Dr Michael Higgins and Professor Angela Smith—written evidence (FON0004)

House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee inquiry:

The future of news: impartiality, trust and technology

Dr Michael Higgins is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in Media and Communication at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.  Dr Higgins has published widely on political communications and the political responsibilities of media, with a particular emphasis on their relationships with popular culture.  The Journalism, Media and Communication area at Strathclyde has a specialist research strand in Politics, Publics and Activism, of which Dr Higgins is a part.

Angela Smith is Professor in Language and Culture at the University of Sunderland.  Professor Smith’s research specialisms include methods for analysing journalism, gender in culture and politics, hybridity across media discourses, and the popularisation of argumentative media.  Together with Higgins, Smith has written the books The Language of Journalism (2020, 2nd edition) and Belligerent Broadcasting (2017).

Summary

1. Recent research within the fields of media and communication studies have reflected upon the direct influence of other media genres on the form and delivery of journalism.  This is often referred to within the literature as a process of “hybridisation”. 

2. Our research suggests that the hybridisation of broadcast news in particular brings new challenges for the management of impartiality and the sanctity of trusted information within news and current affairs commentary.

The research

3. The expressive mode of broadcast news is changing.  In a discussion of Channel 4 evening news, Higgins[1] finds that broadcast news is increasingly geared towards a “conversational” mode of engaging with its audience.  This and other broadcasters favour techniques of audience address adopted from television talk shows.  A widely-acknowledged component of this is a now-established practice of delivering the news script while standing or walking around the studio, which now extends into the use of a more informal and conversational language style, including colloquial and rhetorical phrasings.

4. In treating news delivery as an informal, reciprocal activity, this places more emphasis on the emotional components of the item and the pseudo-interpersonal obligation to reassure and signal care for the audience.  This informalisation of news and the obligation to foreground an emotional component are factors in an increased emphasis on interpretation and commentary, often contrary to the expectations of impartiality. 

5. Added to the increasing prominence given to popular media practices in news, current affairs also includes more performers from across the cultural and entertainment fields: including on political panel discussions and BBC’s flagship Question Time. 

6. Higgins and Smith[2] (forthcoming) look at the inclusion of voices from outside of the fields of journalism and politics in broadcast discussion of politics and current affairs.  Taking the example of a professional comedian participating in the televised political discussion segment in Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, this research shows how journalistic expectations of sincerity and their association with individual and political commitment can be compromised by performative norms associated with comedic, satirical imperatives.  At root, this research highlights the divergent promotional priorities of non-journalistic media performers and asks whether these compromise the commitment to include diverse, trusted and informed perspectives on news and current affairs programming.

Implications

7. While there is obvious creative scope in the hybridisation of news and current affairs, and there are opportunities in the diversification and freshening of the news form, this is subject to the following factors:

1. Uses of language and expressive forms that are associated with other media forms such as television chat shows and comedy also follow the priorities of those forms, and should be used with care in the delivery of news;

2. The hybridisation of broadcast commentary on news and public affairs broadens the attractiveness and accessibility of news’s contribution to public discourse.  However, these should also be accountable to the editorial and, where appropriate, regulatory standards of news and current affairs.

8. Overall, hybridisation and the conversationalisation of news are inevitable consequences of the multi-platform, diverse news environment, and the competitive market for audiences that this imposes.  In this regard, hybridisation is a probable element of media plurality. 

9. Nonetheless, even in the everyday practice of the most reputable news organisations, these present dangers for the maintenance of a neutral and trusted news sector and should be central to the Committee’s reflections.

February 2024

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