Today, we had a lecture with Zoe Sale about the effect of News. This will help us when writing our critical analysis, giving us some background into the genre of news of which we have to talk about in reference to our own work. She showed us a Channel 4 documentary titled 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' which documented the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Over the course of the programme, it showed the devastation of the war and particularly the effects on innocent civilians. The footage was incredibly shocking and graphic with gory scenes that resulted in the programme being shown at 11pm. Zoe talked through with us, the events of the programme and why they decided to show certain scenes. She told us that the programme received lots of complaints despite the late showing time because of the material shown and the effect it had on the audience. We were then told to work in pairs to find policies for showing extreme material on the news or in documentary. I worked with Saskia and we found that BBC had a policy in place when it comes to showing graphic material. They explained that they aim to 'reflect the world as it is, including all aspects of the human experience' which is saying that they intend to show what is real whilst 'protecting the vulnerable'. I think that this is a suitable approach for a news channel as they aim to tell the events of the world as they are to inform audiences but filter out material that they deem as too harmful. Therefore, not showing anything unnecessarily without a need to. Zoe also showed us a few real life stories of people who had had near death experiences. The material shown was somewhat upsetting but with a positive ending. I think that the ending is what made the story more watchable. If they had ended with a scene of the person dying it would have felt very dark and upsetting. I found the lecture and workshop helpful as it allowed us to learn a little more about how news channels choose what to show, with their audience and demographic in mind.
Thursday, 24 November 2016
News Genre Workshop + Lecture with Zoe Sale
Today, we had a lecture with Zoe Sale about the effect of News. This will help us when writing our critical analysis, giving us some background into the genre of news of which we have to talk about in reference to our own work. She showed us a Channel 4 documentary titled 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' which documented the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Over the course of the programme, it showed the devastation of the war and particularly the effects on innocent civilians. The footage was incredibly shocking and graphic with gory scenes that resulted in the programme being shown at 11pm. Zoe talked through with us, the events of the programme and why they decided to show certain scenes. She told us that the programme received lots of complaints despite the late showing time because of the material shown and the effect it had on the audience. We were then told to work in pairs to find policies for showing extreme material on the news or in documentary. I worked with Saskia and we found that BBC had a policy in place when it comes to showing graphic material. They explained that they aim to 'reflect the world as it is, including all aspects of the human experience' which is saying that they intend to show what is real whilst 'protecting the vulnerable'. I think that this is a suitable approach for a news channel as they aim to tell the events of the world as they are to inform audiences but filter out material that they deem as too harmful. Therefore, not showing anything unnecessarily without a need to. Zoe also showed us a few real life stories of people who had had near death experiences. The material shown was somewhat upsetting but with a positive ending. I think that the ending is what made the story more watchable. If they had ended with a scene of the person dying it would have felt very dark and upsetting. I found the lecture and workshop helpful as it allowed us to learn a little more about how news channels choose what to show, with their audience and demographic in mind.
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