Media Bias in Reporting Social Research?

The Case of Reviewing Ethnic Inequalities in Education

Martyn Hammersley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134192670
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In recent years, the importance of disseminating the findings of social research has been given increased emphasis. The most effective way in which this can be done is via the mass media. However, there are frequent complaints that media coverage of social and educational research is very limited and often distorted. Through a detailed analysis of a particular case about ethnic inequalities in educational achievement, this book examines some of the processes involved in the reporting of research findings, and their implications for judgements about media distortion and bias. This volume is relevant to many fields, including education, media studies, cultural studies, sociology and social policy.

1 From Review to press release

In studying the media, there has been increasing recognition of the role that sources play. Where before these tended to be treated as passive, with journalists selecting from what they offered, the relationship has come to be seen as rather more dynamic, and indeed as sometimes conflictual.¹ Some agencies that provide source material play an active role in seeking to manage the news so as to serve their own goals. This forms part of the burgeoning ‘public relations’ industry and the rise of ‘political spin’. Of course, on the other side, journalists do still pursue and select from sources in order to get access to, and to extract, what they need for their stories. And each side is aware that the other may be engaged in strategic action that could amount to manipulation. Sometimes the goals of the two sides will be in close alignment, so that collusion is facilitated. At other times, there will be direct confrontation. Usually, though, the situation is somewhere between these two extremes, and each side may seek to work on the other to further its own goals.

Generally speaking, academics are not very active in their role as sources of news material (see Fenton et al. 1998: 91–2). However, there are increasing pressures on them to become so, as part of demonstrating the value of their work. Moreover, some of the organizations with which they are involved – universities, funding bodies, professional associations, etc. – now play a more pro-active role than in the past, at least in seeking to attract the attention of the media to newly emerging research material.

The case of Recent Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils is significant in this respect. Its lead author made considerable effort to get the Review reported, and in ways that represented its message accurately; and both authors worked in a university institution whose Press Office is widely regarded as highly effective. Much more importantly, though, the Review was commissioned by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), a non-departmental government agency that is responsible for school inspection in England and Wales. And OFSTED has a strong track record in publicizing its reports. As we shall see, the link with OFSTED, and thereby with the UK Government, seems to have played a key role in the level of coverage given to the Review by the media.

In this chapter I want to look at the Review itself, in terms of how it was structured for its projected audience, and also at its presentation to the media via a press release and press conference.

THE REVIEW: FORM AND CONTENT

Reviews of research literature can vary considerably in form. This will reflect the purposes that motivated them and the audience(s) they were directed towards (Foster and Hammersley 1998; Bassey 2000). They necessarily involve selection from a body of work in a field, in terms of what will be included, and usually also the assignment of differential importance to particular studies. In addition, the reviewer must summarize the findings of these research studies, either individually or by integrating them in some way. Reviews may be designed to reflect a consensus among researchers in the field; though, of course, consensus is almost always partial and sometimes there is little agreement on key issues. On other occasions, reviewers may take a more independent line as regards what parts of the field are most important, as well as in judging the validity of particular findings. Reviews also vary in the extent to which they limit themselves to stating the factual conclusions of research, or go on to draw policy recommendations. Reviews that are directed at a lay audience are especially likely to extend discussion to policy implications – on the grounds that this audience may be primarily interested in these.²

Up to now my discussion has ignored the fact that reviewers may act under various constraints, that they do not simply make these decisions on their own account. And the authors of the Review did work under some significant constraints. It was produced on the basis of a commissioning brief prepared by OFSTED, and after it had been written there were extended negotiations before it was finally published. Indeed, according to one of the authors (David Gillborn, personal communication), publication was only forced by a public statement from the then head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who criticized the delay in publishing it (Times Educational Supplement, 3 May 1996, p. 1).³

As already noted, one of the most important dimensions along which reviews of research vary is in terms of their target audience. Some are aimed mainly at fellow researchers and at students doing research projects in the field. Others are explicitly directed towards audiences beyond the research community. The nature of the sponsoring organization would suggest that the review I am concerned with here falls into the latter category. And, indeed, on the Review’s back cover we find the following statement:

Recent Research in the Achievement of Ethnic Minority Pupils is another in the series of OFSTED Reviews of Research. OFSTED has commissioned these reviews in order to make published research findings more accessible to teachers and trainee teachers.

