heavily sponsored by insurance companies, alcohol manufacturer's, headache relief remedies, hemorrhoidal suppositories and ocean cruises, what do we learn about audience demographics? What age group, what income bracket and what fears and fantasies does the news and its sponsors target? How might the content of the news shape the products that it promotes and vice versa?
