Contextualizing Media Systems by Geographical Location - Coursework Example

ifying and Contextualising media systems in geographical terms Countries of the world got ‘formed’ or created into geographical entities, and its people followed specific culture, language, etc on the basis of the geographical boundaries. Thus, from aiding the origination and the demarcation of the countries, to the evolution and the standardization of the lifestyle of the people, geography only plays an optimal role. This optimal role of geography can also be seen in the media systems of specific regions or countries. The geographical boundaries and the common issues affecting the people or viewers within those boundaries only classifies and contextualises the media system as well as the media content. “Geography is a visual discipline...media representations are part of individual and societal conceptions of the world but also because of medias power to conceptualize and spread political ideas and reinforce hegemonic orders.” (Zimmermann, 2007). From the commercial point of view also, geography helps a lot in finding the target customer base for the media houses. Although there is no physical restriction to media content and it can reach any regions, geography induced media content is mainly applicable to specific geographical region. For example, the geographical boundaries of the Middle Eastern as well as the North American region and the commonality in most issues have led the media houses there to classify and contextualize the media content in a particular way. As this practice is happening world over, the aspects which need to be discussed are the advantages or disadvantages of continuing to compare the worlds media systems on the basis of geographical location. For that, the paper will bring out the differences between the historical forces which have shaped the media in Middle Eastern as well as in the North American regions. Finally by case studying the prominent media houses of the respective regions, CNN and Al Jazeera, the paper will discuss how it is disadvantage to classify and contextualise worlds media systems on the basis of geographical location. Historical forces that shaped the media Middle East region of Asia has been one of the most active regions ever since the discovery of oil resources, and the resultant entry of foreign countries and firms. With the entry of outsiders, all forms of technology developed including the communication and media technology, which developed along with optimum media exposure. Both these two aspects particularly media exposure also lead to the development of indigenous media. Although few forms of media had already been established, the proliferation happened mainly, when the people in the geographical Middle East saw that the West’s coverage of their issues and events as biased. Many historical events and issues and their media coverage starting with the Lebanon War in 1982, US embassy crisis in Iran, Israel-Palestine conflicts, US’s steps to find the supposed WMDs, Iraq war, etc appears to be biased and not factual in the eyes of the Middle Eastern people. “Another reason for the misperception of the conflict in the Western media is the imbalance in the coverage of Israeli and Arab viewpoints.” (Nawawi and El-Nawawy, 2002, pg.57). People felt that the perspectives and interests of West or geographical USA is only amplified and then written or broadcasted. So, to present the ‘real picture’ of geographical Middle East and their side of the story, many media houses came up. Thus the historical forces clearly played a major role in the development of the home-grown media and importantly shaped the media in Middle East on geographical basis. On the other hand, media in North American region particularly in USA were minimally influenced and shaped by the historical forces. But, historical forces reoriented and complemented media, as any non-constant thing will do. Media in the North American region originated and developed mainly with or because of science and technology. “Events on the world stage are not the only forces that are changing the media in our lives...technologies have move communication media into what often referred to as a new digital era” (Straubhaar and Larose, 2005, pg.4-5). But, as many historical events and issues unfolded throughout the 20th century, North American media tuned itself and started maximally incorporating geographical aspects. That is, as the media need to cater to their intended geographical customer base, geography based or USA centric issues and events were given importance by the US Media. Although as mentioned above, science and technology only shaped North American media, certain historical issues like the Cold war, 1992 Iraq war, 9/11 attacks and the resultant 2003 Iraq war also shaped the Northern American media on the basis of geographical terms. But unlike in the Middle East, there is a only minimal shaping. CNN and Al Jazeera – Case Study At the outset itself, one can say that it is a disadvantage to classify and contextualise worlds media systems on the basis of geographical location because it is giving raise to bias and importantly more conflicts or differences of opinion or even strengthening of negative opinion among the people in the respective geographical location. That is, as discussed above media systems all over the world including in the Middle Eastern region and North America region need to or even duty bound to cater to the interests of their respective geographical customer base. It may be because of commercial reasons or other social reasons, but whatever be the reasons, the fact is media systems is and has to function based on geographical identities. This necessity will bring in favouritism and bias, as they need to represent, reflect and produce or reproduce the interests and views of their respective geographical customer base. This is what the media houses CNN and Al Jazeera are doing in their respective geographical regions, with facts and truth being the real casualty. As these media houses or TV companies are classified and contextualised on the basis of geographical location, they misrepresent facts and provide or make up content which will be favourable and acceptable to their target group, leaving or marginalizing the other perspectives and real facts. This biased geographical based media coverage of CNN and Al Jazeera was seen in the 2003 Iraq war CNN (acronym for The Cable News Network) rose to fame in 1991 with the coverage of the First Iraq war. That is, when Iraq was bombed by America, CNN was the only news channel, which communicated from Iraq during the initial hours of the American bombing campaign. Its camera crew stationing in the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad gave covert, live, greenish night-vision shots of the Baghdad sky line with tracers and explosion lighting the night sky, at the same time killing the people. Even though CNN cannot be accused for these causalities, they can be accused of covering the war in a geographically predominant way. Now, the same accusation was being levelled against CNN with the Iraq invasion and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. CNN with its team of reporters, cameraman and crew particularly “Embedded” journalists got well entrenched in Iraq and gave 24 hour coverage of the war, but