<TITLE: Multicultural Reporting
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: journalism and mass communication
EVENT TYPE: lecture
FILE ID: ULEC060
NOTES: continued in ULECD020

RECORDING DURATION: 21 min 55 sec

RECORDING DATE: 28.10.2002

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 12

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 1

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S1> good i think they were they were quite good compared to erm previous stuff so i i felt that now you you had the chance to really write on your own and that was it was really nice to read those stories many of them were very interesting interesting topics and and er , so that was really rewarding for me actually erm there was some general stuff that i want to go through with you first <P:11> er in most of the er most of the writings were were really erm , er clear and erm and explained the situation and and all those things quite well but they somehow they missed the point or they didn't have a point why why did you want to write the story what was the point what was your view on this and that was some- that's something er if you write a column it's quite important to have that what is your message what do you want to say in the end there were quite a lot of er @can you see any of this@ <SS> @@ </SS> okay i read them so @@ okay there's <READING ALOUD>  make a point what is your message what do you want to say </READING ALOUD> so er that's one of the things if you er write a column it's usually because you have something to say you you must have something to say your own view erm as i said before the news is kind of basic material that we have in the media the news is the the basic thing and then you can explore things that have happened in the news through these different other genres and one of them is is the column so you can actually say what you think what is your own idea erm er that's why it's very important to have this is at least what i think it's very good to have a personal touch in your column and this is this was another thing that was missing from some of your writings that erm you were moving in kind of general level and not really talking about yourself and in a column it's it's it's always good to use your own words and your own thinking erm you can er express your emotions and and things like that , erm by using erm expressions like er these explanations wrong imagine these are some of the ways you can sort of get the language moving so that it's not so strict and general , some of you actually did this which was nice and then of course these expressions i believe i think i was amazed i was surprised @@ i'm really sorry about this small print i have here . so use make make the reader know that this is your your view of things that's something that i would i would i like to see in a column and then er it's always nice to read something that's s- situated in somewhere situate the story this means that er if if you describe something that has happened or or if you describe something that you think erm tell where when and erm most importantly what is your relation to the story for example there were there were lots of stories erm erm this about bradford (xx) ver- er vermont and er different places in in these columns please tell the reader if you live in there if that's your what is your relation to these , places for example or or the people you write about what is your your relation to them do you know or for example <NAME> wrote about gypsies do you have a personal relation to that er or and and bradford for example <NAME> wrote really nice sto- thing about that whether it's your own environment or whatever that always makes it sort of it brings it closer it's very good to to bring that out , and avoid bureaucracy this is sort of the er kind of institutional language <P:05> this is er i think this is more problem of of other kind of reports and news stories the bureaucratic language in these stories it's er in these columns it wasn't really a main problem er i don't think so but but it it's very easy to erm start using kind of er familiar expressions that are familiar from different institutions used in news language quite often , and this i probably said before avoid general appro- approach , because most likely it doesn't tell us anything new . make it concrete if if you start with some kind of erm description of something that you've seen or heard it usually gives another perspective . and this has something to do with the erm erm idea of of column as a as a way to destroy stereotypes because when we are talking about multicultural reporting er we can actually use these columns as a way to open up readers' eyes or or or destroy common stereotypes write something that is not so self-evident . sort of work against the kind of common sense of journalism erm , in your stories there wasn't really that much er problem with stereotyping but there's always some some of that involved when we write about different cultures or it's very easy to to create stereotypes even if you don't want to or or you want to be a- a- aware of the words you are using but one way of creating stereotypes is kind of alienating the objects that you are talking about or making them object a- actually er sort of emphasising differences between us and them this is very sort of basic , erm feature of journalism and there have been quite a lot of studies made concerning racism and er in those studies er it's usually always er brought up er that these this division us and them is quite consistent in in news language erm and then there is er is kind of blocking or or dualism or or dividing making creating in your writing creating two sides that cannot meet and this is one one problem and then there is this er common sense kind of natural approach which means that erm certain things are seen as as natural something that cannot change are always like that so instead of of erm moving this way you could actually bring out similarities between groups between us and them and differences inside groups inside us differences and inside the differences and changes how remind the readers how things change they're not always the same <P:05> and what i've already said don't write about what we already know write about something surprising unexpected and also reveal your own prejudice <P:09> one thing that that was erm evident in in your er in these columns is that it's very difficult to make make it short to write a short er and that's @unfortunately the ba-@ sort of basic