Philo, Greg (2002).  Television News and Audience Understanding of War, Conflict and Disaster.  Journalism Studies, 3(2), 173-186.

Philo addresses three main topics concerning television news reports on conflict; choices of content in broadcasting have resulted in negative misinformed viewer perceptions toward the developing world; misinformation is a result of a lack of explanation and context in the reporting; a change in the quality of broadcast journalism will result in increased audience awareness and interest. 

He began by analyzing BBC and ITN coverage of Rwanda to demonstrate how reporting can misinform or leave people uninformed.  Philo then held a focus group session where he presented British viewers with the same coverage and asked for their opinions of African conflicts.  He also held a second focus group.  The next group looked at still photos from BBC broadcasts of Angola.  They were asked how they would write a news story based on the photos.  Then they were shown the actual report.  Journalists from the BBC arrived to field questions from the focus group on their reporting about Angola.  Philo drew several conclusions from these focus group interviews.  Namely, that television audiences understand very little about Africa, television news is cultivating negative attitudes about the developing world that leads to audience disinterest in international affairs, audiences tend to blame victims in the conflicts due to the negative reporting, but when context and explanation are added to the story, audience interest increases.  The journalists were better able to answer the focus group’s more in depth questions about Angola in person than they were through their medium.  As a result, the interest of the focus group participants increased with a greater level of understanding about the conflict.

Philo’s article is important because it analyzes audience response to conflict reporting.  The fact that audiences form negative opinions and audience disinterest is cultivated when reporting focuses on negative, event driven coverage is relevant to why current mainstream coverage of conflicts should be improved.  Philo also offers the solution that more context and explanation must be added to conflict reporting.

Abstract by Meghan Maskery

Missouri School of Journalism

MA ‘07