Abstract: We have come to think of media literacy as a decoding of embedded meanings of media texts by the media viewer, listener or reader. The author has suggested elsewhere that media literacy might better focus on 'empowering by making media' and by manipulating signs, developing new media languages and pay less attention to the observational role, however critical, because that role remains essentially one of consumption (albeit, enlightened instead of passive).

In examining how this active literacy might develop productively there is some need of an understanding of how local news messages may have an experiential relevance to viewers (rather than be merely of vicarious interest). The paper points to a development of possible local news terms which after further work might be organised not only to help assess and compare local television services but to inform the making of a local news which has a greater relevance to a greater number of potential viewers, and to structure local television newsroom discourse and local TV station practices in a radical new way.

The focus given by Videazimut for this paper was to explore the transition from Media Literacy to Civic Education. In doing this, the author avoids treating civic education as a species of municipal or government education, avoiding the current British trend to establish good citizenship by government dictat, and the paper explores instead the information requirements within the civil and public spaces in which a critical citizenship can be informed by independent local media.

Although theoretical in character this paper should have a practical outcome which debate on how stations structure their local news priorities will address.

Local news is often the most significant element of a local television service not only for community or public service stations but also for the commercial local sector.

While commentators have examined the extent to which local television news is well liked (eg., Media Studies Centre, 1997) the character of local news (eg., Grossman, 1997) and how ‘local’ is local television news (eg., Jauert, Prehn 1997) an assessment of the social geography of local news identity allows us to establish a lexicon of local news terms.

What is actually local about local news?
This paper was first drafted in 1994 for students studying the Local Television course at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh. It is being prepared for publication and is offered in its transitional state as part of Videazimut’s Virtual Conference on the Right to Communicate and the Communication of Rights. The conference might assist in devising some agreed general terms for assessing the localness and relevance of local news, particularly in the examination (and perhaps legitimisation) of local news within the public sphere.

In a talk in October 1993, delivered to the UK public service broadcasting pressure group The Voice of the Listener and Viewer (VLV), Steve Barnett of the Henley Centre for Forecasting referred to the Centre’s forthcoming Media Futures study. In particular, Barnett drew attention to interest found among viewers of television news for items reporting on events from within five miles of where the viewer lived.
While news from an area described by a five (or some) mile radius of the viewer’s home is unlikely to fulfil an individual’s entire local news interest, this is an area in which a strong civic interest can be demonstrated since it coincides with the area administered by local government and public authorities (at least in Europe) whose civil responsibilities encompass health, education, transportation and emergency services in their local area.

With the caveat that any notional viewer’s interest will not be entirely focused on civic affairs, public sector issues or municipal news, we might imagine our citizen ‘x’ to be any television viewer located where they mostly watch television (we presume, their home). We can say that ‘y’ will be any area of radius five miles from x in which the local civic news may be thought especially relevant to viewers like ‘x’. (See Figure 1, below) Every local viewer will have their own slightly different ‘circle of primary news interest’ embracing an area of potential civic news. But in cities or towns separated from their neighbouring centres of population (by countryside) those living towards the edge of the town (or circle) will find less civic news emanating from and relating to the less populated places within their own news area. No x’s will occupy the centre of a perfect circle but we are all like separate suns each having an elliptical path described around us which loosely embraces and orders those objects and subjects comprising our civic news interest.

Figure 1. x and the radius y containing the area of primary news interest

Let us locate x within a particular community. Town A is a large town or city. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Town A

Public sector news rich areas
We will give Town A some characteristics typical of large towns and small cities in the UK, and draw on some local authority responsibilities familiar in Scotland.

Town As often include the centres of city, district or municipal governments. These local authority bodies in Scotland have responsibilities for:-

district courts, burial grounds, cleansing, food hygiene, halls and theatres, industrial development, markets and slaughterhouses, mortuary, tourism, council housing, private house improvements, environmental health, refuse collection, planning, licensing (of pubs, clubs etc) recreational facilities - libraries, sports halls and swimming baths, museums, galleries and monuments, parks, arts as well as city promotion and grant aid

News items on topics from this list will be related to political or administrative decisions made by the local authorities or their representatives, whose headquarters (and visual background for local TV news stories) will usually be found somewhere close to the centre of the area administered. (This central location for public buildings is suggested by the hatched area in the centre of Town A in Figure 2).

