Media Genre in Commonwealth Games Coverage - Essay Example

Task: Making appropriate reference both to the set text and to the relevant readings set for Weeks 6-11, write a critical essay in response to ONE ofthe following tasks: 1. Using your chosen topic and portfolio of media coverage as your basis, discuss the role of genre in shaping the social meanings attached both to objects/topics of media coverage and in defining the social position of media consumers. Be sure to refer to at least TWO different genres of media coverage and to at least TWO examples of each genre discussed. The portfolio of media coverage chosen for this critical essay is pertaining to recently concluded Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. The games have received a lot of negative publicity both in its lead up as well as during the event. While most of the reporting and commentary have been fairly objective, they could still be interpreted from various sociological perspectives. By assigning genres to the selected media coverage of the event, one could learn a lot about the subjective intentions and concerns of media content producers as well as expected meaning reception of media consumers. The rest of this essay is an attempt toward understanding the same with respect to the Commonwealth games coverage. The set portfolio assembled for this essay were drawn from the print media. Since newspapers in Commonwealth regions such as the U.K., India and Australia covered the event in-depth, these media sources were chosen. As Michael Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler recognize in their introduction, defining media genre, especially with regard to journalism, is a challenging task since it is an evolving concept and also since media in twenty first century is related to rapid technological progress. Moreover, genre in journalism is not as well-established as genre in avenues of arts and entertainment. For example, “within media studies the term genre was first used as a means of critical analysis in relation to film, and then television. It has been and can be used in relation to literature and other arts and also in video games, magazines, and other media forms”. (Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2008, p.238) Hence, in order for critically analysing media coverage of the Commonwealth Games, we have to peruse a much broader definition of genre – one that was constructed by prominent social scientist Mikhail Bakhtin. He challenged the idea that “genres are static, stylistically homogeneous, and non-overlapping units. Instead, genre is the typical totality of the artistic utterance, and a vital totality, a finished and resolved whole. Genres are also relatively stable thematic, compositional, and stylistic types of utterances. Thus, genre is a tool for both classifying texts and grasping their textual structure by looking in each case for a unified set of generic features. Genres also bear social, ideological, and political-economic connections; genres may thus be associated with distinct groups as defined by gender, age, social class, occupation, and the like.” (Briggs & Richard Bauman 1992, p.131- 172) This elaborate definition of genre makes obvious its usefulness in studying media products, its relevance in identifying media consumers and its role in shaping social messages. As Shaughnessy and Stadler acknowledge in the text, in a media product, genres usually form as a result of commonalities among the wider consumer group. Established genres in media product include lifestyle, technology, politics and world affairs, arts and entertainment, sports, business & economics, etc. Within these genres other more specialized genres exist, aiding media analysts to conduct abstract analysis. Also, these genres are present in all media channels, including television, Internet, radio and print; wherein each channel manifests the same genre in different ways. (Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2008) In the Birmingham Post article published on 13th October, 2009, we see how genre plays out in the international context. The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) had set up a review panel to monitor the preparations done for the games in New Delhi the following year. After inspecting the games village and other facilities being built, Michael Fennell, the CGF president felt skeptical about whether these projects would be completed on time. He said “With two years to go to the Delhi Games I said to the organising committee that time was not their friend. With one year to go I now say that time is your enemy, but together we can defeat it. To this end, the CGF executive board has decided to establish a high-level independent technical review panel that will meet each month and monitor progress against promise. The organising committee knows of its own deficiencies and Mr Kalmadi is committed to achieving a great Games for India. I have no doubt that these Games can still be great, but now every day is pivotal and every hour vital." (The Birmingham Post, 2009, p. 41) While the outward message from Fennell is one of hope and optimism, what really comes through from his assessment are concerns over the competence of the Organizing Committee (OC) and its head Suresh Kalmadi. Fennell is subtly implying that the OC and its leadership will have to raise their game if the games were to become a success. The influence of genre in the tone and perspective of this print-media article is quite evident. The audience for this article are located in advanced countries of the Commonwealth such as Britain, New Zealand, Australia, etc. And the author is articulating the concerns of this contingency