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Module
10 |
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Teaching
Activity: Analysis of a Local News Broadcast |
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Students could view a 30-minute local commercial network news
broadcasts and keep a log of the specific stories, types of stories,
and the time of stories in number of seconds. Then, they could identify
the types of content in terms of time devoted to “news,”
“weather,” “sports,” “consumer/health/entertainment
feature stories,” and “ads.” Within the “news”
category, characterize the types of stories included. Finally, they
could reflect on what you learned about the world based on your
results. |
If they viewed several different stations on the same news day,
they could then compare the differences in station’s news
in terms of their style, topic selection, self-promotion, bias,
substantive analysis, story development, etc. They could also examine
difference in the stations’ news ratings and discuss differences
in popularity as due to the particular personalities of the anchors
and/or the quality of their coverage. They may also note the similarities
in the news in terms of formats, stories, topics, styles, flashy
weather/sports.
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Students could also compare the national news coverage, particularly
the difference between the one hour PBS NewsHour and ABC,
NBC, CBS, and Fox in terms of the use of alternative perspectives,
explanations, interpretations, etc. not evident in the summary format
on the network news. |
Students’ teaching activities developed in CI5472
in Spring, 2004. |
Amanda Furth |
Analyzing TV News |
1) record stories covered
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2) record type of stories
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3) record length of stories in seconds
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4) identify type of content: news, weather, sports,
consumer/health/entertainment, ads
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5) identify editing techniques
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6) discuss hidden agenda's demonstrated through
stories selected & perspectives demonstrated
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Reid Westrem and Brock Dubbels |
Comparing TV and Newspaper writing |
My advanced students perform a daily news and announcements show
on TV every day. My beginning students need to learn how to write
and perform for this show. This activity is used after students
have studied news writing for newspapers and are beginning a study
of broadcast news. It follows a brief lecture, in which the following
points are made:
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Writing broadcast news |
1. Keep it short and simple (subject ‘ verb
‘ object).
"Police have arrested a suspect’"
-- Cut out unnecessary words.
-- Avoid long introductory or parenthetical phrases.
-- Be conversational, when appropriate.
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2. Attributions go at or near the beginning.
NO: The nation’s unemployment rate will drop this year,
Bush said.
YES: Bush claimed that the nation’s unemployment rate would
drop this year.
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3. Remember: the audience cannot see the text!
NO: The mayor said, ‘I need to take off some weight.’
YES: The mayor said he needs to take off some weight.
(Use your voice, pauses and facial expressions to signal a quote.)
e.g. The mayor said he would’ ‘hit the weights’
‘next week.
NO: Ticketmaster said that they can’t refund tickets.
YES: Ticketmaster said that they canNOT refund tickets.
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Ok, here’s the activity: |
a) Obtain the text of two broadcast news reports.
This can be done several ways:
-- Watch and videotape tonight’s news broadcast from ABC,
CBS or NBC (5:30 pm) or CNN or CNN Headline News. Type the text
for two stories.
-- Go to CNN’s transcript page ( http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/),
click on a news reporting show (not analysis or commentary) and
find stories. Or use the link that says, ‘Click here for
breaking news transcripts,’ which often provides what you’ll
be looking for.
Choose stories featuring only a reading by the anchor and possibly
a video clip with quotes (not an interview with a special analyst
or with a reporter on the scene). [Note: The writing for NewsBreak
is for anchors only and does not feature remote links with reporters
or live interviews, which are more complex.]
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b) Copy and paste the text for the two stories
into a word-processing file, such as Microsoft Word.
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c) For each broadcast report, find an article
on the same topic on the website of a major daily newspaper, such
as The New York Times or Washington Post. Copy and paste the text
into your file.
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d) Compare the two versions of each story:
-- Use the word-count feature to compare the lengths of each version
(the newspaper article should be much longer).
-- Compute the average length in words of the first five sentences
of each story (newspaper sentences should be much longer).
-- Note the sentence structure of each (newspaper sentences should
be more complicated, often departing from the basic subject-verb-object
structure).
-- Note the use of attributions (the broadcast sentences should
begin with attributions, while the newspaper sentences should
end with them, if they’re included).
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e) Write a summary paragraph for each story based
on your observations.
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Tamela McCartney and Kimberly Sy |
Using the resources provided in Module 10, have your students
choose 3 different media (generally from the USA) from which they
will make an analysis (Radio, Internet, Television, Newspapers,
Magazines). Using a current international news story, have the
students analyze how the story differs coming from each source.
Is the coverage the same? Different? Which is more detailed? Are
any visual? How does this affect the story? Why might the coverage
be different?
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Then, have the students compare the coverage from the US media
to that of the media from another country. Why might there be
differences? What differences are there? What does the difference
in coverage tell you about the country from which the news originates?