element in journalistic writing you have to make everything very short you have to select leave something out sum up and there is always the the risk of stereotyping when you have to say something in very simple way so that's something you have to be aware of even though you have to have to simplify try not to stereotype , and of course er writing erm and and , er creating stories really fast you tend to pick up or people tend to pick up the the first idea and that's usually the way we repeat stereotypes so that's something that as a journalist you have to be a- aware of and then there is the the question of irony it is very difficult genre very risky one but very effective and some of you you wrote funny stories and er that was really good it's it's very difficult to write funny but it's also very risky erm i think er some of you did okay it wasn't er er it's very difficult to do in another language i think you were er concerned that it might not be so funny or or that might not be but er i i thought those stories were were quite good , erm and then er there is erm something if if you want to read more about this kind of na- naturalness and naturalising erm in relation to stereotyping and racism er i suggest er that you read s- stuart hall many of you might know him he's he's quite erm well-known british erm er scholar or should i say er cultural theorist erm and he's written in this one book er he's written quite a quite a lot about racism and ideology of of media and stereotypes and this one the whites in their eyes racist ideologies and the media is quite good er and and very sharp arguments concerning this issue and er it's in the the media reader that's the name of the book by alvarado and thompson editors of the book so if if you're interested in there's some further reading <P:16> er i actually have now i could pass these i made quite a lot of , text on these so erm , i hope you can understand what i'm trying to say <P:10> how do you feel about reading each other's stories are you do you think is it okay or are you kind of because i think it would be really nice if you could er read read each each other's stories so <P:08> here <P:05> and just hear what . the other ones said because erm <P:12> and again @you have this stuff@ i'm sure we can get that (xx) that thing as well (xx) <P:10> oh oh too bad <NAME> is not here she she actually wrote about the erm incident in moscow and and that was quite interesting , mhm <P:24> erm <P:07> then there is another thing that that it's is really good for any who who want to think about this kind of multicultural sensitivities to think about the readers of the story who are the readers who who is your audience because that is one way of of . of reflecting your own la- own language and the words you're using er . if you think that you are writing for someone like yourself try to change it that you're actually the ones that you are talking about are reading the story , that's something that that can can really change your . attitude also er i i had to write a column this last week er i write er regularly to the finnish newspaper helsingin sanomat for the erm i write about television programmes and er it was really interesting 'cause er last week i wrote about er erm swedish television series about two gypsy er two gypsies two a brother and a sister who were as a refugees in sweden but they erm they left sweden and wanted to go look for their mother who was still in bosnia and this was kind of refugee story also but also a story on on sort of g- gyp- er gypsies' culture and they used quite a lot of the the actors were amateurs and they used the actual erm gypsy communities in different countries like in poland in er romania in germany and ended up in bosnia it was really really erm er wonderful TV series quite erm ambitious way they had done it but erm and i wrote about it on in my column and af- i had i had er i had to rush and i wrote it really fast and then when i erm er i just er send it by er e-mail to the erm er to the paper mhm and it it was around ten ten o'clock in the evening i started to think about what did i write what what was the what was the headline and i my headline was actually europe er with the eyes of wanderers and i started thinking i can't i can't use the word wanderer with gypsies i mean that's not @politically correct and i got really sort of terrified oh my god and@ and then i started to go over the story and and think about that and erm actually it wasn't that bad because it was really the wanderers' europe because they were refugees and they were pushed all over and they couldn't stay anywhere and and stuff like that but it was i think it was really a good erm example how difficult these words can sometimes be and the political correctness that you have to be aware of what you're saying and and and when and i actually then the next day i spoke with m- with a friend of mine who's erm done her master thesis on on finnish gypsies and oh and we talked about it and i said do you think it it's really er terrible to use these kind of words and she said no that's that's quite o- okay and that's not offensive but erm i think that was a good er example of how how you can you have to think about the words you use and also er because this happened when i was i was really in a hurry and i didn't have time to really think think through these ideas so , good example of that but since i've been writing these columns for about now er year and a half er twice a month erm it's really er something that erm i've been thinking about quite a lot 'cause there are different ways to to write columns you can er if you want you can make them really personal and this is something i like but not erm but it's mhm for example er the way i write these these er television columns i don't want them to be too personal like i don't i don't want to explain how i was doing my ironing and @watching television@ and that kind of because that doesn't really give any any new insight for the readers i'd rather erm reveal what i'm thinking than than what i'm what my home is like or whether or and and my family because that's another way to write columns is is is to to talk about yourself more than than the things that you're you're going to say there are different ways to do that , obviously , er the next thing erm , i'd like to hand out some material concerning this is er i think this is very interesting <PASSING HANDOUTS, P:05> thing about racism in the news and i can go <P:07> through some of the stuff </S1>
<DISCUSSION ULECD020>