with hardly any recognition that India is an impoverished country with its own set of internal challenges. While Indias aspiration to be an economic superpower would not materialize in the near future, the article and its author seem to apply a high international standard to a Third World country (The Washington Times, 2010, A07). Hence, one can learn a lot about the socio-economic level of media consumers of this article by paying attention to its primary message. Two distinct genres of journalism evident in the coverage of Commonwealth games are Muckraker and Watchdog journalistic genres. While western media coverage tended to point out the inadequacies and flaws in the preparations done for the event, Indian media coverage tended to focus on corruption and wasteful usage of resources by the Organizing Committee. The western medias concerns were attached to the safety and security of the athletes who would participate in the event, Indian medias concerns were with regard to the corruption and misappropriation of tax-payer money. Hence the two media entities adopted Muckraker and Watchdog journalistic genres respectively to their coverage of Commonwealth games. Thrown into this mix was the War on Terror discourse, giving rise to an instance of generic hybridization as defined by in the core text. (Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2008, p.241) Since Britain and Australia were allies to the United States in the ongoing War on Terror campaign, the possibility of a terror attack targeting Caucasian athletes was a real concern. (The Daily Mercury, 2010) As a result, Western media houses covered this angle in a detailed fashion, which at times looked a little paranoid. For foreigners participating in the games, the primary concern is their own safety and security (immersed as they are in the ongoing War on Terror media discourse); and domestic issues such as income disparities, corruption, etc does not preoccupy their minds. Marlon Devonish and Andy Turner, two medalists from Britain make the following observation , which is typical of Western media discourse since September 2001. Indeed the media discourse on War on Terror is now so prominent that it could be considered a separate genre in its own right. “I have a family to think about. You have to ask yourself if its worth going when there is a possibility of not coming back. Security is a worry. You hear about all the problems, about people shooting at cricketers and other countries not sending teams to events. Id love to go if its safe but well have to see closer to the time. Of course security concerns me. If it was the Olympics I would take the risk and be happy to take the risk, but this is a Commonwealth. Its not the same. Ill listen to what England Athletics and the other people closer to the situation than me say and take their advice.” (The Daily Mail, 2009, p.80 As pointed out by Michael Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler in the book Media and Society: An Introduction, he genre of political/bureaucratic rhetoric has become more frequent in recent times. This is seen in the responses given out by members of the Organizing Committee and officials of the Ministry of Sports in India. The Commonwealth games are projected as one of the high points of the ongoing five-year reign of the Congress Party. And beyond encouraging and promoting a sporting culture in India, the Party leadership tried to consolidate goodwill among the electorate by projecting the event as a symbol of Indias rising economic prowess. (Daily Post, 2010, p.23) But contrary to these plans, the games proved to be a public relations disaster for the Party, as reports of rampant corruption, embezzlement of funds and sub-standard quality of sporting facilities emerged in the Indian media. National newspapers such as The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Times of India gave extensive attention to these issues in the months leading up to the games. The genre employed by the Indian media largely falls under Muckraker journalism, as the editorials clearly suggest. Understanding from the analytic framework set out by Shaughnessy and Stadler, the media was performing a democratic function by truly and earnestly acting out its function as the Fourth Estate. The consumer group for this media product is upper middle class urban Indians, a group that possesses spoken and written English language skills. The following editorial from The Hindu newspaper captures the essence of the Muckraker genre employed by Indian media: “The ever-escalating embarrassment for the country on the global stage in the chaotic and corrupt build-up to the Games turned into an emergency on Tuesday when a footbridge collapsed near the main stadium and several foreign delegates trashed the Games Village as filthy, unhygienic, and uninhabitable. How much more can the nation be shamed by a bunch of bungling sports officials, Ministers, and government agencies? A few superficial changes were made by bringing in more bureaucrats into key functional areas after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But there was no saving the benighted project because quality had been compromised by incompetent and corrupt officials in every area connected with the Games.”