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Louise Covert and Becca Robertson |
Currently, I live outside the metro area. The coverage of news
is different here. There is more local and rural news featured.
I think it is interesting to tape news segments from this part
of the state and juxtapose these with news that my students who
live in Eagan, MN typically view when and if they watch the news.
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1. We would first watch a segment of channel ll
or 5 in the cities. Noting the kinds of stories in the categories
of news, weather, sports, and feature spots for the evening.
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2. I would have students create a Venn diagram
to look at similarities and differences between the two newscasts.
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3. Questions to ask students to prompt discussion
and guide their discernment regarding the 2 different news programs:
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4. What kinds of stories are featured in the metro
area segments? The Rochester segment?
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5. What sorts of advertisements are featured throughout
each of the two programs?
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6. In what ways are the anchors similar and different
in these two program?
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7. Is one version more sophisticated? Another
more familiar?
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8. What kinds of beliefs and values are communicated
in each of these programs based on the kinds of stories that are
featured?
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9. Why do you think there is more air-time and
emphasis on weather in the Rochester programming?
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10. We would talk about the anchors--what they
look like, what they are wearing, their mannerisims and non-verbal
communication with viewers and rapport with each/one another during
the news broadcast, too.
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11. This would be a way to invite students to
consider different viewpoints, discourses, and stances toward
news based on a specific audience.
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12. We would talk about these points as a large
group and share other experiences they may have had with these
differences in broadcasting in other cities, states, etc.
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Jeffrey Wendelberger |
The goal of this activity is to have students develop a critical
understanding the of television news. Students will watch excerpts
of news programs during class, participate in discussions and
write a compare/contrast paper.
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Teachers should first tape episodes of a local television news
broadcast and an episode of a non-network news source, such as
BBC news or The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.
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In the classroom, show students excerpts from both news sources.
The excerpts should deal with the same subject matter. As students
view the excerpts they should keep a log that tracks the amount
of time each source spends on the story, the techniques used to
convey the information—charts, interviews, video, etc.
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After viewing the excerpts and gathering data, students should
participate in a discussion about the differences between the
two sources and the possible reasons for those differences.
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Finally, students should write a paper in which the compare and
contrast the news value of the stories from the two different
sources.
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Students should focus their papers around such issues as: What
were the differences between the two sources’ stories? What
factors might account for these differences? What important things
would regular viewers of local news stations likely not know about
the news subject? Which news source is more likely to satisfy
a democracy’s need for informed citizens?
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Adam Banse and Dan Gough |
Dan and I came up with an idea for teaching students how much
"news" there actually is in TV news broadcasts.
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A class of 30 would be divided up into groups of five. Each group
would be assigned to watch one night of the evening news between
Saturday and Thursday.
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Each group member would be assigned to watch one newscast from
each station: channels 4,5,9,11 or 29.
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Each student will be required to take a log of the minutes of
each episode and classify what was covered.
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For example, if the opening story is on Dru Sjodin and the story
lasted 45 seconds, the students would write: crime, 45 seconds.
Or, if the newscasters chit-chatted with one another, they would
write: banter 27 seconds.
The students will average out their finding as a group and give
a PowerPoint or whiteboard presentation.
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At the end the class will combine all of their findings and rate
which stations do the best and worst jobs of providing their audience
with actual "news."
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Jennifer Larson |
My teaching activity will have students analyze the language
used in different news reports on the same event. The media could
include TV, internet, newspaper, radio. Students will examine
the rhetoric used in each report-- the diction, imagery, selection
of detail, etc.--and report on how the different rhetoric presented
the event differently. I would recommend students choose a significant
event for the week; this week a big event was the discovery of
Dru Sjodin's body, e.g. A follow up discussion could look at the
way the different media forms presented each and discuss why--going
after the author's/media's purpose.
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Scott Devens |
This teaching activity deals with the characteristics of television
news, particularly (as noted in the module) the underlying assumption
that the more immediate the coverage the better. The activity
will also include students learning about an historical event
that shaped our country/world significantly.
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Basically, the gist of the lesson/unit/activity would be to analyze
some of the "immediate" television news stories from
the 9/11 disaster. We would compare and contrast the initial coverage
(day of) with coverage from a couple of weeks later. Students
would most likely observe that immediate, day-of coverage was
often simply a camera fixated on the smoking, burning buildings.
Was this a "better" news segment because it was happening
now? Or, were the later stories, those with more information about
what actually happened recently actually "better" news?
Why do television stations constantly promote their news as "better"
simply because it is current? (to compete with other forms of
media) We could also analyze why it seemed justified for stations
to just show a burning building for very long-lengths of time?
