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MEDIA COVERAGE OF COLUMBINE SHOOTINGS IN U.S. & SAUDI ARABIA.
Term Paper ID:28989
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Essay Subject:
Compares coverage in the 2 different countries & cultures.... More...
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8 Pages / 1800 Words
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Paper Abstract:
Compares coverage in the 2 different countries & cultures. Examines differing content. Role of press in both countries. Political structure of Saudi Arabia; role of mass media; government regulations. Freedom of Press in U.S.; limits in U.S. (obscenity, libel, clear & present danger principle). Control of media.
Paper Introduction:
The shootings and death at Columbine High School in Colorado in the spring of 1999 were in many ways a quintessentially American event. Not only did the events -– in which two high school students invaded their own school armed as if they were army commandos and slaughtered fellow students and teachers -– take place on American ground, but the incident spoke to wide-ranging cultural concerns already present in the United States.
This was not the first school shooting in the United States. Others have followed it since, but it received an almost dizzying amount of notice in the media. Perhaps this is because of the scale of the carnage, perhaps merely because it happened to come at the historical moment when Americans were beginning to be ready to deal with the consequences of their living in such a highly armed society. It could also be because it occurred as the c
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It is not up to negotiation. Are they there to serve as anarm of the government? In 1992 King Fahdestablished the Shura Council, a body of 6 ministers selected by the kingas advisers. 28-33). Country review: Saudi Arabia. (1999, June). 37). Whether this was because this is simply the common style forAmerican news wire stories or whether it was a deliberate attempt on thepart of the Saudi press to limit the damage to Americans' reputation is notclear. (1994). For Americans, everything is up to negotiation because Americansociety is intentionally built on a secular document designed from itsinception with a formal mechanism to allow changes to be written into toallow for cultural and social change (the amendment process). But even beyond this is the clear sense that newspapers in the UnitedStates used this event as a chance to make Americans ask themselves iftheir government was exactly as they wanted it to be, if their society wasexactly as they wanted it to be. P. (1992, November) Monarchs, mullas, and marshals: Islamic regimes. New York: Columbia University. But beyond the issue of guns in society and the ways in which childrencan or cannot be protected from the violence that seems to surround eachone of us in today's society, another aspect of the way in which theColumbine tragedy was covered was also fundamentally American, and that wasthe freedom with which both broadcast and print media covered the issue.While this may have gone un-remarked by Americans who are used to suchextensive coverage of events even this strikingly violent in nature, thedifference in coverage of the events in the United States and abroad canhighlight differing cultural attitudes between the United States and othercountries. 28). 1 8). Mass media in the kingdom are controlled by the Saudi Press andPublication Code, which stipulates that no material that disturbs thepublic order or the people's morality may be published. Saudi Arabia, being a smaller country than the United States, has farfewer newspapers, only about a dozen (including several in English)compared to the hundreds of newspapers in the United States. The UnitedStates has newspapers published in a variety of languages to reflect thegreat diversity of this country of immigrants. 98). There is no possible way for the shootings toaffect Saudis as much, and so one would except the coverage to be (as itwas) cooler, less impassioned, more clinically objective. If you beginwith the idea that society is indeed going to change, then it makes perfectsense that you need an activist press, one that has the ability tocriticize every aspect of the culture and the society, including itsleaders. Such a contrast requires us to ask whatexactly are journalists and newspapers for? In Saudi Arabia, the government operates radio and televisionbroadcasting services, with several million radios and television receiversin use and well over 1 million telephones, meaning that many Saudis nowhave access to foreign media coverage of events through the Internet orthrough fax service. Focus, 45 (3), pp. References Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999 CD-ROM version. The king usuallyalso serves as Saudi Arabia's prime minister. Notonly did the events -- in which two high school students invaded their ownschool armed as if they were army commandos and slaughtered fellow studentsand teachers -- take place on American ground, but the incident spoke towide-ranging cultural concerns already present in the United States. It could also be because it occurred as thecandidates for this year's presidential elections were hammering out theirpositions, and this is an example of what happens when so many (but notall!) citizens have guns. (1999, winter). Of course,there was a great deal more coverage of Columbine in the United States, asthere will always be more coverage of an event the closer that one gets tothe place where it occurred. 