Our Media Environment 1 — Citizens of the World

Points of view

A very common and very human mistake is to project our worldview onto others. This can have an especially devastating effect when we think about global issues because the local and regional perspectives can change massively when we visit different parts of the world. On the other hand, some of the differences in our perspectives can be shaped by biased reporting.

A point of view includes:

• What issues do we find important, i.e. the sea level rise matters more to those who live in coastal areas than those who live in landlocked countries.
• What is our perception of these matters, i.e., a ban on showing religious symbols in public institutions might be perceived differently by a religious and a non-religious person.

Individuals

So, what can influence our point of view? Discuss the possible influences on the individual level with your students and make a list. Some of those influences may include:

1. Our wealth. Rich people and poor people, for instance, tend to think about the notion that rich people should be taxed more than others very differently.
2. The part of the world we live in. Depending on where we live, the challenges we face can vary greatly. For people living in Australia, for example, wildfires are a more pressing issue than for the citizens of Luxembourg.
3. The particular history of our society. Depending on historical events and international relations, different countries (and their citizens) can have very different views on the same issue. For example, the EU countries bordering Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus tend to call for more financial and military support for Ukraine than those further away from the conflict.
4. Our level of education. Education level can correlate with political views or even our level of interest in topics of public importance.
5. Our religion, or lack thereof.
6. …

News outlets

We can immediately tell that what influences our perspective is complicated - there are a lot of parameters, and they might even interact. Let’s take a step further and think about what influences the points of view expressed by individual media outlets. In addition to influences that shape every individual’s perception, when individuals act as parts of an organization, the situation becomes even more complex. Brainstorm with your students to come up with key phenomena that can influence journalists and news organizations. The list might look something like this:

1. Journalist ethics and neutrality. There are principles journalists and news outlets are supposed to respect in their reporting.
2. Responsibility and the desire to be transparent and accurate.
3. Profit and popularity. News outlets can be driven by profit, engaging in tactics such as using clickbait and sensationalism to attract viewers, which in turn means more ad revenue.
4. Audience bias. News outlets can succumb to reporting on what people “want to hear”.
5. Political bias. Although they are supposed to be impartial, news outlets can stray into partial reporting.
6. Political or private pressure. Depending on their ownership or funding, media outlets can give in under pressure from political institutions or private entities, or individuals.
7. …

Instruct the students to keep these influences in mind during the exercise.

The setup

Spend up to 10 minutes to set up the exercise and discuss its finer points with the class.

Pick a topic you want the class to research. The topic should be contentious in different countries (for example, the fact that the football World Cup was held in Qatar in 2022 was received more negatively in some countries due to human rights abuses, while others focused on football).

Then, divide students into groups of at most five and assign a different country to each group. The countries you assign should correlate to your topic of choice - you want to assign countries in which the general national and reporting atmosphere around your topic is different from one another. One of the countries you assign can be “neutral”, i.e., reporting very little or neutrally about the issue.

The students should work in groups and read about what the media in the country assigned to them report about a certain topic and prepare for the discussion.

Before the groups start researching, discuss the following:

• News coverage in different countries can be very different across different news outlets. What should the groups keep in mind while researching? (Possible answer: freedom of the media - can they report freely?; ownership of the media - can the owner influence the reporting; audience size - is the media outlet popular or does it draw a small, niche audience?)
• How can we even begin to understand the colorful media landscape of a foreign country? Ask students for ideas. (One option is to look at the aggregate data on national media consumption and leading news brands, such as by using the interactive website of the 2022 Reuters Digital News Report).
• We obviously don’t have the time to conduct a full-fledged national media coverage analysis. What can we do? Look at the top 2, 3, or 4 outlets for a general overview of the national reporting “mood” on the topic.
• Students should translate the coverage they find with a translating app, such as Google Translate (which offers in-browser translation in Google Chrome) or DeepL.

Give the students 30 minutes to find, translate, read, and select the relevant news coverage for their group. Each group needs to prepare a short report on the relevant news coverage and select a member of the group to present their findings. If they get stuck on drafting the report, help them with the following prompts:

• Describe the news story you are researching in one sentence.
• Who are the stakeholders, i.e. persons, groups, or institutions involved?
• What is the general perspective on the issue?
• Who are the supporters, and who are the critics, if applicable?
• What might be the reasons for this perspective?

Have each group present their report to the class. Give them 60-90 seconds for each presentation.

1. How different do you think the points of view presented by the media in the country you were assigned were to those presented by others? Why?
2. Was there anything surprising about the news coverage you read about? How about the reports by other students?
3. What’s your opinion on the topic? Do you think it would be the same if you were growing up in the country you were assigned?
4. What are your thoughts on how reporting can shape our perception of the world?
5. Is the news coverage you read necessarily reflective of the general public opinion in the country you were assigned? Why or why not? (For example, in countries where the media is largely state-controlled, the reporting can be at odds with the general public opinion, if we can asses what the general public opinion is in that country at all.)
6. In what way do you think this impacts cross-cultural dialogue?