To a list of a medium to large town council's administrative duties we can add regional responsibilities (which are sometimes the remit of a separate authority) and will cover our town and immediate surrounding area. This twin-authority arrangement won't be the same for every area but generally regional authorities cover larger populations than single town councils. The regions are responsible for:-

highways, lighting, education (up to an including secondary education), some arts and economic involvement, social work, community centres, car parking, consumer protection, council tax, electoral registration, fire service, industrial development, planning, property services, rates collection, registration of births, deaths and marriages, sewerage, water and drainage, sheltered housing, trading standards, weights and measures

Alongside these elected municipal bodies there will be health boards and other appointed agencies managing fire and police services. Taken together these civic bodies will have responsibilities stretching well beyond the town or city boundaries, although these are unlikely to cover exactly the same geography or serve identical populations. But the centre of Town A will be a very active place to find public sector news, much of which will be of some relevance to those living in the immediate local area and of a diminishing interest for many who live beyond the centre, in the areas covered by regional councils, health boards and police services, courts, etc (as other local or neighbourhood councils step in to administer the very local areas). We might say that the centre of Town A, the tightly hatched area, is a public sector news rich area. Much, if not all, civic and public sector news will be generated from here, it will emanate from this quarter of town and it will be presented and recorded (and possibly broadcast) by the media from this area.

Let us look at Town A again. And impose our viewer x and her area of news relevance onto this map. We should make some imaginary assumptions about our 'x'. x lives in the centre of Town A, in the heart of Town A (Figure 3). So far as education, health, police and other public services are concerned,

Figure 3. x lives in the heart of Town A

whatever is said by public bodies from this public sector news rich area will, so far as it is of a general nature, affect all or most of those living in the region of which Town A is a part and to a greater or lesser extent this news will be relevant to our viewer x.

Direct, general and potentially direct news
If we give x a job in a hospital in Town A, she is likely to be affected more directly, than those who do not work in health care, by local news of financial decisions made by the health board from their headquarters in the public sector news rich area. Like anyone locally not having private health insurance, x will be affected generally by decisions or events changing local health provision but she will be potentially directly affected by any change that alters her own conditions of employment.

We can assume that a town or city of Town A’s size - probably 400-600,000 people - will provide x with most of her domestic and entertainment needs sufficient at least for the majority of her daily and weekly living requirements. The relations of direct, general and potentially direct news relevance we describe in the example for ‘health’ apply to all these and all other categories, with the relevance to x being described as a weak to strong relevance depending upon the extent of x’s involvement as a consumer/client of these local civic services or as an affected service provider in the industry/sector concerned.

News of indirect relevance
For x, local civic news focuses upon events and issues related to the area in which her personal decisions are made and her democratic influence most readily exerted. Due to the proximity of local news, the news is often seen presented and recorded for television from buildings and streets which are familiar to x. x may even know some of the frequent news actors if the service area is small or if the service is staffed by local people (for example, volunteers from x’s immediate neighbourhood). Local news about events from some parts of Town A may be more relevant to x than news from other parts, depending upon x’s hobbies, local interests, the location and interests of relatives and friends and so on. Physical distance is not the only criteria in determining local news interest (perceptual distance is equally important - in the sense that ‘x is close to so-and-so’ (though physically distant)). But the local map of ties each viewer has with others will have most in common in respect of shared (ie. civic and municipal) services and service demands. So while each possible x will have a markedly different social and cultural news profile they will share a similar civic news profile to their immediate neighbours - or alternatively live detached from civic interests, as a newcomer or visitor will be detached or ‘distant’ for different reasons. But it will be x’s association and ties with others living in Town A, her social news profile, which provide her with an interest in an indirect form of news, which concerns items that do not directly affect x but which could affect her associates. News from these areas will only be of indirect relevance to x although not entirely vicarious. 1

General and experiential news, general and consequential news
Many of the news items originating in the public sector news rich area (the lightly hatched parts of Figures 2 and 3) will either be general and experiential for x: that is to say, news which will affect the life of x but not in a specific, immediate or directly personal way or be of general and consequential influence. This will include news items which will affect those with whom x is immediately acquainted and who depend on x, while x herself will only be affected in some non-particular (general) way.

