Douglas Bicket’s research while affiliated with University of Washington and other places

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Publications (6)


Friends or enemies? The British press and the European Union
  • Article

December 2010

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25 Reads

Ecquid Novi African Journalism Studies

Douglas Bicket

As the European Union increases its role and influence in the affairs of the United Kingdom, the British press is reflecting and articulating a sense of opposition felt by some centres of power in the UK. In this context, the press sees the preservation of a strong, ethnocentric sense of national identity among British subjects as an essential shield with which to fend off the ‘Europeanisation’ of Britain. This article analyses and defines the textual limits of a dominant anti-EU construct in the British press; it argues that a constructed sense of ‘British’ national identity, promoted by the press, feeds off a construct of Europe that is fundamentally false and negative. Within this construct, the press is a major conduit and manipulator of anti-European (or at least anti-European unification) discourses. It repeats, reinforces and magnifies these discourses in reports on British trade, economic, and foreign policy in relation to the EU, passing them on to its readership. In the press' model of British-EU relations, the UK's relationship with Germany is central, and a strong anti-German discourse lies at the heart of the press'p anti-Europeanism. In its emphasis on European news from an anti-European perspective, the press maintains this construct within narrow, manageable limits.


BBC News in the United States: A “Super-Alternative” News Medium Emerges
  • Article
  • Full-text available

May 2009

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6,073 Reads

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19 Citations

Media Culture & Society

This article focuses on BBC News and its changing role in the United States. Recent developments suggest that a new, powerful hybrid BBC is emerging in the United States. This article examines a number of 'faces' the BBC presents to the United States. To its traditional and universal faces the BBC has added a new face: as a 'super-alternative' news/information source in the United States, carrying an aura of credibility that sets it apart from US mainstream news media. It is the BBC's 'multifaceted' nature, its reputation for honesty and integrity, and its independence from US political forces, that allows it to be considered in this way. This provides an attractive package for many US news consumers and, potentially, a powerful combination for influencing US public opinion.

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“WINDOW ON THE WIDER WORLD”

June 2008

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23 Reads

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2 Citations

Elite British news media such as the BBC, The Economist and the Guardian have experienced large increases in US audiences in the post-September 11 media environment. This article explores the nature and extent of this new “British invasion,” outlining key institutional, cultural and journalistic factors distinguishing mainstream US media from their UK counterparts. In particular, the British are seen as stepping into a void created by shrinking US international news coverage as well as providing a broader range of liberal political views that may contribute to expanding the US news agenda. The possible perils of the increased flow of their journalism into the United States for UK-based media are also considered.


The `Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation'US conservatives take aim at the British news media

April 2008

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28 Reads

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4 Citations

Journalism

This article assesses the US conservative attack on the BBC during the post 9/11 terrorism wars, finding conservative blogs, print media and think tanks notably hostile. The processes of media criticism taking place within this conservative triad are viewed through the analytical concepts of news repair and boundary maintenance. The findings suggest that the BBC's perceived transgression was that it threatened to reveal the fallacy of an argument that conservatives had long worked to establish: that the US mainstream news media are liberal and harshly critical of conservatives. This conservative triad supported its attempt to repair this paradigm breach in three main ways: suggesting that reporting multiple viewpoints of the war was evidence of bias; magnifying any reporting errors; and warning against the perils of public ownership of news media.


Circling the WagonsContaining the Downing Street Memo Story's Impact in America

July 2007

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299 Reads

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11 Citations

Journal of Communication Inquiry

Within the context of a sharp rise in Americans' access to foreign news, especially since September 11, 2001, this article examines the limits of effectiveness of such foreign news influences in influencing the public debate on major policy issues within the United States. With the focus on a major U.K.-originated news story—the “Downing Street Memo” and subsequent leaked U.K. government documents—the article applies and expands the concepts of boundary maintenance and news repair beyond the domestic news realm and considers these as mechanisms by which the U.S. mainstream news media can still contain and limit the effectiveness of such stories in the U.S. public sphere. This study shows that although the rise of the Internet provides substantial new openings for important foreign-originated news stories in the United States, U.S. news media retain some ability to close down stories perceived as threats to their journalistic credibility.

Citations (4)


... Under certain circumstances, it can propel an under-reported news story into the national mainstream and sustain its salience -at least for a period -even in the face of mainstream media resistance. This was clearly shown in the US coverage of the 'Downing Street Memo' story in 2005 (Bicket and Wall, 2007). ...

Reference:

BBC News in the United States: A “Super-Alternative” News Medium Emerges
Circling the WagonsContaining the Downing Street Memo Story's Impact in America

Journal of Communication Inquiry

... The professional community discursively tries to repair the damage by collectively closing ranks against perceived or real threats and clearly drawing boundaries between who can be a part of the interpretive community and who cannot, between what is and what is not acceptable practice. This contains the damage and (re)binds the community (Wall and Bicket, 2008;Zelizer, 2004) and enables the professional community to operate as before (Hindman, 2005: 227). Sometimes journalists and news organizations accept responsibility, at least partly, for breaches of journalistic standards. ...

The `Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation'US conservatives take aim at the British news media
  • Citing Article
  • April 2008

Journalism

... BBC, as a leading international broadcaster, represents the dominant flow of global media and adheres to Western journalistic norms of objectivity and neutrality. With its 24-hour World News channel, BBC reaches over 200 million households worldwide, reinforcing its position as a dominant voice in global media discourse [12]. Al Jazeera, on the other hand, exemplifies a contra-flow perspective, offering alternative narratives that challenge Western-centric media norms [13]. ...

BBC News in the United States: A “Super-Alternative” News Medium Emerges

Media Culture & Society

... Then, least attentive of all, are audiences from Japan and Brazil, who share neither language with nor have such close geographic ties to the United Kingdom. These differences are likely to be linked to content preferences, with factors such as culture, common history and political or religious involvement influencing news consumption (Gasher and Klein, 2008;Wall and Bicket, 2008). ...

“WINDOW ON THE WIDER WORLD”