Active Inquiry

Divided We Fall? – Newspaper Theatre

22nd February, 2013 - Posted by Gavin - 2 Comments

This week’s session was spent exploring the media with the goal of using theatre techniques to see behind the story and look for what is missing.

After same warm-up games from Nick which included becoming singing penguins and (literally) tying ourselves up in knots we began to revisit some of the image work that we started last week. In a circle we made instant images of words that we often hear in the media such as “youth” and “asylum seeker”. Similar, often negative images began to emerge and we talked about the role the media has in maintaining these negative images.

We made general images of the media and then grouped together with other images to make families. Various images of the media emerged including a “Murdoch” figure directing the paparazzi to the next story, many people passively consuming news and readers being carefully led and goaded into a particular reading.

After a cup of tea and a read of the day’s papers we chose stories that we felt were connected with our topic firstly presenting images of how the story was reported and then images of what we felt was missing from the way the story was reported. For example one story about the dangers of hidden calories in food in the Evening News was represented by one group as the image below. They believed that the story, despite representing itself as “fact” concentrated too much on gossiping about the “evils” of “food” with many references to “harm to the body”.

What they felt was missing is shown in the image below – the social aspect of food, the enjoyment and social factors, the nourishment. This is all forgotten in the dominant narrative of the damage our food does to our bodies.

We then worked on some Newspaper Theatre techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed. Using techniques such as Rhythmical Reading, Parallel Action and Text out of Context we began to explore what is hidden in the way the media report stories. For example one story in the Daily Record about women entering the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde was presented by the group as a nursery teacher reading to small children. This “filter” for the story enabled us to explore the socialisation and reinforcement of gender stereotypes in childhood which have led to women in “men’s jobs” being a story.

So many questions remain around how the media influence the images and stories we construct about different groups and in what ways this can affect diverse communities and harm integration. Looking forward to further work next week.

And one final mention for Frances who has ruined one of my favourite rhythm games by pointing out that it sounds like the Eastenders theme tune! Thanks Frances!