1. News organizations act as gatekeepers by deciding which events to cover and exclude from coverage. This gatekeeping role gives them the power to shape public awareness and priorities, known as agenda setting. 2. Witnesses to events, like wars, share their stories through established media or their own channels. Audiences then become active witnesses by discussing and sharing the stories they hear. 3. Witnessing does not necessarily mean being objective, as witnesses like journalists and those directly involved may have biases. Their credibility depends more on appearing trustworthy since we cannot control for their objectivity.

1. Media and Politics Fall 2017
1.3. Witnessing and memory
Relevant quiz questions and answers
From Seminar 2, 27. October.

2. 1. Why are news organizations described as
«gatekeepers» and «agenda setters»?

3. Before any decisions about the construction of a given story
are made, journalists and others must select which events to
cover and which to exclude.
A process largely invisible to the public, and one that has
substantial implications for the version of the world
presented to us.
By making such decisions news organizations act as
gatekeepers. This apparent power to shape public awareness
and priorities is known as agenda setting, when combined
with effectful story-telling.

4. 2. Mention some of the “news values” Galtung and Ruge
suggests are important in gatekeeping.

5. Slightly adapted from G&R, events have to be or contain:
• Extreme, dramatic and negative
• One-dimensional and clear
• Personification
• Cultural proximity
• Elite nations and elite people
• Unexpected events that fit our stereotypes
• Compatible with publishing frequency
• Ongoing story (once on the agenda)
• Little competition from similar events

6. 3. How are the media making us all witnesses?

7. Hoskins and O’Loughlin focus on war, but this applies in
principle to all mediated events.
A witness to war is re-presenting her or his story of a
wartime event to an audience. Journalists and
documentarists witness directly from the front line or by
retelling the stories of those witnessing the event in
question. NGOs, soldiers and others directly involved may
also witness through the established media - or their own
channels.
Audiences become active witnesses to events by sharing or
discussing the stories they hear.

9. 4. Is witnessing necessarily synonymous with being
objective and credible?

10. It is not necessarily synonymous with “objectivity”.
Although journalists carry strong professional norms of
objectivity, they are also faced with dilemmas of emotional
attachment, patriot norms and dependence on Government
information.
Others, like NGOs or those directly involved, are not subject to
such norms of objectivity and more free to use witnessing to gain
sympathy or give their own private interpretations of events.
Therefore, we often focus upon witnesses being more or less
credible (appearance of being “trustworthy”), as we cannot
control for their objectivity.

11. 5. Why can we say that war is fought through the
memory of warfare?

12. Our discourse about the past is about remembrance / forgetting
and commemorating / disregarding past traumas and triumphs,
as well as their framing.
Established “memories” of war create "The illusion of a coherent
(and meaningful) experience", which can be powerful blueprints
of the present. They become templates or lenses through which
we "understand" the present.
We accept/reject current actions, such as warfare as (il)legitimate
and (un)necessary. In our mediatized age, however we are often
exposed to competing “memories”, telling a different story than
the official, established one. Hence, the use of memory to
legitimize current actions are contested.