Direct and experiential news, indirect but consequential news
But some local news will be direct and experiential. An example of this news would be a surprise announcement by the health board of changes which will affect x’s livelihood and conditions of employment. Slightly less immediate are indirect but consequential news items such as news from the local education department of a decision to extend school hours at the school which x’s children attend.

Both direct and experiential and indirect but consequential news are more relevant to x than general and experiential and general and consequential news.

The news of serious injury to a dependent of x is direct and experiential news for x. (If such an accident had happened to x herself this would not be news but the event which the news describes.) Direct and experiential news affects the person listening, reading or viewing the news. Indirect but consequential news affects x by affecting someone known to and dependent upon x - emotionally, economically or socially. Should the education news affecting x’s children involve x in changing her own work timetable or in employing additional child-care then this can be read as both direct and experiential as well as indirect but consequential for x - the former because this news affects x directly in a change or modification of her plan or actions and the latter because x will be involved in placating her child who will now need to spend longer hours at school.

News needs and news focus
We suggest that x’s husband, ‘z’, works outside Town A. z’s local news needs are stretched between two distinct locations, and z’s news focus extends only so far as the thirty foot wide strip of road which he drives along from Town A to the industrial estate ‘w’ where he works.


Figure 4. location of z’s workplace at w

Primary and imminent local news interest, restricted news range
It is evident at some times during the day that z’s primary news interest is imminent - z is anticipating a particular news item on the TV news bulletin. z has a restricted interest focused on those physical events occurring or affecting the road and its immediate environment (represented by the diagonally hatched part of Figure 5), which straddles z’s route to and from work. This area will also be of some news interest to x, knowing that this is the route z takes at the busiest and most dangerous times to travel.



Figure 5. x’s husband’s imminent news interest

For z, as for any possible agent, there will also be hot spots of interest within their area of primary local news interest with relevance for news from that area drawn into sharper focus at different times. For z at 7.29am the primary local news interest is the imminence of direct and experiential news on whether the road between Town A and the industrial estate will be free of fog, free of queues and free of accidents. At 7.30am he will be told, he will know. His news interest is highly focused direct and experiential, but in advance of 7.30am it is an imminent not a present knowledge. z is awaiting news and, literally, if he receives ‘no news’ this will also be (good and wanted) news (or a wanted absence of news) because the absence of a bad report on this road will be of considerable value (assuming our local television news service to be reliable and consistent on this matter). In fact, z is hoping not to hear any news about this road at all - for any news will most likely offer something that will impede his progress to work. But at the weekends, z’s interest in news about the corridor between y and w will drop from imminence, to a more general level of interest. At the weekends and during holidays z will not wake up anxious every morning to know about any difficulties on his road but he will become interested - though without anticipation, unless unduly paranoid - if items affecting the road suggest difficulties for the working week ahead.

Imminent news is anticipated news in which x’s husband has a very direct interest. With imminent news any agent waits to know - and can imagine the possibilities and the actions forced upon them by those news items - because z or x require to know (or to know of nothing adverse) before they can act advisedly. Local news has restricted range and relevance and the news occurs in items and in the absence of items for those in that range.

Imminent news has a restricted range. For example in an extreme limit of range, at the moment approaching childbirth, the prospective parents want to know whether their child will be a boy or girl and whether they will be born healthy. This news is highly focused and restricted in generality, relevance and demand. News about any other child at that particular moment of birth, by comparison, is not relevant at all and not of news value to those approaching parenthood. News of childbirth is within a restricted news range.

