Misleading Through Images: Television News as Simulacrum

Abstract

The aim of the presented theoretical-empirical study, which is based on theoretical reflection on the issue in question, case study and application of quantitative content analysis, is to discuss the occurrence of simulations in contemporary television newscasting in the context of the construction of media reality. Due to the specificity of the topic and the complexity of the research, we focus on informing about foreign affair events portrayed by the Slovak news television channel TA3. Drawing from current studies and acquired data sets, the research material consists of 712 television news items by TA3 and 4208 audio-visual agency materials by Reuters published over a two-month period, more specifically in January 2019 and May 2019. We conducted quantitative content analysis in order to point out the degree of occurrence of simulations in television news. Considering the results of the inquiry, we can confirm the unclear labelling of stock and archive images in every eighth television news item, which can lead to distortion of recipients’ imagination, i.e., towards misrepresentation or ‘bending’ objective reality in their minds caused by television broadcasting.