Furthermore, within the body of the Review, it is stated by the authors that the focus is on ‘issues that directly influence pupils’ achievements which relate to education or school policy or matters that teachers might want to address as part of their work (Gillborn and Gipps 1996: 7). However, from interviews with the authors it is clear that they expected the readership to include fellow academics, perhaps even more than teachers. This illustrates a general point: even when there is a specific target audience, it is unlikely that this will be the only one taken into account in producing a review. And sometimes the officially stated audience is not the expected one. Writers are often addressing multiple audiences, simultaneously or in different parts of the documents they produce. Nevertheless, who are the intended or expected audiences will shape the character, and also to some extent the content, of reviews.

In large part, then, my aim in this chapter is to identify the intended message of the Review and how it has been shaped for audience reception. At the same time, I am also concerned with how readers might approach and interpret the Review, especially – but not exclusively – media journalists: in other words, with what messages they might reasonably draw from it. So there is an important sense in which my analysis seeks to operate in two directions at once, in order to grasp the role of the Review in mediating the findings of research to the news media, and in turn to their audiences.

Let me begin by outlining the Review’s structure and content, beginning with what Genette refers to as the paratext – in particular, the cover and initial pages (Genette 1997).⁴

The cover and the initial pages

The cover of the Review is what any reader will first come into contact with. The format here is A4 portrait, as against the smaller format that is more common for books and pamphlets. This seems calculated to attract attention, and much the same function probably lies behind the design of the cover – in particular the use of multi-colour printing (six colours, plus black and white).

Of course, readers will not necessarily take much notice of the cover, and we cannot know what parts of it they will read, or how. Still, it seems reasonable to assume that they might start with the front, and would read from left to right and from top to bottom, as readers of English do in approaching other texts.⁵ Following this path, the first item on the cover of the Review is the OFSTED icon, and the full name of this organization; these are placed in the top right hand corner. Next comes the title of the review – Recent Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils – which occupies the second third of the cover down from the top. This is printed in much larger type than everything else, white on a dark blue background. In the bottom left hand corner are the names of the authors and their institutional affiliation. Finally, running vertically down the left hand side of the front cover there is a purple strip on which is printed in capitals, in landscape orientation, ‘OFSTED REVIEWS OF RESEARCH’. The background of the front cover is a red diamond-shaped pattern of abstract design, with small light blue square and oblong markings (some joined together) within each diamond.

The back cover of the Review might be the next port of call for some readers. Here, following the same reading procedure, first of all there is a summary of the Review’s findings, printed in the top left third of the cover, in purple print on a light blue background. We will examine the content of this summary later. Below there is a further specification of the series from which the Review comes (this was quoted earlier) which indicates that the target audience is teachers and trainee teachers. This is in white print on a dark blue background. In the bottom half of the back cover, on the left, are details, including addresses of bookshops, of the publisher: HMSO. The background pattern is the same as on the front. Finally, on the spine, is the title of the Review and the publisher’s name.

Looking at the front and back covers together, we can try to make an assessment of the salience to readers of their different components. Most prominent of all is likely to be the title, as a result of the size of the print and the use of white letters on a dark background. After this, the name ‘OFSTED’ seems most striking, given that it is mentioned in two places on the front, once quite prominently in spatial location and the other in the largest print used (though in landscape orientation). Furthermore, OFSTED is already a widely known name, and is therefore more likely to be registered by readers than some other elements. For these reasons, OFSTED would probably be more salient to most readers than the names of the authors; and this is perhaps reinforced by the fact that those names do not appear on the back cover, whereas the name of OFSTED does. HMSO as publisher probably comes below the authors in terms of prominence, since it does not appear on the front cover, though it is included on the spine as well as on the back cover.

On opening the Review, readers are likely to go to the title page first. This is a black, grey (five shades), and white replica of the front cover. There are two typographical changes, however. One is that the names and affiliations of the authors are now in black print, with the names themselves in bold. As a result, these stand out more sharply than on the cover, though they are still in the bottom left corner. The other change is that ‘LONDON: HMSO’ now appears at the bottom of the page to the right of the authors’ names, in the same level of bold type as their affiliations, but in a slightly smaller typeface. The OFSTED logo and name are still in the top right position, and the vertical band referring to OFSTED reviews of research is also presented again. Given this, it seems likely that, here too, this will be the most prominent feature – after the title – for many readers.

