【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
[听力原文]<1>-<5>
Z: Welcome to our today's program. Today we
will talk about Western media's presentation of the third world. In fact, it has
always been quite problematic. Today we have a British media sociologist join us
to talk about how the British media treat China and the Third World. Mr.
Mungham, you've been teaching journalist studies for many years and some of your
students are from the Third World, so did you ever question about the way the
British media present their home countries or the Third World in general?
M:
Yes. We do get the questions all the time about that. The British press tends to
have a very limited agenda when they come to cover China. They tend to, if
driven largely by human interest stories, cover the bizarre kind, or they
concentrate on the other classic disasters or crises. One exception is perhaps
the Financial Times, the paper, I think, that gives China serious consideration.
That paper is read by investors, by the big banks, the finance houses. They
really want to show what's going on in China because that will influence their
investment decisions. So if I want to raise some serious stuff about China, I
always look at the Financial Times first, as my starting point. I don't think
even the Guardian, which is a good paper, offers the kind of what we call
intelligent, systematic coverage of China and China's concerns.
Z: Then why
do you think this is the case?
M: It's not the fault that just lies with the
press people in the western world. I mean some of it does. I think probably the
key reason for this, this troubled coverage, is that most foreign coverage is
expensive to do. And they, the British press, particularly the British popular
press, have cut back drastically on foreign coverage. They do cover the
developing world, of course, if the royal members visit those countries. So you
have that problem on our side but there are also problems on the other side.
Some developing countries are not always friendly to receive western
journalists. There are problems sometimes in reporting from the developing
world. Some of those problems are political. There are problems of censorship
and the restrictions on the travel and technical difficulties.
Z: Do you
think it is crucial for the independent market-driven media to coexist with the
government official media? Do you think this will do good to political democracy
in the Third-World countries?
M: Well, I think the relationship between them
is that if you have a fully independent media as in most of the western world,
then there raises another issue of power, of control, of censorship. We take
Britain as a case, since the end of the World War II you see this endless move
towards monopoly ownership media--fewer and fewer owners but more and more
influence. This is what the market produces. So the idea that competition is the
answer to all the media problems is not proved, I think.
Z: Then what
measures should be taken to check this monopoly?
M: Well, that is a good
question but ! don't have the answer. ! mean I don't know how you can regulate
market forces when media is concerned. In some countries, the government comes
in and sets down new regulations or restructures, but in Britain... the British
press is largely self-regulated. In other words, in Britain there are certain
principles about the way the press should behave. It's done by something called
the Press Complaint Commission, which is composed of newspaper people and a
number of general public. They try to keep a check on the ethical behaviour of
the press. In terms of ownership and control, competition, as I said before, is
the producer of monopoly structure of ownership and control.
Z: So how do you
compare this state regulation with state control, which is the stereotypical
image of media in a country like China?
M: I think what I mean is that in
Britain the state plays almost no regular rule in relation to the press. The
press has been allowed to get along with it, has been self-regulating. It really
comes of broadcasting. The state--the government in Britain, that kind of
government with the Labour or Conservative party--has always taken an interest
in regulating broadcasting, making sure that broadcasting works for certain
exact standards.
Z: And they call it the public service broadcasting
philosophy?
M: They do, yes. And under that philosophy, the public service
broadcasting, which is BBC, is supposed not just to provide entertainment but
also have the role of being informative as educators. Now it has become very
difficult for public service broadcasters to maintain the position in the
increasingly competitive television market. "It has also become increasingly
difficult for the government to regulate broadcasting in a greatly competitive
market. So now the government's attitude towards the regulation of broadcasting
is that we have back off. They do regulate but they call it "light touch".
Z:
You've visited China a few times, I wonder if the picture you get from the
British media of China matches what you have seen personally with your own eyes
in China.
M: No, it doesn't. But I have to say I've only seen bits of China.
I mean, China is a vast country, has a vast population so my own view is
necessarily limited. But then even On limited bases I can tell you my sense of
what China is like. The thing that impressed me about China is the extraordinary
pace of change that began since the practice of socialist market economy in
1994. There's very little sense of this, China's present achievement, from the
British press or British broadcasters.
Z: So do you think the media should be
responsible for this?
M: It is not the problem of responsibility. I mean they
could do more I suppose in introducing China to western audiences, to British
audiences. But our newspapers, our television programmes, they have to be in
touch with what the public wants. And the public is not very interested in the
world outside Britain. So this has become a kind of policy that begins by
selling the public what they are interested in. If you are not interested in
these things, you don't show any programmes about these things, you don't write
about these things, therefore the public has no chance to develop their interest
in these areas. So that begins a vicious circle.
Z: Somehow Chinese media are
often seen as the government's propaganda machines in the West. Do you think
that's the case? Do you do propaganda in the West as well?
M. Of course we
do. We don't call it propaganda, we call it information. I don't think in any
cases we should rush the judgement about the state control of other people's
media because there are problems of control and censorship of our own, in news
and current affairs output.
Z: Thank you very much for speaking to us.