B201 Broadcasting & Society

A Critique of the ‘The People’s Communication Charter: an International Covenant of Standards’ - Testing and evaluating the Charter compliance against BBC NEWS 24 and CNN

This theory-based unit was an opportunity for me to study the correlation between broadcasting and our society. In doing this, I introduced myself to an array of theoretical concepts and frameworks - from modernism to postmodernism, and the public sphere and its relevance to broadcasting, past and present. In preparation to critique The People’s Communication Charter: An International Covenant of Standards, I also looked at a range of key theoretical concepts (e.g. ideology, hegemony, discourse, identity) and their application to the study and practice of broadcasting. This in turn involved researching and the changing representations of gender, class and race within the broadcast media across a range of genres.

At the end of the unit, I submitted a critique of The People’s Communication Charter: An International Covenant of Standards, bringing together the appropriate concepts and applying them. The People’s Communication Charter: An International Covenant of Standards is an unofficial document detailing a fair, and most people say idealistic, communication system allowing anybody in the world equal access to all communication systems. Although it sounds a good idea, the document contains many contradicting clauses canceling out others.

You can read The People’s Communication Charter: An International Covenant of Standards by visiting http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring99/Documents/Congress/Charter_intro/Charter/charter.html.

The experience of conducting this piece of research assisted me to become attuned to deconstructing and interrogating high-level theoretical concepts and theories. This, in turn, lead me on to develop a critical and substantiated natural awareness of the broadcast and communications industry which enabled me to achieve a high standard of work in my final year of my degree.