BSA Annual Conference 2012 - Full Conference Programme

Friday 13 April 2012 at 11:00 - 12:30

MEDIA, CULTURE AND CONSUMPTION 2 Berry, M.

The Banking Crisis: Media Representataion and Public Reception

The 2008 turmoil in the financial markets led some to claim that we were facing a ‘crisis of capitalism’ which required at a very least a radical rebalancing of the British economy. But how was the crisis reported and how did this impact on public understanding and attitudes towards finance and the management of the economy? This paper addresses these questions via two separate studies. One involves a thematic content analysis of Radio’s 4 flagship news and current affairs show ‘Today’. It examines, in particular, patterns of source access and how the crisis was largely framed by investment bankers, hedge fund managers, free market economists and their supporters amongst political elites. Alternative voices, including critiques from left leaning economists, politicians or academics were largely excluded from the debate. The consequence being that explanations for the crisis and the range of policy prescriptions for resolving it, were sharply circumscribed. The second study examines how the public have responded to the crisis and the subsequent increase in the Britain’s national debt. This was accomplished via 18 audience studies carried out in England and Scotland. The results reveal alarmingly low levels of public understanding of the activities of the financial sector and a tendency, particularly amongst low income groups, to blame Britain’s financial problems on marginalised groups such as immigrants and the unemployed.

Dennis, A., Cavanagh, A. Debating the News: Reader Responses to the UK ‘Riots’ of 2011

Through the analysis of reader comments posted in response to national newspaper reporting on the August 2011 riots, we demonstrate three things. Firstly, these data are a rich source of moderated public opinion and, as such, can be used as a more naturalistic substitute for more traditional attitudinal surveys and focus groups. Secondly, although many arguments were advanced to seek to understand or justify the rioters’ actions, only some such arguments were ‘successful’ (i.e., were rated positively by other readers). In this sense, it is possible to map out the ways in which radical and illegal activities might chime with sections of the wider community and in which ways such activities might increase the sense of difference between rioters and non-rioters. Finally, posters’ orientation to visibility—their comments appearing readily to others via the particular format and technology used in the forum space—mean that they adopt different rhetorical and argumentative strategies to those found in other areas of debate and argument. We conclude that these three issues are relevant to contemporary debates in methods, cultural theory and the operation of a putative public sphere respectively.

Flynn, G. The Phone Hacking Scandal: Lifting the Veil on the Construction of Crime Narratives

This paper will utilise materials recently released by political parties in light of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, along with content unveiled by media investigation and the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, to move criminological accounts beyond low-level analysis and generalised speculation of media forces towards a more genuine social network analysis of the varied interactions at the levels of power within the media that control and contribute to the construction of crime narratives today. This analysis will hope to use this pertinent and uniquely revealing material to enhance our understanding of the interaction between politicians and members of the media; in particular it will consider the power dynamics within this relationship and the impact this appears to have on the symbolic force of certain crime issues in today’s society.

University of Edinburgh University of Salford

ROGER STEVENS 14 University of Nottingham

273

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