Below is a series of short introductory activities to help students gain a clearer knowledge and understanding about issues associated with the press and journalism.
News questionnaire
Uses a questionnaire to explore the wide range of news sources available and to consider which sources students use and which provide the most accurate reports. A good starting point for all future Global News work and a useful 'baseline assessment' activity. Full details
Second hand news
To create awareness of the fact that the information contained in news reports is often not based on first person observations or first hand accounts but rather on a series of reports, comments, interviews etc from second or third party sources. Full details
Bias Detectives
To help students nderstand the various ways in which writers and editors, intentionally or unintentionally, can introduce bias into news reporting and to develop the skill of detecting potential bias in news stories. Full details
Using photographs and images
A series of short activities exploring the use of photographs and images by the media. Full details
News questionnaire
Aims
To help students appreciate the wide range of news sources that are available
to them, to consider which they use, which provide the most accurate
reports and which their favourite and most frequently used sources of
news are. A suggested questionnaire is provided which can also be used
as a baseline measure before the implementation of the Global News project/activities
and again at the end to assess to what extent knowledge and attitudes
have changed.
Details
Before the questionnaire it would be useful to brainstorm and list all the
different sources of news from friends and family to satellite television
and from school newsletters to the internet.
Questionnaire
1. Write a list of all the sources you obtain news from (try to encourage students to think of general sources, e.g. newspapers, internet etc as well as specific publications, channels etc)
2. Which of these is your favourite source of news? Why? Write down a series of words or phrases which best describes your favourite source of news
3. Which of the list do you consider to be the most reliable/trustworthy/honest? Why?
4. Which do you consider to be least reliable/trustworthy/honest? Why?
5. Which news do you find most interesting – local and regional news, national news or international news? Explain why
6. What for you is the best source of international news? Why?
For a PDF version of this questionnaire click here
Learning points
- To appreciate the wide range of sources of news available
- To enable students to reflect on the most important news sources to them and for them to consider their favourite source[s]
- To enable students to consider what they think are the most accurate and reliable sources of news for them and why
- To reflect on the main sources of international news
Second hand news
Aims
This activity is designed to create awareness of the fact that the information
that news reports contain is often not based on first person observations
or first hand accounts but rather on a series of reports, comments,
interviews etc from second or third party sources.
Details
Choose 4-5 students to go out of the room. Read the remaining students
a short news story, preferably one with a global context/content. Invite
one of the students back into the room and ask one of the students
who has listened to the story recount it to the returned student. Other
students may wish to add details that have been left out. The student
that has listened to the story then has to repeat it to the next student,
and that student to the next. Ask the final student to give as detailed
account as possible, uninterrupted by other students. Finally, compare
this with the original by reading out the original story.
An alternative is to split students into groups of 4-5 students and ask them to choose one member to attend a ‘press conference’ – this takes place out of earshot of the others. At the ‘press conference’ the teacher or a student reads out a short statement/news story containing a few facts and figures. Each group member, without taking notes, relays the information to a second member of their group. This person then relays it to another etc. Ask the final member of each group to announce the 'news'. Statements can be compared.
Issues to consider with students
- Why did distortions occur?
- How could the distortions have been prevented?
- Can these sort of distortions happen on a larger and more public scale?
- What might be the effect of this? Does it matter if distortions happen? Why? To whom might it matter?
- Do you think there are ways in which distortions are checked or prevented in the media?
Students could then look at some of the links on the student pages of the Global News website for further information on how the press and journalists operate and are regulated.
Learning points
- ‘Second hand' news can become distorted
- Different people remember different aspects of the story; some details will receive high prominence, some get left out or forgotten; some voices are heard while others are silenced or forgotten. This inevitably happens in 'real life' news reporting too
- News relies on ‘witnesses’ and ‘recounts’ and often on press releases and that these may be selective, biased or simply remembering some facts and forgetting others
- To encourage greater levels of critical awareness when considering news stories
Using photographs and images
Aims
These short activities aim to help students understand the power that
photos and images have in shaping our perceptions. Images and photographs
play an important role in affecting our
feelings and
attitudes towards people, places, situations or issues. Ultimately
they can have a strong influence on our reactions and actions. It
is therefore important that students have the opportunities
to interpret and ‘deconstruct’ photos
and images and to look critically at them.