The obverse of the title page assigns the copyright of the review to the Crown, carries the ISBN number, and has the name, address, telephone and fax numbers of OFSTED. The next of the preliminary pages is a dedication to Barry Troyna, an educational researcher whose work was concerned with ethnic inequalities, who died in 1996, the year in which the Review was published. The next preliminary page is blank apart from the page number. Following this, there is the list of contents, which takes up two pages. As is normal, this presents the chapter titles and within-chapter headings, along with page numbers.

As a whole, the Review is 91 pages long (including references), and is broken down into six sections. It begins with what is sometimes referred to as an ‘executive summary’ and ends with a section entitled ‘Conclusions’, whose subheading is ‘ways forward: policy and practice’. Between the opening summary and the conclusion, there is an introduction followed by separate chapters on: the achievement levels of ethnic groups; research dealing with the relative educational progress of different groups and the significance of school effectiveness as a factor in this; the findings of qualitative research on multi-ethnic schools; and evidence about the situation in post-compulsory education. Each of these chapters begins with a title printed in white on a purple strip, and this is followed by a summary of the chapter’s main points (which is close in content to the relevant section of the executive summary). These chapter summaries are printed in purple on a mauve background.

In the body of the chapters there are sub-headings, often printed in capitals, in white on a purple background. In addition, some sentences in the body of the text are picked out for emphasis. In some chapters this is done by printing them in italics in mauve on a white background. There is also considerable other use made of italicization of clauses and sentences, as well as bullet points printed in black on a mauve background, or simply on a white background.

What should emerge clearly from this description is that considerable effort went into making the Review attract and engage the attention of potential readers, far more so than is the case with most research reports, and even most literature reviews. Furthermore, within the Review, the use of multi-colour printing, italics, bold print and bullet points, plus the provision of summaries, seems designed to focus attention on what are intended to be its key points. While some of these devices are common in academic research reports, there is much greater use of them here.

The content of the Review

Writing a review for a lay audience involves the reviewer in working backwards and forwards between a body of research and an audience potentially interested in the issues to which it can be related. However, it is important not to think of either the research or the audience as fixed and completely defined from the beginning, though at the same time they are not simply inventions of the reviewer. He or she must delineate, and in a sense construct, both the research field to be reviewed and the desired and likely audiences. On this basis, the reviewer must select and summarize what seems likely to be relevant and of interest to target audiences, but the target audience will also be defined, and redefined, as those who will be or should be interested in this research. And these processes of construction and reconstruction will be carried out within parameters set by what the researcher takes to be fixed features of both research and audience, as well as any external constraints that must be taken into account.

One aspect of defining the research field is setting its temporal boundaries. Recent Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils does not state any time period explicitly, but it does refer to the fact that ‘more than a decade has passed since the last major review of the educational experiences and achievements of ethnic minority pupils’ (Gillborn and Gipps 1996: 1).⁶ The reference is to the Swann Report (Swann 1985), which included a discussion of the research findings that were then available about the educational experience of ethnic minority children. In addition, it commissioned a series of reviews of research findings relating to the educational experience of different ethnic minorities and factors affecting this (Taylor 1981, Taylor with Hegarty 1985; Taylor 1987, 1986, 1988). So, the implication is that the new review is intended to cover research since the publication of the Swann Report, and the associated reviews (though, in fact, the latter are not mentioned in the Review). And this is confirmed by the fact that if we look at the references included in the Review, we find that over 90 per cent of them are to work published in the 1980s and 1990s.

It is worth noting that one of the effects of this temporal framing is that most of the research available for review focuses on processes within the education system, rather than on home and community background, which had been the main focus of previous research on the education of ethnic minority children. This reflects a fundamental change in the research field, and perhaps more widely. Earlier reviews had underlined the neglect of institutional processes and called for more research in that area. However, what followed was an almost complete switch in focus motivated by other factors as well as the desire to remedy a gap in the literature. It reflected a general change in the intellectual and political climate, away from explanations for differential educational achievement in terms of pupils’ home or community backgrounds, and towards a focus on the operation of the education system as itself generating differences in educational outcome across social class and ...