History and Context of Journalism - Lecture/Seminar Two;

Karl Popper;

Poppers ideas are outline in his three books; ‘Logic of Scientific Discovery,’ ‘Open Society’ and ‘The Poverty of Historicism.’ He used each book to attack many philosophies and ideas he didn’t agree with, such as empiricism, logical positivism, tribalism, Plato and utopians.

Logical positivists;

The Vienna circle formed because of the way those involved viewed the state of philosophy, disagreeing with romanticism and metaphysics. For them the ideal was combining the laws of science with philosophy because science was the only way we can understand the truth. Things need to be proven - logical positivists think that metaphysical statements cannot be verified so they have no meaning. “Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.”

The ideas of Descartes are also rejected by the logical positivists. “I think therefore I am” is something that cannot be tested and is then considered nonsense. To a logical positivist, there are only ideas which are verified by modern technology. Popper didn’t consider himself to be a logical positivist.

Solipsism was a danger to empiricism – if the ideas it put forward were true then nothing could really be verified – experienced or not. 

Induction and Deduction;

• Popper believed that theories couldn’t be proven because induction was flawed, identified by Hume.  And believed that falsifying means that we have absolute knowledge – science has the potential to be falsified.
• David Hume believed that induction was unreliable – we are physiologically constructed to make predictions through induction and we cannot predict history.
• Induction is not scientific, but science uses induction.
• Popper solved the problem with induction with the idea that everything we believe can be falsified – journalists have to assume that what were are told isn’t necessarily true and can be falsified.  It’s wrong to assume that things are true, even if they have been tested over and over. We have to believe that they just haven’t been proven false yet.  
• He believed that we can never tell what needs to be corrected – our knowledge is fallible
• For Popper science doesn’t really work with induction – science begins with an idea/theory then our observations kick in.  
• Observations are selective – we inherit the past and cannot escape it. We achieve objectivity by exposing our ideas to criticism.

History and Context of Journalism - Lecture/Seminar One

The rise of science;

Science distinguishes the modern world of philosophy, as it triumphed in the seventeenth century, and highlighted a number of clashes within the ideas of many – for example Plato and Aristotle could not have agreed with the scientific ideas of newton. In order to grasp the mental atmosphere of the time, the method and results of astronomy and physics must be understood.

Four great men of modern science;

Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton are considered to be the pre-eminent creators of science. The first three creating grounds for Newton’s law of motion.

Copernicus

-          was early to believe that the sun was at the centre of the universe and that the earth has twofold motion – diurnal rotation and annual revolution of the sun.

-          His ideas can be described as Pythagorean – he believed axiomatic that all celestial movement is circular and uniform and was influenced by aesthetics.

-          Protested the idea that his ideas were a contradiction of the bible.

Difficulties of his theory;

-          The absence of a stellar parallax – if the earth is so many miles away from where it would be in six months, there ought to be a shift in the position of the stars – no parallax was observed during this time and caused difficulties.

-          Falling bodies and velocity – a falling body ought to fall directly below but because of the movement of the earth it doesn’t.

-          At the time it was believed that there are no known facts which compelled his system, but there were actually several against it.

He is said to have held two merits of the modern scientific philosopher – patients in observation and great boldness in framing a hypothesis.

New astronomy also held merits – there was recognition that ancient beliefs could actually be untrue. Testing scientific truth is a patient collector of facts, combined with guessing the laws binding the facts together. These are present in Copernicus’ work and have been further developed since by successors.

Kepler;

-          Adopted a heliocentric theory, but he used Tycho brache’s data to form his ideas differently to Copernicus, which showed it could not be quite right in that form.

-          He followed the ideas of Plato’s ‘timaeus’ suppose cosmic significance must attach to the five regular solids.

-          His greatest achievement was discovering his three laws of planetary motion.

-          The first law, the planets describe elliptic orbits of which the sun occupies one focus.

-          The second law, the line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.

-          The third law, the square of the period of revolution of a planet is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the sun.

Though at the time only two of the three laws could be proven because of mars – the observations were compatible with other planets but there nothing to establish them definitely.

The first law required greater effort of emancipation from tradition. Astronomers agreed all celestial movements were all circular. Where circles were to be inadequate to explain planetary movements epicycles were used.

The second law deals with the varying velocity of the planet at different points of orbit. The planet moves fastest when its nearest to the sun and slowest when its farthest from it.

The third deals with different planets, all together.

Galileo;

Galileo discovered the importance of acceleration in dynamics. He was against the view that everybody would move in a straight line with uniform velocity – change is explained as due to the action of some force. This idea was taken on by Newton as the first law of motion.

He was first to establish the law of falling bodies – when a body is falling freely its acceleration is constant, except in so far as resistance of the air may interfere. The acceleration is the same for all bodies.

He proved that there is no measureable difference between large and small lumps of the same substance. A body falling freely in a vacuum has a constant rate of velocity.

Newton;

With his three laws, he proved that Keplers three laws are equivalent to the proposition that every planet at every moment has acceleration toward the sun, which varies on the square distance of the sun. This explains the motion of the moon when the earth and sun are considered. The acceleration of falling bodies is related to the moon according to the inverse square law.

Basics of Television Reporting

On assignment;

-          To get the best possible outcome from your time on an assignment the most important thing to do is research – going blindfolded into an important interview could ruin the whole piece.  Other important things to do are. P

-          Plan ahead – things are likely to change at the last minute and/or unexpectedly – consider a back-up plan before setting out.

-          Checking the equipment you plan to use before you need to use it prevents any time wasting journeys.

-          Get permission to film whatever you plan to film of you’re not in a public place.

-          Be punctual – arriving 10 minutes early and getting a great story is better then arriving late a missing the action. 

When filming;

-          Think about the sequence.

-          Film in a variety of shots and consider their effect.

-          Shoot long.

-          Consider continuity when filming sequences at different times.

-          Shoot cut aways to avoid jump cuts.

-          Remember to frame what you shoot within the rule of thirds.

-          Filming too much is way better than shooting too little. 

Terminology;

PTC; piece to camera                        SOT; sound on tape

GRAB/clip; interview sound            UPSOT; sound on tape

OOV; out of vision                            NATSOT; natural sound on tape

VO; voice over                                   Talking head; interview

GV; general view                               Cut Away; covering shot

SOQ; standard out cue

Piece to camera;

-          Don’t start a VT with a piece to camera.

-          Only be in the piece if you wish to add something to it.

-          Place yourself in the action.

-          Use movement within the piece.

-          Walk before you start talking.

-           

Interviews;

-          Get a number of cutaways to make the piece interesting.

-          Get some intro shots of the interviewee.

When coming home;

-          Formulate your story/begin writing it.

-          Organise graphics.

-          Report to the news editior.

Writing intros;

-          Write the link/intro first.

-          Think about the five W’s.

-          Never repeat the link in the package

-          Try to keep one idea per sentence.

-          Use the present tense.

-          Keep the story fresh.

-          Speak in plain English – don’t make it complicated for the viewer.

-          Simplify numbers.

-          Use graphics to explain number. 

Packaging;

-          Tell a story and use a sequence – people will have never heard the story.

-          Start with the best pictures you have.

-          Don’t name your interviewee – use a caption.

-          ‘grabs’ should be around 12 seconds – never more than 20.

-          End with something meaningful.

-          Never end on an interview.