But imminent news also introduces us to a form of news in which the receiver of the news can be an active or affected agent, a waiting anticipating agent who may be seeking to resolve doubt and require particular information or confirmation (in its absence) that is relevant to them, and perhaps relevant to only a handful of other people. They may be the object of the news.

We can imagine the local mayor of Town A sitting anxiously in his dressing gown waiting for the local morning newspaper to expose his recent affair with his secretary, he believes the media will uncover the story sooner or later: while outside on the pavement the shop steward stands with his portable radio waiting to hear if he heads his company’s redundancy list. These agents are anticipators of a news which will directly affect them, news which may describe them by name (the mayor) or by type (those being ‘let go’ from work). Imminent news can be direct and consequential. But awaiting one’s own appearance in a news item - perhaps as a specialist contributor or commentator - is not itself consequential (unless for polishing personal vanity) and not of the same consequence as if the news has the viewer as its object. For those who are not our mayor or shop steward these news items may still be relevant but not as relevant; for everyone else watching, listening or reading this news the news will not be imminent, direct or consequential.

Note
1 The distinction between ‘vicarious news’ and ‘experiential news’ is not fully made in this paper, since I focus here on species of ‘experiential news’. The term ‘indirect news relevance’ takes us along a path that separates the ‘experiential’ from the ‘vicarious’, and I intend to address the variety in this gradation elsewhere. For now, the broad notion of vicarious and experiential is outlined in Dave Rushton, ‘Noisy Channels’, in Don Quixote’s Art & Television: Seeing Things in Art & Television, Institute of Local Television, 1998. Viewers can be interested in news which is entertaining, which may be vicarious and therefore not be experiential. Vicarious news does not seek viewer relevance (it avoids relevance) and satisfies its objectives by maintaining viewer interest.

Bibliography
Media Studies Center, News Advisory, April 1997
Americans tune in more regularly to local TV news than to any other source of news and information, according to Newseum/Roper Centre survey of 1500 people. (p1) Lawrence K Grossman, ‘Why Local TV News is So Awful’, Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 1997.
Local TV newscasts are now the public’s number one source of news, according to a recent survey by Louis Harris for The Center for Media and Public Affairs. (p1)Per Jauert & Ole Prehn, ‘Local Television and Local News’, Communications, The European Journal of Communication Research, Volume 22, Number 1 March 1997
... news programmes are given high priority in mission statements and as political legitimisation. (p53).
.. what the analysis [of local news programming in Aalborg and Aarhus in Denmark] shows regarding the general programming profile is that the two stations resemble any commercial station operating with predominantly cheap entertainment programmes, and that the news programmes are adapted to the news programming stereotypes of national and international channels. Accordingly, the political argument that local television is important to preserve due to its role as a local alternative to the press could not be verified. (p54).

 

This paper was presented at the colloquium 'City-television: Future Perspectives' held in Brussels on 5th March 2004.

Local Television as Public Service Broadcasting
It is two years since a flurry of local terrestrial television channels peaked and then started to collapse in the UK. A small number of services are still running – holding onto the ambition. Once again the search is on for a route through new communications regulations to secure for the future a more permanent network of local digital television channels.

The search for a new role for public service broadcasting coincides with a serious option to propose a national local digital terrestrial television network in the roll out of digital television.

The spur to this enquiry in the UK has been the Communications Act of 2003 and its creation of a new regulator to accelerate digital switchover and manage the convergence of telecoms and broadcasting by combining the functions of five separate regulators. The new regulator is called Ofcom and its priorities for the next year are being shaped by a series of public consultations, which began last month.
It remains to be seen whether the local TV lobby ACTO has sufficiently impressed the regulators for local television licencing to be resumed for analogue transmission and for the necessary work to begin on a frequency plan for a local digital terrestrial network – but that has been the goal.

Firstly though - how did the UK’s local television rise and then stumble badly?
Cable has never been a serious option for local TV in the UK – poorly regulated and with low reach it has by and large been a hostile environment.

