HUE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE
FACULTY
OF ENGLISH
ESSAY
BRITISH CULTURAL II
Topic :
MEDIA
Ự
Ọ
Ệ
H C VIÊN TH C HI N:
LÊ ANH TU NẤ
Ớ
L P: ANH B2K6D
ế
Hu , tháng 3/2012
PART I. INTRODUCTION
British people watch a lot of television, but this does not mean that they have given
up reading. The British are the third largest consumers of newspapers in the world (after
the Japanese and the Swedes). Each day about 80 % of all households buy one of the
main national newspapers. Media of Britain consist of several different types of
communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and Internet based
Web sites.
In this assignment, I will present some contents about press, the BBC, television of
Britain.
PART II. DISCUSSION
2.1. The importance of the national press
Newspaper publication is dominated by the national press, which is an indication of
the comparative weakness of regional identity in Britain.
The national papers always appear in the mornings. The morning newspaper is a
British household institution; such an important one that, until the laws were relaxed in
the early 1990s, newsagents are the only shops that were allowed to open on Sundays.
The “Sunday papers” are socalled because that is the only day on which they
appear. Some of them are sisters of a daily but employing separate editors and journalists.
Another indication of the importance of “the papers” is the morning “paper round”.
Teenager delivered to readers’s door their morning paper every day in order to earn a bit
of extra pocket money.
2.2. The two types of national newspaper
All newspapers in Britain, daily or Sunday ones, can broadly he divided into the
quality papers and the popular press. 1
The ‘quality papers’, or ‘broadsheets’, cater for the better educated readers. They
include The Star, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Sun
The quality papers
The ‘popular papers’, or ‘tabloids’, sell to a much larger readership. They include
The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times , The Financial Times
The popular papers
Differences between tabloids and broadsheets:
Tabloids Broadsheets
Contain less print and far more pictures Contain more print and less pictures
Uses larger headlines
Write in a simpler style of English
Concentrate on ‘human interest’ stories Uses normal headlines
Write in a much higher level of English
Devote much space to politics and other
sex and scandal
Equal amounts of attention to sport
Different approaches and subjects
serious news
Equal amount of attention to sport
Different approaches and subjects
Twice as large
2.3. The characteristics of the national press
2.3.1. Politics
The way politics is presented in the national newspapers reflects the fact that British
political parties are essentially parliamentary organizations. Although different papers
have differing political outlooks, none of the large newspapers is an organ of a political
party.
What counts for the newspaper publishers is business. All of them are in the
business first and foremost to make money.
The British press is controlled by a rather small number of extremely large
multinational companies. One of notable features is its freedom from interference from
government influence, which is virtually absolute.
2.3.2. Sex and scandal
The other feature of the national press which is partially the result of the
commercial interests of its owners is its shallowness.
Some of the tabloids have almost give up even the pretence of dealing with serious
matters. Apart from sport, their page are full of little except stories about the private lives
of famous people. Some time their “stories” are not articles at all, they are just excuses to
show pictures of almost naked women.
This emphasis on revealing the details of people’s private lives has led to discussion
about the possible need to restrict the freedom of the press. Many journalists now appear
to spend their time trying to discover the most sensational secrets of wellknown
persionalities, or even of ordinary people.
Complaints regarding invasions of privacy are dealt with by the Press Complaints
Commission (PPC). This organization is made up of the newspaper editors and
journalists. It follows a Code of Practice which sets limits on the extent to which new
papers should publish details of people’s private lives. Many people are not happy with
this arrangement and various governments have tried to formulate laws on the matter.
However, against the right to privacy the press has successfully been able to oppose the
concept of the public’s “right to know”.
British adults never read comics, they are read only by children. Most people don’t
use newspapers for “serious” news. For this, they turn to another sourcebroadcasting.
For Viet Nam, after the war, presses were set up in Hanoi and the basis for the
country's newspaper industry as it exists today was formed, with the main Communist
Party organ, Nhan Dan, established in 1951.2
Vietnamese newspapers for information on local issues, politics, events,
celebrations, people and business. Looking for accommodation, shopping, bargains and
weather then this is the place to start. Information about holidays, vacations, resorts,
real estate and property together with finance, stock market and investments reports;
also look for theater, movies, culture, entertainment, activities and events all covered in
Vietnamese newspapers.
The national press included publications intended for the general public as well as
those aimed at specific audiences, such as women or trade union members. Separate
journals and newspapers covered sports, culture, economics, social sciences, the
military, and science and technology. Each of the thirtysix provinces and the three
autonomous municipalities, as well as the special zone, published a newspaper and one
or more journals dealing with culture, education, and science and technology. Local
newspapers covered local events and did not compete with national publications.3
2.4. The BBC
Just as the British Parliament has the reputation for being “the mother of
parliaments, so the BBC might be said to be ‘the mother of information services”.
In theory, therefore, it would be easy for a government to influence what the BBC
does. Nevertheless, partly by historical accident, the BBC began, right from the start, to
establish its effective independence and it reputation for impartiality. This first occurred
through the medium of radio broadcasts to peole in Britain.