The Global News website has links to on-line news services which contain a wide selection of news related photographs. Alternatively a range of photos from recent newspapers or topical magazines could be used.
Photo in focus
Students select a news related photo and study it for about a minute.
The photo is then removed and each student should write a brief description
of their photo or draw it. Re-examining the photo they can then explore
what was most noticeable about the photo; what did they include; what
was most prominent; and what did they leave out? Ask students to consider
why they think they left out these aspects of the photo. This activity
provides an opportunity to study a photo thoroughly and serves to highlight
the aspects we notice in photos and those we don’t.
Find my photo
A group of students each select a news related photo and study it for
about a minute. All the photos are then placed face up on a table.
Each student then describes their selected photo as precisely as possible
to a partner, who then has to find the photo from all the others. This
activity provides an opportunity to study a photo thoroughly and to
examine the importance of ‘anchoring’ images with descriptive
language/captions.
Cropping
Present a group with a cropped picture and ask them to draw or describe
what they think lies beyond the frame of the photo. Explore clues they
use and ask them to give reasons for their ideas. Provide them with
a bit more of the photo to see if they had correctly anticipated what
lay beyond the frame. Again students could consider what lies outside
the frame. Finally reveal the ‘full’ picture, though again
consideration could be given to what lies beyond the boundaries of
the ‘full’ picture. This activity can help students understand
that what lies within the frame of a picture is not the whole story
and that sometimes wrong assumptions can me made about the bigger picture.
Fact and opinion
Ask students in groups to select a photograph and ‘brainstorm’ any
thoughts they have on it. Ask groups to note down these responses and
then divide them into two groups: facts about the photo and opinions
about the photo. This can lead to an interesting discussion about how
much photos actually reveal about people and situations and how much
they generate opinions and (often false) perceptions and assumptions.
Captions 1
A set of news related photos and corresponding captions will be needed.
Provide groups of students with a caption and ask them to think together
what might be happening in the corresponding photo. Each group could
make a list of what they expect to see in the corresponding photo.
When each group has finished display the photos around the room and
ask each group to try and find the photo that matches their caption.
This activity demonstrates the importance of captions in fixing meaning
to images; it can also demonstrate how captions allow the meaning of
photos to be manipulated by the media.
Captions 2
Individually or in groups students write their own captions for a selection
of photos. The comparison of captions by different groups for the same
photograph can provide a good starting point for discussion and questioning.
What more information might be needed to arrive at a fair and accurate
caption? Compare the student’s captions with actual captions.
This activity demonstrates how different captions can give different
meanings to images and that captions allow the meaning of photos to
be manipulated by the media.
Thoughts, feelings and sayings
Students select news related photos with people in them and consider
what the people in the pictures might be thinking or feeling. These
can be added round the picture in ‘thought bubbles’. They
can also consider what the people might be saying either to each other,
to the photographer or the wider world. These can be added round the
picture as ‘speech bubbles’. The comparison of these ‘thought
bubbles’ and ‘speech bubbles’ from different students
can provide a good starting point for discussion and questioning and
exploring how much photographs alone can really tell us about people
or a situation.
Did you know?
According to a MORI survey carried out in 2003 among 2,494 school children aged 11-16 in England and Wales, most young people find out about global issues and the developing world from the TV.
93% of interviewees said they found out about the developing world from TV news; 49% from children’s TV programmes or other TV or radio programmes; 72% from newspapers or magazines; and 40% from the Internet. The internet figure was up 10% on the 2001 figure and is likely to increase considerably in future years.
For full details of the MORI survey click here