37). Unlike the generation before them, today's Saudis havea much greater chance to be able to learn about the world both from insidetheir own culture and by viewing it through the eyes of people across theglobe, which has at least in some ways produced a sense of technologicallyinduced cultural relativism (Kelly, 1998, p. Karwan, I. It is generally believed that withoutfree media, a free society and democratic self-government would not bepossible. The royal family and a fewother prominent families provide most higher government officials. Kelley, R. During World War I, forexample, restrictions were placed on the direct advocacy of treason and oncriticism of the government, conscription, or the American flag (Walachow,1994. There is nothing surprising or even terriblyremarkable about this and so it shall not be a focus of this paper.Instead, the differing content of the coverage in the two countries shallbe examined. Massachusetts may once again have fired the shot heard round the world. Such a thing is really not imaginable inSaudi Arabia, where how a society should be is the way that the Korandictates. This set of regulations, in which the press is clearly designed to bean aid to the government in promoting national pride and stability, isalmost entirely different from the major provision under U.S. The principle has long been established that the press maynot be used in circumstances that would create a "clear and present danger"of bringing about serious consequences to some significant interest thatthe government has a right or duty to protect. culture and the American government. Saudi Arabia had nowritten constitution until March 1992, when a series of royal decreesestablished a bill of rights, increased the powers of provincialgovernments, and provided for a 6 -member Consultative Council, to beappointed by the king (Wiley, 1999, p. World Press Review, various articles. lawconcerning the media, which is the First Amendment prohibition ofgovernment interference in the way in which news is defined, written anddistributed. Are they merely another for-profit business thatshould be allowed to design the sexiest possible product and so be able toattract the largest numbers of advertisers and readers or viewers? To understand the place of the media within Saudi Arabia one mustfirst understand a little about the overall political structure of thecountry. Othershave followed it since, but it received an almost dizzying amount of noticein the media. This is very different from policies in the Arab world. By recognizing the right to dissent, the governments of theUnited States, Canada, Western Europe, and other emerging democraciesencourage peaceful and orderly social and political change. This lack of accompanyingeditorials was the most striking difference (World Press Review summary,June 1999). Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 524, pp. A political system that is based in the ahistorical tenets of Islam isnot one that Islamic leaders wish to change; rather they wish to preserveit, and this difference between Western ideas about the importance andinevitability of progress the desire in the Arab world to stay as close tothe heart of Islamic teachings as possible has important consequences forhow much freedom the press is allowed in the two countries. Beyond this, the 1965 National Security Law and the 1982 Media PolicyStatement call on editors to uphold Islam, oppose atheism, promote Arabinterests and preserve the cultural heritage of the country. Saudi Arabia has no separate legislature or political parties.Laws are issued by the king and his ministers. -- by editorials on what the incident saidabout U.S. Constitution, which became known as the Bill ofRights. The shootings and death at Columbine High School in Colorado in thespring of 1999 were in many ways a quintessentially American event. New York: Commercial Data International. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy with a government based on the Sharia,the sacred law of Islam, which is interpreted according to the strictHanbali rite by the learned religious elders, or ulama. It should be noted that even in the United States freedom of the pressis not absolute. Another important limit on the free press is the law of libel,involving the defamation of a person, false accusations, or exposure ofsomeone to hatred, ridicule, or pecuniary loss. If you begin with a society like Saudi Arabia that is relativelyhomogeneous and governed by the tenets of a single religion, then you willhave a press that is a quasi-governmental body and that filters out imagesthat would upset the leaders' sense of where they wish the country to go.Both models can work to the benefit of their countries, but neither couldwork if they were removed from their particular cultural matrix. This was not the first