with a lot of criticism including against the “Embedded” journalists. That is, the embedded journalists, although is in an alien geographical location, is travelling with the troops and so being part of their duties and lifestyle, would make reports that were too sympathetic to the American side of the war. So, the journalists functioned like American military’s spokespersons and were called by an alternate term "inbedded journalist". So, the new concept turned into a biased one and this show how geographical location of media systems will negatively affect media coverage, even if they are far away from their respective geographical location. The common view among the media experts is that, all the analyses, news coverage and correspondents’ reports seem to be fixated exclusively on the advancement of the American and British forces, and the success of their mission. In other words, CNN is criticized for trying to tell the viewers exactly what the American administration wants them to hear: all the things are going great in the war front with the American troops being welcomed by the Iraqi citizens and the bombs are used only against the terrorists, not against any civilians. Pentagon was predictably in control of the information disseminated from Western media sources, including CNN (Norris et, al, pg. 129). But, this image created by CNN and some other American television channels is far from truth because according to many estimates, many innocent civilians were killed and have suffered a lot and continue to suffer. But, there is no ‘screen space’ for these suffering Iraqi people, who are the innocent ones, getting stuck between the US troops and the terrorists or resistance fighters. So, CNN was accused of never daring to show the whole world especially American public the images of Iraqi citizens killed or injured by US raids on their cities. “Because direct civilian killing on any scale could threaten the mediated legitimacy of the war, media management is a key element in risk-transfer militarism” (Shaw 2002, 7). In December 2006, the report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) found that the United States has filtered out reports of violence in order to disguise its policy failings in Iraq. CNN is one of the main tools used by the US Government to do this filtering act, thus exhibiting how it is disadvantage to classify and contextualise worlds media systems on the basis of geographical location. Al-Jazeera way of covering the war Al Jazeera was started in 1996 as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel and as the important face and voice of the geographical Middle Eastern region. The channel gained worldwide attention, when the Osama bin Laden’s videos with his threat statements, “victory” speeches, etc was often telecasted by it, following the September 11 attacks on the Twin towers. It entered the Iraq war mainly to show the views of the Saddam Hussein’s regime and importantly to reflect, reproduce the real picture and their side of the story. The disadvantage or criticism of this approach of Al-Jazeera is that, it only focuses on the Iraqi side favouring them in every aspect, at the same time portraying the US troops as a ‘bunch of killers’. That is, after the war had begun and the American troops marched into Iraq, they showed minimum images of the American troop’s progress. Instead they only showed how the people would suffer if the Americans take the full control of Iraq, which they eventually did. During the full-scale attack to overthrow the much-criticized Saddam regime, civilian causalities occurred as a form of collateral damage. That is, the US troops attacked Saddam regime’s areas mainly based on inputs from its intelligence. But even after taking lot of precautions, the civilians some times became the unintended targets. Al Jazeera concentrated only on these causalities without trying to find from the American side, why the accident took place. Also, they stationed the cameras mainly at the important hospitals of Iraq, and took photos and videos of the incoming dead bodies and injured people. Then, they sent it to the headquarters in Doha for worldwide telecast of those disturbing and gruesome visuals. This form of reporting, which comes out because of the geographical nature of their coverage, is criticized as horrific reporting because the cameraman and reporters doesn’t mind about the condition of the injured. They continued to shoot, without caring even a bit for the injured. Even when the American administration gave the reasons for the accidental bombings, Al-Jazeera is accused of giving least prominence to it, when compared to the screen time the injured and dead bodies got. Also most of the times, statements from Iraqi officials are covered on Al-Jazeera as facts, while comments from American officials are portrayed as “claims.” While telecasting all the news and news programs, a scroll line under the screen keeps a running tally of civilian Iraqi casualties. This was done with the ulterior motive to motivate the geographical Middle Eastern people or Arabs to see the dead toll and rise against the American forces. “In a global media world, extravagant terror spectacles have been orchestrated in part to gain worldwide attention, dramatize the issues of the groups involved, and achieve specific political objectives” (Kellner 2004, 87). Conclusion "CNN International and Al Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq," (Barzani 2006). This sentence uttered by Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister, Nerchivan Barzani sums up the disadvantages of classifying and contextualising worlds media systems on the basis of geographical location. Because these media houses think themselves as a representative of the geographical location and the people in that location, forgetting that they need to provide an unbiased, neutral and equitable coverage. Historical and other social forces will always act on media systems and reorient them. But, the media systems should reorient themselves in a positive manner incorporating the basic media ethics. While functioning in a positive manner, the geographical location and the intended geographical customer base will have a direct or indirect influence on the media systems. If the media systems allow themselves to be influenced by geographical terms and classify and contextualize accordingly, it will be a great disadvantage and will lead to severe negative reviews. References Barzani, N, 2006, CNN, Al-Jazeera coverage of Iraq war equally biased, viewed April 23, 2009 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52817 Norris, P., Kern, M and Just, M R, 2003, Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government, and the Public, New York: Routledge. Kellner, D, 2004, 9/11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media Manipulation, Critical Discourse Studies, 1, 1, 41-64. Shaw, M, 2003, Risk- Transfer Militarism, Small Massacres and the Historic Legitimacy of War, viewed April 25, 2009 http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pdf/papers/0406militarism.pdf. Straubhaar, J D and Larose, R, 2005, Media now: understanding media, culture, and technology. 5th Ed. Florence: Cengage Learning. Zimmermann, S, 2007, Media Geographies: Always Part of the Game, Aether: The Journal of Media Geography, 1, 59-62 Read More