Reproducing News

Publication: European Journal of Cultural Studies

2007-10-10T02:48:00.002Z

My first publication from the research came out in th August 2007 issue of The European Journal of Cultural Studies The article focuses on two to the videos presented on the site, one from New York and the other from London. Both of these videos were produced in 2005.

Conclusions
All five participants in New York and in London share much of the same media with the rest of America and Britain. The structure of the news-making task invites participants to reproduce the news as they know it and to reconfigure the dominant narratives to reflect their perceptions of the conflict. In North London, Sarah, Jasmine and Hanan, saw themselves as having a greater compassion for the Iraqi and Afghani victims of the war. Across the Atlantic, Kit and Kat presumed that the imagined, majority audience was unsympathetic to all Muslims, in America and abroad. They used their video to remind their audience that Muslims are like Christians. By asking ‘ how would you feel if a bomb went off in your church’, they suggest that they too are victims of the conflict. However, unlike the girls in London, they did not present the suffering as asymmetrical. Their statement ‘everyone is dealing with the loss of loved ones from war’ along an image of an American casualty seeks to universalize the suffering rather then emphasizing Muslim victims. Also, their statement, ‘as we send away our soldiers we should support them’, illustrate how Kit and Kat replicated the American news narratives; their general critique of the war does not render them immune from reproducing the mainstream discourses. While their voiceover implies support for military action, their discussions during production suggest that they are against the war. This discrepancy is not a sign of their confusion. Rather it illustrates their multiple identities.

There are many factors which may account for the differences in these groups. Certainly, young Muslim living among an ethnic majority in North London is not the same as being a young Muslim minority in suburban New York. They are exposed to varied political environments, national news cultures and Muslim discourses. The videos illustrate that each group had varying presumptions about their majority audiences. However, despite differences, both groups conceived of the news-making process as an opportunity to reveal a story that had been hidden from the masses, and which they had access to by virtue of their membership in the Muslim ummah.

New York Metropolitan Area

2006-02-01T22:50:00.001Z

Elmhurst Queens

This video was produced at a youth center in Elmhurst, Queens
Click here to watch Ania and Liza's news clip.

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These two videos were produced at a small private school in Jamaica, Queens.

Click here to watch A.B, Castro, and Sam's news clip.

Click here to watch Selena, Theresa, and Sabrina's news clip.

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This video was produced in August of 2005 at a youth center in a New York suburb.

Click here to watch Kit and Kat's news clip

North West London

2005-03-16T00:48:00.000Z

These video's were produced by year 10 & 11 students at a secondary school in north west London.

Click to watch Sasha, Aliya and John's news clip
Click to watch Nazir, Sylvester and John's news clip
Click to watch Alisha, John and Zeenat's news clip

The videos may take a few minutes to load.

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This video was produced by Abdi and Ali, ages 17 and 18, at a youth centre in the London Borough of Brent.

Click here to watch HATRED and POWER

The video may take a few minutes to load.
viewing time 2:36

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This video was produced by Lisa and Hani ages 17 and 14, at a youth centre in Brent .

Click here to watch THE WAR TODAY

The video may take a few minutes to load.

An International School in London

2005-03-13T14:34:00.000Z

This video was produced by three year girls aged 14,15 and 16 at an international school in London. The girls, Melissa, Jackie and Norah are English language learners.

Click to watch Jackie, Melissa and Norah's news clip

This video may take a few minutes to load.
Viewing time 1:33

Surrey, Kingston: Year 11 and 12

2005-02-18T08:42:00.000Z

This video was produced by three year 12 boys aged 16 -17 in Surrey.

Click to watch ACTION AND REACTION

This video may take a few minutes to load.
Viewing time 1:57

This video was produced by three year 11 girls, aged 15 -16.

Click to watch THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON TERROR

This video may take a few minutes to load.
Viewing time 1:56

London, Tower Hamlets: Year 10 & 12 students

2005-02-13T17:04:00.000Z

This video was produced by three boys, ages 14-15, at a secondary school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Click here to watch BEHIND THE WAR

The video may take a few minutes to load.
viewing time 1:23

This video was produced by Tanya, Rena and Amina, ages 14 -15, at a state school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

The video will be posted soon!

This video was produced by two boys, Abu-Bakr and Malik, ages 17 and 16. The workshop was conducted at a youth development centre in Tower Hamlets. Unlike the other videos, this one has background music.

Click here to watch THE TRUTH BEHIND BUSH

The video may take a few minutes to load.
viewing time 2:24

JASMINE, SARA, HANAN London, Hackney: Year 13 students

2005-02-13T15:20:00.002Z

This video was produced by three girls, ages 17-18, at a secondary school in the London Borough of Hackney.

Click here to watch Jasmine, Sara and Hanan's video

The video may take a few minutes to load.
viewing time 2:00

New York, Manhattan: 11th and 12th Grade students

2005-02-13T11:16:00.000Z

This video was made as a part of the pilot research in Manhattan. The two girls, Danielle and Tanya are 17 years old. It was produced at a high school in New York City in the Summer of 2004.

Click here to watch THE TRUE STORY OF THE WAR ON IRAQ.

The video may take a few minutes to load.
viewing time 1:20

Harrow: Supplementary School

2005-02-13T09:18:00.000Z

This video was produced by Zaynub and Chambeli, both aged 16. The news workshop was conducted at Shia religious school. Both students regularly go to state schools in Harrow.

Click to watch video.

The Workshop

2005-02-13T07:50:00.000Z

All of these news clips were produced in 2 1/2 hour workshops. Some were conducted in secondary schools, some in youth centres, some in supplementary schools. Many of the participants are 1st and 2nd generation immigrant youth in London and New York between the ages of 15 - 18. I am interested in exploring how diverse cultural and religious discourses inform young peoples' understandings of the "War on Terrorism".

Sequence - Write - Read

The participants are asked to produce a news clip about the war for a children's news program. After an initial discussion of TV news and the war, I introduce the participants to the iMovie editing tool. The images that they use come from a 'library' of still and moving images, which I recorded and downloaded from TV news and the internet. There are nearly 160 clips, between 2 and 8 seconds long, from which they can choose. They can use as few as 15 images and as many as 40. After sequencing the clips, they write a narration which is then read as a voice over.

About this blog

2005-02-13T03:14:00.001Z

This blog contains the products of a transatlantic research project on young people's relationship with the mediated 'War on Terror'. I am studying the pedagogies that TV news offers its young viewers. In an attempt to gauge young people's understandings of news discourses, I trained the participants to construct a short news clip using images recorded from television. They were asked to produce a 2-minute clip explaining the war on terror to a younger audience. The final product reflects their impressions of the issues - unlike standard journalism practice, the participants did not research information before or during production, and the final work was not subjected to an editorial review.

The videos have been posted for the participants to reflect on their and other participants' productions. I have also posted them as an easy way to share the work with my supervisor, research colleagues and anyone else who may be interested in the issues of audiences, media and youth production.

To view the videos, you need Quicktime loaded onto your computer. The videos may take a minute or two to download.

If you have any questions or comments that you would like to address to the researcher, please send an email to: habiba.noor@yahoo.com