In 1997 more than thirty organisations applied to the television regulator – the Independent Television Commission – for frequencies on which to run local television services for their areas. Where successful the applicants were offered licences to run local TV under a ‘restricted services licence’ or an ‘RSL’.
At the same time as local television was arriving on frequencies in the analogue spectrum, arrangements were well under way to introduce digital terrestrial television on frequencies also being squeezed alongside the five main analogue television channels. This digital multiplex plan was a priority so whatever frequencies remained available for use for local television were limited and of low power - so there were mixed results for local television reception.

For a ‘national’ model of terrestrial television broadcasting it is irrelevant that a TV signal broadcast to (say) a big city like Manchester carries the same programmes as a signal reaching a smaller city thirty miles away (such as) Liverpool.
A second problem when transmitting television to towns and cities affected by hills is that several transmitters are required to reach a particular population in a town or city.

The problem of differentiation has not been thought to matter – until a demand for local television was identified.

Public service broadcasting traditionally represented its ‘universal’ appeal by not differentiating between viewers. By its nature local television seeks to address particular communities – populations living in cities, towns or distinct rural areas, language or minority communities. Where it is available cable provides the better prospect for tailoring a fit between service and viewers.

When analogue frequencies were offered to local television in the UK in 1997 they had to fit in alongside the spectrum used for national and regional analogue and also the spectrum used to carry the digital terrestrial television channels.

• the local television signal must be transmitted from the site from which the TV audience is already receiving its TV signals – for existing roof-top TV aerials to pick up the signal it must be the same site or at least in line of sight with the aligned transmitter site.

• the local television frequency must be in or close to the aerial band used by the existing TV services – in order for it to be received clearly.

• the power of the local signal must not be significantly weaker than that of the prevailing TV signals – so the local signal is not swamped in comparison with reception of the other services.

The problems were not all of a technical nature and the renewed interest in a local digital network questions whether local television ambitions must be abandoned
A recent BBC Scotland journalism survey found that 81% of viewers wanted a more local television news service than was available from regional television. This finding confirms studies undertaken by the Institute of Local Television in the early 1990s and of the Henley Centre for Forecasting who found that the public were particularly interested in news that came from within approximately a five-mile radius of where they lived. Civic news and news relevant to viewers originates within a relatively small area – covering schools, workplace, local tax, politics, leisure and so on. It is in this local universe that we live our immediate political and social lives and fulfil a civic role.

In a paper published in 1993 I examined research conducted in 1976 by the Independent Broadcasting Authority – the then regulator of the regional independent television companies. The conclusion I came to was that the term ‘regional’ and ‘local’ were both used interchangeably by those writing the study, whereas it was less evident that regional and local had meant exactly the same to those being interviewed.

In the absence of a local television service, regional television is as local as it gets.

For brevity I will repeat the EBU definition: -

" That the system of public broadcasting in the Member States is directly related to the democratic, social and cultural needs of each society and to the need to preserve media pluralism".

Ofcom has been charged with "maintaining and strengthening the quality of public service... broadcasting in the UK."

Channel 4 chief executive Mark Thompson suggested at an Oxford Media Convention in 2003 that:

" The dominant language of Ofcom is going to be the language of economics, competition and public policy rather than the historic language of public service broadcasting, culture and high culture.

" If we want to preserve and develop public service broadcasting as a cultural force, we have to find arguments and evidence that are based in the new language.
The real problems arise when it comes to delivering the cultural purposes of public service broadcasting. How do you measure the extent to which programmes educate citizens or 'facilitate civil understanding"?

Mark Thompson described these as "merit goods," programmes that have "positive secondary benefits over and above the immediate benefit they confer on the consumer."

" Thoughtful, inspiring television like this can jump categories and make real differences among the public... Public service broadcasters can be seen as engines to create as many merit goods as possible and across as wide a range of genres as possible. I certainly think this approach is preferable to one that restricts 'true' public service to a handful of hardcore traditional genres."