(The Hindu, September 22, 2010) The particular sense of shame and disgrace articulated by the above editorial is relevant to elite Indian consumers, who are both participants and promoters of the neo-liberal economic agenda. Their concerns surround possible loss of business opportunity due to negative reputation of Indian governments organizational skills. But since most of the Indian population is poor and lives below or barely above poverty line, there is another genre applicable to coverage of Commonwealth games. The genre of socio-economic class, centered on ideologies of the Left have also produced plenty of media content. (Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2008) In this genre, hard questions are being asked about the rationale and justification for spending close to Rs. 30,000 crores for a two-week event, when more than half the women in the country are malnourished and when more than half the children dont have access to decent education. As was mentioned in The Hindu Editorial referred above, “At something like Rs. 30,000 crore of the taxpayers money, the Games are the most expensive sports event hosted by India. It is certainly an extortionate price to pay in exchange for shame and disgrace.” (The Hindu, September 22, 2010) In what is an illustration of the fluidity of genre classifications, the socio-economic perspective is also found in Western Media coverage of the event. As Mike Keane, Scotlands boxing coach noted during his stay in Delhi during Commonwealth Federation Championships in March 2009, “From our bedrooms at the Ashoka Hotel we could look across the road and see the citys disadvantaged sleeping under tarpaulins in all sorts of weather. But its not my job to judge an entire country on that one image. The people who live rough might regard that as their way of life for all I know. Its not for me to deliver judgments on the gap between the rich and the poor. You find problems in any society if you go looking for them and you can use a picture or piece of television footage to make any type of argument that might be convenient.” (Keane, Daily Record, 2010, p.60) But observations such as these are exception rather than the rule. In conclusion, it is quite true that genre plays an important role in shaping social meanings attached to topics covered by the media. As weve seen in the examples taken from the portfolio, genre can help reveal and define social positions of media consumers. While the readings, especially the book Media and Society: An Introduction, provided the theoretical basis for this assessment, the assembled portfolio of print media articles show practical examples of those theories. Bibliography: Readings: Shaughnessy, Michael, and Jane Stadler. Media and Society: An Introduction. 4th edition.. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2008. Danaher, Schirato & Webb (2000), Understanding Foucault. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, Chapter 3, Discourses & Institutions, pp. 30-45. Nicola Goc & Elizabeth Tynan, Case Study 3: Media Narratives: The Murdering Mother, Media & Journalism: New Approaches to Theory and Practice, 2008, Jason Bainbridge, pp. 213, 223 Tony Thwaites, Lloyd Davis & Warwick Mules, Introducing Cultural and Media Studies - A Semiotic Approach, Palgrave, 2002 Lacey, Nick, Image and Representation: key concepts in media studies, 1998, chapter 1, pp. 14-27 Charles Briggs & Richard Bauman, Genre, Intertexuality and Social Power, Journal of Linguistic Anthropolocy, 1992, 2(2):131-172. Carolyn R. Miller, Genre as Social Action, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 1984, pp.151-167. Portfolio of media coverage: "2010 Delhi Games Team Told to Raise Their Game." The Birmingham Post (England), October 13, 2009, 41. "24 HOURS TO SAVE THE GAMES; Monsoon Rains, Dengue Fever Corrupt Contractors, Indifferent Politicians and a Filthy Athletes Village Which Does Not Have Proper Plumbing or Wiring." Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), September 23, 2010, 1. "Athletes Stand Firm in Face of Terrorism." The Daily Mercury (Mackay, Australia), September 23, 2010, NA. "But Were Desperate to Go Back; Delhi 2010: This Is What Awaits Our Athletes." Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), September 23, 2010, 60. "COUNT US IN; Top Tees Athletes to Take Part in Crisis-Hit Games." Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), September 23, 2010, 4. "DELHI ON THE RIGHT TRACK; Welsh Boss Confident India Will Be Ready." Wales On Sunday (Cardiff, Wales), October 11, 2009, 18. "DO I RISK MY LIFE? Devonish and Turner Reveal Security Fears Ahead of Delhi 2010." The Daily Mail (London, England), December 31, 2009, 80. "Fears over New Delhi Safety Risk." The Daily Mail (London, England), March 9, 2009, 81. "GAMES ON! Commonwealth Scots Deny Delhi Showpiece Fears." Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), December 31, 2009, 10. "Geitz Sets Sights on Games Spot." The Chronicle (Toowoomba, Australia), July 16, 2010, NA. "I Dont Expect to Live in 5-Star Luxury . All We Ask Is for Digs That Are Clean; COUNTDOWN TO DELHI 2010: Top Scots Athletes Speak Out." Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), September 22, 2010, 42. "The Marathon Spending Spree; Games Cost Hits [Pounds Sterling]500m." The Mail on Sunday (London, England), May 9, 2010, 23. "Olympic Star Davies Tells His Parents Not to Travel to Delhi." The Mail on Sunday (London, England), February 21, 2010, 10. "Problems Plague Indias Commonwealth Games." The Washington Times (Washington, DC), September 22, 2010, A07. "Security for Games Adequate - Fennell; COMMONWEALTH GAMES." The Journal (Newcastle, England), January 12, 2010, 45. "STARS SNUB DELHI GAMES; London Build-Up Hits Commonwealth." The Daily Mail (London, England), December 9, 2009, 71. "Teams Delay Arrival at Crisis-Hit Games." Daily Post (Liverpool, England), September 23, 2010, 12. "TIME TO WALK THE TALK; Organisers Urged to Tell Truth about Delhi Drama." The Daily Mail (London, England), September 23, 2010, 88. Crisis Hit Games on the Brink, The Hindu, September 22, 2010, retrieved from Read More