Then, in 1932 the BBC World service was set up, with a licence to broadcast first to
the empire and then to ther parts of the world. During the Second World War it became
identified with the principles of democracy and free speech. In this way the BBC’s fame
became international.
For Viet Nam, the first Vietnameselanguage radio transmission was made on
September 2, 1945 when Ho Chi Minh read out the Declaration of Independence.
Prior to 1945, Vietnamese people were banned from owning radio receivers, and
broadcasting was under control of the French colonial government, which established
the first radio station in Vietnam, Radio Saigon, in the late 1920s.
Vietnam's national radio station, now called the Voice of Vietnam (VOV), during
the Vietnam War, Radio Hanoi operated as a propaganda tool of the Democratic
Republic of Viet Nam.
Following Reunification, all of the radio stations were combined into the Voice of
Vietnam, which became the national radio station in 1978.4
VOV is assigned the task of managing the radio broadcasting system throughout
ệ Vi t Nam. Its overall objective is to provide highquality programming for its listeners,
using the latest technology. By the year 2000 its programmes had reached more than 80
per cent of all households throughout the country. Since 1 July 1994 VOV has been
broadcast on five channels for domestic listeners and one channel to overseas audiences
in 12 different languages.
2.5. Television
2.5.1. Organization
Television has long since taken over from radio as the most significant form of
broadcasting in Britain. Its independence from government interference is largely a
matter of tacit agreement.
Independent Television (ITV), which started in 1954, get its money from the
advertisements it screens. It consists of a number of privately owned companies, each of
which is responsible for programming in different parts of the country on the single
channel given to it. In practice, these companies cannot afford to make all their own
programmes, and they generally share those they make.
Most importantly for the structure of commercial television, ITV news programmes
are not made by individual television companies. Independent Television News (ITN) is
owned jointly by all of them. For this and other reasons, it has always been protected
from commercial influence.
Only about a fifth of households receive satellite and/ or cable, and so far these
channels have not significantly reduced the viewing figures for the four main national
channels. There are the channels which all viewers in the country receice: BBC1, ITV,
BBC2, channel 4.
2.5.2. Style
Although the advent of ITV did not affect television coverage of news and current
affairs, it did cause a change in the style and content of other programmes shown on
television.
The amount of money that a television company can charge an advertiser depends
on the expected number of viewers at the time when the advertisement is to be shown. Of
particular importance in the ratings war is the performance of the channels’ various soap
operas. The two most popular and longrunning of these, which are shown at least twice a
week, are not glamorous American production showing rich and powerful people.
The British prefer this kind of pseudorealism in their soaps. In the early 1990s, the
BBC spent a lot of money filming a new soap called Eldorado, set in a small Spanish
village which was home to a large number of expatriate British people. Viewers found
the complicated storylines and the Spanish accents too difficult to follow, and could not
identify with the situations in which the characters found themselves. It was all just too
glamorous for them. It was abandoned after only a year.
Vietnam Television, or VTV, is the national television broadcaster for Vietnam. Like
all media of Vietnam, its programming is directly controlled by the government.
The first television broadcasts in Vietnam were in the 1960s when the United States
set up two channels (one Vietnamese language and one in English) in Saigon.
VTV now is the largest television network in the nation, broadcast in nine FTA
channels and available internationally via satellite. VTV also operates the largest cable
network (VCTV) and a DTH satellite service. These carry the nine FTA VTV channels:
VTV1 VTV9 (no VTV 7, VTV8), fourteen Vietnamese subscription channels: VCTV1, 2,
3, 4, 5 (RealTV), 6, 7, 8 (BiBi), 9 (InfoTV), 10 (O2TV), 11 (TV Shopping), 12 (Style TV),
15 (Invest TV), sport TV, and about 45 local & international channels.5
PART III. CONCLUSION
In summary, media of the Britain consist of several different types of
communications media: press, television, radio... The Britain also has a strong music
industry. The Britain has a diverse range of providers, the most prominent being principle
public service broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Regional media
is covered by local radio, television and print newspapers.
Media of Vietnam are tightly regulated by the Vietnamese government. First and
foremost, the media are a tool for government information and propaganda. The
government views the media as "the voice of the party and of the masses," and sees its
main function as being "to propagate the party's lines and policies. Though market
competition has caused the Vietnamese media to embrace popular culture, newspapers,
radio and television are still compelled to reflect on the fundamentals of Marxism
Leninism and the ideals of Ho Chi Minh. 6
PART IV. REFERENCES
1. Dr Emma Hanna, An Introduction to researching New Media in Britain,
2. James O’Driscoll (1995), Britain, Oxford University Press
3. Harcourt, Alison (2006), European Union Institutions and the Regulation of
University of Greenwich
Media Markets. London, New York: Manchester University Press.
5. Perry Keller. Media Law in Britain
6. http://www.vietnamjournalism.com
7.
4. Natalya Predtechenskaya, 2002, Newspapers in Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Vietnam
8. . http://eng.1september.ru/2002/08/1.htm
9. http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/64.htm
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Vietnam#Television