Local TV interests are arguing that local television be reintroduced as a public service broadcaster – with local service requirements geared to scale and reach. The ideal may be simply that as public service broadcasters an element of content should fulfill accepted criteria – as yet to be defined, which in turn would enable the service to access the community media fund. In all the local television services that have been running recently, there is a public service element – all encourage some volunteer and/or educational involvement. The general qualification for PSB status is that within each local universe – town borough, county or city - it is local TV which is well placed to offer participation by its viewers in their service – as managers, producers, programme contributors, trainers and trainees and as policy makers. The argument is that it is feasible at a certain scale of broadcasting – and in rural areas the scale is bigger than for towns and cities – for local television (and local and community radio) to address constructively a raft of social, cultural and media literacy issues and for viewers (and listeners) to meaningfully participate in the organization and implementation of their broadcast media.

The Communications Act 2003 opens up new horizons for broadcasting, which local and community media might address.

• Media literacy – a comprehensive (and surprisingly detailed) duty upon Ofcom. Elsewhere I have teased out what I think are potentially useful ways in which the local TV community might offer its services to help deliver a meaningful media literacy – one which includes an understanding of making broadcast media as part (or alternative) to a more sophisticated interpretation or understanding. That is – encouraging media writing alongside the media reading of existing texts.
Of greater interest (perhaps) is the idea in the media literacy paragraphs of the Act that the public should become aware of – and participate in – media regulation.
Here this suggests a possibility for subsidiarity – or for devolution – of media policy and regulation to smaller more local agencies – local to the area in which a broadcast frequency is used to deliver a service. One suggestion is that broadcasting should be regulated at or near its area of transmission, that regulation and policy should involve the stakeholders in the service, national, regional and ultimately local – each layer corresponding to the footprint of service.

• Community media fund – with the intervention of the Community Media Association this was successfully changed from an access radio fund to a community media fund – with an indication that local digital television would be able to receive funds from this source – when (or if) there are local digital television services.

• Local authority broadcasting licences – for the first time local authorities can become licensees – of any broadcasting service. The interest among local authorities is low – but there is potential for alliances with local digital television.

• Digital planning - general key role for Ofcom to ‘help drive forward digital switchover and broadband roll-out and competition’Taken together an exploration of the Communications Act provides support for a network of local digital television channels -introduced as the digital multiplexes are completed and analogue progressively switched off.

Now this is a very big ambition. There are currently some 650 digital transmitter sites shared with their analogue counterparts – and this will be increased to over 1100 before the government analogue switch-off target of 95% digital coverage is achieved.

It is important that the mistakes made with the analogue RSLs are not repeated.

• The local signal must be in band – in the same band as the prevailing digital multiplexes

• The local signal must be of equal strength to the existing multiplexes

• The local signal should be sited alongside the multiplex transmitters.

However, there is an important addition. For the efficient use of frequency – and the drive for efficiency is the drive to digital – each local television service will itself be part of a multiplex – not a single service, but six (or more) local channels.
In some parts of the country where there are big transmitters serving undifferentiated populations in half a dozen towns, cities or distinct city areas – then it is envisaged that all six services would be broadcast across the area – while only one of these channels may be particularly relevant to each area. There might be a mix of programming which differentiated six channels geographically at some parts of the day then shifted to provide six distinct minorities or community of interest services to reach minorities across the region at other times.

In other parts of the country – where a very local low powered relay transmitter is to be used – the six signals could provide a segmented service for most or all of their broadcasts. Here transmission would reach a small geographic community, but offer a variety of channels, a local music channel, educational service, community TV, open channel and local authority service.

As the planning for the digital multiplexes nears completion in some parts of the UK it is vital that planning for the introduction – or discussion of planning for the introduction – of local digital television gets underway.

There are, however, alternatives developing – in the one case to provide a transitional service upon which new broadcasters can cut their teeth, and in the other case – to seize on the convergence in capacity and character between broadcasting and broadband and to deliver television services as web-streaming.
To conclude – let us step away from regulated broadcasting altogether, throw our hands in the air in despair that the forces reigned against us have been insurmountable and intractable and look to alternatives …….

Broadband is one option, this is another ….

The 2.4GHz frequency is recognized internationally as licence exempt for use at up to 10milliwatts. The Institute of Local Television has just completed a year long trial using this transmission and relay