Media Assessment, Manipulation, and the Dynamics of Live Broadcasts
Assessing the Value of Live Event Coverage
The informative value of a live event account is determined by elements that impact the overall value of the event:
- Audience size during high or low emission hours, and the channel’s full or partial coverage of the country, making it accessible to a certain number of viewers.
- The duration of the transmission in relation to other programs. The time allotted to each program or news segment is a factor for evaluating its importance.
- The order in which segments are offered within the whole issue: whether the segment is prefixed or followed by another program that, for example, frivolizes its contents.
Aesthetic factors are superseded by intensity, freshness, and simplicity.
The Spectacle of Information
1. Impact on Witnesses and Protagonists
There is tension for both the players and the team coach. Therefore, the broadcast team must be prepared to offer high levels of improvisation.
2. Impact on the Viewer
The viewer follows and observes the event more closely than the real spectators. The viewer is at their own scene.
3. Impact on the Event Itself
On television, the detail often takes precedence over the most important aspects, and global considerations and judgments are addressed. The sharp details desired by the viewer are the ones that introduce drama: a dramatic moment involving a bull, a violation, etc.
Manipulative Practices in Broadcasting
Ideological manipulation is not unique to direct or deferred broadcasts.
1. Manipulation Before Program Commencement
In the preliminary selection of themes, dosage, and schedule. These selections characterize the priorities and values held by the broadcasters. The types of programs broadcast live most often are:
- Official ceremonies, official events, arrivals, and farewells of personalities.
- Sports competitions of all kinds often prevail, especially football.
- Outstanding political developments.
- Panels, debates, and round tables featuring personalities, prepared by the station and following the selection of individuals.
- Public programs with competitions, musical performances, festivals, etc.
- In selecting persons to participate in the program. The current ideology of the attendees is analyzed.
- In the selection of professionals who lead the program.
- In the time allotted and the distribution of programs according to a published timetable. When a program acquires opposite tendencies or content that is not favored, it is often moved to a less favorable time slot.
- In the broadcast through the channel, whether it is a majority or minority channel, based on the network coverage of the country.
2. Manipulation During Development and Simulcast
- For the technical treatment, according to the allocation of a greater or lesser number of devices, for better or worse quality, in order to have an impact on the final perfection of the program.
- The expressive treatment. In live broadcasts, as in deferred ones, cameras are selected to emphasize certain realities (e.g., making things appear larger or smaller). A plan must be chosen and connected with sequentiality. These possibilities of manipulation can increase in live programs, though deferred programs allow for a more detailed and laborious treatment process. It all depends on intent. In short, the ultimate responsibility lies with the current directors of the medium.
The Journalist’s Role in Live Broadcasts
In live transmissions, the visual narrative is directed by the filmmaker, while comments and analysis correspond to the journalistic team. This team provides data that are not on screen, explains what is not seen in the images, and provides other aspects that contextualize each fact in its proper context. This part can be developed by one or more persons, which leads to greater dynamism, extending the informational formula. Another method is overprinting the comments in the report on the images.