Less "important" or far-reaching stories, especially
local ones, don't get that much airtime; why?
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[I also tried to think of a good activity about teaching about:
what really IS "news"? To me, it's really kind of a
"Zen" question. There is a book about time and place
that I've used before called "Einstein's Dreams" that
might be a starting point for interesting discussions. I am thinking
about what a 1/2 hour "news" show might look like with
a reporter on the scene at Walden Pond back in Henry's time there?
Isn't every news story really reporting stuff about personal decisions?
Of course, some decisions a person may make (like 9/11) may affect
many, many people in a negative or positive way. I'm trying to
think of an activity that might illustrate how one person's internal
decision about just one aspect of their life would be much, much
more important than what is on the TV news. Or, how does/will
the collective decisions of thousands or millions of people to
buy hybird-type automobiles affect the world? How can people balance
their civic duty of being informed of local, national and world
events with the reality that each person's "world" actually
involves who and what they actually interact with each day. Maybe
what I'm trying to get at is: if a television is playing a news
show in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does the TV
really make any sound? Perhaps reading a book and then linking
the questions about life in general to these more specific questions
about what is "news" would be the best activity to challenge
assumptions. Or, doing some reflection after eliminating some
media (like TV turnoff week) might help, too.]
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Jessie Docktor and Rachel Godlewski |
An activity to help students understand how selectivity comes
into play with news reporting would be to give them a certain
number of stories that they'd have to constrain into a time slot.
Students would have to decide which stories to keep or cut and
how much information in each story to include. You could also
have students look at the various arrangements of stories and
headlines on the front page of papers from around the world using
the Newseum
site.
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Then, ask students to create a front page with numerous stories
but limited space. Both of these activities could be great lessons
on appealing to an audience as well (have them think about who
reads the paper and watches the show), and could lead to a great
discussion about what makes the news and what doesn't, and why.
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Amy Gustafson and Kathy Connors |
There is a 1994 "Dateline" that covers a story called
"Dying to Win." This program focuses on a gymnast that
had anorexia and ended up dying because she could not get help
or help herself.
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We would have the students watch this video and fill out a complimentary
worksheet. What the students would be looking for is bias. They
would have to find bias in many different areas of the documentary.
This can be done with just about any documentary, by the way.
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The students would have to find bias through the use of selection
and omission, placement, headline, photos, captions and camera
angles, names and titles, statistics and crowd counts, source
control, and word choice and tone.
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We would start off by defining what each of these criteria is.
You can find out more about these at the Media
Awareness site.
Then, watch the movie once. Have them write down notes while watching
the movie. Have them continue as you are rewinding the film. Watch
it a second time so that they get all the details down.
We would also supplement this with a longer documentary where
they completed the same exercise.
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Kari Gladen and Katie Schultz |
Students could do a longer (about 1-2 weeks) TV news media project
focusing on a specific, on-going news story (like the war in Iraq,
the economy, unemployment rate, rising gas prices, etc.). As a
class we would choose a news story to study. The students would
be split into small groups and each group would sign up for a
different news carrying station (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, ABC,
CBS). They would then watch over a period of time to see how their
chosen story is presented by their TV station. As a part of each
group project, we would ask the students to watch for and keep
a log of any attention-grabbing, sensationalist headlines they
see that might be bias toward a certain individual or group of
people. In their journals the groups could also report on what
the headlines are, how consistent/accurate they appear to be in
relation to the actual story that they are covering, and the length
and depth of the story’s coverage (especially on TV). At
the beginning of each class period we could have each group report
what they observed on their channel the day before. At the end
of the project, we would have each group analyze and report their
complete findings to the class as a large group, discuss any differences,
and then have the students vote on which station they felt provided
the most reliable and complete reports on the issues, and which
station they would trust the most if a broadcast were to be aired
about a news story related to their school or personal lives.
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Katrina Thomson and Jennie Viland |
We would tape a couple of morning news shows like Good Morning
America and The Today Show and then view them with students in
class. Students would be provided with a guide for viewing that
they could fill in as they watch. They would then analyze the
news coverage in them according to the 7 S's of media analysis.
We could also do the same kind of analysis of an evening news
show, or even CNN and then have them compare the different "genres"
of news and how they are targeted at different audiences.
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Erin Warren and Erin Grahmann |
Our idea is simply to have the students produce a complete newscast
for class. Students could be grouped and assigned beats: top stories,
human interest, sports, entertainment, weather, etc. You get the
idea. The ultimate objective is to create class news to be taped
and broadcast. Learn by doing. As the teacher, you get to be the
head mogul of your very own communications company if you so choose;
me, I'll be the shadowy string-puller shy of cameras and unnecessary
media attention.
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