ABSTRACT
We know that television affects us. TV news is our main source of information for national and international events. But what do we bring to our understanding of television? New research from the Glasgow University Media Group shows that what we understand and believe about the television message is influenced by our own personal history, political culture and class experience. In a new study (Philo 1990) groups of people from different parts of the country were given news photographs from the 1984/5 miners’ strike. They were then asked to imagine that they were journalists and were invited to write their own news stories. They were also questioned about their memories of the strike and about what they believed about specific issues – for example, was the picketing that had taken place mostly peaceful or mostly violent?