school shooting in the United States. B1. McGrory, 2 , p.B1) is only to be expected. The governmentprovides guidelines to newspapers on controversial issues and sensitivesubjects such as crime or terrorism (the shootings in Columbine might beconsidered one or both). Even though Saudi media outlets are independent,each of them works under the threat of being banned, a threat that isusually sufficient to avoid violating government regulations laid on them(Kelly, 1998, p. This paper examines one such set of differences, those betweencoverage of the events in the United States and in Saudi Arabia. (1998). Furthermore,newspapers are prohibited from publishing material that offends the dignityof heads of states or diplomatic missions accredited to the Kingdom orinsults or defames individuals -- a set of regulations somewhat broaderthan those adhered to in the United Kingdom or the United States but notmuch broader. Saudi Arabia, land of contrasts: Some Keys to (understanding) the kingdom. 41). The council, however, has no legislative powers (Karwan, 1992,p. This paper has not been meant as a criticism of the media of eitherthe United States or a Saudi Arabia but rather as a way of examining thevery different press traditions that exist in today's world, even when theexact same event is being covered. Wiley, J. (2 , May 9). The 1st Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law ...abridging the freedom of speech, or the press" Although intended as aguarantee limiting the federal government, its reach was extended by the14th Amendment (1868) to protect the press from abridgment by the states. Perhaps this is because of the scale of the carnage, perhapsmerely because it happened to come at the historical moment when Americanswere beginning to be ready to deal with the consequences of their living insuch a highly armed society. The wire service coverage that ran in the Saudi press also in generalgave less historical background, which tended to give the impression thatsuch violent incidents are less common than they actually are in the UnitedStates. et al. This iscertainly not the case in Saudi Arabia, which is not a democracy and whichis not interested in promoting political change (Walachow, 1994, p. Freedom of the press is the immunity of the communications media(including newspapers, books, magazines, radio, and television) fromgovernment control or censorship, including the kind of self-censorshipthat occurs when the government can drive a publication out of business ifit does not adhere to the party line. Free expression: International essays in law and philosophy. In some ways, the selection of this particular news event was notentirely fair, for Americans had far more at stake than did Saudis, and sothe fact that the coverage of Columbine in the American press included farmore soul-searching -- and continues to do so today (viz. Within the West, freedom of the pressis regarded as fundamental to individual rights, human dignity, self-respect, and personal responsibility. Today this exception, likethe law of libel, has been narrowed so as to exclude from theconstitutional guarantee only so-called hard-core pornography (Walachow,1994, p. The idea of a free press as a spur towards an ever-improving societyis as old in the United States as the country itself. Theking's power in practice is determined in part by his personality and onhow he interacts with the leading families and religious officials of thecountry. In 1964 the Supreme Courtweighed the libel law against the interests protected by the 1st Amendment.The Court held that a public figure who sues a newspaper for libel canrecover damages only if the person can prove that the statement printed wasmade with actual malice, that is, "with knowledge that it was false or withreckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Until about the mid-2 th century, the law of obscenity was also asubstantial limitation on freedom of the press. 1 3-12 . Whoshould have ultimate control of the media - or is any sort of controlautomatically damning of the information gathering process. When the first U.S.Congress met in 1789, its main order of business was the adoption of tenamendments to the U.S. Walachow, W. Given these fundamentally differing views on the role of the press inthe two countries, the differing coverage of the event is hardlysurprising, even though much of the coverage that ran in Saudi newspapersactually came from American wire reports, although there was generally lessdiscussion of the exact nature of the violence, the bodies of femalevictims were not shown and the news stories were not accompanied -- as theywere everywhere in the U.S. McGrory, M. 12). The Washington Post, p. This was an issue that became woven into theearly rhetoric of the campaign -- with progressives lobbying for greatergun control and conservatives arguing for armed teachers. The chief government and religious official of Saudi Arabia is a king.Succession to the office is not hereditary, and the crown prince, whosucceeds the king, is chosen from among the Saud royal family by the familyin consultation with religious and government leaders.
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